Constraining physical conditions for the PDR of Trumpler 14 in the Carina Nebula

TL;DR

This study uses Herschel observations and advanced PDR modeling to determine the physical conditions of CO gas near Trumpler 14, revealing a strong correlation between thermal pressure and UV radiation fields in the Carina Nebula.

Contribution

It provides the first spatially-resolved observational relationship between thermal pressure and UV radiation fields in a PDR, validated by Herschel data and the Meudon PDR code.

Findings

Derived thermal pressures range from 0.5 to 3 x 10^8 K cm^-3.

UV radiation fields from models agree with those from OB stars.

Established a P ~ 2 x 10^4 G_UV relationship in the region.

Abstract

We investigate the physical conditions of the CO gas near the young star cluster, Trumpler 14 of the Carina Nebula. The observations presented in this work are taken with the Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) of the Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver (SPIRE) onboard the Herschel Space Observatory. Our field of view covers the edge of a cavity carved by Trumpler 14 about $1\,\mathrm{Myr}$ ago and marks the transition from HII regions to photo-dissociation regions. With the state-of-the-art Meudon PDR code, we successfully derive the physical conditions, which include the thermal pressure ($P$) and the scaling factor of radiation fields ($G_{\mathrm{UV}}$), from the observed CO spectral line energy distributions~(SLEDs) in the observed region. The derived $G_{\mathrm{UV}}$ values generally show an excellent agreement with the UV radiation fields created by nearby OB-stars and thus confirm that the main excitation source of the observed CO emission are the UV-photons provided by the massive stars. The derived thermal pressure is between $0.5-3\,\times\,10^{8}\,\mathrm{K\,cm^{-3}}$ with the highest values found along the ionization front in Car I-E region facing Trumpler 14, hinting that the cloud structure is similar to the recent observations of the Orion Bar. Comparing the derived thermal pressure with the radiation fields, we report the first observationally-derived and spatially-resolved $P \sim 2\times10^4\,G_{\mathrm{UV}}$ relationship. As direct comparisons of the modeling results to the observed $^{13}\mathrm{CO}$, [OI] $63\,\mathrm{\mu m}$, and [CII] $158\,\mathrm{\mu m}$ intensities are not straightforward, we urge the readers to be cautious when constraining the physical conditions of PDRs with combinations of $^{12}\mathrm{CO}$, $^{13}\mathrm{CO}$, [CI], [OI] $63\,\mathrm{\mu m}$, and [CII] $158\,\mathrm{\mu m}$ observations.