Related papers: Luminosity indicators in dusty photoionized enviro…
With the high-resolution spectroscopy now available in the optical and satellite UV, it is possible to determine the neutral/ionized column density ratios for several different elements in a single cloud. Assuming ionization equilibrium for…
Ever since the pioneering study of Spitzer, it has been widely recognized that grains play an important role in the heating and cooling of photo-ionized environments. This includes the diffuse ISM, as well as H II regions, planetary…
Ever since the pioneering study of Spitzer, it has been widely recognized that grains play an important role in the heating and cooling of photo-ionized environments. A detailed code is necessary to model grains in a photo-ionized medium.…
A broad array of interstellar absorption features that appear in the ultraviolet spectra of bright sources allows us to measure the abundances and ionization states of many important heavy elements that exist as free atoms in the…
The hardness of the ionizing continuum from the first sources of UV radiation plays a crucial role in the reionization of the intergalactic medium (IGM). While usual stellar populations have soft spectra, mini-quasars or metal-free stars…
Dust and associated depletion of heavy elements from the gas phase can modify the thermal properties of HII regions from the dust-free case, with significant consequences for the emergent optical spectrum. We present the results of…
We present a method for calculating the infrared emission from a population of dust grains heated by starlight, including very small grains for which stochastic heating by starlight photons results in high temperature transients. Because…
Nanometer- and micrometer-sized solid particles play an important role in the evolutionary cycle of stars and interstellar matter. The optical properties of cosmic grains determine the interaction of the radiation field with the solids,…
Dust grains play a major role in many astrophysical contexts. They affect the chemical, magnetic, dynamical, and optical properties of their environment, from galaxies down to the interstellar medium, star-forming regions, and…
We model the photoelectric emission from and charging of interstellar dust and obtain photoelectric gas heating efficiencies as a function of grain size and the relevant ambient conditions. Using realistic grain size distributions, we…
We use the recent detection of He II absorption at $z=2.2-2.6$ in the line of sight of the quasar HS1700+64 to put bounds on the sources of ionization. We find that given the uncertainty in $\tauhgp$ and the model of absorption in the…
We have analyzed the effects of photoelectric heating by dust grains in photoionization models of planetary nebulae. We have shown that this process is particularly important if planetary nebulae contain a population of small grains. The…
Planetary nebulae (and in general any photoionized region) can be classified as ionization-bounded or density-bounded. It is important to determine in which case is the planetary nebula studied to be able to estimate from nebular…
Dust grains in the interstellar medium interact with photons across the electromagnetic spectrum. They are generally photon energy converters, absorbing short wavelength radiation and emitting long wavelength radiation. Sixty years ago in…
In most direct estimates of the mass density (visible or dark) of the Universe, a central input parameter is the luminosity density of the Universe. Here we consider the measurement of this luminosity density from red-shift surveys, as a…
The interpretation of observations over different wavelength domains, which now exist over a large fraction of the sky, will be used to determine relationships between a nebula and its' illuminating source. The illuminating source of a high…
We study the effects of using the optical properties of irregular hexahedral grains in photoionization models of circumstellar nebulae around evolved stars. Dust opacities for the irregular grains were obtained from the scattering…
The observed faintness of infrared fine-structure line emission along with the warm far-infrared (FIR) colors of ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) is a long-standing problem. In this work, we calculate the line and continuum…
We present a new model for computing consistently the line and continuum emission from galaxies, based on a combination of recent population synthesis and photoionization codes. We use effective parameters to describe the HII regions and…
Our current understanding of interstellar dust is summarized at an introductory level. Submicron-sized interstellar dust grains absorb and scatter light, and reradiate the absorbed energy in the infrared. The grain population spans a range…