4,557 research outputs found
The Outer Edges of Dwarf Irregular Galaxies: Stars and Gas
We have in recent years come to view dwarf galaxy evolution in the broader
context of the cosmic evolution of large-scale structure. Dwarf galaxies, as
the putative building blocks of hierarchical galaxy formation, and also as the
most numerous galaxies in the Universe, play a central role in cosmic
evolution. In particular, the interplay of galactic and intergalactic material
around dwarf irregulars must be more extensive than in more massive disk
galaxies because of their lower gravitational potential and lower interstellar
pressures. The outer regions of dwarf irregular galaxies therefore yield vital
clues to the dominant processes in this interaction zone.
The Workshop addressed a number of questions related to the role of the outer
regions in the evolution of dwarf galaxies and broader consequences. On-line
Workshop Proceedings are at http://www.lowell.edu/Workshops/Lowell02/Comment: Summary of the 2002 Lowell Observatory Workshop, to appear in PASP
Conference Highlights; 6 pp, uses aaspp4.sty. On-line Proceedings at
http://www.lowell.edu/Workshops/Lowell02
The Stellar Populations of Pixels and Frames
Derived from first physical principles, a few simple rules are presented that
can help in both the planning and interpretation of CCD and IR-array camera
observations of resolvable stellar populations. These rules concern the overall
size of the population sampled by a frame as measured by its total luminosity,
and allow to estimate the number of stars (in all evolutionary stages) that are
included in the frame. The total luminosity sampled by each pixel (or
resolution element) allows instead to estimate to which depth meaningful
stellar photometry can be safely attempted, and below which crowding makes it
impossible. Simple relations give also the number of pixels (resolution
elements) in the frame that will contain an unresolved blend of two stars of
any kind. It is shown that the number of such blends increases quadratically
with both the surface brightness of the target, as well as with the angular
size of the pixel (or resolution element). A series of examples are presented
illustrating how the rules are practically used in concrete observational
situations. Application of these tools to existing photometric data for the
inner parts of the bulge of M31, M32 and NGC 147 indicates that no solid
evidence has yet emerged for the presence of a significant intermediate age
population in these objects.Comment: 28 pages, LaTeX file using aasms4.sty, 2 postscript figures To appear
on: The Astronomical Journa
Physical properties of interplanetary grains
Morphological analyses of micrometeorite craters found on lunar rocks and laboratory simulation experiments are used to formulate a meteoritic interplanetary dust particle for optical scattering calculations that is roughly spherical and has a density of 2g cm/3. The model particle has chondritic elemental abundances and also contains a high content of finely dispersed carbon
Star-Formation in Low Radio Luminosity AGN from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
We investigate faint radio emission from low- to high-luminosity Active
Galactic Nuclei (AGN) selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Their
radio properties are inferred by co-adding large ensembles of radio image
cut-outs from the FIRST survey, as almost all of the sources are individually
undetected. We correlate the median radio flux densities against a range of
other sample properties, including median values for redshift, [OIII]
luminosity, emission line ratios, and the strength of the 4000A break. We
detect a strong trend for sources that are actively undergoing star-formation
to have excess radio emission beyond the ~10^28 ergs/s/Hz level found for
sources without any discernible star-formation. Furthermore, this additional
radio emission correlates well with the strength of the 4000A break in the
optical spectrum, and may be used to assess the age of the star-forming
component. We examine two subsamples, one containing the systems with emission
line ratios most like star-forming systems, and one with the sources that have
characteristic AGN ratios. This division also separates the mechanism
responsible for the radio emission (star-formation vs. AGN). For both cases we
find a strong, almost identical, correlation between [OIII] and radio
luminosity, with the AGN sample extending toward lower, and the star-formation
sample toward higher luminosities. A clearer separation between the two
subsamples is seen as function of the central velocity dispersion of the host
galaxy. For systems with similar redshifts and velocity dispersions, the
star-formation subsample is brighter than the AGN in the radio by an order of
magnitude. This underlines the notion that the radio emission in star-forming
systems can dominate the emission associated with the AGN.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomical Journal; 15 pages, 8 color
figure
Supernovae Rates: A Cosmic History
We discuss the cosmic history of supernovae on the basis of various
assumptions and recent data on the star formation history.
