Physics 320: Interstellar

Medium (Lecture 8)

Dale Gary
NJIT Physics Department
 Birth of the Solar System
 We are going to spend a couple of weeks looking into how the solar system
(and other planetary systems we have discovered) came to be. That starts
with the raw materials that the solar system is made of.
 That material is gas and dust that permeates all of space, but of course is
denser in some places than others. This forms the gas and dust clouds
called nebulae, which are fun to look at in small telescopes, and make such
beautiful and colorful images when photographed with “deep” exposures.
 In the early universe, there was no dust, only gas in the form of mostly
hydrogen, with about 25% helium (by mass), and traces of lithium. This
gas eventually became dense and cold enough to collapse under its own
gravity and form very large stars, which, because they were so large, lived
their lives very quickly (perhaps 100 million years or less). The stars shine
by fusing their hydrogen into heavier and heavier elements, until iron
(element 26) is reached. They then undergo supernova explosions, creating
even heavier elements and spewing them into space.
 Many such generations of stars have lived and died, creating the gas and
dust that we now see as the interstellar medium.
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Gas and Dust in the Milky Way

Photo by Steve Mazlin and Jim Misti

September 27, 2018
 Interstellar Medium
 You can see from the previous image that the interstellar medium, or ISM,
has a lot of structure, and appears in different forms that can have
distinctive colors. In this lecture, we will investigate what phenomena are
causing these differences.
 Note that the term ISM also includes the magnetic fields that may be
present, in addition to the particles of gas and dust.
 Aside from those regions that seem to glow in red and blue colors, most of
the ISM is dark and hard to detect. The dark clouds of the Milky Way are
only visible due to their absorption of light from the background stars of the
Milky Way, but such dust is in every direction we look, even if it cannot be
directly seen.
 We already mentioned last week that one effect of the dust was to absorb
some starlight, so that we have to modify the distance modulus equation to
account for it: 𝑚 𝜆 − 𝑀 𝜆 =5 log 𝑑 −5+ 𝐴 𝜆
 We use the subscript l just to emphasize that the absorption is wavelength
(or color) dependent. As we said last week, this absorption reddens
starlight, and affects the “color excess” CE = CIobserved – CIintrinsic.
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 Black and Blue Dust
 There is an aspect of the effect of dust that often gives students difficulty, so
let’s discuss it in some detail.
 First, there are a couple of direct experiences you yourself have had. One is
the blue appearance of thin smoke seen by reflected light.

© Mitch Martinez
Sun
through
smoke

 Sufficiently tiny dust particles tend to reflect blue light, because blue light has
a shorter wavelength that red light, and so it scatters more easily on particles
of similar size. This is Mie scattering, so is somewhat different than the
Rayleigh scattering that explains why the sky is blue.
 However, when you look at an object
through such smoke, the object is
reddened? Why? Because the blue light
is scattered and not transmitted.
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 Black and Blue Dust, continued
 The amount of scattering depends on how far the light travels through the
dust, with some fraction of the remaining light being scattered, so one can
write down a simple differential equation: , where is a constant absorption
per unit length. This has the solution 𝐼𝜆 − ∫ 𝜅 𝑑𝑙 −𝜏
=𝑒 𝜆
=𝑒 𝜆

𝐼 𝜆 ,0
 Here is a dimensionless number called the optical depth, and represents the
fraction of incident intensity that escapes from the cloud. If the cloud is so
thin as to be ignorable, then and we say the cloud is optically thin. As , the
emergent intensity goes to zero, and we say the cloud is optically thick. In
the case of starlight, this is called extinction.
 We can relate the magnitude in the equation
𝑚 𝜆 − 𝑀 𝜆 =5 log 𝑑 −5+ 𝐴, 𝜆by
noting that the flux ratio and intensity ratio will be the same (, so we can
form a magnitude difference:

𝐼𝜆
𝑚 𝜆,0 −𝑚 𝜆 =2.5 log =−2.5 𝜏 𝜆 log 𝑒=−1.086 𝜏 𝜆
𝐼
 This says that the observed magnitude is larger (the star is fainter) than the
𝜆 , 0

original magnitude by the amount . So .

