Planck early results. XIX. All-sky temperature and dust optical depth from Planck and IRAS. Constraints on the
Publication date: 01 December 2011
Authors: Planck Collaboration
Journal: Astronomy & Astrophysics
Volume: 536
Page: A19
Year: 2011
Copyright: ESO, 2011
An all sky map of the apparent temperature and optical depth of thermal dust emission is constructed using the Planck-HFI (350micronm to 2 mm) andIRAS(100micronm) data. The optical depth maps are correlated with tracers of the atomic (Hi) and molecular gas traced by CO. The correlation with the column density of observed gas is linear in the lowest column density regions at high Galactic latitudes. At high NH, the correlation is consistent with that of the lowest NH, for a given choice of the CO-to-H2 conversion factor. In the intermediate NH range, a departure from linearity is observed, with the dust optical depth in excess of the correlation. This excess emission is attributed to thermal emission by dust associated with a dark gas phase, undetected in the available Hi and CO surveys. The 2D spatial distribution of the dark gas in the solar neighbourhood (|bII| > 10°) is shown to extend around known molecular regions traced by CO. The average dust emissivity in the Hi phase in the solar neighbourhood is found to be TD/NHtot = 5.2×10-26 cm2 at 857 GHz. It follows roughly a power law distribution with a spectral index beta = 1.8 all the way down to 3 mm, although the SED flattens slightly in the millimetre. Taking into account the spectral shape of the dust optical depth, the emissivity is consistent with previous values derived fromFIRAS measurements at high latitudes within 10%. The threshold for the existence of the dark gas is found at NHtot = (8.0±0.58)×1020 H cm-2 (AV = 0.4mag).
- The remainder of the abstract is truncated -