13,958 research outputs found
CDM, Feedback and the Hubble Sequence
We have performed TreeSPH simulations of galaxy formation in a standard LCDM
cosmology, including effects of star formation, energetic stellar feedback
processes and a meta-galactic UV field, and obtain a mix of disk, lenticular
and elliptical galaxies. The disk galaxies are deficient in angular momentum by
only about a factor of two compared to observed disk galaxies. The stellar
disks have approximately exponential surface density profiles, and those of the
bulges range from exponential to r^{1/4}, as observed. The bulge-to-disk ratios
of the disk galaxies are consistent with observations and likewise are their
integrated B-V colours, which have been calculated using stellar population
synthesis techniques. Furthermore, we can match the observed I-band
Tully-Fisher (TF) relation, provided that the mass-to-light ratio of disk
galaxies, (M/L_I), is about 0.8. The ellipticals and lenticulars have
approximately r^{1/4} stellar surface density profiles, are dominated by
non-disklike kinematics and flattened due to non-isotropic stellar velocity
distributions, again consistent with observations.Comment: 6 pages, incl. 4 figs. To appear in the proceedings of the
EuroConference "The Evolution of Galaxies: II - Basic Building Blocks", Ile
de La Reunion (France), 16-21 October 2001 (Slightly updated version). A much
more comprehensive paper about this work with links to pictures of some of
the galaxies can be found at http://babbage.sissa.it/abs/astro-ph/020436
Three-dimensional orbits of metal-poor halo stars and the formation of the Galaxy
We present the three-dimensional orbital motions of metal-poor stars in
conjunction with their metal abundances, for the purpose of getting insight
into the formation process of the Galaxy. Our sample stars, which include
metal-deficient red giants and RR Lyrae variables observed by the Hipparcos
satellite, are least affected by known systematics, stemmed from kinematic
bias, metallicity calibration, and secondary metal contamination of stellar
surface. We find, for the stars in the metallicity range of [Fe/H]<-1, that
there is no evidence for the correlation between [Fe/H] and their orbital
eccentricities e. Even for [Fe/H]<-1.6, about 16% of the stars have e less than
0.4. We show that the e distribution of orbits for [Fe/H]<-1.6 is independent
of the height |z| away from the Galactic plane, whereas for [Fe/H]>-1.6 the
stars at |z|>1 kpc are systematically devoid of low-e orbits with e<0.6. This
indicates that low-e stars with [Fe/H]<-1.6 belong to the halo component,
whereas the rapidly-rotating thick disk with a scale height about 1 kpc has a
metal-weak tail in the range of -1.6<[Fe/H]<-1. The fraction of this metal-weak
thick disk appears to be only less than 20%. The significance of these results
for the early evolution of the Galaxy is briefly discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, AASTeX, to appear in ApJ Letter
Classification of String-like Solutions in Dilaton Gravity
The static string-like solutions of the Abelian Higgs model coupled to
dilaton gravity are analyzed and compared to the non-dilatonic case. Except for
a special coupling between the Higgs Lagrangian and the dilaton, the solutions
are flux tubes that generate a non-asymptotically flat geometry. Any point in
parameter space corresponds to two branches of solutions with two different
asymptotic behaviors. Unlike the non-dilatonic case, where one branch is always
asymptotically conic, in the present case the asymptotic behavior changes
continuously along each branch.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures. To be published in Phys. Rev.
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