ISO observations toward the reflection nebula NGC 7023: A nonequilibrium ortho- to para-H2 ratio

We have observed the S(0), S(1), S(2), S(3), S(4) and S(5) rotational lines of molecular hydrogen (H2) towards the peak of the photodissociation region (PDR) associated with the reflection nebula NGC 7023. The observed H2 line ratios show that they arise in warm gas with kinetic temperatures ~300 - 700 K. However, the data cannot be fitted by an ortho- to para- (OTP) ratio of 3. An OTP ratio in the range ~1.5 - 2 is necessary to explain our observations. This is the first detection of a non-equilibrium OTP ratio measured from the H2 pure-rotational lines in a PDR. The existence of a dynamical PDR is discussed as the most likely explanation for this low OTP ratio.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of Molecular Filaments in the Reflection Nebula NGC 7023

We present near-infrared spectroscopy of fluorescent molecular hydrogen (H_2) emission from molecular filaments in the reflection nebula NGC 7023. We derive the relative column densities of H_2 rotational-vibrational states from the measured line emission and compare these results with several model photodissociation regions covering a range of densities, incident UV-fields, and excitation mechanisms. Our best-fit models for one filament suggest, but do not require, either a combination of different densities, suggesting clumps of 10^6 cm^{-3} in a 10^4 - 10^5 cm^{-3} filament, or a combination of fluorescent excitation and thermally-excited gas, perhaps due to a shock from a bipolar outflow. We derive densities and UV fields for these molecular filaments that are in agreement with previous determinations.Comment: ApJ accepted, 26 pages including 5 embedded figures, uses AASTEX. Also available at http://www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu/~martini/pubs.htm

Detection of Emission from the CN Radical in the Cloverleaf Quasar at z=2.56

We report the detection of CN(N=3-2) emission towards the Cloverleaf quasar (z=2.56) based on observations with the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer. This is the first clear detection of emission from this radical at high redshift. CN emission is a tracer of dense molecular hydrogen gas (n(H2) > 10^4 cm^{-3}) within star-forming molecular clouds, in particular in regions where the clouds are affected by UV radiation. The HCN/CN intensity ratio can be used as a diagnostic for the relative importance of photodissociation regions (PDRs) in a source, and as a sensitive probe of optical depth, the radiation field, and photochemical processes. We derive a lensing-corrected CN(N=3-2) line luminosity of L'(CN(3-2) = (4.5 +/- 0.5) x 10^9 K km/s pc^2. The ratio between CN luminosity and far-infrared luminosity falls within the scatter of the same relationship found for low-z (ultra-) luminous infrared galaxies. Combining our new results with CO(J=3-2) and HCN(J=1-0) measurements from the literature and assuming thermal excitation for all transitions, we find a CO/CN luminosity ratio of 9.3 +/- 1.9 and a HCN/CN luminosity ratio of 0.95 +/- 0.15. However, we find that the CN(N=3-2) line is likely only subthermally excited, implying that those ratios may only provide upper limits for the intrinsic 1-0 line luminosity ratios. We conclude that, in combination with other molecular gas tracers like CO, HCN, and HCO+, CN is an important probe of the physical conditions and chemical composition of dense molecular environments at high redshift.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, to appear in ApJ (accepted May 23, 2007

CO, CI and CII observations of NGC 7023

We present new data on the photodissociation regions associated with the reflection nebula NGC7023. 13CO(3-2) emission, delineates a molecular cloud containing a cavity largely devoid of molecular gas around this star. Neutral carbon is closely associated with the 13CO emission while ionized carbon is found inside and at the edges of the cavity. The ionized carbon appears to be, at least in part, associated with HI. We have mapped the northern and southern rims in 12CO(6-5) emission and found a good association with the H2 rovibrational emission, though the warm CO gas permeates a larger fraction of the molecular cloud than the vibrationally excited H2. The results are compared with PDR models. We suggest that a second PDR has been created at the surface of the molecular cloud by the scattered radiation from HD 200775. This second PDR produces a layer of atomic carbon at the surface of the sheet, which increases the predicted [C]/[CO] abundance ratio to 10%, close to the observed value.Comment: 34 pages, 8 figure

Dust Emission Features in NGC 7023 between 0.35 and 2.5 micron: Extended Red Emission (0.7 micron) and Two New Emission Features (1.15 and 1.5 micron)

