The CO-H2 conversion factor of diffuse ISM: Bright 12CO emission also traces diffuse gas
Jérôme Pety, Harvey S. Liszt, Robert Lucas
备注:
5 pages, 1 PostScript figure. To be published in the proceedings of the Zermatt 2010 conference: "Conditions and impact of star formation: New results with Herschel and beyond". Uses EAS LaTeX macros
We show that the XCO factor, which converts the CO luminosity into the column density of molecular hydrogen has similar values for dense, fully molecular gas and for diffuse, partially molecular gas. We discuss the reasons of this coincidence and the consequences for the understanding of the interstellar medium.
The formation of compact dusty clouds in diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) has been recently proposed and studied by Tsytovich et al. (2014). In the present paper, an effect of the clouds on the rate of H$\to$H$_2$ transition in the ISM is examined. We discuss the mechanisms leading to the formation of the clouds and the creation of gaseous clumps around them, analyze the main processes determining the efficiency of the recombination of atomic hydrogen on dust grains, and estimate the expected enhancement of the global H$_2$ formation due to the presence of the clouds. In conclusion, we argue …
Aims: We wish to separate and quantify the CO luminosity and CO-H2 conversion factor applicable to diffuse but partially-molecular ISM when H2 and CO are present but C+ is the dominant form of gas-phase carbon. Methods: We discuss galactic lines of sight observed in \HI, HCO+ and CO where CO emission is present but the intervening clouds are diffuse (locally \AV\ $\la 1$ mag) with relatively small CO column densities $\NCO \la 2\times10^{16}\pcc$. We separate the atomic and molecular fractions statistically using \EBV\ as a gauge of the total gas column density and compare NH2 to the observed …
In this study, we explore the impact of inhomogeneities in the spatial distribution of interstellar dust on spatial scales of $\le1$ au caused by ion shadowing forces on the optical properties of diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) as well as on the dust temperature. We show that recently proposed possibility that interstellar dust grains in the diffuse ISM are grouped in spherical cloudlets (clumps) may significantly affect the observed optical properties of the diffuse ISM in comparison to that calculated under the commonly accepted assumption on the uniform dust/gas mixture if the size of clu…
Benchmarking Astrochemistry Paradigms: Relative Absence of C6H5CN+ in the Diffuse ISM
Mount Saint Vincent University(蒙特圣文森特大学);IXM-Secihti-Centro de Investigaciones Químicas, IICBA, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos(莫雷洛斯自治大学IXM-Secihti-化学研究中心IICBA);Prepa TEC Campus Cuernavaca, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey(蒙特雷理工学院库埃纳瓦卡预科校区);Hunter College & the PhD Program of the Graduate Center, City University of New York(纽约市立学院及纽约市立大学研究生院博士项目);Saint Mary’s University(圣玛丽大学);Université Laval(拉瓦尔大学);Dalhousie University(达尔豪斯大学)
Variations in the observed dust emission and extinction indicate a systematic evolution of grain properties in the transition from the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) to denser molecular clouds. The differences in the dust spectral energy distribution (SED) observed from the diffuse ISM to denser regions, namely an increase in the spectral index at long wavelengths, an increase in the FIR opacity, and a decrease in temperature, are usually assumed to be the result of changes in dust properties. We investigate if evolutionary processes, such as coagulation and accretion, are able to change th…
We map the interstellar medium (ISM) including the diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) in absorption toward the globular cluster NGC 6397 using VLT/MUSE. This pilot study demonstrates the power of MUSE for mapping the local ISM on very small scales which provides a new window for ISM observations. Assuming the absorbers are located at the rim of the Local Bubble we trace small-scale variations in NaI and KI as well as in several DIBs structures on the order of mpc (milliparsec, a few thousand AU). The sightlines defined by binned stellar spectra are separated by only a few arcseconds and we prob…
In this brief review of recent work relating the DIBs to other gas-phase constituents of the ISM, we explore correlations between DIB equivalent widths and the column densities of various atomic and molecular species, drawn from a large database constructed for that purpose. The tightness and slopes of the correlations can provide information on how the DIBs might be related to those species (physically, chemically, spatially) and on various properties of the DIB carriers. Deviations from the mean relationships can reveal dependences of DIB strengths on other parameters, regional variations in…
