THE THREE-MM ULTIMATE MOPRA MILKY WAY SURVEY. I. SURVEY OVERVIEW, INITIAL DATA RELEASES, AND FIRST RESULTS

We describe a new mm-wave molecular-line mapping survey of the southern Galactic Plane and its first data releases. The Three-mm Ultimate Mopra Milky Way Survey (ThrUMMS) maps a 60 degrees x 2 degrees sector of our Galaxy's fourth quadrant, using a combination of fast mapping techniques with the Mopra radio telescope, simultaneously in the J = 1 -> 0 lines of (CO)-C-12, (CO)-C-13, (CO)-O-18, and CN near 112 GHz at similar to arcminute and similar to 0.3 km s(-1) resolution, with similar to 2 K channel(-1) sensitivity for (CO)-C-12 and similar to 1 K channel(-1) for the other transitions. The calibrated data cubes from these observations are made available to the community after processing through our pipeline. Here, we describe the motivation for ThrUMMS, the development of new observing techniques for Mopra, and how these techniques were optimized to the objectives of the survey. We showcase some sample data products and describe the first science results on CO-isotopologue line ratios. These vary dramatically across the Galactic Plane, indicating a very wide range of optical depth and excitation conditions, from warm and translucent to cold and opaque. The population of cold clouds in particular have optical depths for (CO)-C-12 easily exceeding 100. We derive a new, nonlinear conversion law from (CO)-C-12 integrated intensity to column density, NCO proportional to I-CO(1.38), which suggests that the molecular mass traced by CO in the Galactic disk may have been substantially underestimated. This further suggests that some global relationships in disk galaxies, such as star formation laws, may need to be recalibrated. The large ThrUMMS team is proceeding with several other science investigations.