The Magellanic Bridge: The Nearest Purely Tidal Stellar Population

We report on observations of the stellar populations in twelve fields spanning the region between the Magellanic Clouds, made with the Mosaic-II camera on the 4-meter telescope at the Cerro-Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The two main goals of the observations are to characterize the young stellar population (which presumably formed in situ in the Bridge and therefore represents the nearest stellar population formed from tidal debris), and to search for an older stellar component (which would have been stripped from either Cloud as stars, by the same tidal forces which formed the gaseous Bridge). We determine the star-formation history of the young inter-Cloud population, which provides a constraint on the timing of the gravitational interaction which formed the Bridge. We do not detect an older stellar population belonging to the Bridge in any of our fields, implying that the material that was stripped from the Clouds to form the Magellanic Bridge was very nearly a pure gas.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures. Accepted to Ap

Hypernatural Numbers as Ultrafilters

In this paper we present a use of nonstandard methods in the theory of ultrafilters and in related applications to combinatorics of numbers

A nilpotent IP polynomial multiple recurrence theorem

We generalize the IP-polynomial Szemer\'edi theorem due to Bergelson and McCutcheon and the nilpotent Szemer\'edi theorem due to Leibman. Important tools in our proof include a generalization of Leibman's result that polynomial mappings into a nilpotent group form a group and a multiparameter version of the nilpotent Hales-Jewett theorem due to Bergelson and Leibman.Comment: v4: switch to TeXlive 2016 and biblate

Detection of Cold Atomic Clouds in the Magellanic Bridge

We report a detection of cold atomic hydrogen in the Magellanic Bridge using 21-cm absorption spectroscopy toward the radio source B0312-770. With a column density of N_HI=1.2E20 cm^-2, a maximum absorption optical depth of tau=0.10 and a maximum 21-cm emission brightness temperature of 1.4 K, this line of sight yields a spin temperature, T_s, between 20 K and 40 K. H I 21-cm absorption and emission spectroscopy toward 7 other low column density sightlines on the periphery of the LMC and SMC reveal absorption toward one additional background radio source behind the SMC with tau=0.03. The data have typical sensitivities of sigma_tau=0.005 to 0.070 in absorption and sigma_{T_B}=0.03 K in emission. These data demonstrate the presence of a cold atomic phase which is probably accompanied by molecular condensations in the tenuous interstellar medium of the Bridge region. Young OB stars observed in the Magellanic Bridge could form "in situ" from these cold condensations rather than migrate from regions of active star formation in the main body of the SMC. The existence of cold condensations and star formation in the Magellanic Bridge might be understood as a small scale version of the mechanism that produces star formation in the tidal tails of interacting galaxies.Comment: 25 pages, uses AASTeX and psfig; Accepted for Publication in the Astronomical Journa

A New Look at the Kinematics of Neutral Hydrogen in the Small Magellanic Cloud

We have used the latest HI observations of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), obtained with the Australia Telescope Compact Array and the Parkes telescope, to re-examine the kinematics of this dwarf, irregular galaxy. A large velocity gradient is found in the HI velocity field with a significant symmetry in iso-velocity contours, suggestive of a differential rotation. A comparison of HI data with the predictions from tidal models for the SMC evolution suggests that the central region of the SMC corresponds to the central, disk- or bar-like, component left from the rotationally supported SMC disk prior to its last two encounters with the Large Magellanic Cloud. In this scenario, the velocity gradient is expected as a left-over from the original, pre-encounter, angular momentum. We have derived the HI rotation curve and the mass model for the SMC. This rotation curve rapidly rises to about 60 km/s up to the turnover radius of ~3 kpc. A stellar mass-to-light ratio of about unity is required to match the observed rotation curve, suggesting that a dark matter halo is not needed to explain the dynamics of the SMC. A set of derived kinematic parameters agrees well with the assumptions used in tidal theoretical models that led to a good reproduction of observational properties of the Magellanic System. The dynamical mass of the SMC, derived from the rotation curve, is 2.4x10^9 Msolar.Comment: To appear in ApJ, March 20 2004, 11 figure