Emission of fullerenes in their infrared vibrational bands has been detected in space near hot stars. The proposed attribution of the diffuse interstellar bands at 9577 and 9632 Å to electronic transitions of the buckminsterfullerene cation (i.e. C$_{60}^+$ ) was recently supported by new laboratory data, confirming the presence of this species in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM). In this letter, we present the detection, also in the diffuse ISM, of the 17.4 and 18.9 $μ$m emission bands commonly attributed to vibrational bands of neutral C$_{60}$. According to classical models that comput…
We present a series of adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) hydrodynamic simulations of flat rotation curve galactic gas disks with a detailed treatment of the interstellar medium (ISM) physics of the atomic to molecular phase transition under the influence of diffuse FUV radiation fields and cosmic ray backgrounds. We explore the effects of different FUV intensities, including a model with a radial gradient designed to mimic the Milky Way. The effects of cosmic rays, including radial gradients in their heating and ionization rates, are also explored. The final simulations in this series achieve $4\…
Concerns regarding recurrent fluorescence's impact on smaller diffuse ISM aromatics
Mount Saint Vincent University(圣文森特山大学);IXM-Secihti-Centro de Investigaciones Químicas, IICBA, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos(莫雷洛斯自治大学 IXM-Secihti-化学研究中心 IICBA);Saint Mary’s University(圣玛丽大学);Université Laval(拉瓦尔大学);Dalhousie University(达尔豪斯大学)
We studied the statistical properties of the HI-to-H$_2$ transition observed in absorption in the local diffuse and multiphase ISM to identify the physical processes controlling the probability of occurrence of any line of sight. The turbulent diffuse ISM is modeled using the RAMSES code, which includes detailed treatments of the magnetohydrodynamics, the thermal evolution of the gas, and the chemistry of H$_2$. The impacts of the UV radiation field, the mean density, the turbulent forcing, the integral scale, the magnetic field, and the gravity on the molecular content of the gas are explored…
The availability of large datasets with stellar distance and polarization information will enable a tomographic reconstruction of the (plane-of-the-sky-projected) interstellar magnetic field in the near future. We demonstrate the feasibility of such a decomposition within a small region of the diffuse ISM. We combine measurements of starlight (R-band) linear polarization obtained using the RoboPol polarimeter with stellar distances from the second Gaia data release. The stellar sample is brighter than 17 mag in the R band and reaches out to several kpc from the Sun. HI emission spectra reveal …
Aims: The large abundances of CH$^+$ in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) are a long standing issue of our understanding of the thermodynamical and chemical states of the gas. We investigate, here, the formation of CH+ in turbulent and multiphase environments, where the heating of the gas is almost solely driven by the photoelectric effect. Methods: The diffuse ISM is simulated using the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) code RAMSES which self-consistently computes the dynamical and thermal evolution of the gas along with the time-dependent evolutions of the abundances of H$^+$, H, and H$_2$. The …
Diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) can trace different conditions of the ISM along the sightline toward the observed stars. A small survey was made in optical wavelengths, producing high resolution and high signal to noise spectra. We present measurements of 19 DIBs' properties in 50 sightlines towards hot stars, distributed at a variety of galactic coordinates and interstellar reddening. Equivalent widths were obtained by fitting asymmetric Gaussian and variable continuum to DIBs. Conditions of the ISM were calculated from 8 atomic and molecular interstellar lines. Two distinctively different …
JWST observations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission provide some of the deepest and highest resolution views of the cold interstellar medium (ISM) in nearby galaxies. If PAHs are well mixed with the atomic and molecular gas and illuminated by the average diffuse interstellar radiation field, PAH emission may provide an approximately linear, high resolution, high sensitivity tracer of diffuse gas surface density. We present a pilot study that explores using PAH emission in this way based on MIRI observations of IC 5332, NGC 628, NGC 1365, and NGC 7496 from the PHANGS-JWST Treasu…
Molecular clouds, the birthplaces of stars in galaxies, form dynamically from the diffuse atomic gas of the interstellar medium (ISM). The ISM is also threaded by magnetic fields which have a large impact on its dynamics. In particular, star forming regions must be magnetically supercrit- ical in order to accomodate gas clumps which can collapse under their own weight. Based on a parameter study of three dimensional magneto-hydrodyamical (MHD) simulations, we show that the long-standing problem of how such supercritical regions are generated is still an open issue.
