2,302 research outputs found
Luminosity function, sizes and FR dichotomy of radio-loud AGN
The radio luminosity function (RLF) of radio galaxies and radio-loud quasars
is often modelled as a broken power-law. The break luminosity is close to the
dividing line between the two Fanaroff-Riley (FR) morphological classes for the
large-scale radio structure of these objects. We use an analytical model for
the luminosity and size evolution of FRII-type objects together with a simple
prescription for FRI-type sources to construct the RLF. We postulate that all
sources start out with an FRII-type morphology. Weaker jets subsequently
disrupt within the quasi-constant density cores of their host galaxies and
develop turbulent lobes of type FRI. With this model we recover the slopes of
the power laws and the break luminosity of the RLF determined from
observations. The rate at which AGN with jets of jet power appear in the
universe is found to be proportional to . The model also roughly
predicts the distribution of the radio lobe sizes for FRII-type objects, if the
radio luminosity of the turbulent jets drops significantly at the point of
disruption. We show that our model is consistent with recent ideas of two
distinct accretion modes in jet-producing AGN, if radiative efficiency of the
accretion process is correlated with jet power.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, accepted by MNRA
The Spitzer-IRAC Point Source Catalog of the Vela-D Cloud
This paper presents the observations of the Cloud D in the Vela Molecular
Ridge, obtained with the IRAC camera onboard the Spitzer Space Telescope at the
wavelengths \lambda = 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, 8.0 {\mu}m. A photometric catalog of point
sources, covering a field of approximately 1.2 square degrees, has been
extracted and complemented with additional available observational data in the
millimeter region. Previous observations of the same region, obtained with the
Spitzer MIPS camera in the photometric bands at 24 {\mu}m and 70 {\mu}m, have
also been reconsidered to allow an estimate of the spectral slope of the
sources in a wider spectral range. A total of 170,299 point sources, detected
at the 5-sigma sensitivity level in at least one of the IRAC bands, have been
reported in the catalog. There were 8796 sources for which good quality
photometry was obtained in all four IRAC bands. For this sample, a preliminary
characterization of the young stellar population based on the determination of
spectral slope is discussed; combining this with diagnostics in the
color-magnitude and color-color diagrams, the relative population of young
stellar objects in the different evolutionary classes has been estimated and a
total of 637 candidate YSOs have been selected. The main differences in their
relative abundances have been highlighted and a brief account for their spatial
distribution is given. The star formation rate has been also estimated and
compared with the values derived for other star forming regions. Finally, an
analysis of the spatial distribution of the sources by means of the two-point
correlation function shows that the younger population, constituted by the
Class I and flat-spectrum sources, is significantly more clustered than the
Class II and III sources.Comment: Accepted by Ap
Unified Schemes for Radio-Loud Active Galactic Nuclei
The appearance of active galactic nuclei (AGN) depends so strongly on
orientation that our current classification schemes are dominated by random
pointing directions instead of more interesting physical properties. Light from
the centers of many AGN is obscured by optically thick circumnuclear matter and
in radio-loud AGN, bipolar jets emanating from the nucleus emit light that is
relativistically beamed along the jet axes. Understanding the origin and
magnitude of radiation anisotropies in AGN allows us to unify different classes
of AGN; that is, to identify each single, underlying AGN type that gives rise
to different classes through different orientations.
This review describes the unification of radio-loud AGN, which include radio
galaxies, quasars, and blazars. We describe the classification and properties
of AGN and summarize the evidence for anisotropic emission. We outline the two
most plausible unified schemes for radio-loud AGN, one linking quasars and
luminous radio galaxies and another linking BL~Lac objects and less luminous
radio galaxies. Using the formalism appropriate to samples biased by
relativistic beaming, we show the population statistics for two schemes are in
accordance with available data. We analyze the possible connections between
low- and high-luminosity radio-loud AGN. We review potential difficulties with
unification and conclude that none currently constitutes a serious problem. We
discuss likely complications to unified schemes that are suggested by realistic
physical considerations; these will be important to consider when more
comprehensive data for larger complete samples become available. We conclude
with a list of the ten questions we believe are the most pressing in this
field.Comment: 88 pages, latex file, uses aaspp.sty macro (available via ftp from
ftp://aas.org/pubs/aastex/). Accompanying 22 figures and 3 tables available
at http://itovf2.roma2.infn.it/padovani/review.html. (Abstract is abridged.)
The only change is that the revised version indicates this paper is an
invited review for PASP, in press, September 1995 issu
Measuring the Initial Mass Function of Low Mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs
I review efforts to determine the form and any lower limit to the initial
mass function in the Galactic disk, using observations of low-mass stars and
brown dwarfs in the field, young clusters and star forming regions. I focus on
the methodologies that have been used and the uncertainties that exist due to
observational limitations and to systematic uncertainties in calibrations and
theoretical models. I conclude that whilst it is possible that the low-mass
IMFs deduced from the field and most young clusters are similar, there are too
many problems to be sure; there are examples of low-mass cluster IMFs that
appear to be very discrepant and the IMFs for brown dwarfs in the field and
young clusters have yet to be reconciled convincingly.Comment: From a series of lectures presented at the Evry-Schatzman school on
Low-mass stars and the transition from stars to brown dwarfs, edited by C.
Charbonnel, C. Reyle, M. Schultheis. To appear in the EAS Conference Series.
