Evacuation in the Social Force Model is not stationary

An evacuation process is simulated within the Social Force Model. Thousand pedestrians are leaving a room by one exit. We investigate the stationarity of the distribution of time lags between instants when two successive pedestrians cross the exit. The exponential tail of the distribution is shown to gradually vanish. Taking fluctuations apart, the time lags decrease in time till there are only about 50 pedestrians in the room, then they start to increase. This suggests that at the last stage the flow is laminar. In the first stage, clogging events slow the evacuation down. As they are more likely for larger crowds, the flow is not stationary. The data are investigated with detrended fluctuation analysis.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures; PACS numbers: 89.75.Fb, 05.40.-a, 05.45.Tp, 89.40.B

A survey of Low Luminosity Compact sources and its implication for evolution of radio-loud AGNs. I. Radio data

We present a new sample of Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) sources with radio luminosity below 10^26 W/Hz at 1.4 GHz called the low luminosity compact (LLC) objects. The sources have been selected from FIRST survey and observed with MERLIN at L-band and C-band. The main criterion used for selection was luminosity of the objects and approximately one third of the CSS sources from the new sample have a value of radio luminosity comparable to FRIs. About 80% of the sources have been resolved and about 30% of them have weak extended emission and disturbed structures when compared with the observations of higher luminosity CSS sources. We studied correlation between radio power and linear size, and redshift with a larger sample that included also published samples of compact objects and large scale FRIIs and FRIs. The low luminosity compact objects occupy the space in radio power versus linear size diagram below the main evolutionary path of radio objects. We suggest that many of them might be short-lived objects, and their radio emission may be disrupted several times before becoming FRIIs. We conclude that there exists a large population of short-lived low luminosity compact objects unexplored so far and part of them can be precursors of large scale FRIs.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, MNRAS in pres

Origin of the complex radio structure in BAL QSO 1045+352

We present new more sensitive high-resolution radio observations of a compact broad absorption line (BAL) quasar, 1045+352, made with the EVN+MERLIN at 5 GHz. They allowed us to trace the connection between the arcsecond structure and the radio core of the quasar. The radio morphology of 1045+352 is dominated by a knotty jet showing several bends. We discuss possible scenarios that could explain such a complex morphology: galaxy merger, accretion disk instability, precession of the jet and jet-cloud interactions. It is possible that we are witnessing an ongoing jet precession in this source due to internal instabilities within the jet flow, however, a dense environment detected in the submillimeter band and an outflowing material suggested by the X-ray absorption could strongly interact with the jet. It is difficult to establish the orientation between the jet axis and the observer in 1045+352 because of the complex structure. Nevertheless taking into account the most recent inner radio structure we conclude that the radio jet is oriented close to the line of sight which can mean that the opening angle of the accretion disk wind can be large in this source. We also suggest that there is no direct correlation between the jet-observer orientation and the possibility of observing BALs.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Survey of Planetary Nebulae at 30 GHz with OCRA-p

We report the results of a survey of 442 planetary nebulae at 30 GHz. The purpose of the survey is to develop a list of planetary nebulae as calibration sources which could be used for high frequency calibration in future. For 41 PNe with sufficient data, we test the emission mechanisms in order to evaluate whether or not spinning dust plays an important role in their spectra at 30 GHz. The 30-GHz data were obtained with a twin-beam differencing radiometer, OCRA-p, which is in operation on the Torun 32-m telescope. Sources were scanned both in right ascension and declination. We estimated flux densities at 30 GHz using a free-free emission model and compared it with our data. The primary result is a catalogue containing the flux densities of 93 planetary nebulae at 30 GHz. Sources with sufficient data were compared with a spectral model of free-free emission. The model shows that free-free emission can generally explain the observed flux densities at 30 GHz thus no other emission mechanism is needed to account for the high frequency spectra.Comment: 10 pages, 7 Postscript figures, to be published in A&