Observations show that magnetic fields in the interstellar medium (ISM) often do not respond to increases in gas density as would be naively expected for a frozen-in field. This may suggest that the magnetic field in the diffuse gas becomes detached from dense clouds as they form. We have investigated this possibility using theoretical estimates, a simple magneto-hydrodynamic model of a flow without mass conservation and numerical simulations of a thermally unstable flow. Our results show that significant magnetic flux can be shed from dense clouds as they form in the diffuse ISM, leaving behi…
We use a simple one-zone model of the thermal and chemical evolution of interstellar gas to study whether molecular hydrogen (H2) is ever an important coolant of the warm, diffuse interstellar medium (ISM). We demonstrate that at solar metallicity, H2 cooling is unimportant and the thermal evolution of the ISM is dominated by metal line cooling. At metallicities below 0.1 Z_solar, however, metal line cooling of low density gas quickly becomes unimportant and H2 can become the dominant coolant, even though its abundance in the gas remains small. We investigate the conditions required in order f…
Grain growth by accretion of gas-phase metals is a common assumption in models of dust evolution, but in dense gas, where the timescale is short enough for accretion to be effective, material is accreted in the form of ice mantles rather than adding to the refractory grain mass. It has been suggested that negatively-charged small grains in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) can accrete efficiently due to the Coulomb attraction of positively-charged ions, avoiding this issue. We show that this inevitably results in the growth of the small-grain radii until they become positively charged, at …
Magnetism is one of the most important forces on the interstellar medium (ISM), anisotropically regulating the structure and star formation that drive galactic evolution. Recent high dynamic range observations of diffuse gas and molecular clouds have revealed new links between interstellar structures and the ambient magnetic field. ISM morphology encodes rich physical information, but deciphering it requires high-resolution measurements of the magnetic field: linear polarization of starlight and dust emission, and Zeeman splitting. These measure different components of the magnetic field, and …
The 9.7-micron silicate absorption profile in the interstellar medium provides important information on the physical and chemical composition of interstellar dust grains. Measurements in the Milky Way have shown that the profile in the diffuse interstellar medium is very similar to the amorphous silicate profiles found in circumstellar dust shells around late M stars, and narrower than the silicate profile in denser star-forming regions. Here, we investigate the silicate absorption profile towards the very heavily obscured nucleus of NGC 4418, the galaxy with the deepest known silicate absorpt…
(abridged)The focus of this work is to study mid-infrared point sources and the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) in the low-metallicity (~0.2 solar) giant HII region N66 using the Spitzer Space Telescope's Infrared Spectrograph. We study 14 targeted infrared point sources as well as spectra of the diffuse ISM that is representative of both the photodissociation regions (PDRs) and the HII regions. Among the point source spectra, we spectroscopically confirm that the brightest mid-infrared point source is a massive embedded young stellar object, we detect silicates in emission associated with t…
We compare the performance of several dust models in reproducing the dust spectral energy distribution (SED) per unit extinction in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM). We use our results to constrain the variability of the optical properties of big grains in the diffuse ISM, as published by the Planck collaboration. We use two different techniques to compare the predictions of dust models to data from the Planck HFI, IRAS and SDSS surveys. First, we fit the far-infrared emission spectrum to recover the dust extinction and the intensity of the interstellar radiation field (ISRF). Second, we …
The interstellar medium (ISM) seems to have a significant surplus of oxygen which was dubbed as the "O crisis": independent of the adopted interstellar reference abundance, the total number of O atoms depleted from the gas phase far exceeds that tied up in solids by as much as ~160ppm of O/H. Recently, it has been hypothesized that the missing O could be hidden in micrometer-sized H2O ice grains. We examine this hypothesis by comparing the infrared (IR) extinction and far-IR emission arising from these grains with that observed in the Galactic diffuse ISM. We find that it is possible for the d…
