Modeling and predicting the shape of the far-infrared to submillimeter emission in ultra-compact HII regions and cold clumps

Context. Dust properties are very likely affected by the environment in which dust grains evolve. For instance, some analyses of cold clumps (7-17 K) indicate that the aggregation process is favored in dense environments. However, studying warm (30-40 K) dust emission at long wavelength (λ > 300 µm) has been limited because it is difficult to combine far infrared-to-millimeter (FIR-to-mm) spectral coverage and high angular resolution for observations of warm dust grains. Aims. Using Herschel data from 70 to 500µm, which are part of the Herschel infrared Galactic (Hi-GAL) survey combined with 1.1 mm data from the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey (BGPS), we compared emission in two types of environments: ultracompact HII (UCHII) regions, and cold molecular clumps (denoted as cold clumps). With this comparison we tested dust emission models in the FIR-to-mm domain that reproduce emission in the diffuse medium, in these two environments (UCHII regions and cold clumps). We also investigated their ability to predict the dust emission in our Galaxy. Methods. We determined the emission spectra in twelve UCHII regions and twelve cold clumps, and derived the dust temperature (T) using the recent two-level system (TLS) model with three sets of parameters and the so-called T-β (temperature-dust emissivity index) phenomenological models, with β set to 1.5, 2 and 2.5. Results. We tested the applicability of the TLS model in warm regions for the first time. This analysis indicates distinct trends in the dust emission between cold and warm environments that are visible through changes in the dust emissivity index. However, with the use of standard parameters, the TLS model is able to reproduce the spectral behavior observed in cold and warm regions, from the change of the dust temperature alone, whereas a T-β model requires β to be known