The CNM – How Much, How Cold, and Where?

1. The CNM – How Much, How Cold, and Where? John Dickey University of Tasmania 4 February 2013 C+ as an Astronomical Tool

3. What is the Cool Neutral Medium?

4. The Cycle of Galaxy Evolution Atomic hydrogen emission Atomic hydrogen absorption + diffuse OH emission OH masers Synchrotron emission OH masers Image credit: Bill Saxton (NRAO)

5. Field, Goldsmith & Habing 1969, Ap. J. 155, 149. WNM CNM Dalgarno & McCray 1972 ARAA 10, 375

6. How Cold is the Cool Neutral Medium (CNM)?

7. The 21-SPONGE Project (EVLA) Murray, Stanimirovic, Goss, Heiles, JD, Begum, Hennebelle 2013 in prep. Gaussian fitting gives: Tsp = 178 K Tsp = 2280 K

9. Tsp distribution in the 21-SPONGE survey based on Gaussian Fitting (Murray et al. 2013)

10. Spin temperature distribution from Heiles and Troland (2003, Ap. J. 586, 1067) based on Gaussian fitting techniques. Spin temperature distribution from Dickey et al. (2003, Ap. J. 585, 801) using data from Heiles and Troland (2003).

11. Tkin distribution in the 21-SPONGE survey based on line widths (Murray et al. 2013)

12. Stanimirovic and Heiles (2006 Ap. J. 631, 371), HI emission/absorption spectra from Arecibo. Using very bright background sources at high latitude (both at +81o latitude).

13. Moving from high latitude directions to low latitudes the CNM begins to cover a wider velocity range, due to differential Galactic rotation. But the CNM linewidths are still much narrower than the WNM emission, and there is lots of WNM emission at low levels that has no corresponding CNM.

14. Low Galactic latitude 21-cm emission-absorption spectra from Strasser et al. 2007 (A. J. 134, 2252)

15. Tsp temperature distribution of CNM clouds vs. RG from Strasser (2006) based on SGPS, CGPS, VGPS data.

16. Dickey et al. 2000, Ap. J. 536, 756.

17. Higher optical depths are confined to the midplane.

18. HISA – H I Self-Absorption 21-cm absorption can be visible against the bright background 21-cm emission in the Galactic plane. Recent surveys are by Gibson et al. (2005, Ap. J. 626, 195) and Kavars et al. (2005, Ap. J. 626, 887). They find that half of all lines of sight at low latitudes contain some HISA, and roughly half of the detected HISA clouds have corresponding CO detections.

20. Analysis An example τvs. Ts curve

23. 21-cm emission and absorption and self-absorption from the Southern Galactic Plane Survey (HISA) McClure-Griffiths et al. 2004

24. Leafy Sea Dragon (Australian marine animal) photo by Victoria Graham

25. The Riegel-Crutcher Cloud McClure-Griffiths et al. (2007, Ap. J. 652, 1339)

26. How much CNM is there? Even counting the HISA gas, there is less CNM than WNM (maybe 1:3 ratio). This ratio stays roughly constant with Galactic radius outside the solar circle.

27. Longitude Velocity diagrams in emission and absorption: density, n, measured at the same locations and binned in the same way as for k. opacity, k, binned in l and v

28. Data from Strasser et al. 2007

29. The radial dependence of the density, nH.

30. The radial dependence of the opacity, k.

31. The radial dependence of the spin temperature, T.

32. The structure of the CNM in the far outer Galaxy is interesting. It is located as cores or a network inside large (106 Msun) HI clouds. The mixture of WNM, CNM, and molecular gas in these outer Galactic plane clouds resembles that in the Magellanic Clouds.

33. Strasser et al. 2007 A.J. 134, 2252. This cloud is at a distance of 16 to 17 kpc from the Galactic center.

34. In the central 2 or 3 kpc of the Galaxy, there is CNM in most of the features that can be seen in CO and HI emission. But there is not as much CNM as we might expect, particularly in the structures inside the 3 kpc arms.

35. HI from McClure-Griffiths et al. 2012 CO from Dame and Thaddeus 2008 Red dots: 21-cm absorption toward Galactic HII regions (Jones et al. 2013)

36. Jones, Dickey, Dawson, McClure-Griffiths, Anderson, Bania, 2013 in prep.

37. Galactic HII region recombination line velocities (Jones et al. 2013) CNM 21-cm absorption toward HII regions

38. How does C+ align with the CNM on a Galactic scale? Very well. As well as any other tracer? Maybe.

39. What does Herschel see? Langer et al. 2010

40. note the HISA features Nearby SGPS HI emission and absorption spectra (Strasser 2006)

41. Conclusions: • The CNM temperature is mostly in the range 15K to 250K. The median is about 50K. • The CNM is about 25% to 35% of the total HI mass. Thus only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the atomic medium is in the cool phase. • The CNM keeps a ~constant ratio with the WNM on a large scale in the outer MW. Some structures in the inner Galaxy have less CNM than we might expect given recent SF.

44. CGPS absorption and emission combined, from Strasser & Taylor 2004, Ap. J. 603, 560. Cool phase clouds plus warm phase diffuse gas.

45. Data for emission/absorption spectral channels in the CGPS I+II survey (Strasser Ph.D. thesis 2006).

46. In the inner Galaxy something similar appears, but even more pronounced. VGPS data SGPS data

47. Monte Carlo model with random column density of HI (normal sigma 35K absolute value)... Threshold column density of warm gas (50K + normal sig 10 K) for existence of cool gas... All HI above the threshold is cool gas, with Tcool = 70 K... Half of the warm gas emission is absorbed by the cool gas.