Radio recombination line observations towards Spitzer infrared bubbles with the TianMa radio telescope

Abstract

ABSTRACT Many of the Spitzer infrared bubbles identified by the Milky Way Project (MWP) are suggested to be $\rm{H \small {II}} $ regions in nature. More than 70 per cent of the ∼5000 known bubbles do not have radio recombination line (RRL) observations, hence have not been confirmed as $\rm{H \small {II}} $ regions. A systematic RRL survey should be helpful to identify the nature of the bubbles. With the Shanghai TianMa 65-m radio telescope, we searched for RRLs towards 216 selected Spitzer bubbles by simultaneously observing 19 RRLs in the C band (4–8 GHz). RRLs are detected in the directions of 75 of the 216 targets. 31 of the 75 RRL sources are classified as new detections, which are possibly from new $\rm{H \small {II}} $ regions or diffuse warm ionized medium; 36 of them are probably from the outskirts of nearby bright $\rm{H \small {II}} $ regions, rather than bubble-encircled ionized gas; and the detected RRLs towards 8 bubbles are identified from known $\rm{H \small {II}} $ regions. For 58 of the 75 RRL sources, we obtained their distances after resolving the kinematic distance ambiguity by combining the results of the H2CO absorption method, the $\rm{H \small {I}} $ emission/absorption method, and the $\rm{H \small {I}} $ self-absorption method. The low detection rate of new $\rm{H \small {II}} $ regions implies that a number of MWP bubbles in the DR1 catalogue are too faint if they are $\rm{H \small {II}} $ regions.