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Cesarsky, D. A.

Publications and source records attributed to Cesarsky, D. A..

Possible detection of interstellar deuterium

The abundance of deuterium relative to hydrogen is an important parameter in constructing models of the early expansion of the universe in Big-Bang cosmologies. Calculations by Wagoner et al. (1967) and by Wagoner (1973) show that the deuterium abundance would be very sensitive to the density of baryons in the fireball and hence to the present mean mass density of the universe. Reeves et al. (1973) use data on the abundance of deuterium in the solar system to deduce a ratio of n sub D/n sub H = 1.8 plus or minus 0.8 x 10 to the minus 5 power, and note that other authors have pointed out that processing of matter in stars slowly reduces the deuterium abundance in the galaxy.

Cesarsky, D. A.↗

Detection of interstellar recombination lines from emitters of intermediate mass.

The 18-cm microwave spectra of Orion B and W3A show evidence of an emission feature to the high-frequency side of the carbon recombination line. Observations at different frequencies establish that this feature results from electronic recombination. In addition, theoretical considerations, results of 21-cm observations, and computer-simulated spectra suggest that the new feature originates in a predominantly neutral hydrogen region and can be explained by a superposition of recombination lines from any or all of the following elements: Mg-24, Si-28, S-32, and Fe-56.

Chaisson, E. J.↗