The observed spiral structure of the Milky Way

The spiral structure of the Milky Way is not yet well determined. The keys to understanding this structure are to increase the number of reliable spiral tracers and to determine their distances as accurately as possible. HII regions, giant molecular clouds (GMCs), and 6.7-GHz methanol masers are closely related to high mass star formation, and hence they are excellent spiral tracers. We update the catalogs of Galactic HII regions, GMCs, and 6.7-GHz methanol masers, and then outline the spiral structure of the Milky Way. We collected data for more than 2500 known HII regions, 1300 GMCs, and 900 6.7-GHz methanol masers. If the photometric or trigonometric distance was not yet available, we determined the kinematic distance using a Galaxy rotation curve with the current IAU standard, $R_0$ = 8.5 kpc and $\Theta_0$ = 220 km s$^{-1}$, and the most recent updated values of $R_0$ = 8.3 kpc and $\Theta_0$ = 239 km s$^{-1}$, after we modified the velocities of tracers with the adopted solar motions. With the weight factors based on the excitation parameters of HII regions or the masses of GMCs, we get the distributions of these spiral tracers. The distribution of tracers shows at least four segments of arms in the first Galactic quadrant, and three segments in the fourth quadrant. The Perseus Arm and the Local Arm are also delineated by many bright HII regions. The arm segments traced by massive star forming regions and GMCs are able to match the HI arms in the outer Galaxy. We found that the models of three-arm and four-arm logarithmic spirals are able to connect most spiral tracers. A model of polynomial-logarithmic spirals is also proposed, which not only delineates the tracer distribution, but also matches the observed tangential directions.Comment: 22 Pages, 16 Figures, 7 Tables, updated to match the published versio

Heat conduction in 2D strongly-coupled dusty plasmas

We perform non-equilibrium simulations to study heat conduction in two-dimensional strongly coupled dusty plasmas. Temperature gradients are established by heating one part of the otherwise equilibrium system to a higher temperature. Heat conductivity is measured directly from the stationary temperature profile and heat flux. Particular attention is paid to the influence of damping effect on the heat conduction. It is found that the heat conductivity increases with the decrease of the damping rate, while its magnitude agrees with previous experimental measurement.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, presented in SCCS2008 conferenc

Open clusters: their kinematics and metellicities

We review our work on Galactic open clusters in recent years, and introduce our proposed large program for the LOCS (LAMOST Open Cluster Survey). First, based on the most complete open clusters sample with metallicity, age and distance data as well as kinematic information, some preliminary statistical analysis regarding the spatial and metallicity distributions is presented. In particular, a radial abundance gradient of - 0.058$\pm$ 0.006 dex kpc$^{-1}$ was derived, and by dividing clusters into age groups we show that the disk abundance gradient was steeper in the past. Secondly, proper motions, membership probabilities, and velocity dispersions of stars in the regions of two very young open clusters are derived. Both clusters show clear evidence of mass segregation, which provides support for the ``primordial'' mass segregation scenarios. Based on the great advantages of the forthcoming LAMOST facility, we have proposed a detailed open cluster survey with LAMOST (the LOCS). The aim, feasibility, and the present development of the LOCS are briefly summarized.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Proceeding of IAU Symposium No.248: "A Giant Step:from Milli- to Micro-arcsecond Astrometry

Chemical evolution and depletion pattern in Damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) systems

In this paper we point out a previously unnoticed anticorrelation between the observed abundance ratio [X/Zn] (where Zn is assumed to be undepleted and X stands for the refractories Fe, Cr and Ni) and metal column density ([Zn/H]+log(N{HI})) in DLAs. We suggest that this trend is an unambiguous sign of dust depletion, since metal column density is a measure of the amount of dust along the line of sight. Assuming that DLAs are (proto-)galactic disks and using detailed chemical evolution models with metallicity dependent yields we study chemical evolution and dust depletion patterns for alpha and iron-peak elements in DLAs. When observational constraints on the metal column density of DLAs are taken into account (as suggested in Boisse et al. 1998) we find that our models reproduce fairly well the observed mild redshift evolution of the abundances of 8 elements (Al, Si, S, Cr, Mn, Fe, Zn and Ni) as well as the observed scatter at a given redshift. By considering the aforementioned dependence of abundance ratios on metal column density, we further explore the general dust depletion pattern in DLAs, comparing to our model results and to a solar reference pattern. We suggest that further measurements of the key elements, i.e. Zn, S and Mn, will help to gain more insight into the nature of DLAs. In any case, the presently uncertain nucleosynthesis of Zn in massive stars (on which a large part of these conclusions is based) should be carefully scrutinised.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, Astronomy and Astrophysics, in pres

Necessary and sufficient conditions for local creation of quantum discord

We show that a local channel cannot create quantum discord (QD) for zero QD states of size $d\geq3$ if and only if either it is a completely decohering channel or it is a nontrivial isotropic channel. For the qubit case this propertiy is additionally characteristic to the completely decohering channel or the commutativity-preserving unital channel. In particular, the exact forms of the completely decohering channel and the commutativity-preserving unital qubit channel are proposed. Consequently, our results confirm and improve the conjecture proposed by X. Hu et al. for the case of $d\geq3$ and improve the result proposed by A. Streltsov et al. for the qubit case. Furthermore, it is shown that a local channel nullifies QD in any state if and only if it is a completely decohering channel. Based on our results, some protocols of quantum information processing issues associated with QD, especially for the qubit case, would be experimentally accessible.Comment: 8 page

A Sino-German 6cm polarisation survey of the Galactic plane IX. HII regions

Large-scale radio continuum surveys provide data to get insights into the physical properties of radio sources. HII regions are prominent radio sources produced by thermal emission of ionised gas around young massive stars. We identify and analyse HII regions in the Sino-German 6cm polarisation survey of the Galactic plane. Objects with flat radio continuum spectra together with infrared and/or Halpha emission were identified as HII regions. For HII regions with small apparent sizes, we cross-matched the 6cm small-diameter source catalogue with the radio HII region catalogue compiled by Paladini and the infrared HII region catalogue based on the WISE data. Extended HII regions were identified by eye by overlaying the Paladini and the WISE HII regions onto the 6cm survey images for coincidences. The TT-plot method was employed for spectral index verification. A total of 401 HII regions were identified and their flux densities were determined with the Sino-German 6cm survey data. In the surveyed area, 76 pairs of sources are found to be duplicated in the Paladini HII region catalogue, mainly due to the non-distinction of previous observations with different angular resolutions, and 78 objects in their catalogue are misclassified as HII regions, being actually planetary nebulae, supernova remnants or extragalactic sources that have steep spectra. More than 30 HII regions and HII region candidates from our 6cm survey data, especially extended ones, do not have counterparts in the WISE HII region catalogue, of which 9 are identified for the first time. Based on the newly derived radio continuum spectra and the evidence of infrared emission, the previously identified SNRs G11.1-1.0, G20.4+0.1 and G16.4-0.5 are believed to be HII regions.Comment: version after some minor corrections and language editing, full Table 2 - 5 will appear in CDS, accepted for publication in A&