Galactic fountains and gas accretion

Star-forming disc galaxies such as the Milky Way need to accrete \gsim 1 $M_{\odot}$ of gas each year to sustain their star formation. This gas accretion is likely to come from the cooling of the hot corona, however it is still not clear how this process can take place. We present simulations supporting the idea that this cooling and the subsequent accretion are caused by the passage of cold galactic-fountain clouds through the hot corona. The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability strips gas from these clouds and the stripped gas causes coronal gas to condense in the cloud's wake. For likely parameters of the Galactic corona and of typical fountain clouds we obtain a global accretion rate of the order of that required to feed the star formation.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, to appear in "Hunting for the Dark: The Hidden Side of Galaxy Formation", Malta, 19-23 Oct. 2009, eds. V.P. Debattista & C.C. Popescu, AIP Conf. Se

Fountain-driven gas accretion by the Milky Way

Accretion of fresh gas at a rate of ~ 1 M_{sun} yr^{-1} is necessary in star-forming disc galaxies, such as the Milky Way, in order to sustain their star-formation rates. In this work we present the results of a new hydrodynamic simulation supporting the scenario in which the gas required for star formation is drawn from the hot corona that surrounds the star-forming disc. In particular, the cooling of this hot gas and its accretion on to the disc are caused by the passage of cold galactic fountain clouds through the corona.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure. To appear in the proceedings of the conference "Assembling the Puzzle of the Milky Way", Le Grand-Bornand 17-22 April 2011, European Physical Journal, editors C. Reyl\'e, A. Robin and M. Schulthei

Self-gravity at the scale of the polar cell

We present the exact calculus of the gravitational potential and acceleration along the symmetry axis of a plane, homogeneous, polar cell as a function of mean radius a, radial extension e, and opening angle f. Accurate approximations are derived in the limit of high numerical resolution at the geometrical mean of the inner and outer radii (a key-position in current FFT-based Poisson solvers). Our results are the full extension of the approximate formula given in the textbook of Binney & Tremaine to all resolutions. We also clarify definitely the question about the existence (or not) of self-forces in polar cells. We find that there is always a self-force at radius except if the shape factor a.f/e reaches ~ 3.531, asymptotically. Such cells are therefore well suited to build a polar mesh for high resolution simulations of self-gravitating media in two dimensions. A by-product of this study is a newly discovered indefinite integral involving complete elliptic integral of the first kind over modulus.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, A&A accepte

Diffusion of energetic particles in turbulent MHD plasmas

In this paper we investigate the transport of energetic particles in turbulent plasmas. A numerical approach is used to simulate the effect of the background plasma on the motion of energetic protons. The background plasma is in a dynamically turbulent state found from numerical MHD simulations, where we use parameters typical for the heliosphere. The implications for the transport parameters (i.e. pitch-angle diffusion coefficients and mean free path) are calculated and deviations from the quasi-linear theory are discussed.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

Lopsidedness of cluster galaxies in modified gravity

We point out an interesting theoretical prediction for elliptical galaxies residing inside galaxy clusters in the framework of modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND), that could be used to test this paradigm. Apart from the central brightest cluster galaxy, other galaxies close enough to the centre experience a strong gravitational influence from the other galaxies of the cluster. This influence manifests itself only as tides in standard Newtonian gravity, meaning that the systematic acceleration of the centre of mass of the galaxy has no consequence. However, in the context of MOND, a consequence of the breaking of the strong equivalence principle is that the systematic acceleration changes the own self-gravity of the galaxy. We show here that, in this framework, initially axisymmetric elliptical galaxies become lopsided along the external field's direction, and that the centroid of the galaxy, defined by the outer density contours, is shifted by a few hundreds parsecs with respect to the densest point.Comment: accepted for publication in JCA

Constrained-Transport Magnetohydrodynamics with Adaptive-Mesh-Refinement in CHARM

We present the implementation of a three-dimensional, second order accurate Godunov-type algorithm for magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD), in the adaptive-mesh-refinement (AMR) cosmological code {\tt CHARM}. The algorithm is based on the full 12-solve spatially unsplit Corner-Transport-Upwind (CTU) scheme. The fluid quantities are cell-centered and are updated using the Piecewise-Parabolic-Method (PPM), while the magnetic field variables are face-centered and are evolved through application of the Stokes theorem on cell edges via a Constrained-Transport (CT) method. The multidimensional MHD source terms required in the predictor step for high-order accuracy are applied in a simplified form which reduces their complexity in three dimensions without loss of accuracy or robustness. The algorithm is implemented on an AMR framework which requires specific synchronization steps across refinement levels. These include face-centered restriction and prolongation operations and a {\it reflux-curl} operation, which maintains a solenoidal magnetic field across refinement boundaries. The code is tested against a large suite of test problems, including convergence tests in smooth flows, shock-tube tests, classical two- and three-dimensional MHD tests, a three-dimensional shock-cloud interaction problem and the formation of a cluster of galaxies in a fully cosmological context. The magnetic field divergence is shown to remain negligible throughout.Comment: 53 pages, 17 figs, under review by ApJ

Multi-GeV Electron Spectrometer

The advance in laser plasma acceleration techniques pushes the regime of the resulting accelerated particles to higher energies and intensities. In particular the upcoming experiments with the FLAME laser at LNF will enter the GeV regime with almost 1pC of electrons. From the current status of understanding of the acceleration mechanism, relatively large angular and energy spreads are expected. There is therefore the need to develop a device capable to measure the energy of electrons over three orders of magnitude (few MeV to few GeV) under still unknown angular divergences. Within the PlasmonX experiment at LNF a spectrometer is being constructed to perform these measurements. It is made of an electro-magnet and a screen made of scintillating fibers for the measurement of the trajectories of the particles. The large range of operation, the huge number of particles and the need to focus the divergence present unprecedented challenges in the design and construction of such a device. We will present the design considerations for this spectrometer and the first results from a prototype.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, submitted to NIM

A divergence-cleaning scheme for cosmological SPMHD simulations

In magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), the magnetic field is evolved by the induction equation and coupled to the gas dynamics by the Lorentz force. We perform numerical smoothed particle magnetohydrodynamics (Spmhd) simulations and study the influence of a numerical magnetic divergence. For instabilities arising from divergence B related errors, we find the hyperbolic/parabolic cleaning scheme suggested by Dedner et al. 2002 to give good results and prevent numerical artifacts from growing. Additionally, we demonstrate that certain current Spmhd implementations of magnetic field regularizations give rise to unphysical instabilities in long-time simulations. We also find this effect when employing Euler potentials (divergenceless by definition), which are not able to follow the winding-up process of magnetic field lines properly. Furthermore, we present cosmological simulations of galaxy cluster formation at extremely high resolution including the evolution of magnetic fields. We show synthetic Faraday rotation maps and derive structure functions to compare them with observations. Comparing all the simulations with and without divergence cleaning, we are able to confirm the results of previous simulations performed with the standard implementation of MHD in Spmhd at normal resolution. However, at extremely high resolution, a cleaning scheme is needed to prevent the growth of numerical errors at small scales.Comment: 15 pages, 19 figures, submitted to MNRA

Enzyme variability and neonatal jaundice. The role of adenosine deaminase and acid phosphatase

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