The CI lines as tracers of molecular gas, and their prospects at high redshifts

Abstract

We examine the fine structure lines $^{3}P_{1}\to $$^{3}P_{0}$ (492 GHz) and $ ^{3}P_2\to $$^{3}P_1$ (809 GHz) of neutral atomic carbon as bulk molecular gas mass tracers and find that they can be good and on many occasions better than $ ^{12}$CO transitions, especially at high redshifts. The notion of CI emission as an H$_2$ gas mass tracer challenges the long-held view of its distribution over only a relatively narrow layer in the CII/CI/CO transition zone in FUV-illuminated molecular clouds. Past observations have indeed consistently pointed towards a more extended CI distribution but it was only recently, with the advent of large scale imaging of its $^{3}P_{1}\to $$^{3}P_{0}$ transition, that its surprising ubiquity in molecular clouds has been fully revealed. In the present work we show that under {\it typical} ISM conditions such an ubiquity is inevitable because of well known dynamic and non-equilibrium chemistry processes maintaining a significant [C]/[$ ^{12}$CO] abundance throughout Giant Molecular Clouds during their lifetime. These processes are more intense in star-forming environments where a larger ambient cosmic ray flux will also play an important role in boosting [C]/[$ ^{12}$CO]. The resulting CI lines can be bright and effective H$_2$ mass tracers especially for diffuse ($\sim 10^2-10^3\rm cm^{-3}$) gas while in UV-intense and/or metal-poor environments their H$_2$-tracing capability diminishes because of large scale CII production but nevertheless remains superior to that of $ ^{12}$CO. The best place to take full advantage of CI's capacity to trace H$_2$ is not in the low-$z$ Universe, where large atmospheric absorption at 492 and 809 GHz precludes routine observations, but at high redshifts ($\rm z\ga 1$).