Phosphorus in the Diffuse Interstellar Medium

Abstract

We present FUSE and HST/STIS measurements of the PII column density toward Galactic stars. We analyzed PII through the profile fitting of the unsaturated $\lambda$1125 and $\lambda$1533 lines and derived column densities integrated along the sightlines as well as in individual resolved components. We find that phosphorus is not depleted along those sightlines sampling the diffuse neutral gas. We also investigate the correlation existing between PII and OI column densities and find that there is no differential depletion between these two specie. Furthermore, the ratio N(PII)/N(OI) is consistent with the solar P/O value, implying that PII and OI coexist in the same gaseous phase and are likely to evolve in parallel since the time they are produced in stars. We argue that phosphorus, as traced by PII, is an excellent neutral oxygen tracer in various physical environments, except when ionization corrections are a significant issue. Hence, PII lines (observable with FUSE, HST/STIS, or with VLT/UVES for the QSO sightlines) reveal particularly useful as a proxy for OI lines when these are saturated or blended.

arXiv commentAccepted to A&A

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Cited by in corpus (13)

• A Unified Representation of Gas-Phase Element Depletions in the Interstellar Medium
• The Discordance of Mass-Loss Estimates for Galactic O-Type Stars
• Phosphorus in the Young Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A
• Discovery of a Perseus-like cloud in the early Universe: HI-to-H2 transition, carbon monoxide and small dust grains at zabs=2.53 towards the quasar J0000+0048
• Chemical enrichment and physical conditions in I Zw 18
• Phosphorus Abundances in FGK Stars
• Metal enrichment of the neutral gas of blue compact dwarf galaxies: the compelling case of Pox 36
• Interstellar abundances in the neutral and ionized gas of NGC604
• Oscillator Strengths for Ultraviolet Transitions in P II -The Multiplet at 1308 Å
• A Reexamination of Phosphorus and Chlorine Depletions in the Diffuse Interstellar Medium
• Collisional excitation of PO${}^{+}$ by $para$-H${}_2$
• ISM enrichment and local pollution in dwarf galaxies
• Heavy-element Rydberg transition line emission from the post-giant-evolution star HD101584