Weighing the Local Interstellar Medium Using Gamma Rays and Dust

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Cold gas forms a significant mass fraction of the Milky Way disk, but is its most uncertain baryonic component. The density and distribution of cold gas is of critical importance for Milky Way dynamics, as well as models of stellar and galactic evolution. Previous studies have used correlations between gas and dust to obtain high-resolution measurements of cold gas, but with large normalization uncertainties. We present a novel approach that uses Fermi-LAT γ-ray data to measure the total gas density, achieving a similar precision as previous works, but with independent systematic uncertainties. Notably, our results have sufficient precision to probe the range of results obtained by current world-leading experiments.

Original languageEnglish
Article number161002
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume13
Issue number16
Number of pages7
ISSN0031-9007
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

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© 2023 American Physical Society.

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