O VI in the Gaseous Galactic Halo

Details O VI in the Gaseous Galactic Halo O VI in the Gaseous Galactic Halo

Jun 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005aspc..331....3s&link_type=abstract

Extra-Planar Gas, ASP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 331. Edited by Robert Braun. Proceedings of the meeting held at Dwingeloo,

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Scientific paper

We summarize the results of the Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) program to study O VI in the Milky Way halo. Spectra of 100 extragalactic objects and two distant halo stars are analyzed to obtain measures of O VI absorption along paths through the Milky Way thick disk/halo. Strong O VI absorption over the velocity range from -100 to 100 km s-1 reveals a widespread but highly irregular distribution of O VI, implying the existence of substantial amounts of hot gas with T˜3×105 K in the Milky Way thick disk/halo. The overall distribution of O VI can be described by a plane-parallel patchy absorbing layer with an average O VI mid-plane density of no(O VI) = 1.7×10-8 cm-3, an exponential scale height of ˜2.3 kpc, and a ˜0.25 dex excess of O VI in the northern Galactic polar region. The distribution of O VI over the sky is poorly correlated with other tracers of gas in the halo, including low and intermediate velocity H I, Hα emission from the warm ionized gas at ˜104 K, and hot X-ray emitting gas at ˜106 K. The O VI has an average velocity dispersion, b=60 km s-1 and small standard deviation of 15 km s-1. Thermal broadening alone cannot explain the large observed profile widths. A combination of models involving the radiative cooling of hot fountain gas, the cooling of supernova bubbles in the halo, and the turbulent mixing of warm and hot halo gases is required to explain the presence of O VI and other highly ionized atoms found in the halo.

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