Uncovering CDM halo substructure with tidal streams

Models for the formation and growth of structure in a cold dark matter dominated universe predict that galaxy halos should contain significant substructure. Studies of the Milky Way, however, have yet to identify the expected few hundred sub-halos with masses greater than about 10^6 Msun. Here we propose a test for the presence of sub-halos in the halos of galaxies. We show that the structure of the tidal tails of ancient globular clusters is very sensitive to heating by repeated close encounters with the massive dark sub-halos. We discuss the detection of such an effect in the context of the next generation of astrometric missions, and conclude that it should be easily detectable with the GAIA dataset. The finding of a single extended cold stellar stream from a globular cluster would support alternative theories, such as self-interacting dark matter, that give rise to smoother halos.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, submitted to MNRA

The Role of Cold Flows in the Assembly of Galaxy Disks

We use high resolution cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to demonstrate that cold flow gas accretion, particularly along filaments, modifies the standard picture of gas accretion and cooling onto galaxy disks. In the standard picture, all gas is initially heated to the virial temperature of the galaxy as it enters the virial radius. Low mass galaxies are instead dominated by accretion of gas that stays well below the virial temperature, and even when a hot halo is able to develop in more massive galaxies there exist dense filaments that penetrate inside of the virial radius and deliver cold gas to the central galaxy. For galaxies up to ~L*, this cold accretion gas is responsible for the star formation in the disk at all times to the present. Even for galaxies at higher masses, cold flows dominate the growth of the disk at early times. Within this modified picture, galaxies are able to accrete a large mass of cold gas, with lower initial gas temperatures leading to shorter cooling times to reach the disk. Although star formation in the disk is mitigated by supernovae feedback, the short cooling times allow for the growth of stellar disks at higher redshifts than predicted by the standard model.Comment: accepted to Ap

Forming Disk Galaxies in Lambda CDM Simulations

We used fully cosmological, high resolution N-body + SPH simulations to follow the formation of disk galaxies with rotational velocities between 135 and 270 km/sec in a Lambda CDM universe. The simulations include gas cooling, star formation, the effects of a uniform UV background and a physically motivated description of feedback from supernovae. The host dark matter halos have a spin and last major merger redshift typical of galaxy sized halos as measured in recent large scale N--Body simulations. The simulated galaxies form rotationally supported disks with realistic exponential scale lengths and fall on both the I-band and baryonic Tully Fisher relations. An extended stellar disk forms inside the Milky Way sized halo immediately after the last major merger. The combination of UV background and SN feedback drastically reduces the number of visible satellites orbiting inside a Milky Way sized halo, bringing it in fair agreement with observations. Our simulations predict that the average age of a primary galaxy's stellar population decreases with mass, because feedback delays star formation in less massive galaxies. Galaxies have stellar masses and current star formation rates as a function of total mass that are in good agreement with observational data. We discuss how both high mass and force resolution and a realistic description of star formation and feedback are important ingredients to match the observed properties of galaxies.Comment: Revised version after the referee's comments. Conclusions unchanged. 2 new plots. MNRAS in press. 20 plots. 21 page

The effects of classic and variant infectious bursal disease viruses on lymphocyte populations in specific-pathogen-free White Leghorn chickens

Infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) is a pathogen that primarily infects B lymphocytes in domestic avian species. This viral infection has been associated with immunosuppression, clinical disease/mortality, and enteric malabsorption effects. The purpose of this experiment was to compare the effects of a classic (USDA-STC) and a new variant IBDV (RB-4, known to induce primarily the enteric disease) on immune cell populations in lymphoid organs. Seventeen-dayold specific-pathogen-free (SPF) White Leghorn chickens were either not infected (control) or inoculated with either USDA-STC or RB-4 IBD viral isolate. On days 3 and 5 post-inoculation (PI), lymphoid tissues were collected to prepare cell suspensions for immunofluorescent staining and cell population analysis by flow cytometry. Portions of the tissues were snap frozen for immunohistochemistry to localize various immune cells and IBD virus in the tissues. Tissue homogenates were prepared to test for IBDV by quantitative MTT assay. Both the USDA-STC and RB-4 viruses greatly altered lymphocyte populations in the spleen and bursa. At 5 d PI, bursal B cells were approximately 25% and 60% of lymphocytes in chicks infected with USDA-STC and RB-4, respectively, whereas in control birds, B cells constituted 99% of bursal lymphocytes. This reduction in the proportions of bursal B cells was associated with an infiltration of T cells. In the spleen, IBDV infection also reduced the percentage of B cells and increased the percentage of T cells. The differential effects of classic and variant IBDV infection on immune cell populations in lymphoid organs may explain the differences in clinical effects induced by these viruse

Quasiexcitons in Incompressible Quantum Liquids

Photoluminescence (PL) has been used to study two-dimensional incompressible electron liquids in high magnetic fields for nearly two decades. However, some of the observed anomalies coincident with the fractional quantum Hall effect are still unexplained. We show that emission in these systems occurs from fractionally charged "quasiexciton" states formed from trions correlated with the surrounding electrons. Their binding and recombination depend on the state of both the electron liquid and the involved trion, predicting discontinuities in PL and sensitivity to sample parameters.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure