Protostars and Planets VI, Heidelberg, July 15-20, 2013

Poster 1B013

Scattering, Thermal Emission and Extinction: Column Density and Dust Properties

Foster, Jonathan (Yale University)

Abstract:
We compare three different ways to measure the column density of molecular clouds using (1) scat- tered light (cloudshine), (2) thermal emission in the sub-millimeter and (3) extinction of background stars. Our methods for estimating the column density from thermal emission and from extinction of background stars use hierarchical Bayesian models to coherently infer correlations in the dust properties and the column density estimates. In particular, we measure the slope of the extinction law (Rv) from extinction estimates and the deviation from blackbody emission (beta) from the thermal emission estimates. These dust properties are related to the size distribution and compo- sition of dust. The comparison among these three methods therefore tells us about which regimes particular methods work or fail and about the properties of the dust at different depths inside the cloud.

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