Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Nov 1987
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1987apj...322..266n&link_type=abstract
Astrophysical Journal, Part 1 (ISSN 0004-637X), vol. 322, Nov. 1, 1987, p. 266-274.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
51
Emission Spectra, High Temperature Plasmas, Line Spectra, Molecular Gases, Shock Wave Propagation, Water, Cosmic Gases, Molecular Interactions, Orion Nebula
Scientific paper
The H2O emission expected from a hot astrophysical plasma containing water is computed to obtain (1) a general cooling function for water, and (2) the individual H2O line intensities in the specific case of the shocked gas region in Orion-KL. It is found that for a shocked molecular region, such as has been previously proposed to account for H2, CO, and O I observations of Orion-KL, there are several hundred H2O lines with fluxes that exceed 10 to the -18th W/sq cm into a 1 arcmin beam. Though the strongest of these generally correspond to strong terrestrial water absorption features, making their detection difficult, future balloon and space experiments should be capable of detecting a large number of water lines. An analytic fit to the total cooling due to water is obtained as a function of temperature, H2 density, and H2O column density. At large optical depth, the result exceeds significantly that obtained from the 'universal cooling function' of Hollenbach and McKee (1979).
Melnick Gary J.
Neufeld David A.
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