Interstellar medium (ISM)

The interstellar medium is the gas, dust, magnetic field, and energetic-particle population between stars in a galaxy.

A superbubble is an expanding cavity of hot gas driven by the combined energy input of stellar winds and multiple supernova explosions. Constant mechanical power and negligible radiative losses lead to a radius proportional to $t^{3/5}$ in a uniform ambient medium.

For constant injected power $\dot{E}$ and ambient mass density ${\rho }_1$, dimensional analysis gives $R=\alpha (\dot{E}/{\rho }_1{)}^{1/5}{t}^{3/5}$. In a similarity solution, set $\eta =r/R$, $\rho ={\rho }_{1}f(\eta )$, $p={\rho }_1{\dot{R}}^{2}g(\eta )$ and $u=\dot{R}h(\eta )$. The strong-shock values on the inner side of $\eta =1$ are $f=(\gamma +1)/(\gamma -1)$ and $g=h=2/(\gamma +1)$.

For point injection of constant power, the outward energy flux through a sphere tending to the source must tend to $\dot{E}$. In the adiabatic superbubble similarity solution, this requiresImposing finite regular central pressure and density with $h=O(\eta )$ would instead give zero flux and fail to supply the prescribed power. A resolved source region or an inner contact-boundary model can replace the point-source condition.

If the similarity profiles account for all kinetic and internal energy inside an adiabatic strong shock, letThe injected energy $\dot{E}t$ equals $4\pi {\rho }_1{\dot{R}}^2{R}^{3}I$. Consequently conservation of energy fixesAn interior region not included in the profiles must have its energy added separately; a radiatively cooled shell changes this energy budget.

Substitution of the adiabatic superbubble similarity solution into spherical mass conservation gives

A supernova remnant is the expanding ejecta and shocked ambient medium left by a supernova explosion.

During its adiabatic phase, a supernova remnant loses little energy radiatively and expands as a hot, broad shocked flow rather than a thin cooled shell.

A molecular cloud is a cold dense region of the interstellar medium in which hydrogen is predominantly molecular and stars can form.

Rotational carbon-monoxide line emission traces cold molecular clouds because abundant molecular hydrogen is difficult to observe directly. A conversion factor $X_{\mathrm{CO}}$ relates integrated CO intensity to molecular-hydrogen column density.

Interstellar dust absorbs and scatters short-wavelength starlight and reradiates the absorbed energy thermally in the infrared.

Interstellar extinction is the attenuation of light by absorption and scattering from dust between a source and observer. Its wavelength dependence commonly reddens a source as well as dimming it.

An H II region is a volume of ionized hydrogen surrounding one or more sources of ultraviolet photons. Photoionization heating, recombination, gas dynamics, and dust determine its structure and emission spectrum.

An ionization front is the transition between predominantly ionized and predominantly neutral gas. Its motion and thickness depend on photon supply, recombination, gas density, and hydrodynamic response.

In a homogeneous initially neutral medium, an isotropic source with hydrogen-ionizing photon production rate $Q(t)=Q_0{e}^{t/\tau }$ ionizes the displayed comoving inventory when every escaping photon produces one primary ionization and recombinations are absent. The physical front radius is $a(t)X$ in an expanding background. Retarded photon propagation prevents any instantaneous front from travelling faster than light. This photon-budget front is not the equilibrium Strömgren radius, which balances emission against recombinations.

Photoionization equilibrium holds when the local or integrated photoionization rate equals the radiative recombination rate, so the ionized fraction is stationary.

An ionization-bounded nebula contains enough absorbing material to trap the relevant ionizing photons, unlike a density-bounded region that ends before its ionization front. In dust-free hydrogen at steady photoionization equilibrium, the absorbed stellar photon rate equals the integrated Case B recombination rate. Escape, absorption by dust, and competition from other species must be accounted for before identifying the absorbed hydrogen rate with the entire stellar ionizing luminosity.

For fully ionized pure hydrogen of density $n(r)=n_0(r/r_0{)}^{-\beta }$ and constant Case B recombination coefficient $\alpha$, the total recombination rate isThe central integral converges only for $\beta <3/2$; an envelope extending to infinity has finite recombination capacity only for $\beta >3/2$. At $\beta =3/2$, each logarithmic radius interval contributes equally. A cored power-law density profile removes the central singularity.

