Contact resistance and shot noise in graphene transistors

Potential steps naturally develop in graphene near metallic contacts. We investigate the influence of these steps on the transport in graphene Field Effect Transistors. We give simple expressions to estimate the voltage-dependent contribution of the contacts to the total resistance and noise in the diffusive and ballistic regimes.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures; Figs 3 and 4 completed and appendix adde

The Dynamical State of Barnard 68: A Thermally Supported, Pulsating Dark Cloud

We report sensitive, high resolution molecular-line observations of the dark cloud Barnard 68 obtained with the IRAM 30-m telescope. We analyze spectral-line observations of C18O, CS(2--1), C34S(2--1), and N2H+(1--0) in order to investigate the kinematics and dynamical state of the cloud. We find extremely narrow linewidths in the central regions of the cloud. These narrow lines are consistent with thermally broadened profiles for the measured gas temperature of 10.5 K. We determine the thermal pressure to be a factor 4 -- 5 times greater than the non-thermal (turbulent) pressure in the central regions of the cloud, indicating that thermal pressure is the primary source of support against gravity in this cloud. This confirms the inference of a thermally supported cloud drawn previously from deep infrared extinction measurements. The rotational kinetic energy is found to be only a few percent of the gravitational potential energy, indicating that the contribution of rotation to the overall stability of the cloud is insignificant. Finally, our observations show that CS line is optically thick and self-reversed across nearly the entire projected surface of the cloud. The shapes of the self-reversed profiles are asymmetric and are found to vary across the cloud in such a manner that the presence of both inward and outward motions are observed within the cloud. Moreover, these motions appear to be globally organized in a clear and systematic alternating spatial pattern which is suggestive of a small amplitude, non-radial oscillation or pulsation of the outer layers of the cloud about an equilibrium configuration.Comment: To appear in the Astrophysical Journal; 23 pages, 8 figures; Manuscript and higher resolution images can be obtained at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~ebergin/pubs_html/b68_vel.htm

Photometry of the Chromospherically Active Binary HD 197010

For the past several years we have been conducting a study of the spectroscopic and photometric characteristics of a sample X-ray emitting stars from the Einstein Observatory Medium Sensitivity Survey identified as probable binary systems by Fleming (1988) and Fleming, et al.(1989). One of these stars, HD 197010 ( = 1E2038.3-0046 = SAO 144692 = BD -1degree 4025) was discovered to be a short period eclipsing binary by Robb, et al.(1990). The ephemeris he presented was based on observations in 1989 and 1990, but only the 1990 observations included points at eclipse minimum. We report here on first results of almost a year of observations at Gettysburg College Observatory and the National Undergraduate Research Observatory, permitting a new determination of the photometric ephemeris of HD 197010

Ice and Dust in the Quiescent Medium of Isolated Dense Cores

The relation between ices in the envelopes and disks surrounding YSOs and those in the quiescent interstellar medium is investigated. For a sample of 31 stars behind isolated dense cores, ground-based and Spitzer spectra and photometry in the 1-25 um wavelength range are combined. The baseline for the broad and overlapping ice features is modeled, using calculated spectra of giants, H2O ice and silicates. The adopted extinction curve is derived empirically. Its high resolution allows for the separation of continuum and feature extinction. The extinction between 13-25 um is ~50% relative to that at 2.2 um. The strengths of the 6.0 and 6.85 um absorption bands are in line with those of YSOs. Thus, their carriers, which, besides H2O and CH3OH, may include NH4+, HCOOH, H2CO and NH3, are readily formed in the dense core phase, before stars form. The 3.53 um C-H stretching mode of solid CH3OH was discovered. The CH3OH/H2O abundance ratios of 5-12% are larger than upper limits in the Taurus molecular cloud. The initial ice composition, before star formation occurs, therefore depends on the environment. Signs of thermal and energetic processing that were found toward some YSOs are absent in the ices toward background stars. Finally, the peak optical depth of the 9.7 um band of silicates relative to the continuum extinction at 2.2 um is significantly shallower than in the diffuse interstellar medium. This extends the results of Chiar et al. (2007) to a larger sample and higher extinctions.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

