Bhaswati Mookerjea
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Photon Dominated Regions with Herschel & SOFIA, a motivation for the next FIR mission
Photon-dominated regions (PDRs) are regions where far-ultra violet (FUV; 6 eV < E < 13.6 eV) radiation from young massive stars dominates the physics and the chemistry of the interstellar medium and correspond to the transition from ionized to molecular gas. The PDRs play an important role in reprocessing much of the energy from stars and re-emitting this energy in the infrared-millimeter regime. PDRs are crucial towards understanding the star formation history & evolution of galaxies. PDR studies require dedicated far-infrared observations since the primary tracers of such gas are the fine-structure lines of C+ at 158 micron and atomic oxygen at 63 & 145 micron. In this talk I will review some of the new findings of the velocity-resolved spectroscopic observations of the PDRs with Herschel & SOFIA and motivate why "the show must go on".
