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Published December 1, 2011 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

Discovery of Hydrogen Fluoride in the Cloverleaf Quasar at z = 2.56

Abstract

We report the first detection of hydrogen fluoride (HF) toward a high-redshift quasar. Using the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, we detect the HF J = 1-0 transition in absorption toward the Cloverleaf, a broad absorption line quasi-stellar object at z = 2.56. The detection is statistically significant at the ~6σ level. We estimate a lower limit of 4 × 10^(14) cm^(–2) for the HF column density and using a previous estimate of the hydrogen column density, we obtain a lower limit of 1.7 × 10^(–9) for the HF abundance. This value suggests that, assuming a Galactic N(HF)/N H ratio, HF accounts for at least ~10% of the fluorine in the gas phase along the line of sight to the Cloverleaf quasar. This observation corroborates the prediction that HF should be a good probe of the molecular gas at high redshift. Measurements of the HF abundance as a function of redshift are urgently needed to better constrain the fluorine nucleosynthesis mechanism(s).

Additional Information

© 2011 American Astronomical Society. Received 2011 September 26; accepted 2011 October 12; published 2011 November 7. The authors would like to thank the CSO staff, especially to Brian Force, for his support during observations. The CSO is founded by the National Science Foundation under the contract AST-08388361. Facilities: CSO, Herschel (HIFI)

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Published - Monje2011p16474Astrophys_J_Lett.pdf

Submitted - 1201.4882v1.pdf

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