2,668 research outputs found
ATLBS: the Australia Telescope Low-brightness Survey
We present a radio survey carried out with the Australia Telescope Compact
Array. A motivation for the survey was to make a complete inventory of the
diffuse emission components as a step towards a study of the cosmic evolution
in radio source structure and the contribution from radio-mode feedback on
galaxy evolution. The Australia Telescope low-brightness survey (ATLBS) at 1388
MHz covers 8.42 sq deg of the sky in an observing mode designed to yield images
with exceptional surface brightness sensitivity and low confusion. The ATLBS
radio images, made with 0.08 mJy/beam rms noise and 50" beam, detect a total of
1094 sources with peak flux exceeding 0.4 mJy/beam. The ATLBS source counts
were corrected for blending, noise bias, resolution, and primary beam
attenuation; the normalized differential source counts are consistent with no
upturn down to 0.6 mJy. The percentage integrated polarization Pi_0 was
computed after corrections for the polarization bias in integrated polarized
intensity; Pi_0 shows an increasing trend with decreasing flux density.
Simultaneous visibility measurements made with longer baselines yielded images,
with 5" beam, of compact components in sources detected in the survey. The
observations provide a measurement of the complexity and diffuse emission
associated with mJy and sub-mJy radio sources. 10% of the ATLBS sources have
more than half of their flux density in extended emission and the fractional
flux in diffuse components does not appear to vary with flux density, although
the percentage of sources that have complex structure increases with flux
density. The observations are consistent with a transition in the nature of
extended radio sources from FR-II radio source morphology, which dominates the
mJy population, to FR-I structure at sub-mJy flux density. (Abridged)Comment: 18 pages, 8 figues, 6 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA
Coherence-enhanced imaging of a degenerate Bose gas
We present coherence-enhanced imaging, an in situ technique that uses Raman
superradiance to probe the spatial coherence properties of an ultracold gas.
Applying this method, we obtain a spatially resolved measurement of the
condensate number and more generally, of the first-order spatial correlation
function in a gas of Rb atoms. We observe the enhanced decay of
propagating spin gratings in high density regions of a Bose condensate, a decay
we ascribe to collective, non-linear atom-atom scattering. Further, we directly
observe spatial inhomogeneities that arise generally in the course of extended
sample superradiance.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
HI in four star-forming low-luminosity E/S0 and S0 galaxies
We present HI data cubes of four low-luminosity early-type galaxies which are
currently forming stars. These galaxies have absolute magnitudes in the range
M_B=-17.9 to -19.9 (H_o=50 km/s/Mpc). Their HI masses range between a few times
10^8 and a few times 10^9 M_sun and the corresponding values for M_HI/L_B are
between 0.07 and 0.42, so these systems are HI rich for their morphological
type. In all four galaxies, the HI is strongly centrally concentrated with high
central HI surface densities, in contrast to what is typically observed in more
luminous early-type galaxies. In two galaxies (NGC 802 and ESO 118-G34), the
kinematics of the HI suggests that the gas is in a strongly warped disk, which
we take as evidence for recent accretion of HI. In the other two galaxies (NGC
2328 and ESO 027-G21) the HI must have been part of the systems for a
considerable time. The HI properties of low-luminosity early-type galaxies
appear to be systematically different from those of many more luminous
early-type galaxies, and we suggest that these differences are due to a
different evolution of the two classes. The star formation history of these
galaxies remains unclear. Their UBV colours and Halpha emission-line strengths
are consistent with having formed stars at a slowly-declining rate for most of
the past 10^10 years. However, the current data do not rule out a small burst
of recent star formation overlaid on an older stellar population.Comment: To appear in AJ, LateX, figures in gif format, paper also available
at http://www.nfra.nl/~morganti/LowLu
What Powers the Compact Radio Emission in Nearby Elliptical and S0 Galaxies?
Many nearby early-type (elliptical and S0) galaxies contain weak
(milli-Jansky level) nuclear radio sources on scales a few hundred parsecs or
less. The origin of the radio emission, however, has remained unclear,
especially in volume-limited samples that select intrinsically less luminous
galaxies. Both active galactic nuclei and nuclear star formation have been
suggested as possible mechanisms for producing the radio emission. This paper
utilizes optical spectroscopic information to address this issue. A substantial
fraction of the early-type galaxies surveyed with the Very Large Array by
Wrobel & Heeschen (1991) exhibits detectable optical emission lines in their
nuclei down to very sensitive limits. Comparison of the observed radio
continuum power with that expected from the thermal gas traced by the optical
emission lines implies that the bulk of the radio emission is nonthermal. Both
the incidence and the strength of optical line emission correlate with the
radio power. At a fixed line luminosity, ellipticals have stronger radio cores
than S0s. The relation between radio power and line emission observed in this
sample is consistent with the low-luminosity extension of similar relations
seen in classical radio galaxies and luminous Seyfert nuclei. A plausible
interpretation of this result is that the weak nuclear sources in nearby
early-type galaxies are the low-luminosity counterparts of more powerful AGNs.
