Planck intermediate results. XXIII. Galactic plane emission components derived from Planck with ancillary data

TL;DR

This paper uses Planck and ancillary data to analyze and separate the emission components of the inner Galaxy's star-forming region, revealing the morphology and relative contributions of synchrotron, free-free, AME, and dust emissions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed component separation of Galactic plane emissions in a key star-forming region using multi-frequency data, clarifying the morphology and relative brightness of each component.

Findings

AME is comparable in brightness to free-free emission at 20-40GHz.

Free-free emission is the narrowest component, linked to current star formation.

The free-free z-width is approximately 100 parsecs.

Abstract

Planck data when combined with ancillary data provide a unique opportunity to separate the diffuse emission components of the inner Galaxy. The purpose of the paper is to elucidate the morphology of the various emission components in the strong star-formation region lying inside the solar radius and to clarify the relationship between the various components. The region of the Galactic plane covered is l=300-0-60deg where star-formation is highest and the emission is strong enough to make meaningful component separation. The latitude widths in this longitude range lie between 1deg and 2deg, which correspond to FWHM z-widths of 100-200pc at a typical distance of 6kpc. The four emission components studied here are synchrotron, free-free, anomalous microwave emission (AME), and thermal (vibrational) dust emission. These components are identified by constructing spectral energy distributions (SEDs) at positions along the Galactic plane using the wide frequency coverage of Planck (28.4-857GHz) in combination with low-frequency radio data at 0.408-2.3GHz plus WMAP data at 23-94GHz, along with far-infrared (FIR) data from DIRBE and IRAS. The free-free component is determined from radio recombination line (RRL) data. AME is found to be comparable in brightness to the free-free emission on the Galactic plane in the frequency range 20-40GHz with a width in latitude similar to that of the thermal dust; it comprises 45+/-1% of the total 28.4GHz emission in the longitude range l=300-0-60deg. The free-free component is the narrowest, reflecting the fact that it is produced by current star-formation as traced by the narrow distribution of OB stars. It is the dominant emission on the plane between 60 and 100GHz. RRLs from this ionized gas are used to assess its distance, leading to a free-free z-width of FWHM ~100pc...(abridged)