Related papers: Temperature fluctuations in HII regions: ionizatio…
Aims. The main objective of this article is to provide a simple physical framework with permits a quantitative comparison of measurements of the temperature fluctuations in the ionized interstellar medium with possible mechanisms which can…
There is evidence for temperature fluctuations in Planetary Nebulae and in Galactic HII regions. If such fluctuations occur in the low-metallicity, extragalactic HII regions used to probe the primordial helium abundance, the derived 4He…
While collisionally excited lines in HII regions allow one to easily probe the chemical composition of the interstellar medium in galaxies, the possible presence of important temperature fluctuations casts some doubt on the derived…
Aims: We investigate temperature fluctuations in H II regions in terms of a two-phase model, which assumes that the nebular gas consists of a hot and a cold phase. Methods: We derive general formulae for T([O III), the [O III] forbidden…
Spatially resolved studies of star forming regions show that the assumption of spherical geometry is not realistic in most cases, with a major complication posed by the gas being ionised by multiple non-centrally located stars or star…
Cosmic rays are an important source of heating in the interstellar medium, in particular in dense molecular cloud cores shielded from the external ultraviolet radiation field. The limits placed on the cosmic-ray ionization rate from…
HII region electron temperatures are a critical ingredient in metallicity determinations and recent observations reveal systematic variations in the temperatures measured using different ions. We present electron temperatures ($T_e$)…
The existence and origin of large spatial temperature fluctuations in HII regions and planetary nebulae are assumed to explain the differences between the heavy element abundances inferred from collisionally excited and recombination lines,…
HII regions, ionized nebulae where massive star formation has taken place, exhibit a wealth of emission lines that are the fundamental basis for estimating the chemical composition of the Universe. For more than 80 years, a discrepancy of…
The accepted explanation of the observed dichotomy of two orders of magnitude between in situ measurements of electron density in HII regions, derived from emission line ratios, and average measurements based on integrated emission measure,…
Low energy cosmic-rays (CRs) are responsible for gas heating and ionization of interstellar clouds, which in turn introduces coupling to Galactic magnetic fields. So far the CR ionization rate (CRIR) has been estimated using indirect…
Low-energy cosmic rays are a fundamental source of ionization for molecular clouds, influencing their chemical, thermal and dynamical evolution. The purpose of this work is to explore the possibility that a low-energy component of…
Cosmic-ray and X-ray heating are derived from the electron energy loss calculations of Dalgarno, Yan and Liu for hydrogen-helium gas mixtures. These authors treated the heating from elastic scattering and collisional de-excitation of…
We investigate ionization and heating of gas in the dense, shielded clumps/cores of molecular clouds bathed by an influx of energetic, charged cosmic rays (CRs). These molecular clouds have complex structures, with substantial variation in…
Photoionization models frequently assume constant temperature or density within HII regions. We investigate this assumption by measuring the detailed temperature and density structures of four HII regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud and…
A field with particularly exciting results over the past few years is the study of the interaction of cosmic rays with interstellar matter. For star formation to take place, gas and dust need to be sufficiently cold for gravity to overcome…
Molecular clouds are complex magnetized structures, with variations over a broad range of length scales. Ionization in dense, shielded clumps and cores of molecular clouds is thought to be caused by charged cosmic rays (CRs). These CRs can…
Using Green Bank Telescope radio recombination line (RRL) data, we analyze the role of leaking radiation from HII regions in maintaining the ionization of the interstellar medium. We observed a sample of eight Galactic HII regions of…
Observations of line ratios in the Milky Way's warm ionized medium (WIM) suggest that photoionization is not the only heating mechanism present. For the additional heating to explain the discrepancy it would have to have a weaker dependence…
[Abridged] Photoionization, whether by starlight or other sources, has difficulty in accounting for the observed spectra of the optical filaments that often surround central galaxies in large clusters. Our first paper examined whether…