2,359 research outputs found
The First H I-Discovered Galaxy in the Bootes Void
In this paper we present a detailed study of the first H I-discovered galaxy in the Bootes void, at a distance of 145.5 Mpc. We have observed this galaxy both at low and high resolution in the 21 cm line and optically. The galaxy has an irregular, slowly rotating H i disk. The gas is much more extended than the optical disk, extending out as far as 6.4 times R25. The rotation curve of the galaxy is flat: amplitude and shape can be explained by the presence of a dark halo with a mass of 1.6 times the luminous mass
Galaxy Disks
The formation and evolution of galactic disks is particularly important for
understanding how galaxies form and evolve, and the cause of the variety in
which they appear to us. Ongoing large surveys, made possible by new
instrumentation at wavelengths from the ultraviolet (GALEX), via optical (HST
and large groundbased telescopes) and infrared (Spitzer) to the radio are
providing much new information about disk galaxies over a wide range of
redshift. Although progress has been made, the dynamics and structure of
stellar disks, including their truncations, are still not well understood. We
do now have plausible estimates of disk mass-to-light ratios, and estimates of
Toomre's parameter show that they are just locally stable. Disks are mostly
very flat and sometimes very thin, and have a range in surface brightness from
canonical disks with a central surface brightness of about 21.5 -mag
arcsec down to very low surface brightnesses. It appears that galaxy
disks are not maximal, except possibly in the largest systems. Their HI layers
display warps whenever HI can be detected beyond the stellar disk, with
low-level star formation going on out to large radii. Stellar disks display
abundance gradients which flatten at larger radii and sometimes even reverse.
The existence of a well-defined baryonic Tully-Fisher relation hints at an
approximately uniform baryonic to dark matter ratio. Thick disks are common in
disk galaxies and their existence appears unrelated to the presence of a bulge
component; they are old, but their formation is not yet understood. Disk
formation was already advanced at redshifts of , but at that epoch
disks were not yet quiescent and in full rotational equilibrium. Downsizing is
now well-established. The formation and history of star formation in S0s is
still not fully understood.Comment: This review has been submitted for Annual Reviews of Astronomy &
Astrophysics, vol. 49 (2011); the final printed version will have fewer
figures and a somewhat shortened text. A pdf-version of this preprint with
high-resolution figures is available from
http://www.astro.rug.nl/~vdkruit/jea3/homepage/disks-ph.pdf. (table of
contents added; 71 pages, 24 figures, 529 references
Herschel/SPIRE observations of the dusty disk of NGC 4244
We present Herschel/SPIRE images at 250, 350, and 500 mu m of NGC 4244, a typical low-mass, disk-only and edge-on spiral galaxy. The dust disk is clumpy and shows signs of truncation at the break radius of the stellar disk. This disk coincides with the densest part of the Hi disk. We compare the spectral energy distribution (SED), including the new SPIRE fluxes, to 3D radiative transfer models; a smooth model disk and a clumpy model with embedded heating. Each model requires a very high value for the dust scale-length (h(d) = 2-5 h(*)), higher dust masses than previous models of NGC 4244 (M-d = 0.47-1.39 x 10(7) M-circle dot) and a face-on optical depth of tau(f.o.)(V) = 0.4-1.12, in agreement with previous disk opacity studies. The vertical scales of stars and dust are similar. The clumpy model much better mimics the general morphology in the sub-mm images and the general SED. The inferred gas-to-dust mass ratio is compatible with those of similar low-mass disks. The relatively large radial scale-length of the dust disk points to radial mixing of the dusty ISM within the stellar disk. The large vertical dust scale and the clumpy dust distribution of our SED model are both consistent with a scenario in which the vertical structure of the ISM is dictated by the balance of turbulence and self-gravity
Nilpotent normal form for divergence-free vector fields and volume-preserving maps
We study the normal forms for incompressible flows and maps in the
neighborhood of an equilibrium or fixed point with a triple eigenvalue. We
prove that when a divergence free vector field in has nilpotent
linearization with maximal Jordan block then, to arbitrary degree, coordinates
can be chosen so that the nonlinear terms occur as a single function of two
variables in the third component. The analogue for volume-preserving
diffeomorphisms gives an optimal normal form in which the truncation of the
