AAS 207th Meeting, 8-12 January 2006
Session 14 Highlights and Discoveries from INTEGRAL
Poster, Monday, 9:20am-7:00pm, January 9, 2006, Exhibit Hall

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[14.02] The 26Al Measure of the Galactic Star Formation Rate

D. H. Hartmann (Clemson University), R. Diehl (MPE Garching)

High-resolution gamma-ray line spectroscopy provides a unique perspective on radioactive isotopes distributed throughout the interstellar medium. In particular, the gamma-ray line at 1.809 MeV from 26Al has been mapped across the sky, and kinematical information from line shape measurements has been added with RHESSI and INTEGRAL. We discuss how these gamma-ray line measurements can be used to determine the average, galaxy-wide star formation rate, and compare results from this "26Al-method" with those from techniques based on the radio-UV bands.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: hdieter@clemson.edu

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