OH as a Constituent of the Interstellar Medium

  • B. E. Turner
Chapter
Part of the International Astronomical Union/Union Astronomique Internationale book series (IAUH, volume 2)

Abstract

OH is at present the most ubiquitous molecule known in the interstellar medium. It is primarily associated with galactic continuum sources, both thermal and non thermal. The fraction of all sources showing OH decreases monotonically with galactic longitude away from the Galactic Center region. However, neither the projected density of OH nor the abundance relative to hydrogen or other molecules seems to depend on location within the galactic plane. OH also occurs in many dark dust clouds, where its density is typically 10-5-10-4 cm-3 and its abundance relative to hydrogen is very high. OH is not found in the heavily reddened stellar clusters of Reddish, in Wolf Rayet stars, in planetary nebulae, or in globules. Recent surveys have indicated that OH both in emission and in absorption, is highly correlated with H2CO in direction and in velocity. OH emission, but not absorption, is also highly correlated with anomalous H2O emission. These relationships are impor­tant in deciding between various processes for interstellar molecule formation. On present infor­mation, it appears that more than one such process is operative in different regions of the interstellar medium.

Keywords

Emission Source Interstellar Medium Column Density Galactic Plane Dust Cloud 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© IAU 1971

Authors and Affiliations

  • B. E. Turner
    • 1
  1. 1.National Radio Astronomy ObservatoryGreen BankUSA

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