1,053 research outputs found
EMBRACE@Nancay: An Ultra Wide Field of View Prototype for the SKA
A revolution in radio receiving technology is underway with the development
of densely packed phased arrays for radio astronomy. This technology can
provide an exceptionally large field of view, while at the same time sampling
the sky with high angular resolution. Such an instrument, with a field of view
of over 100 square degrees, is ideal for performing fast, all-sky, surveys,
such as the "intensity mapping" experiment to measure the signature of Baryonic
Acoustic Oscillations in the HI mass distribution at cosmological redshifts.
The SKA, built with this technology, will be able to do a billion galaxy
survey. I will present a very brief introduction to radio interferometry, as
well as an overview of the Square Kilometre Array project. This will be
followed by a description of the EMBRACE prototype and a discussion of results
and future plans.Comment: to appear in proceedings of the INFIERI Summer School INtelligent
Signal Processing for FrontIEr Research and Industry, Paris 201
Molecular gas in high-mass filament WB673
We studied the distribution of dense gas in a filamentary molecular cloud
containing several dense clumps. The center of the filament is given by the
dense clump WB673. The clumps are high-mass and intermediate-mass star-forming
regions. We observed CS(2-1), 13CO(1-0), C18O(1-0) and methanol lines at 96GHz
toward WB673 with the Onsala Space Observatory 20-m telescope. We found CS(2-1)
emission in the inter-clump medium so the clumps are physically connected and
the whole cloud is indeed a filament. Its total mass is M and
mass-to-length ratio is 360 Mpc from 13CO(1-0) data.
Mass-to-length ratio for the dense gas is Mpc from
CS(2-1) data. The PV-diagram of the filament is V-shaped. We estimated physical
conditions in the molecular gas using methanol lines. Location of the filament
on the sky between extended shells suggests that it could be a good example to
test theoretical models of formation of the filaments via multiple compression
of interstellar gas by supersonic waves
Characterization of a dense aperture array for radio astronomy
EMBRACE@Nancay is a prototype instrument consisting of an array of 4608
densely packed antenna elements creating a fully sampled, unblocked aperture.
This technology is proposed for the Square Kilometre Array and has the
potential of providing an extremely large field of view making it the ideal
survey instrument. We describe the system,calibration procedures, and results
from the prototype.Comment: 17 pages, accepted for publication in A&
On the accretion process in a high-mass star forming region - A multitransitional THz Herschel-HIFI study of ammonia toward G34.26+0.15
[Abridged] Our aim is to explore the gas dynamics and the accretion process
in the early phase of high-mass star formation. The inward motion of molecular
gas in the massive star forming region G34.26+0.15 is investigated by using
high-resolution profiles of seven transitions of ammonia at THz frequencies
observed with Herschel-HIFI. The shapes and intensities of these lines are
interpreted in terms of radiative transfer models of a spherical, collapsing
molecular envelope. An accelerated Lambda Iteration (ALI) method is used to
compute the models. The seven ammonia lines show mixed absorption and emission
with inverse P-Cygni-type profiles that suggest infall onto the central source.
