Spiral Arm Features Research Articles

The Environments of Fast Radio Bursts Viewed Using Adaptive Optics

We present observations from the Gemini Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics System/Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager at Gemini South of five fast radio burst (FRB) host galaxies of FRBs with subarcsecond localizations. We examine and quantify the spatial distributions and locations of the FRBs with respect to their host galaxy light distributions, finding a median host-normalized offset of 2.09 half-light radii (r e ) and the trend that these FRBs occur in fainter regions of their host galaxies. When combined with the FRB host galaxy sample from Mannings et al., we find that FRBs are statistically distinct from Ca-rich transients in terms of light at the source location and from SGRBs and LGRBs in terms of host-normalized offset. We further find that most FRBs are in regions of elevated local stellar mass surface densities in comparison to the mean global values of their hosts. This, along with the finding that the FRB locations trace the distribution of stellar mass, points toward a possible similarity of the environments of CCSNe and FRBs. We also find that four out of five FRB hosts exhibit distinct spiral arm features, and the bursts originating from such hosts tend to appear on or close to their host’s spiral structure, with a median distance of 0.53 ± 0.27 kpc. With many well-localized FRB detections looming on the horizon, we will be able to better characterize the properties of FRB environments relative to their host galaxies and other transient classes. Such insights may only require us to double the number of FRBs with subarcsecond localizations.

Distance and extinction to the Milky Way spiral arms along the Galactic centre line of sight

Context. The position of the Sun inside the disc of the Milky Way significantly hampers the study of the spiral arm structure given the high amount of dust and gas along the line of sight, and the overall structure of this disc has therefore not yet been fully characterised. Aims. We aim to analyse the spiral arms in the line of sight towards the Galactic centre (GC) in order to determine their distance, extinction, and stellar population. Methods. We use the GALACTICNUCLEUS survey, a JHKs high-angular-resolution photometric catalogue (0.2″) for the innermost regions of the Galaxy. We fitted simple synthetic colour-magnitude models to our data via χ2 minimisation. We computed the distance and extinction to the detected spiral arms. We also analysed the extinction curve and the relative extinction between the detected features. Finally, we studied extinction-corrected Ks luminosity functions (KLFs) to study the stellar populations present in the second and third spiral arm features. Results. We determined the mean distances to the spiral arms: d1 = 1.6 ± 0.2 kpc, d2 = 2.6 ± 0.2 kpc, d3 = 3.9 ± 0.3 kpc, and d4 = 4.5 ± 0.2 kpc, and the mean extinctions: AH1 = 0.35 ± 0.08 mag, AH2 = 0.77 ± 0.08 mag, AH3 = 1.68 ± 0.08 mag, and AH4 = 2.30 ± 0.08 mag. We analysed the extinction curve in the near-infrared for the stars in the spiral arms and find mean values of AJ/AH = 1.89 ± 0.11 and AH/AKs = 1.86 ± 0.11, in agreement with the results obtained for the GC. This implies that the shape of the extinction curve does not depend on distance or absolute extinction. We also built extinction maps for each spiral arm and find them to be homogeneous and that they might correspond to independent extinction layers. Finally, analysing the KLFs from the second and third spiral arms, we find that they have similar stellar populations. We obtain two main episodes of star formation: > 6 Gyr (∼60 − 70% of the stellar mass), and 1.5 − 4 Gyr (∼20 − 30% of the stellar mass), compatible with previous work. We also detect recent star formation at a lower level (∼10%) for the third spiral arm.

Galaxy Zoo: 3D – crowdsourced bar, spiral, and foreground star masks for MaNGA target galaxies

ABSTRACT The challenge of consistent identification of internal structure in galaxies – in particular disc galaxy components like spiral arms, bars, and bulges – has hindered our ability to study the physical impact of such structure across large samples. In this paper we present Galaxy Zoo: 3D (GZ:3D) a crowdsourcing project built on the Zooniverse platform that we used to create spatial pixel (spaxel) maps that identify galaxy centres, foreground stars, galactic bars, and spiral arms for 29 831 galaxies that were potential targets of the MaNGA survey (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory, part of the fourth phase of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys or SDSS-IV), including nearly all of the 10 010 galaxies ultimately observed. Our crowdsourced visual identification of asymmetric internal structures provides valuable insight on the evolutionary role of non-axisymmetric processes that is otherwise lost when MaNGA data cubes are azimuthally averaged. We present the publicly available GZ:3D catalogue alongside validation tests and example use cases. These data may in the future provide a useful training set for automated identification of spiral arm features. As an illustration, we use the spiral masks in a sample of 825 galaxies to measure the enhancement of star formation spatially linked to spiral arms, which we measure to be a factor of three over the background disc, and how this enhancement increases with radius.

