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Register a new userA Search for Stellar Populations in High Velocity Clouds
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M. H. Siegel
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We report the results of a photometric search for giant stars associated with the cores of four high velocity clouds (HVCs) -- two of which are compact HVCs -- using the Las Campanas Du Pont 2.5 meter and Cerro Tololo Blanco 4 meter telescopes in combination with a system of filters (Washington M, T_2 + DDO51) useful for identifying low surface gravity, evolved stars. Identical observations of nearby control fields provide a measure of the ``giant star background. Our data reach M_0=22 for three of the HVCs and M_0=21.25 for the fourth, depths that allow the detection of any giant stars within 600 kpc. Although we identify a number of faint late-type giant star candidates, we find neither a coherent red giant branch structure nor a clear excess of giant candidate counts in any HVC. This indicates that the giant candidates are probably not related to the HVCs and are more likely to be either random Milky Way giant stars or one of several classes of potential survey contaminants. Echelle spectroscopy of the brightest giant candidates in one HVC and its control field reveal radial velocities representative of the canonical Galactic stellar populations. In addition to these null results, no evidence of any young HVC stellar populations -- represented by blue main sequence stars -- is found, a result consistent with previous searches. Our methodology, specifically designed to find faint diffuse stellar populations, places the tightest upper limit yet on the total stellar mass of HVCs of a few 10^5 M_{sun}.
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We describe an automated search through the Leiden/Dwingeloo HI Survey (LDS) for high-velocity clouds north of Dec=-28 deg. From the general catalog we extract a sample of isolated high-velocity clouds, CHVCs: anomalous-velocity HI clouds which are sharply bounded in angular extent with no kinematic or spatial connection to other HI features down to a limiting column density of 1.5*10^18cm^-2. This column density is an order of magnitude lower than the critical HI column density, about 2*10^19cm^-2, where the ionized fraction is thought to increase dramatically due to the extragalactic radiation field. As such, these objects are likely to provide their own shielding to ionizing radiation. Their small median angular size, of about 1 deg. FWHM, might then imply substantial distances, since the partially ionized HI skin in a power-law ionizing photon field has a typical exponential scale-length of 1 kpc. The automated search algorithm has been applied to the HIPASS and to the Leiden/Dwingeloo data sets. The results from the LDS are described here; Putman et al. (2002) describe application of this algorithm to the HIPASS material. We identify 67 CHVCs in the LDS which satisfy stringent requirements on isolation, and an additional 49 objects which satisfy somewhat less stringent requirements. Independent confirmation is available for all of these objects, either from earlier data in the literature or from new observations made with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope and reported here. The catalog includes 54 of the 65 CHVCs listed by Braun and Burton (1999) on the basis of a visual search of the LDS data.
In order to determine if the material ablated from high-velocity clouds (HVCs) is a significant source of low-velocity high ions (C IV, N V, and O VI) such as those found in the Galactic halo, we simulate the hydrodynamics of the gas and the time-dependent ionization evolution of its carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen ions. Our suite of simulations examines the ablation of warm material from clouds of various sizes, densities, and velocities as they pass through the hot Galactic halo. The ablated material mixes with the environmental gas, producing an intermediate-temperature mixture that is rich in high ions and that slows to the speed of the surrounding gas. We find that the slow mixed material is a significant source of the low-velocity O VI that is observed in the halo, as it can account for at least ~1/3 of the observed O VI column density. Hence, any complete model of the high ions in the halo should include the contribution to the O VI from ablated HVC material. However, such material is unlikely to be a major source of the observed C IV, presumably because the observed C IV is affected by photoionization, which our models do not include. We discuss a composite model that includes contributions from HVCs, supernova remnants, a cooling Galactic fountain, and photoionization by an external radiation field. By design, this model matches the observed O VI column density. This model can also account for most or all of the observed C IV, but only half of the observed N V.