The spectroscopic evidence supports this picture. Most of the emission-line
objects are optically classified as Seyfert nuclei or low-ionization nuclear
emission-line regions (LINERs), the majority of which are likely to be
accretion-powered sources.Comment: LaTex, 16 pages including embedded figures. Accepted for publication
in the Astrophysical Journa
From gas to galaxies
The unsurpassed sensitivity and resolution of the Square Kilometer Array
(SKA) will make it possible for the first time to probe the continuum emission
of normal star forming galaxies out to the edges of the universe. This opens
the possibility for routinely using the radio continuum emission from galaxies
for cosmological research as it offers an independent probe of the evolution of
the star formation density in the universe. In addition it offers the
possibility to detect the first star forming objects and massive black holes.
In deep surveys SKA will be able to detect HI in emission out to redshifts of
and hence be able to trace the conversion of gas into stars
over an era where considerable evolution is taking place. Such surveys will be
able to uniquely determine the respective importance of merging and accreting
gas flows for galaxy formation over this redshift range (i.e. out to when the
universe was only one third its present age). It is obvious that only SKA will
able to see literally where and how gas is turned into stars.
These and other aspects of SKA imaging of galaxies will be discussed.Comment: To be published in New Astronomy Reviews, Elsevier, Amsterdam as part
of "Science with the Square Kilometre Array", eds. C. Carilli and S.
Rawlings. 18 pages + 13 figures; high resolution version and other chapters
of "Science with the Square Kilometre Array" available at
http://www.skatelescope.org/pages/science_gen.ht
A Close Look at Star Formation around Active Galactic Nuclei
We analyse star formation in the nuclei of 9 Seyfert galaxies at spatial
resolutions down to 0.085arcsec, corresponding to length scales of less than
10pc in some objects. Our data were taken mostly with the near infrared
adaptive optics integral field spectrograph SINFONI. The stellar light profiles
typically have size scales of a few tens of parsecs. In two cases there is
unambiguous kinematic evidence for stellar disks on these scales. In the
nuclear regions there appear to have been recent - but no longer active -
starbursts in the last 10-300Myr. The stellar luminosity is less than a few
percent of the AGN in the central 10pc, whereas on kiloparsec scales the
luminosities are comparable. The surface stellar luminosity density follows a
similar trend in all the objects, increasing steadily at smaller radii up to
10^{13}L_sun/kpc^2 in the central few parsecs, where the mass surface density
exceeds 10^4M_sun/pc^2. The intense starbursts were probably Eddington limited
and hence inevitably short-lived, implying that the starbursts occur in
multiple short bursts. The data hint at a delay of 50--100Myr between the onset
of star formation and subsequent fuelling of the black hole. We discuss whether
this may be a consequence of the role that stellar ejecta could play in
fuelling the black hole. While a significant mass is ejected by OB winds and
supernovae, their high velocity means that very little of it can be accreted.
On the other hand winds from AGB stars ultimately dominate the total mass loss,
and they can also be accreted very efficiently because of their slow speeds.Comment: 51 pages, including 27 figures; accepted by ApJ (paper reorganised,
but results & conclusions the same
Direct, Non-Destructive Imaging of Magnetization in a Spin-1 Bose Gas
Polarization-dependent phase-contrast imaging is used to spatially resolve
the magnetization of an optically trapped ultracold gas. This probe is applied
to Larmor precession of degenerate and nondegenerate spin-1 Rb gases.
Transverse magnetization of the Bose-Einstein condensate persists for the
condensate lifetime, with a spatial response to magnetic field inhomogeneities
consistent with a mean-field model of interactions. Rotational symmetry implies
that the Larmor frequency of a spinor condensate be density-independent, and
thus suitable for precise magnetometry with high spatial resolution. In
comparison, the magnetization of the noncondensed gas decoheres rapidly.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
From treebank resources to LFG F-structures
We present two methods for automatically annotating treebank resources with functional structures. Both methods define systematic patterns of correspondence between partial PS configurations and functional structures. These are applied to PS rules extracted from treebanks, or directly to constraint set encodings of treebank PS trees
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