We present an analysis of high resolution HST Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) observations of O I 1356 and H I Lyman-alpha absorption in 36 sight lines that probe a variety of Galactic disk environments and include paths that range over nearly 4 orders of magnitude in f(H_2), over 2 orders of magnitude in mean sight line density, and that extend up to 6.5 kpc in length. Consequently, we have undertaken the study of gas-phase O/H abundance ratio homogeneity using the current sample and previously published Goddard High-Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) results. Two distinct trends are identified in the 56 sight line sample: an apparent decrease in gas-phase oxygen abundance with increasing mean sight line density and a gap between the mean O/H ratio for sight lines shorter and longer than about 800 pc. The first effect is a smooth transition between two depletion levels associated with large mean density intervals; it is centered near a density of 1.5 cm^-3 and is similar to trends evident in gas-phase abundances of other elements. Paths less dense than the central value exhibit a mean O/H ratio of log_10 (O/H) = -3.41+/-0.01 (or 390+/-10 ppm), which is consistent with averages determined for several long, low-density paths observed by STIS (Andre et al. 2003) and short low-density paths observed by FUSE (Moos et al. 2002). Sight lines of higher mean density exhibit an average O/H value of log_10 (O/H) = -3.55+/-0.02 (284+/-12 ppm). The datapoints for low-density paths are scattered more widely than those for denser sight lines, due to O/H ratios for paths shorter than 800 pc that are generally about 0.10 dex lower than the values for longer ones.

The Homogeneity of Interstellar Oxygen in the Galactic Disk

We present the results of an all-sky survey made with the Fine Guidance Sensor on the Hubble Space Telescope to search for angularly resolved binary systems among massive stars. The sample of 224 stars is comprised mainly of Galactic O- and B-type stars and luminous blue variables, plus a few luminous stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The FGS TRANS mode observations are sensitive to the detection of companions with an angular separation between 0.″01 and 1.″0 and brighter than △m=5. The FGS observations resolved 52 binary and 6 triple star systems and detected partially resolved binaries in 7 additional targets (43 of these are new detections). These numbers yield a companion detection frequency of 29% for the FGS survey. We also gathered literature results on the numbers of close spectroscopic binaries and wider astrometric binaries among the sample, and we present estimates of the frequency of multiple systems and the companion frequency for subsets of stars residing in clusters and associations, field stars, and runaway stars. These results confirm the high multiplicity fraction, especially among massive stars in clusters and associations. We show that the period distribution is approximately flat in increments of logP. We identify a number ofmore » systems of potential interest for long-term orbital determinations, and we note the importance of some of these companions for the interpretation of the radial velocities and light curves of close binaries that have third companions.« less

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The multiplicity of massive stars: a high angular resolution survey with the hst fine guidance sensor*

We present the results of a search for cold gas at high redshift along quasar lines of sight carried out without any a priori assumption on the neutral atomic-hydrogen content of the absorption-line systems. To do this, we systematically looked for neutral-carbon (C i) λλ 1560, 1656 transition lines in 41 696 low-resolution quasar spectra (1.5 em (DLA) and/or Mg ii systems. We built up a sample of 66 C i absorbers with redshifts in the range 1.5 r (λ 1560) r,lim (λ 1560) ≃ 0.4 A. C i systems stronger than that are more than one hundred times rarer than DLAs at z abs = 2.5. The number of C i systems per unit redshift is found to increase significantly below z = 2. We suggest that these C i absorbers are closely related to the process of star formation and the production of dust in galaxies and that their cosmic evolution is driven by the interplay between dust shielding and the evolution of the ultra-violet background at ~10 eV. We derive the neutral atomic-hydrogen content of the C i systems observable from the southern hemisphere from VLT/UVES spectroscopy and find that a majority of them are sub-DLAs with N (H i) ~ 1020 atoms cm-2 . The dust content of these absorbers is yet significant as seen from the redder optical colours of the corresponding background quasars and their reddened spectral energy distributions, with E (B −V ) values up to ~0.3. The overall N (H i) distribution of C i systems is, however, relatively flat. As a consequence, among the C i systems classifying as DLAs, there is a probable excess of strong DLAs with log N (H i) > 21 (atoms cm-2 ) compared to systematic DLA surveys. Whilst the dust content of such systems is significant, their dust-to-gas ratio must still be limited. Indeed, strong DLAs having large amounts of shielded gas and dust producing stronger reddening and extinction of the background quasars, if they exist, should have been missed in the current magnitude-limited quasar sample. We study the empirical relations between W r (C i), N (H i), E (B −V ), and the strength of the 2175 A extinction feature. The latter is detected in about 30% of the C i absorbers. We show that, at equal amount of reddening, the 2175 A feature is weak compared to Galactic lines of sight. This is probably the consequence of current or past star formation in the vicinity of the C i systems. We also find that the strongest C i systems tend to have the largest amounts of dust and that the metallicity of the gas and its molecular fraction is likely to be high in a large number of cases. The C i-absorber sample presented here hence provides ideal targets for detailed studies of the dust composition and molecular species at high redshift.

