Velocity and velocity bounds in static spherically symmetric metrics

We find simple expressions for velocity of massless particles in dependence of the distance $r$ in Schwarzschild coordinates. For massive particles these expressions put an upper bound for the velocity. Our results apply to static spherically symmetric metrics. We use these results to calculate the velocity for different cases: Schwarzschild, Schwarzschild-de Sitter and Reissner-Nordstr\"om with and without the cosmological constant. We emphasize the differences between the behavior of the velocity in the different metrics and find that in cases with naked singularity there exists always a region where the massless particle moves with a velocity bigger than the velocity of light in vacuum. In the case of Reissner-Nordstr\"om-de Sitter we completely characterize the radial velocity and the metric in an algebraic way. We contrast the case of classical naked singularities with naked singularities emerging from metric inspired by noncommutative geometry where the radial velocity never exceeds one. Furthermore, we solve the Einstein equations for a constant and polytropic density profile and calculate the radial velocity of a photon moving in spaces with interior metric. The polytropic case of radial velocity displays an unexpected variation bounded by a local minimum and maximum.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure

Negative Group Velocity

The group velocity for pulses in an optical medium can be negative at frequencies between those of a pair of laser-pumped spectral lines. The gain medium then can amplify the leading edge of a pulse resulting in a time advance of the pulse when it exits the medium, as has been recently demonstrated in the laboratory. This effect has been called superluminal, but, as a classical analysis shows, it cannot result in signal propgation at speeds greater than that of light in vacuum.Comment: v3 adds discussion of "rephasing", and adds a figure. v4 adds references to the early history of negative group velocity, and adds a figure; thanks to Alex Grani

High-Velocity Clouds in the Nearby Spiral Galaxy M 83

We present deep HI 21-cm and optical observations of the face-on spiral galaxy M 83 obtained as part of a project to search for high-velocity clouds (HVCs) in nearby galaxies. Anomalous-velocity neutral gas is detected toward M 83, with 5.6x10^7 Msolar of HI contained in a disk rotating 40-50 km/s more slowly in projection than the bulk of the gas. We interpret this as a vertically extended thick disk of neutral material, containing 5.5% of the total HI within the central 8 kpc. Using an automated source detection algorithm to search for small-scale HI emission features, we find eight distinct, anomalous-velocity HI clouds with masses ranging from 7x10^5 to 1.5x10^7 Msolar and velocities differing by up to 200 km/s compared to the HI disk. Large on-disk structures are coincident with the optical spiral arms, while unresolved off-disk clouds contain no diffuse optical emission down to a limit of 27 r' mag per square arcsec. The diversity of the thick HI disk and larger clouds suggests the influence of multiple formation mechanisms, with a galactic fountain responsible for the slowly-rotating disk and on-disk discrete clouds, and tidal effects responsible for off-disk cloud production. The mass and kinetic energy of the HI clouds are consistent with the mass exchange rate predicted by the galactic fountain model. If the HVC population in M 83 is similar to that in our own Galaxy, then the Galactic HVCs must be distributed within a radius of less than 25 kpc.Comment: 30 pages, 23 figures; accepted for publication in ApJ. Some figures have been altered to reduce their siz

The Prevalence of Gas Outflows in Type 2 AGNs. II. 3D Biconical Outflow Models

We present 3D models of biconical outflows combined with a thin dust plane for investigating the physical properties of the ionized gas outflows and their effect on the observed gas kinematics in type 2 active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Using a set of input parameters, we construct a number of models in 3D and calculate the spatially integrated velocity and velocity dispersion for each model. We find that three primary parameters, i.e., intrinsic velocity, bicone inclination, and the amount of dust extinction, mainly determine the simulated velocity and velocity dispersion. Velocity dispersion increases as the intrinsic velocity or the bicone inclination increases, while velocity (i.e., velocity shifts with respect to systemic velocity) increases as the amount of dust extinction increases. Simulated emission-line profiles well reproduce the observed [O III] line profiles, e.g., a narrow core and a broad wing components. By comparing model grids and Monte Carlo simulations with the observed [O III] velocity-velocity dispersion (VVD) distribution of ~39,000 type 2 AGNs, we constrain the intrinsic velocity of gas outflows ranging from ~500 km/s to ~1000 km/s for the majority of AGNs, and up to ~1500-2000 km/s for extreme cases. The Monte Carlo simulations show that the number ratio of AGNs with negative [O III] velocity to AGNs with positive [O III] velocity correlates with the outflow opening angle, suggesting that outflows with higher intrinsic velocity tend to have wider opening angles. These results demonstrate the potential of our 3D models for studying the physical properties of gas outflows, applicable to various observations, including spatially integrated and resolved gas kinematics.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, 2 tables; matched with the ApJ published versio

