Extraplanar gas in Edge-on Galaxies traced by SOFIA observations of [C II]

Abstract

Bursts of localized star formation in galaxies can levitate material from their midplanes. Spiral galaxies that are edge-on allow clear distinction of material that is levitated off the galaxies' midplanes. We used SOFIA to measure the vertical distribution of [C II] 157.7 micron line emission for two nearby, edge-on galaxies, NGC 891 and NGC 5907. We find that for the central region and actively-star-forming regions in the northern portion of NGC 891, and for NGC 5907, a thin (0.3 kpc) disk is supplemented by a thick disk with an exponential scale height of about 2 kpc. The [C II] is far more extended than mid-infrared emission (0.1 kpc, tracing present-day massive star formation) but not as extended as the H I (100 kpc, tracing low-metallicity circum/inter-galactic matter). The extraplanar [C II] may arise in walls of chimneys that connect the disk to the halo.

arXiv commentaccepted on 8/30/2020 to the Astrophysical Journal

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• The ALMA-CRISTAL Survey: Spatial extent of [CII] line emission in star-forming galaxies at $z=4-6$
• eDIG-CHANGES I: Extended Hα Emission from the Extraplanar Diffuse Ionized Gas (eDIG) around CHANG-ES Galaxies
• Search for the edge-on galaxies using an artificial neural network
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