A High-resolution View of Fast Radio Burst Host Environments

Abstract We present Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet and infrared observations of eight fast radio burst (FRB) host galaxies with subarcsecond localizations, including the hosts of three known repeating FRBs. We quantify their spatial distributions and locations with respect to their host galaxy light distributions, finding that they occur at moderate host-normalized offsets of 1.4r e ([0.6, 2.1]r e ; 68% interval) and on fainter regions of their hosts in terms of IR light but overall trace the radial distribution of IR light in their galaxies. The FRBs in our tested distribution do not clearly trace the distributions of any other transient population with known progenitors and are statistically distinct from the locations of LGRBs, H-poor SLSNe, SGRBs, and Ca-rich transients. We further find that most FRBs are not in regions of elevated local star formation rates and stellar mass surface densities in comparison to the mean global values of their hosts. We also place upper limits on the IR flux at the FRB positions of m IR ≳ 24.8–27.6 AB mag, constraining both satellite and background galaxies to luminosities well below the host luminosity of FRB 121102. We find that 5/8 FRB hosts exhibit clear spiral arm features in IR light, and that the positions of all well-localized FRBs located in such hosts are consistent with their spiral arms, although not on their brightest regions. Our results do not strongly support the primary progenitor channel of FRBs being connected with either the most massive (stripped-envelope) stars or events that require kicks and long delay times (neutron star mergers).

Birth sites of young stellar associations and recent star formation in a flocculent corrugated disc

ABSTRACT With backwards orbit integration, we estimate birth locations of young stellar associations and moving groups identified in the solar neighbourhood that are younger than 70 Myr. The birth locations of most of these stellar associations are at a smaller galactocentric radius than the Sun, implying that their stars moved radially outwards after birth. Exceptions to this rule are the Argus and Octans associations, which formed outside the Sun’s galactocentric radius. Variations in birth heights of the stellar associations suggest that they were born in a filamentary and corrugated disc of molecular clouds, similar to that inferred from the current filamentary molecular cloud distribution and dust extinction maps. Multiple spiral arm features with different but near corotation pattern speeds and at different heights could account for the stellar association birth sites. We find that the young stellar associations are located in between peaks in the radial/tangential (UV) stellar velocity distribution for stars in the solar neighbourhood. This would be expected if they were born in a spiral arm, which perturbs stellar orbits that cross it. In contrast, stellar associations seem to be located near peaks in the vertical phase-space distribution, suggesting that the gas in which stellar associations are born moves vertically together with the low-velocity dispersion disc stars.

Autonomous Gaussian decomposition of the Galactic Ring Survey

Knowledge about the distribution of CO emission in the Milky Way is essential to understanding the impact of the Galactic environment on the formation and evolution of structures in the interstellar medium. However, our current insight as to the fraction of CO in the spiral arm and interarm regions is still limited by large uncertainties in assumed rotation curve models or distance determination techniques. In this work we use the Bayesian approach from Reid et al. (2016, ApJ, 823, 77; 2019, ApJ, 885, 131), which is based on our most precise knowledge at present about the structure and kinematics of the Milky Way, to obtain the current best assessment of the Galactic distribution of 13CO from the Galactic Ring Survey. We performed two different distance estimates that either included (Run A) or excluded (Run B) a model for Galactic features, such as spiral arms or spurs. We also included a prior for the solution of the kinematic distance ambiguity that was determined from a compilation of literature distances and an assumed size-linewidth relationship. Even though the two distance runs show strong differences due to the prior for Galactic features for Run A and larger uncertainties due to kinematic distances in Run B, the majority of their distance results are consistent with each other within the uncertainties. We find that the fraction of 13CO emission associated with spiral arm features ranges from 76 to 84% between the two distance runs. The vertical distribution of the gas is concentrated around the Galactic midplane, showing full-width at half-maximum values of ~75 pc. We do not find any significant difference between gas emission properties associated with spiral arm and interarm features. In particular, the distribution of velocity dispersion values of gas emission in spurs and spiral arms is very similar. We detect a trend of higher velocity dispersion values with increasing heliocentric distance, which we, however, attribute to beam averaging effects caused by differences in spatial resolution. We argue that the true distribution of the gas emission is likely more similar to a combination of the two distance results discussed, and we highlight the importance of using complementary distance estimations to safeguard against the pitfalls of any single approach. We conclude that the methodology presented in this work is a promising way to determine distances to gas emission features in Galactic plane surveys.

