7,012 research outputs found
Signatures of Planets in Spatially Unresolved Disks
Main sequence stars are commonly surrounded by debris disks, composed of cold
dust continuously replenished by a reservoir of undetected dust-producing
planetesimals. In a planetary system with a belt of planetesimals (like the
Solar System's Kuiper Belt) and one or more interior giant planets, the
trapping of dust particles in the mean motion resonances with the planets can
create structure in the dust disk, as the particles accumulate at certain
semimajor axes. Sufficiently massive planets may also scatter and eject dust
particles out of a planetary system, creating a dust depleted region inside the
orbit of the planet. In anticipation of future observations of spatially
unresolved debris disks with the Spitzer Space Telescope, we are interested in
studying how the structure carved by planets affects the shape of the disk's
spectral energy distribution (SED), and consequently if the SED can be used to
infer the presence of planets. We numerically calculate the equilibrium spatial
density distributions and SEDs of dust disks originated by a belt of
planetesimals in the presence of interior giant planets in different planetary
configurations, and for a representative sample of chemical compositions. The
dynamical models are necessary to estimate the enhancement of particles near
the mean motion resonances with the planets, and to determine how many
particles drift inside the planet's orbit. Based on the SEDs and predicted
colors we discuss what types of planetary systems can be
distinguishable from one another and the main parameter degeneracies in the
model SEDs.Comment: 40 pages (pre-print form), including 16 figures. Published in ApJ
200
First Time-dependent Study of H2 and H3+ Ortho-Para Chemistry in the Diffuse Interstellar Medium: Observations Meet Theoretical Predictions
The chemistry in the diffuse interstellar medium initiates the gradual
increase of molecular complexity during the life cycle of matter. A key
molecule that enables build-up of new molecular bonds and new molecules via
proton-donation is H3+. Its evolution is tightly related to molecular hydrogen
and thought to be well understood. However, recent observations of ortho and
para lines of H2 and H3+ in the diffuse ISM showed a puzzling discrepancy in
nuclear spin excitation temperatures and populations between these two key
species. H3+, unlike H2, seems to be out of thermal equilibrium, contrary to
the predictions of modern astrochemical models. We conduct the first
time-dependent modeling of the para-fractions of H2 and H3+ in the diffuse ISM
and compare our results to a set of line-of-sight observations, including new
measurements presented in this study. We isolate a set of key reactions for H3+
and find that the destruction of the lowest rotational states of H3+ by
dissociative recombination largely control its ortho/para ratio. A plausible
agreement with observations cannot be achieved unless a ratio larger than 1:5
for the destruction of (1,1)- and (1,0)-states of H3+ is assumed. Additionally,
an increased CR ionization rate to 10(-15) 1/s further improves the fit whereas
variations of other individual physical parameters, such as density and
chemical age, have only a minor effect on the predicted ortho/para ratios. Thus
our study calls for new laboratory measurements of the dissociative
recombination rate and branching ratio of the key ion H3+ under interstellar
conditions.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, 3 table
PYRAMIR: Calibration and operation of a pyramid near-infrared wavefront sensor
The concept of pyramid wavefront sensors (PWFS) has been around about a
decade by now. However, there is still a great lack of characterizing
measurements that allow the best operation of such a system under real life
conditions at an astronomical telescope. In this article we, therefore,
investigate the behavior and robustness of the pyramid infrared wavefront
sensor PYRAMIR mounted at the 3.5 m telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory
under the influence of different error sources both intrinsic to the sensor,
and arising in the preceding optical system. The intrinsic errors include
diffraction effects on the pyramid edges and detector read out noise. The
external imperfections consist of a Gaussian profile in the intensity
distribution in the pupil plane during calibration, the effect of an optically
resolved reference source, and noncommon-path aberrations. We investigated the
effect of three differently sized reference sources on the calibration of the
PWFS. For the noncommon-path aberrations the quality of the response of the
system is quantified in terms of modal cross talk and aliasing. We investigate
the special behavior of the system regarding tip-tilt control. From our
measurements we derive the method to optimize the calibration procedure and the
setup of a PWFS adaptive optics (AO) system. We also calculate the total
wavefront error arising from aliasing, modal cross talk, measurement error, and
fitting error in order to optimize the number of calibrated modes for on-sky
operations. These measurements result in a prediction of on-sky performance for
various conditions
Resolving the chemical substructure of Orion-KL
The Kleinmann-Low nebula in Orion (Orion-KL) is the nearest example of a
high-mass star-forming environment. For the first time, we complemented 1.3 mm
Submillimeter Array (SMA) interferometric line survey with IRAM 30 m
single-dish observations of the Orion-KL region. Covering a 4 GHz bandwidth in
total, this survey contains over 160 emission lines from 20 species (25
isotopologues), including 11 complex organic molecules (COMs).
At a spatial resolution of 1200 AU, the continuum substructures are resolved.
