Cold Milky Way Hi gas in filaments

TL;DR

This study analyzes all-sky HI data to reveal cold filamentary structures aligned with magnetic fields, showing they are organized sheets of cold neutral medium embedded in warmer gas, with implications for understanding ISM structure.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the organization of cold neutral medium as filamentary sheets aligned with magnetic fields, based on combined HI surveys and dust polarization data.

Findings

Cold filaments are aligned with polarized dust emission.

CNM is organized in sheets observed as filaments due to projection effects.

Median Doppler temperature of CNM is 223 K.

Abstract

We investigate data from the Galactic Effelsberg--Bonn HI Survey (EBHIS), supplemented with data from the third release of the Galactic All Sky Survey (GASS III) observed at Parkes. We explore the all sky distribution of the local Galactic HI gas with $|v_{\rm LSR}| < 25 $ kms$^{-1}$ on angular scales of 11' to 16'. Unsharp masking (USM) is applied to extract small scale features. We find cold filaments that are aligned with polarized dust emission and conclude that the cold neutral medium (CNM) is mostly organized in sheets that are, because of projection effects, observed as filaments. These filaments are associated with dust ridges, aligned with the magnetic field measured on the structures by Planck at 353 GHz. The CNM above latitudes $|b|>20^\circ$ is described by a log-normal distribution, with a median Doppler temperature $T_{\rm D} = 223$ K, derived from observed line widths that include turbulent contributions. The median neutral hydrogen (HI) column density is $N_{\rm HI} \simeq 10^{19.1}\,{\rm cm^{-2}}$. These CNM structures are embedded within a warm neutral medium (WNM) with $N_{\rm HI} \simeq 10^{20} {\rm cm^{-2}}$. Assuming an average distance of 100 pc, we derive for the CNM sheets a thickness of $< 0.3$ pc. Adopting a magnetic field strength of $B_{\rm tot} = (6.0 \pm 1.8)\mu$G, proposed by Heiles & Troland 2005, and assuming that the CNM filaments are confined by magnetic pressure, we estimate a thickness of 0.09 pc. Correspondingly the median volume density is in the range $ 14 < n < 47 {\rm cm^{-3}}$.