We present 0.35 to 2.5 micron spectra of the south and northwest filaments in the reflection nebula NGC 7023. These spectra were used to test the theory of Seahra & Duley that carbon nanoparticles are responsible for Extended Red Emission (ERE). Our spectra fail to show their predicted second emission band at 1.0 micron even though both filaments exhibit strong emission in the familiar 0.7 micron ERE band. The northwest filament spectrum does show one, and possibly two, new dust emission features in the near-infrared. We clearly detect a strong emission band at 1.5 micron which we tentatively attribute to beta-FeSi_2 grains. We tentatively detect a weaker emission band at 1.15 micron which coincides with the location expected for transitions from the conduction band to mid-gap defect states of silicon nanoparticles. This is added evidence that silicon nanoparticles are responsible for ERE as they already can explain the observed behavior of the main visible ERE band.Comment: 9 pages, color figures, accepted to the ApJ, color and b/w versions available at http://dirty.as.arizona.edu/~kgordon/papers/ere_1um.htm

Detection of OH absorption against PSR B1849+00

We have searched for OH absorption against seven pulsars using the Arecibo telescope. In both OH mainlines (at 1665 and 1667 MHz), deep and narrow absorption features were detected toward PSR B1849+00. In addition, we have detected several absorption and emission features against B33.6+0.1, a nearby supernova remnant (SNR). The most interesting result of this study is that a pencil-sharp absorption sample against the PSR differs greatly from the large-angle absorption sample observed against the SNR. If both the PSR and the SNR probe the same molecular cloud then this finding has important implications for absorption studies of the molecular medium, as it shows that the statistics of absorbing OH depends on the size of the background source. We also show that the OH absorption against the PSR most likely originates from a small (<30 arcsec) and dense (>10^5 cm^-3) molecular clump.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

The Distribution of Stellar Mass in the Pleiades

As part of an effort to understand the origin of open clusters, we present a statistical analysis of the currently observed Pleiades. Starting with a photometric catalog of the cluster, we employ a maximum likelihood technique to determine the mass distribution of its members, including single stars and both components of binary systems. We find that the overall binary fraction for unresolved pairs is 68%. Extrapolating to include resolved systems, this fraction climbs to about 76%, significantly higher than the accepted field-star result. Both figures are sensitive to the cluster age, for which we have used the currently favored value of 125 Myr. The primary and secondary masses within binaries are correlated, in the sense that their ratios are closer to unity than under the hypothesis of random pairing. We map out the spatial variation of the cluster's projected and three-dimensional mass and number densities. Finally, we revisit the issue of mass segregation in the Pleiades. We find unambiguous evidence of segregation, and introduce a new method for quantifying it.Comment: 41 pages, 14 figures To Be Published in The Astrophysical Journa

PV Ceph: Young Star Caught Speeding?

Three independent lines of evidence imply that the young star PV Ceph is moving at roughly 20 km/s through the interstellar medium. The first, and strongest, suggestion of motion comes from the geometry of the HH knots in the "giant" Herbig-Haro (HH) flow associated with PV Ceph. Bisectors of lines drawn between pairs of knots at nearly equal distances from PV Ceph imply an E-W motion of the source, and a plasmon model fit to the knot positions gives a good fit of 22 km/s motion for the star. The second bit of damning evidence comes from a redshifted "trail" of molecular gas, pointing in the same E-W direction implied by the HH knot geometry. The third exhibit we offer in accusing PV Ceph of speeding involves the tilt apparent in the high-velocity molecular jet now emanating from the star. This tilt is best explained if the true, current, jet direction is N-S, as it is in HST images, and the star is moving at roughly 20 km/s. Tracing the motion of PV Ceph backward in time, to the nearest cluster from which it might have been ejected, we find that it is very likely to have been thrown out of the massive star-forming cluster NGC 7023 (more than 10 pc away). We propose that PV Ceph was ejected, at a speed large enough to escape NGC 7023, at least 100,000 years ago, but that it did not enter the molecular cloud in which it now finds itself until more like 35,000 years ago. Our calculations show that the currently-observable molecular outflow associated with PV Ceph is about 10,000 years old, so that the flow has had plenty of time to form while in its current molecular cloud. But, the question of what PV Ceph was doing, and what gas/disk it took along with it in the time it was traveling through the low-density region between NGC 7023 and its current home is an open question.Comment: To be published by the Astrophysical Journal. Figures 1, 6, and 7 are in gif format. See material from the AAS press conference related to this work at: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~agoodman/Presentations/aas04PVCeph

Assessing non–parametric estimators of species richness. A case study with birds in green areas of the city of Puebla, Mexico

