2001ApJ...563L..27G

In this Letter we present the first images of the emission of SiO and H¹³CO⁺ in the nucleus of the starburst galaxy M82. Contrary to other molecular species that mainly trace the distribution of the star-forming molecular gas within the disk, the SiO emission extends noticeably out of the galaxy plane. The bulk of the SiO emission is restricted to two major features. The first feature, referred to as the SiO supershell, is an open shell of 150 pc diameter, located 120 pc west from the galaxy center. The SiO supershell represents the inner front of a molecular shell expanding at ∼40 km.s^–1, produced by mass ejection around a supercluster of young stars containing supernova remnant SNR 41.95+57.5. The second feature is a vertical filament, referred to as the SiO chimney, emanating from the disk at 200 pc east from the galaxy center. The SiO chimney reaches a 500 pc vertical height, and it is associated with the most prominent chimney identified in radio continuum maps. The kinematics, morphology, and fractional abundances of the SiO gas features in M82 can be explained in the framework of shocked chemistry driven by local episodes of gas ejection from the starburst disk. The SiO emission stands out as a privileged tracer of the disk-halo interface in M82. We speculate that the chimney and the supershell, each injecting ∼10⁷ M_☉ of molecular gas, are two different evolutionary stages in the outflow phenomenon building up the gaseous halo.