Velocity Field Statistics in Star-Forming Regions. I. Centroid Velocity Observations

The probability density functions (pdfs) of molecular line centroid velocity fluctuations and fluctuation differences at different spatial lags are estimated for several nearby molecular clouds with active internal star formation. The data consist of over 75,000 $^{13}$CO line profiles divided among twelve spatially and/or kinematically distinct regions. Although three regions (all in Mon R2) appear nearly Gaussian, the others show strong evidence for non-Gaussian, often nearly exponential, centroid velocity pdfs, possibly with power law contributions in the far tails. Evidence for nearly exponential centroid pdfs in the neutral HI component of the ISM is also presented, based on older optical and radio observations. These results are in contrast to pdfs found in isotropic incompressible turbulence experiments and simulations. Furthermore, no evidence is found for the scaling of difference pdf kurtosis with Reynolds number which is seen in incompressible turbulence, and the spatial distribution of high-amplitude velocity differences shows little indication of the filamentary appearance predicted by decay simulations dominated by vortical interactions. The variation with lag of the difference pdf moments is presented as a constraint on future simulations.Comment: LaTeX, 23 pages, with 15 Figures included separately as gif image files. Refereed/revised version accepted to the Astrophysical Journal. A complete (but much larger) postscript version is available from http://ktaadn.gsfc.nasa.gov/~miesc

Investigation of exit-velocity stratification effects on jets in a crossflow (STRJET)

Program determines flow field about jets with velocity stratification exhausting into crossflow. Jets with three different types of exit-velocity stratification have been considered: (a) jets with relatively high-velocity core, (b) jets with relatively low-velocity core, and (c) jets originating from vaned nozzle

Protostellar Jets Enclosed by Low-velocity Outflows

A protostellar jet and outflow are calculated for \sim 270 yr following the protostar formation using a three dimensional magnetohydrodynamics simulation, in which both the protostar and its parent cloud are spatially resolved. A high-velocity (\sim100km/s) jet with good collimation is driven near the disk's inner edge, while a low-velocity (<10km/s) outflow with a wide opening angle appears in the outer-disk region. The high-velocity jet propagates into the low-velocity outflow, forming a nested velocity structure in which a narrow high-velocity flow is enclosed by a wide low-velocity flow. The low-velocity outflow is in a nearly steady state, while the high-velocity jet appears intermittently. The time-variability of the jet is related to the episodic accretion from the disk onto the protostar, which is caused by gravitational instability and magnetic effects such as magnetic braking and magnetorotational instability. Although the high-velocity jet has a large kinetic energy, the mass and momentum of the jet are much smaller than those of the low-velocity outflow. A large fraction of the infalling gas is ejected by the low-velocity outflow. Thus, the low-velocity outflow actually has a more significant effect than the high-velocity jet in the very early phase of the star formation.Comment: Published in ApJL. Animations can be found at https://jupiter.geo.kyushu-u.ac.jp/machida/arxiv/anim_jet

First radial velocity results from the MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA)

The MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA) is a dedicated observatory of four 0.7m robotic telescopes fiber-fed to a KiwiSpec spectrograph. The MINERVA mission is to discover super-Earths in the habitable zones of nearby stars. This can be accomplished with MINERVA's unique combination of high precision and high cadence over long time periods. In this work, we detail changes to the MINERVA facility that have occurred since our previous paper. We then describe MINERVA's robotic control software, the process by which we perform 1D spectral extraction, and our forward modeling Doppler pipeline. In the process of improving our forward modeling procedure, we found that our spectrograph's intrinsic instrumental profile is stable for at least nine months. Because of that, we characterized our instrumental profile with a time-independent, cubic spline function based on the profile in the cross dispersion direction, with which we achieved a radial velocity precision similar to using a conventional "sum-of-Gaussians" instrumental profile: 1.8 m s$^{-1}$ over 1.5 months on the RV standard star HD 122064. Therefore, we conclude that the instrumental profile need not be perfectly accurate as long as it is stable. In addition, we observed 51 Peg and our results are consistent with the literature, confirming our spectrograph and Doppler pipeline are producing accurate and precise radial velocities.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, submitted to PASP, Peer-Reviewed and Accepte