Consequences of disk scale height on lisa confusion noise from close white dwarf binaries

Gravitational radiation from the Galactic population of close white dwarf binaries (CWDBs) is expected to produce a confusion-limited signal at the lower end of the sensitivity band of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). The canonical scale height of the disk population has been taken to be 90 pc for most studies of the nature of this confusion-limited signal. This estimate is probably too low, and the consequences of a more realistic scale height are investigated with a model of the LISA signal due to populations of CWDBs with different scale heights. If the local space density of CWDBs is held constant, increasing the scale height results in both an increase in the overall strength of the confusion-limited signal as well as an increase in the frequency at which the signals become individually resolvable. If the total number of binaries is held constant, increasing the scale height results in a reduction of the number of expected bright signals above the confusion-limited signal at low frequencies. We introduce an estimator for comparing this transition frequency that takes into account the signal spreading at higher frequencies. © 2006. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved

Bar-Halo Friction in Galaxies II: Metastability

It is well-established that strong bars rotating in dense halos generally slow down as they lose angular momentum to the halo through dynamical friction. Angular momentum exchanges between the bar and halo particles take place at resonances. While some particles gain and others lose, friction arises when there is an excess of gainers over losers. This imbalance results from the generally decreasing numbers of particles with increasing angular momentum, and friction can therefore be avoided if there is no gradient in the density of particles across the major resonances. Here we show that anomalously weak friction can occur for this reason if the pattern speed of the bar fluctuates upwards. After such an event, the density of resonant halo particles has a local inflexion created by the earlier exchanges, and bar slowdown can be delayed for a long period; we describe this as a metastable state. We show that this behavior in purely collisionless N-body simulations is far more likely to occur in methods with adaptive resolution. We also show that the phenomenon could arise in nature, since bar-driven gas inflow could easily raise the bar pattern speed enough to reach the metastable state. Finally, we demonstrate that mild external, or internal, perturbations quickly restore the usual frictional drag, and it is unlikely therefore that a strong bar in a galaxy having a dense halo could rotate for a long period without friction.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, to appear in Ap

The Evolution of Cuspy Triaxial Galaxies Harboring Central Black Holes

We use numerical simulations to study the evolution of triaxial elliptical galaxies with central black holes. In contrast to earlier numerical studies which used galaxy models with central density ``cores,'' our galaxies have steep central cusps, like those observed in real ellipticals. As a black hole grows in these cuspy triaxial galaxies, the inner regions become rounder owing to chaos induced in the orbit families which populate the model. At larger radii, however, the models maintain their triaxiality, and orbital analyses show that centrophilic orbits there resist stochasticity over many dynamical times. While black hole induced evolution is strong in the inner regions of these galaxies, and reaches out beyond the nominal ``sphere of influence'' of a black hole, our simulations do not show evidence for a rapid {\it global} transformation of the host. The triaxiality of observed elliptical galaxies is therefore not inconsistent with the presence of supermassive black holes at their centers.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures (1 color). Accepted for publication in Ap

Bar-halo Friction in Galaxies I: Scaling Laws

It has been known for some time that rotating bars in galaxies slow due to dynamical friction against the halo. However, recent attempts to use this process to place constraints on the dark matter density in galaxies and possibly also to drive dark matter out of the center have been challenged. This paper uses simplified numerical experiments to clarify several aspects of the friction mechanism. I explicitly demonstrate the Chandrasekhar scaling of the friction force with bar mass, halo density, and halo velocity dispersion. I present direct evidence that exchanges between the bar and halo orbits at major resonances are responsible for friction and study both individual orbits and the net changes at these resonances. I also show that friction alters the phase space density of particles in the vicinity of a major resonance, which is the reason the magnitude of the friction force depends on the prior evolution. I demonstrate that bar slow down can be captured correctly in simulations having modest spatial resolution and practicable numbers of particles. Subsequent papers in this series delineate the dark matter density that can be tolerated in halos of different density profiles.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures, to appear in ApJ - major revisions from version

The stellar disk thickness of LSB galaxies

We present surface photometry results for a sample of eleven edge-on galaxies observed with the 6m telescope at the Special Astrophysical Observatory (Russia). The photometric scale length, scale height, and central surface brightness of the stellar disks of our sample galaxies are estimated. We show that four galaxies in our sample, which are visually referred as objects of the lowest surface brightness class in the Revised Flat Galaxies Catalog, have bona fide low surface brightness (LSB) disks. We find from the comparison of photometric scales that the stellar disks of LSB galaxies are thinner than those of high surface brightness (HSB) ones. There is a clear correlation between the central surface brightness of the stellar disk and its vertical to radial scale ratio. The masses of spherical subsystems (dark halo + bulge) and the dark halo masses are obtained for the sample galaxies based on the thickness of their stellar disks. The LSB galaxies tend to harbor more massive spherical subsystems than the HSB objects, whereas no systematic difference in the dark halo masses between LSB and HSB galaxies is found. At the same time, the inferred mass-to-luminosity ratio for the LSB disks appears to be systematically higher than for HSB disks.Comment: 33 pages with 17 Postscript figures, uses aastex.cls, accepted by Ap

Evolution and instabilities of disks harboring super massive black holes

The bar formation is still an open problem in modern astrophysics. In this paper we present numerical simulation performed with the aim of analyzing the growth of the bar instability inside stellar-gaseous disks, where the star formation is triggered, and a central black hole is present. The aim of this paper is to point out the impact of such a central massive black hole on the growth of the bar. We use N-body-SPH simulations of the same isolated disk-to-halo mass systems harboring black holes with different initial masses and different energy feedback on the surrounding gas. We compare the results of these simulations with the one of the same disk without black hole in its center. We make the same comparison (disk with and without black hole) for a stellar disk in a fully cosmological scenario. A stellar bar, lasting 10 Gyrs, is present in all our simulations. The central black hole mass has in general a mild effect on the ellipticity of the bar but it is never able to destroy it. The black holes grow in different way according their initial mass and their feedback efficiency, the final values of the velocity dispersions and of the black hole masses are near to the phenomenological constraints.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, accepted for pubblication in "Astrophysics and Space Science

MYRIAD: A new N-body code for simulations of Star Clusters

We present a new C++ code for collisional N-body simulations of star clusters. The code uses the Hermite fourth-order scheme with block time steps, for advancing the particles in time, while the forces and neighboring particles are computed using the GRAPE-6 board. Special treatment is used for close encounters, binary and multiple sub-systems that either form dynamically or exist in the initial configuration. The structure of the code is modular and allows the appropriate treatment of more physical phenomena, such as stellar and binary evolution, stellar collisions and evolution of close black-hole binaries. Moreover, it can be easily modified so that the part of the code that uses GRAPE-6, could be replaced by another module that uses other accelerating-hardware like the Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). Appropriate choice of the free parameters give a good accuracy and speed for simulations of star clusters up to and beyond core collapse. Simulations of Plummer models consisting of equal-mass stars reached core collapse at t~17 half-mass relaxation times, which compares very well with existing results, while the cumulative relative error in the energy remained below 0.001. Also, comparisons with published results of other codes for the time of core collapse for different initial conditions, show excellent agreement. Simulations of King models with an initial mass-function, similar to those found in the literature, reached core collapse at t~0.17, which is slightly smaller than the expected result from previous works. Finally, the code accuracy becomes comparable and even better than the accuracy of existing codes, when a number of close binary systems is dynamically created in a simulation. This is due to the high accuracy of the method that is used for close binary and multiple sub-systems.Comment: 24 pages, 29 figures, accepted for publication to Astronomy & Astrophysic