12,948 research outputs found
Star formation history in the solar neighborhood: the link between stars and cosmology
Using a cosmological galactic evolutionary approach to model the Milky Way,
we calculate the star formation history (SFH) of the solar neighborhood. The
good agreement we obtain with the observational inferences suggests that our
physical model describes accurately the long term/large spatial trends of the
local and global Milky Way SFH. In this model, star formation is triggered by
disk gravitational instabilities and self-regulated by an energy balance in the
ISM. The drivers of the SFH are the cosmological gas infall rate and the gas
surface density determined by the primordial spin parameter. A LambdaCDM
cosmology was used throughout.Comment: 8 pages, uses kluwer.cls. Invited talk, to appear in "New Quests in
Stellar Astrophysics: The link between Stars and Cosmology", eds. M. Chavez,
A. Bressan, A. Buzzoni & D. Mayya, Kluwer Academic Publisher
On the eta-invariant in the four dimensional chiral U(1) theory
The imaginary part of the effective action is investigated in the 4D chiral
U(1) theory using the CFA.Comment: LATTICE99(Chiral Gauge Theories), typo fixe
Birth, death and diffusion of interacting particles
Individual-based models of chemical or biological dynamics usually consider
individual entities diffusing in space and performing a birth-death type
dynamics. In this work we study the properties of a model in this class where
the birth dynamics is mediated by the local, within a given distance, density
of particles. Groups of individuals are formed in the system and in this paper
we concentrate on the study of the properties of these clusters (lifetime,
size, and collective diffusion). In particular, in the limit of the interaction
distance approaching the system size, a unique cluster appears which helps to
understand and characterize the clustering dynamics of the model.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, Iop style. To appear in Journal of Physics A:
Condensed matte
Chemical abundances of 1111 FGK stars from the HARPS GTO planet search program II: Cu, Zn, Sr, Y, Zr, Ba, Ce, Nd and Eu
To understand the formation and evolution of the different stellar
populations within our Galaxy it is essential to combine detailed kinematical
and chemical information for large samples of stars. We derive chemical
abundances of Cu, Zn, Sr, Y, Zr, Ba, Ce, Nd and Eu for a large sample of more
than 1000 FGK dwarf stars with high-resolution (\,115000) and
high-quality spectra from the HARPS-GTO program. The abundances are derived by
a standard Local Thermodinamyc Equilibrium (LTE) analysis using measured
Equivalent Widths (EWs) injected to the code MOOG and a grid of Kurucz ATLAS9
atmospheres. We find that thick disk stars are chemically disjunct for Zn and
Eu and also show on average higher Zr but lower Ba and Y when compared to the
thin disk stars. We also discovered that the previously identified
high- metal-rich population is also enhanced in Cu, Zn, Nd and Eu with
respect to the thin disk but presents Ba and Y abundances lower on average,
following the trend of thick disk stars towards higher metallities and further
supporting the different chemical composition of this population. The ratio of
heavy-s to light-s elements of thin disk stars presents the expected behaviour
(increasing towards lower metallicities) and can be explained by a major
contribution of low-mass AGB stars for s-process production at disk
metallicities. However, the opposite trend found for thick disk stars suggests
that intermediate-mass AGB stars played an important role in the enrichment of
the gas from where these stars formed. Previous works in the literature also
point to a possible primary production of light-s elements at low metallicities
to explain this trend. Finally, we also find an enhancement of light-s elements
in the thin disk at super solar metallicities which could be caused by the
contribution of metal-rich AGB stars. (short version)Comment: 20 pages, 19 figures, accepted by A&
Document Retrieval on Repetitive Collections
Document retrieval aims at finding the most important documents where a
pattern appears in a collection of strings. Traditional pattern-matching
techniques yield brute-force document retrieval solutions, which has motivated
the research on tailored indexes that offer near-optimal performance. However,
an experimental study establishing which alternatives are actually better than
brute force, and which perform best depending on the collection
characteristics, has not been carried out. In this paper we address this
shortcoming by exploring the relationship between the nature of the underlying
collection and the performance of current methods. Via extensive experiments we
show that established solutions are often beaten in practice by brute-force
alternatives. We also design new methods that offer superior time/space
trade-offs, particularly on repetitive collections.Comment: Accepted to ESA 2014. Implementation and experiments at
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/group/suds/rlcsa
Searching for the signatures of terrestrial planets in F-, G-type main-sequence stars
We have studied the volatile-to-refractory abundance ratios to investigate
their possible relation with the low-mass planetary formation. We present a
fully differential chemical abundance analysis using high-quality HARPS and
UVES spectra of 61 late F- and early G-type main-sequence stars, 29 are planet
hosts and 32 are stars without detected planets. As the previous sample of
solar analogs, these stars slightly hotter than the Sun also provide very
accurate Galactic chemical abundance trends in the metallicity range . Stars with and without planets show similar mean abundance
ratios. Moreover, when removing the Galactic chemical evolution effects, these
mean abundance ratios, , versus condensation
temperature tend to exhibit less steep trends with nearly null or slightly
negative slopes. We have also analyzed a sub-sample of 26 metal-rich stars, 13
with and 13 without known planets and find the similar, although not equal,
abundance pattern with negative slopes for both samples of stars with and
without planets. Using stars at S/N provides equally steep abundance
trends with negative slopes for both stars with and without planets. We revisit
the sample of solar analogs to study the abundance patterns of these stars, in
particular, 8 stars hosting super-Earth-like planets. Among these stars having
very low-mass planets, only four of them reveal clear increasing abundance
trends versus condensation temperature. Finally, we have compared these
observed slopes with those predicted using a simple model which enables us to
compute the mass of rocks which have formed terrestrial planets in each
planetary system. We do not find any evidence supporting the conclusion that
the volatile-to-refractory abundance ratio is related to the presence of rocky
planets.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
CNO behaviour in planet-harbouring stars. II. Carbon abundances in stars with and without planets using the CH band
Context. Carbon, oxygen and nitrogen (CNO) are key elements in stellar
formation and evolution, and their abundances should also have a significant
impact on planetary formation and evolution.
