958 research outputs found
A Disk Census for Young Brown Dwarfs
Recent surveys have identified sub-stellar objects down to planetary masses
in nearby star-forming regions. Reliable determination of the disk frequency in
young brown dwarfs is of paramount importance to understanding their origin.
Here we report the results of a systematic study of infrared L'-band
(3.8-micron) disk excess in ~50 spectroscopically confirmed objects near and
below the sub-stellar boundary in several young clusters. Our observations,
using the ESO Very Large Telescope, Keck I and the NASA Infrared Telescope
Facility, reveal that a significant fraction of brown dwarfs harbor disks at a
very young age. Their inner disk lifetimes do not appear to be vastly different
from those of disks around T Tauri stars. Our findings are consistent with the
hypothesis that sub-stellar objects form via a mechanism similar to solar-mass
stars.Comment: accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa
Spatially Resolved Observations of the Bipolar Optical Outflow from the Brown Dwarf 2MASSJ12073347-3932540
Studies of brown dwarf (BD) outflows provide information pertinent to
questions on BD formation, as well as allowing outflow mechanisms to be
investigated at the lowest masses. Here new observations of the bipolar outflow
from the 24 M BD, 2MASSJ12073347-3932540 are presented. The outflow was
originally identified through the spectro-astrometric analysis of the
[OI]6300 emission line. Follow-up observations consisting of spectra
and [SII], R-band and I-band images were obtained. The new spectra confirm the
original results and are used to constrain the outflow PA at
65. The [OI]6300 emission line region is spatially resolved
and the outflow is detected in the [SII] images. The detection is firstly in
the form of an elongation of the point spread function along the direction of
the outflow PA. Four faint knot-like features (labelled {\it A-D}) are also
observed to the south-west of 2MASSJ12073347-3932540 along the same PA
suggested by the spectra and the elongation in the PSF. Interestingly, {\it D},
the feature furthest from the source is bow-shaped with the apex pointing away
from 2MASSJ12073347-3932540. A color-color analysis allows us to conclude that
at least feature {\it D} is part of the outflow under investigation while {\it
A} is likely a star or galaxy. Follow-up observations are needed to confirm the
origin of {\it B} and {\it C}. This is a first for a BD, as BD optical outflows
have to date only been detected using spectro-astrometry. This result also
demonstrates for the first time that BD outflows can be collimated and
episodic.Comment: Accepted by ApJ, ref ApJ89096R
Adaptive evolution is substantially impeded by HillâRobertson interference in Drosophila
HillâRobertson interference (HRi) is expected to reduce the efficiency of natural selection when two or more linked selected sites do not segregate freely, but no attempt has been done so far to quantify the overall impact of HRi on the rate of adaptive evolution for any given genome. In this work, we estimate how much HRi impedes the rate of adaptive evolution in the coding genome of Drosophila melanogaster. We compiled a data set of 6,141 autosomal protein-coding genes from Drosophila, from which polymorphism levels in D. melanogaster and divergence out to D. yakuba were estimated. The rate of adaptive evolution was calculated using a derivative of the McDonaldâKreitman test that controls for slightly deleterious mutations. We find that the rate of adaptive amino acid substitution at a given position of the genome is positively correlated to both the rate of recombination and the mutation rate, and negatively correlated to the gene density of the region. These correlations are robust to controlling for each other, for synonymous codon bias and for gene functions related to immune response and testes. We show that HRi diminishes the rate of adaptive evolution by approximately 27%. Interestingly, genes with low mutation rates embedded in gene poor regions lose approximately 17% of their adaptive substitutions whereas genes with high mutation rates embedded in gene rich regions lose approximately 60%. We conclude that HRi hampers the rate of adaptive evolution in Drosophila and that the variation in recombination, mutation, and gene density along the genome affects the HRi effect
Asymptotic Opening Angles for Colliding-Wind Bow Shocks: the Characteristic-Angle Approximation
By considering the advection and interaction of the vector momentum flux in
highly supersonic spherically diverging winds, we derive a simple analytic
description of the asymptotic opening angle of a wind-collision shock cone, in
the approximation that the shocked gas is contained in a cone streaming out
along a single characteristic opening angle. Both highly radiative and highly
adiabatic limits are treated, and their comparison is the novel result.
Analytic closed-form expressions are obtained for the inferred wind momentum
ratios as a function of the observed shock opening angle, allowing the
conspicuous shape of the asymptotic bow shock to be used as a preliminary
constraint on more detailed modeling of the colliding winds. In the process, we
explore from a general perspective the limitations in applying to the global
shock geometry the so-called Dyson approximation, which asserts a local balance
in the perpendicular ram pressure across the shock.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figur
Triggered massive-star formation on the borders of Galactic HII regions. II. Evidence for the collect and collapse process around RCW 79
We present SEST-SIMBA 1.2-mm continuum maps and ESO-NTT SOFI JHK images of
the Galactic HII region RCW 79. The millimetre continuum data reveal the
presence of massive fragments located in a dust emission ring surrounding the
ionized gas. The two most massive fragments are diametrically opposite each
other in the ring. The near-IR data, centred on the compact HII region located
at the south-eastern border of RCW 79, show the presence of an IR-bright
cluster containing massive stars along with young stellar objects with near-IR
excesses. A bright near- and mid-IR source is detected towards maser emissions,
1.2 pc north-east of the compact HII region centre. Additional information,
extracted from the Spitzer GLIMPSE survey, are used to discuss the nature of
the bright IR sources observed towards RCW 79. Twelve luminous Class I sources
are identified towards the most massive millimetre fragments. All these facts
strongly indicate that the massive-star formation observed at the border of the
HII region RCW 79 has been triggered by its expansion, most probably by the
collect and collapse process.Comment: 14 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A. The images
have been highly compressed for astro-ph. A version of this paper with
higher-resolution figures is available at
http://www.oamp.fr/matiere/rcw79.pd
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