Submillimeter Imaging of the Luminous Infrared Galaxy Pair VV 114

We report on 450- and 850-micron observations of the interacting galaxy pair,VV114E+W (IC1623), taken with the SCUBA camera on the James Clerk MaxwellTelescope, and near-infrared observations taken with UFTI on the UK InfraredTelescope. The system VV114 is in an early stage of a gas-rich merger. Wedetect submillimeter (sub-mm) emission extended over 30 arcsec (12 kpc) andfind a good correlation between the spatial distribution of the sub-mm and COemission. Both the CO and sub-mm emission peak near the reddest region ofVV114E and extend toward VV114W. The bulk of the sub-mm emission resides in thecentral region showing the largest CO velocity gradients, which is thought tomark the kinematic centroid of the merger remnant. We derived a total dust massof 1.2x10^{8} M_sun, assuming a power-law distribution of dust temperatures.The sub-mm observations suggest that the majority of the dust is relativelycool (T_d ~20--25 K), and the total dust mass is about 4 times higher than thatinferred from the IRAS data alone. The system will likely evolve into a compactstarburst similar to Arp220.Comment: Accepted to AJ 22Mar99, 8 pages including 2 figures, fig1_color.ps is a color version of Fig. 1 which will be published electronically by A