3,917 research outputs found
Stellar Motion around Spiral Arms: Gaia Mock Data
We compare the stellar motion around a spiral arm created in two different
scenarios, transient/co-rotating spiral arms and density-wave-like spiral arms.
We generate Gaia mock data from snapshots of the simulations following these
two scenarios using our stellar population code, SNAPDRAGONS, which takes into
account dust extinction and the expected Gaia errors. We compare the observed
rotation velocity around a spiral arm similar in position to the Perseus arm,
and find that there is a clear difference in the velocity features around the
spiral arm between the co-rotating spiral arm and the density-wave-like spiral
arm. Our result demonstrates that the volume and accuracy of the Gaia data are
sufficient to clearly distinguish these two scenarios of the spiral arms.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the proceedings of "The Milky Way
Unravelled by Gaia: GREAT Science from the Gaia Data Releases", Barcelona,
1-5 December 2014, eds. N. Walton, F. Figueras, C. Soubira
Gas and Stellar Motions and Observational Signatures of Co-Rotating Spiral Arms
We have observed a snapshot of our N-body/Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics
simulation of a Milky Way-sized barred spiral galaxy in a similar way to how we
can observe the Milky Way. The simulated galaxy shows a co-rotating spiral arm,
i.e. the spiral arm rotates with the same speed as the circular speed. We
observed the rotation and radial velocities of the gas and stars as a function
of the distance from our assumed location of the observer at the three lines of
sight on the disc plane, (l, b) = (90, 0), (120, 0) and (150,0) deg. We find
that the stars tend to rotate slower (faster) behind (at the front of) the
spiral arm and move outward (inward), because of the radial migration. However,
because of their epicycle motion, we see a variation of rotation and radial
velocities around the spiral arm. On the other hand, the cold gas component
shows a clearer trend of rotating slower (faster) and moving outward (inward)
behind (at the front of) the spiral arm, because of the radial migration. We
have compared the results with the velocity of the maser sources from Reid et
al. (2014), and find that the observational data show a similar trend in the
rotation velocity around the expected position of the spiral arm at l = 120
deg. We also compared the distribution of the radial velocity from the local
standard of the rest, V_LSR, with the APOGEE data at l = 90 deg as an example.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
The stellar kinematics of co-rotating spiral arms in Gaia mock observations
We have observed an N-body/Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulation of a
Milky Way like barred spiral galaxy. We present a simple method that samples
N-body model particles into mock Gaia stellar observations and takes into
account stellar populations, dust extinction and Gaia's science performance
estimates. We examine the kinematics around a nearby spiral arm at a similar
position to the Perseus arm at three lines of sight in the disc plane;
(l,b)=(90,0), (120,0) and (150,0) degrees. We find that the structure of the
peculiar kinematics around the co-rotating spiral arm, which is found in Kawata
et al. (2014b), is still visible in the observational data expected to be
produced by Gaia despite the dust extinction and expected observational errors
of Gaia. These observable kinematic signatures will enable testing whether the
Perseus arm of the Milky Way is similar to the co-rotating spiral arms commonly
seen in N-body simulations.Comment: 9 pages 4 Figures, submitted to MNRAS 22nd Dec 201
X-ray response of tunnel junctions with a trapping layer
The use of trapping layers in superconductive tunnel junctions may drastically improve their functioning as X-ray detectors. Information about these trapping layers can be obtained from I/V-curves and X-ray spectra. The application of a magnetic field causes a substantial reduction of the bandgap in the trapping layer
Radial Distribution of Stellar Motions in Gaia DR2
By taking advantage of the superb measurements of position and velocity for
an unprecedented large number of stars provided in Gaia DR2, we have generated
the first maps of the rotation velocity, , and vertical velocity,
, distributions as a function of the Galactocentric radius, , across a radial range of ~kpc. In the
map, we have identified many diagonal ridge features, which are compared with
the location of the spiral arms and the expected outer Lindblad resonance of
the Galactic bar. We have detected also radial wave-like oscillations of the
peak of the vertical velocity distribution.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Lette
Impacts of a flaring star-forming disc and stellar radial mixing on the vertical metallicity gradient
Using idealized N-body simulations of a Milky Way-sized disc galaxy, we qualitatively study how the metallicity distributions of the thin disc star particles are modified by the formation of the bar and spiral arm structures. The thin disc in our numerical experiments initially has a tight negative radial metallicity gradient and a constant vertical scaleheight. We show that the radial mixing of stars drives a positive vertical metallicity gradient in the thin disc. On the other hand, if the initial thin disc is flared, with vertical scaleheight increasing with galactocentric radius, the metal-poor stars, originally in the outer disc, become dominant in regions above the disc plane at every radii. This process can drive a negative vertical metallicity gradient, which is consistent with the current observed trend. This model mimics a scenario where the star-forming thin disc was flared in the outer region at earlier epochs. Our numerical experiment with an initial flared disc predicts that the negative vertical metallicity gradient of the mono-age relatively young thin disc population should be steeper in the inner disc, and the radial metallicity gradient of the mono-age population should be shallower at greater heights above the disc plane. We also predict that the metallicity distribution function of mono-age young thin disc populations above the disc plane would be more positively skewed in the inner disc compared to the outer disc
Spiral and bar driven peculiar velocities in Milky Way sized galaxy simulations
We investigate the kinematic signatures induced by spiral and bar structure
in a set of simulations of Milky Way-sized spiral disc galaxies. The set
includes test particle simulations that follow a quasi-stationary density
wave-like scenario with rigidly rotating spiral arms, and -body simulations
that host a bar and transient, co-rotating spiral arms. From a location similar
to that of the Sun, we calculate the radial, tangential and line-of-sight
peculiar velocity fields of a patch of the disc and quantify the fluctuations
by computing the power spectrum from a two-dimensional Fourier transform. We
find that the peculiar velocity power spectrum of the simulation with a bar and
transient, co-rotating spiral arms fits very well to that of APOGEE red clump
star data, while the quasi-stationary density wave spiral model without a bar
does not. We determine that the power spectrum is sensitive to the number of
spiral arms, spiral arm pitch angle and position with respect to the spiral
arm. However, it is necessary to go beyond the line of sight velocity field in
order to distinguish fully between the various spiral models with this method.
We compute the power spectrum for different regions of the spiral discs, and
discuss the application of this analysis technique to external galaxies.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures. Improved and MNRAS Accepte
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