Neutral hydrogen filaments at high galactic latitudes

Abstract

Small angular scale twists in Hi filaments identified at high galactic latitudes are associated with the location of enhanced emission features (EEFs), structures that have traditionally been referred to as ‘clouds’. It is shown that in these directions the column density of gas is enhanced through geometrical effects because the line-of-sight intersects a greater pathlength when viewing along a segment of filament axis (flux tube) than when the tline-of-sight is more normal to the filament axis. By interpreting the EEFs as isolated entities (clouds) we derive an incorrect impression as regards the properties of interstellar Hi. For example, EEFs are typically a factor of five to ten times deeper than they are wide and, hence, the derived properties of Hi structures that have traditionally been taken to be as deep as they are wide are incorrect. This study leads to questions about the way observations of 21 cm, molecular, and 100μ emission are currently being interpreted. It is concluded that much of what is observed to be ‘cloud’ structure in the interstellar medium (except in regions directly associated with star formation) is telling us about geometry of filaments and not about the physics of ‘clouds’, The very notion of an interstellar ‘cloud’ may have outlived its usefulness and previous work that has attempted to account for these structures in terms of gravitational stability or pressure equilibrium has to be reconsidered in the light of the existence of complex patterns of filamentary structure, not only in the Hi distribution but also of interstellar cirrus defined by 100μ emission.