Origin Of High-velocity Clouds Research Articles

On the Origin of High-velocity Clouds in the Galaxy

Abstract The origin of our Galaxy’s high-velocity clouds (HVCs) remains a mystery after many decades of effort. In this paper, we use the TNG50 simulation of the IllustrisTNG project to identify cool, dense clouds that match observations of Galactic H i HVCs. We track these clouds back in time to determine their origin. For a TNG50 Milky Way−like galaxy, we find that only 17% of HVCs can be tracked directly to the disk and 21% to material stripped out of satellites. The majority of HVCs (62%) arise from warm and hot circumgalactic gas that cools through thermal instability. They then obtain their anomalous velocities through interactions with the turbulent circumgalactic medium. At TNG50 resolution, we do not see evidence for HVCs forming out of very low metallicity intergalactic material. Instead, low-metallicity HVCs are most likely associated with satellites. These results suggest that Galactic HVCs are highly heterogeneous in their origin and can provide insight into the physical processes that shape the circumgalactic medium, such as disk outflows, satellite accretion, and thermal instabilities.

Where Are the "Missing" Galactic Baryons?

Based on 19 high-resolution N-body/gasdynamical galaxy formation simulations in the ΛCDM cosmology, it is shown that for a galaxy like the Milky Way, in addition to the baryonic mass of the galaxy itself, about 70% extra baryonic mass should reside around the galaxy (inside of the virial radius), chiefly in the form of hot gas. Averaging over the entire field galaxy population, this "external" component amounts to 64%-85% of the baryonic mass of the population itself. These results are supported by the recent detection of very extended, soft X-ray emission from the halo of the quiescent, massive disk galaxy NGC 5746. Some of the hot gas may, by thermal instability, have condensed into mainly pressure-supported, warm clouds, similar to the Galactic high-velocity clouds (HVCs). Based on an ultra-high-resolution cosmological test simulation of a Milky Way-like galaxy (with a gas particle mass and gravity softening length of only 7.6 × 103 h-1 M☉ and 83 h-1 pc, respectively), it is argued that the hot gas phase dominates over the warm gas phase, in the halo. Finally, an origin of HVCs as "leftovers" from filamentary, "cold" accretion events, mainly occurring early in the history of galaxies, is proposed.

Highlights of high-velocity clouds

Twenty years after their first discovery at Dwingeloo (Muller, Oort and Raimond 1963), the nature and origin of high-velocity clouds (HVCs) remain enigmatic. Yet, much important progress has been made in the study of their properties, and prospects are brightening that the problem of their distances, which holds the key to their understanding, may soon be solved.