Diffuse infrared emission from the galaxy. I - Solar neighborhood
F. Boulanger, M. Pérault;
ApJ, 1988, 330, 964

ABSTRACT:A large-scale study of the infrared emission originating in the solar neighborhood based on IRAS data is presented. Away from heating sources and outside molecular clouds, the infrared emission from the ISM is well-correlated with the column density of H I gas. The interstellar radiation field and the dust abundance are roughly uniform on scales of the order of 100 pc. The extinction in the polar caps is discussed, and the origin of the infrared emission from the solar neighborhood is investigated. It is shown that stars younger than a few 100 million yr are responsible for two-thirds of the infrared emission from the solar neighborhood, but that most of this emission comes from interstellar matter not associated with current star formation. The correlation between infrared and radio-continuum fluxes of galaxies breaks down on the scale of a few hundred pc around regions of star formation.
KEYWORDS: galactic radiation, infrared radiation, interstellar matter, milky way galaxy, solar neighborhood, carbon monoxide, diffuse radiation, hydrogen atoms, hydrogen ions, infrared astronomy satellite, ionized gases, radio emission, stellar radiation, zodiacal light
PERSOKEY:dust, fir, cirrus, h_i, iras, mir, 21 cm, ,
CODE: boulanger88