It is known that the diffuse H-alpha emission outside of bright H II regions not only are very extended, but also can occur in distinct patches or filaments far from H II regions, and the line ratios of [S II] 6716/H-alpha and [N II] 6583/H-alpha observed far from bright H II regions are generally higher than those in the H II regions. These observations have been regarded as evidence against the dust-scattering origin of the diffuse H-alpha emission (including other optical lines), and the effect of dust scattering has been neglected in studies on the diffuse H-alpha emission. In this paper, …
Studying the composition of dust in the interstellar medium (ISM) is crucial in understanding the cycle of dust in our galaxy. The mid-infrared spectral signature of amorphous silicates, the most abundant dust species in the ISM, is studied in different lines-of-sight through the Galactic plane, thus probing different conditions in the ISM. We have analysed 10 spectra from the Spitzer archive, of which 6 lines-of-sight probe diffuse interstellar medium material and 4 probe molecular cloud material. The 9.7 um silicate absorption features in 7 of these spectra were studied in terms of their sha…
Distance estimates derived from spectroscopy or parallax have been unified by considering extinction by large grains. The addition of such a population of what is called Dark Dust to models of the diffuse interstellar medium is tested against a contemporary set of observational constraints. The dark dust model explains, by respecting representative solid-phase element abundances, simultaneously the typical wavelength-dependent reddening, extinction, and emission of polarized and unpolarized light by interstellar dust particles between far UV and millimetre wavelengths. The physical properties …
CO(J=1-0) line emission is a widely used observational tracer of molecular gas, rendering essential the X_CO factor, which is applied to convert CO luminosity to H_2 mass. We use numerical simulations to study how X_CO depends on numerical resolution, non-steady-state chemistry, physical environment, and observational beam size. Our study employs 3D magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) simulations of galactic disks with solar neighborhood conditions, where star formation and the three-phase interstellar medium (ISM) are self-consistently regulated by gravity and stellar feedback. Synthetic CO maps are o…
We compare observations of HI from the Very Large Array (VLA) and the Arecibo Observatory and observations of HCO$^+$ from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Northern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) in the diffuse ($A_V\lesssim1$) interstellar medium (ISM) to predictions from a photodissociation region (PDR) chemical model and multi-phase ISM simulations. Using a coarse grid of PDR models, we estimate the density, FUV radiation field, and cosmic ray ionization rate (CRIR) for each structure identified in HCO$^+$ and HI absorption. These structures fall into two c…
The transition between atomic and molecular hydrogen is associated with important changes in the structure of interstellar clouds, and marks the beginning of interstellar chemistry. Because of the relatively simple networks controlling their abundances, molecular ions are usually good probes of the underlying physical conditions including for instance the fraction of gas in molecular form or the fractional ionization. In this paper we focus on three possible probes of the molecular hydrogen column density, HCO+, HOC+, and CF+. We presented high sensitivity ALMA absorption data toward a sample …
We made CO(1-0) observations of 103 lines of sight in the core and envelope of the high-latitude cloud MBM 40 to determine how the CO-H_2 conversion factor (X_CO) varies throughout the cloud. Calibrating X_CO with CH data at similar resolution (1' for CO, 1.5' for CH) yields values of X_CO ranging from 0.6 10^20 to 3.3 10^20 cm^-2 [K km s^-1]^-1 with an average of 1.3 10^20 cm^-2 [K km s^-1]^-1. Given that the cloud has a peak reddening of 0.24 mag, it should be classed as a diffuse rather than a translucent molecular cloud. The mass obtained from the CO data and our values of X_CO is 9.6 M(so…
It is well known that the dust properties of the diffuse interstellar medium exhibit variations towards different sight-lines on a large scale. We have investigated the variability of the dust characteristics on a small scale, and from cloud-to-cloud. We use low-resolution spectro-polarimetric data obtained in the context of the Large Interstellar Polarisation Survey (LIPS) towards 59 sight-lines in the Southern Hemisphere, and we fit these data using a dust model composed of silicate and carbon particles with sizes from the molecular to the sub-micrometre domain. Large (> 6 nm) silicates of p…
Diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) trace warm neutral and weakly-ionized diffuse interstellar medium (ISM). Here we present a dedicated, high signal-to-noise spectroscopic study of two of the strongest DIBs, at 5780 and 5797 Å, in optical spectra of 666 early-type stars in the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, along with measurements of the atomic Na\,{\sc i}\,D and Ca\,{\sc ii}\,K lines. The resulting maps show for the first time the distribution of DIB carriers across large swathes of galaxies, as well as the foreground Milky Way ISM. We confirm the association of the 5797 Å DIB with neutral…
[abridged] The interstellar medium is now widely recognized to display features ascribable to magnetized turbulence. With the public release of Planck data and the current balloon-borne and ground-based experiments, the growing amount of data tracing the polarized thermal emission from Galactic dust in the submillimetre provides choice diagnostics to constrain the properties of this magnetized turbulence. We aim to constrain these properties in a statistical way, focusing in particular on the power spectral index of the turbulent component of the interstellar magnetic field in a diffuse molecu…
The probability distribution functions (PDFs) of the average densities of the diffuse ionized gas (DIG) and the diffuse atomic gas are close to lognormal, especially when lines of sight at |b|<5 degree and |b|>5 degree are considered separately. Our results provide strong support for the existence of a lognormal density PDF in the diffuse ISM, consistent with a turbulent origin of density structure in the diffuse gas.
Diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) are weak absorption features of interstellar origin present in the optical and infrared spectra of stars. Their use as a tool to trace the structure of the Galactic ISM is gaining relevance in the recent years. Here we present an experiment to test our ability to trace differential reddening on the plane of the sky by using the information relative to the DIB at $λ$6614 extracted from the spectra of cool stars. For that we made use of archive FLAMES data of the globular cluster M4, as well as WISE and Planck images for reference. We found a global positive tre…
We present a study of the elemental depletion in the interstellar medium. We combined the results of a Galatic model describing the gas physical conditions during the formation of dense cores with a full-gas-grain chemical model. During the transition between diffuse and dense medium, the reservoirs of elements, initially atomic in the gas, are gradually depleted on dust grains (with a phase of neutralisation for those which are ions). This process becomes efficient when the density is larger than 100~cm$^{-3}$. If the dense material goes back into diffuse conditions, these elements are brough…
Micro-physical processes on interstellar dust surfaces are tightly connected to dust properties (i.e. dust composition, size and shape) and play a key role in numerous phenomena in the interstellar medium (ISM). The large disparity in physical conditions (i.e. density, gas temperature) in the ISM triggers an evolution of dust properties. The analysis of how dust evolves with the physical conditions is a stepping-stone towards a more thorough understanding of interstellar dust. The aim of this paper is to highlight dust evolution in the Horsehead Nebula PDR region. We use Spitzer/IRAC (3.6, 4.5…
CO-dark molecular gas traced by HCO$^+$ in the diffuse interstellar medium
University of Wisconsin–Madison(威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校);National Radio Astronomy Observatory(美国国家射电天文台);Macquarie University(麦考瑞大学);CSIRO Space & Astronomy(澳大利亚联邦科学与工业研究组织空间与天文部);Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute(韩国天文学与空间科学研究所);University of Science and Technology(科学技术大学);Institut de Radioastronomie Millimetrique(毫米波射电天文研究所)
Diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) hold a lot of information about the state and the structure of the ISM. Structure can most directly be observed by extensive spectroscopic surveys, including surveys of stars where DIBs are especially important, as they are conveniently found in all observed bands. Large surveys lack the quality of spectra to detect weak DIBs, so many spectra from small regions on the sky have to be combined before a sufficient signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is achieved. However, the clumpiness of the DIB clouds is unknown, which poses a problem, as the measured properties can en…
Measuring the temperature and abundance patterns of clouds in the interstellar medium (ISM) provides an observational basis for models of the physical conditions within the clouds, which play an important role in studies of star and planet formation. The Colorado High-resolution Echelle Stellar Spectrograph (CHESS) is a far ultraviolet rocket-borne instrument designed to study the atomic-to-molecular transitions within diffuse molecular and translucent cloud regions. The final two flights of the instrument observed $β^{1}$ Scorpii ($β$ Sco) and $γ$ Arae. We present flight results of interstell…
