Dust extinction map of the Galactic plane based on the UKIDSS survey data

Journal article, 2025

Dust plays a critical role in the study of the interstellar medium. Extinction maps derived from optical surveys often fail to capture regions with high column density due to the limited photometric depth in optical wavelengths. To address these limitations, we developed the XPNICER method based on near-infrared photometric survey data. This method combines the previously established PNICER and Xpercentile techniques, enabling effective mitigation of foreground contamination and improved handling of complex dust structures in the Galactic plane, which thus can provide more accurate extinction estimates, particularly in highly obscured regions. By applying XPNICER to the Galactic Plane Survey from the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey, we have generated a series of two-dimensional dust extinction maps that span roughly similar to 1800 deg(2) of the Galactic plane (0 degrees less than or similar to l less than or similar to 110 degrees and 140 degrees less than or similar to l less than or similar to 232 degrees, vertical bar b vertical bar less than or similar to 5 degrees). These maps, with spatial resolutions between 30 and 300 arcsec, can trace extinction up to A(V) similar to 30-40 mag. This new approach offers higher spatial resolution and better detection of high-extinction regions compared to previous large-scale dust-based maps of the Galactic plane, providing an independent and complementary measure of dust column densities.