normal form at any degree gives an exactly volume-preserving map whose inverse
is also polynomial inverse with the same degree.Comment: laTeX, 20 pages, 1 figur
Assembly and alignment of the 4-metre multi-object spectroscopic telescope wide field corrector
The 4-metre multi-object spectroscopic telescope (4MOST) is a fiber-fed multi-object spectrograph for the VISTA telescope at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Paranal Observatory in Chile. The goal of the 4MOST project is to create a general purpose and highly efficient spectroscopic survey facility for astronomers in the 4MOST consortium and the ESO community. The instrument itself will record 2436 simultaneous spectra over a 1/44.2 square deg field of view and consists of an optical wide-field corrector (WFC), a fiber positioner system based on a tilting spine design, and three spectrographs giving both high and low spectral dispersion. The WFC comprises of six lenses grouped into four elements, two of which are cemented doublets that act as an atmospheric dispersion corrector. The first lens element is 0.9 m in diameter while the diameter of the other elements is 0.65 m. For the instrument to meet its science goals, each lens was aligned to be well within 1/4100 μm - a major challenge. This was achieved using contact metrology methods supplemented by pencil beam laser probes. In particular, an off-axis laser beam system has been implemented to test the optics' alignment before and after shipment. This work details the alignment and assembly methods and presents the latest results on the achieved lens positioning and projected performance of the WFC
Stellar Disk Truncations: Where do we stand ?
In the light of several recent developments we revisit the phenomenon of
galactic stellar disk truncations. Even 25 years since the first paper on outer
breaks in the radial light profiles of spiral galaxies, their origin is still
unclear. The two most promising explanations are that these 'outer edges'
either trace the maximum angular momentum during the galaxy formation epoch, or
are associated with global star formation thresholds. Depending on their true
physical nature, these outer edges may represent an improved size
characteristic (e.g., as compared to D_25) and might contain fossil evidence
imprinted by the galaxy formation and evolutionary history. We will address
several observational aspects of disk truncations: their existence, not only in
normal HSB galaxies, but also in LSB and even dwarf galaxies; their detailed
shape, not sharp cut-offs as thought before, but in fact demarcating the start
of a region with a steeper exponential distribution of starlight; their
possible association with bars; as well as problems related to the
line-of-sight integration for edge-on galaxies (the main targets for truncation
searches so far). Taken together, these observations currently favour the
star-formation threshold model, but more work is necessary to implement the
truncations as adequate parameters characterising galactic disks.Comment: LaTeX, 10 pages, 6 figures, presented at the "Penetrating Bars
through Masks of Cosmic Dust" conference in South Africa, proceedings
published by Kluwer, and edited by Block, D.L., Freeman, K.C., Puerari, I., &
Groess, R; v3 to match published versio
The De Jong Gierveld short scales for emotional and social loneliness: tested on data from 7 countries in the UN generations and gender surveys
Loneliness concerns the subjective evaluation of the situation individuals are involved in, characterized either by a number of relationships with friends and colleagues which is smaller than is considered desirable (social loneliness), as well as situations where the intimacy in confidant relationships one wishes for has not been realized (emotional loneliness). To identify people who are lonely direct questions are not sufficient; loneliness scales are preferred. In this article, the quality of the three-item scale for emotional loneliness and the three-item scale for social loneliness has been investigated for use in the following countries participating in the United Nations “Generations and Gender Surveys”: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Bulgaria, Georgia, and Japan. Sample sizes for the 7 countries varied between 8,158 and 12,828. Translations of the De Jong Gierveld loneliness scale have been tested using reliability and validity tests including a confirmatory factor analysis to test the two-dimensional structure of loneliness. Test outcomes indicated for each of the countries under investigation reliable and valid scales for emotional and social loneliness, respectively
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