Characterizing maser polarization: effects of saturation, anisotropic pumping and hyperfine structure

The polarization of masers contains information on the magnetic field strength and direction of the regions they occur in. Many maser polarization observations have been performed over the last 30 years. However, versatile maser polarization models that can aide in the interpretation of these observations are not available. We aim to develop a program suite that can compute the polarization by a magnetic field of any non-paramagnetic maser specie at arbitrarily high maser saturation. Furthermore, we aim to investigate the polarization of masers by non-Zeeman polarizing effects. We aim to present a general interpretive structure for maser polarization observations. We expand existing maser polarization theories of non-paramagnetic molecules and incorporate these in a numerical modeling program suite. We present a modeling program that CHAracterizes Maser Polarization (CHAMP) that can examine the polarization of masers of arbitrarily high maser saturation and high angular momentum. Also, hyperfine multiplicity of the maser-transition can be incorporated. The user is able to investigate non-Zeeman polarizing mechanisms such as anisotropic pumping and polarized incident seed radiation. We present an analysis of the polarization of v = 1 SiO masers and the 22 GHz water maser. We comment on the underlying polarization mechanisms, and also investigate non-Zeeman effects. We identify the regimes where different polarizing mechanisms will be dominant and present the polarization characteristics of the SiO and water masers. From the results of our calculations, we identify markers to recognize alternative polarization mechanisms.Comment: 67 pages, 27 figures. Accepted to be published in A&

Hemodynamics of pulmonary hypertension : A model-based analysis

Postmus, P.E. [Promotor]Westerhof, N. [Promotor]Vonk Noordegraaf, A. [Copromotor]Faes, T.H.C.J. [Copromotor

Tracing cosmic magnetic fields using molecules

Understanding the magnetic field strength and morphology of astrophysical regions is of great importance to understand their dynamics. There exist a number of methods astronomers can employ to trace magnetic field structures, and each have their own limitations. This thesis focuses on tracing magnetic field using molecules.A promising technique to trace the magnetic field morphology around evolved stars, or on the smallest scales of star forming regions, is (sub-)millimeter spectral line polarization observations. Line (linear) polarization can either arise in association with maser radiative transfer, or alternatively, molecular lines polarize through the Goldreich-Kylafis effect. In both cases, the polarization angle traces the magnetic field with a 90-degree ambiguity. In order to remove this ambiguity, and to estimate the observational viability of particular line polarization measurements, polarized line radiative transfer needs to be employed. This thesis contributes to this field in that it presents a three-dimensional polarized line radiative transfer tool: PORTAL. PORTAL simulates the emergence of thermal molecular line polarization in astrophysical objects of arbitrary geometry and magnetic field morphology. Also, this thesis introduces a novel polarization mechanism: collisional polarization. Which provides the possibility of directly detecting ambipolar diffusion in disks through the polarization of molecular ions.Some molecules occur as masers. Masers occur naturally in specific astrophysical regions, which are often associated with highly dynamical events. Their emission is characterized by narrow lines and high brightness temperatures, and is often associated with polarization. The polarization of masers contains information on the magnetic field strength and direction of the regions they occur in. Many maser polarization observations have been performed over the last 30 years. However, one requires versatile maser polarization models that can aide in the interpretation of these observations. This thesis contributes to the study of maser polarization by presenting a modeling program called CHAMP (CHAracterizing Maser Polarization) that simulates the polarization of masers of arbitrarily high maser saturation and high angular momentum.Methanol masers occur exclusively in association with high-mass star forming regions. They trace specific regions there, and may teach us about the magnetic field structures in the densest regions. There have been many polarization observations of methanol, but proper interpretation of them has not been possible because the molecular properties associated with its magnetic field interactions have been unknown. This thesis presents the first quantum chemical models of methanols magnetic field interactions. With them, we re-interpret the many previous methanol maser polarization observations and conclude that magnetic fields are dynamically important to the process of high-mass star formation

Collisional polarization of molecular ions: a signpost of ambipolar diffusion

Magnetic fields play a role in the dynamics of many astrophysical processes, but they are hard to detect. In a partially ionized plasma, a magnetic field works directly on the ionized medium but not on the neutral medium, which gives rise to a velocity drift between them: ambipolar diffusion. This process is suggested to be important in the process of star formation, but has never been directly observed. We introduce a method that could be used to detect ambipolar diffusion and the magnetic field that gives rise to it, where we exploit the velocity drift between the charged and neutral medium. By using a representative classical model of the collision dynamics, we show that molecular ions partially align themselves when a velocity drift is present between the molecular ion and its main collision partner H2. We demonstrate that ambipolar diffusion potently aligns molecular ions in regions denser than their critical density, which subsequently leads to partially polarized emission from these species. We include a model for HCO+ and show that collisional polarization could be detectable for the ambipolar drifts predicted by numerical simulations of the inner protostellar disk regions. The polarization vectors are aligned perpendicular to the magnetic field direction projected on the plane of the sky.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Accepted and published in A&

