Spatial variation in temperature and density in the IC 63 PDR from $\rm H_{2}$ Spectroscopy

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution H2 spectroscopy to map temperature variations across the IC 63 PDR, revealing inhomogeneity and a temperature gradient linked to cloud extinction, demonstrating the effectiveness of SOFIA/EXES for detailed PDR analysis.

Contribution

First high-resolution spatial mapping of gas temperature in IC 63 PDR using H2 spectroscopy, highlighting inhomogeneity and temperature gradients.

Findings

Temperature varies from 495 K to 562 K across regions.

H2 emission absent on the 'sunny' side due to photo-dissociation.

High-resolution data reveals inhomogeneity not seen in previous lower-resolution studies.

Abstract

We have measured the gas temperature in the IC 63 photodissociation region (PDR) using the S(1) and S(5) pure rotation lines of molecular hydrogen with SOFIA/EXES. We divide the PDR into three regions for analysis based on the illumination from $\gamma$ Cas: "sunny," "ridge" and "shady." Constructing rotation diagrams for the different regions, we obtain temperatures of T$_{ex}$=$562^{+52}_{-43}$ K towards the "ridge" and T$_{ex}$=$495^{+28}_{-25}$ K in the "shady" side. The H$_2$ emission was not detected on the "sunny" side of the ridge, likely due to the photo-dissociation of H$_2$ in this gas. Our temperature values are lower than the value of T$_{ex}$=685$\pm$68 K using the S(1), S(3), and S(5) pure rotation lines, derived by Thi et al. (2009) using lower spatial-resolution ISO-SWS data at a different location of the IC 63 PDR. This difference indicates that the PDR is inhomogeneous and illustrates the need for high-resolution mapping of such regions to fully understand their physics. The detection of a temperature gradient correlated with the extinction into the cloud, points to the ability of using H$_2$ pure rotational line spectroscopy to map the gas temperature on small scales. We used a PDR model to estimate the FUV radiation and corresponding gas densities in IC 63. Our results shows the capability of SOFIA/EXES to resolve and provide detailed information on the temperature in such regions.