Description
Column densities for HI, AlIII, SiIV, CIV, and OVI toward 109 stars and 30 extragalactic objects have been assembled to study the extensions of these species away from the Galactic plane into the Galactic halo. HI and AlIII mostly trace the warm neutral and warm ionized medium, respectively, while SiIV, CIV, and OVI trace a combination of warm photoionized and collisionally ionized plasmas. The much larger object sample compared to previous studies allows us to consider and correct for the effects of the sample bias that has affected earlier but smaller surveys of the gas distributions. The observations are compared to the predictions of the various models for the production of the transition temperature gas in the halo.
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