Clumping and the interpretation of kpc-scale maps of the interstellar medium: Smooth HI and clumpy, variable H2 surface density

Abstract

Many recent models consider the structure of individual interstellar medium (ISM) clouds as a way to explain observations of large parts of galaxies. To compare such models to observations, one must understand how to translate between surface densities observed averaging over large (∼kpc) scales and surface densities on the scale of individual clouds (∼pc scale), which are treated by models. We define a "clumping factor" that captures this translation as the ratio of the mass-weighted surface density, which is often the quantity of physical interest, to the area-weighted surface density, which is observed. We use high spatial resolution (sub-kpc) maps of CO and H I emission from nearby galaxies to measure the clumping factor of both atomic and molecular gas. The molecular and atomic ISM exhibit dramatically different degrees of clumping. As a result, the ratio H2/H I measured at ∼kpc resolution cannot be trivially interpreted as a cloud-scale ratio of surface densities. H I emission appears very smooth, with a clumping factor of only ∼1.3. Based on the scarce and heterogeneous high-resolution data available, CO emission is far more clumped with a widely variable clumping factor, median ∼7 for our heterogeneous data. Our measurements do not provide evidence for a universal mass-weighted surface density of molecular gas, but also cannot conclusively rule out such a scenario. We suggest that a more sophisticated treatment of molecular ISM structure, one informed by high spatial resolution CO maps, is needed to link cloud-scale models to kpc-scale observations of galaxies. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..