Weighing the Local Interstellar Medium using Gamma Rays and Dust

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method using gamma-ray data to measure the Milky Way's cold gas density, providing independent and precise estimates crucial for understanding galactic dynamics.

Contribution

It presents a new approach leveraging Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data to determine cold gas density with independent systematic uncertainties.

Findings

Achieved high-precision measurements of cold gas density.

Provided results comparable to leading experiments.

Demonstrated the method's potential for galactic studies.

Abstract

Cold gas forms a significant mass fraction of the Milky Way disk, but is its most uncertain baryonic component. The density and distribution of cold gas is of critical importance for Milky Way dynamics, as well as models of stellar and galactic evolution. Previous studies have used correlations between gas and dust to obtain high-resolution measurements of cold gas, but with large normalization uncertainties. We present a novel approach that uses Fermi-LAT $\gamma$-ray data to measure the total gas density, achieving a similar precision as previous works, but with independent systematic uncertainties. Notably, our results have sufficient precision to probe the range of results obtained by current world-leading experiments.