1,055 research outputs found
The intrinsic three-dimensional shape of galactic bars
We present the first statistical study on the intrinsic three-dimensional
(3D) shape of a sample of 83 galactic bars extracted from the CALIFA survey. We
use the galaXYZ code to derive the bar intrinsic shape with a statistical
approach. The method uses only the geometric information (ellipticities and
position angles) of bars and discs obtained from a multi-component photometric
decomposition of the galaxy surface-brightness distributions. We find that bars
are predominantly prolate-triaxial ellipsoids (68%), with a small fraction of
oblate-triaxial ellipsoids (32%). The typical flattening (intrinsic C/A
semiaxis ratio) of the bars in our sample is 0.34, which matches well the
typical intrinsic flattening of stellar discs at these galaxy masses. We
demonstrate that, for prolate-triaxial bars, the intrinsic shape of bars
depends on the galaxy Hubble type and stellar mass (bars in massive S0 galaxies
are thicker and more circular than those in less massive spirals). The bar
intrinsic shape correlates with bulge, disc, and bar parameters. In particular
with the bulge-to-total (B/T) luminosity ratio, disc g-r color, and central
surface brightness of the bar, confirming the tight link between bars and their
host galaxies. Combining the probability distributions of the intrinsic shape
of bulges and bars in our sample we show that 52% (16%) of bulges are thicker
(flatter) than the surrounding bar at 1 level. We suggest that these
percentages might be representative of the fraction of classical and disc-like
bulges in our sample, respectively.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Horta conduzida em escola municipal melhora rendimento dos alunos.
bitstream/item/77702/1/ADM155.pd
Bacterioplankton composition as an indicator of environmental status: proof of principle using indicator value analysis of estuarine communities
Increasing awareness of environmental impacts caused by anthropogenic activities highlights the need to determine indicators of environmental status that can be routinely assessed at large spatial and temporal scales. Microbial communities comprise the greatest share of biological diversity on Earth and can rapidly reflect recent environmental changes while providing a record of past events. However, they have rarely been targeted in the search for ecological indicators of habitat types, environmental conditions, or environmental changes. Here, as a proof of principle, we analysed the bacterioplankton community composition of 4 estuaries in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, and looked for indicators of groups of samples defined using partition techniques, according to primary physicochemical variables typically monitored to infer water quality. Indicator value analysis (IndVal) was conducted to identify indicator operational taxonomic units (OTUs; analogous to species in other fields of ecology) in each group. These bacterioplankton-based indicators exhibited a high capacity to predict the group membership of the samples within each estuary and to correctly assign the samples to the appropriate estuary in a combined data set, employing different machine learning techniques. The indicators were composed of OTUs belonging to several bacterial phyla, which responded significantly and differentially to the environmental variables used to define the groups of samples. Moreover, the predictive values of these bacterial indicators were generally higher than those of other biological assemblages commonly used for environmental monitoring. Therefore, this approach appears to be a promising tool to complement existing strategies for monitoring and conservation of aquatic systems worldwide
The inner environment of Z~CMa: High-Contrast Imaging Polarimetry with NaCo
Context. Z\,CMa is a binary composed of an embedded Herbig Be and an FU Ori
class star separated by au. Observational evidence indicate a complex
environment in which each star has a circumstellar disk and drives a jet, and
the whole system is embedded in a large dusty envelope.
Aims. We aim to probe the circumbinary environment of Z\,CMa in the inner 400
au in scattered light.
Methods. We use high contrast imaging polarimetry with VLT/NaCo at and
bands.
Results. The central binary is resolved in both bands. The polarized images
show three bright and complex structures: a common dust envelope, a sharp
extended feature previously reported in direct light, and an intriguing bright
clump located 0\farcs3 south of the binary, which appears spatially connected
to the sharp extended feature.