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 Mie Scattering
 Let’s assume for simplicity that a dust grain is spherical, with an area (called a
cross-section) , where a is the grain radius. This area will interact with light
differently depending on the wavelength of the light.
 A long wavelength (compared to the grain size) will hardly be affected, while
a sufficiently short wavelength will be blocked, or scattered off the spherical
surface, just as we experience in everyday life. In other words, the cross-
section will be wavelength-dependent, approaching as the wavelength .
 Gustav Mie was able to show that the dimensionless extinction coefficient
for , which goes to zero at long wavelengths, and is around unity when .
Note in that case.
 This is a very important property for astronomy! It says that we can reduce
the extinction due to dust by going to longer wavelengths, so we will find that
astronomers can peer into dust clouds by using long infrared (IR)
wavelengths. Such long wavelengths are blocked by the atmosphere, though,
so such telescopes have to be launched into space. The upcoming James
Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will work almost entirely in the IR.

September 27, 2018

Reddening and Extinction—Cen A

September 27, 2018

Gas and Dust in the Milky Way
Dust (reflection nebula)

Dust (absorption nebula)

?
Gas (emission nebula)

Photo by Steve Mazlin and Jim Misti

September 27, 2018
 Gas vs. Dust
 Gas (atomic nuclei, neutral atoms, molecules)
 obeys gas dynamics (e.g. ideal gas law), emission processes.
 Factor of 1012 larger number of gas particles than dust particles.
 Seen by emission or absorption (mostly of spectral lines), so mainly RED
due to the strongest optical line of hydrogen (Ha).
 Dust (grains, aggregates of molecules)
 only small in number (avg. 1 particle in 106 m3),
 but BIG -- of order 1 micron in size.
 Make up about 1% of ISM by mass.
 Dominates opacity (interstellar absorption and other effects).
 Seen by reflection or absorption (continuum), so BLUE (if thin) or BLACK
(if thick)

September 27, 2018

 Interaction of Light with Gas
 In the ISM, gas comes in many forms, depending
on temperature and density. These are, in order
of increasing energy:
 Molecular gas, e.g H2, but others like CO, OH, CH4
 Neutral atomic gas, e.g. H or H I, but also He Absorbs photon
 Ionized gas (called a plasma), e.g. H II, but others
like C IV, Si IV, even up to Fe XXIV
 Elementary particles (when the energies are so
high that electrons are all stripped from the atoms). Emits photon
 These different forms react with light (both for
absorption, and its inverse, emission) in different
ways.
 Molecular gas around a hot star is first
dissociated (broken into its constituent atoms)
and becomes neutral atomic gas. Photons from
the star will excite the atom into higher atomic
states, which spontaneously emit photons, e.g.
Ha. Higher energy photons ionize the gas.
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 Emission from Gas
 Just as it takes more and more energy to create these different species of
gas, from molecular, through atomic, to ionized, so too these different species
of gas emit photons from lower to higher energy generally in the same
sequence.
 That is because for every process of absorption, there is an equivalent, but
opposite, process of emission.
 Molecules tend to emit at very long wavelengths, such as millimeter-
wavelength radio emission. So if you want to make images of the distribution
of molecular clouds, the main technique is to use radio telescopes.
 Atoms can emit a very wide range of energies, from extreme ultraviolet on
the high-energy end to long-wavelength radio emission at the low-energy
end. Of course, the Ha line, in the visible part of the spectrum, is one of the
most prominent optical lines, which is why gas nebulae are red.
 Ionized atoms emit mainly at the high-energy end of this range, i.e.
ultraviolet. That wavelength is absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere, so to
observe ultraviolet, one must again use spacecraft.

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 Hydrogen Emission
(Transitions to n=2)
(Transitions to n=1)
Ultraviolet

Extreme Ultraviolet
Optical (red)

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 Try It
 In this photo,
identify:
 Dust
 Reflection
nebula
 Absorption
nebula
 Emission
nebula
 Star cluster
 Which types
require nearby
hot stars?

