64 research outputs found
Influence of interstellar and atmospheric extinction on light curves of eclipsing binaries
Interstellar and atmospheric extinctions redden the observational photometric
data and they should be handled rigorously. This paper simulates the effect of
reddening for the modest case of two main sequence T1 = 6500K and T2 = 5500K
components of a detached eclipsing binary system. It is shown that simply
subtracting a constant from measured magnitudes (the approach often used in the
field of eclipsing binaries) to account for reddening should be avoided.
Simplified treatment of the reddening introduces systematics that reaches
\~0.01mag for the simulated case, but can be as high as ~0.2mag for e.g.
B8V--K4III systems. With rigorous treatment, it is possible to uniquely
determine the color excess value E(B-V) from multi-color photometric light
curves of eclipsing binaries.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, Kopal's Binary Star Legacy conference
contribution (Litomysl 2004), to be published by Kluwer A&S
Integral Field Spectroscopy of a peculiar Supernova Remnant MF16 in NGC6946
We present a study of a peculiar Supernova Remnant MF16, associated with the
Ultraluminous X-ray Source (ULX) NGC6946 ULX-1. Observations were taken with
the MultiPupil Fiber Spectrograph (MPFS) with 6-m telescope on January 2005.
The nebula is found to be highly asymmetric, one of the parts being much denser
and colder. The two-component structure of the emission lines and radial
velocity gradient argue for a non-spherical nebula, expanding with a velocity
of about 100 km/s. Neither shock models nor the X-ray emission can adequately
explain the actual emission line spectrum of MF16, so we suggest an additional
ultraviolet source with a luminosity of about 10E40 erg/s. We confirm
coincidence of the ULX with the central star, and identify radio emission
observed by VLA with the most dense part of the nebula.Comment: Proceedings of the ESO and Euro3D Workshop "Science Perspectives for
3D Spectroscopy", Garching (Germany), October 10-14, 2005. M. Kissler-Patig,
M.M. Roth and J.R. Walsh (eds.
Effective representation of RT-LOTOS terms by finite time petri nets
The paper describes a transformational approach for the
specification and formal verification of concurrent and real-time systems. At upper level, one system is specified using the timed process algebra RT-LOTOS. The output of the proposed transformation is a Time Petri net (TPN). The paper particularly shows how a TPN can be automatically constructed from an RT-LOTOS specification using a compositionally defined mapping. The proof of the translation consistency is sketched in the paper and developed in [1]. The RT-LOTOS to TPN translation patterns formalized in the paper are being implemented. in a prototype tool. This enables reusing TPNs verification techniques and tools for the profit of RT-LOTOS
Perspectives on Interstellar Dust Inside and Outside of the Heliosphere
Measurements by dust detectors on interplanetary spacecraft appear to
indicate a substantial flux of interstellar particles with masses exceeding
10^{-12}gram. The reported abundance of these massive grains cannot be typical
of interstellar gas: it is incompatible with both interstellar elemental
abundances and the observed extinction properties of the interstellar dust
population. We discuss the likelihood that the Solar System is by chance
located near an unusual concentration of massive grains and conclude that this
is unlikely, unless dynamical processes in the ISM are responsible for such
concentrations. Radiation pressure might conceivably drive large grains into
"magnetic valleys". If the influx direction of interstellar gas and dust is
varying on a ~10 yr timescale, as suggested by some observations, this would
have dramatic implications for the small-scale structure of the interstellar
medium.Comment: 13 pages. To appear in Space Science Review
Cosmic distance-duality as probe of exotic physics and acceleration
In cosmology, distances based on standard candles (e.g. supernovae) and
standard rulers (e.g. baryon oscillations) agree as long as three conditions
are met: (1) photon number is conserved, (2) gravity is described by a metric
theory with (3) photons travelling on unique null geodesics. This is the
content of distance-duality (the reciprocity relation) which can be violated by
exotic physics. Here we analyse the implications of the latest cosmological
data sets for distance-duality. While broadly in agreement and confirming
acceleration we find a 2-sigma violation caused by excess brightening of SN-Ia
at z > 0.5, perhaps due to lensing magnification bias. This brightening has
been interpreted as evidence for a late-time transition in the dark energy but
because it is not seen in the d_A data we argue against such an interpretation.