The Spitzer Gould Belt Survey of Large Nearby Interstellar Clouds: Discovery of A Dense Embedded Cluster in the Serpens-Aquila Rift

We report the discovery of a nearby, embedded cluster of young stellar objects, associated filamentary infrared dark cloud, and 4.5 mu m shock emission knots from outflows detected in Spitzer IRAC mid-infrared imaging of the Serpens-Aquila Rift obtained as part of the Spitzer Gould Belt Legacy Survey. We also present radial velocity measurements of the region from molecular line observations obtained with the Submillimeter Array (SMA) that suggest the cluster is comoving with the Serpens Main embedded cluster to the north. We therefore assign it 3 degrees the same distance, 260 pc. The core of the new cluster, which we call Serpens South, is composed of an unusually large fraction of protostars (77%) at high mean surface density (> 430 pc(-2)) and short median nearest neighbor spacing (3700 AU). We perform basic cluster structure characterization using nearest neighbor surface density mapping of the YSOs and compare our findings to other known clusters with equivalent analyses available in the literature.Astronom

The Mass Distributions of Starless and Protostellar Cores in Gould Belt Clouds

Using data from the SCUBA Legacy Catalogue (850 um) and Spitzer Space Telescope (3.6 - 70 um), we explore dense cores in the Ophiuchus, Taurus, Perseus, Serpens, and Orion molecular clouds. We develop a new method to discriminate submillimeter cores found by SCUBA as starless or protostellar, using point source photometry from Spitzer wide field surveys. First, we identify infrared sources with red colors associated with embedded young stellar objects (YSOs). Second, we compare the positions of these YSO-candidates to our submillimeter cores. With these identifications, we construct new, self-consistent starless and protostellar core mass functions (CMFs) for the five clouds. We find best fit slopes to the high-mass end of the CMFs of -1.26 +/- 0.20, -1.22 +/- 0.06, -0.95 +/- 0.20, and -1.67 +/- 0.72 for Ophiuchus, Taurus, Perseus, and Orion, respectively. Broadly, these slopes are each consistent with the -1.35 power-law slope of the Salpeter IMF at higher masses, but suggest some differences. We examine a variety of trends between these CMF shapes and their parent cloud properties, potentially finding a correlation between the high-mass slope and core temperature. We also find a trend between core mass and effective size, but we are very limited by sensitivity. We make similar comparisons between core mass and size with visual extinction (for A_V >= 3) and find no obvious trends. We also predict the numbers and mass distributions of cores that future surveys with SCUBA-2 may detect in each of these clouds.Comment: 56 pages, 18 figures, fixed typo in Eq 1, results in paper remain unchange

Crystalline Silicate Emission in the Protostellar Binary Serpens--SVS20

We present spatially resolved mid-infrared spectroscopy of the class I/flat-spectrum protostellar binary system SVS20 in the Serpens cloud core. The spectra were obtained with the mid-infrared instrument T-ReCS on Gemini-South. SVS20-South, the more luminous of the two sources, exhibits a mid-infrared emission spectrum peaking near 11.3 \micron, while SVS20-North exhibits a shallow amorphous silicate absorption spectrum with a peak optical depth of $\tau \sim 0.3$. After removal of the the line-of-sight extinction by the molecular common envelope, the ``protostar-only'' spectra are found to be dominated by strong amorphous olivine emission peaking near 10 \micron. We also find evidence for emission from crystalline forsterite and enstatite associated with both SVS20-S and SVS20-N. The presence of crystalline silicate in such a young binary system indicates that the grain processing found in more evolved HAeBe and T Tauri pre-main sequence stars likely begins at a relatively young evolutionary stage, while mass accretion is still ongoing.Comment: Accepted for publication by The Astrophysical Journa