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Opening again the debate: the transient nature of the circumnuclear disk
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2014
Abstract
Despite many investigations, the physical characteristics of the molecular gas in the Galactic center circumnuclear disk (CND) remain a topic of debate. Its mass is highly uncertain, between 104 (from dust) and 105–6 M⊙ (derived from gas tracers), and depending on the probe, density estimates for the dense clumps are 105–8 cm−3 and gas temperatures run from 50 to a few hundred K. The range of physical parameters leaves open many questions about the nature and fate of the CND. Using several ground-based observatories, together with Herschel and SOFIA, we have studied the physical conditions of the dense clumps using CO, HCN and HCO+, finding that most of them are transient. Their densities are not large enough for them to be gravitationally bound in the tidal field in the center of our Galaxy.
Keywords
- Type
- Contributed Papers
- Information
- Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 9 , Symposium S303: The Galactic Center: Feeding and Feedback in a Normal Galactic Nucleus , October 2013 , pp. 100 - 103
- Copyright
- Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2014