Molecular properties of (U)LIRGs: CO, HCN, HNC and HCO+

The observed molecular properties of a sample of FIR-luminous and OH megamaser (OH-MM) galaxies have been investigated. The ratio of high and low-density tracer lines is found to be determined by the progression of the star formation in the system. The HCO+/HCN and HCO+/HNC line ratios are good proxies for the density of the gas, and PDR and XDR sources can be distinguished using the HNC/HCN line ratio. The properties of the OH-MM sources in the sample can be explained by PDR chemistry in gas with densities higher than 10^5.5 cm^-3, confirming the classical OH-MM model of IR pumped amplification with (variable) low gains.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, to appear in: IAU Symposium 242 Astrophysical Masers and their Environment

Arp 220 - IC 4553/4: understanding the system and diagnosing the ISM

Arp220 is a nearby system in final stages of galaxy merger with powerful ongoing star-formation at and surrounding the two nuclei. Arp 220 was detected in HI absorption and OH Megamaser emission and later recognized as the nearest ultra-luminous infrared galaxy also showing powerful molecular and X-ray emissions. In this paper we review the available radio and mm-wave observational data of Arp 220 in order to obtain an integrated picture of the dense interstellar medium that forms the location of the powerful star-formation at the two nuclei.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, to appear in: IAU Symposium 242 Astrophysical Masers and their Environment

Recognition and reconstruction of coherent energy with application to deep seismic reflection data

Reflections in deep seismic reflection data tend to be visible on only a limited number of traces in a common midpoint gather. To prevent stack degeneration, any noncoherent reflection energy has to be removed. In this paper, a standard classification technique in remote sensing is presented to enhance data quality. It consists of a recognition technique to detect and extract coherent energy in both common shot gathers and fi- nal stacks. This technique uses the statistics of a picked seismic phase to obtain the likelihood distribution of its presence. Multiplication of this likelihood distribution with the original data results in a “cleaned up” section. Application of the technique to data from a deep seismic reflection experiment enhanced the visibility of all reflectors considerably. Because the recognition technique cannot produce an estimate of “missing” data, it is extended with a reconstruction method. Two methods are proposed: application of semblance weighted local slant stacks after recognition, and direct recognition in the linear tau-p domain. In both cases, the power of the stacking process to increase the signal-to-noise ratio is combined with the direct selection of only specific seismic phases. The joint application of recognition and reconstruction resulted in data images which showed reflectors more clearly than application of a single technique

The irradiated ISM of ULIRGs

The nuclei of ULIRGs harbor massive young stars, an accreting central black hole, or both. Results are presented for molecular gas that is exposed to X-rays (1-100 keV, XDRs) and far-ultraviolet radiation (6-13.6 eV, PDRs). Attention is paid to species like HCO+, HCN, HNC, OH, H2O and CO. Line ratios of HCN/HCO+ and HNC/HCN discriminate between PDRs and XDRs. Very high J (>10) CO lines, observable with HIFI/Herschel, discriminate very well between XDRs and PDRs. In XDRs, it is easy to produce large abundances of warm (T>100 K) H2O and OH. In PDRs, only OH is produced similarly well.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, to appear in: IAU Symposium 242 Astrophysical Masers and their Environment

Muscle force is determined also by muscle relative position: isolated effects

Effects on force of changes of the position of extensor digitorum longus muscle (EDL) relative to surrounding tissues were investigated in rat. Connective tissue at the muscle bellies of tibialis anterior (TA), extensor hallucis longus (EHL) and EDL was left intact, to allow myofascial force transmission. The position of EDL muscle was altered, without changing EDL muscle–tendon complex length, and force exerted at proximal and distal tendons of EDL as well as summed force exerted at the distal tendons of TA and EHL muscles (TA+EHL) were measured. Proximal and distal EDL forces as well as distal TA+EHL force changed significantly on repositioning EDL muscle.\ud \ud These muscle position–force characteristics were assessed at two EDL lengths and two TA+EHL lengths. It was shown that changes of muscle force with length changes of a muscle is the result of the length changes per se, as well as of changes of relative position of parts of the muscle. It is concluded that in addition to length, muscle position relative to its surroundings co-determines isometric muscle force.\ud \ud Keywords: Intermuscular and extramuscular connective tissue; Myofascial force transmission; Rat m. extensor digitorum longus (EDL); Sarcomere length; Muscle relative positio

