HI clouds in Southern Galactic Plane Survey

The data were taken with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) and the Parkes Radio Telescope and encompass 3{deg}x105{deg} of sky in the Galactic plane. We apply our routine to this entire region and derive spin temperatures and column densities for 70 of the larger HISA complexes, finding spin temperatures ranging from 6 to 41K with HI number densities of a few cm^-3^.

These "missing link" clouds fill in the spin temperature and density gaps between dense molecular clouds and diffuse atomic clouds. We compare the HI emission with ^12^CO emission and find that 60% of detected HI self-absorption is correlated in space and in velocity with a molecular counterpart. This is potentially due to a molecular/atomic gas transition.