293 research outputs found
On the unique possibility to increase significantly the contrast of dark resonances on D1 line of Rb
We propose and study, theoretically and experimentally, a new scheme of
excitation of a coherent population trapping resonance for D1 line of alakli
atoms with nuclear spin by bichromatic linearly polarized light ({\em
lin}{\em lin} field) at the conditions of spectral resolution of the
excited state. The unique properties of this scheme result in a high contrast
of dark resonance for D1 line of Rb.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. This material has been partially presented on
ICONO-2005, 14 May 2005, St. Petersburg, Russia. v2 references added; text is
changed a bi
Infanticide in wolves: seasonality of mortalities and attacks at dens support evolution of territoriality
Evidence for territoriality is usually correlative or post hoc as we observe the results of past selection that are challenging to detect. Wolves (Canis lupus) are considered territorial because of competition for food (resource defense), yet they exhibit classic intrinsic behaviors of social regulation (protection against infanticide). This emphasis on prey and infrequent opportunity to observe wild wolf behavior has led to little investigation into the causes of or competitive underpinnings in the evolution of wolf territoriality. We report 6 cases of territorial wolf packs attacking neighboring packs at or near their den; 2 attacks were observed in detail. In all cases, except perhaps one, the attacking pack killed adult wolves either at the den or near it; in 4 cases, pups were probably lost. Loss of pups led to future loss of territory and in one case pack cessation. Intraspecific killing (measured in collared adults only) peaked in April, the month when pups were born and helpless in dens, even though aggressive interactions were at their seasonal low. Twelve of 13 (92%) of the wolves killed during the denning season (March, April, May) were reproductive (males and females), and 8 of 12 were dominant individuals (highest ranking wolf for that sex in the pack). Wolf–wolf killings were also high in October and December, the beginning and middle of the nomadic season, respectively. Aggressive interactions were more frequent during the nomadic season when wolves were roaming their territory as a group compared to the denning season when wolf activity was centered on the den and pack members less cohesive. We conclude that attacks on dens are a more effective form of interpack competition than interference during the breeding season, the current best-supported hypothesis, and that protected pup-rearing space is the primary cause of wolf territoriality
The Initial Mass Function of the Stellar Association NGC 602 in the Small Magellanic Cloud with Hubble Space Telescope ACS Observations
We present our photometric study of the stellar association NGC 602 in the
wing of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The data were taken in the filters
F555W and F814W using the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on-board the Hubble
Space Telescope (HST). Photometry was performed using the ACS module of the
stellar photometry package DOLPHOT. We detected more than 5,500 stars with a
magnitude range of 14 \lsim m_{555} \lsim 28 mag. Three prominent stellar
concentrations are identified with star counts in the observed field, the
association NGC 602 itself, and two clusters, one of them not being currently
in any known catalog. The Color-Magnitude Diagrams (CMDs) of both clusters show
features typical for young open clusters, while that of the association reveals
bright main sequence (MS) and faint pre-main sequence (PMS) stars as the
members of the system. We construct the initial mass spectrum (IMS) of the
association by applying an age-independent method of counting the PMS stars
within evolutionary tracks, while for the bright MS stars we transform their
magnitudes to masses with the use of mass-luminosity relations. The IMS of NGC
602 is found to be well represented by a single-power law, corresponding to an
Initial Mass Function (IMF) of slope \Gamma\approx -1.2 for 1 \lsim M/M{\solar}
\lsim 45. This indicates that the shape of the IMF of a star forming system in
the SMC for stars with masses higher than 1 M{\solar} seems to be quite similar
to the field IMF in the solar neighborhood.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 13 pages, 14 figures, emulateapj.cls
LaTeX style, full resolution version available on
http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dgoulier/Science/NGC602/ms.pd
Simulations of protostellar collapse using multigroup radiation hydrodynamics. I. The first collapse
