Mapping local interstellar medium with diffuse interstellar bands

PIECKA, Martin and Ernst PAUNZEN. Mapping local interstellar medium with diffuse interstellar bands. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. MALDEN: WILEY, 2020, vol. 495, No 2, p. 2035-2052. ISSN 0035-8711. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa1112.

Basic information

• Original name: Mapping local interstellar medium with diffuse interstellar bands
• Authors: PIECKA, Martin (703 Slovakia, belonging to the institution) and Ernst PAUNZEN (40 Austria, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, MALDEN, WILEY, 2020, 0035-8711.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Field of Study: 10308 Astronomy
• Country of publisher: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Impact factor: Impact factor: 5.287
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14310/20:00116123
• Organization unit: Faculty of Science
• Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa1112
• UT WoS: 000543015800036
• Keywords in English: dust extinction; ISM: lines and bands; ISM: molecules; ISM: structure
• Tags: rivok
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

With the use of the data from archives, we studied the correlations between the equivalent widths of four diffuse interstellar bands (4430, 5780, 5797, 6284 A) and properties of the target stars (colour excess values, distances, and Galactic coordinates). Many different plots of the diffuse interstellar bands and their maps were produced and further analysed. There appears to be a structure in the plot of equivalent widths of 5780 angstrom DIB (and 6284 angstrom DIB) against the Galactic x-coordinate. The structure is well defined below similar to 150 m angstrom and within vertical bar x vertical bar < 250 pc, peaking around x = 170 pc. We argue that the origin of this structure is not a statistical fluctuation. Splitting the data in the Galactic longitude into several subregions improve or lower the well-known linear relation between the equivalent widths and the colour excess, which was expected. However, some of the lines of sight display drastically different behaviour. The region within 150 degrees < l < 200 degrees shows scatter in the correlation plots with the colour excess for all of the four bands with correlation coefficients R < 0.58. We suspect that the variation of physical conditions in the nearby molecular clouds could be responsible. Finally, the area 250 degrees < l < 300 degrees displays (from the statistical point of view) significantly lower values of equivalent widths than the other regions - this tells us that there is either a significant underabundance of carriers (when compared with the other regions) or that this has to be a result of an observational bias.