It has been hypothesized that photons from young, massive star clusters are responsible for maintaining the ionization of diffuse warm ionized gas seen in both the Milky Way and other disk galaxies. For a theoretical investigation of the warm ionized medium (WIM), it is crucial to solve radiation transfer equations where the ISM and clusters are modeled self-consistently. To this end, we employ a Solar neighborhood model of TIGRESS, a magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the multiphase, star-forming ISM, and post-process the simulation with an adaptive ray tracing method to transfer UV radiation …
Context. Tens of light hydrides and small molecules have now been detected over several hundreds sight lines sampling the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) in both the Solar neighbourhood and the inner Galactic disk. They provide unprecedented statistics on the first steps of chemistry in the diffuse gas. Aims. These new data confirm the limitations of the traditional chemical pathways driven by the UV photons and the cosmic rays (CR) and the need for additional energy sources, such as turbulent dissipation, to open highly endoenergetic formation routes. The goal of the present paper is to fur…
We report on Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) detections of molecular absorption lines in Bands 3, 6 and 7 toward four radio-loud quasars, which were observed as the bandpass and complex gain calibrators. The absorption systems, three of which are newly detected, are found to be Galactic origin. Moreover, HCO absorption lines toward two objects are detected, which almost doubles the number of HCO absorption samples in the Galactic diffuse medium. In addition, high HCO to H13CO+ column density ratios are found, suggesting that the interstellar media (ISM) observed toward the …
Faraday tomography allows us to map diffuse polarized synchrotron emission from our Galaxy and use it to interpret the magnetic field in the interstellar medium (ISM). We have applied Faraday tomography to 60 observations from the LOFAR Two-meter Sky Survey (LOTSS) and produced a Faraday depth cube mosaic covering 568 square degrees at high Galactic latitudes, at 4.3' angular resolution and 1 rad m$^{-2}$ Faraday depth resolution, with a typical noise level of 50--100 $μ$Jy per point spread function (PSF) per rotation measure spread function (RMSF) (40-80 mK RMSF$^{-1}$). While parts of the im…
The fate of metals ejected by young OB associations into the Interstellar Medium (ISM) is investigated numerically. In particular, we study the enrichment of the cold gas phase, which is the material that forms molecular clouds. Following previous work, the expansion and collision of two supershells in a diffuse ISM is simulated, in this case also introducing an advected quantity which represents the metals expelled by the young stars. We adopt the simplest possible approach, not differentiating between metals coming from stellar winds and those coming from supernovae. Even though the hot, dif…
We present high-resolution, optical images (BVI + Halpha) of the multiphase interstellar medium (ISM) in the thick disks of the edge-on spiral galaxies NGC 4013 and NGC 4302. Our images from the Hubble Space Telescope, Large Binocular Telescope, and WIYN 3.5-m reveal an extensive population of filamentary dust absorption seen to z ~ 2-2.5 kpc. Many of these dusty thick disk structures have characteristics reminiscent of molecular clouds found in the Milky Way disk. Our Halpha images show the extraplanar diffuse ionized gas (DIG) in these galaxies is dominated by a smooth, diffuse component. Th…
The Lifecycle and Emission Properties of PAHs in Cosmological Hydrodynamic Galaxy Formation Simulations
University of Florida(佛罗里达大学);Cosmic Dawn Center at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen and DTU-Space, Technical University of Denmark(哥本哈根大学尼尔斯·玻尔研究所宇宙黎明中心及丹麦技术大学DTU空间);University of Virginia(弗吉尼亚大学);Virginia Institute for Theoretical Astronomy, University of Virginia(弗吉尼亚大学理论天体物理研究所);Ritter Astrophysical Research Center, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Toledo(托莱多大学物理与天文系雷特天体物理研究中心);University of Pittsburgh(匹兹堡大学)
The high interstellar abundances of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their size distribution are the result of complex chemical processes implying dust, UV radiation, and the main gaseous components (H, C+, and O). These processes must explain the high abundance of relatively small PAHs in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) and imply the continuous formation of some PAHs that are small enough (number of carbon atoms NC <~ 35-50) to be completely dehydrogenated by interstellar UV radiation. The carbon clusters Cn thus formed are constantly exposed to the absorption of ~10-13.6 eV …
