The Geometry of the Galaxy's Spiral Arms

Details The Geometry of the Galaxy's Spiral Arms The Geometry of the Galaxy's Spiral Arms

May 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008aas...212.1809s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #212, #18.09; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.213

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present a new model for the spiral structure of the Milky Way based upon an analysis of the essentially all-sky spectral data obtained by the Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) instrument of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite. The model provides the volume emissivities of the [C II] 128 µm and [N II] 205 µm lines, as a function of position within the Galaxy. These lines are important coolants of the interstellar medium and strong tracers of the spiral structure. Despite decades of work, there is still no full agreement on the number of spiral arms in the Milky Way, much less the details of their geometry. Motivated, in part, by this fact, we conducted a systematic search for 2-arm, 3-arm, and 4-arm models that maximize agreement with the COBE data. We find that only a four-arm model, with arms defined by logarithmic spiral forms and pitch angles ranging from 13.5 to 15.6 degrees, is consistent with the observations. The arms are neither evenly spaced nor identical in form. The resultant volume emissivity models for C+ and N+, when convolved with the FIRAS beam and integrated over the Galaxy, reproduce the COBE [C II] 128 µm and [N II] 205 µm intensity maps extremely well. We also examine all models for the Galaxy's spiral structure that have been proposed over the past half century in the context of the same COBE observations. A significant fraction of these models, including many recent ones, appear to be incompatible with the data. However, several four-arm models from the literature are consistent with the COBE observations.

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