Evidence for an Additional Heat Source in the Warm Ionized Medium of Galaxies

Spatial variations of the [S ii]/Halpha and [N ii]/Halpha line intensity ratios observed in the gaseous halo of the Milky Way and other galaxies are inconsistent with pure photoionization models. They appear to require a supplemental heating mechanism that increases the electron temperature at low densities, ne. This would imply that in addition to photoionization, which has a heating rate per unit volume proportional to n2e, there is another source of heat with a rate per unit volume proportional to a lower power of ne. One possible mechanism is the dissipation of interstellar plasma turbulence, which, according to Minter & Spangler, heats the ionized interstellar medium in the Milky Way at a rate of approximately 1x10-25ne ergs cm-3 s-1. If such a source were present, it would dominate over photoionization heating in regions where ne less, similar0.1 cm-3, producing the observed increases in the [S ii]/Halpha and [N ii]/Halpha intensity ratios at large distances from the galactic midplane as well as accounting for the constancy of [S ii]/[N ii], which is not explained by pure photoionization. Other supplemental heating sources, such as magnetic reconnection, cosmic rays, or photoelectric emission from small grains, could also account for these observations, provided they supply approximately 10-5 ergs s-1 per square centimeter of the Galactic disk to the warm ionized medium.