For the cored power-law density profile that is constant inside $r_c$ and falls as $r^{-\beta }$ outside, with $\beta >3/2$, the maximum integrated Case B recombination rate isA hydrogen-ionizing photon production rate greater than this has no finite radius at photoionization equilibrium. Equality requires an infinite ionized radius. Other core shapes change the coefficient but retain the convergence condition $\beta >3/2$.

The recombination time is the characteristic time for an ionized plasma to recombine after its ionizing source is removed. Uniform hydrogen with electron density $n_e$ and recombination coefficient $\alpha$ has $t_{\mathrm{rec}}=1/(\alpha n_e)$.

Case B recombination excludes direct recombinations to the ground state because their ionizing photons are assumed to be absorbed locally. The coefficient ${\alpha }_B$ therefore counts recombinations to excited states.

The hydrogen-ionizing photon production rate is the number of photons emitted per unit time above the hydrogen ionization threshold:

A spherical blackbody star emits $Q(E_0)=8{\pi }^2{R}_s^2(k{T}_s{)}^{3}F(E_0/k{T}_s)/(h^3{c}^2)$ photons per time above threshold $E_0$. Integrating specific intensity over the outward hemisphere gives flux $\pi B_{\nu }$; dividing the resulting spectral luminosity by photon energy and substituting $x=h\nu /k{T}_s$ proves the formula. The convergent series $F(y)={\sum }_{m\ge 1}{e}^{-my}(y^2/m+2y/m^2+2/m^3)$ follows by integrating the geometric-series expansion termwise.

The ionizing photon escape fraction is the fraction of photons capable of photoionization that leave their source environment. Only these escaping photons contribute to ionizing distant intergalactic medium. Its value can depend on frequency, source geometry, and time.

For $L_{\nu }=A{\nu }^{-s}$ above an ionization threshold ${\nu }_0$, the energy luminosity is $A{\nu }_0^{1-s}/(s-1)$ and the photon rate is $A{\nu }_0^{-s}/(sh)$. Their ratio is the displayed emitted mean energy. For slope two it is twice the threshold energy. Absorption weighting, a high-energy cutoff and secondary ionizations can change the energy deposited per ionization; emitted and locally absorbed spectra must not be conflated.

A Strömgren sphere is the idealized ionized region around a steady source embedded in uniform hydrogen gas, bounded where integrated recombinations consume the source's ionizing-photon supply.

In a uniform sharp-front approximation, an inner ${\mathrm{He}}^{++}$ zone of radius $R_2$ lies inside a ${\mathrm{He}}^{+}$ shell ending at $R_1$, within the hydrogen ionization front $R_H$. For nuclear densities $n_H,n_{He}$, the Electron densities are $n_H+2n_{He}$, $n_H+n_{He}$ and $n_H$ in the three zones. Thus the hydrogen recombination integral is $(4\pi /3){\beta }_H{n}_H[n_H{R}_H^3+n_{He}(R_1^3+R_2^3)]$. The helium integrals are $(4\pi /3){\beta }_{HeI}{n}_{He}(n_H+n_{He})(R_1^3-R_2^3)$ and $(4\pi /3){\beta }_{HeII}{n}_{He}(n_H+2n_{He})R_2^3$. These are balanced against species-specific effective photon budgets, not three independently reused cumulative stellar photon counts.

For ionizing-photon rate $Q_{\mathrm{H}}$, uniform pure-hydrogen density $n$, and Case B recombination coefficient ${\alpha }_B$, the Strömgren radius is

Before hydrodynamic expansion matters, photon counting in a uniform initially neutral medium givesThe ionization front approaches the Strömgren radius on the recombination time.

A dusty Strömgren sphere includes ionizing photons absorbed by dust before they can ionize hydrogen. Dust therefore decreases the ionized radius below the dust-free Strömgren radius at fixed source luminosity and gas density.

The neutral-hydrogen 21-centimeter line is the ground-state hyperfine transition of atomic hydrogen. Its brightness and Doppler shift map atomic-gas column density and line-of-sight velocity.

A cosmic ray is a high-energy charged particle propagating through space. Galactic cosmic-ray electrons emit synchrotron and inverse-Compton radiation, while cosmic-ray nuclei produce gamma rays through collisions with gas.