Nuestro objetivo fue evaluar el desempeño de estimadores no paramétricos de la riqueza de especies con datos reales. Durante la temporada de cría de 2003 censamos las comunidades de aves en dos áreas verdes de la ciudad de Puebla (México), y obtuvimos las corres¬pondientes curvas de rarefacción, que fueron ajustadas a dos funciones de acumulación de especies no asintóticas y siete asintóticas. Según criterios de la teoría de la información, la función de acumulación de Weibull o la Beta–P fueron las que mejor describieron estas curvas de acumulación, y asumimos que sus asíntotas estimaron la riqueza real en los dos sitios. Después evaluamos el sesgo, la precisión y la exactitud de cinco estimadores no paramétricos de la riqueza de especies (ICE, Chao 2, Jackknife 1, Jackknife 2 y Bootstrap) para esfuerzos de muestreo crecientes (1–53 unidades de censo). Todos los estimadores no paramétricos aquí evaluados subestimaron la riqueza asintótica la mayor parte del tiempo, en especial en una de las comunidades. Sin embargo, tras combinar los datos de los dos sitios, sólo ICE, Jackknife 1 y Jackknife 2 mostraron sesgos menores al 10% con algún esfuerzo de muestreo, aunque únicamente Jackknife 1 tuvo una exactitud global alta (error medio relativo al cuadradox100 &lt; 5%), incluso con esfuerzos de muestreo bajos (cerca del 20% del total de las unidades de censo). En conclusión, proponemos que el estimador no paramétrico Jackknife 1 puede usarse como un límite inferior de la riqueza de especies de aves en áreas urbanas similares a las de nuestro estudio. Palabras clave: Exactitud, Sesgo, Biodiversidad, Aves, Inventarios, Jackknife, Precisión, Urbanización.Nuestro objetivo fue evaluar el desempeño de estimadores no paramétricos de la riqueza de especies con datos reales. Durante la temporada de cría de 2003 censamos las comunidades de aves en dos áreas verdes de la ciudad de Puebla (México), y obtuvimos las corres¬pondientes curvas de rarefacción, que fueron ajustadas a dos funciones de acumulación de especies no asintóticas y siete asintóticas. Según criterios de la teoría de la información, la función de acumulación de Weibull o la Beta–P fueron las que mejor describieron estas curvas de acumulación, y asumimos que sus asíntotas estimaron la riqueza real en los dos sitios. Después evaluamos el sesgo, la precisión y la exactitud de cinco estimadores no paramétricos de la riqueza de especies (ICE, Chao 2, Jackknife 1, Jackknife 2 y Bootstrap) para esfuerzos de muestreo crecientes (1–53 unidades de censo). Todos los estimadores no paramétricos aquí evaluados subestimaron la riqueza asintótica la mayor parte del tiempo, en especial en una de las comunidades. Sin embargo, tras combinar los datos de los dos sitios, sólo ICE, Jackknife 1 y Jackknife 2 mostraron sesgos menores al 10% con algún esfuerzo de muestreo, aunque únicamente Jackknife 1 tuvo una exactitud global alta (error medio relativo al cuadradox100 &lt; 5%), incluso con esfuerzos de muestreo bajos (cerca del 20% del total de las unidades de censo). En conclusión, proponemos que el estimador no paramétrico Jackknife 1 puede usarse como un límite inferior de la riqueza de especies de aves en áreas urbanas similares a las de nuestro estudio. Palabras clave: Exactitud, Sesgo, Biodiversidad, Aves, Inventarios, Jackknife, Precisión, Urbanización.Our objective was to evaluate the performance of non–parametric estimators of spe¬cies richness with real data. During the 2003 breeding season, bird communities were sampled in two green areas in the city of Puebla (Mexico), and the corresponding sample–based rarefaction curves were obtained. Mean data were adjusted to two non–asymptotic and seven asymptotic accumulation functions, and the best model was selected by means of reliability criteria in information theory. The cumulative Weibull and the Beta–P functions were the best–fit models. Bias, precision and accuracy of five non–parametric estimators of species richness (ICE, Chao2, Jackknife 1, Jackknife 2, and Bootstrap) were then assessed for increasing sampling efforts (1–53 sampling units) against the asymptote of the selected accumulation functions. All the non–parametric estimators here evaluated underestimated true richness most of the time, specially in one of the sites. However, after combining data from the two assemblages, only ICE, and Jackknife 1 and 2 exhibited bias below 10% with different sampling efforts, and only Jackknife 1 was globally accurate (scaled mean squared errorx100< 5%, even with low sampling efforts, ca. 20% of the total). Therefore, we propose using the Jackknife 1 non–parametric estimator as a lower limit to measure bird species richness in urban sites similar to those in the present study. Key words: Accuracy, Bias, Biodiversity, Birds, Inventories, Jackknife, Precision, Urbanization