We consider here the class of compact, isolated, high-velocity HI clouds, CHVCs, which are sharply bounded in angular extent down to a limiting column density of 1.5x10^18 cm^-2. We describe our automated search algorithm and its application to the LDS north of dec= -28 deg. and the HIPASS data south of dec=0, resulting in an all--sky catalog numbering 246 CHVCs. We argue that these objects are more likely to represent a single phenomenon in a similar evolutionary state than would a sample which included any of the major HVC complexes. Five principal observables are defined for the CHVC population: (1) the spatial deployment of the objects on the sky, (2) the kinematic distribution, (3) the number distribution of observed HI column densities, (4) the number distribution of angular sizes, and (5) the number distribution of line widths. We show that the spatial and kinematic deployments of the ensemble of CHVCs contain various clues regarding their characteristic distance. These clues are not compatible with a location of the ensemble within the Galaxy proper. The deployments resemble in several regards those of the Local Group galaxies. We describe a model testing the hypothesis that the CHVCs are a Local Group population. The agreement of the model with the data is judged by extracting the observables from simulations, in a manner consistent with the sensitivities of the observations and explicitly taking account of Galactic obscuration. We show that models in which the CHVCs are the HI counterparts of dark-matter halos evolving in the Local Group potential provide a good match to the observables, if account is taken of tidal and ram--pressure disruption, the consequences of obscuration due to Galactic HI and of differing sensitivities and selection effects pertaining to the surveys.
We report five Local Volume dwarf galaxies (two of which are presented here for the first time) uncovered during a comprehensive archival search for optical counterparts to ultra-compact high velocity clouds (UCHVCs). The UCHVC population of HI clouds are thought to be candidate gas-rich, low mass halos at the edge of the Local Group and beyond, but no comprehensive search for stellar counterparts to these systems has been presented. Careful visual inspection of all publicly available optical and ultraviolet imaging at the position of the UCHVCs revealed six blue, diffuse counterparts with a morphology consistent with a faint dwarf galaxy beyond the Local Group. Optical spectroscopy of all six candidate dwarf counterparts show that five have an H$alpha$-derived velocity consistent with the coincident HI cloud, confirming their association, the sixth diffuse counterpart is likely a background object. The size and luminosity of the UCHVC dwarfs is consistent with other known Local Volume dwarf irregular galaxies. The gas fraction ($M_{HI}/M_{star}$) of the five dwarfs are generally consistent with that of dwarf irregular galaxies in the Local Volume, although ALFALFA-Dw1 (associated with ALFALFA UCHVC HVC274.68+74.70$-$123) has a very high $M_{HI}/M_{star}$$sim$40. Despite the heterogenous nature of our search, we demonstrate that the current dwarf companions to UCHVCs are at the edge of detectability due to their low surface brightness, and that deeper searches are likely to find more stellar systems. If more sensitive searches do not reveal further stellar counterparts to UCHVCs, then the dearth of such systems around the Local Group may be in conflict with $Lambda$CDM simulations.
We present hydrodynamic simulations of high-velocity clouds (HVCs) traveling through the hot, tenuous medium in the Galactic halo. A suite of models was created using the FLASH hydrodynamics code, sampling various cloud sizes, densities, and velocities. In all cases, the cloud-halo interaction ablates material from the clouds. The ablated material falls behind the clouds, where it mixes with the ambient medium to produce intermediate-temperature gas, some of which radiatively cools to less than 10,000 K. Using a non-equilibrium ionization (NEI) algorithm, we track the ionization levels of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen in the gas throughout the simulation period. We present observation-related predictions, including the expected H I and high ion (C IV, N V, and O VI) column densities on sight lines through the clouds as functions of evolutionary time and off-center distance. The predicted column densities overlap those observed for Complex C. The observations are best matched by clouds that have interacted with the Galactic environment for tens to hundreds of megayears. Given the large distances across which the clouds would travel during such time, our results are consistent with Complex C having an extragalactic origin. The destruction of HVCs is also of interest; the smallest cloud (initial mass approx 120 Msun) lost most of its mass during the simulation period (60 Myr), while the largest cloud (initial mass approx 4e5 Msun) remained largely intact, although deformed, during its simulation period (240 Myr).
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