18,205 research outputs found
Self-Regulation of Star Formation in Low Metallicity Clouds
We investigate the process of self-regulated star formation via
photodissociation of hydrogen molecules in low metallicity clouds. We evaluate
the influence region's scale of a massive star in low metallicity gas clouds
whose temperatures are between 100 and 10000 Kelvin. A single O star can
photodissociate hydrogen molecules in the whole of the host cloud. If
metallicity is smaller than about 10^{-2.5} of the solar metallicity, the
depletion of coolant of the the host cloud is very serious so that the cloud
cannot cool in a free-fall time, and subsequent star formation is almost
quenched. On the contrary, if metallicity is larger than about 10^{-1.5} of the
solar metallicity, star formation regulation via photodissociation is not
efficient. The typical metallicity when this transition occurs is about 1/100
of the solar metallicity. This indicates that stars do not form efficiently
before the metallicity becomes larger than about 1/100 of the solar metallicity
and we considered that this value becomes the lower limit of the metallicity of
luminous objects such as galaxies.Comment: 14 pages, including 5 figures, To appear in ApJ, Vol. 53
The "quasi-stable" lipid shelled microbubble in response to consecutive ultrasound pulses
Controlled microbubble stability upon exposure to consecutive ultrasound exposures is important for increased sensitivity in contrast enhanced ultrasound diagnostics and manipulation for localised drug release. An ultra high-speed camera operating at 13 × 10 6 frames per second is used to show that a physical instability in the encapsulating lipid shell can be promoted by ultrasound, causing loss of shell material that depends on the characteristics of the microbubble motion. This leads to well characterized disruption, and microbubbles follow an irreversible trajectory through the resonance peak, causing the evolution of specific microbubble spectral signatures. © 2012 American Institute of Physics
Noise suppression due to long-range Coulomb interaction: Crossover between diffusive and ballistic transport regimes
We present a Monte Carlo analysis of shot-noise suppression due to long-range
Coulomb interaction in semiconductor samples under a crossover between
diffusive and ballistic transport regimes. By varying the mean time between
collisions we find that the strong suppression observed under the ballistic
regime persists under quasi-ballistic conditions, before being washed out when
a complete diffusive regime is reached.Comment: RevTex, 3 pages, 4 figures, minor correction
Morphological Evolution of Distant Galaxies from Adaptive Optics Imaging
We report here on a sample of resolved, infrared images of galaxies at z~0.5
taken with the 10-m Keck Telescope's Adaptive Optics (AO) system. We regularly
achieve a spatial resolution of 0.05'' and are thus able to resolve both the
disk and bulge components. We have extracted morphological information for ten
galaxies and compared their properties to those of a local sample. The
selection effects of both samples were explicitly taken into account in order
to derive the unbiased result that disks at z~0.5 are ~0.6 mag arcsec^-2
brighter than, and about the same size as, local disks. The
no-luminosity-evolution case is ruled out at 90% confidence. We also find, in a
more qualitative analysis, that the bulges of these galaxies have undergone a
smaller amount of surface brightness evolution and have also not changed
significantly in size from z~0.5 to today. This is the first time this type of
morphological evolution has been measured in the infrared and it points to the
unique power of AO in exploring galaxy evolution.Comment: 27 pages, 7figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in the
Astrophysical Journa
On Star Formation and the Non-Existence of Dark Galaxies
We investigate whether a baryonic dark galaxy or `galaxy without stars' could
persist indefinitely in the local universe, while remaining stable against star
formation. To this end, a simple model has been constructed to determine the
equilibrium distribution and composition of a gaseous protogalactic disk.
Specifically, we determine the amount of gas that will transit to a Toomre
unstable cold phase via the H2 cooling channel in the presence of a UV--X-ray
cosmic background radiation field.
All but one of the models are predicted to become unstable to star formation.
Moreover, we find that all our model objects would be detectable via HI line
emission, even in the case that star formation is potentially avoided. These
results are consistent with the non-detection of isolated extragalactic HI
clouds with no optical counterpart (galaxies without stars) by HIPASS.
