2005ApJ...623..196C

We use spectroscopic data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) to study the wide range of ionization states of the ``highly ionized high-velocity clouds'' (HVCs). Studied extensively in O VI absorption, these clouds are usually assumed to be infalling gas in the Galactic halo at distances less than 50 kpc. An alternative model attributes the O VI (and O VII X-ray absorption) to cosmological structures of low-density, shock-heated intergalactic gas, distributed over 1-3 Mpc surrounding the Milky Way. The latter interpretation is unlikely, owing to the enormous required mass of gas (4x10¹² M_☉). Our detection, in 9 of 12 sight lines, of low-ionization stages (C II/III/IV; Si II/III/IV) at similar high velocities as O VI requires gas densities far above that (n_H~5x10^–6/cm3) associated with the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM). These HVCs are probably cooling, multiphase gas in the Galactic halo, bow shocks, and interfaces between clouds falling through a hot, rotating gaseous halo. The velocity segregation of these HVCs in Galactic coordinates is consistent with a pattern in which infalling clouds reflect the sense of Galactic rotation, with peculiar velocities superposed.