127 research outputs found
The Role of Kinetic Energy Flux in the Convective Urca Process
The previous analysis of the convective Urca neutrino loss process in
degenerate, convective, quasi-static, carbon-burning cores by Barkat and
Wheeler omitted specific consideration of the role of the kinetic energy flux.
The arguments of Barkat and Wheeler that steady-state composition gradients
exist are correct, but chemical equilibrium does not result in net cooling.
Barkat and Wheeler included a "work" term that effectively removed energy from
the total energy budget that could only have come from the kinetic energy,
which must remain positive. Consideration of the kinetic energy in the
thermodynamics of the convective Urca process shows that the convective Urca
neutrinos reduce the rate of increase of entropy that would otherwise be
associated with the input of nuclear energy and slow down the convective
current, but, unlike the "thermal" Urca process do not reduce the entropy or
temperature.Comment: 16 pages, AAS LaTex, in press, Astrophysical Journal, September 20,
Vol 52
Roche-lobe filling factor of mass-transferring red giants - the PIONIER view
Using the PIONIER visitor instrument that combines the light of the four
Auxiliary Telescopes of ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer, we measure
precisely the diameters of several symbiotic and related stars: HD 352, HD
190658, V1261 Ori, ER Del, FG Ser, and AG Peg. These diameters - in the range
of 0.6 to 2.3 milli-arcseconds - are used to assess the filling factor of the
Roche lobe of the mass-losing giants and provide indications on the nature of
the ongoing mass transfer. We also provide the first spectroscopic orbit of ER
Del, based on CORAVEL and HERMES/Mercator observations. The system is found to
have an eccentric orbit with a period of 5.7 years. In the case of the
symbiotic star FG Ser, we find that the diameter is changing by 13% over the
course of 41 days, while the observations of HD 352 are indicative of an
elongation. Both these stars are found to have a Roche filling factor close to
1, as is most likely the case for HD 190658 as well, while the three other
stars have factors below 0.5-0.6. Our observations reveal the power of
interferometry for the study of interacting binary stars - the main limitation
in our conclusions being the poorly known distances of the objects.Comment: A&A, in pres
1420 MHz Continuum Absorption Towards Extragalactic Sources in the Galactic Plane
We present a 21-cm emission-absorption study towards extragalactic sources in
the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (CGPS). We have analyzed HI spectra towards
437 sources with S > 150 mJy, giving us a source density of 0.6 sources per
square degree at arcminute resolution. We present the results of a first
analysis of the HI temperatures, densities, and feature statistics. Particular
emphasis is placed on 5 features with observed spin temperatures below 40 K. We
find most spin temperatures in the range from 40 K to 300 K. A simple HI
two-component model constrains the bulk of the cold component to temperatures
(T_c) between 40 K and 100 K. T_c peaks in the Perseus arm region and clearly
drops off with Galactocentric radius, R, beyond that. The HI density follows
this trend, ranging from a local value of 0.4 cm^{-3} to less than 0.1 cm^{-3}
at R = 20 kpc. We find that HI emission alone on average traces about 75% of
the total HI column density, as compared to the total inferred by the emission
and absorption. Comparing the neutral hydrogen absorption to CO emission no
correlation is found in general, but all strong CO emission is accompanied by a
visible HI spectral feature. Finally, the number of spectral HI absorption
features per kpc drop off exponentially with increasing R.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, Accepted for March 2004 Ap
Imaging Young Stellar Objects with VLTi/PIONIER
Contains fulltext :
127869.pdf (preprint version ) (Open Access
Reaching micro-arcsecond astrometry with long baseline optical interferometry; application to the GRAVITY instrument
A basic principle of long baseline interferometry is that an optical path
difference (OPD) directly translates into an astrometric measurement. In the
simplest case, the OPD is equal to the scalar product between the vector
linking the two telescopes and the normalized vector pointing toward the star.
However, a too simple interpretation of this scalar product leads to seemingly
conflicting results, called here "the baseline paradox". For micro-arcsecond
accuracy astrometry, we have to model in full the metrology measurement. It
involves a complex system subject to many optical effects: from pure baseline
errors to static, quasi-static and high order optical aberrations. The goal of
this paper is to present the strategy used by the "General Relativity Analysis
via VLT InTerferometrY" instrument (GRAVITY) to minimize the biases introduced
by these defects. It is possible to give an analytical formula on how the
baselines and tip-tilt errors affect the astrometric measurement. This formula
depends on the limit-points of three type of baselines: the wide-angle
baseline, the narrow-angle baseline, and the imaging baseline. We also,
numerically, include non-common path higher-order aberrations, whose amplitude
were measured during technical time at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer.
