Dust and Gas Emission Across the Bright Side of the rho-Ophiuchi Main Cloud

Details Dust and Gas Emission Across the Bright Side of the rho-Ophiuchi Main Cloud Dust and Gas Emission Across the Bright Side of the rho-Ophiuchi Main Cloud

Jul 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001esasp.460..227h&link_type=abstract

The Promise of the Herschel Space Observatory. Eds. G.L. Pilbratt, J. Cernicharo, A.M. Heras, T. Prusti, & R. Harris. ESA-SP 460

Physics

Ism: Clouds, Ism: Dust, Extinction, Atomic Processes, Molecular Processes, Missions: First

Scientific paper

We present imaging and spectroscopic observations of dust and gas emission, obtained with ISO, from the western edge of the rho-Ophiuchi molecular cloud illuminated by the B2 star HD147889 (χ ~ 400). This photo-dissociation region (PDR) is one of the nearest PDRs from the Sun, has a low density (nH <= 104 cm-3) and is viewed edge-on. It is therefore an ideal target to test our understanding of the physics of the H2 photo-dissociation regions. The emission from dust heated by the external UV radiation, from collisionally excited and fluorescent H2 are resolved and observed to coincide spatially. The spectroscopic data, obtained with ISO-SWS, allows to estimate the gas temperature to 350 ± 30 K in the H2 emitting layer. The ratio of ortho-to-para H2 ratio is about 1 significantly smaller than the equilibrium ratio of 3 expected in gas at that temperature. To interpret the excitation of H2 we use a stationary physical model where the density profile is constrained by the dust emission data and where the gas chemical and thermal balances are solved at each position. A high H2 formation rate, 3 10-16 cm3 s-1 at 350 K, seems to be required to account for the observed emission.

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