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[14.06] VLA observations of the radio recombination line H53\alpha toward Arp 220.

C. A. Rodriguez-Rico (NRAO/UNAM), W. M. Goss (NRAO), J.-H. Zhao (CfA), F. Viallefond (Observatoire de Paris)

We present VLA observations of the radio recombination line (RRL) H53\alpha (43 GHz) toward the ultraluminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) Arp 220. This galaxy is the nearest ULIRG and the one with the largest redshift from which RRLs have been observed. The 43 GHz observations at 1'' resolution help to restrict the models used to estimate the physical parameters of the ionized gas in this two-nuclei system. RRLs at 43 GHz trace the high density ionized gas contained in the starburst regions. Previous VLA observations of the RRL H92\alpha and new VLA observations of the H53\alpha line, both made at 1'', are used to derive the density and temperature of the gas in each nucleus. We will discuss the results obtained from the observations of the H53\alpha line compared with predictions of a model that consists of HII regions of three different densities (Anantharamaiah et al. 2000).

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the National Science Fundation operated under a cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35 #3
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.