/pdf/neutral-atomic-carbon-quasar-absorption-line-systems-at-z-1-3of4lktmwn.pdf

Neutral atomic-carbon quasar absorption-line systems at z> 1.5 - Sample selection, H i content, reddening, and 2175 Å extinction feature

Context. The project Galactic Cold Cores has carried out Herschel photometric observations of interstellar clouds where the Planck satellite survey has located cold and compact clumps. The sources represent different stages of cloud evolution from starless clumps to protostellar cores and are located in different Galactic environments. 
Aims. We examine this sample of 116 Herschel fields to estimate the submillimetre dust opacity and to search for variations that might be attributed to the evolutionary stage of the sources or to environmental factors, including the location within the Galaxy. 
Methods. The submillimetre dust opacity was derived from Herschel data, and near-infrared observations of the reddening of background stars are converted into near-infrared optical depth. We investigated the systematic errors affecting these parameters and used modelling to correct for the expected biases. The ratio of 250 μm and J band opacities is correlated with the Galactic location and the star formation activity. We searched for local variations in the ratio τ(250 μm)/τ(J) using the correlation plots and opacity ratio maps. 
Results. We find a median ratio of τ(250 μm) /τ(J) = (1.6 ± 0.2) × 10^(-3), which is more than three times the mean value reported for the diffuse medium. Assuming an opacity spectral index β = 1.8 instead of β = 2.0, the value would be lower by ~ 30%. No significant systematic variation is detected with Galactocentric distance or with Galactic height. Examination of the τ(250 μm) /τ(J) maps reveals six fields with clear indications of a local increase of submillimetre opacity of up to τ(250 μm) /τ(J) ~ 4 × 10^(-3) towards the densest clumps. These are all nearby fields with spatially resolved clumps of high column density. 
Conclusions. We interpret the increase in the far-infrared opacity as a sign of grain growth in the densest and coldest regions of interstellar clouds.

/pdf/galactic-cold-cores-v-dust-opacity-4n0nk8tkpf.pdf

Galactic cold cores - V. Dust opacity

With Gaia Data Release 2, the astronomical community is entering a new era of multidimensional surveys of the Milky Way. This new phase-space view of our Galaxy demands new tools for comparing observations to simulations of Milky-Way-mass galaxies in a cosmological context, to test the physics of both dark matter and galaxy formation. We present ananke, a framework for generating synthetic phase-space surveys from high-resolution baryonic simulations, and we use ananke to generate a suite of synthetic surveys designed to resemble Gaia DR2 in data structure, magnitude limits, and observational errors. We use three cosmological simulations of Milky-Way-mass galaxies from the Latte suite of the Feedback In Realistic Environments (FIRE) project, which offer many advantages for generating synthetic stellar surveys: self-consistent clustering of star formation in dense molecular clouds, thin stellar and gaseous disks, cosmological accretion and enrichment histories, all in live cosmological halos with satellite dwarf galaxies and stellar halos. We select three solar viewpoints from each simulation to generate nine synthetic Gaia-like surveys. We generate synthetic stars assuming that each simulation’s star particles (of mass 7070 M_⊙ ) represent a single stellar population, and we use a kernel density representation to distribute synthetic stars accurately in position and velocity. At each viewpoint, we compute a self-consistent dust extinction map, using the gas metallicity distribution in each simulation. Finally, we apply a simple error model to produce a synthetic Gaia-like survey at each solar viewpoint, though we also provide quantities without error convolution. This results in a catalog of synthetic stars, as if measured by Gaia, that includes both observational properties and a pointer to each generating star particle in the simulation. We also provide the complete snapshot–including star, gas, and dark matter particles–at z = 0 for each simulated galaxy. We describe data access points, the data model, and plans for future upgrades to ananke. These synthetic surveys provide a tool for the scientific community to test analysis methods and interpret Gaia data.

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Synthetic Gaia surveys from the FIRE cosmological simulations of Milky-Way-mass galaxies

We have collated absorption line data toward 3008 stars in order to create a unified database of interstellar column densities. These data have been taken from a number of different published sources and include many different species and ionizations. The preliminary results from our analysis show a tight relation [N(H)/E(B - V) = 6.12 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 21}] between N(H) and E(B - V). Similar plots have been obtained with many different species, and their correlations along with the correlation coefficients are presented.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0067-0049/199/1/8/pdf

A compilation of interstellar column densities

We have used GALEX and SDSS observations to extract 7 band photometric magnitudes for over 80,000 objects in the vicinity of the North Galactic Pole. Although these had been identified as stars by the SDSS pipeline, we found through fitting with model SEDs that most were, in fact, of extragalactic origin. Only about 9% of these objects turned out to be main sequence stars and about 11% were white dwarfs and red giants collectively, while galaxies and quasars contributed to the remaining 80% of the data. We have classified these objects into different spectral types (for the stars) and into different galactic types (for the galaxies). As part of our fitting procedure, we derive the distance and extinction to each object and the photometric redshift towards galaxies and quasars. This method easily allows for the addition of any number of observations to cover a more diverse range of wavelengths, as well as the addition of any number of model templates. The primary objective of this work is to eventually derive a 3-dimensional extinction map of the Milky Way galaxy.

Photometric identification of objects from Galaxy Evolution Explorer Survey and Sloan Digital Sky Survey

The Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) is scheduled to be launched as a part of the ASTROSAT satellite. As part of the mission planning for the instrument we have studied the efficacy of UVIT observations for interstellar extinction measurements. We find that in the best case scenario, the UVIT can measure the reddening to an accuracy of about 0.02 magnitudes, which combined with the derived distances to the stars, will enable us to model the three-dimensional distribution of extinction in our Galaxy. The knowledge of the distribution of the ISM will then be used to study distant objects, affected by it. This work points the way to further refining the UVIT mission plan to best satisfy different science studies.

https://www.tpbin.com/Uploads/Subjects/547356d2-e90c-4c1c-b82f-080d88c3e7fe.pdf

K. Preethi

Papers

A compilation of interstellar column densities

Photometric identification of objects from Galaxy Evolution Explorer Survey and Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Large scale extinction maps with UVIT