Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 1999
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999aas...194.7104s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, 194th AAS Meeting, #71.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 31, p.943
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Studies of nearby spiral galaxies suggest that photodissociation regions (PDRs) are capable of producing the observed large-scale distribution of HI (Allen et al. 1997, and references therein). The column density of HI in a PDR is fundamentally linked to the amount of far-ultraviolet (FUV) emission produced by nearby young stars and the local molecular gas volume density. Measurements of the HI column density and the FUV emission associated with PDRs thus provide a new probe of the molecular gas distribution in nearby galaxies. Advantages of this method include its insensitivity to assumptions about the CO/H_2 conversion factor or the gas temperature. We discuss the application of this method to M101. The HI column density and FUV emission have been measured for 35 PDRs from VLA data (Braun 1997) and Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope data (Waller et al. 1997). We derive volume densities ranging from n ~ 100 cm(-3) in the central HI-poor regions of M101 to n ~ 3000 cm(-3) in the HI-rich periphery of the galaxy.
Allen Rosalind J.
Bohlin Ralph Charles
Nicholson Natalya
Smith Alastair D.
Stecher Theodore P.
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