HD Molecular Lines in an Absorption System at Redshift z = 2.3377
Astrophysics
2009-11-06 v1
Abstract
We have analyzed the spectrum of the quasar PKS 1232+082 obtained by Petitjean et al. (2000). HD molecular lines are identified in an absorption system at the redshift z=2.3377. The column density of HD molecules in the system is estimated, N(HD)=(1-4)x10^{14} cm^{-2}. The temperature of excitation of the first rotational level J=1 relative to the ground state J=0 is T_ex=70+-7 K. This is, to our knowledge, the first detection of HD molecules at high redshift.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0107310,
title = {HD Molecular Lines in an Absorption System at Redshift z = 2.3377},
author = {D. Varshalovich and A. Ivanchik and P. Petitjean and R. Srianand and C. Ledoux},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0107310},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
7 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in "Astronomy Letters"