DUST AND GAS IN THE MAGELLANIC CLOUDS FROM THE HERITAGE HERSCHEL KEY PROJECT. II. GAS-TO-DUST RATIO VARIATIONS ACROSS INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM PHASES
- Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
- Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, UMR 7550, 11 rue de l'université, F-67000 Strasbourg (France)
- Department of Astronomy, Lab for Millimeter-wave Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-2421 (United States)
- Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg (Germany)
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1002 W. Green St., Urbana, IL 61801 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin, 475 North Charter St., Madison, WI 53706 (United States)
- CNRS, IRAP, 9 Av. colonel Roche, BP 44346, F-31028 Toulouse Cedex 4 (France)
- Louisiana State University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, 233-A Nicholson Hall, Tower Dr., Baton Rouge, LA 70803-4001 (United States)
- Department of Physics, Nagoya University, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8602 (Japan)
- European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str 2, D-85748 Garching (Germany)
- CEA, Laboratoire AIM, Irfu/SAp, Orme des Merisiers, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
- Zentrum für Astronomie, Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Universität Heidelberg, Albert-Ueberle Strasse 2, D-69120 Heidelberg (Germany)
- Sterrewacht Leiden, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9513, NL-2300 RA Leiden (Netherlands)
- 314 Physics Building, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211 (United States)
The spatial variations of the gas-to-dust ratio (GDR) provide constraints on the chemical evolution and lifecycle of dust in galaxies. We examine the relation between dust and gas at 10-50 pc resolution in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC) based on Herschel far-infrared (FIR), H I 21 cm, CO, and Hα observations. In the diffuse atomic interstellar medium (ISM), we derive the GDR as the slope of the dust-gas relation and find GDRs of 380{sub −130}{sup +250} ± 3 in the LMC, and 1200{sub −420}{sup +1600} ± 120 in the SMC, not including helium. The atomic-to-molecular transition is located at dust surface densities of 0.05 M {sub ☉} pc{sup –2} in the LMC and 0.03 M {sub ☉} pc{sup –2} in the SMC, corresponding to A {sub V} ∼ 0.4 and 0.2, respectively. We investigate the range of CO-to-H{sub 2} conversion factor to best account for all the molecular gas in the beam of the observations, and find upper limits on X {sub CO} to be 6 × 10{sup 20} cm{sup –2} K{sup –1} km{sup –1} s in the LMC (Z = 0.5 Z {sub ☉}) at 15 pc resolution, and 4 × 10{sup 21} cm{sup –2} K{sup –1} km{sup –1} s in the SMC (Z = 0.2 Z {sub ☉}) at 45 pc resolution. In the LMC, the slope of the dust-gas relation in the dense ISM is lower than in the diffuse ISM by a factor ∼2, even after accounting for the effects of CO-dark H{sub 2} in the translucent envelopes of molecular clouds. Coagulation of dust grains and the subsequent dust emissivity increase in molecular clouds, and/or accretion of gas-phase metals onto dust grains, and the subsequent dust abundance (dust-to-gas ratio) increase in molecular clouds could explain the observations. In the SMC, variations in the dust-gas slope caused by coagulation or accretion are degenerate with the effects of CO-dark H{sub 2}. Within the expected 5-20 times Galactic X {sub CO} range, the dust-gas slope can be either constant or decrease by a factor of several across ISM phases. Further modeling and observations are required to break the degeneracy between dust grain coagulation, accretion, and CO-dark H{sub 2}. Our analysis demonstrates that obtaining robust ISM masses remains a non-trivial endeavor even in the local Universe using state-of-the-art maps of thermal dust emission.
- OSTI ID:
- 22364847
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 797, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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