A trend toward absorption at increasingly higher velocities for higher
excitation transitions is clearly seen in the line profiles. The lines show only very weak emission, so these absorption profiles
can be used directly to analyze the inward motion of the gas. This is the first
time a multitransitional study of spectrally resolved rotational ammonia lines
has been used for this purpose. Broad emission is, in addition, mixed with the
absorption in the ortho-NH line, possibly tracing a molecular
outflow from the star forming region. The best-fitting ALI model reproduces the
continuum fluxes and line profiles, but slightly underpredicts the emission and
absorption depth in the ground-state ortho line . The derived
ortho-to-para ratio is approximately 0.5 throughout the infalling cloud core
similar to recent findings for translucent clouds in sight lines toward W31C
and W49N. We find evidence of two gas components moving inwards toward the
central region with constant velocities: 2.7 and 5.3 kms, relative
to the source systemic velocity. The inferred mass accretion rates derived are
sufficient to overcome the expected radiation pressure from G34.26+0.15.Comment: 20 pages, 18 figures, accepted by A&A 3 October 201
Southern Massive Stars at High Angular Resolution: Observational Campaign and Companion Detection
Multiplicity is one of the most fundamental observable properties of massive
O-type stars and offers a promising way to discriminate between massive star
formation theories. Nevertheless, companions at separations between 1 and 100
mas remain mostly unknown due to intrinsic observational limitations. [...] The
Southern MAssive Stars at High angular resolution survey (SMASH+) was designed
to fill this gap by providing the first systematic interferometric survey of
Galactic massive stars. We observed 117 O-type stars with VLTI/PIONIER and 162
O-type stars with NACO/SAM, respectively probing the separation ranges 1-45 and
30-250mas and brightness contrasts of Delta H < 4 and Delta H < 5. Taking
advantage of NACO's field-of-view, we further uniformly searched for visual
companions in an 8''-radius down to Delta H = 8. This paper describes the
observations and data analysis, reports the discovery of almost 200 new
companions in the separation range from 1mas to 8'' and presents the catalog of
detections, including the first resolved measurements of over a dozen known
long-period spectroscopic binaries.
Excluding known runaway stars for which no companions are detected, 96
objects in our main sample (DEC < 0 deg; H<7.5) were observed both with PIONIER
and NACO/SAM. The fraction of these stars with at least one resolved companion
within 200mas is 0.53. Accounting for known but unresolved spectroscopic or
eclipsing companions, the multiplicity fraction at separation < 8'' increases
to f_m = 0.91 +/- 0.03. The fraction of luminosity class V stars that have a
bound companion reaches 100% at 30mas while their average number of physically
connected companions within 8'' is f_c = 2.2 +/- 0.3. This demonstrates that
massive stars form nearly exclusively in multiple systems. Additionally, the
nine non-thermal (NT) radio emitters observed by SMASH+ are all resolved [...]Comment: 57 pages, 20 figures, 7 tables; accepted for publication in ApJ
Hunting for the elusive methylene radical
CH2 transitions between 68 and 71 GHz were first detected toward the Orion-KL
and W51 Main SFRs. Given their upper level energies of 225 K, they were thought
to arise in dense, hot molecular cores near newly formed stars. However, this
has not been confirmed by further observations of these lines and their origin
has remained unclear. Generally, there is a scarcity of observational data for
CH2 and, while it is an important compound in the astrochemical context, its
actual occurrence in astronomical sources is poorly constrained. The present
study, along with other recent observations of the Orion region we report, rule
out the possibility of an association with gas that is both hot and dense. We
find that the distribution of the CH2 emission closely follows that of the
[CII] 158 um emission, while CH2 is undetected toward the hot core itself. The
observations suggest, rather, that its extended emission arises from hot but
dilute layers of PDRs and not from the denser parts of such regions as in the
case of the Orion Bar. This hypothesis was corroborated by comparisons of the
observed CH2 line profiles with those of CRRLs, well-known PDR tracers. In
addition, we report the detection of the 70 GHz fine- and hfs lines of o-CH2
toward the W51E, W51M, W51N, W49N, W43, W75N, DR21, and S140 SFRs, and three of
the fine- and hfs lines between 68-71 GHz toward W3 IRS5. Furthermore, using a
non-LTE radiative transfer analysis, we can constrain the gas temperatures and
H2 density to 163 K and 3.4e3 cm^-3, respectively. This analysis confirms our
hypothesis that CH2 originates in warm and dilute PDR layers. Our analysis
suggests that for the excitation conditions under the physical conditions that
prevail in such regions, these lines are masering, with weak level inversion.
