scholarly journals Dirty H2 Molecular Clusters as the DIB Sources: Spectroscopic and Physical Properties

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (S297) ◽  
pp. 378-380
Author(s):  
L. S. Bernstein ◽  
F. O. Clark ◽  
D. K. Lynch

AbstractWe propose that the diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) arise from absorption lines of electronic transitions in molecular clusters primarily composed of a single molecule, atom, or ion (“seed”), embedded in a single-layer shell of H2 molecules (Bernstein et al. 2013). Less abundant variants of the cluster, including two seed molecules and/or a two-layer shell of H2 molecules may also occur. The lines are broadened, blended, and wavelength-shifted by interactions between the seed and surrounding H2 shell. We refer to these clusters as CHCs (Contaminated H2 Clusters). CHC spectroscopy matches the diversity of observed DIB spectral profiles, and provides good fits to several DIB profiles based on a rotational temperature of 10 K. CHCs arise from ~cm-sized, dirty H2 ice balls, called CHIMPs (Contaminated H2 Ice Macro-Particles), formed in cold, dense, Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs), and later released into the interstellar medium (ISM) upon GMC disruption. Attractive interactions, arising from Van der Waals and ion-induced dipole potentials, between the seeds and H2 molecules enable CHIMPs to attain cm-sized dimensions. When an ultraviolet (UV) photon is absorbed in the outer layer of a CHIMP, it heats the icy matrix and expels CHCs into the ISM. While CHCs are quickly destroyed by absorbing UV photons, they are replenished by the slowly eroding CHIMPs. Since CHCs require UV photons for their release, they are most abundant at, but not limited to, the edges of UV-opaque molecular clouds, consistent with the observed, preferred location of DIBs. An inherent property of CHCs, which can be characterized as nanometer size, spinning, dipolar dust grains, is that they emit in the radio-frequency region. Thus, CHCs offer a natural explanation to the anomalous microwave emission (AME) feature in the ~10-100 GHz spectral region.

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (S297) ◽  
pp. 381-382
Author(s):  
D. K. Lynch ◽  
L. S. Bernstein ◽  
F. O. Clark

AbstractWe suggest that the diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) are absorption lines arising from electronic transitions in molecular clusters primarily composed of a single molecule, atom, or ion (“seed”), embedded in a single-layer shell of H2 molecules (Bernstein et al. 2013). We refer to these clusters as CHCs (Contaminated H2 Clusters). CHCs arise from cm-sized, dirty H2 ice balls, called CHIMPs (Contaminated H2 Ice Macro-Particles), formed in cold, dense, Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs), and later released into the interstellar medium (ISM) upon GMC disruption. Absorption by the CHIMP of a UV photon releases CHCs. CHCs produce DIBs when they absorb optical photons. When this occurs, the absorbed photon energy disrupts the CHC.


Author(s):  
Atsushi Nishimura ◽  
Tomofumi Umemoto ◽  
Tetsuhiro Minamidani ◽  
Nario Kuno ◽  
Tomoka Tosaki ◽  
...  

AbstractWe present the 12CO J=1–0, 13CO J=1–0, and C18O J=1–0 maps of the M17 giant molecular clouds (GMCs) obtained as a part of the Nobeyama 45m CO Galactic Plane Survey. The observations cover the entire area of M17 SW and M17 N clouds at an angular resolution of ~ 15″ which corresponds to ~ 0.15 pc. We found that the N cloud consists of a couple of twisted filaments, they are extended in parallel toward the Hii region. The typicall width of the filaments is ~0.5 pc in 13CO intensity map. Most of young stellar objects (YSOs) are located on the filaments which have a bright rim structure in 8μm at the filament edge facing the Hii region. Furthermore, the time scale of the YSOs formation on the bright rim is comparable with that of NGC 6618 cluster which provides UV photons for the region. This fact indicates that the cluster triggered to form YSOs in N cloud. We also investigated the geometry of the Hii region and GMCs by comparing spatial distribution of 12CO velocity channel map and infrared dark cloud, and then found that NGC 6618 is possibly formed by the cloud cloud colision.


1991 ◽  
Vol 148 ◽  
pp. 415-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. S. Booth ◽  
Th. De Graauw

In this short review we describe recent new observations of millimetre transitions of molecules in selected regions of the Magellanic Clouds. The observations were made using the Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope, SEST, (Booth et al. 1989), the relatively high resolution of which facilitates, for the first time, observations of individual giant molecular clouds in the Magellanic Clouds. We have mapped the distribution of the emission from the two lowest rotational transitions of 12CO and 13CO and hence have derived excitation conditions for the molecule. In addition, we have observed several well-known interstellar molecules in the same regions, thus doubling the number of known molecules in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The fact that all the observations have been made under controlled conditions with the same telescope enables a reasonable intercomparison of the molecular column densities. In particular, we are able to observe the relative abundances among the different isotopically substituted species of CO.