Detecting chiral asymmetry in the interstellar medium using propylene oxide

Interstellar matter and star formatio

Characterization of methanol as a magnetic field tracer in star-forming regions

Magnetic fields play an important role during star formation. Direct magnetic field strength observations have proven specifically challenging in the extremely dynamic protostellar phase. Because of their occurrence in the densest parts of star forming regions, masers, through polarization observations, are the main source of magnetic field strength and morphology measurements around protostars. Of all maser species, methanol is one of the strongest and most abundant tracers of gas around high-mass protostellar disks and in outflows. However, as experimental determination of the magnetic characteristics of methanol has remained largely unsuccessful, a robust magnetic field strength analysis of these regions could hitherto not be performed. Here we report a quantitative theoretical model of the magnetic properties of methanol, including the complicated hyperfine structure that results from its internal rotation. We show that the large range in values of the Land\'{e} g-factors of the hyperfine components of each maser line lead to conclusions which differ substantially from the current interpretation based on a single effective g-factor. These conclusions are more consistent with other observations and confirm the presence of dynamically important magnetic fields around protostars. Additionally, our calculations show that (non-linear) Zeeman effects must be taken into account to further enhance the accuracy of cosmological electron-to-proton mass ratio determinations using methanol.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures, excluding Supplementary information. Author manuscript version before editorial/copyediting by Nature Astronomy. Journal version available via http://rdcu.be/FPeB . Supplementary material available via https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41550-017-0341-8/MediaObjects/41550_2017_341_MOESM1_ESM.pd

The arterial Windkessel

Frank’s Windkessel model described the hemodynamics of the arterial system in terms of resistance and compliance. It explained aortic pressure decay in diastole, but fell short in systole. Therefore characteristic impedance was introduced as a third element of the Windkessel model. Characteristic impedance links the lumped Windkessel to transmission phenomena (e.g., wave travel). Windkessels are used as hydraulic load for isolated hearts and in studies of the entire circulation. Furthermore, they are used to estimate total arterial compliance from pressure and flow; several of these methods are reviewed. Windkessels describe the general features of the input impedance, with physiologically interpretable parameters. Since it is a lumped model it is not suitable for the assessment of spatially distributed phenomena and aspects of wave travel, but it is a simple and fairly accurate approximation of ventricular afterload

Hyperfine interactions and internal rotation in methanol

We present a rigorous derivation of the nuclear spin-rotation and spin-torsion coupling terms in the hyperfine Hamiltonian for molecules with internal rotation. Our formulas differ from the expressions derived by Heuvel and Dymanus [J. Mol. Spectrosc. 47, 363 (1973)], which these authors used and which were also applied recently by others to interpret experimental hyperfine spectra of such molecules. In the present work, our theoretical results are applied to methanol. We calculate the nuclear spin-spin magnetic dipole-dipole interactions and the nuclear contribution to the spin-torsion coupling vectors from the nuclear coordinates as functions of the internal rotation angle γ, compute the spin-rotation coupling tensors by ab initio electronic structure methods also as functions of γ, and obtain the missing parameters for the electronic contribution to the spin-torsion coupling from a fit to measured spectra. The resulting hyperfine Hamiltonian is then used to compute hyperfine transition frequencies and intensities for twelve torsion-rotation transitions in methanol. With the use of the ab initio calculated spin-rotation coupling parameters without any modification, and physically reasonable values for the spin-torsion coupling parameters from the fit, we find good agreement with all of the measured spectra

Polarization properties of methanol masers

(Abridged) Astronomical masers have been effective tools to study magnetic fields for many years. In particular, methanol can be used to probe different parts of protostars such as accretion discs and outflows, since it produces one of the strongest and the most commonly observed masers in massive star-forming regions. We investigate the polarization properties of selected methanol maser transitions in light of newly calculated methanol Land\'e g-factors and considering hyperfine components. We compare our results with previous observations and we evaluate the effect of preferred hyperfine pumping and non-Zeeman effects. We run simulations using the radiative transfer code CHAMP. We find a dependence of linear and circular polarization fractions on the hyperfine transitions. Preferred hyperfine pumping can explain some high levels of linear and circular polarization and some of the peculiar features seen in the S-shape of observed V-profiles. Methanol masers are not significantly affected by non-Zeeman effects. Our models show that for methanol maser emission, both the linear and circular polarization percentages depend on which hyperfine transition is masing and the degree to which it is being pumped. Since non-Zeeman effects become more relevant at high values of brightness temperatures, it is important to obtain good estimates of these quantities and on maser beaming angles. Better constraints on the brightness temperature will help in understand about the extent to which non-Zeeman effects contribute to the observed polarization percentages. In order to detect separate hyperfine components, an intrinsic thermal line width significantly smaller than the hyperfine separation is required.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Methanol masers reveal the magnetic field of the high-mass protostar IRAS 18089-1732

Context. The importance of the magnetic field in high-mass-star formation is not yet fully clear and there are still many open questions concerning its role in the accretion processes and generation of jets and outflows. In the past few years, masers have been successfully used to probe the magnetic field morphology and strength at scales of a few au around massive protostars, by measuring linear polarisation angles and Zeeman splitting. The massive protostar IRAS 18089-1732 is a well studied high-mass-star forming region, showing a hot core chemistry and a disc-outflow system. Previous SMA observations of polarised dust revealed an ordered magnetic field oriented around the disc of IRAS 18089-1732. Aims. We want to determine the magnetic field in the dense region probed by 6.7 GHz methanol maser observations and compare it with observations in dust continuum polarisation, to investigate how the magnetic field in the compact maser region relates to the large-scale field around massive protostars. Methods. We reduced MERLIN observations at 6.7 GHz of IRAS 18089-1732 and we analysed the polarised emission by methanol masers. Results. Our MERLIN observations show that the magnetic field in the 6.7 GHz methanol maser region is consistent with the magnetic field constrained by the SMA dust polarisation observations. A tentative detection of circularly polarised line emission is also presented. Conclusions. We found that the magnetic field in the maser region has the same orientation as in the disk. Thus the large-scale field component, even at the au scale of the masers, dominates over any small-scale field fluctuations. We obtained, from the circular polarisation tentative detection, a field strength along the line of sight of 5.5 mG which appeared to be consistent with the previous estimates.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in A&