Two New Low Galactic D/H Measurements from FUSE

Details Two New Low Galactic D/H Measurements from FUSE Two New Low Galactic D/H Measurements from FUSE

2004-03-25

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0403606v1

Astrophys.J. 609 (2004) 838-853

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

35 pages, 6 figures; AASTEX v5.0 plus EPSF extensions in mkfig.sty; accepted by ApJ

Scientific paper

10.1086/421325

We analyze interstellar absorption observed towards two subdwarf O stars, JL 9 and LSS 1274, using spectra taken by the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE). Column densities are measured for many atomic and molecular species (H I, D I, C I, N I, O I, P II, Ar I, Fe II, and H2), but our main focus is on measuring the D/H ratios for these extended lines of sight, as D/H is an important diagnostic for both cosmology and Galactic chemical evolution. We find D/H=(1.00+/-0.37)e-5 towards JL 9, and D/H=(0.76+/-0.36)e-5 towards LSS 1274 (2 sigma uncertainties). With distances of 590+/-160 pc and 580+/-100 pc, respectively, these two lines of sight are currently among the longest Galactic lines of sight with measured D/H. With the addition of these measurements, we see a significant tendency for longer Galactic lines of sight to yield low D/H values, consistent with previous inferences about the deuterium abundance from D/O and D/N measurements. Short lines of sight with H I column densities of log N(H I)<19.2 suggest that the gas-phase D/H value within the Local Bubble is (D/H)_LBg=(1.56+/-0.04)e-5. However, the four longest Galactic lines of sight with measured D/H, which have d>500 pc and log N(H I)>20.5, suggest a significantly lower value for the true local-disk gas-phase D/H value, (D/H)_LDg=(0.85+/-0.09)e-5. One interpretation of these results is that D is preferentially depleted onto dust grains relative to H and that longer lines of sight that extend beyond the Local Bubble sample more depleted material. In this scenario, the higher Local Bubble D/H ratio is actually a better estimate than (D/H)_LDg for the true local-disk D/H, D/H)_LD. However, if (D/H)_LDg is different from (D/H)_LBg simply because of variable astration and incomplete ISM mixing, then (D/H)_LD=(D/H)_LDg.

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