Our results do, however, rule out significant SN-Ia evolution and extinction:
the "replenishing" grey-dust model with no cosmic acceleration is excluded at
more than 4-sigma despite this being the best-fit to SN-Ia data alone, thereby
illustrating the power of distance-duality even with current data sets.Comment: 6 pages, 4 colour figures. Version accepted as a Rapid Communication
in PR
Reddening law and interstellar dust properties along Magellanic sight-lines
This study establishes that SMC, LMC and Milky Way extinction curves obey the
same extinction law which depends on the 2200A bump size and one parameter, and
generalizes the Cardelli, Clayton and Mathis (1989) relationship. This suggests
that extinction in all three galaxies is of the same nature. The role of linear
reddening laws over all the visible/UV wavelength range, particularly important
in the SMC but also present in the LMC and in the Milky Way, is also
highlighted and discussed.Comment: accepted for publication in Astrophysics and Space Science. 16 pages,
12 figures. Some figures are colour plot
Stellar populations of classical and pseudo-bulges for a sample of isolated spiral galaxies
In this paper we present the stellar population synthesis results for a
sample of 75 bulges in isolated spiral Sb-Sc galaxies, using the spectroscopic
data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the STARLIGHT code. We find that
both pseudo-bulges and classical bulges in our sample are predominantly
composed of old stellar populations, with mean mass-weighted stellar age around
10 Gyr. While the stellar population of pseudo-bulges is, in general, younger
than that of classical bulges, the difference is not significant, which
indicates that it is hard to distinguish pseudo-bulges from classical bulges,
at least for these isolated galaxies, only based on their stellar populations.
Pseudo-bulges have star formation activities with relatively longer timescale
than classical bulges, indicating that secular evolution is more important in
this kind of systems. Our results also show that pseudo-bulges have a lower
stellar velocity dispersion than their classical counterparts, which suggests
that classical bulges are more dispersion-supported than pseudo-bulges.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space
Scienc
Star Formation in the Starburst Cluster in NGC 3603
We have used new, deep, visible and near infrared observations of the compact
starburst cluster in the giant HII region NGC 3603 and its surroundings with
the WFC3 on HST and HAWK-I on the VLT to study in detail the physical
properties of its intermediate mass (~ 1 - 3 M_sun) stellar population. We show
that after correction for differential extinction and actively accreting stars,
and the study of field star contamination, strong evidence remains for a
continuous spread in the ages of pre-main sequence stars in the range ~ 2 to ~
30 Myr within the temporal resolution available. Existing differences among
presently available theoretical models account for the largest possible
variation in shape of the measured age histograms within these limits. We also
find that this isochronal age spread in the near infrared and visible
Colour-Magnitude Diagrams cannot be reproduced by any other presently known
source of astrophysical or instrumental scatter that could mimic the luminosity
spread seen in our observations except, possibly, episodic accretion. The
measured age spread and the stellar spatial distribution in the cluster are
consistent with the hypothesis that star formation started at least 20-30 Myrs
ago progressing slowly but continuously up to at least a few million years ago.
All the stars in the considered mass range are distributed in a flattened
oblate spheroidal pattern with the major axis oriented in an approximate
South-East - North-West direction, and with the length of the equatorial axis
decreasing with increasing age. This asymmetry is most likely due to the fact
that star formation occurred along a filament of gas and dust in the natal
molecular cloud oriented locally in this direction.Comment: 21 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophysics &
Space Scienc
The use of numerical value of adverbs of quantity and frequency in the measurement of behavior patterns: transforming ordinal scales into interval scales
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