The MAPPINGS III Library of Fast Radiative Shock Models

TLDR

The authors introduce a comprehensive library of fully‑radiative shock models computed with MAPPINGS III, detailing ionization structures, column densities, luminosities, and emission‑line ratio predictions for shocks and their precursors. The library comprises grids of models spanning shock velocities 100–1000 km s⁻¹, magnetic parameters B/√n from 10⁻⁴ to 10 µG cm³⁄², five abundance sets, and multiple pre‑shock densities, each incorporating both the radiative shock and its EUV/X‑ray photoionized precursor. The resulting emission‑line ratio grids, shown on standard diagnostic diagrams, match observations of radio galaxies, AGN, and star‑forming galaxies, and the publicly available library—along with analysis tools—offers a substantially expanded parameter space for shock diagnostics.

Abstract

We present a new library of fully-radiative shock models calculated with the MAPPINGS III shock and photoionization code. The library consists of grids of models with shock velocities in the range v=100-1000 km/s and magnetic parameters B/sqrt(n) of 10^-4 - 10 muG cm^(3/2) for five different atomic abundance sets, and for a pre-shock density of 1.0 cm^(-3). Additionally, Solar abundance model grids have been calculated for densities of 0.01, 0.1, 10, 100, and 1000 cm^(-3) with the same range in v and B/sqrt(n). Each model includes components of both the radiative shock and its photoionized precursor, ionized by the EUV and soft X-ray radiation generated in the radiative gas. We present the details of the ionization structure, the column densities, and the luminosities of the shock and its precursor. Emission line ratio predictions are separately given for the shock and its precursor as well as for the composite shock+precursor structure to facilitate comparison with observations in cases where the shock and its precursor are not resolved. Emission line ratio grids for shock and shock+precursor are presented on standard line ratio diagnostic diagrams, and we compare these grids to observations of radio galaxies and a sample of AGN and star forming galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This library is available online, along with a suite of tools to enable the analysis of the shocks and the easy creation of emission line ratio diagnostic diagrams. These models represent a significant increase in parameter space coverage over previously available models, and therefore provide a unique tool in the diagnosis of emission by shocks.