HRDS III. HII region kinematic distances

The HRDS is an X-band (9 GHz, 3 cm) GBT survey of 448 previously unknown H II regions in radio recombination line and radio continuum emission. Here, we focus on HRDS sources from 67{deg}>={ell}>=18{deg}, where kinematic distances are more reliable.

The 25 HRDS sources in this zone that have negative recombination line velocities are unambiguously beyond the orbit of the Sun, up to 20kpc distant. They are the most distant H II regions yet discovered. We find that 61% of HRDS sources are located at the far distance, 31% at the tangent-point distance, and only 7% at the near distance. "Bubble" H II regions are not preferentially located at the near distance (as was assumed previously) but average 10 kpc from the Sun.