High-resolution ALMA Observations of HD 100546: Asymmetric Circumstellar Ring and Circumplanetary Disk Upper Limits

Abstract We present long-baseline Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations of the 870 μm dust continuum emission and CO (3–2) from the protoplanetary disk around the Herbig Ae/Be star HD 100546, which is one of the few systems claimed to have two young embedded planets. These observations achieve a resolution of 4 au (3.8 mas), an rms noise of 66 μJy beam−1, and reveal an asymmetric ring between ∼20 and 40 au with largely optically thin dust continuum emission. This ring is well fit by two concentric and overlapping Gaussian rings of different widths and a Vortex. In addition, an unresolved component is detected at a position consistent with the central star, which may trace the central inner disk (<2 au in radius). We report a lack of compact continuum emission at the positions of both claimed protoplanets. We use this result to constrain the circumplanetary disk (CPD) mass and size of 1.44 M ⊕ and 0.44 au in the optically thin and thick regimes, respectively, for the case of the previously directly imaged protoplanet candidate at ∼55 au (HD 100546 b). We compare these empirical CPD constraints to previous numerical simulations. This suggests that HD 100546 b is inconsistent with several planet accretion models, while gas-starved models are also still compatible. We estimate the planetary mass as 1.65 M J using the relation between planet, circumstellar, and circumplanetary masses derived from numerical simulations. Finally, the CO-integrated intensity map shows a possible spiral arm feature that could match the spiral features identified in near-infrared scattered light polarized emission, which suggests a real spiral feature in the disk surface that needs to be confirmed with further observations.

The SAMI Galaxy Survey: Spatially resolved metallicity and ionization mapping

We present gas-phase metallicity and ionization parameter maps of 25 star-forming face-on spiral galaxies from the SAMI Galaxy Survey Data Release 1. Self-consistent metallicity and ionization parameter maps are calculated simultaneously through an iterative process to account for the interdependence of the strong emission line diagnostics involving ([OII]+[OIII])/H$\beta$ (R23) and [OIII]/[OII] (O32). The maps are created on a spaxel-by-spaxel basis because HII regions are not resolved at the SAMI spatial resolution. We combine the SAMI data with stellar mass, star formation rate (SFR), effective radius (R$_e$), ellipticity, and position angles (PA) from the GAMA survey to analyze their relation to the metallicity and ionization parameter. We find a weak trend of steepening metallicity gradient with galaxy stellar mass, with values ranging from -0.03 to -0.20 dex/R$_e$. Only two galaxies show radial gradients in ionization parameter. We find that the ionization parameter has no significant correlation with either SFR, sSFR (specific star formation rate), or metallicity. For several individual galaxies we find structure in the ionization parameter maps suggestive of spiral arm features. We find a typical ionization parameter range of $7.0 < \log(q) < 7.8$ for our galaxy sample with no significant overall structure. An ionization parameter range of this magnitude is large enough to caution the use of metallicity diagnostics which have not considered the effects of a varying ionization parameter distribution.

Galaxy Zoo and sparcfire: constraints on spiral arm formation mechanisms from spiral arm number and pitch angles

