Spitzer Observations of the IR Cirrus Toward PKS0405-123

Details Spitzer Observations of the IR Cirrus Toward PKS0405-123 Spitzer Observations of the IR Cirrus Toward PKS0405-123

Dec 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...21113908d&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #211, #139.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.986

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The infrared cirrus is a network of diffuse interstellar clouds seen over 50% of the sky at high Galactic latitude. Our interest in the cirrus is two-fold. First, the cirrus appears to contain a substantial amount of molecular hydrogen (Gillmon & Shull 2006), with H2 fraction showing a correlation with both cirrus intensity and total hydrogen column density. Using cirrus flux as a proxy for N(H2) allows us to correct large-scale HI surveys for the "missing" molecular contribution and estimate the total (atomic + molecular) mass in this diffuse ISM phase. Second, the cirrus may delineate the disk-halo interface and be a site of enhanced cooling, through H2 rotational excitation, and triggered star formation. Detailed studies of cirrus morphology at small scales (less than 1') can provide the physical structure of the cirrus: thickness, particle density, and cooling rates.
We present new Spitzer observations of the cirrus emission toward PKS0405-123, the first of six fields in an ongoing IR/far-UV/21cm observation program of H2, HI, and cirrus. Diffuse emission is clearly visible in both 70 and 160 micron MIPS channels, with clear structure at scales below 1'. This represents a considerable improvement over the resolution of IRAS data (>5') and will help correct the scatter in the cirrus-N(H2) relationship. We further analyze the high resolution, narrow field of view Spitzer data in the context of the wide-field, low resolution IRAS data. We look for breaks in the power-spectrum slope indicative of the physical scale of the cirrus layer.
This work is funded in part by Spitzer and FUSE guest investigator grants.

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