Automatic Searching Algorithm for Galactic HI at Forbidden Velocities in the Inner-Galaxy ALFA Low-Latitude HI (I-GALFA) Survey

  • Kang, Ji-Hyun (Arecibo observatory) ;
  • Koo, Bon-Chul (Seoul National University) ;
  • Gibson, S.J. (Western Kentucky University) ;
  • Douglas, K.A. (Arecibo observatory) ;
  • Park, Geum-Sook (Seoul National University) ;
  • Peek, J.E.G. (Colombia University) ;
  • Korpela, E.J. (U.C. Berkeley) ;
  • Heiles, C.E. (U.C. Berkeley)
  • Published : 2011.04.05

Abstract

The faint wing-like features at velocities beyond the velocity boundaries of the Galactic rotation (Forbidden-Velocity Wings, FVWs) in the large-scale position-velocity diagrams of the HI surveys are thought to be associated with dynamical Galactic events. The primary candidates of these FVWs are rapidly expanding HI shells of the old Galactic supernova remnants (SNRs), which are too faint to be visible in other frequencies. The unprecedented sensitivity and resolution of the I-GALFA survey enable detection of "all" HI shells of Galactic SNRs at forbidden velocities predicted by Koo and Kang (2004). Therefore, comparing the distribution of the FVWs visible in the I-GALFA survey and that of the model will improve our understanding on the interstellar medium and the evolution of SNRs. We have been developing an automatic searching algorithm for FVWs in the I-GALFA survey to minimize the selection effects of visual inspection used in the previous FVW study. We present the searching mechanism for FVWs and the statistical properties of the automatically searched FVWs. Also, we discuss the similarities and the differences between the distribution of the identified FVWs and that of the SNRs predicted by Koo and Kang (2004).

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