In this paper we study the morphological properties of spiral galaxies, including measurements of spiral arm number and pitch angle. Using Galaxy Zoo 2, a stellar mass-complete sample of 6,222 SDSS spiral galaxies is selected. We use the machine vision algorithm SpArcFiRe to identify spiral arm features and measure their associated geometries. A support vector machine classifier is employed to identify reliable spiral features, with which we are able to estimate pitch angles for half of our sample. We use these machine measurements to calibrate visual estimates of arm tightness, and hence estimate pitch angles for our entire sample. The properties of spiral arms are compared with respect to various galaxy properties. The star formation properties of galaxies vary significantly with arm number, but not pitch angle. We find that galaxies hosting strong bars have spiral arms substantially ($4-6^\mathrm{o}$) looser than unbarred galaxies. Accounting for this, spiral arms associated with many-arm structures are looser (by 2$^\mathrm{o}$) than those in two-arm galaxies. In contrast to this average trend, galaxies with greater bulge-to-total stellar mass ratios display both fewer and looser spiral arms. This effect is primarily driven by the galaxy disc, such that galaxies with more massive discs contain more spiral arms with tighter pitch angles. This implies that galaxy central mass concentration is not the dominant cause of pitch angle and arm number variations between galaxies, which in turn suggests that not all spiral arms are governed by classical density waves or modal theories.

Odinobservations of ammonia in the Sgr A +50 km s-1cloud and circumnuclear disk

Context. The Odin satellite is now into its sixteenth year of operation, much surpassing its design life of two years. One of the sources which Odin has observed in great detail is the Sgr A Complex in the centre of the Milky Way. Aims. To study the presence of NH3 in the Galactic Centre and spiral arms. Methods. Recently, Odin has made complementary observations of the 572 GHz NH3 line towards the Sgr A +50 km/s Cloud and Circumnuclear Disk (CND). Results. Significant NH3 emission has been observed in both the +50 km/s Cloud and the CND. Clear NH3 absorption has also been detected in many of the spiral arm features along the line of sight from the Sun to the core of our Galaxy. Conclusions. The very large velocity width (80 km/s) of the NH3 emission associated with the shock region in the southwestern part of the CND may suggest a formation/desorption scenario similar to that of gas-phase H2O in shocks/outflows.

EVIDENCE OF ONGOING RADIAL MIGRATION IN NGC 6754: AZIMUTHAL VARIATIONS OF THE GAS PROPERTIES

ABSTRACT Understanding the nature of spiral structure in disk galaxies is one of the main, and still unsolved, questions in galactic astronomy. However, theoretical works are proposing new testable predictions whose detection is becoming feasible with recent development in instrumentation. In particular, streaming motions along spiral arms are expected to induce azimuthal variations in the chemical composition of a galaxy at a given galactic radius. In this Letter, we analyze the gas content in NGC 6754 with VLT/MUSE data to characterize its 2D chemical composition and Hα line of sight velocity distribution. We find that the trailing (leading) edge of the NGC 6754 spiral arms show signatures of tangentially slower, radially outward (tangentially faster, radially inward) streaming motions of metal-rich (poor) gas over a large range of radii. These results show direct evidence of gas radial migration for the first time. We compare our results with the gas behavior in an N-body disk simulation showing spiral morphological features rotating with a similar speed as the gas at every radius, in good agreement with the observed trend. This indicates that the spiral arm features in NGC 6754 may be transient and rotate similarly as the gas does at a large range of radii.

Hydroxyl, water, ammonia, carbon monoxide, and neutral carbon towards the Sagittarius A complex

