358 research outputs found
Hydrogen column density evaluations toward Capella: consequences on the interstellar deuterium abundance
The deuterium abundance evaluation in the direction of Capella has for a long
time been used as a reference for the local interstellar medium (ISM) within
our Galaxy. We show here that broad and weak HI components could be present on
the Capella line of sight, leading to a large new additional systematic
uncertainty on the N(HI) evaluation.
The D/H ratio toward Capella is found to be equal to 1.67 (+/-0.3)x10^-5 with
almost identical chi^2 for all the fits (this range includes only the
systematic error; the 2 sigma statistical one is almost negligible in
comparison). It is concluded that D/H evaluations over HI column densities
below 10^19 cm^-2 (even perhaps below 10^20 cm^-2 if demonstrated by additional
observations) may present larger uncertainties than previously anticipated. It
is mentionned that the D/O ratio might be a better tracer for DI variations in
the ISM as recently measured by the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer
(FUSE).Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letter
The role of the picoeukaryote Aureococcus anophagefferens in cycling of marine high molecular weight dissolved organic nitrogen
Environmental evidence suggests that Aureococcus anophagefferens (Pelagophyceae), a eukaryotic picoplankton that blooms in coastal seawaters, can outcompete other organisms because of its ability to use abundant dissolved organic nitrogen (DON). To test this hypothesis, we isolated A. anophagefferens in axenic culture and monitored its growth on high-molecular weight (HMW) DON collected from sediment pore waters, a putative source for DON in bays where blooms occur. HMW DON originating from pore water had a substantially higher protein content than surface seawater DON. We found that A. anophagefferens could deplete 25-36% of the available nitrogen in cultures with HMW DON as the sole source of nitrogen and that this corresponded well with the protein fraction in pore-water HMW DON. High rates of cell surface peptide hydrolysis and no detectable N-acetyl polysaccharide hydrolysis, together with the high percentage of hydrolyzable amino acids compared to hydrolyzable aminosugars present in the HMW DON, pointed to the protein fraction as the more likely source of nitrogen used for growth. Whether or not nitrogen scavenging from protein is a common mechanism in phytoplankton is at present unknown but needs to be investigate
Surprisingly Little O VI Emission Arises in the Local Bubble
This paper reports the first study of the O VI resonance line emission (1032,
1038 Angstroms) originating in the Local Bubble (or Local Hot Bubble)
surrounding the solar neighborhood. In spite of the fact that O VI absorption
within the Local Bubble has been observed, no resonance line emission was
detected during our 230 ksec Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer observation
toward a ``shadowing'' filament in the southern Galactic hemisphere. As a
result, tight 2 sigma upper limits are set on the intensities in the 1032 and
1038 Angstrom emission lines: 500 and 530 photons cm^{-2} s^{-1} sr^{-1},
respectively. These values place strict constraints on models and simulations.
They suggest that the O VI-bearing plasma and the X-ray emissive plasma reside
in distinct regions of the Local Bubble and are not mixed in a single plasma,
whether in equilibrium with T ~ 10^6 K or highly overionized with T ~ 4 to 6 x
10^4 K. If the line of sight intersects multiple cool clouds within the Local
Bubble, then the results also suggest that hot/cool transition zones differ
from those in current simulations. With these intensity upper limits, we
establish limits on the electron density, thermal pressure, pathlength, and
cooling timescale of the O VI-bearing plasma in the Local Bubble. Furthermore,
the intensity of O VI resonance line doublet photons originating in the
Galactic thick disk and halo is determined (3500 to 4300 photons cm^{-2} s^{-1}
sr^{-1}), and the electron density, thermal pressure, pathlength, and cooling
timescale of its O VI-bearing plasma are calculated. The pressure in the
Galactic halo's O VI-bearing plasma (3100 to 3800 K cm^{-3}) agrees with model
predictions for the total pressure in the thick disk/lower halo. We also report
the results of searches for other emission lines.Comment: accepted by ApJ, scheduled for May 2003, replacement astro-ph
submission corrects typos and grammatical errors in original versio
The Ionization of the Local Interstellar Medium, as Revealed by FUSE Observations of N, O and Ar toward White Dwarf Stars
FUSE spectra of the white dwarf stars G191-B2B, GD 394, WD 2211-495 and WD
2331-475 cover the absorption features out of the ground electronic states of N
I, N II, N III, O I and Ar I in the far ultraviolet, providing new insights on
the origin of the partial ionization of the Local Interstellar Medium (LISM),
and for the case of G191-B2B, the interstellar cloud that immediately surrounds
the solar system. Toward these targets the interstellar abundances of Ar I, and
sometimes N I, are significantly below their cosmic abundances relative to H I.
