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A Bare Molecular Cloud At Z ~ 0.45*, Therese M. Jones, Toru Misawa, Jane C. Charlton, Andrew C. Mshar, Gary J. Ferland

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Several neutral species (Mg I, Si I, Ca I, Fe I) have been detected in a weak Mg II absorption line system (W_r (2796) ~ 0.15 Å) at z ~ 0.45 along the sightline toward HE0001-2340. These observations require extreme physical conditions, as noted in D'Odorico. We place further constraints on the properties of this system by running a wide grid of photoionization models, determining that the absorbing cloud that produces the neutral absorption is extremely dense (~100-1000 cm^-3), cold (< 100 K), and has significant molecular content (~72%-94%). Structures of this size and temperature have been detected in Milky Way CO surveys and have been predicted in hydrodynamic simulations of turbulent gas. In order to explain the observed line profiles in all neutral and singly ionized chemical transitions, the lines must suffer from unresolved saturation and/or the absorber must partially cover the broad emission line region of the background quasar. In addition to this highly unusual cloud, three other ordinary weak Mg II clouds (within densities of ~0.005 cm^-3 and temperatures of ~10, 000 K) lie within 500 km s^-1 along the …