Dark dust and single-cloud sightlines in ISM

We found that CN is detected in all cold (CH/CH^+^>1) clouds, but {is frequently absent} in warm clouds. We inspected the WISE (3-22um) observed emission morphology around our sightlines and excluded a circumstellar nature for the observed dust extinction. We found that most sightlines are dominated by cold clouds that are located far away from the heating source.

For 132 stars, we derived the spectral type and the associated spectral type-luminosity distance. We also applied the interstellar CaII distance scale, and compared these two distance estimates with GAIA parallaxes. These distance estimates scatter by ~40%.

By comparing spectral type-luminosity distances with those of GAIA, we detected a hidden dust component that amounts to a few mag of extinction for eight sightlines. This dark dust is populated by >~ 1um large grains and predominately appears in the field of the cold interstellar medium.