The resulting amplification of the lines' spontaneous emission greatly aids in
their detection.Comment: Accepted in A&A, 25 pages, 18 figures, 5 table
A spectral line survey of Orion KL in the bands 486-492 and 541-577 GHz with the Odin satellite I. The observational data
Spectral line surveys are useful since they allow identification of new
molecules and new lines in uniformly calibrated data sets. Nonetheless, large
portions of the sub-millimetre spectral regime remain unexplored due to severe
absorptions by H2O and O2 in the terrestrial atmosphere. The purpose of the
measurements presented here is to cover wavelength regions at and around 0.55
mm -- regions largely unobservable from the ground. Using the Odin
astronomy/aeronomy satellite, we performed the first spectral survey of the
Orion KL molecular cloud core in the bands 486--492 and 541--576 GHz with
rather uniform sensitivity (22--25 mK baseline noise). Odin's 1.1 m size
telescope, equipped with four cryo-cooled tuneable mixers connected to broad
band spectrometers, was used in a satellite position-switching mode. Two mixers
simultaneously observed different 1.1 GHz bands using frequency steps of 0.5
GHz (25 hours each). An on-source integration time of 20 hours was achieved for
most bands. The entire campaign consumed ~1100 orbits, each containing one hour
of serviceable astro-observation. We identified 280 spectral lines from 38
known interstellar molecules (including isotopologues) having intensities in
the range 80 to 0.05 K. An additional 64 weak lines remain unidentified. Apart
from the ground state rotational 1(1,0)--1(0,1) transitions of ortho-H2O, H218O
and H217O, the high energy 6(2,4)--7(1,7) line of para-H2O and the
HDO(2,0,2--1,1,1) line have been observed, as well as the 1,0--0,1 lines from
NH3 and its rare isotopologue 15NH3. We suggest assignments for some
unidentified features, notably the new interstellar molecules ND and SH-.
Severe blends have been detected in the line wings of the H218O, H217O and 13CO
lines changing the true linewidths of the outflow emission.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures, 7 tables, accepeted for publication in
Astronomy and Astrophysics 30 August 200
Exocomet signatures around the A-shell star Leo?
We present an intensive monitoring of high-resolution spectra of the Ca {\sc
ii} K line in the A7IV shell star Leo at very short (minutes, hours),
short (night to night), and medium (weeks, months) timescales. The spectra show
remarkable variable absorptions on timescales of hours, days, and months. The
characteristics of these sporadic events are very similar to most that are
observed toward the debris disk host star Pic, which are commonly
interpreted as signs of the evaporation of solid, comet-like bodies grazing or
falling onto the star. Therefore, our results suggest the presence of solid
bodies around Leo. To our knowledge, with the exception of Pic,
our monitoring has the best time resolution at the mentioned timescales for a
star with events attributed to exocomets. Assuming the cometary scenario and
considering the timescales of our monitoring, our results indicate that
Leo presents the richest environment with comet-like events known to date,
second only to Pic.Comment: A&A letters, proof-correcte
Effects of Warming on Shrub Abundance and Chemistry Drive Ecosystem-Level Changes in a Forest-Tundra Ecotone
Tundra vegetation is responding rapidly to on-going climate warming. The changes in plant abundance and chemistry might have cascading effects on tundra food webs, but an integrated understanding of how the responses vary between habitats and across environmental gradients is lacking. We assessed responses in plant abundance and plant chemistry to warmer climate, both at species and community levels, in two different habitats. We used a long-term and multisite warming (OTC) experiment in the Scandinavian forest–tundra ecotone to investigate (i) changes in plant community composition and (ii) responses in foliar nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon-based secondary compound concentrations in two dominant evergreen dwarf-shrubs (Empetrum hermaphroditum and Vaccinium vitis-idaea) and two deciduous shrubs (Vaccinium myrtillus and Betula nana). We found that initial plant community composition, and the functional traits of these plants, will determine the responsiveness of the community composition, and thus community traits, to experimental warming. Although changes in plant chemistry within species were minor, alterations in plant community composition drive changes in community-level nutrient concentrations. In view of projected climate change, our results suggest that plant abundance will increase in the future, but nutrient concentrations in the tundra field layer vegetation will decrease. These effects are large enough to have knock-on consequences for major ecosystem processes like herbivory and nutrient cycling. The reduced food quality could lead to weaker trophic cascades and weaker top down control of plant community biomass and composition in the future. However, the opposite effects in forest indicate that these changes might be obscured by advancing treeline forests
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