Author(s):  
Yingtian Chen ◽  
Hui Li ◽  
Mark Vogelsberger

Abstract We perform a suite of hydrodynamic simulations to investigate how initial density profiles of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) affect their subsequent evolution. We find that the star formation duration and integrated star formation efficiency of the whole clouds are not sensitive to the choice of different profiles but are mainly controlled by the interplay between gravitational collapse and stellar feedback. Despite this similarity, GMCs with different profiles show dramatically different modes of star formation. For shallower profiles, GMCs first fragment into many self-gravitation cores and form sub-clusters that distributed throughout the entire clouds. These sub-clusters are later assembled ‘hierarchically’ to central clusters. In contrast, for steeper profiles, a massive cluster is quickly formed at the center of the cloud and then gradually grows its mass via gas accretion. Consequently, central clusters that emerged from clouds with shallower profiles are less massive and show less rotation than those with the steeper profiles. This is because 1) a significant fraction of mass and angular momentum in shallower profiles is stored in the orbital motion of the sub-clusters that are not able to merge into the central clusters 2) frequent hierarchical mergers in the shallower profiles lead to further losses of mass and angular momentum via violent relaxation and tidal disruption. Encouragingly, the degree of cluster rotations in steeper profiles is consistent with recent observations of young and intermediate-age clusters. We speculate that rotating globular clusters are likely formed via an ‘accretion’ mode from centrally-concentrated clouds in the early Universe.


1983 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 133-134
Author(s):  
Frank N. Bash

Bash and Peters (1976) suggested that giant molecular clouds (GMC's) can be viewed as ballistic particles launched from the two-armed spiral-shock (TASS) wave with orbits influenced only by the overall galactic gravitational potential perturbed by the spiral gravitational potential in the arms. For GMC's in the Milky Way, the model predicts that the radial velocity observed from the Sun increases with age (time since launch). We showed that the terminal velocity of CO observed from l ≃ 30° to l ≃ 60° can be understood if all GMC's are born in the spiral pattern given by Yuan (1969) and live 30 × 106 yrs. Older GMC's were predicted to have radial velocities which exceed observed terminal velocities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 502 (2) ◽  
pp. 2364-2380
Author(s):  
Nilanjan Banik ◽  
Jo Bovy ◽  
Gianfranco Bertone ◽  
Denis Erkal ◽  
T J L de Boer

ABSTRACT New data from the Gaia satellite, when combined with accurate photometry from the Pan-STARRS survey, allow us to accurately estimate the properties of the GD-1 stream. Here, we analyse the stellar density variations in the GD-1 stream and show that they cannot be due to known baryonic structures such as giant molecular clouds, globular clusters, or the Milky Way’s bar or spiral arms. A joint analysis of the GD-1 and Pal 5 streams instead requires a population of dark substructures with masses ≈107–$10^9 \ \rm {M}_{\odot }$. We infer a total abundance of dark subhaloes normalized to standard cold dark matter $n_{\rm sub}/n_{\rm sub, CDM} = 0.4 ^{+0.3}_{-0.2}$ (68 per cent), which corresponds to a mass fraction contained in the subhaloes $f_{\rm {sub}} = 0.14 ^{+0.11}_{-0.07} {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, compatible with the predictions of hydrodynamical simulation of cold dark matter with baryons.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 2012
Author(s):  
Yue Yu ◽  
Jinmei Pan ◽  
Jiancheng Shi

Natural snow, one of the most important components of the cryosphere, is fundamentally a layered medium. In forward simulation and retrieval, a single-layer effective microstructure parameter is widely used to represent the emission of multiple-layer snowpacks. However, in most cases, this parameter is fitted instead of calculated based on a physical theory. The uncertainty under different frequencies, polarizations, and snow conditions is uncertain. In this study, we explored different methods to reduce the layered snow properties to a set of single-layer values that can reproduce the same brightness temperature (TB) signal. A validated microwave emission model of layered snowpack (MEMLS) was used as the modelling tool. Multiple-layer snow TB from the snow’s surface was compared with the bulk TB of single-layer snow. The methods were tested using snow profile samples from the locally validated and global snow process model simulations, which follow the natural snow’s characteristics. The results showed that there are two factors that play critical roles in the stability of the bulk TB error, the single-layer effective microstructure parameter, and the reflectivity at the air–snow and snow–soil boundaries. It is important to use the same boundary reflectivity as the multiple-layer snow case calculated using the snow density at the topmost and bottommost layers instead of the average density. Afterwards, a mass-weighted average snow microstructure parameter can be used to calculate the volume scattering coefficient at 10.65 to 23.8 GHz. At 36.5 and 89 GHz, the effective microstructure parameter needs to be retrieved based on the product of the snow layer transmissivity. For thick snow, a cut-off threshold of 1/e is suggested to be used to include only the surface layers within the microwave penetration depth. The optimal method provides a root mean squared error of bulk TB of less than 5 K at 10.65 to 36.5 GHz and less than 10 K at 89 GHz for snow depths up to 130 cm.