47p
Scale-invariance of galaxy clustering
Some years ago we proposed a new approach to the analysis of galaxy and
cluster correlations based on the concepts and methods of modern statistical
Physics. This led to the surprising result that galaxy correlations are fractal
and not homogeneous up to the limits of the available catalogs. The usual
statistical methods, which are based on the assumption of homogeneity, are
therefore inconsistent for all the length scales probed so far, and a new, more
general, conceptual framework is necessary to identifythe real physical
properties of these structures. In the last few years the 3-d catalogs have
been significatively improved and we have extended our methods to the analysis
of number counts and angular catalogs. This has led to a complete analysis of
all the available data that we present in this review. The result is that
galaxy structures are highly irregular and self-similar: all the available data
are consistent with each other and show fractal correlations (with dimension ) up to the deepest scales probed so far (1000 \hmp) and even more
as indicated from the new interpretation of the number counts. The evidence for
scale-invariance of galaxy clustering is very strong up to 150 \hmp due to
the statistical robustness of the data but becomes progressively weaker
(statistically) at larger distances due to the limited data. In These facts
lead to fascinating conceptual implications about our knowledge of the universe
and to a new scenario for the theoretical challenge in this field.Comment: Latex file 165 pages, 106 postscript figures. This paper is also
available at http://www.phys.uniroma1.it/DOCS/PIL/pil.html To appear in
Physics Report (Dec. 1997
ExELS: an exoplanet legacy science proposal for the ESA Euclid mission. II. Hot exoplanets and sub-stellar systems
The Exoplanet Euclid Legacy Survey (ExELS) proposes to determine the
frequency of cold exoplanets down to Earth mass from host separations of ~1 AU
out to the free-floating regime by detecting microlensing events in Galactic
Bulge. We show that ExELS can also detect large numbers of hot, transiting
exoplanets in the same population. The combined microlensing+transit survey
would allow the first self-consistent estimate of the relative frequencies of
hot and cold sub-stellar companions, reducing biases in comparing "near-field"
radial velocity and transiting exoplanets with "far-field" microlensing
exoplanets. The age of the Bulge and its spread in metallicity further allows
ExELS to better constrain both the variation of companion frequency with
metallicity and statistically explore the strength of star-planet tides.
We conservatively estimate that ExELS will detect ~4100 sub-stellar objects,
with sensitivity typically reaching down to Neptune-mass planets. Of these,
~600 will be detectable in both Euclid's VIS (optical) channel and NISP H-band
imager, with ~90% of detections being hot Jupiters. Likely scenarios predict a
range of 2900-7000 for VIS and 400-1600 for H-band. Twice as many can be
expected in VIS if the cadence can be increased to match the 20-minute H-band
cadence. The separation of planets from brown dwarfs via Doppler boosting or
ellipsoidal variability will be possible in a handful of cases. Radial velocity
confirmation should be possible in some cases, using 30-metre-class telescopes.
We expect secondary eclipses, and reflection and emission from planets to be
detectable in up to ~100 systems in both VIS and NISP-H. Transits of ~500
planetary-radius companions will be characterised with two-colour photometry
and ~40 with four-colour photometry (VIS,YJH), and the albedo of (and emission
from) a large sample of hot Jupiters in the H-band can be explored
statistically.Comment: 18 pages, 16 figures, accepted MNRA
Matters of Gravity, the newsletter of the APS Topical Group on Gravitation
News:
TGG session in the April meeting, by Cliff Will NRC report, by Beverly Berger
MG9 Travel Grant for US researchers, by Jim Isenberg Research Briefs:
How many coalescing binaries are there?, by Vicky Kalogera Recent
developments in black critical phenomena, by Pat Brady Optical black holes?, by
Matt Visser ``Branification:'' an alternative to compactification, by Steve
Giddings Searches for non-Newtonian Gravity at Sub-mm Distances, by Riley
Newman Quiescent cosmological singularities by Bernd Schmidt The debut of LIGO
II, by David Shoemaker Is the universe still accelerating?, by Sean Carroll
Conference reports:
Journ\' ees Relativistes Weimar 1999, by Volker Perlick The 9th Midwest
Relativity Meeting, by Thomas BaumgarteComment: 35 pages, LaTeX with psfig and html.sty, ISSN 1527-3431, Jorge Pullin
(editor), html, ps and pdf versions at http://gravity.phys.psu.edu/mog.htm
Constraining Stellar Feedback: Shock-ionized Gas in Nearby Starburst Galaxies
(abridged) We investigate the properties of feedback-driven shocks in 8
nearby starburst galaxies using narrow-band imaging data from the Hubble Space
Telescope (HST). We identify the shock--ionized component via the line
diagnostic diagram \oiii/\hb vs. \sii (or \nii)/\ha, applied to resolved
regions 3--15 pc in size. We divide our sample into three sub-samples:
sub-solar (Holmberg II, NGC 1569, NGC 4214, NGC 4449, and NGC 5253), solar (He
2-10, NGC 3077) and super-solar (NGC 5236) for consistent shock measurements.
For the sub-solar sub-sample, we derive three scaling relations: (1) , (2) , and
(3) , where
is the \ha luminosity from shock--ionized gas, the SFR per
unit half-light area, the total \ha luminosity, and
the absolute H-band luminosity from 2MASS normalized to solar luminosity. The
other two sub--samples do not have enough number statistics, but appear to
follow the first scaling relation. The energy recovered indicates that the
shocks from stellar feedback in our sample galaxies are fully radiative. If the
scaling relations are applicable in general to stellar feedback, our results
are similar to those by Hopkins et al. (2012) for galactic super winds. This
similarity should, however, be taken with caution at this point, as the
underlying physics that enables the transition from radiative shocks to gas
outflows in galaxies is still poorly understood.Comment: 29 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in the Ap
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