Dust in the Smith Cloud? A UV Investigation into the Smith Cloud's Gas-Phase Abundance Patterns
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866908343758487552 |
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| author | Vazquez, Johanna Barger, Kathleen Cashman, Frances Fox, Andrew Wakker, Bart Lockman, Felix Hill, Alex Poudel, Suraj Horton, April Hernandez, Jaq Nuss, Matthew Blake, Alice Corlies, Lauren Peeples, Molly |
| author_facet | Vazquez, Johanna Barger, Kathleen Cashman, Frances Fox, Andrew Wakker, Bart Lockman, Felix Hill, Alex Poudel, Suraj Horton, April Hernandez, Jaq Nuss, Matthew Blake, Alice Corlies, Lauren Peeples, Molly |
| contents | The Smith Cloud is a high-velocity cloud (HVC) on its final approach to the Milky Way that shows evidence of interaction with the Galaxy's disk. We investigate the metallicity and gas-phase chemical depletion patterns in this HVC using UV absorption-line observations toward two background QSOs taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Cosmic Origin Spectrograph (COS) and H I 21-cm emission-line observations taken with Green Bank Telescope (GBT). We find evidence of silicon gas-phase depletion with [Si/S]$=\,-0.72^{+0.26}_{-0.24}$ and [Si/O]$_{3σ}\,\lesssim\,-0.05$, implying the presence of dust within the Smith Cloud. Because dust is galactic in origin, this HVC could trace the return leg of a Galactic fountain or a dwarf galaxy that passed through the Galactic plane. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_21212 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Dust in the Smith Cloud? A UV Investigation into the Smith Cloud's Gas-Phase Abundance Patterns Vazquez, Johanna Barger, Kathleen Cashman, Frances Fox, Andrew Wakker, Bart Lockman, Felix Hill, Alex Poudel, Suraj Horton, April Hernandez, Jaq Nuss, Matthew Blake, Alice Corlies, Lauren Peeples, Molly Astrophysics of Galaxies The Smith Cloud is a high-velocity cloud (HVC) on its final approach to the Milky Way that shows evidence of interaction with the Galaxy's disk. We investigate the metallicity and gas-phase chemical depletion patterns in this HVC using UV absorption-line observations toward two background QSOs taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Cosmic Origin Spectrograph (COS) and H I 21-cm emission-line observations taken with Green Bank Telescope (GBT). We find evidence of silicon gas-phase depletion with [Si/S]$=\,-0.72^{+0.26}_{-0.24}$ and [Si/O]$_{3σ}\,\lesssim\,-0.05$, implying the presence of dust within the Smith Cloud. Because dust is galactic in origin, this HVC could trace the return leg of a Galactic fountain or a dwarf galaxy that passed through the Galactic plane. |
| title | Dust in the Smith Cloud? A UV Investigation into the Smith Cloud's Gas-Phase Abundance Patterns |
| topic | Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.21212 |