11,611 research outputs found
Stellar Populations in the Local Group of Galaxies
The characteristics and properties of the stellar populations and
evolutionary histories of Local Group galaxies are summarized and compared to
predictions of cosmological models. No clear signature of the re-ionization
epoch is observed; in particular, there is no cessation of star formation
activity in low-mass dwarf galaxies at the end of re-ionization. Arguments
against the morphological transformation of dwarf irregular into dwarf
spheroidal galaxies are derived from their pronounced evolutionary differences
at early epochs as evidenced by the offset in the metallicity-luminosity
relation between gas-rich and gas-poor dwarfs. While there is increasing
evidence for past and ongoing accretion events the overall importance of dwarf
galaxies as building blocks remains unclear considering their differences in
modes of star formation and detailed chemistry.Comment: Invited talk at the first international workshop on "Stellar
Astrophysics with the World's Largest Telescopes", Torun, Poland, 7-10
September 2004, 14 pages, 2 figure
Structural transitions in the 309-atom magic number Lennard-Jones cluster
The thermal behaviour of the 309-atom Lennard-Jones cluster, whose structure
is a complete Mackay icosahedron, has been studied by parallel tempering Monte
Carlo simulations. Surprisingly for a magic number cluster, the heat capacity
shows a very pronounced peak before melting, which is attributed to several
coincident structural transformation processes. The main transformation is
somewhat akin to surface roughening, and involves a cooperative condensation of
vacancies and adatoms that leads to the formation of pits and islands one or
two layers thick on the Mackay icosahedron. The second transition in order of
importance involves a whole scale transformation of the cluster structure, and
leads to a diverse set of twinned structures that are assemblies of
face-centred-cubic tetrahedra with 6 atoms along their edges, i.e., one atom
more than the edges of the 20 tetrahedra that make up the 309-atom Mackay
icosahedron. A surface reconstruction of the icosahedron from a Mackay to an
anti-Mackay overlayer is also observed, but with a lower probability.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
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