The MAPPINGS III Library of Fast Radiative Shock Models

Abstract

We present a new library of fully radiative shock models calculated with the MAPPINGS III shock and photoionization code. The library consists of grids of models with shock velocities in the range vs = 100–1000 km s−1 and magnetic parameters B/n1/2 of 10−4 to 10 μG cm3/2 for five different atomic abundance sets and for a preshock density of 1.0 cm−3. In addition, solar abundance model grids have been calculated for densities of 0.01, 0.1, 10, 100, and 1000 cm−3 with the same range in vs and B/n1/2. Each model includes components of both the radiative shock and its photoionized precursor, ionized by the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-ray radiation generated in the radiative gas. We present the details of the ionization structure, the column densities, and the luminosities of the shock and its precursor. Emission-line ratio predictions are separately given for the shock and its precursor as well as for the composite shock+precursor structure to facilitate comparison with observations in cases in which the shock and its precursor are not resolved. Emission-line ratio grids for shock and shock+precursor are presented on standard line ratio diagnostic diagrams, and we compare these grids to observations of radio galaxies and a sample of AGNs and star-forming galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This library is available online, along with a suite of tools to enable the analysis of the shocks and the easy creation of emission line ratio diagnostic diagrams. These models represent a significant increase in parameter space coverage over previously available models and, therefore, provide a unique tool in the diagnosis of emission by shocks.