Aims. We present a detailed spectroscopic analysis of 1110 solar-type stars,
143 of which are known to have planetary companions. We have determined the
carbon abundances of these stars and investigate a possible connection between
C and the presence of planetary companions. Methods. We used the HARPS
spectrograph to obtain high-resolution optical spectra of our targets. Spectral
synthesis of the CH band at 4300\AA was performed with the spectral synthesis
codes MOOG and FITTING.
Results. We have studied carbon in several reliable spectral windows and have
obtained abundances and distributions that show that planet host stars are
carbon rich when compared to single stars, a signature caused by the known
metal-rich nature of stars with planets. We find no different behaviour when
separating the stars by the mass of the planetary companion.
Conclusions. We conclude that reliable carbon abundances can be derived for
solar-type stars from the CH band at 4300\AA. We confirm two different slope
trends for [C/Fe] with [Fe/H] because the behaviour is opposite for stars above
and below solar values. We observe a flat distribution of the [C/Fe] ratio for
all planetary masses, a finding that apparently excludes any clear connection
between the [C/Fe] abundance ratio and planetary mass.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures. Accepted to A&
FERMI transient J1544-0649: a flaring radio-weak BL Lac
On May 15th, 2017, the \emph{FERMI}/LAT gamma-ray telescope observed a
transient source not present in any previous high-energy catalogue: J1544-0649.
It was visible for two consecutive weeks, with a flux peak on May 21st.
Subsequently observed by a \emph{Swift}/XRT follow-up starting on May 26, the
X-ray counterpart position was coincident with the optical transient
ASASSN-17gs = AT2017egv, detected on May 25, with a potential host galaxy at
=0.171. We conducted a 4-months follow-up in radio (Effelsberg-100m) and
optical (San Pedro M\'artir, 2.1m) bands, in order to build the overall
Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) of this object. The radio data from 5 to 15
GHz confirmed the flat spectrum of the source, favoring a line of sight close
to jet axis, not showing significant variability in the explored post-burst
time-window. The Rx ratio, common indicator of radio loudness, gives a value at
the border between the radio-loud and radio-quiet AGN populations. The
Ca H\&K break value (0.290.05) is compatible with the range
expected for the long-sought intermediate population between BL Lacs and FRI
radio galaxies. An overall SED fitting from Radio to -ray band shows
properties typical of a low-power BL Lac. As a whole, these results suggest
that this transient could well be a new example of the recently discovered
class of radio-weak BL Lac, showing for the first time a flare in the
gamma/X-ray bands.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
C/O vs Mg/Si ratios in solar type stars: The HARPS sample
Aims. We present a detailed study of the Mg/Si and C/O ratios and their
importance in determining the mineralogy of planetary companions. Methods.
Using 499 solar-like stars from the HARPS sample, we determine C/O and Mg/Si
elemental abundance ratios to study the nature of the possible planets formed.
We separated the planetary population in low-mass planets ( < 30 ) and high-mass planets ( > 30 ) to test for possible
relation with the mass. Results. We find a diversity of mineralogical ratios
that reveal the different kinds of planetary systems that can be formed, most
of them dissimilar to our solar system. The different values of the Mg/Si and
C/O ratios can determine different composition of planets formed. We found that
100\% of our planetary sample present C/O < 0.8. 86\% of stars with high-mass
companions present 0.8 > C/O > 0.4, while 14\% present C/O values lower than
0.4. Regarding Mg/Si, all stars with low-mass planetary companion showed values
between 1 and 2, while 85% of the high-mass companion sample does. The other
15\% showed Mg/Si values below 1. No stars with planets were found with Mg/Si >
2. Planet hosts with low-mass companions present C/O and Mg/Si ratios similar
to those found in the Sun, whereas stars with high-mass companions have lower
C/O.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figues. Accepted in A&
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