What Is the Total Deuterium Abundance in the Local Galactic Disk?

By J. Linsky, B. Draine, H. Moos, E. Jenkins, B. Wood, C. Oliveira, W. Blair, S. Friedman, C. Gry, D. Knauth and 7 more. 2006

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Analyses of spectra obtained with the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite, together with spectra from the Copernicus and interstellar medium absorption profile spectrograph (IMAPS) instruments, reveal an unexplained, very wide range in the observed deuterium/hydrogen (D/H) ratios for interstellar gas in the Galactic disk beyond the Local Bubble. We argue that spatial variations in the depletion of deuterium onto dust grains can explain these local variations in the observed gas-phase D/H ratios. We present a variable deuterium depletion model that naturally explains the constant measured values of D/H inside the Local Bubble, the wide range of gas-phase D/H ratios observed in the intermediate regime [log N(H ) = 19.2-20.7], and the low gas-phase D/H ratios observed at larger hydrogen column densities. We consider empirical tests of the deuterium depletion hypothesis: (1) correlations of gas-phase D/H ratios with depletions of the refractory metals iron and silicon, and (2) correlation with the H2 rotational temperature. Both of these tests are consistent with deuterium depletion from the gas phase in cold, not recently shocked regions of the ISM, and high gas-phase D/H ratios in gas that has been shocked or otherwise heated recently. We argue that the most representative value for the total (gas plus dust) D/H ratio within 1 kpc of the Sun is ≥23.1 ± 2.4(1 σ) parts per million (ppm). This ratio constrains Galactic chemical evolution models to have a very small deuterium astration factor, the ratio of primordial to total (D/H) ratio in the local region of the Galactic disk, which we estimate to be fd ≤ 1.19(1 σ) or ≤1.12 ± 0.14(1 σ) depending on the adopted light-element nuclear reaction rates.

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Citations in the corpus

The Pisa pre-main sequence tracks and isochrones - A database covering a wide range of Z, Y, mass, and age values (2011, unknown): “Geiss & Gloeckler (1998) found (D/H)ISM ≈ 2.1 · 10−5 (XD ≈ 3 · 10−5), while more recent observations give (D/H)ISM = 1.88 ± 0.11 · 10−5 that is XD ≈ 2.6 ·10−5 (see also Vidal-Madjar et al. 1998; Linsky 1998; Linsky et al. 2006; Steigman et al. 2007).”
Physical Processes in the Interstellar Medium (2014, background): “(71) In the local ISM, the ratio of D/H is even smaller (see e.g. Linsky et al., 2006; Prodanović et al., 2010), as some of the primordial deuterium has been destroyed by stellar processing.”
The chemical composition of the Sun (2009, result): “This is consistent with the present-day local interstellar medium abundance (Linsky et al. 2006), which implies only a small degree of astration over the past 4.5 Gyr.”
Terahertz Spectroscopy for Astronomy: From Comets to Cosmology (2011, background): “neighborhood is relative to hydrogen [11], but can be enriched in ices and in the gas phase at low temperatures [12],”
One Percent Determination of the Primordial Deuterium Abundance (2017, background): “Several studies have reported on the depletion of deuterium in the local interstellar medium (ISM) of the Milky Way (Wood et al. 2004; Prochaska, Tripp, & Howk 2005; Linsky et al. 2006; Ellison, Prochaska, & Lopez 2007; Lallement, Hébrard, & Welsh 2008; Prodanović, Steigman, & Fields 2010).”
THE ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION ENVIRONMENT AROUND M DWARF EXOPLANET HOST STARS (2012, unknown): “We assumed a fixed D/H ratio (D/H = 1.5 × 10−5; Linsky et al. 1995; 2006).”
A new, precise measurement of the primordial abundance of deuterium (2012, background): “Dust depletion of D in the local interstellar medium has been proposed to explain the surprising range of D/H values found along different sightlines in our Galaxy (Linsky et al. 2006), but is unlikely to be important in metal- and dust-poor DLAs where even highly refractory elements are present in ”
Chemical evolution with radial mixing (2008, background): “…resolves several serious problems, including (i) the appearance of too many low-metallicity stars near the Sun (the ‘Gdwarf problem’; e.g. Pagel 1997), (ii) excessive metallicity of the current ISM and (iii) an unrealistically low abundance of deuterium in the current ISM (Linsky et al. 2006).”
Cold Dark Clouds: The Initial Conditions for Star Formation (2007, background): “2-3 orders of magnitude are observed above the atomic hydrogen value of (D/H) ≥ (2.3 ± 0.2) × 10−5 estimated within 1 kpc of the Sun (Linsky et al. 2006).”
Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP): A New NASA Mission (2018, background): “…evolution of the Milky Way galaxy (e.g., Linsky 2003, 2007), yet observations in the interstellar medium are scarce and line-of-sight integrated (Linsky et al. 2006) and ionization levels of interstellar atoms may vary significantly between the heliosphere edge and interior of the surrounding…”
The Interstellar Medium Surrounding the Sun (2011, background): “For low column density gas in the Local Bubble [N(HI) < 1019 cm−2], the DI/HI ratio is 1.56 ± 0.4 × 10−5 (Linsky et al. 2006).”
LYα TRANSIT SPECTROSCOPY AND THE NEUTRAL HYDROGEN TAIL OF THE HOT NEPTUNE GJ 436b (2014, background): “We assume a fixed D/H ratio of 1.5 × 10−5 (Linsky et al. 2006).”
Deuterium abundance in the most metal-poor damped Lyman alpha system: converging on Ωb,0h2 (2008, methodology): “This is probably due to the considerable difficulties in accounting for the full measurement errors (random and systematic) of astronomical observations, but is nevertheless a source of concern, particularly when viewed in conjunction with the as yet poorly understood dispersion of D/H values in the”