2009 ◽  
Vol 169 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Mannini ◽  
F. Pineider ◽  
P. Sainctavit ◽  
C. Cartier dit Moulin ◽  
M.-A. Arrio ◽  
...  

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (S237) ◽  
pp. 331-335
Author(s):  
Yu Gao

AbstractActive star formation (SF) is tightly related to the dense molecular gas in the giant molecular clouds' dense cores. Our HCN (measure of the dense molecular gas) survey in 65 galaxies (including 10 ultraluminous galaxies) reveals a tight linear correlation between HCN and IR (SF rate) luminosities, whereas the correlation between IR and CO (measure of the total molecular gas) luminosities is nonlinear. This suggests that the global SF rate depends more intimately upon the amount of dense molecular gas than the total molecular gas content. This linear relationship extends to both the dense cores in the Galaxy and the hyperluminous extreme starbursts at high-redshift. Therefore, the global SF law in dense gas appears to be linear all the way from dense cores to extreme starbursts, spanning over nine orders of magnitude in IR luminosity.


2018 ◽  
Vol 615 ◽  
pp. A122 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. König ◽  
S. Aalto ◽  
S. Muller ◽  
J. S. Gallagher III ◽  
R. J. Beswick ◽  
...  

Context. Minor mergers are important processes contributing significantly to how galaxies evolve across the age of the Universe. Their impact on the growth of supermassive black holes and star formation is profound – about half of the star formation activity in the local Universe is the result of minor mergers. Aims. The detailed study of dense molecular gas in galaxies provides an important test of the validity of the relation between star formation rate and HCN luminosity on different galactic scales – from whole galaxies to giant molecular clouds in their molecular gas-rich centers. Methods. We use observations of HCN and HCO+ 1−0 with NOEMA and of CO3−2 with the SMA to study the properties of the dense molecular gas in the Medusa merger (NGC 4194) at 1′′ resolution. In particular, we compare the distribution of these dense gas tracers with CO2−1 high-resolution maps in the Medusa merger. To characterize gas properties, we calculate the brightness temperature ratios between the three tracers and use them in conjunction with a non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) radiative line transfer model. Results. The gas represented by HCN and HCO+ 1−0, and CO3−2 does not occupy the same structures as the less dense gas associated with the lower-J CO emission. Interestingly, the only emission from dense gas is detected in a 200 pc region within the “Eye of the Medusa”, an asymmetric 500 pc off-nuclear concentration of molecular gas. Surprisingly, no HCN or HCO+ is detected for the extended starburst of the Medusa merger. Additionally, there are only small amounts of HCN or HCO+ associated with the active galactic nucleus. The CO3−2/2−1 brightness temperature ratio inside “the Eye” is ~2.5 – the highest ratio found so far – implying optically thin CO emission. The CO2−1/HCN 1−0 (~9.8) and CO2−1/HCO+ 1−0 (~7.9) ratios show that the dense gas filling factor must be relatively high in the central region, consistent with the elevated CO3−1/2−1 ratio. Conclusions. The line ratios reveal an extreme, fragmented molecular cloud population inside the Eye with large bulk temperatures (T > 300 K) and high gas densities (n(H2) > 104 cm-3). This is very different from the cool, self-gravitating structures of giant molecular clouds normally found in the disks of galaxies. The Eye of the Medusa is found at an interface between a large-scale minor axis inflow and the central region of the Medusa. Hence, the extreme conditions inside the Eye may be the result of the radiative and mechanical feedback from a deeply embedded, young and massive super star cluster formed due to the gas pile-up at the intersection. Alternatively, shocks from the inflowing gas entering the central region of the Medusa may be strong enough to shock and fragment the gas. For both scenarios, however, it appears that the HCN and HCO+ dense gas tracers are not probing star formation, but instead a post-starburst and/or shocked ISM that is too hot and fragmented to form newstars. Thus, caution is advised in taking the detection of emission from dense gas tracers as evidence of ongoing or imminent star formation.


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