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Warm molecular gas, dust and ionized gas in the 500 central pc of the Galaxy
Author(s) -
RodríguezFernández N. J.,
MartínPintado J.,
Fuente A.,
Wilson T. L.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
astronomische nachrichten
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.394
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1521-3994
pISSN - 0004-6337
DOI - 10.1002/asna.200385026
Subject(s) - physics , galaxy , astrophysics , millimeter , molecular cloud , infrared , ionization , dissociation (chemistry) , galactic center , ionizing radiation , radiation , astronomy , irradiation , stars , chemistry , ion , optics , quantum mechanics , nuclear physics
We present infrared and millimeter observations of molecular gas, dust and ionized gas towards a sample of clouds distributed along the 500 central pc of the Galaxy. The clouds were selected to investigate the physical state, in particular the high gas temperatures, of the Galactic center region clouds located far from far‐infrared of thermal radio continuum sources. We have found that there is ionized gas associated with the molecular gas. The ionizing radiation is hard (∼35,000 K) but diluted due to the inhomogeneity of the medium. We estimate that ∼30% of the warm molecular gas observed in the Galactic center region clouds is heated by ultra‐violet radiation in photo‐dissociation regions.