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Paper: New HI Surveys of the Milky Way
Volume: 317, Milky Way Surveys: The Structure and Evolution of Our Galaxy
Page: 3
Authors: McClure-Griffiths, N.M.
Abstract: Since the first surveys of neutral hydrogen (HI) in the Milky Way, HI has been a valuable tool for understanding the structure and dynamics of the Galaxy. In fact, because of its high filling factor, HI is one of the best tracers of Galactic dynamics. Despite the obvious value of HI surveys of the Milky Way these surveys stagnated in the 1970's and 80's while Galactic surveys in other wave-bands excelled. Recently surveys of HI in the Galaxy have undergone a resurgence fuelled primarily by advances in high resolution, large-field imaging. Here I present an overview of the International Galactic Plane Survey (IGPS), a high resolution HI survey of the Galactic plane.

The IGPS is an international project to combine data from the Canadian, Southern and VLA Galactic plane surveys to create an atlas of Milky Way HI to an angular resolution of ∼ 1 arcmin, with spectral resolution of ∼ 1 km s−1 and rms sensitivity of ∼ 1 K. These surveys, which are nearly complete, cover more than 80% of the stellar disk of the Galaxy and are producing a variety of exciting results. I present some recent work on HI self-absorption, HI chimneys, and Galactic structure.

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