Aims. The Sagittarius A complex in the Galactic centre comprises an ensemble of molecular clouds of different species with a variety of geometrical and kinematic properties. This work aims to study molecular abundances, morphology, and kinematics by comparing hydroxyl, water, carbon monoxide, ammonia, and atomic carbon and some of their isotopologues, in the +50 km s-1 cloud, the circumnuclear disk (CND), the +20 km s-1 cloud, the expanding molecular ring and the line-of-sight spiral arm features, including the Local/Sgr arm, the −30 km s-1 arm, and the 3-kpc arm. Methods. We observed the +50 km s-1 cloud, the CND and the +20 km s-1 cloud, and other selected positions at the Galactic centre with the VLA, and the Odin satellite. The VLA was used to map the 1665 and 1667 MHz OH lambda doublet main lines of the (2Π3/2) state, and the Odin satellite was used to map the 557 GHz H2O (110 − 101) line as well as to observe the 548 GHz H218O (110-101) line, the 572 GHz NH3 (10 − 00) line, the 576 GHz CO J = 5 − 4 line and the 492 GHz C i (3P1–3P0) line. Furthermore, the SEST was used to map a region of the Sgr A complex in the 220 GHz C18O J = 2−1 line. Results. Strong OH absorption, H2O emission and absorption lines were seen at all observed positions, and the H218O line was detected in absorption towards the +50 km s-1 cloud, the CND, the +20 km s-1cloud, the expanding molecular ring, and the 3-kpc arm. Strong CO J = 5−4, C18O J = 2−1, and neutral carbon C i emissions were seen towards the +50 and +20 km s-1 clouds. NH3 was only detected in weak absorption originating in the line-of-sight spiral arm features. The abundances of OH and H2O in the +50 and +20 km s-1 clouds reflect the different physical environments in the clouds, where shocks and star formation prevail in the +50 km s-1 cloud and giving rise to a higher rate of H2O production there than in the +20 km s-1 cloud. In the CND, cloud collisions and shocks are frequent, and the CND is also subject to intense UV-radiation emanating from the supermassive black hole and the central star cluster. The CND is rich in H2O and OH, and these abundances are considerably higher than in the +50 and +20 km s-1 clouds. We compare our estimated abundances of OH, H2O, and NH3 with similar and differing results for some other sources available in the literature. As compared to the quiescent cloud values of a few × 10-9, or lower, the H2O abundance is markedly enhanced in the front sides of the Sgr A molecular cloud cores, (2−7) × 10-8, as observed in absorption, and highest in the CND. A similar abundance enhancement is seen in OH. The likely explanation is PDR chemistry including grain surface reactions, and perhaps also the influence of shocks. In the redward high-velocity line wings of the +50 and +20 km s-1 clouds and the CND, the H2O abundances are estimated to be (1−6) × 10-6 or higher, i.e., similar to the water abundances in outflows of the Orion KL and DR21 molecular clouds, which are said to be caused by the combined action of shock desorption from icy grain mantles and high-temperature, gas-phase shock chemistry.

The effect of spiral arms on star formation in the Galaxy

We have examined the ratio between the integrated luminosity of massive young stellar objects detected by the Red MSX Source (RMS) survey and the mass of molecular clouds in the Galactic Ring Survey region, as a function of Galactocentric radius. The results indicate that 60--80% of the observed increases in the star-formation rate density associated with spiral-arm features are due to source crowding within the arms. Of the remainder, most of the increase in the inner Sagittarius arm is due to an enhancement in the simple star-formation efficiency, i.e. in the number of RMS sources per unit molecular gas mass. In the inner Perseus arm, the residual increase is due to a higher than average mean source luminosity, which implies a top-heavy IMF, and this is entirely due to the presence, in the GRS region, of the W49 star-forming complex, which appears to be exceptional in its nature. The results also suggest that there is little or no increase in the star-formation efficiency on kiloparsec scales in the Scutum tangent region which includes W43. We discuss the possible role played by the spiral arms in influencing the star-formation efficiency and conclude that the most likely mechanisms are related to orbit crowding within the arms.

The dynamics of stars around spiral arms

Spiral density wave theory attempts to describe the spiral pattern in spiral galaxies in terms of a long-lived wave structure with a constant pattern speed in order to avoid the winding dilemma. The pattern is consequently a rigidly rotating, long-lived feature. We run N-body simulations of a giant disc galaxy consisting of a pure stellar disc and a static dark matter halo, and find that the spiral arms are transient features whose pattern speeds decrease with radius in such a way that the pattern speed is almost equal to the rotation curve of the galaxy. We trace particle motion around the spiral arms. We show that particles from behind and in front of the spiral arm are drawn towards and join the arm. Particles move along the arm in the radial direction and we find a clear trend that they migrate towards the outer (inner) radii on the trailing (leading) side of the arm. Our simulations demonstrate that because the spiral arm feature is corotating, the particles continue to be accelerated (decelerated) by the spiral arm for long periods, which leads to strong and efficient migration, at all radii in the disc.

