27,674 research outputs found
Ongoing Galactic Accretion: Simulations and Observations of Condensed Gas in Hot Halos
Ongoing accretion onto galactic disks has been recently theorized to progress
via the unstable cooling of the baryonic halo into condensed clouds. These
clouds have been identified as analogous to the High-Velocity Clouds (HVCs)
observed in HI in our Galaxy. Here we compare the distribution of HVCs observed
around our own Galaxy and extra-planar gas around the Andromeda galaxy to these
possible HVC analogs in a simulation of galaxy formation that naturally
generates these condensed clouds. We find a very good correspondence between
these observations and the simulation, in terms of number, angular size,
velocity distribution, overall flux and flux distribution of the clouds. We
show that condensed cloud accretion only accounts for ~ 0.2 M_solar / year of
the current overall Galactic accretion in the simulations. We also find that
the simulated halo clouds accelerate and become more massive as they fall
toward the disk. The parameter space of the simulated clouds is consistent with
all of the observed HVC complexes that have distance constraints, except the
Magellanic Stream which is known to have a different origin. We also find that
nearly half of these simulated halo clouds would be indistinguishable from
lower-velocity gas and that this effect is strongest further from the disk of
the galaxy, thus indicating a possible missing population of HVCs. These
results indicate that the majority of HVCs are consistent with being infalling,
condensed clouds that are a remnant of Galaxy formation.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, ApJ Accepted. Some changes to techniqu
Community structure detection in the evolution of the United States airport network
This is the post-print version of the Article. Copyright © 2013 World Scientific PublishingThis paper investigates community structure in the US Airport Network as it evolved from 1990 to 2010 by looking at six bi-monthly intervals in 1990, 2000 and 2010, using data obtained from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics of the US Department of Transport. The data contained monthly records of origin-destination pairs of domestic airports and the number of passengers carried. The topological properties and the volume of people traveling are both studied in detail, revealing high heterogeneity in space and time. A recently developed community structure detection method, accounting for the spatial nature of these networks, is applied and reveals a picture of the communities within. The patterns of communities plotted for each bi-monthly interval reveal some interesting seasonal variations of passenger flows and airport clusters that do not occupy a single US region. The long-term evolution of the network between those years is explored and found to have consistently improved its stability. The more recent structure of the network (2010) is compared with migration patterns among the four US macro-regions (West, Midwest, Northeast and South) in order to identify possible relationships and the results highlight a clear overlap between US domestic air travel and migration
The role of terminators and occlusion cues in motion integration and segmentation: a neural network model
The perceptual interaction of terminators and occlusion cues with the functional processes of motion integration and segmentation is examined using a computational model. Inte-gration is necessary to overcome noise and the inherent ambiguity in locally measured motion direction (the aperture problem). Segmentation is required to detect the presence of motion discontinuities and to prevent spurious integration of motion signals between objects with different trajectories. Terminators are used for motion disambiguation, while occlusion cues are used to suppress motion noise at points where objects intersect. The model illustrates how competitive and cooperative interactions among cells carrying out these functions can account for a number of perceptual effects, including the chopsticks illusion and the occluded diamond illusion. Possible links to the neurophysiology of the middle temporal visual area (MT) are suggested
Stellar Signatures of AGN Jet Triggered Star Formation
To investigate feedback between relativistic jets emanating from Active
Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and the stellar population of the host galaxy, we analyze
the long-term evolution of the galaxy-scale simulations by Gaibler et al.
(2012) of jets in massive, gas-rich galaxies at z ~ 2 - 3 and of stars formed
in the host galaxies. We find strong, jet-induced differences in the resulting
stellar populations of galaxies that host relativistic jets and galaxies that
do not, including correlations in stellar locations, velocities, and ages. Jets
are found to generate distributions of increased radial and vertical velocities
that persist long enough to effectively extend the stellar structure of the
host. The jets cause the formation of bow shocks that move out through the
disk, generating rings of star formation within the disk. The bow shock often
accelerates pockets of gas in which stars form, yielding populations of stars
with significant radial and vertical velocities, some of which have large
enough velocities to escape the galaxy. These stellar population signatures can
serve to identify past jet activity as well as jet-induced star formation
Vortex nucleation by collapsing bubbles in Bose-Einstein condensates
The nucleation of vortex rings accompanies the collapse of ultrasound bubbles
in superfluids. Using the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for a uniform condensate we
elucidate the various stages of the collapse of a stationary spherically
symmetric bubble and establish conditions necessary for vortex nucleation. The
minimum radius of the stationary bubble, whose collapse leads to vortex
nucleation, was found to be about 28 healing lengths. The time after which the
nucleation becomes possible is determined as a function of bubble's radius. We
show that vortex nucleation takes place in moving bubbles of even smaller
radius if the motion made them sufficiently oblate.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Statistics of the Energy Dissipation Rate and Local Enstrophy in Turbulent Channel Flow
Using high-resolution direct numerical simulations, the height and Reynolds
number dependence of higher-order statistics of the energy dissipation rate and
local enstrophy are examined in incompressible, fully-developed turbulent
channel flow. The statistics are studied over a range of wall distances,
spanning the viscous sublayer to the channel flow centerline, for friction
Reynolds numbers and . The high resolution of
the simulations allows dissipation and enstrophy moments up to fourth order to
be calculated. These moments show a dependence on wall distance, and Reynolds
number effects are observed at the edge of the logarithmic layer. Conditional
analyses based on locations of intense rotation are also carried out in order
to determine the contribution of vortical structures to the dissipation and
enstrophy moments. Our analysis shows that, for the simulation at the larger
Reynolds number, small-scale fluctuations of both dissipation and enstrophy
become relatively constant for .Comment: Accepted by Physica
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