Abstract
The correlation study of diffuse galactic γ-rays and gas tracers has been extended to the whole Galaxy, using the final COS-B data base, the Columbia CO surveys, and several Hi surveys covering the entire galactic plane. The average ratio of H2 column density to integrated CO temperature is found to be (2.3 ± 0.3) ×1020 molecules cm−2 (K km s−1)−1 and the corresponding mass of molecular hydrogen in the inner Galaxy is ∿ 1.0 × 109 M⊙. These values should be regarded as upper limits if a population of unresolved γ-ray point sources exists with an angular distribution similar to that of the molecular gas, or when the cosmic-ray density is enhanced in molecular clouds.
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Bloemen, H. (1988). Gamma-ray insight into the CO — H2 calibration problem. In: Dickman, R.L., Snell, R.L., Young, J.S. (eds) Molecular Clouds in the Milky Way and External Galaxies. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 315. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-50438-9_234
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-50438-9_234
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