| Name: | Narendra Bhatkar |
| Affiliation: | St. Xaviers College, Mumbai |
| Conference ID: | ASI2025_236 |
| Title: | Numerical modelling of the molecular region towards Herschel 36 |
| Authors: | Narendra Bhatkar 1, Dr. Katherine Rawlins 1 |
| Authors Affiliation: | 1 St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Mumbai - 400001, India |
| Mode of Presentation: | Poster |
| Abstract Category: | Stars, Interstellar Medium, and Astrochemistry in Milky Way |
| Abstract: | The Herschel 36 stellar system is an important part of the Lagoon Nebula. The interstellar medium
associated with this sightline has been probed extensively and has been found to host many atomic
and molecular species. In particular, H 2 has been detected by Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer
(FUSE) in multiple vibrational levels through its absorption lines against the spectrum of the bright
background source. Such high excitation of H2 is rarely observed in interstellar studies. In this project,
we perform numerical modelling using the spectral synthesis code CLOUDY to constrain the physical
conditions in the Herschel 36 environment. CLOUDY performs self-consistent calculations to
determine the ionization, thermal, and chemical state of the modelled cloud, while incorporating a
detailed treatment of the microphysics of H2 along with dust grain physics. We match our model
predictions of the H2 rotational and vibrational level population against the corresponding H2
observational data previously reported in literature. This leads us to insight into the density,
temperature, cosmic ray ionization rate, and spectral energy distribution of the incident radiation
field. We infer density conditions typical of diffuse to slightly dense molecular gas, irradiated by
intense UV and X-ray radiation. |
