Atomic Carbon in the Central Molecular Zone of the Milky Way : Possible Cosmic-ray Induced Chemistry or Time-Dependent Chemistry Associated with SNR Sagittarius A East

TL;DR

This study maps atomic carbon in the Galactic Center, revealing its abundance variations and suggesting cosmic-ray interactions or time-dependent chemistry influenced by the supernova remnant Sgr A east.

Contribution

It provides the first wide-field [CI] map of the Galactic Center, analyzing the origin of atomic carbon variations and linking them to SNR interactions and cosmic-ray effects.

Findings

Atomic carbon abundance is higher in the CMZ compared to the Galactic disk.

A ring-shaped C^0-rich region encircles Sgr A east, indicating SNR influence.

The C^0-to-CO ratio varies significantly, reaching up to 2 in the circumnuclear disk.

Abstract

Being one of the most abundant atomic/molecular species observed in dense molecular gas, atomic carbon ($\mathrm{C}^0$) is a potential good tracer of molecular gas mass in many chemical/physical environments, though the $\mathrm{C^0}$ abundance variation outside the Galactic disk region is yet to be fully known. This paper presents a wide-field 500 GHz [CI] map of the Galactic central molecular zone (CMZ) obtained with the ASTE 10-m telescope. Principal component analysis and non-LTE multi-transition analysis have shown that the [CI] emission predominantly originates from the low-excitation gas component with a 20-50 K temperature and $\sim 10^3\ \mathrm{cm}^{-3}$ density, whereas $\mathrm{C^0}$ abundance is likely suppressed in the high-excitation gas component. The average $N(\mathrm{C}^0)$/$N(\mathrm{CO})$ abundance ratio in the CMZ is 0.3-0.4, which is 2-3 times that in the Galactic disk. The $N(\mathrm{C}^0)$/$N(\mathrm{CO})$ ratio increases to 0.7 in the innermost 10 pc region and to $\sim2$ in the circumnuclear disk. We discovered $\mathrm{C^0}$-rich regions distributed in a ring-shape encircling the supernova remnant (SNR) Sgr A east, indicative that the $\mathrm{C}^0$-enrichment in the central 10 pc region is a consequence of a molecular cloud-SNR interaction. In the 15 atom/molecules included in principal component analysis (PCA), CN is the only other species that increases in the [CI]-bright ring. The origin of the [CI]-bright ring is likely a cosmic-ray dominated region created by low-energy cosmic-ray particles accelerated by Sgr A east or primitive molecular gas collected by the SNR in which the $\mathrm{C}^0$-to-CO conversion has not reached the equilibrium.