THE BOLOCAM GALACTIC PLANE SURVEY. XII. DISTANCE CATALOG EXPANSION USING KINEMATIC ISOLATION OF DENSE MOLECULAR CLOUD STRUCTURES WITH {sup 13}CO(1-0)

Journal Article · Tue Jan 20 04:00:00 EST 2015 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/799/1/29· OSTI ID:22364546

Ellsworth-Bowers, Timothy P.; Glenn, Jason ^[1]; Rosolowsky, Erik ^[2]; Ginsburg, Adam ^[3]; Evans, II, Neal J. ^[4]; Battersby, Cara ^[5]; Shirley, Yancy L.; Svoboda, Brian ^[6]

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1. CASA, University of Colorado, UCB 389, Boulder, CO 80309 (United States)
2. Department of Physics, 4-183 CCIS, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E1 (Canada)
3. European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Straße 2, D-85748 Garching bei München (Germany)
4. Department of Astronomy, University of Texas, 2515 Speedway, Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712 (United States)
5. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
6. Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States)

We present an expanded distance catalog for 1710 molecular cloud structures identified in the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey (BGPS) version 2, representing a nearly threefold increase over the previous BGPS distance catalog. We additionally present a new method for incorporating extant data sets into our Bayesian distance probability density function (DPDF) methodology. To augment the dense-gas tracers (e.g., HCO{sup +}(3-2), NH{sub 3}(1,1)) used to derive line-of-sight velocities for kinematic distances, we utilize the Galactic Ring Survey (GRS) {sup 13}CO(1-0) data to morphologically extract velocities for BGPS sources. The outline of a BGPS source is used to select a region of the GRS {sup 13}CO data, along with a reference region to subtract enveloping diffuse emission, to produce a line profile of {sup 13}CO matched to the BGPS source. For objects with a HCO{sup +}(3-2) velocity, ≈95% of the new {sup 13}CO(1-0) velocities agree with that of the dense gas. A new prior DPDF for kinematic distance ambiguity (KDA) resolution, based on a validated formalism for associating molecular cloud structures with known objects from the literature, is presented. We demonstrate this prior using catalogs of masers with trigonometric parallaxes and H II regions with robust KDA resolutions. The distance catalog presented here contains well-constrained distance estimates for 20% of BGPS V2 sources, with typical distance uncertainties ≲ 0.5 kpc. Approximately 75% of the well-constrained sources lie within 6 kpc of the Sun, concentrated in the Scutum-Centaurus arm. Galactocentric positions of objects additionally trace out portions of the Sagittarius, Perseus, and Outer arms in the first and second Galactic quadrants, and we also find evidence for significant regions of interarm dense gas.

• OSTI ID: 22364546
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 799; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
AMMONIA
CARBON 13
CARBON MONOXIDE
CATALOGS
CLOUDS
DATA ANALYSIS
DISTANCE
GALAXIES
H2 REGIONS
MASERS
PROBABILITY DENSITY FUNCTIONS
RESOLUTION
SUN
VELOCITY