13,907 research outputs found
Synthetic Observations of Simulated Radio Galaxies I: Radio and X-ray Analysis
We present an extensive synthetic observational analysis of numerically-
simulated radio galaxies designed to explore the effectiveness of conventional
observational analyses at recovering physical source properties. These are the
first numerical simulations with sufficient physical detail to allow such a
study. The present paper focuses on extraction of magnetic field properties
from nonthermal intensity information. Synchrotron and inverse-Compton
intensities provided meaningful information about distributions and strengths
of magnetic fields, although considerable care was called for. Correlations
between radio and X-ray surface brightness correctly revealed useful dynamical
relationships between particles and fields. Magnetic field strength estimates
derived from the ratio of X-ray to radio intensity were mostly within about a
factor of two of the RMS field strength along a given line of sight. When
emissions along a given line of sight were dominated by regions close to the
minimum energy/equipartition condition, the field strengths derived from the
standard power-law-spectrum minimum energy calculation were also reasonably
close to actual field strengths, except when spectral aging was evident.
Otherwise, biases in the minimum- energy magnetic field estimation mirrored
actual differences from equipartition. The ratio of the inverse-Compton
magnetic field to the minimum-energy magnetic field provided a rough measure of
the actual total energy in particles and fields in most instances, within an
order of magnitude. This may provide a practical limit to the accuracy with
which one may be able to establish the internal energy density or pressure of
optically thin synchrotron sources.Comment: 43 pages, 14 figures; accepted for publication in ApJ, v601 n2
February 1, 200
Residual-Ion Orientation After Autoionization
We have measured the relative population in the two mj states of barium 6p1/2 ions produced by the autoionization of (6p3/2nd)J=MJ=3 states by detecting the helicity of the emitted fluorescence. These populations can be related to the relative branching ratio into the 6p1/2εd5/2 and 6p1/2εg7/2 continuum channels. Rydberg states with n=16-23 have similar branching ratios, producing approximately six times as much 6p1/2εd5/2 population as 6p1/2εg7/2 population
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