Submillimeter imaging of the luminous infrared galaxy pair VV 114

We report on 450 and 850 mu m 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 W 114 is in an early stage of a gas-rich merger. We detect submillimeter emission extended over 30 " (12 kpc) and find 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 W 114 E and extend toward W 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 x 10(8) M(.), assuming a power-law distribution of dust temperatures. The submillimeter observations suggest that the majority of the dust is relatively cool (T(d) similar to 20-25 K), and the total dust 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.