The interstellar medium of the Galaxy is the great reservoir from which stars are born and to which they return much of their mass. Composed primarily of H and He, the interstellar medium can take many forms depending on the temperature, density, and radiation field. Under certain conditions, the majority of the H will be in molecular form. The resulting aggregations of molecular gas can come in 2 basic types: large entities which can encompass up to a million solar masses and extend up to 50 parsecs, or distinctly smaller objects with masses less than a thousand solar masses and sizes on the order of a few parsecs. The smaller clouds can be subdivided into 3 basic kinds of objects: diffuse, translucent, and dark clouds, depending on their opacity to ultraviolet radiation and to certain considerations involving their astrochemistry.

My past work has primarily focused on translucent molecular clouds. These objects can be studied both by optical and radio techniques. Their chemistry is simpler than that of the dark molecular clouds but, unlike the diffuse clouds, chemical species more complex than diatomics can be found (such as H2CO, C3H2, etc.). Although translucent clouds are distributed throughout the Galactic plane, they are most easily seen at high Galactic latitudes, away from the background confusion caused by dark clouds and giant molecular clouds along the Galactic plane. The overwhelming majority of the so-called high-latitude molecular clouds turn out to be translucent clouds. In the last decade, my research has focussed on three principal areas: 1) The large-scale distribution of molecular gas at high Galactic latitudes. 2) Quantifying the turbulence characteristics of small molecular clouds. 3) Developing a new technique to obtain the mass of small molecular clouds.

I am currently studying the diffuse molecular component of the ISM (i.e., the atomic/molecular interface in small interstellar clouds) using the CH 3335 MHz emission line and the OH 1665 and 1667 MHz lines with my graduate student Beth Wennerstrom. I have also begun to dabble in the relatively new field of astrobiology. My graduate student, Samantha Lugo, and I are studying the distribution of formaldehyde (a key biogenic molecule in the development of amino acids) in the Outer Galaxy.

Recent Publications

T.N. LaRosa, S.N. Shore, and L. Magnani, "A dynamical study of the non-star-forming translucent cloud MBM16: Evidence for shear-driven turbulence in the interstellar medium," Astrophys. J., 512, 761 (1999).

L. Magnani, D. Hartmann, S.L. Holcomb, L.K. Smith, and P. Thaddeus, "A survey of high-latitude molecular gas in the southern galactic hemisphere," Astrophys. J., 535, 167 (2000).

L. Magnani, S. Lugo, and T.M. Dame, "CH 3 GHz Observations of Molecular Clouds along the Galactic Plane," Astron. J., 130, 2725 (2005).