Galactic infrared bubbles

Infrared bubbles in inner Galactic regions (|l|<=65{deg}, |b|<=1{deg}) have so far been studied well to understand the massive star formation mechanisms. In this study, we expand the research area to the whole Galactic plane (0{deg}<=l<360{deg}, |b|<=5{deg}), using the AKARI all-sky survey data.

We limit our study to large bubbles with angular radii of >1' to reliably identify and characterize them. For the 247 IR bubbles in total, we derived the radii and the covering fractions of the shells, based on the method developed by Y. Hattori et al. (2016PASJ...68...37H). We also created their spectral energy distributions, using the AKARI and Herschel photometric data, and decomposed them with a dust model to obtain the total IR luminosity and the luminosity of each dust component, i.e., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), warm dust, and cold dust.