Additionally, where star formation is predicted to occur, we determine the
minimum interstellar radiation field required to restore gravothermal
stability, which we then relate to a minimum global star formation rate. This
leads to the prediction of a previously undocumented relation between HI mass
and star formation rate that is observed for a wide variety of dwarf galaxies
in the HI mass range 10^8--10^10 M_sun. The existence of such a relation
strongly supports the notion that the well observed population of dwarf
galaxies represent the minimum rates of self-regulating star formation in the
universe. (Barely abridged)Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, TeX using emulateapj.cls, v2 accepted for
publication in ApJ (16/8/5) with one figure deleted and a number of minor
clarifying revision
Exploring the Structure of Distant Galaxies with Adaptive Optics on the Keck-II Telescope
We report on the first observation of cosmologically distant field galaxies
with an high order Adaptive Optics (AO) system on an 8-10 meter class
telescope. Two galaxies were observed at 1.6 microns at an angular resolution
as high as 50 milliarcsec using the AO system on the Keck-II telescope. Radial
profiles of both objects are consistent with those of local spiral galaxies and
are decomposed into a classic exponential disk and a central bulge. A
star-forming cluster or companion galaxy as well as a compact core are detected
in one of the galaxies at a redshift of 0.37+/-0.05. We discuss possible
explanations for the core including a small bulge, a nuclear starburst, or an
active nucleus. The same galaxy shows a peak disk surface brightness that is
brighter than local disks of comparable size. These observations demonstrate
the power of AO to reveal details of the morphology of distant faint galaxies
and to explore galaxy evolution.Comment: 5 pages, Latex, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in P.A.S.
A high resolution, hard x-ray photoemission investigation of La_(2-2x)Sr_(1+2x)Mn_2O_7 (0.30<x<0.50): on microscopic phase separation and the surface electronic structure of a bilayered CMR manganite
Photoemission data taken with hard x-ray radiation on cleaved single crystals
of the bilayered, colossal magnetoresistant manganite La_(2-2x)Sr_(1+2x)Mn_2O_7
(LSMO) with 0.30<x<0.50 are presented. Making use of the increased
bulk-sensitivity upon hard x-ray excitation it is shown that the core level
footprint of the electronic structure of the LSMO cleavage surface is identical
to that of the bulk. Furthermore, by comparing the core level shift of the
different elements as a function of doping level x, it is shown that
microscopic phase separation is unlikely to occur for this particular manganite
well above the Curie temperature.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Second-Generation Objects in the Universe: Radiative Cooling and Collapse of Halos with Virial Temperatures Above 10^4 Kelvin
The first generation of protogalaxies likely formed out of primordial gas via
H2-cooling in cosmological minihalos with virial temperatures of a few 1000K.
However, their abundance is likely to have been severely limited by feedback
processes which suppressed H2 formation. The formation of the protogalaxies
responsible for reionization and metal-enrichment of the intergalactic medium,
then had to await the collapse of larger halos. Here we investigate the
radiative cooling and collapse of gas in halos with virial temperatures Tvir >
10^4K. In these halos, efficient atomic line radiation allows rapid cooling of
the gas to 8000 K; subsequently the gas can contract nearly isothermally at
this temperature. Without an additional coolant, the gas would likely settle
into a locally gravitationally stable disk; only disks with unusually low spin
would be unstable. However, we find that the initial atomic line cooling leaves
a large, out-of-equilibrium residual free electron fraction. This allows the
molecular fraction to build up to a universal value of about x(H2) = 10^-3,
almost independently of initial density and temperature. We show that this is a
non--equilibrium freezeout value that can be understood in terms of timescale
arguments. Furthermore, unlike in less massive halos, H2 formation is largely
impervious to feedback from external UV fields, due to the high initial
densities achieved by atomic cooling. The H2 molecules cool the gas further to
about 100K, and allow the gas to fragment on scales of a few 100 Msun. We
investigate the importance of various feedback effects such as
H2-photodissociation from internal UV fields and radiation pressure due to
Ly-alpha photon trapping, which are likely to regulate the efficiency of star
formation.Comment: Revised version accepted by ApJ; some reorganization for clarit
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