Cosmic Rays (CRs) interact with the diffuse gas, radiation, and magnetic fields in the interstellar medium (ISM) to produce electromagnetic emissions that are a significant component of the all-sky flux across a broad wavelength range. The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) has measured these emissions at GeV $γ$-ray energies with high statistics. Meanwhile, the High-Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) telescope array has observed large-scale Galactic diffuse emission in the TeV $γ$-ray energy range. The emissions observed at GeV and TeV energies are connected by the common origin of the CR pa…
The all sky survey run by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX AIS) mapped about 85% of the Galaxy at ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths and detected the diffuse UV background produced by the scattering of the radiation from OBA stars by interstellar dust grains. Against this background, diffuse weak structures are detected as well as the UV counterparts to nebulae and molecular clouds. To make full profit of the survey, unsupervised and semi-supervised procedures need to be implemented. The main objective of this work is to implement and analyze the results of the method developed by us for the bli…
We present a method for modelling star-forming clouds that combines two different models of the thermal evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM). In the combined model, where the densities are low enough that at least some part of the spectrum is optically thin, a model of the thermodynamics of the diffuse ISM is more significant in setting the temperatures. Where the densities are high enough to be optically thick across the spectrum, a model of flux limited diffusion is more appropriate. Previous methods either model the low-density interstellar medium and ignore the thermal behaviour at h…
We present an attempt to explain the diffuse H_alpha emission of a face-on galaxy M 51 with the ``standard'' photoionization model, in which the Lyman continuum (Lyc) escaping from H II regions propagates large distances into the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM). The diffuse H_alpha emission of M 51 is analyzed using thin slab models and exponential disk models in the context of the ``on-the-spot'' approximation. The scale height of the ionized gas needed to explain the diffuse H_alpha emission with the scenario is found to be of the order of ~ 1-2 kpc, consistent with those of our Galaxy and…
We wish to relate the degree scale structure of galactic diffuse clouds to sub-arcsecond atomic and molecular absorption spectra obtained against extragalactic continuum background sources. To do this, we used the ARO 12m telescope to map J=1-0 CO emission at 1' resolution over 30' fields around the positions of 11 background sources occulted by 20 molecular absorption line components, of which 11 had CO emission counterparts. We compare maps of CO emission to sub-arcsec atomic and molecular absorption spectra and to the large-scale distribution of interstellar reddening. The main results are:…
Interstellar Polarization Survey. IV. Characterizing the magnetic field strength and turbulent dispersion using optical starlight polarization in the diffuse interstellar medium
本文利用 IPS-GI 光学星光偏振与 GASS 的 HI 分解,评估角色散函数在近邻弥漫 ISM 中的适用性,并测绘天空平面磁场、密度及湍流速度弥散。
Hydroxyl ($\rm OH$) is known to form efficiently in cold gas ($T\sim 100$K) along with the molecule $\rm H_2$ and can be used as an efficient tracer of the diffuse molecular gas in the interstellar medium (ISM). Using a simple formalism describing the $\rm H\,I/H_2$ transition and a reduced network of major chemical reactions, we present a semi-analytical prescription to estimate the abundances of O-bearing molecules in the diffuse ISM. We show that predictions based on our prescription are in good agreement with the estimates obtained using the MEUDON PDR code which utilizes the full reaction…
We present the second data release for the HI-MaNGA programme of HI follow-up observations for the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey. This release contains measurements for 3669 unique galaxies, combining 2108 Green Bank Telescope observations with an updated crossmatch of the MaNGA sample with the ALFALFA survey. We combine these data with MaNGA spectroscopic measurements to examine relationships between HI-to-stellar mass ratio (M_HI/M_*) and average ISM/star formation properties probed by optical emission lines. M_HI/M_* is very weakly correlated with the equivalent width of Halpha, implying a loose con…