Radiative transfer plays a major role in the process of star formation. Many
simulations of gravitational collapse of a cold gas cloud followed by the
formation of a protostellar core use a grey treatment of radiative transfer
coupled to the hydrodynamics. However, dust opacities which dominate extinction
show large variations as a function of frequency. In this paper, we used
frequency-dependent radiative transfer to investigate the influence of the
opacity variations on the properties of Larson's first core. We used a
multigroup M1 moment model in a 1D radiation hydrodynamics code to simulate the
spherically symmetric collapse of a 1 solar mass cloud core. Monochromatic dust
opacities for five different temperature ranges were used to compute Planck and
Rosseland means inside each frequency group. The results are very consistent
with previous studies and only small differences were observed between the grey
and multigroup simulations. For a same central density, the multigroup
simulations tend to produce first cores with a slightly higher radius and
central temperature. We also performed simulations of the collapse of a 10 and
0.1 solar mass cloud, which showed the properties of the first core to be
independent of the initial cloud mass, with again no major differences between
grey and multigroup models. For Larson's first collapse, where temperatures
remain below 2000 K, the vast majority of the radiation energy lies in the IR
regime and the system is optically thick. In this regime, the grey
approximation does a good job reproducing the correct opacities, as long as
there are no large opacity variations on scales much smaller than the width of
the Planck function. The multigroup method is however expected to yield more
important differences in the later stages of the collapse when high energy (UV
and X-ray) radiation is present and matter and radiation are strongly
decoupled.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&
On the Influence of Uncertainties in Chemical Reaction Rates on Results of the Astrochemical Modelling
With the chemical reaction rate database UMIST95 (Millar et al. 1997) we
analyze how uncertainties in rate constants of gas-phase chemical reactions
influence the modelling of molecular abundances in the interstellar medium.
Random variations are introduced into the rate constants to estimate the
scatter in theoretical abundances. Calculations are performed for dark and
translucent molecular clouds where gas phase chemistry is adequate. Similar
approach was used by Pineau des Forets & Roueff (2000) for the study of
chemical bistability. All the species are divided into 6 sensitivity groups
according to the value of the scatter in their model abundances computed with
varied rate constants. It is shown that the distribution of species within
these groups depends on the number of atoms in a molecule and on the adopted
physical conditions. The simple method is suggested which allows to single out
reactions that are most important for the evolution of a given species.Comment: 4 pages. To appear in the proceedings of the 4th Cologne-Bonn Zermatt
Symposiu
Is protostellar heating sufficient to halt fragmentation? A case study of the massive protocluster G8.68-0.37
If star formation proceeds by thermal fragmentation and the subsequent
gravitational collapse of the individual fragments, how is it possible to form
fragments massive enough for O and B stars in a typical star-forming molecular
cloud where the Jeans mass is about 1Msun at the typical densities (10^4 cm^-3)
and temperatures (10K)? We test the hypothesis that a first generation of
low-mass stars may heat the gas enough that subsequent thermal fragmentation
results in fragments >=10Msun, sufficient to form B stars. We combine ATCA and
SMA observations of the massive star-forming region G8.68-0.37 with radiative
transfer modeling to derive the present-day conditions in the region and use
this to infer the conditions in the past, at the time of core formation.
Assuming the current mass/separation of the observed cores equals the
fragmentation Jeans mass/length and the region's average density has not
changed, requires the gas temperature to have been 100K at the time of
fragmentation. The postulated first-generation of low-mass stars would still be
around today, but the number required to heat the cloud exceeds the limits
imposed by the observations. Several lines of evidence suggest the observed
cores in the region should eventually form O stars yet none have sufficient raw
material. Even if feedback may have suppressed fragmentation, it was not
sufficient to halt it to this extent. To develop into O stars, the cores must
obtain additional mass from outside their observationally defined boundaries.
