Distances and Properties of Molecular Clouds identified in the Galactic Ring Survey

Details Distances and Properties of Molecular Clouds identified in the Galactic Ring Survey Distances and Properties of Molecular Clouds identified in the Galactic Ring Survey

May 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008aas...212.1803d&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #212, #18.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.212

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We derived kinematic distances to 664 molecular clouds identified by their 13CO J=1 -> 0 emission in the Boston University Galactic Ring Survey (GRS). For 250 clouds, kinematic distances were confirmed by distances based on the universality of the turbulent energy spectrum.
The knowledge of the rotation curve of the galaxy allowed us to associate the spectroscopically measured radial velocity of a molecular gas to a double solution for the kinematic distance, a "near" and a "far" solution. HI data from the Very Large Array (VLA) Galactic Plane Survey (VGPS) was used to analyze HI self-asbsorption on the line of sight of each cloud, providing a resolution of the kinematic ambiguity for 664 clouds. Furthermore, we used Principal Component Analysis to derive the angular structure function of the turbulent spectrum of the GRS clouds. Using the universality of the turbulent spectrum as a distance probe, we confirmed kinematic distances to 250 clouds.
We found that the galactic distribution of the GRS clouds is consistent with a two-arm model based on the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE) star count data. The surface mass density of molecular gas within clouds (63 % of the total GRS emission) reaches a peak at 3.7, 4.3, 5.9 and 7.8 kpc from the galactic center, indicating a concentration of dense molecular gas at the end of the galactic bar, as well as along the Scutum, Sagittarius and Perseus spiral arms.

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