Probing the Conditions for the Atomic-to-Molecular Transition in the Interstellar Medium

Stars form exclusively in cold and dense molecular clouds. To fully understand star formation processes, it is hence a key to investigate how molecular clouds form out of the surrounding diffuse atomic gas. With an aim of shedding light in the process of the atomic-to-molecular transition in the interstellar medium, we analyze Arecibo HI emission and absorption spectral pairs along with TRAO/PMO 12CO(1-0) emission spectra toward 58 lines of sight probing in and around molecular clouds in the solar neighborhood, i.e., Perseus, Taurus, and California. 12CO(1-0) is detected from 19 out of 58 lines of sight, and we report the physical properties of HI (e.g., central velocity, spin temperature, and column density) in the vicinity of CO. Our preliminary results show that the velocity difference between the cold HI (Cold Neutral Medium or CNM) and CO (median ~ 0.7 km/s) is on average more than a factor of two smaller than the velocity difference between the warm HI (Warm Neutral Medium or WNM) and CO (median ~ 1.7 km/s). In addition, we find that the CNM tends to become colder (median spin temperature ~ 43 K) and abundant (median CNM fraction ~ 0.55) as it gets closer to CO. These results hints at the evolution of the CNM in the vicinity of CO, implying a close association between the CNM and molecular gas. Finally, in order to examine the role of HI in the formation of molecular gas, we compare the observed CNM properties to the theoretical model by Bialy & Sternberg (2016), where the HI column density for the HI-to-H2 transition point is predicted as a function of density, metallicity, and UV radiation field. Our comparison shows that while the model reproduces the observations reasonably well on average, the observed CNM components with high column densities are much denser than the model prediction. Several sources of this discrepancy, e.g., missing physical and chemical ingredients in the model such as the multi-phase ISM, non-equilibrium chemistry, and turbulence, will be discussed.