Photodissociation Regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud and IC 10

Both theory and observation suggest that metallicity profoundly alters the properties and structure of the Photodissociation Regions (PDRs; e.g., Madden et al. 1997). Several factors contribute to the differences between high and low metallicity systems: altered gas phase and grain surface chemistry due to the low Si, C and S elemental abundances, and diminished dust shielding because of the low dust-to-gas ratio. Since there is less dust shielding, UV photons penetrate more deeply into the molecular clouds leaving H2 unaffected but photodissociating most other molecules everywhere except in the most opaque clumps. Thus, a low-metallicity system contains large regions where hydrogen remains molecular but the usual tracers of molecular gas like CO are photodissociated.