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On The Origin Of HI In Galaxies: The Sizes and Masses of HI Photodissociation Regions

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 نشر من قبل Ronald J. Allen
 تاريخ النشر 2002
  مجال البحث فيزياء
والبحث باللغة English
 تأليف Ronald J. Allen




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Young stars in the disks of galaxies produce HI from their parent H2 clouds by photodissociation. This paper describes the observational evidence for and the morphology of such HI. Simple estimates of the amount of dissociated gas lead to the startling conclusion that much, and perhaps even all, of the HI in galaxy disks can be produced in this way.

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77 - Ronald J. Allen 2002
Young stars in the disks of galaxies produce HI from their parent H2 clouds by photodissociation. This process is widespread in late-type galaxies, and follows the distribution of Far-UV photons produced primarily by B-type stars. An estimate of the amount of dissociated gas can be made using observed Far-UV fluxes and simple approximations for the physics of photodissociation. This leads to the startling conclusion that much, and perhaps even all, of the HI in galaxy disks can be produced in this way. This result offers a simple, but inverse, cause-effect explanation for the ``Schmidt Law of Global Star Formation in galaxies.
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