Letter to the Editor

[C II]-deficit caused by self-absorption in an ionized carbon-filled bubble in RCW79

¹ I. Physikalisches Institut, Universität zu Köln, Zülpicher Straße 77, 50937 Köln, Germany
² SOFIA Science Center, USRA, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94 045, USA
³ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA
⁴ Max-Planck Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
⁵ Aix Marseille Univ., CNRS, CNES, LAM, Marseille, France
⁶ Institut Universitaire de France, 1 Rue Descartes, Paris, France
⁷ Physikalischer Verein, Gesellschaft für Bildung und Wissenschaft, Robert-Mayer-Str. 2, 60325 Frankfurt, Germany
⁸ University of Maryland, Department of Astronomy, College Park, MD 20742-2421, USA
⁹ Leiden Observatory, PO Box 9513 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands

^⋆ Corresponding author: keilmann@ph1.uni-koeln.de

Received: 13 December 2024
Accepted: 8 April 2025

Abstract

Recent spectroscopic observations of the [C II] 158 μm fine-structure line of ionized carbon (C⁺), using the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), have revealed expanding [C II] shells in Galactic H II regions. We report the discovery of a bubble-shaped source (S144 in RCW79 in the GLIMPSE survey), associated with a compact H II region, excited by a single O7.5–9.5V/III star, which is consistent with a scenario that the bubble is still mostly “filled” with C⁺. This indicates most likely a very early evolutionary state, in which the stellar wind has not yet blown material away as it has in more evolved H II regions. Using the SimLine non-local thermodynamic equilibrium radiative transfer code, the [C II] emission can be modeled to originate from three regions: first, a central H II region with little C⁺ in the fully ionized phase, followed by two layers with a gas density around 2500 cm⁻³ of partially photodissociated gas. From these two layers, the second layer is a slowly expanding [C II] shell with an expansion velocity of ∼2.6 km s⁻¹ that corresponds approximately to a bright ring at 8 μm. The outermost layer exhibits a temperature and velocity gradient that produces the observed self-absorption features in the optically thick [C II] line (τ ∼ 4), leading to an apparent deficit in [C II] emission and a low ratio of [C II] to total far-infrared (FIR) emission. We developed a procedure to reconstruct the missing [C II] flux and find a linear correlation between [C II] and FIR without a [C II]-deficit after incorporating the missing [C II] flux. This example demonstrates that at least some of the [C II]-deficit found in Galactic H II bubbles can be attributed to self-absorption, although a broader sample of these objects needs to be studied to fully constrain the range of conditions in which [C II]-deficits can be explained by this process.