177 research outputs found
Driving massive molecular gas flows in central cluster galaxies with AGN feedback
We present an analysis of new and archival ALMA observations of molecular gas in 12 central cluster galaxies. We examine emerging trends in molecular filament morphology and gas velocities to understand their origins. Molecular gas masses in these systems span 109ââ1011Mââ , far more than most gas-rich galaxies. ALMA images reveal a distribution of morphologies from filamentary to disc-dominated structures. Circumnuclear discs on kiloparsec scales appear rare. In most systems, half to nearly all of the molecular gas lies in filamentary structures with masses of a few Ă108--10Mâ that extend radially several to several tens of kpc. In nearly all cases the molecular gas velocities lie far below stellar velocity dispersions, indicating youth, transience, or both. Filament bulk velocities lie far below the galaxyâs escape and free-fall speeds indicating they are bound and being decelerated. Most extended molecular filaments surround or lie beneath radio bubbles inflated by the central active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Smooth velocity gradients found along the filaments are consistent with gas flowing along streamlines surrounding these bubbles. Evidence suggests most of the molecular clouds formed from low entropy X-ray gas that became thermally unstable and cooled when lifted by the buoyant bubbles. Uplifted gas will stall and fall back to the galaxy in a circulating flow. The distribution in morphologies from filament to disc-dominated sources therefore implies slowly evolving molecular structures driven by the episodic activity of the AGNs
The Orbit of the Orphan Stream
We use recent SEGUE spectroscopy and SDSS and SEGUE imaging data to measure
the sky position, distance, and radial velocities of stars in the tidal debris
stream that is commonly referred to as the "Orphan Stream." We fit orbital
parameters to the data, and find a prograde orbit with an apogalacticon,
perigalacticon, and eccentricity of 90 kpc, 16.4 kpc and 0.7, respectively.
Neither the dwarf galaxy UMa II nor the Complex A gas cloud have velocities
consistent with a kinematic association with the Orphan Stream. It is possible
that Segue-1 is associated with the Orphan Stream, but no other known Galactic
clusters or dwarf galaxies in the Milky Way lie along its orbit. The detected
portion of the stream ranges from 19 to 47 kpc from the Sun and is an indicator
of the mass interior to these distances. There is a marked increase in the
density of Orphan Stream stars near (l,b)=(253,49) deg., which could indicate
the presence of the progenitor at the edge of the SDSS data. If this is the
progenitor, then the detected portion of the Orphan Stream is a leading tidal
tail. We find blue horizontal branch (BHB) stars and F turnoff stars associated
with the Orphan Stream. The turnoff color is (g-r)_0=0.22. The BHB stars have a
low metallicity of [Fe/H]=-2.1. The orbit is best fit to a halo potential with
a halo plus disk mass of about 2.6x10^11 Solar masses, integrated to 60 kpc
from the Galactic center. Our best fit is found with a logarithmic halo speed
of v_halo=73+/-24 km/s, a disk+bulge mass of M(R< 60 kpc) = 1.3x10^11 Solar
masses, and a halo mass of M(R< 60 kpc) = 1.4x10^11 Solar masses. The Orphan
Stream is projected to extend to 90 kpc from the Galactic center, and
measurements of these distant parts of the stream would be a powerful probe of
the mass of the Milky Way (truncated).Comment: 17 Figures, ApJ accepte
Quantum feedback control of a superconducting qubit: Persistent Rabi oscillations
The act of measurement bridges the quantum and classical worlds by projecting
a superposition of possible states into a single, albeit probabilistic,
outcome. The time-scale of this "instantaneous" process can be stretched using
weak measurements so that it takes the form of a gradual random walk towards a
final state. Remarkably, the interim measurement record is sufficient to
continuously track and steer the quantum state using feedback. We monitor the
dynamics of a resonantly driven quantum two-level system -- a superconducting
quantum bit --using a near-noiseless parametric amplifier. The high-fidelity
measurement output is used to actively stabilize the phase of Rabi
oscillations, enabling them to persist indefinitely. This new functionality
shows promise for fighting decoherence and defines a path for continuous
quantum error correction.Comment: Manuscript: 5 Pages and 3 figures ; Supplementary Information: 9
pages and 3 figure
Search for Extratidal Features Around 17 Globular Clusters in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
The dynamical evolution of a single globular cluster and also of the entire
Galactic globular cluster system has been studied theoretically in detail. In
particular, simulations show how the 'lost' stars are distributed in tidal
tails emerging from the clusters. We investigate the distribution of Galactic
globular cluster stars on the sky to identify such features like tidal tails.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey provides consistent photometry of a large part of
the sky to study the projected two dimensional structure of the 17 globular
clusters in its survey area. We use a color-magnitude weighted counting
algorithm to map (potential) cluster member stars on the sky. We recover the
already known tidal tails of Pal 5 and NGC 5466. For NGC 4147 we have found a
two arm morphology. Possible indications of tidal tails are also seen around
NGC 5053 and NGC 7078, supporting earlier suggestions. Moreover, we find
potential tails around NGC 5904 and Pal 14. Especially for the Palomar clusters
than Pal 5, deeper data are needed in order to confirm or to rule out the
existence of tails. For many of the remaining clusters in our sample we observe
a pronounced extratidal halo, which is particularly large for NGC 7006 and Pal
1. In some cases, the extratidal halos may be associated with the stream of the
Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy (e.g.,NGC 4147, NGC 5024, NGC 5053).Comment: Accepted by A&A, 24 pages, 24 figure
Tidal Signatures in the Faintest Milky Way Satellites: The Detailed Properties of Leo V, Pisces II and Canes Venatici II
We present deep wide-field photometry of three recently discovered faint
Milky Way satellites: Leo V, Pisces II, and Canes Venatici II. Our main goals
are to study the structure and star formation history of these dwarfs; we also
search for signs of tidal disturbance. The three satellites have similar
half-light radii ( pc) but a wide range of ellipticities. Both Leo
V and CVn II show hints of stream-like overdensities at large radii. An
analysis of the satellite color-magnitude diagrams shows that all three objects
are old ( 10 Gyr) and metal-poor ([Fe/H] ), though neither the
models nor the data have sufficient precision to assess when the satellites
formed with respect to cosmic reionization. The lack of an observed younger
stellar population (\la 10 Gyr) possibly sets them apart from the other
satellites at Galactocentric distances \ga 150 kpc. We present a new
compilation of structural data for all Milky Way satellite galaxies and use it
to compare the properties of classical dwarfs to the ultra-faints. The
ellipticity distribution of the two groups is consistent at the
2- level. However, the faintest satellites tend to be more
aligned toward the Galactic center, and those satellites with the highest
ellipticity (\ga 0.4) have orientations () in the range
. This latter
observation is in rough agreement with predictions from simulations of dwarf
galaxies that have lost a significant fraction of their dark matter halos and
are being tidally stripped.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, ApJ accepted; version updated to match ApJ
accepte
The intellectual influence of economic journals: quality versus quantity
The evaluation of scientific output has a key role in the allocation of
research funds and academic positions. Decisions are often based on quality indicators
for academic journals, and over the years, a handful of scoring methods have
been proposed for this purpose. Discussing the most prominent methods (de facto
standards) we show that they do not distinguish quality from quantity at article level.
