Related papers: H_2D^+: a light on baryonic dark matter?
Context: The baryonic dark matter dominating the structures of galaxies is widely considered as mysterious, but hints for it have been in fact detected in several astronomical observations at optical, infrared, and radio wavelengths. We…
In order to understand how molecular clouds form in the Galactic interstellar medium, we would like to be able to map the structure and kinematics of the gas flows responsible for forming them. However, doing so is observationally…
Ultra-luminous infrared galaxies are among the most luminous objects in the local universe and are thought to be powered by intense star formation. It has been shown that in these objects the rotational spectral lines of molecular hydrogen…
If compact baryonic objects contribute significantly to the dark matter in our Galaxy, their mass function will present vital clues for galaxy formation theories and star formation processes in the early Universe. Here we discuss what one…
HD molecule is one the most abundant molecule in the Universe and due to its sensibility to the conditions in the medium, it can be used to constrain physical parameters in the medium where HD resides. Lately we have shown that HD abundance…
We present Green Bank Telescope (GBT) observations of the 3(12)-3(13) (29 GHz) and 4(13)-4(14) (48 GHz) transitions of the H2CO molecule toward a sample of 23 well-studied star-forming regions. Analysis of the relative intensities of these…
Cosmological simulations of galaxy formation predict a universal form for the mass profile of dark matter (DM) halos from cluster to galaxy scales. Remarkably few interesting constraints exist, however, on DM halos in early-type galaxies.…
Stars form within molecular clouds, so characterizing the physical states of molecular clouds is key in understanding the process of star formation. Cloud structure and stability is frequently assessed using metrics including the virial…
Dark matter is an important ingredient of galaxies, as was recognised early on by Ken Freeman himself! Evidence for dark matter halos is still indirect, based on analysing motions of tracers such as gas and stars. In a sense the visible…
We use a suite of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations to quantify the accretion rates of baryons into dark matter halos and the resulting baryon mass fractions, as a function of halo mass, redshift, and baryon type (including cold and hot…
Molecular hydrogen clouds can contribute substantially to the galactic halo< dark matter and may lead to the birth of massive halo objects (MHOs) observed indirectly by microlensing. We present a method to detect these molecular clouds in…
Potential condensed clouds of gas in the Galactic halo are examined in the context of the recent models of cooling, fragmenting clouds building up the baryonic mass of the Galaxy. 582 high-velocity clouds (HVCs) are defined as the potential…
Much evidence suggests that we live in a flat Cold Dark Matter universe with a cosmological constant. Accurate analytic formulae are now available for many properties of the dark halo population in such a Universe. Assuming current…
The halo of our Galaxy is populated with a significant number of high-velocity clouds (HVCs) moving with a speed up to $500$ km/s. It is suggested that these HVCs might contain a non-negligible fraction of the missing baryons. The main aim…
Observations in the optical, in X-rays, and gravitational lensing of galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and large-scale structure are beginning to provide clues to the dark matter problem. I review the impact of these observations on some of…
Galaxies and groups of galaxies exist in dark-matter halos filled with diffuse gas. The diffuse gas represents up to 80\% of the mass in baryonic matter within the halos(1,2), but is difficult to detect because of its low density (particle…
High resolution cosmological N-body simulations of four galaxy-scale dark matter halos are compared to corresponding N-body/hydrodynamical simulations containing dark matter, stars and gas. The simulations without baryons share features…
We introduce a new technique that adopts the halo occupation framework for understanding the origin of QSO absorption-line systems. Our initial study focuses specifically on MgII absorbers. We construct a model of the gaseous content in…
The H3+ ion plays a key role in the chemistry of dense interstellar gas clouds where stars and planets are forming. The low temperatures and high extinctions of such clouds make direct observations of H3+ impossible, but lead to large…
To investigate how the abundance of N2H+ varies as massive clumps evolve, here we present a multi-wavelength study toward six molecular clouds. All of these clouds contain several massive clumps in different evolutionary stages of star…