Trisha Ashley, Bruce G. Elmegreen, et al.
Astronomical Journal
Pervasive turbulence and fractal structure in the interstellar gas imply the existence of large holes and gaps, filling ≥ 80% of the volume, which may be identified with the intercloud medium (ICM). Such an ICM needs no supernovae or other localized sources for clearing; extensive supernova clearing seems unlikely anyway on both observational and theoretical grounds. Fractal clouds produce fractal ionization zones (FIZ) in which O-star radiation can travel at least twice as far as in a standard Strömgren sphere, and they contain extensive holes covering ∼50% of the sky through which this radiation can reach the Galactic halo. Clouds in a fractal medium are not randomly distributed like standard clouds in the conventional model; they are highly clumped and clustered. If most of the interstellar gas is in such fractal cloud complexes, then there are on average three clusters per kiloparsec on a line of sight. These three alone produce the observed eight "standard-cloud" absorption lines per kiloparsec by placing about five absorption features on each occupied line of sight through a cloud and none on the unoccupied lines of sight. The mean length of an unoccupied line of sight is ∼600 pc. © 1997. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
Trisha Ashley, Bruce G. Elmegreen, et al.
Astronomical Journal
Bruce G. Elmegreen, Debra Meloy Elmegreen, et al.
ApJ
Debra Meloy Elmegreen, Bruce G. Elmegreen
Astrophysical Journal
Bruce G. Elmegreen
Astrophysics and Space Science