PROBING SUBSTELLAR COMPANIONS OF ASYMPTOTIC GIANT BRANCH STARS THROUGH SPIRALS AND ARCS

Recent observations of strikingly well-defined spirals in the circumstellar envelopes of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars point to the existence of binary companions in these objects. In the case of planet or brown dwarf mass companions, we investigate the observational properties of the spiral-onion shell wakes due to the gravitational interaction of these companions with the outflowing circumstellar matter. Three dimensional hydrodynamical simulations at high resolution show that the substellar mass objects produce detectable signatures at 100 AU distance, for the wake induced by a Jupiter to brown dwarf mass object orbiting a solar mass AGB star. In particular, the arm pattern propagates with a speed depending on the local wind and sound speeds, implying possible variations in the arm separation in the wind acceleration region and/or in a slow wind with significant temperature variation. The pattern propagation speeds of the inner and outer boundaries differ by twice the sound speed, leading to the overlap of high density boundaries in slow winds and producing a subpattern of the spiral arm feature. Vertically, the wake forms concentric arcs with angular sizes anticorrelated to the wind Mach number. We provide an empirical formula for the peak density enhancement as a function of the mass, orbital distance, and velocity of the object as well as the wind and local sound speeds. In typical condition of AGB envelopes, the arm-interarm density contrast can be greater than 30 % of the background density within a distance of ~10(M_p/M_J) AU for the object mass M_p in units of Jupiter mass M_J. These results suggest that such features may probe unseen substellar mass objects embedded in the winds of AGB stars and may be useful in planning future high sensitivity/resolution observations with ALMA.

A WIDE-FIELD HIGH-RESOLUTION H I MOSAIC OF MESSIER 31. I. OPAQUE ATOMIC GAS AND STAR FORMATION RATE DENSITY

We have undertaken a deep, wide-field H I imaging survey of M31, reaching a maximum resolution of about 50 pc and 2 km s–1 across a 95 × 48 kpc region. The H I mass and brightness sensitivity at 100 pc resolution for a 25 km s–1 wide spectral feature is 1500 M ☉ and 0.28 K. Our study reveals ubiquitous H I self-opacity features, discernible in the first instance as filamentary local minima in images of the peak H I brightness temperature. Local minima are organized into complexes of more than kpc length and are particularly associated with the leading edge of spiral arm features. Just as in the Galaxy, there is only patchy correspondence of self-opaque features with CO(1-0) emission. We have produced images of the best-fit physical parameters: spin temperature, opacity-corrected column density, and nonthermal velocity dispersion, for the brightest spectral feature along each line of sight in the M31 disk. Spectroscopically opaque atomic gas is organized into filamentary complexes and isolated clouds down to 100 pc. Localized opacity corrections to the column density exceed an order of magnitude in many cases and add globally to a 30% increase in the atomic gas mass over that inferred from the integrated brightness under the usual assumption of negligible self-opacity. Opaque atomic gas first increases from 20 to 60 K in spin temperature with radius to 12 kpc but then declines again to 20 K beyond 25 kpc. We have extended the resolved star formation law down to physical scales more than an order of magnitude smaller in area and mass than has been possible previously. The relation between total gas mass and star formation rate density is significantly tighter than that with molecular mass and is fully consistent in both slope and normalization with the power-law index of 1.56 found in the molecule-dominated disk of M51 at 500 pc resolution. Below a gas mass density of about 5 M ☉ pc–2, there is a downturn in star formation rate density which may represent a real local threshold for massive star formation at a cloud mass of about 5 × 104 M ☉.

A deep H$\mathsf{\alpha}$ survey of the Milky Way

The Galactic plane has been observed between l= 330 to l= 336 as part of a velocity resolved H survey of the southern Milky Way using a scaning Fabry-Perot on a 36 cm telescope. The detailed analysis of the resultant H profiles reveals the presence of several layers of ionized gas with different velocities over the surveyed region. We have studied in detail both the 2-D spatial and velocity structure of the HII regions RCW102, RCW104 and RCW106. Combining these H observations with stellar and radio data we provide estimates for the most probable distances of these different layers. The first layer at -5 km is local emission linked to the Sco-Cen association at 170 pc. The next layer, around -24 km , is at 1.9 kpc and traces the near section of the Sagittarius-Carina arm. Well connected to the Sagittarius-Carina arm portions traced in the adjacent regions (l= 328 and l= 338 area), the arm, in this longitude range, clearly shows and confirms the departure from a logarithmic spiral. The Scutum-Crux arm is also traced in this area by faint and diffuse emission at -40 km which can be placed at 3.2 kpc. The layer at -52 km is the major spiral-arm feature of the studied area; its most probable stellar distance is 4.2 kpc. An important emission component is also observed at -65 km in the southern part of the surveyed area. This mainly patchy and filamentary emission we identify as the possible optical counterpart of a supernovae remnant centered at l= 332.0, b=-3.2. Finally, two complexes have been determined around 12.5 kpc which places them in the far section of the Norma arm

