Line Ratios Reveal N2H+ Emission Originates Above the Midplane in TW Hydrae

Line ratios for different transitions of the same molecule have long been used as a probe of gas temperature. Here we use ALMA observations of the N2H+ J~=~1-0 and J~=~4-3 lines in the protoplanetary disk around TW Hya to derive the temperature at which these lines emit. We find an averaged temperature of 39~K with a one sigma uncertainty of 2~K for the radial range 0.8-2'', significantly warmer than the expected midplane temperature beyond 0.5'' in this disk. We conclude that the N2H+ emission in TW Hya is not emitting from near the midplane, but rather from higher in the disk, in a region likely bounded by processes such as photodissociation or chemical reprocessing of CO and N2 rather than freeze out.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters, 5 pages, 1 figur

Richard Bergin reflects on the impact of John Steward’s CHDS thesis, “Applying Technology Acceptance Research to Information Systems Implementation in Fire Service”

The article record may be found at https://www.hsaj.org/articles/17516Sponsored the U. S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Preparedness Directorate, FEMA, CHDS is part of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)

Structure and Composition of Molecular Clouds with CN Zeeman Detections I: W3OH

We have carried out a multi-species study of a region which has had previous measurements of strong magnetic fields through the CN Zeeman effect in order to to explore the relationship between CN and N$_2$H$^+$, both of which have evidence that they remain in the gas phase at densities of 10$^5$ - 10$^6$ cm$^{-3}$. To achieve this we map the 1 arcmin$^2$ region around the UCHII region of W3(OH) using the Combined Array for Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). Approximately 105 hours of data were collected in multiple array configurations to produce maps with an effective resolution of $\sim$ 2.5\arcsec at high signal-to-noise in CN, C$^{18}$O, HCN, HCO$^+$, N$_2$H$^+$, and two continuum bands (91.2 GHz and 112 GHz). These data allow us to compare tracer molecules associated with both low and high density regions to infer gas properties. We determine that CARMA resolves out approximately 35% of the CN emission around W3(OH) when compared with spectra obtained from the IRAM-30 meter telescope. The presence of strong absorption lines towards the continuum source in three of the molecular transitions infers the presence of a cold, dark, optically thick region in front of the continuum source. In addition, the presence of high-velocity emission lines near the continuum source shows the presence of hot clumpy emission behind the continuum source. These data determine that future high-resolution interferometric CN Zeeman measurements which cannot currently be performed (due to technical limitations of current telescopes) are feasible. We confirm that CN is indeed a good tracer for high density regions; with certain objects such as W3(OH) it appears to be a more accurate tracer than N$_2$H$^+$.Comment: 33 pages, 16 figures. Accepted by Ap