We end by simulating the influence of high-order common-path aberrations due to
atmospheric residuals calculated from a Monte-Carlo simulation tool for
Adaptive optics systems. The result of this work is an error budget of the
biases caused by the multiple optical imperfections, including optical
dispersion. We show that the beam stabilization through both focal and pupil
tracking is crucial to the GRAVITY system. Assuming the instrument pupil is
stabilized at a 4 cm level on M1, and a field tracking below 0.2, we
show that GRAVITY will be able to reach its objective of 10as accuracy.Comment: 14 pages. Accepted by A&
High Angular Resolution and Young Stellar Objects: Imaging the Surroundings of MWC 158 by Optical Interferometry
This book is a collection of 19 articles which reflect the courses given at the Collège de France/Summer school “Reconstruction d'images − Applications astrophysiques“ held in Nice and Fréjus, France, from June 18 to 22, 2012. The articles presented in this volume address emerging concepts and methods that are useful in the complex process of improving our knowledge of the celestial objects, including Earth
Young stars and reflection nebulae near the lower "edge" of the Galactic molecular disc
We investigate the star formation occurring in a region well below the
Galactic plane towards the optical reflection nebula ESO 368-8 (IRAS
07383-3325). We confirm the presence of a small young stellar cluster (or
aggregate of tens of YSOs) identified earlier, embedded in a molecular cloud
located near the lower "edge" of the Galactic disc, and characterise the young
stellar population. We report the discovery of a near-infrared nebula, and
present a CO map revealing a new dense, dynamic cloud core. We used
near-infrared JHKs images, millimetre CO spectra and optical V-band images.
This star formation region displays an optical reflection nebula (ESO 368-8)
and a near-infrared nebula located about 46" (1.1 pc) from each other. The two
nebulae are likely to be coeval and to represent two manifestations of the same
single star formation episode with about 1 Myr age. The near-IR nebula reveals
an embedded, optically and near-IR invisible source whose light scatters off a
cavity carved by previous stellar jets or molecular outflows and into our
line-of-sight. The molecular cloud is fully covered by our CO(J=1-0) maps and,
traced by this line, extends over a region of 7.8 x 7.8 pc^2, exhibiting an
angular size 5.4' x 5.4' and shape (close to circular) similar to spherical (or
slightly cometary) globules. Towards the direction of the near-IR nebula, the
molecular cloud contains a dense core where the molecular gas exhibits large
line widths indicative of a very dynamical state, with stirred gas and
supersonic motions. Our estimates of the mass of the molecular gas in this
region range from 600 to 1600 solar masses. The extinction Av towards the
positions of the optical reflection nebula and of the near-IR nebula was found
to be Av=3-4 mag and Av=12-15 mag, respectively.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figure
A Data-Driven Framework for Monitoring and Improving Organ Donation Awareness among Minorities Using Optimal Social Network Intervention
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recor
Searching for faint companions with VLTI/PIONIER. I. Method and first results
Context. A new four-telescope interferometric instrument called PIONIER has
recently been installed at VLTI. It provides improved imaging capabilities
together with high precision. Aims. We search for low-mass companions around a
few bright stars using different strategies, and determine the dynamic range
currently reachable with PIONIER. Methods. Our method is based on the closure
phase, which is the most robust interferometric quantity when searching for
faint companions. We computed the chi^2 goodness of fit for a series of binary
star models at different positions and with various flux ratios. The resulting
chi^2 cube was used to identify the best-fit binary model and evaluate its
significance, or to determine upper limits on the companion flux in case of non
detections. Results. No companion is found around Fomalhaut, tau Cet and
Regulus. The median upper limits at 3 sigma on the companion flux ratio are
respectively of 2.3e-3 (in 4 h), 3.5e-3 (in 3 h) and 5.4e-3 (in 1.5 h) on the
search region extending from 5 to 100 mas. Our observations confirm that the
previously detected near-infrared excess emissions around Fomalhaut and tau Cet
are not related to a low-mass companion, and instead come from an extended
source such as an exozodiacal disk. In the case of del Aqr, in 30 min of
observation, we obtain the first direct detection of a previously known
companion, at an angular distance of about 40 mas and with a flux ratio of
2.05e-2 \pm 0.16e-2. Due to the limited u,v plane coverage, its position can,
however, not be unambiguously determined. Conclusions. After only a few months
of operation, PIONIER has already achieved one of the best dynamic ranges
world-wide for multi-aperture interferometers. A dynamic range up to about
1:500 is demonstrated, but significant improvements are still required to reach
the ultimate goal of directly detecting hot giant extrasolar planets.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Variable dynamics in the inner disk of HD 135344B revealed with multi-epoch scattered light imaging
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from American Astronomical Society via the DOI in this record.MB acknowledges funding from ANR of France under
contract number ANR-16-CE31-0013 (Planet Forming
Disks). SP acknowledges support from CONICYTGemini
grant 32130007. SK acknowledges support from
an STFC Rutherford fellowship (ST/J004030/1) and an
ERC Starting Grant (Grant Agreement No. 639889)
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