The ISM of Low Surface Brightness Galaxies

Using Monte Carlo radiative transfer techniques, we model the dust content of the edge-on low surface brightness (LSB) galaxy UGC 7321 and explore the effects of dust on its disk color gradients. Dust alone cannot explain the large radial disk color gradients observed in this galaxy and we find that a significant fraction (~50%) of the dust in UGC 7321 appears to be contained in a clumped medium, indicating that at least some LSB galaxies can support a modest multi-phase ISM structure. In addition, we report some of the first direct detections of molecular gas (CO) in LSB galaxies.