We show that supernova rates as a function of redshift can be used to place
significant constraints on progenitor models, on the star formation history,
and on the importance of dust obscuration.
We demonstrate that it is unlikely that the current observational indications
for the existence of a cosmological constant are merely an artifact of the
dominance of different progenitor classes at different redshift intervals.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
Evidence for a clumpy, rotating gas disk in a submillimeter galaxy at z=4
We present Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) observations of the CO(2-1)
emission in the z=4.05 submillimeter galaxy (SMG) GN20. These high-resolution
data allow us to image the molecular gas at 1.3 kpc resolution just 1.6 Gyr
after the Big Bang. The data reveal a clumpy, extended gas reservoir, 14 +/- 4
kpc in diameter, in unprecedented detail. A dynamical analysis shows that the
data are consistent with a rotating disk of total dynamical mass 5.4 +/- 2.4 X
10^11 M_sun. We use this dynamical mass estimate to constrain the CO-to-H_2
mass conversion factor (alpha_CO), finding alpha_CO=1.1 +/- 0.6 M_sun (K km
s^-1 pc^2)^-1. We identify five distinct molecular gas clumps in the disk of
GN20 with masses a few percent of the total gas mass, brightness temperatures
of 16-31K, and surface densities of >3,200-4,500 X (alpha_CO/0.8) M_sun pc^-2.
Virial mass estimates indicate they could be self-gravitating, and we constrain
their CO-to-H_2 mass conversion factor to be <0.2-0.7 M_sun (K km s^-1
pc^2)^-1. A multiwavelength comparison demonstrates that the molecular gas is
concentrated in a region of the galaxy that is heavily obscured in the
rest-frame UV/optical. We investigate the spatially-resolved gas excitation and
find that the CO(6-5)/CO(2-1) ratio is constant with radius, consistent with
star formation occuring over a large portion of the disk. We discuss the
implications of our results in the context of different fueling scenarios for
SMGs.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
HI Density Distribution Driven by Supernovae: A Simulation Study
We model the complex distribution of atomic hydrogen (HI) in the interstellar
medium (ISM) assuming that it is driven entirely by supernovae (SN). We develop
and assess two different models. In the first approach, the simulated volume is
randomly populated with non-overlapping voids of a range of sizes. This may
relate to a snapshot distribution of supernova-remnant voids, although somewhat
artificially constrained by the non-overlap criterion. In the second approach,
a simplified time evolution (considering momentum conservation as the only
governing constraint during interactions) is followed as SN populate the space
with the associated input mass and energy.
We describe these simulations and present our results in the form of images
of the mass and velocity distributions and the associated power spectra. The
latter are compared with trends indicated by available observations. In both
approaches, we find remarkable correspondence with the observed statistical
description of well-studied components of the ISM, wherein the spatial spectra
have been found to show significant deviations from the Kolmogorov spectrum.
One of the key indications from this study, regardless of whether or not the
SN-induced turbulence is the dominant process in the ISM, is that the apparent
non-Kolmogorov spectral characteristics (of HI and/or electron column density
across thick or thin screens) needed to explain related observations may not at
all be in conflict with the underlying turbulence (i.e. the velocity structure)
being of Kolmogorov nature. We briefly discuss the limitations of our
simulations and the various implications of our results.Comment: To appear in Astrophysical Journal. 21 pages, 6 figure
Structure, Scaling and Phase Transition in the Optimal Transport Network
We minimize the dissipation rate of an electrical network under a global
constraint on the sum of powers of the conductances. We construct the explicit
scaling relation between currents and conductances, and show equivalence to a a
previous model [J. R. Banavar {\it et al} Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 84}, 004745
(2000)] optimizing a power-law cost function in an abstract network. We show
the currents derive from a potential, and the scaling of the conductances
depends only locally on the currents. A numerical study reveals that the
transition in the topology of the optimal network corresponds to a
discontinuity in the slope of the power dissipation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
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