8,347 research outputs found
Strong irradiation of protostellar cores in Corona Australis
The importance of the physical environment in the evolution of newly formed
low-mass stars remains an open question. In particular, radiation from nearby
more massive stars may affect both the physical and chemical structure of these
kinds of young stars. Aims: To constrain the physical characteristics of a
group of embedded low-mass protostars in Corona Australis in the vicinity of
the young luminous Herbig Be star R CrA. Methods: Millimetre wavelength maps of
molecular line and continuum emission towards the low-mass star forming region
IRS7 near R CrA from the SMA and APEX are presented. The maps show the
distribution of 18 lines from 7 species (H2CO, CH3OH, HC3N, c-C3H2, HCN, CN and
SiO) on scales from 3" to 60" (400-8000 AU). Using a set of H2CO lines, we
estimate the temperatures and column densities in the region using LTE and
non-LTE methods. The results are compared with 1-D radiative transfer modelling
of the protostellar cores. These models constrain which properties of the
central source, envelope, and environment can give rise to the observed line
and continuum emission. Results: Most of the H2CO emission from the regions
emerges from two elongated narrow ridges dominating the emission picked up in
both interferometric and single-dish measurements. The temperatures inferred
from the H2CO lines are no less than ~30 K and more likely 50-60 K, and the
line emission peaks are offset by ~2500 AU from the location of the embedded
protostars. The temperatures can not be explained by the heating from the young
stellar objects themselves. Irradiation by the nearby Herbig Be star R CrA
could, however, explain the high temperatures. The elevated temperatures can in
turn impact the physical and chemical characteristics of protostars and lead to
enhanced abundances of typical tracers of photon dominated regions seen in
single-dish line surveys of embedded protostars in the region.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A; 21 pages, 28 figures; Added footnote
in Section 2.
Arcsecond resolution images of the chemical structure of the low-mass protostar IRAS 16293-2422
It remains a key challenge to establish the molecular content of different
components of low-mass protostars, like their envelopes and disks, and how this
depends on the evolutionary stage and/or environment of the young stars.
Observations at submillimeter wavelengths provide a direct possibility to study
the chemical composition of low-mass protostars through transitions probing
temperatures up to a few hundred K in the gas surrounding these sources. This
paper presents a large molecular line survey of the deeply embedded
protostellar binary IRAS 16293-2422 from the Submillimeter Array (SMA) -
including images of individual lines down to approximately 1.5-3" (190-380 AU)
resolution. More than 500 individual transitions are identified related to 54
molecular species (including isotopologues) probing temperatures up to about
550 K. Strong chemical differences are found between the two components in the
protostellar system with a separation between, in particular, the sulfur- and
nitrogen-bearing species and oxygen-bearing complex organics. The action of
protostellar outflow on the ambient envelope material is seen in images of CO
and SiO and appear to influence a number of other species, including
(deuterated) water, HDO. The effects of cold gas-phase chemistry is directly
imaged through maps of CO, N2D+ and DCO+, showing enhancements of first DCO+
and subsequently N2D+ in the outer envelope where CO freezes-out on dust
grains.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 30 pages, 22 figure
C18O (3-2) observations of the Cometary Globule CG 12: a cold core and a C18O hot spot
The feasibility of observing the C18O (3-2) spectral line in cold clouds with
the APEX telescope has been tested. As the line at 329.330 GHz lies in the wing
of a strong atmospheric H2O absorption it can be observed only at high altitude
observatories. Using the three lowest rotational levels instead of only two
helps to narrow down the physical properties of dark clouds and globules. The
centres of two C18O maxima in the high latitude low mass star forming region CG
12 were mapped in C18O (3-2) and the data were analyzed together with spectral
line data from the SEST. The T_MB(3-2)/T_MB(2-1) ratio in the northern C18O
maximum, CG 12 N, is 0.8, and in the southern maximum, CG 12 S, ~2. CG 12 N is
modelled as a 120'' diameter (0.4pc) cold core with a mass of 27 Msun. A small
size maximum with a narrow, 0.8 kms-1, C18O (3-2) spectral line with a peak
temperature of T_MB ~11 K was detected in CG 12 S. This maximum is modelled as
a 60'' to 80'' diameter (~0.2pc) hot (80 K < Tex < 200 K) ~1.6 Msun clump. The
source lies on the axis of a highly collimated bipolar molecular outflow near
its driving source. This is the first detection of such a compact, warm object
in a low mass star forming region.Comment: APEX A&A special issue, accepte
Protostellar accretion traced with chemistry: Comparing synthetic C18O maps of embedded protostars to real observations
Context: Understanding how protostars accrete their mass is a central
question of star formation. One aspect of this is trying to understand whether
the time evolution of accretion rates in deeply embedded objects is best
characterised by a smooth decline from early to late stages or by intermittent
bursts of high accretion.
Aims: We create synthetic observations of deeply embedded protostars in a
large numerical simulation of a molecular cloud, which are compared directly to
real observations. The goal is to compare episodic accretion events in the
simulation to observations and to test the methodology used for analysing the
observations.
Methods: Simple freeze-out and sublimation chemistry is added to the
simulation, and synthetic CO line cubes are created for a large number
of simulated protostars. The spatial extent of CO is measured for the
simulated protostars and compared directly to a sample of 16 deeply embedded
protostars observed with the Submillimeter Array. If CO is distributed over a
larger area than predicted based on the protostellar luminosity, it may
indicate that the luminosity has been higher in the past and that CO is still
in the process of refreezing.
