The spectral energy distribution of the Carina nebula from far infrared to radio wavelengths

TL;DR

This study constructs the spectral energy distribution of the Carina nebula across far infrared to radio wavelengths, revealing dust properties, luminosity, and mass through careful background subtraction and modeling.

Contribution

It provides a detailed SED of the Carina nebula from far infrared to radio wavelengths, including dust temperature, emissivity index, luminosity, and mass estimates.

Findings

Dust temperature T_d ≈ 34.5 K

Infrared luminosity ≈ 7.4 million solar luminosities

Dust mass ≈ 9500 solar masses

Abstract

Multi-wavelength observations are mandatory to understand the physical properties of astrophysical sources. In this paper we use observations in the far infrared to radio range to derive the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the Carina nebula. To do this, we carefully subtract the irregularly varying diffuse emission from the Galactic plane, which can be of the order of 10 of the nebula flux at these wavelengths. We find that the far infrared SED can be modeled as emission from a dust population with a single temperature T_d=(34.5^{+2.0}_{-1.8}), and with a spectral index of emissivity alpha=-1.37^{+0.09}_{-0.08}. We also find a total infrared luminosity of the Nebula of (7.4^{+2.5}_{-1.4})x10^6 L_{\odot} and, assuming a single temperature of the dust, a mass of the dust of (9500^{+4600}_{-3500})M_\odot.