Physics
Scientific paper
Aug 1999
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999pcim.conf..161l&link_type=abstract
The Physics and Chemistry of the Interstellar Medium, Proceedings of the 3rd Cologne-Zermatt Symposium, held in Zermatt, Septemb
Physics
5
Scientific paper
The development of sensitive imaging detectors at infrared wavelengths has provided an important new tool for investigating the structure of dark molecular clouds. Surveys with large format infrared array cameras on small and modest sized telescopes are capable of detecting thousands of extincted background field stars observed through a large fraction of the surface area of a typical dark cloud. Accurate, high precision, measurements of the extinction caused by dust in the cloud can be made along the pencil beam toward each reddened star. As a result the distribution of dust in the cloud can be determined over an unprecedented range of optical depth and angular scale. Because of its high abundance the distribution of dust may provide the most faithful surrogate for tracing the overall distribution of (H _2) mass in a molecular cloud. Detailed investigations of the distribution of infrared extinction have now been made toward two nearby filamentary dark clouds, IC 5146 and L977. In each cloud the dust distribution is found to be well described by a volume density profile, ρ(r), which falls off as r ^{-2} orthogonal to the cloud's major axis. Moreover, the distribution of dust is found to be very smooth down to relatively small angular scales. Random spatial fluctuations in the distribution of extinction, if present, appear to be relatively small in magnitude.
Alves J. J.
Lada Charles J.
Lada Elizabeth A.
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