The observations suggest they are currently fed via infall from the very
massive reservoir (~1500Msun) of gas in the larger pc scale cloud around the
star-forming cores. This suggests that massive stars do not form in the
collapse of individual massive fragments, but rather in smaller fragments that
themselves continue to gain mass by accretion from larger scales.Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
Features of Magneto-Optical Resonances in an Elliptically Polarized Traveling Light Wave
The parameters of nonlinear absorption magneto-optical resonances in the
Hanle configuration have been studied as functions of the ellipticity of a
traveling light wave. It has been found that these parameters (amplitude,
width, and amplitude-to-width ratio) depend strongly on the polarization of the
light wave. In particular, the resonance amplitude can increase by more than an
order of magnitude when the polarization changes from linear to optimal
elliptic. It has been shown that this effect is associated with the Doppler
frequency shift for atoms in a gas. The theoretical results have been
corroborated in experiments in Rb vapor.Comment: 5 page
Star Formation in Space and Time: Taurus-Auriga
To understand the formation of stellar groups, one must first document
carefully the birth pattern within real clusters and associations. In this
study of Taurus-Auriga, we combine pre-main-sequence ages from our own
evolutionary tracks with stellar positions from observational surveys. Aided by
the extensive, millimeter data on the molecular clouds, we develop a picture of
the region's history. Star formation began, at a relatively low level and in a
spatially diffuse manner, at least 10 Myr in the past. Within the last few
million years, new stars have been produced at an accelerating rate, almost
exclusively within a confined group of striated cloud filaments. The gas both
inside and around the filaments appears to be in force balance. Thus, the
appearance of the filaments is due to global, quasi-static contraction of the
parent cloud material. Gravity drives this contraction and shock dissipation
mediates it, but the internal motion of the gas does not appear to be
turbulent. The accelerating nature of recent star formation means that the
condensation of cloud cores is a threshold phenomenon, requiring a minimum
background density. Other, nearby cloud regions, including Lupus and
Chamaeleon, contain some locales that have attained this density, and others
that have not. In the latter, we find extensive and sometimes massive molecular
gas that is still devoid of young stars.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, to be published in ApJ - December 20, 200
First star formation with dark matter annihilation
We include an energy term based on Dark Matter (DM) self-annihilation during
the cooling and subsequent collapse of the metal-free gas, in halos hosting the
formation of the first stars in the Universe. We have found that the feedback
induced on the chemistry of the cloud does modify the properties of the gas
throughout the collapse. However, the modifications are not dramatic, and the
typical Jeans mass within the halo is conserved throughout the collapse, for
all the DM parameters we have considered. This result implies that the presence
of Dark Matter annihilations does not substantially modify the Initial Mass
Function of the First Stars, with respect to the standard case in which such
additional energy term is not taken into account. We have also found that when
the rate of energy produced by the DM annihilations and absorbed by the gas
equals the chemical cooling (at densities yet far from the actual formation of
a proto-stellar core) the structure does not halt its collapse, although that
proceeds more slowly by a factor smaller than few per cent of the total
collapse time.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables; replaced with published version after
minor change
The Structure and Evolution of Magnetized Cloud Cores in a Zero--Density Background
Molecular-line observations of star-forming cloud cores indicate that they
are not the flattened structures traditionally considered by theory. Rather,
they are elongated, perhaps in the direction of their internal magnetic field.
We are thus motivated to consider the structure and evolution of axisymmetric,
magnetized clouds that start from a variety of initial states, both flattened
(oblate) and elongated (prolate). We devise a new technique, dubbed the
-method, that allows us to construct magnetostatic equilibria of any
specified shape. We find, in agreement with previous authors, that the field
lines in oblate clouds bend inward. However, those in prolate clouds bow
outward, confining the structures through magnetic tension.
We next follow the quasi-static evolution of these clouds via ambipolar
diffusion, under the assumption of constant core mass. An oblate cloud either
relaxes to a magnetically force-free sphere or, if sufficiently massive,
flattens along its polar axis as its central density runs away. A prolate cloud
always relaxes to a sphere of modest central density. We finally consider the
evolution of an initially spherical cloud subject to the tidal gravity of
neighboring bodies. Although the structure constricts equatorially, it also
shortens along the pole, so that it ultimately flattens on the way to collapse.
In summary, none of our initial states can evolve to the point of collapse
while maintaining an elongated shape. We speculate that this situation will
change once we allow the cloud to gain mass from its environment.Comment: 19 pages, plus 20 postscript figures. Accepted by Ap
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