RadioAstron space-VLBI project: studies of masers in star forming regions of our Galaxy and megamasers in external galaxies

Observations of the masers in the course of RadioAstron mission yielded detections of fringes for a number of sources in both water and hydroxyl maser transitions. Several sources display numerous ultra-compact details. This proves that implementation of the space VLBI technique for maser studies is possible technically and is not always prevented by the interstellar scattering, maser beaming and other effects related to formation, transfer, and detection of the cosmic maser emission. For the first time, cosmic water maser emission was detected with projected baselines exceeding Earth Diameter. It was detected in a number of star-forming regions in the Galaxy and megamaser galaxies NGC 4258 and NGC 3079. RadioAstron observations provided the absolute record of the angular resolution in astronomy. Fringes from the NGC 4258 megamaser were detected on baseline exceeding 25 Earth Diameters. This means that the angular resolution sufficient to measure the parallax of the water maser source in the nearby galaxy LMC was directly achieved in the cosmic maser observations. Very compact features with angular sizes about 20 microarcsec have been detected in star-forming regions of our Galaxy. Corresponding linear sizes are about 5-10 million kilometers. So, the major step from milli- to micro-arcsecond resolution in maser studies is done in the RadioAstron mission. The existence of the features with extremely small angular sizes is established. Further implementations of the space-VLBI maser instrument for studies of the nature of cosmic objects, studies of the interaction of extremely high radiation field with molecular material and studies of the matter on the line of sight are planned.Comment: To be published in Astrophysical Masers: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe, IAU Symposium 336, 201

The Emission Structure of Formaldehyde MegaMasers

The formaldehyde MegaMaser emission has been mapped for the three host galaxies IC\,860. IRAS\,15107$+$0724, and Arp\,220. Elongated emission components are found at the nuclear centres of all galaxies with an extent ranging between 30 to 100 pc. These components are superposed on the peaks of the nuclear continuum. Additional isolated emission components are found superposed in the outskirts of the radio continuum structure. The brightness temperatures of the detected features ranges from 0.6 to 13.4 $\times 10^{4}$ K, which confirms their masering nature. The masering scenario is interpreted as amplification of the radio continuum by foreground molecular gas that is pumped by far-infrared radiation fields in these starburst environments of the host galaxies.Comment: Accepted MNRA

WSRT 1.4 GHz Observations of the Hubble Deep Field

We present WSRT 1.38 GHz observations of the Hubble Deep Field (and flanking fields). 72 hours of data were combined to produce the WSRT's deepest image yet, achieving an r.m.s. noise level of 8 microJy per beam. We detect radio emission from galaxies both in the HDF and HFF which have not been previously detected by recent MERLIN or VLA studies of the field.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, to appear in "The Universe at Low Radio Frequencies", IAU Symposium 199. For colour figures, see http://www.nfra.nl/~mag/hdf_wsrt.htm

Short-time homomorphic wavelet estimation

Successful wavelet estimation is an essential step for seismic methods like impedance inversion, analysis of amplitude variations with offset and full waveform inversion. Homomorphic deconvolution has long intrigued as a potentially elegant solution to the wavelet estimation problem. Yet a successful implementation has proven difficult. Associated disadvantages like phase unwrapping and restrictions of sparsity in the reflectivity function limit its application. We explore short-time homomorphic wavelet estimation as a combination of the classical homomorphic analysis and log-spectral averaging. The introduced method of log-spectral averaging using a short-term Fourier transform increases the number of sample points, thus reducing estimation variances. We apply the developed method on synthetic and real data examples and demonstrate good performance.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures. 2012 J. Geophys. Eng. 9 67

Opportunities for maser studies with the Square Kilometre Array

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is the radio telescope of the next generation, providing an increase in sensitivity and angular resolution of two orders of magnitude over existing telescopes. Currently, the SKA is expected to span the frequency range 0.1-25 GHz with capabilities including a wide field-of-view and measurement of polarised emission. Such a telescope has enormous potential for testing fundamental physical laws and producing transformational discoveries. Important science goals include using H2O megamasers to make precise estimates of H0, which will anchor the extragalactic distance scale, and to probe the central structures of accretion disks around supermassive black holes in AGNs, to study OH megamasers associated with extreme starburst activity in distant galaxies and to study with unprecedented precision molecular gas and star formation in our Galaxy.Comment: 5 pages, to appear in: IAU Symposium 242 Astrophysical Masers and their Environment