A 20 GHz bright sample for {\delta} > +72{\deg}: I. Catalogue

During 2010-2011, the Medicina 32-m dish hosted the 7-feed 18-26.5 GHz receiver built for the Sardinia Radio Telescope, with the goal to perform its commissioning. This opportunity was exploited to carry out a pilot survey at 20 GHz over the area for {\delta} > + 72.3{\deg}. This paper describes all the phases of the observations, as they were performed using new hardware and software facilities. The map-making and source extraction procedures are illustrated. A customised data reduction tool was used during the follow-up phase, which produced a list of 73 confirmed sources down to a flux density of 115 mJy. The resulting catalogue, here presented, is complete above 200 mJy. Source counts are in agreement with those provided by the AT20G survey. This pilot activity paves the way to a larger project, the K-band Northern Wide Survey (KNoWS), whose final aim is to survey the whole Northern Hemisphere down to a flux limit of 50 mJy (5{\sigma}).Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures. Accepted by MNRA

Double radio peak and non-thermal collimated ejecta in RS Ophiuchi following the 2006 outburst

We report Multi-Element Radio-Linked Interferometer Network, Very Large Array, One-Centimetre Radio Array, Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), Effelsberg and Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope observations beginning 4.5 days after the discovery of RS Ophiuchi undergoing its 2006 recurrent nova outburst. Observations over the first 9 weeks are included, enabling us to follow spectral development throughout the three phases of the remnant development. We see dramatic brightening on days 4 to 7 at 6 GHz and an accompanying increase in other bands, particularly 1.46 GHz, consistent with transition from the initial ‘free expansion’ phase to the adiabatic expansion phase. This is complete by day 13 when the flux density at 5 GHz is apparently declining from an unexpectedly early maximum (compared with expectations from observations of the 1985 outburst). The flux density recovered to a second peak by approximately day 40, consistent with behaviour observed in 1985. At all times the spectral index is consistent with mixed non-thermal and thermal emission. The spectral indices are consistent with a non-thermal component at lower frequencies on all dates, and the spectral index changes show that the two components are clearly variable. The estimated extent of the emission at 22 GHz on day 59 is consistent with the extended east and west features seen at 1.7 GHz with the VLBA on day 63 being entirely non-thermal. We suggest a two-component model, consisting of a decelerating shell seen in mixed thermal and non-thermal emission plus faster bipolar ejecta generating the non-thermal emission, as seen in contemporaneous VLBA observations. Our estimated ejecta mass of 4 ± 2 × 10−7 M⊙ is consistent with a white dwarf (WD) mass of 1.4 M⊙. It may be that this ejecta mass estimate is a lower limit, in which case a lower WD mass would be consistent with the data

The X-ray properties of high-z FRI candidates in the COSMOS field

We report the X-ray analysis of a sample of candidate high-redshift (1<z<2) FRI sources from the sample of Chiaberge et al. (2009), observed in the Chandra COSMOS field (C-COSMOS). Our main goals are to study their nuclear properties by means of unresolved X-ray emission, and to constrain the presence of clusters surrounding the FRI sources from the diffuse X-ray emission by the associated hot plasma. Among 19 FRI candidates, 6 have an X-ray unresolved counterpart in the C-COSMOS catalog. Two additional sources are not present in the C-COSMOS catalog but are clearly detected in the Chandra images. X-ray spectral analysis, when possible, or hardness ratio of the stacked emission from X-ray detected sources, suggest that some of them have significant intrinsic absorption (N_H~10^22 cm^-2), and high X-ray luminosities with respect to local FRIs. From the stacking analysis of the 11 non-detected sources, however, we find evidence for unresolved soft X-ray emission and no detected hard emission, suggesting an unabsorbed spectrum. Therefore, the X-ray properties vary significantly from source to source among these FRI candidates. From the analysis of the stacked images of all 19 FRI candidates we can rule out the presence of virialized haloes with temperatures larger than 2-3 keV; however, the upper limit on the average extended emission is still consistent with the presence of ~1-2 keV hot gas.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, MNRAS accepted; added co-author affiliatio