FCRAO CO Survey of the Outer Galaxy

FCRAO has initiated an imaging survey of CO J=1–0 emission from the outer Galaxy to better understand the physical properties of the molecular gas component of the interstellar medium and to determine the relationship of this component to spiral arm features. When completed in Spring 1996, the CO Survey will cover 103° &lt; lII &lt; 145°, −3° &lt; bII &lt; 5°, and −150 &lt; VLSR &lt; 50 km s–1 with angular sampling of 50″ and velocity resolution of 0.8 km s–1. During the first year of observations, we have focused upon two fields with longitude ranges of 103° &lt; lII &lt; 112° and 131° &lt; lII &lt; 139°. The first field corresponds to the Cepheus region while the second field contains the W3, W4, and W5 complex of HII regions. To date, 700,000 CO spectra have been collected. In this contribution, we present preliminary results from the first year of observations.

THE GALACTIC PLANE AT 30.9 MHZ

This thesis consists of a survey of the Galactic plane at a frequency of 30.9 MHz and of the interpretation of these data. Several other radio surveys of the Galaxy have been carried out at comparable frequencies in the past but with resolution 3 to 10 times poorer than have been employed in this thesis. The poor resolution of the instruments used have restricted previous studies mainly to the large-scale structure of the Galactic background radiation. The 15-arc-minute resolution of the Clark Lake TPT telescope at 30.9 MHz has allowed us to obtain a unique perspective of the Galaxy at decametric wavelengths. The survey extends from 350° < € < 250° with b < 3°. Final maps of this survey will be presented in the thesis. The interpretation and analysis of them can be summarized as follows. 1. Supernova Remnants (SNRs). Of 47 well-known SNRs included in the area of the survey, 40 have been detected. The nondetections, along with turnovers in the spectra of many of the detected remnants, are used to constrain the properties of the intervening ionized gas which is responsible for absorption. The results are consistent with Ooty 327 MHz recombination line data which suggest absorption due to a hot (T ~ 3000 K-8000 K), patchy (scale size ~ 50-200 pc), low-density (ne ~ 1-10 cm3) component of the ISM. These ionized regions are probably localized envelopes associated with the higher density, traditional Η π regions and they are confined mainly to the inner (1 < 50°) portion of the Galaxy. The Clark Lake results alone allow us to place an upper limit on any distributed large-scale ionized component of the ISM of ne ^ 0.25 cm3. In additionna number of extended, non thermal sources have been cataloged and probably represent previously unidentified SNRs. 2. Absorption by Ionized Gas. Prominent absorption by Η π regions in the inner Galaxy is seen against the diffuse galactic background. In most cases this absorption is associated with thermal emission observed at higher frequencies. The foreground emission has been used to estimate the synchrotron emissivity of the Galaxy. 3. Spiral-Arm Structure. A relatively featureless interarm gap is observed near € = 26°, corresponding to the line of sight between the Saggitarius and the Scutum spiral arms. Thus the Clark Lake maps allow an independent determination of the location of spiral-arm features. 4. Source Spectra. Over 300 small-diameter sources, mostly in the outer regions of the Galaxy, have been observed and their low-frequency spectra have been derived. Most of these sources are presumably extragalactic although some may be distant SNRs or distant highly-dispersed pulsars. Because the outer regions of the Milky Way are optically thin at 30.9 MHz, the statistical characteristics of these sources are derived. A detailed source list will be presented in conjunction with the final maps.

The correlation of spiral arm molecular clouds with cold atomic hydrogen

The relationship between molecular clouds and the cold atomic hydrogen gas seen in self-absorption has been examined in the longitude range 36-40 deg. The results confirm what the authors found previously in another region of the Galaxy. By reanalyzing both sets of data, the authors show that those cold clouds which are detected both in H I self-absorption at 21 cm against a hotter background and in CO emission at 2.6 mm are confined to the Sagittarius spiral arm feature in velocity-longitude space. Outside of this arm feature, clouds which show both H I absorption and CO emission are very rare. 14 references.