Submillimeter Imaging of the Luminous Infrared Galaxy Pair VV 114

We report on 450 and 850 km observations of the interacting galaxy pair VV 114 E]W (IC 1623), taken with the SCUBA camera on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, and near-infrared observations taken with the UKIRT Fast-Track Imager on the UK Infrared Telescope. The system VV 114 is in an early stage of a gas-rich merger. We detect submillimeter emission extended over 30A (12 kpc) and Ðnd a good correlation between the spatial distribution of the submillimeter and CO emission. Both the CO and submillimeter emission peak near the reddest region of VV 114 E and extend toward VV 114 W. The bulk of the submillimeter emission resides in the central region showing the largest CO velocity gradients, which is thought to mark the kinematic centroid of the merger remnant. We derived a total dust mass of 1.2 ] 108 assuming a power-law distribution of dust temperatures. The submillimeter M _ , observations suggest that the majority of the dust is relatively cool K), and the total dust (T d D 20È25 mass is about 4 times higher than that inferred from the IRAS data alone. The system will likely evolve into a compact starburst similar to Arp 220.