16 research outputs found
Your space or mine? : Mapping self in time
Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Turbulence and galactic structure
Interstellar turbulence is driven over a wide range of scales by processes
including spiral arm instabilities and supernovae, and it affects the rate and
morphology of star formation, energy dissipation, and angular momentum transfer
in galaxy disks. Star formation is initiated on large scales by gravitational
instabilities which control the overall rate through the long dynamical time
corresponding to the average ISM density. Stars form at much higher densities
than average, however, and at much faster rates locally, so the slow average
rate arises because the fraction of the gas mass that forms stars at any one
time is low, ~10^{-4}. This low fraction is determined by turbulence
compression, and is apparently independent of specific cloud formation
processes which all operate at lower densities. Turbulence compression also
accounts for the formation of most stars in clusters, along with the cluster
mass spectrum, and it gives a hierarchical distribution to the positions of
these clusters and to star-forming regions in general. Turbulent motions appear
to be very fast in irregular galaxies at high redshift, possibly having speeds
equal to several tenths of the rotation speed in view of the morphology of
chain galaxies and their face-on counterparts. The origin of this turbulence is
not evident, but some of it could come from accretion onto the disk. Such high
turbulence could help drive an early epoch of gas inflow through viscous
torques in galaxies where spiral arms and bars are weak. Such evolution may
lead to bulge or bar formation, or to bar re-formation if a previous bar
dissolved. We show evidence that the bar fraction is about constant with
redshift out to z~1, and model the formation and destruction rates of bars
required to achieve this constancy.Comment: in: Penetrating Bars through Masks of Cosmic Dust: The Hubble Tuning
Fork strikes a New Note, Eds., K. Freeman, D. Block, I. Puerari, R. Groess,
Dordrecht: Kluwer, in press (presented at a conference in South Africa, June
7-12, 2004). 19 pgs, 5 figure
Dynamics of Disks and Warps
This chapter reviews theoretical work on the stellar dynamics of galaxy
disks. All the known collective global instabilities are identified, and their
mechanisms described in terms of local wave mechanics. A detailed discussion of
warps and other bending waves is also given. The structure of bars in galaxies,
and their effect on galaxy evolution, is now reasonably well understood, but
there is still no convincing explanation for their origin and frequency. Spiral
patterns have long presented a special challenge, and ideas and recent
developments are reviewed. Other topics include scattering of disk stars and
the survival of thin disks.Comment: Chapter accepted to appear in Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems, vol
5, ed G. Gilmore. 32 pages, 17 figures. Includes minor corrections made in
proofs. Uses emulateapj.st
The expansion field: The value of H_0
Any calibration of the present value of the Hubble constant requires
recession velocities and distances of galaxies. While the conversion of
observed velocities into true recession velocities has only a small effect on
the result, the derivation of unbiased distances which rest on a solid zero
point and cover a useful range of about 4-30 Mpc is crucial. A list of 279 such
galaxy distances within v<2000 km/s is given which are derived from the tip of
the red-giant branch (TRGB), from Cepheids, and from supernovae of type Ia (SNe
Ia). Their random errors are not more than 0.15 mag as shown by
intercomparison. They trace a linear expansion field within narrow margins from
v=250 to at least 2000 km/s. Additional 62 distant SNe Ia confirm the linearity
to at least 20,000 km/s. The dispersion about the Hubble line is dominated by
random peculiar velocities, amounting locally to <100 km/s but increasing
outwards. Due to the linearity of the expansion field the Hubble constant H_0
can be found at any distance >4.5 Mpc. RR Lyr star-calibrated TRGB distances of
78 galaxies above this limit give H_0=63.0+/-1.6 at an effective distance of 6
Mpc. They compensate the effect of peculiar motions by their large number.
Support for this result comes from 28 independently calibrated Cepheids that
give H_0=63.4+/-1.7 at 15 Mpc. This agrees also with the large-scale value of
H_0=61.2+/-0.5 from the distant, Cepheid-calibrated SNe Ia. A mean value of
H_0=62.3+/-1.3 is adopted. Because the value depends on two independent zero
points of the distance scale its systematic error is estimated to be 6%.
Typical errors of H_0 come from the use of a universal, yet unjustified P-L
relation of Cepheids, the neglect of selection bias in magnitude-limited
samples, or they are inherent to the adopted models.Comment: 44 pages, 4 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in the
Astronony and Astrophysics Review 15
DUST PENETRATED ARM CLASSES: INSIGHT FROM RISING AND FALLING ROTATION CURVES
We present near-infrared K-band images of 15 galaxies. We have performed a Fourier analysis on the spiral structure of these galaxies in order to determine their pitch angles and dust-penetrated arm classes. We have also obtained rotation curve data for these galaxies and calculated their shear rates. We show that there is a correlation between pitch angle and shear rate and conclude that the main determinant of pitch angle is the mass distribution within the galaxy. This correlation provides a physical basis for the dust-penetrated classification scheme of Block & Puerari (1999)