I review the five years of progress by FUSE on current topics in the interstellar medium. FUSE's sensitivity and unique access to the far ultraviolet allow investigators to solve problems in all phases of the interstellar medium. I describe FUSE's contributions in four major areas: 1) the Local Interstellar Medium (LISM), 2) the hot phase (O VI), 3) the cold phase (H_2), and 4) interstellar gas abundances. I devote particular attention to the common themes of ISM phase interactions and changes with metallicity. As a whole, these results show that FUSE is the most powerful machine ever to address problems of the ISM, and that FUSE points vividly to the future of ISM studies in the Galaxy, Local Group, and beyond.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0411249,
title = {FUSE's Five Years of Progress on the Interstellar Medium},
author = {Jason Tumlinson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0411249},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
Invited review to appear in "Astrophysics in the Far Ultraviolet", proceedings of the meeting "Five Years of FUSE", Victoria, BC, August 2004, ed. G. Sonneborn, W. Moos, and B-G Andersson