Related papers: H_2D^+: a light on baryonic dark matter?
Several observational lines of evidence imply that a fraction of the dark matter in the Galaxy may be comprised of small cold clouds of molecular hydrogen. Such objects are difficult to detect because of their small size and low…
The mass of molecular gas in an interstellar cloud is often measured using line emission from low rotational levels of CO, which are sensitive to the CO mass, and then scaling to the assumed molecular hydrogen H_2 mass. However, a…
There are a number of theoretical and observational hints that large numbers of low-mass galaxies composed entirely of dark matter exist in the field. The theoretical considerations follow from the prediction of cold dark matter theory that…
Observations of density profiles of galaxies and clusters constrain the properties of dark matter. Formation of stable halos by collisional fluids with very low mass particles appears as the most probable interpretation, while halos formed…
We report on the first far-IR detection of H2D+, using the Infrared Space Observatory, in the line of sight toward Sgr B2 in the galactic center. The transition at 126.853 um connecting the ground level of o-H2D+, 1_1,1 with the the 2_1,2…
One of the most important problems in astrophysics concerns the nature of the dark matter in galactic halos, whose presence is implied mainly by the observed flat rotation curves in spiral galaxies. Due to the Pauli exclusion principle it…
The nature of the dark matter in the haloes of galaxies is one of the outstanding questions in astrophysics. All stellar candidates, until recently thought to be likely baryonic contributions to the Halo of our Galaxy, are shown to be ruled…
The 692 GHz para ground-state line of D2H+ has been detected at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory towards the pre-stellar core 16293E. The derived D2H+ abundance is comparable to that of H2D+, as determined by observations of the 372…
In this paper, we re-evaluate the estimates of dust mass in galaxies and demonstrate that current dust models are incomplete and based on a priori assumptions. These models suffer from a circularity problem and account for only a small…
Cold cores in interstellar molecular clouds represent the very first phase in star formation. The physical conditions of these objects are studied in order to understand how molecular clouds evolve and how stellar masses are determined. The…
Galaxies reside in extended dark matter halos, but their baryonic content, especially dust, remains less well understood. We aim to investigate the amount and distribution of dust in galactic halos by measuring shifts in the observed…
The scale radius of dark matter halos is a critical parameter for specifying the density distribution of dark matter, and is therefore a fundamental parameter for modeling galaxies. We develop here a novel, observationally motivated probe…
One of the most important problems in astrophysics concerns the nature of the dark matter in galactic halos, whose presence is implied mainly by the observed flat rotation curves in spiral galaxies. In the framework of a baryonic scenario…
The recent detections of a large population of faint submillimetre sources, an excess halo gamma-ray background, and the extreme scattering events observed for extragalactic radio sources have been explained as being due to baryonic dark…
Microlensing has established itself as a powerful new method for the detection of baryonic dark matter in the Galaxy. The theory of microlensing is sketched and its similarity with the optical effect of twinkling is explained. The bulk of…
Context: In the last years, the H2D+ and D2H+ molecules have gained great attention as probes of cold and depleted dense molecular cloud cores. These ions are at the basis of molecular deuterium fractionation, a common characteristic…
We report the detection of the 1_{10}-1_{11} ground state transition of ortho-H_2D^+ at 372.421 GHz in emission from the young stellar object NGC 1333 IRAS 4A. Detailed excitation models with a power-law temperature and density structure…
The content of interstellar clouds, in particular the inventory of diffuse molecular gas, remains uncertain. We identified a sample of isolated clouds, approximately 100 solar masses in size, and used the dust content to estimate the total…
The bulk of the molecular gas in spiral galaxies is under the form of cold H2, that does not radiate and is only suspected through tracer molecules, such as CO. All tracers are biased, and in particular H2 could be highly underestimated in…
There is good evidence that most of the baryons in the Universe are dark and some evidence that most of the matter in the Universe is nonbaryonic with cold dark matter (cdm) being a promising possibility. We discuss expectations for the…