Herbig Ae/Be Stars in the Magellanic Bridge

We have found Herbig Ae/Be star candidates in the western region of the Magellanic Bridge. Using the near infrared camera SIRIUS and the 1.4 m telescope IRSF, we surveyed about 3.0 deg x 1.3 deg (24 deg < RA < 36 deg, -75 deg < Dec. < -73.7 deg) in the J, H, and Ks bands. On the basis of colors and magnitudes, about 200 Herbig Ae/Be star candidates are selected. Considering the contaminations by miscellaneous sources such as foreground stars and early-type dwarfs in the Magellanic Bridge, we estimate that about 80 (about 40%) of the candidates are likely to be Herbig Ae/Be stars. We also found one concentration of the candidates at the young star cluster NGC 796, strongly suggesting the existence of pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars in the Magellanic Bridge. This is the first detection of PMS star candidates in the Magellanic Bridge, and if they are genuine PMS stars, this could be direct evidence of recent star formation. However, the estimate of the number of Herbig Ae/Be stars depends on the fraction of classical Be stars, and thus a more precise determination of the Be star fraction or observations to differentiate between the Herbig Ae/Be stars and classical Be stars are required.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Dark Matter and the Chemical Evolution of Irregular Galaxies

We present three types of chemical evolution models for irregular galaxies: closed-box with continuous star formation rates (SFRs), closed-box with bursting SFRs, and O-rich outflow with continuous SFRs. We discuss the chemical evolution of the irregular galaxies NGC 1560 and II Zw 33, and a ``typical'' irregular galaxy. The fraction of low-mass stars needed by our models is larger than that derived for the solar vicinity, but similar to that found in globular clusters. For our typical irregular galaxy we need a mass fraction of about 40% in the form of substellar objects plus non baryonic dark matter inside the Holmberg radius, in good agreement with the results derived for NGC 1560 and II Zw 33 where we do have an independent estimate of the mass fraction in non baryonic dark matter. Closed-box models are better than O-rich outflow models in explaining the C/O and Z/O observed values for our typical irregular galaxy.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure, uses emulateapj.sty package. ApJ in press. New models were added. The order of Tables has been correcte

An Atlas of FUSE Sight Lines Toward the Magellanic Clouds

We present an atlas of 57 Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and 37 Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) observations obtained with the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite. The atlas highlights twelve interstellar absorption line transitions at a resolution of ~15 km/s. These transitions cover a broad range of temperatures, ionization states, and abundances. The species included are OVI, which probes hot (T~3x10^5 K) ionized gas; CIII and FeIII, which probe warm (T~10^4 K) ionized gas; SiII, PII, CII, FeII, and OI, warm neutral gas; and six different molecular hydrogen transitions, which trace cold (T<=500 K) gas. We include Schmidt Halpha CCD images of the region surrounding each sight line showing the morphology of warm ionized gas in the vicinity, along with continuum images near each FUSE aperture position. Finally, we present several initial scientific results derived from this dataset on the interstellar medium of the Magellanic Clouds and Galactic halo.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures. Complete Atlas of 94 additional images (~800kB each) is available at http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/~danforth/atlas Accepted to the ApJS March 200

Physics of Solar Prominences: II - Magnetic Structure and Dynamics

Observations and models of solar prominences are reviewed. We focus on non-eruptive prominences, and describe recent progress in four areas of prominence research: (1) magnetic structure deduced from observations and models, (2) the dynamics of prominence plasmas (formation and flows), (3) Magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) waves in prominences and (4) the formation and large-scale patterns of the filament channels in which prominences are located. Finally, several outstanding issues in prominence research are discussed, along with observations and models required to resolve them.Comment: 75 pages, 31 pictures, review pape