The Warm Ionized Medium in Spiral Galaxies: A View from Above

Ren\'e A.M. Walterbos, PASA, 15 (1), 99
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The Warm Ionized Medium in Spiral Galaxies: A View from Above

René A.M. Walterbos tex2html_wrap_inline124

tex2html_wrap_inline124 NMSU, Astronomy Department, MSC 4500, Box 30001, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA
rwalterb@nmsu.edu

Abstract:

The Warm Ionized Medium (WIM), also referred to as Diffuse Ionized Gas, contains most of the mass of interstellar medium in ionized form, contributing as much as 30% of the total atomic gas mass in the solar neighborhood. The advent of CCDs has enabled unprecedented study of this medium in external galaxies, probing a variety of environments. In particular, we can derive the morphology of the WIM, its distribution across disks, and the correlation with other Population I material. Spectroscopy of the WIM makes it possible to test various ionization models. I will review here our current understanding of the properties of the WIM in spiral galaxies. A perhaps unexpected result is that the Htex2html_wrap_inline128 emission from the WIM contributes about 40% of the total observed Htex2html_wrap_inline128 luminosity from spirals. This places severe constraints on possible sources of ionization, since only photo ionization by OB stars meets this requirement. Spectroscopic measurements of forbidden line strengths appear in reasonable agreement with photo ionization models. It is not yet clear if the Lyman continuum photons that ionize the WIM are mostly from OB stars located inside traditional HII regions, or from field OB stars.

Keywords: Galaxies: Local Group, spiral, ISM: HII regions, bubbles, Ultraviolet: stars



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