12,834 research outputs found
Deconstructing double-barred galaxies in 2D and 3D. II. Two distinct groups of inner bars
The intrinsic photometric properties of inner and outer stellar bars within
17 double-barred galaxies are thoroughly studied through a photometric analysis
consisting of: i) two-dimensional multi-component photometric decompositions,
and ii) three-dimensional statistical deprojections for measuring the
thickening of bars, thus retrieving their 3D shape. The results are compared
with previous measurements obtained with the widely used analysis of integrated
light. Large-scale bars in single- and double-barred systems show similar
sizes, and inner bars may be longer than outer bars in different galaxies. We
find two distinct groups of inner bars attending to their in-plane length and
ellipticity, resulting in a bimodal behaviour for the inner/outer bar length
ratio. Such bimodality is related neither to the properties of the host galaxy
nor the dominant bulge, and it does not show a counterpart in the dimension off
the disc plane. The group of long inner bars lays at the lower end of the outer
bar length vs. ellipticity correlation, whereas the short inner bars are out of
that relation. We suggest that this behaviour could be due to either a
different nature of the inner discs from which the inner bars are dynamically
formed, or a different assembly stage for the inner bars. This last possibility
would imply that the dynamical assembly of inner bars is a slow process taking
several Gyr to happen. We have also explored whether all large-scale bars are
prone to develop an inner bar at some stage of their lives, possibility we
cannot fully confirm or discard.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRA
Single-molecule stochastic resonance
Stochastic resonance (SR) is a well known phenomenon in dynamical systems. It
consists of the amplification and optimization of the response of a system
assisted by stochastic noise. Here we carry out the first experimental study of
SR in single DNA hairpins which exhibit cooperatively folding/unfolding
transitions under the action of an applied oscillating mechanical force with
optical tweezers. By varying the frequency of the force oscillation, we
investigated the folding/unfolding kinetics of DNA hairpins in a periodically
driven bistable free-energy potential. We measured several SR quantifiers under
varied conditions of the experimental setup such as trap stiffness and length
of the molecular handles used for single-molecule manipulation. We find that
the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the spectral density of measured
fluctuations in molecular extension of the DNA hairpins is a good quantifier of
the SR. The frequency dependence of the SNR exhibits a peak at a frequency
value given by the resonance matching condition. Finally, we carried out
experiments in short hairpins that show how SR might be useful to enhance the
detection of conformational molecular transitions of low SNR.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, supplementary material
(http://prx.aps.org/epaps/PRX/v2/i3/e031012/prx-supp.pdf
The intrinsic three-dimensional shape of galactic bars
We present the first statistical study on the intrinsic three-dimensional
(3D) shape of a sample of 83 galactic bars extracted from the CALIFA survey. We
use the galaXYZ code to derive the bar intrinsic shape with a statistical
approach. The method uses only the geometric information (ellipticities and
position angles) of bars and discs obtained from a multi-component photometric
decomposition of the galaxy surface-brightness distributions. We find that bars
are predominantly prolate-triaxial ellipsoids (68%), with a small fraction of
oblate-triaxial ellipsoids (32%). The typical flattening (intrinsic C/A
semiaxis ratio) of the bars in our sample is 0.34, which matches well the
typical intrinsic flattening of stellar discs at these galaxy masses. We
demonstrate that, for prolate-triaxial bars, the intrinsic shape of bars
depends on the galaxy Hubble type and stellar mass (bars in massive S0 galaxies
are thicker and more circular than those in less massive spirals). The bar
intrinsic shape correlates with bulge, disc, and bar parameters. In particular
with the bulge-to-total (B/T) luminosity ratio, disc g-r color, and central
surface brightness of the bar, confirming the tight link between bars and their
host galaxies. Combining the probability distributions of the intrinsic shape
of bulges and bars in our sample we show that 52% (16%) of bulges are thicker
(flatter) than the surrounding bar at 1 level. We suggest that these
percentages might be representative of the fraction of classical and disc-like
bulges in our sample, respectively.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
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