English

How was the mushroom-shaped GW 123.4--1.5 formed in the Galactic disk?

Astrophysics 2008-07-21 v2

Abstract

The unusual mushroom-shaped HI cloud, GW 123.4--1.5, is hundreds of parsecs in size but does not show any correlations to HI shells or chimney structures. To investigate the origin and velocity structure of GW 123.4--1.5, we perform three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of the collision of a high-velocity cloud with the Galactic disk. We also perform a parameter study of the density, radius, and incident angle of the impact cloud. The numerical experiments indicate that we reproduce the mushroom-shaped structure which resembles GW 123.4--1.5 in shape, size, position-velocity across the cap of the mushroom, and the density ratio between the mushroom and surrounding gas. GW 123.4--1.5 is expected to be formed by the almost head-on collision of a HVC with velocity 100\kms\sim 100 \kms and mass 105\Msun\sim 10^5 \Msun about 5×107\yr5 \times 10^7 \yr ago. A mushroom-shaped structure like GW 123.4--1.5 must be infrequent on the Galactic plane, because the head-on collision which explains the mushroom structure seems rare for observed HVCs. HVC-disk collision explains not only the origin of the mushroom-shaped structure but also the formation of a variety of structures like shells, loops, and vertical structures in our Galaxy.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0801.3186,
  title  = {How was the mushroom-shaped GW 123.4--1.5 formed in the Galactic disk?},
  author = {Chang Hyun Baek and Takahiro Kudoh and Kohji Tomisaka},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0801.3186},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

Revised the manuscript and added references, 23 pages with 9 figures