Conclusions.We detect orbital motion when compared to previous observations,
and report a new outburst driven by the Herbig star. Our observations reveal
the complex inner environment of Z\,CMa with unprecedented detail and contrast.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A Letter
Observational constraints to boxy/peanut bulge formation time
Boxy/peanut bulges are considered to be part of the same stellar structure as
bars and both could be linked through the buckling instability. The Milky Way
is our closest example. The goal of this letter is determining if the mass
assembly of the different components leaves an imprint in their stellar
populations allowing to estimate the time of bar formation and its evolution.
To this aim we use integral field spectroscopy to derive the stellar age
distributions, SADs, along the bar and disc of NGC 6032. The analysis shows
clearly different SADs for the different bar areas. There is an underlying old
(>=12 Gyr) stellar population for the whole galaxy. The bulge shows star
formation happening at all times. The inner bar structure shows stars of ages
older than 6 Gyrs with a deficit of younger populations. The outer bar region
presents a SAD similar to that of the disc. To interpret our results, we use a
generic numerical simulation of a barred galaxy. Thus, we constrain, for the
first time, the epoch of bar formation, the buckling instability period and the
posterior growth from disc material. We establish that the bar of NGC 6032 is
old, formed around 10 Gyr ago while the buckling phase possibly happened around
8 Gyr ago. All these results point towards bars being long-lasting even in the
presence of gas.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter
Resolving the age bimodality of galaxy stellar populations on kpc scales
Galaxies in the local Universe are known to follow bimodal distributions in
the global stellar populations properties. We analyze the distribution of the
local average stellar-population ages of 654,053 sub-galactic regions resolved
on ~1-kpc scales in a volume-corrected sample of 394 galaxies, drawn from the
CALIFA-DR3 integral-field-spectroscopy survey and complemented by SDSS imaging.
We find a bimodal local-age distribution, with an old and a young peak
primarily due to regions in early-type galaxies and star-forming regions of
spirals, respectively. Within spiral galaxies, the older ages of bulges and
inter-arm regions relative to spiral arms support an internal age bimodality.
Although regions of higher stellar-mass surface-density, mu*, are typically
older, mu* alone does not determine the stellar population age and a bimodal
distribution is found at any fixed mu*. We identify an "old ridge" of regions
of age ~9 Gyr, independent of mu*, and a "young sequence" of regions with age
increasing with mu* from 1-1.5 Gyr to 4-5 Gyr. We interpret the former as
regions containing only old stars, and the latter as regions where the relative
contamination of old stellar populations by young stars decreases as mu*
increases. The reason why this bimodal age distribution is not inconsistent
with the unimodal shape of the cosmic-averaged star-formation history is that
i) the dominating contribution by young stars biases the age low with respect
to the average epoch of star formation, and ii) the use of a single average age
per region is unable to represent the full time-extent of the star-formation
history of "young-sequence" regions.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, MNRAS accepte
Nonextensivity and multifractality in low-dimensional dissipative systems
Power-law sensitivity to initial conditions at the edge of chaos provides a
natural relation between the scaling properties of the dynamics attractor and
its degree of nonextensivity as prescribed in the generalized statistics
recently introduced by one of us (C.T.) and characterized by the entropic index
. We show that general scaling arguments imply that , where and are the
extremes of the multifractal singularity spectrum of the attractor.
This relation is numerically checked to hold in standard one-dimensional
dissipative maps. The above result sheds light on a long-standing puzzle
concerning the relation between the entropic index and the underlying
microscopic dynamics.Comment: 12 pages, TeX, 4 ps figure
MAROC: Multi-Anode ReadOut Chip for MaPMTs
International audienceFor the ATLAS luminometer, made of Roman pots, a complete readout ASIC has been designed in 0.35 SiGe technology. It is used to readout 64 channels multi anode photomultipliers and supplies 64 trigger outputs and a multiplexed charge. Since its delivery in November 2005, the MAROC chip has been tested at LAL. Despite a substrate coupling effect which affects the performance when all channels are used in high gain, the chip has shown nice global behavior and it has been used during beam tests at CERN in October 2006
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