marking absorbers with velocities

I had an inspiring conversation with Sara Rezaei Kh. (Gothenburg) today, about next-generation dust-mapping projects. As my loyal reader knows, I want to map the dust in 3d, and then 4d (radial velocity too) and then 6d (yeah) and even higher-d (because there will be temperature and size-distribution variations with position and velocity). She has some nice new data, where she has her own 3d dust map results along lines of sight that also have molecular gas emission line measurements. If it is true that dust traces molecular gas (even approximately) and if the 3-d dust map is good, then it should be possible to paint velocity onto dust with this combined data. My proposal is: Find the nonlinear function of radial position that is the mean radial velocity such that both line-of-sight maps are explained by the same dust in 4d. I don't know if it will work, but we were able to come up with some straw-man possible data sets for which it would obviously work. Exciting project.

[After I posted this, Josh Peek (STScI) sent me an email to note that these ideas are similar to things he has been doing with Tchernyshyov and Zasowski to put velocities onto dust clouds. Absolutely! And I love that work. That email (from Peek) inspires me to write something here that I thought was obvious, but apparently isn't: This blog is about my research. Mine! It is not intended to be a comprehensive literature review, or a statement of priority, or a proposal for future work. It is about what I am doing and talking about now. If anything that I mention in this blog has been done before, I will be citing that prior work if I ever complete a relevant project! Most ideas on this blog never get done, and when they do get done, they get done in responsible publications (and if you don't think they are responsible, email me, or comment here). This blog itself is not that responsible publication. It contains almost no references and it does not develop the full history of any idea. And, in particular, in this case, the ideas that Rezaei Kh. and I discussed this day (above) were indeed strongly informed by things that Peek and Tchernyshyov and Zasowski have done previously. I didn't cite them because I don't cite everything relevant when I blog. If full citations are required for blogging, I will stop blogging.]