The systematic bias we find is analytically tractable and implies that the methods are
manipulable. We introduce modified methods that correct for this bias, and use them
to provide rankings of economic journals. Our methodology is transparent; our results
are replicable
Tissue Clearing and Deep Imaging of the Kidney Using Confocal and Two-Photon Microscopy
Microscopic and macroscopic evaluation of biological tissues in three dimensions is becoming increasingly popular. This trend is coincident with the emergence of numerous tissue clearing strategies, and advancements in confocal and two-photon microscopy, enabling the study of intact organs and systems down to cellular and sub-cellular resolution. In this chapter, we describe a wholemount immunofluorescence technique for labeling structures in renal tissue. This technique combined with solvent-based tissue clearing and confocal imaging, with or without two-photon excitation, provides greater structural information than traditional sectioning and staining alone. Given the addition of paraffin embedding to our method, this hybrid protocol offers a powerful approach to combine confocal or two-photon findings with histological and further immunofluorescent analysis within the same tissue
Quantum dynamics of simultaneously measured non-commuting observables.
In quantum mechanics, measurements cause wavefunction collapse that yields precise outcomes, whereas for non-commuting observables such as position and momentum Heisenberg's uncertainty principle limits the intrinsic precision of a state. Although theoretical work has demonstrated that it should be possible to perform simultaneous non-commuting measurements and has revealed the limits on measurement outcomes, only recently has the dynamics of the quantum state been discussed. To realize this unexplored regime, we simultaneously apply two continuous quantum non-demolition probes of non-commuting observables to a superconducting qubit. We implement multiple readout channels by coupling the qubit to multiple modes of a cavity. To control the measurement observables, we implement a 'single quadrature' measurement by driving the qubit and applying cavity sidebands with a relative phase that sets the observable. Here, we use this approach to show that the uncertainty principle governs the dynamics of the wavefunction by enforcing a lower bound on the measurement-induced disturbance. Consequently, as we transition from measuring identical to measuring non-commuting observables, the dynamics make a smooth transition from standard wavefunction collapse to localized persistent diffusion and then to isotropic persistent diffusion. Although the evolution of the state differs markedly from that of a conventional measurement, information about both non-commuting observables is extracted by keeping track of the time ordering of the measurement record, enabling quantum state tomography without alternating measurements. Our work creates novel capabilities for quantum control, including rapid state purification, adaptive measurement, measurement-based state steering and continuous quantum error correction. As physical systems often interact continuously with their environment via non-commuting degrees of freedom, our work offers a way to study how notions of contemporary quantum foundations arise in such settings
The Submillimeter Array 1.3 mm line survey of Arp 220
We present the first aperture synthesis unbiased spectral line survey toward
an extragalactic object. The survey covered the 40 GHz frequency range between
202 and 242 GHz of the 1.3 mm atmospheric window. We find that 80% of the
observed band shows molecular emission, with 73 features identified from 15
molecular species and 6 isotopologues. The 13C isotopic substitutions of HC3N
and transitions from H2(18)O, 29SiO, and CH2CO are detected for the first time
outside the Galaxy. Within the broad observed band, we estimate that 28% of the
total measured flux is due to the molecular line contribution, with CO only
contributing 9% to the overall flux. We present maps of the CO emission at a
resolution of 2.9"x1.9" which, though not enough to resolve the two nuclei,
recover all the single-dish flux. The 40 GHz spectral scan has been modelled
assuming LTE conditions and abundances are derived for all identified species.
The chemical composition of Arp 220 shows no clear evidence of an AGN impact on
the molecular emission but seems indicative of a purely starburst-heated ISM.
The overabundance of H2S and the low isotopic ratios observed suggest a
chemically enriched environment by consecutive bursts of star formation, with
an ongoing burst at an early evolutionary stage. The large abundance of water
(~10^-5), derived from the isotopologue H2(18)O, as well as the vibrationally
excited emission from HC3N and CH3CN are claimed to be evidence of massive star
forming regions within Arp 220. Moreover, the observations put strong
constraints on the compactness of the starburst event in Arp 220. We estimate
that such emission would require ~2-8x10^6 hot cores, similar to those found in
the Sgr B2 region in the Galactic center, concentrated within the central 700
pc of Arp 220.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
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