In the diffuse interstellar medium, these elements are not likely to be
depleted onto dust grains. Generally, we expect that Ar should be more strongly
ionized than H (and also O and N whose ionizations are coupled to that of H via
charge exchange reactions) because the cross section for the photoionization of
Ar I is very high. Our finding that Ar I/H I is low may help to explain the
surprisingly high ionization of He in the LISM found by other investigators.
Our result favors the interpretation that the ionization of the local medium is
maintained by a strong EUV flux from nearby stars and hot gases, rather than an
incomplete recovery from a past, more highly ionized condition.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures. To appear in a special issue of the
Astrophysical Journal Letters devoted to the first scientific results from
the FUSE missio
Deuterium toward the WD0621-376 sight line: Results from the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) Mission
Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer observations are presented for
WD0621-376, a DA white dwarf star in the local interstellar medium (LISM) at a
distance of about 78 pc. The data have a signal-to-noise ratio of about 20-40
per 20 km/s resolution element and cover the wavelength range 905-1187 \AA.
LISM absorption is detected in the lines of D I, C II, C II*, C III, N I, N II,
N III, O I, Ar I, and Fe II. This sight line is partially ionized, with an
ionized nitrogen fraction of > 0.23. We determine the ratio (2). Assuming a standard interstellar
oxygen abundance, we derive . Using the
value of N(H I) derived from EUVE data gives a similar D/H ratio. The D I/N I
ratio is (2).Comment: accepted for publication in the ApJ
Studying the Pulsation of Mira Variables in the Ultraviolet
We present results from an empirical study of the Mg II h & k emission lines
of selected Mira variable stars, using spectra from the International
Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE). The stars all exhibit similar Mg II behavior during
the course of their pulsation cycles. The Mg II flux always peaks after optical
maximum near pulsation phase 0.2-0.5, although the Mg II flux can vary greatly
from one cycle to the next. The lines are highly blueshifted, with the
magnitude of the blueshift decreasing with phase. The widths of the Mg II lines
are also phase-dependent, decreasing from about 70 km/s to 40 km/s between
phase 0.2 and 0.6. We also study other UV emission lines apparent in the IUE
spectra, most of them Fe II lines. These lines are much narrower and not nearly
as blueshifted as the Mg II lines. They exhibit the same phase-dependent flux
behavior as Mg II, but they do not show similar velocity or width variations.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figures; AASTEX v5.0 plus EPSF extensions in mkfig.sty;
to appear in Ap
Molecular Hydrogen in the FUSE Translucent Lines of Sight: The Full Sample
We report total abundances and related parameters for the full sample of the
FUSE survey of molecular hydrogen in 38 translucent lines of sight. New results
are presented for the "second half" of the survey involving 15 lines of sight
to supplement data for the first 23 lines of sight already published. We assess
the correlations between molecular hydrogen and various extinction parameters
in the full sample, which covers a broader range of conditions than the initial
sample. In particular, we are now able to confirm that many, but not all, lines
of sight with shallow far-UV extinction curves and large values of the
total-to-selective extinction ratio, = / -- characteristic
of larger than average dust grains -- are associated with particularly low
hydrogen molecular fractions (). In the lines of sight with large
, there is in fact a wide range in molecular fractions, despite the
expectation that the larger grains should lead to less H formation.
However, we see specific evidence that the molecular fractions in this
sub-sample are inversely related to the estimated strength of the UV radiation
field and thus the latter factor is more important in this regime. We have
provided an update to previous values of the gas-to-dust ratio, (H)/, based on direct measurements of (H) and (H I).
