New Results from the Berkeley Spectrometer on ORFEUS: O~{\sc vi} in the Galactic Halo and Disk

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Session 29 -- General Interstellar Medium
Display presentation, Tuesday, 31, 1994, 9:20-6:30

[29.05] New Results from the Berkeley Spectrometer on ORFEUS: O~{\sc vi} in the Galactic Halo and Disk

M.Hurwitz, S.Bowyer (CEA/UCB)

During the ORFEUS-SPAS mission flown in September 1993, we obtained far ultraviolet (900--1170~\AA) spectra of a number of early-type stars in the Galactic halo and disk. The spectral resolution is about 0.4~\AA\ FWHM, and the signal-to-noise ratio is high enough to allow us to detect a rich absorption spectrum from the interstellar medium, including the important features of Oxygen~{\sc vi} at 1032 and 1038~\AA. Although this species was studied with Copernicus (Jenkins 1978), that sample was limited to relatively bright, nearby stars. The scale height of this gas is extremely uncertain. Jenkins estimated 300~pc, but the column density towards 3C 273 reported by Davidsen (1993) requires a scale height of 3000~pc if the in-plane density of Jenkins is valid towards this line of sight. We present new measurements of O~{\sc vi} towards stars in the Galactic halo and disk that are significantly more distant than those studied previously, and we derive new measurements of the scale height and in-plane density of the O~{\sc vi} or ``coronal'' gas. This work has been supported by NASA grant NAG5-696.

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