| Type |
Conference Paper |
| Names |
Matthew Miller, B. Wakker |
| Proceedings Title |
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society |
| Conference Name |
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #415.08 |
| Volume |
42 |
| Pages |
262 |
| Date |
January 1, 2010 |
| URL |
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AAS...21541508M |
| Library Catalog |
NASA ADS |
| Abstract |
The volume density of the warm ionized medium decreases (approximately)
exponentially with height above the galactic plane. In this study, we
determined the scale height of the warm ionized medium in the Milky Way
by analyzing FeIII absorption lines along different lines of sight to
targets inside the Milky Way as well as extragalactic targets. In order
to determine the column density along a particular line of sight, our
primary technique was to integrate the apparent optical depth of FeIII
absorption lines. Other techniques included a linear conversion from an
FeIII curve of growth and applying FeII curve of growth line widths to
FeIII. We also adopted a patchiness parameter (σp)
first introduced by Savage (1990) as well as a chi-squared minimization
procedure in order to derive the scale height and midplane density of
the WIM. We derived the scale height, midplane density and patchiness
parameter for the WIM to be H = 0.9 (+/- 0.2) (kpc), no =
3.27 x 10-8 (cm-3), and σp =
0.14.
"This work was supported by the National Science Foundation's REU
program and the Department of Defense's ASSURE program through NSF Award
AST-0453442" |