Photometric Properties of Kiso Ultraviolet-Excess Galaxies in the Lynx-Ursa Major Region

We have performed a systematic study of several regions in the sky where the number of galaxies exhibiting star formation (SF) activity is greater than average. We used Kiso ultraviolet-excess galaxies (KUGs) as our SF-enhanced sample. By statistically comparing the KUG and non-KUG distributions, we discovered four KUG-rich regions with a size of $\sim 10^\circ \times 10^\circ$. One of these regions corresponds spatially to a filament of length $\sim 60 h^{-1}$ Mpc in the Lynx-Ursa Major region ($\alpha \sim 9^{\rm h} - 10^{\rm h}, \delta \sim 42^\circ - 48^\circ$). We call this ``the Lynx-Ursa Major (LUM) filament''. We obtained $V(RI)_{\rm C}$ surface photometry of 11 of the KUGs in the LUM filament and used these to investigate the integrated colors, distribution of SF regions, morphologies, and local environments. We found that these KUGs consist of distorted spiral galaxies and compact galaxies with blue colors. Their star formation occurs in the entire disk, and is not confined to just the central regions. The colors of the SF regions imply that active star formation in the spiral galaxies occurred $10^{7 - 8}$ yr ago, while that of the compact objects occurred $10^{6-7}$ yr ago. Though the photometric characteristics of these KUGs are similar to those of interacting galaxies or mergers, most of these KUGs do not show direct evidence of merger processes.Comment: 39 pages LaTeX, using aasms4.sty, 20 figures, ApJS accepted. The Title of the previous one was truncated by the author's mistake, and is corrected. Main body of the paper is unchange

A heavy Higgs boson from flavor and electroweak symmetry breaking unification

We present a unified picture of flavor and electroweak symmetry breaking based on a nonlinear sigma model spontaneously broken at the TeV scale. Flavor and Higgs bosons arise as pseudo-Goldstone modes. Explicit collective symmetry breaking yields stable vacuum expectation values and masses protected at one loop by the little-Higgs mechanism. The coupling to the fermions generates well-definite mass textures--according to a U(1) global flavor symmetry--that correctly reproduce the mass hierarchies and mixings of quarks and leptons. The model is more constrained than usual little-Higgs models because of bounds on weak and flavor physics. The main experimental signatures testable at the LHC are a rather large mass m_{h^0} = 317\pm 80 GeV for the (lightest) Higgs boson and a characteristic spectrum of new bosons and fermions at the TeV scale.Comment: 5 page

KIC 4150611: a rare multi-eclipsing quintuple with a hybrid pulsator

We present the results of our analysis of KIC 4150611 (HD 181469) - an interesting, bright quintuple system that includes a hybrid $\delta$ Sct/$\gamma$ Dor pulsator. Four periods of eclipses - 94.2, 8.65, 1.52 and 1.43 d - have been observed by the Kepler satellite, and three point sources (A, B, and C) are seen in high angular resolution images. From spectroscopic observations made with the HIDES spectrograph attached to the 1.88-m telescope of the Okayama Astrophysical Observatory (OAO), for the first time we calculated radial velocities (RVs) of the component B - a pair of G-type stars - and combined them with Kepler photometry in order to obtain absolute physical parameters of this pair. We also managed to directly measure RVs of the pulsator, also for the first time. Additionally, we modelled the light curves of the 1.52 and 1.43-day pairs, and measured their eclipse timing variations (ETVs). We also performed relative astrometry and photometry of three sources seen on the images taken with the NIRC2 camera of the Keck II telescope. Finally, we compared our results with theoretical isochrones. The brightest component Aa is the hybrid pulsator, transited every 94.2 days by a pair of K/M-type stars (Ab1+Ab2), which themselves form a 1.52-day eclipsing binary. The components Ba and Bb are late G-type stars, forming another eclipsing pair with a 8.65 day period. Their masses and radii are $M_{Ba}=0.894\pm0.010$ M$_\odot$, $R_{Ba}=0.802\pm0.044$ R$_\odot$ for the primary, and $M_{Bb}=0.888\pm0.010$ M$_\odot$, $R_{Bb}=0.856\pm0.038$ R$_\odot$ for the secondary. The remaining period of 1.43 days is possibly related to a faint third star C, which itself is most likely a background object. The system's properties are well-represented by a 35 Myr isochrone. There are also hints of additional bodies in the system.Comment: 14 pages, 15 figures, 7 tables, to appear in A&A, abstract modified in order to fit the arXiv limi