Photo by Adam Block and Tim Puckett

September 27, 2018
 How Do We Study Nebulae?
Doppler Effect
 As for sound (when you hear an approaching siren
and it sounds higher pitched), light also shifts its
wavelength depending on its motion. Atoms moving
𝜈𝑜𝑏𝑠 =𝜈𝑠𝑟𝑐 (√
1+𝑣 cos 𝜃/𝑐
1 − 𝑣 cos 𝜃 /𝑐 )
toward the observer emit blue-shifted light, while v
atoms moving away emit red-shifted light. That q
means spectral lines emitted by those atoms are 𝑣 cos 𝜃
shifted from their rest wavelength.
 Hot objects have atoms in disordered motion (moving
in all directions), so their spectral lines are “Doppler
broadened.” Cool objects have narrow lines.
Interstellar Absorption Lines
 Unlike dust, gas is largely transparent--except in narrow spectral lines.
 Look at stars, and see absorption lines in the star-light that are not due to star --
Ca I, Ca II, Ti I, Ti II, Na I, and molecules link CN and CH
 What should such lines look like?
 sharp and narrow (because cool and low thermal doppler broadening)
 can be shifted due to bulk doppler shifts--multiple clouds.
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 How Do We Study Nebulae?
Emission Nebulae--H II Regions
 Hydrogen lines are due to recombination of ionized
hydrogen (H II).
 Ionization occurs due to UV photons ( > 91.2 nm,
Lyman continuum) from hot (T = 20,000 K) O and
B stars.
 Gas fluoresces by converting UV photons to visible
(electrons cascade down to lower energy levels)
 If gas is uniform, an O or B star has a roughly
spherical volume of H II (Strömgren Sphere).
 Radio continuum comes from the free electrons
Strömgren Sphere
Supernove Remnants and Planetary Nebulae
 These are other types of nebulae that
form by other processes.
 They shine by the same processes, but
with a different source of energy.
SN 1987 A Helix Nebula
September 27, 2018
 Interstellar Radio Lines
21-cm line
 Lowest energy state of hydrogen
 Electron in one of two spin states "up" or "down"
 Define "up" to be parallel with proton spin--then this is higher energy state--
would rather be antiparallel
 Energy difference between "up" and "down" corresponds to radio photon of
21 cm wavelength
 Spontaneous flip occurs only once every few million years!
 Collisions in ISM occur once every 400 years, so most flips are due to
collisions (no radiation)
 Rare photon emission, but there are enormous numbers of H atoms along
each line of sight, so line is strong!
 The optical depth is:

− 23 𝑁𝐻
𝜏 𝐻 =5.2 ×10
𝑇 ∆𝜐
 Here, NH is the column density

September 27, 2018

 Interstellar Radio Lines
Recombination Lines
 Electrons recombining with hydrogen in H II regions can attach in very high
excitation levels, then transition to slightly lower ones, i.e. n = 105 to n = 104.
These low-energy transitions give off low-energy photons in the radio
region of the spectrum, giving another way to study H II regions.
Molecular Lines
 CO rotational line, with J = 0 to 1 transition at 115 GHz, and the 1 to 2
transition at 230 GHz. These correspond to mm wavelengths--radio again.
 Molecules that have been detected: CO, CN, OH, H2CO, CH3OH, H2O, NH3,
HCN, HC3N, HNCO, and many more
 Most molecules, however, are good old H2 (molecular hydrogen).
 Chance of these forming in ISM seem very small (one collision every 400
years) but dust helps
 provides place to collect and hold atoms while molecules form over millions
(perhaps billions) of years
 shadows fragile molecules from dissociating radiation
 Widespread existence of molecules has implications for extraterrestrial life.

September 27, 2018


What We’ve Learned
We learned that the interstellar medium is composed of gas, dust, particles, and
magnetic fields.
 We learned that dust is made a large grains, and causes extinction and
reddening of star light due to Mie scattering. Grain cross sections are just the
geometrical one for short wavelengths, but for longer wavelengths.
 Extinction requires a correction to obs. magnitudes 𝑚 𝜆 − 𝑀 𝜆 =5 log 𝑑 −5+ 𝐴 𝜆
where the extinction magnitude is , i.e. is almost a direct measure of optical
depth.
 We learned that gas far outnumbers dust grains in terms of numbers, but are
very much lighter. Unlike dust, gas is transparent, but it can absorb specific
wavelengths depending on temperature, density, and composition.
 Gas comes in a hierarchy of species, molecular, neutral, ionized, and particles,
with increasing energy.
 We briefly covered the processes of emission and absorption, and discussed the
extremely important Doppler effect, which let’s us learn about motions and even
temperatures of clouds of gas.
 We surveyed many of the types of emission that can be measured in the radio,
visible, and ultraviolet.

September 27, 2018