Origin and z-distribution of Galactic diffuse [CII] emission

Abstract

We determine the source of the diffuse [CII] emission by studying its spatial (radial and vertical) distributions. We used the HIFI [CII] Galactic survey (GOT C+), along with HI, 12CO, and 13CO data toward 354 lines of sight, and several HIFI [CII] and [CI] position-velocity maps. We quantified the emission in each spectral line profile by evaluating the intensities in 3 km/s wide velocity bins, 'spaxels'. Using the detection of [CII] with CO or [CI], we separated the dense and diffuse gas components. We derived 2-D Galactic disk maps using the spaxel velocities for kinematic distances. We separated the warm and cold H2 gases by comparing CO emissions with and without associated [CII]. We find evidence of widespread diffuse [CII] emission with a z-scale distribution larger than that for the total [CII] or CO. and it consists of (i) diffuse molecular (CO-faint) H2 clouds and (ii) diffuse HI clouds and/or WIM. In the inner Galaxy we find a lack of [CII] detections in a majority (~62%) of HI spaxels and show that the diffuse component primarily comes from the WIM (~21%) and that the HI gas is not a major contributor to the diffuse component (~6%). The warm-H2 radial profile shows an excess in the range 4 to 7 kpc, consistent with enhanced star formation there. We derive, for the first time, the 2-D [CII] spatial distribution in the plane and the z-distributions of the individual [CII] gas component. We estimate the fractional [CII] emission tracing (i) H2 gas in dense and diffuse molecular clouds as ~48% and ~ 14%, respectively, (ii) in the HI gas ~18%, and (iii) in the WIM ~21%. Including non-detections from HI increases the [CII] in HI to ~ 27%. The z-scale distributions FWHM are [CII] sources with CO, ~130 pc, (CO-faint) diffuse H2 gas, ~200 pc, and the diffuse HI and WIM, ~330 pc. CO observations, when combined with [CII], probe the warm-H2 gas, tracing star formation.

20 pages, 15 figures, 4 tables

References in corpus (12)

• The Boston University-Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory Galactic Ring Survey
• The VLA Galactic Plane Survey
• The Vertical Structure of Warm Ionised Gas in the Milky Way
• Kinematic Distances to Molecular Clouds identified in the Galactic Ring Survey
• HI-to-H2 Transitions and H I Column Densities in Galaxy Star-Forming Regions
• The Spiral Structure of the Outer Milky Way in Hydrogen
• The On The Fly Imaging Technique
• A Herschel [CII] Galactic plane survey III: [CII] as a tracer of star formation
• 3D Distribution of Molecular Gas in the Barred Milky Way
• The H+ Region Contribution to [C II] 158 Micron Emission
• Corrugations in the Disk of the Edge-On Spiral Galaxy IC2233
• The scale height of gas traced by [CII] in the Galactic plane

Cited by in corpus (11)

• The Origins of [CII] Emission in Local Star-forming Galaxies
• Lighting the dark molecular gas: H${}_2$ as a direct tracer
• CO-dark gas and molecular filaments in Milky Way-type galaxies - II: The temperature distribution of the gas
• Molecular gas distribution perpendicular to the Galactic plane
• Disentangling the ISM phases of the dwarf galaxy NGC 4214 using [CII] SOFIA/GREAT observations
• Kinematics and properties of the Central Molecular Zone as probed with [C II]
• Ionized gas at the edge of the Central Molecular Zone
• Attenuation modified by DIG and dust as seen in M31
• Fingerprinting the effects of hyperfine structure on CH and OH far infrared spectra using Wiener filter deconvolution
• [CII] map of the molecular ring and arms of the spiral galaxy NGC 7331
• Ionized gas in the Scutum spiral arm as traced in [N II] and [C II]