A high fibered power of a family of varieties of general type dominates a variety of general type

We prove the following theorem: Fibered Power Theorem: Let X\rar B be a smooth family of positive dimensional varieties of general type, with $B$ irreducible. Then there exists an integer $n>0$, a positive dimensional variety of general type $W_n$, and a dominant rational map X^n_B \das W_n.Comment: Latex2e (in latex 2.09 compatibility mode). To get a fun-free version change the `FUN' variable to `n' on the second line (option dedicated to my friend Yuri Tschinkel). Postscript file with color illustration available on http://math.bu.edu/INDIVIDUAL/abrmovic/fibered.p

IC 225: a dwarf elliptical galaxy with a peculiar blue core

We present the discovery of a peculiar blue core in the elliptical galaxy IC 225 by using images and spectrum from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The outer parts of the surface brightness profiles of u-, g-, r-, i- and z-band SDSS images for IC 225 are well fitted with an exponential function. The fitting results show that IC 225 follows the same relations between the magnitude, scale length and central surface brightness for dwarf elliptical galaxies. Its absolute blue magnitude (M_B) is -17.14 mag, all of which suggest that IC 225 is a typical dwarf elliptical galaxy. The g-r color profile indicates a very blue core with a radius of 2 arcseconds, which is also clearly seen in the RGB image made of g-, r- and i-band SDSS images. The SDSS optical spectrum exhibits strong and very narrow nebular emission lines. The metal abundances derived by the standard methods, which are 12+log(O/H) = 8.98, log(N/O) = -0.77 and 12+log(S+/H+) = 6.76, turn out to be significantly higher than that predicted by the well-known luminosity-metallicity relation. After carefully inspecting the central region of IC 225, we find that there are two distinct nuclei, separated by 1.4 arcseconds, the off-nucleated one is even bluer than the nucleus of IC 225. The asymmetric line profiles of higher-order Balmer lines indicate that the emission lines are bluer shifted relative to the absorption lines, suggesting that the line emission arises from the off-center core, whose nature is a metal-rich Hii region. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first high-metallicity Hii region detected in a dwarf elliptical galaxy.Comment: 7 figures, accepted for publication in A

About the Algebraic Solutions of Smallest Enclosing Cylinders Problems

Given n points in Euclidean space E^d, we propose an algebraic algorithm to compute the best fitting (d-1)-cylinder. This algorithm computes the unknown direction of the axis of the cylinder. The location of the axis and the radius of the cylinder are deduced analytically from this direction. Special attention is paid to the case d=3 when n=4 and n=5. For the former, the minimal radius enclosing cylinder is computed algebrically from constrained minimization of a quartic form of the unknown direction of the axis. For the latter, an analytical condition of existence of the circumscribed cylinder is given, and the algorithm reduces to find the zeroes of an one unknown polynomial of degree at most 6. In both cases, the other parameters of the cylinder are deduced analytically. The minimal radius enclosing cylinder is computed analytically for the regular tetrahedron and for a trigonal bipyramids family with a symmetry axis of order 3.Comment: 13 pages, 0 figure; revised version submitted to publication (previous version is a copy of the original one of 2010

Dynamical Generation of CKM Mixings by Broken Horizontal Gauge Interactions

The fermion mass matrices are calculated in the framework of the dynamical mass generation by the broken horizontal gauge interactions. The non-proportional mass spectra between up- and down-sectors and CKM mixings are obtained solely by radiative corrections due to the ordinary gauge interactions.Comment: 20 pages + 1 uuencoded eps figure, PHYZZ

Photospheric Abundances of Volatile and Refractory Elements in Planet-Harboring Stars

By using the high-dispersion spectra of 14 bright planet-harboring stars (along with 4 reference stars) observed with the new coude echelle spectrograph at Okayama Astrophysical Observatory, we investigated the abundances of volatile elements (C, N, O, S, Zn; low condensation temperature Tc) in order to examine whether these show any significant difference compared to the abundances of other refractory elements (Si, Ti, V, Fe, Co, Ni; high Tc) which are known to be generally overabundant in those stars with planets, since a Tc-dependence is expected if the cause of such a metal-richness is due to the accretion of solid planetesimals onto the host star. We found, however, that all elements we studied behave themselves quite similarly to Fe (i.e., [X/Fe]~0) even for the case of volatile elements, which may suggest that the enhanced metallicity in those planet-bearing stars is not so much an acquired character (by accretion of rocky material) as rather primordial.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, to appear in PAS