Although our value is nearly identical to that found with Copernicus data, it
extends the relationship by a factor of 2 in reddening. Finally, as the new
lines of sight generally show low to moderate molecular fractions, we still
find little evidence for single monolithic "translucent clouds" with 1.Comment: 35 pages, 5 tables, 7 figures, accepted for publication in The
Astrophysical Journal Supplements Serie
Microstructure of the Local Interstellar Cloud and the Identification of the Hyades Cloud
We analyze high-resolution UV spectra of the Mg II h and k lines for 18
members of the Hyades Cluster to study inhomogeneity along these proximate
lines of sight. The observations were taken by the Space Telescope Imaging
Spectrograph (STIS) instrument on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Three
distinct velocity components are observed. All 18 lines of sight show
absorption by the Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), ten stars show absorption by
an additional cloud, which we name the Hyades Cloud, and one star exhibits a
third absorption component. The LIC absorption is observed at a lower radial
velocity than predicted by the LIC velocity vector derived by Lallement &
Bertin (1992) and Lallement et al. (1995), (v(predicted LIC) - v(observed LIC)
= 2.9 +/- 0.7 km/s), which may indicate a compression or deceleration at the
leading edge of the LIC. We propose an extention of the Hyades Cloud boundary
based on previous HST observations of other stars in the general vicinity of
the Hyades, as well as ground-based Ca II observations. We present our fits of
the interstellar parameters for each absorption component. The availability of
18 similar lines of sight provides an excellent opportunity to study the
inhomogeneity of the warm, partially ionized local interstellar medium (LISM).
We find that these structures are roughly homogeneous. The measured Mg II
column densities do not vary by more than a factor of 2 for angular separations
of < 8 degrees, which at the outer edge of the LIC correspond to physical
separations of < 0.6 pc.Comment: 35 pages, 11 figures, AASTEX v.5.0 plus EPSF extensions in mkfig.sty;
accepted by Ap
What is the Total Deuterium Abundance in the Local Galactic Disk?
Analyses of spectra obtained with the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer
(FUSE) satellite, together with spectra from the Copernicus and IMAPS
instruments, reveal an unexplained very wide range in the observed
deuterium/hydrogen (D/H) ratios for interstellar gas in the Galactic disk
beyond the Local Bubble. We argue that spatial variations in the depletion of
deuterium onto dust grains can explain these local variations in the observed
gas-phase D/H ratios. We present a variable deuterium depletion model that
naturally explains the constant measured values of D/H inside the Local Bubble,
the wide range of gas-phase D/H ratios observed in the intermediate regime (log
N(H I} = 19.2-20.7), and the low gas-phase D/H ratios observed at larger
hydrogen column densities. We consider empirical tests of the deuterium
depletion hypothesis: (i) correlations of gas-phase D/H ratios with depletions
of the refractory metals iron and silicon, and (ii) correlation with the
molecular hydrogen rotational temperature. Both of these tests are consistent
with deuterium depletion from the gas phase in cold, not recently shocked,
regions of the ISM, and high gas-phase D/H ratios in gas that has been shocked
or otherwise heated recently. We argue that the most representative value for
the total (gas plus dust) D/H ratio within 1 kpc of the Sun is >=23.1 +/- 2.4
(1 sigma) parts per million (ppm). This ratio constrains Galactic chemical
evolution models to have a very small deuterium astration factor, the ratio of
primordial to total (D/H) ratio in the local region of the Galactic disk, which
we estimate to be f_d <= 1.19 +/-0.16 (1 sigma) or <= 1.12 +/- 0.14 (1 sigma)
depending on the adopted light element nuclear reaction rates.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure
EROS Variable Stars : Discovery of Beat Cepheids in the Small Magellanic Cloud and the effect of metallicity on pulsation
We report the discovery of eleven beat Cepheids in the Small Magellanic
Cloud, using data obtained by the EROS microlensing survey. Four stars are
beating in the fundamental and first overtone mode (F/1OT), seven are beating
in the first and second overtone (1OT/2OT). The SMC F/1OT ratio is
systematically higher than the LMC F/1OT, while the 1OT/2OT period ratio in the
SMC Cepheids is the same as the LMC one.Comment: 4 pages, Latex file with 4 .ps figures. accepted for publication in A
A Letter
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