Extracting the spectra from individual substructures and providing the
intensity-integrated distribution map for each species, we studied the
small-scale chemical variations in this region. Our main results are: (1) We
identify lines from the low-abundance COMs CH3COCH3 and CH3CH2OH, as well as
tentatively detect CH3CHO and long carbon-chains C6H and HC7N. (2) We find that
while most COMs are segregated by type, peaking either towards the hot core
(e.g., N-bearing species) or the compact ridge (e.g., O-bearing species like
HCOOCH3 and CH3OCH3), while the distributions of others do not follow this
segregated structure (e.g., CH3CH2OH, CH3OH, CH3COCH3). (3) We find a second
velocity component of HNCO, SO2, 34SO2, and SO lines, which may be associated
with a strong shock event in the low-velocity outflow. (4) Temperatures and
molecular abundances show large gradients between central condensations and the
outflow regions, illustrating a transition between hot molecular core and
shock-chemistry dominated regimes.
Our observations of spatially resolved chemical variations in Orion-KL
provide the nearest reference source for hot molecular core and outflow
chemistry, which will be an important example for interpreting the chemistry of
more distant HMSFRs.Comment: 51 pages, 17 figures, accepted on 12 March 2015 Dashed lines in
Figure 10 of the published paper was missin
Chemical evolution in the early phases of massive star formation II: Deuteration
The chemical evolution in high-mass star-forming regions is still poorly
constrained. Studying the evolution of deuterated molecules allows to
differentiate between subsequent stages of high-mass star formation regions due
to the strong temperature dependence of deuterium isotopic fractionation. We
observed a sample of 59 sources including 19 infrared dark clouds, 20 high-mass
protostellar objects, 11 hot molecular cores and 9 ultra-compact HII regions in
the (3-2) transitions of the four deuterated molecules, DCN, DNC, DCO+ and N2D+
as well as their non-deuterated counterpart. The overall detection fraction of
DCN, DNC and DCO+ is high and exceeds 50% for most of the stages. N2D+ was only
detected in a few infrared dark clouds and high-mass protostellar objects. It
can be related to problems in the bandpass at the frequency of the transition
and to low abundances in the more evolved, warmer stages. We find median D/H
ratios of ~0.02 for DCN, ~0.005 for DNC, ~0.0025 for DCO+ and ~0.02 for N2D+.
While the D/H ratios of DNC, DCO+ and N2D+ decrease with time, DCN/HCN peaks at
the hot molecular core stage. We only found weak correlations of the D/H ratios
for N2D+ with the luminosity of the central source and the FWHM of the line,
and no correlation with the H2 column density. In combination with a previously
observed set of 14 other molecules (Paper I) we fitted the calculated column
densities with an elaborate 1D physico-chemical model with time-dependent
D-chemistry including ortho- and para-H2 states. Good overall fits to the
observed data have been obtained the model. It is one of the first times that
observations and modeling have been combined to derive chemically based
best-fit models for the evolution of high-mass star formation including
deuteration.Comment: 26 pages, 16 figures, accepted at A&
Chemical evolution in the early phases of massive star formation. I
Understanding the chemical evolution of young (high-mass) star-forming
regions is a central topic in star formation research. Chemistry is employed as
a unique tool 1) to investigate the underlying physical processes and 2) to
characterize the evolution of the chemical composition. We observed a sample of
59 high-mass star-forming regions at different evolutionary stages varying from
the early starless phase of infrared dark clouds to high-mass protostellar
objects to hot molecular cores and, finally, ultra-compact HII regions at 1mm
and 3mm with the IRAM 30m telescope. We determined their large-scale chemical
abundances and found that the chemical composition evolves along with the
evolutionary stages. On average, the molecular abundances increase with time.
We modeled the chemical evolution, using a 1D physical model where density and
temperature vary from stage to stage coupled with an advanced gas-grain
chemical model and derived the best-fit chi^2 values of all relevant
parameters. A satisfying overall agreement between observed and modeled column
densities for most of the molecules was obtained. With the best-fit model we
also derived a chemical age for each stage, which gives the timescales for the
transformation between two consecutive stages. The best-fit chemical ages are
~10,000 years for the IRDC stage, ~60,000 years for the HMPO stage, ~40,000
years for the HMC stage, and ~10,000 years for the UCHII stage. The total
chemical timescale for the entire evolutionary sequence of the high-mass star
formation process is on the order of 10^5 years, which is consistent with
theoretical estimates. Furthermore, based on the approach of a multiple-line
survey of unresolved data, we were able to constrain an intuitive and
reasonable physical and chemical model. The results of this study can be used
as chemical templates for the different evolutionary stages in high-mass star
formation.Comment: 31 pages, 11 figures, 21 tables, accepted by A&A; typos adde
Universal Features of Terahertz Absorption in Disordered Materials
Using an analytical theory, experimental terahertz time-domain spectroscopy
data and numerical evidence, we demonstrate that the frequency dependence of
the absorption coupling coefficient between far-infrared photons and atomic
vibrations in disordered materials has the universal functional form, C(omega)
= A + B*omega^2, where the material-specific constants A and B are related to
the distributions of fluctuating charges obeying global and local charge
neutrality, respectively.Comment: 5 pages, 3 fig
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