The Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey. XII. Distance Catalog Expansion Using Kinematic Isolation of Dense Molecular Cloud Structures With 13CO(1-0)
Timothy P. Ellsworth-Bowers, Erik Rosolowsky, Jason Glenn, Adam, Ginsburg, Neal J. Evans II, Cara Battersby, Yancy L. Shirley, Brian Svoboda

TL;DR
This paper expands the distance catalog for molecular cloud structures in the Galactic plane using a new method that combines 13CO data with Bayesian techniques, significantly increasing the number of well-constrained distances and mapping Galactic structure.
Contribution
It introduces a novel approach for integrating 13CO(1-0) data into Bayesian distance estimation, enhancing the accuracy and scope of molecular cloud distance catalogs.
Findings
Expanded catalog with 1,710 sources, tripling previous data
Approximately 95% velocity agreement between dense gas tracers and 13CO
Well-constrained distances for 20% of sources, mostly within 6 kpc of the Sun
Abstract
We present an expanded distance catalog for 1,710 molecular cloud structures identified in the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey (BGPS) version 2, representing a nearly threefold increase over the previous BGPS distance catalog. We additionally present a new method for incorporating extant data sets into our Bayesian distance probability density function (DPDF) methodology. To augment the dense-gas tracers (e.g., HCO+(3-2), NH3(1,1)) used to derive line-of-sight velocities for kinematic distances, we utilize the Galactic Ring Survey 13CO(1-0) data to morphologically extract velocities for BGPS sources. The outline of a BGPS source is used to select a region of the GRS 13CO data, along with a reference region to subtract enveloping diffuse emission, to produce a line profile of 13CO matched to the BGPS source. For objects with a HCO+(3-2) velocity, \approx 95% of the new 13CO(1-0) velocities…
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