Radiative cooling rates, ion fractions, molecule abundances and line emissivities including self-shielding and both local and metagalactic radiation fields

Abstract

We use the spectral synthesis code Cloudy to tabulate the properties of gas for an extensive range in redshift (z=0 to 9), temperature (log T [K] = 1 to 9.5), metallicity (log Z/${\mathrm{Z}}_{\odot }$ = -4 to +0.5, Z=0), and density (log $n_{\mathrm{H}}$ [${\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$] = -8 to +6). This therefore includes gas with properties characteristic of the interstellar, circumgalactic and intergalactic media. The gas is exposed to a redshift-dependent UV/X-ray background, while for the self-shielded lower-temperature gas (i.e. ISM gas) an interstellar radiation field and cosmic rays are added. The radiation field is attenuated by a density- and temperature-dependent column of gas and dust. Motivated by the observed star formation law, this gas column density also determines the intensity of the interstellar radiation field and the cosmic ray density. The ionization balance, molecule fractions, cooling rates, line emissivities, and equilibrium temperatures are calculated self-consistently. We include dust, cosmic rays, and the interstellar radiation field step-by-step to study their relative impact. These publicly available tables are ideal for hydrodynamical simulations. They can be used stand alone or coupled to a non-equilibrium network for a subset of elements. The release includes a C routine to read in and interpolate the tables, as well as an easy to use python graphical user interface to explore the tables.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 29 pages, 24 figures; for data files and more info see: https://www.sylviaploeckinger.com/radcool; minor changes to match published version

References in corpus (14)

• The EAGLE project: Simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments
• The effect of photo-ionization on the cooling rates of enriched, astrophysical plasmas
• Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis Version 2.1: construction, observational verification and new results
• A Unified Representation of Gas-Phase Element Depletions in the Interstellar Medium
• Time-Dependent Ionization in Radiatively Cooling Gas
• Grackle: a Chemistry and Cooling Library for Astrophysics
• H3+ in Diffuse Interstellar Clouds: a Tracer for the Cosmic-Ray Ionization Rate
• A connection between star formation activity and cosmic rays in the starburst galaxy M 82
• Environmental Dependence of the Kennicutt-Schmidt Relation in Galaxies
• Effective destruction of CO by cosmic rays: implications for tracing H${}_2$ gas in the Universe
• Non-equilibrium chemistry and cooling in the diffuse interstellar medium - II. Shielded gas
• Tree-based solvers for adaptive mesh refinement code FLASH - I: gravity and optical depths
• Sensitivity of PDR Calculations to Microphysical Details
• Simulating the atomic and molecular content of molecular clouds using probability distributions of physical parameters

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Predictions for the Angular Dependence of Gas Mass Flow Rate and Metallicity in the Circumgalactic Medium