Results: Approximately 1% of the protostars in the simulation show extended
CO emission, as opposed to approximately 50% in the observations,
indicating that the magnitude and frequency of episodic accretion events in the
simulation is too low relative to observations. The protostellar accretion
rates in the simulation are primarily modulated by infall from the larger
scales of the molecular cloud, and do not include any disk physics. The
discrepancy between simulation and observations is taken as support for the
necessity of disks, even in deeply embedded objects, to produce episodic
accretion events of sufficient frequency and amplitude.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 11 pages, 8 figures; v2 contains
minor updates to the languag
Warm water deuterium fractionation in IRAS 16293-2422 - The high-resolution ALMA and SMA view
Measuring the water deuterium fractionation in the inner warm regions of
low-mass protostars has so far been hampered by poor angular resolution
obtainable with single-dish ground- and space-based telescopes. Observations of
water isotopologues using (sub)millimeter wavelength interferometers have the
potential to shed light on this matter. Observations toward IRAS 16293-2422 of
the 5(3,2)-4(4,1) transition of H2-18O at 692.07914 GHz from Atacama Large
Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) as well as the 3(1,3)-2(2,0) of H2-18O at
203.40752 GHz and the 3(1,2)-2(2,1) transition of HDO at 225.89672 GHz from the
Submillimeter Array (SMA) are presented. The 692 GHz H2-18O line is seen toward
both components of the binary protostar. Toward one of the components, "source
B", the line is seen in absorption toward the continuum, slightly red-shifted
from the systemic velocity, whereas emission is seen off-source at the systemic
velocity. Toward the other component, "source A", the two HDO and H2-18O lines
are detected as well with the SMA. From the H2-18O transitions the excitation
temperature is estimated at 124 +/- 12 K. The calculated HDO/H2O ratio is (9.2
+/- 2.6)*10^(-4) - significantly lower than previous estimates in the warm gas
close to the source. It is also lower by a factor of ~5 than the ratio deduced
in the outer envelope. Our observations reveal the physical and chemical
structure of water vapor close to the protostars on solar-system scales. The
red-shifted absorption detected toward source B is indicative of infall. The
excitation temperature is consistent with the picture of water ice evaporation
close to the protostar. The low HDO/H2O ratio deduced here suggests that the
differences between the inner regions of the protostars and the Earth's oceans
and comets are smaller than previously thought.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic
Critical Current 0- Transition in Designed Josephson Quantum Dot Junctions
We report on quantum dot based Josephson junctions designed specifically for
measuring the supercurrent. From high-accuracy fitting of the current-voltage
characteristics we determine the full magnitude of the supercurrent (critical
current). Strong gate modulation of the critical current is observed through
several consecutive Coulomb blockade oscillations. The critical current crosses
zero close to, but not at, resonance due to the so-called 0- transition in
agreement with a simple theoretical model.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, (Supplementary information available at
http://www.fys.ku.dk/~hij/public/nl_supp.pdf
Nonexistence of certain cubic graphs with small diameters
AbstractWe consider the maximum number of vertices in a cubic graph with small diameter. We show that a cubic graph of diameter 4 has at most 40 vertices. (The Moore bound is 46 and graphs with 38 vertices are known.) We also consider bipartite cubic graphs of diameter 5, for which the Moore bound is 62. We prove that in this case a graph with 56 vertices found by Bond and Delorme (1988) is optimal
Tentative detection of ethylene glycol toward W51/e2 and G34.3+0.2
How complex organic - and potentially prebiotic - molecules are formed in
regions of low- and high-mass star-formation remains a central question in
astrochemistry. In particular, with just a few sources studied in detail, it is
unclear what role environment plays in complex molecule formation. In this
light, a comparison of relative abundances of related species between sources
might be useful to explain observed differences. We seek to measure the
relative abundance between three important complex organic molecules, ethylene
glycol ((CHOH)), glycolaldehyde (CHOHCHO) and methyl formate
(HCOOCH), toward high-mass protostars and thereby provide additional
constraints on their formation pathways. We use IRAM 30-m single dish
observations of the three species toward two high-mass star-forming regions -
W51/e2 and G34.3+0.2 - and report a tentative detection of (CH2OH)2 toward both
sources. Assuming that (CHOH), CHOHCHO and HCOOCH spatially
coexist, relative abundance ratios, HCOOCH/(CHOH), of 31 and 35 are
derived for G34.3+0.2 and W51/e2, respectively. CHOHCHO is not detected,
but the data provide lower limits to the HCOOCH/CHOHCHO abundance
ratios of 193 for G34.3+0.2 and 550 for W51/e2. A comparison of these
results to measurements from various sources in the literature indicates that
the source luminosities may be correlated with the HCOOCH/(CHOH)
and HCOOCH/CHOHCHO ratios. This apparent correlation may be a
consequence of the relative timescales each source spend at different
temperatures-ranges in their evolution. Furthermore, we obtain lower limits to
the ratio of (CHOH)/CH2OHCHO for G34.3+0.2 (6) and W51/e2
(16). This result confirms that a high (CHOH)/CHOHCHO
abundance ratio is not a specific property of comets, as previously speculated.Comment: Accepted for publication by A&
Are High Heats of Atomization for Many Oxides and Fluorides of Z above 37 due to Enhanced Correlation Energy?
Heats of atomization Ha (per atom) are compared for for 28 diatomic oxides, 14 diatomic fluorides, 26 solid and 2 polyatomic gaseous oxides, 9 solid and 5 polyatomic gaseous fluorides. There is no universal trend toward lower Ha with increasing Z in a column of the Periodic Table; d-group, post-d-group, and partly filled 4f and 5f shells encourage smaller Ha but barium, lanthanum, lutetium, hafnium, tantalum, (to the largest extent thorium), and uranium show unexpected high Ha. This 'Barium-Thorium Effect' can be rationalized by known facts of correlation energy in atoms and (light) compounds, possibly including indirect relativistic effects due to distorted AO in LCAO
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