4,331 research outputs found
Evolution of the Dark Matter Distribution at the Galactic Center
Annihilation radiation from neutralino dark matter at the Galactic center
(GC) would be greatly enhanced if the dark matter were strongly clustered
around the supermassive black hole (SBH). The existence of a dark-matter
"spike" is made plausible by the observed, steeply-rising stellar density near
the GC SBH. Here the time-dependent equations describing gravitational
interaction of the dark matter particles with the stars are solved. Scattering
of dark matter particles by stars would substantially lower the dark matter
density near the GC SBH over 10^10 yr, due both to kinetic heating, and to
capture of dark matter particles by the SBH. This result suggests that
enhancements in the dark matter density around a SBH would be modest whether or
not the host galaxy had experienced the scouring effects of a binary SBH.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to Physical Review Letter
Hubble Space Telescope Planetary Camera Images of NGC 1316
We present HST Planetary Camera V and I~band images of the central region of
the peculiar giant elliptical galaxy NGC 1316. The inner profile is well fit by
a nonisothermal core model with a core radius of 0.41" +/- 0.02" (34 pc). At an
assumed distance of 16.9 Mpc, the deprojected luminosity density reaches \sim
2.0 \times 10^3 L_{\sun} pc.
Outside the inner two or three arcseconds, a constant mass-to-light ratio of
is found to fit the observed line width measurements. The
line width measurements of the center indicate the existence of either a
central dark object of mass 2 \times 10^9 M_{\sun}, an increase in the
stellar mass-to-light ratio by at least a factor of two for the inner few
arcseconds, or perhaps increasing radial orbit anisotropy towards the center.
The mass-to-light ratio run in the center of NGC 1316 resembles that of many
other giant ellipticals, some of which are known from other evidence to harbor
central massive dark objects (MDO's).
We also examine twenty globular clusters associated with NGC 1316 and report
their brightnesses, colors, and limits on tidal radii. The brightest cluster
has a luminosity of 9.9 \times 10^6 L_{\sun} (), and the
faintest detectable cluster has a luminosity of 2.4 \times 10^5 L_{\sun}
(). The globular clusters are just barely resolved, but their core
radii are too small to be measured. The tidal radii in this region appear to be
35 pc. Although this galaxy seems to have undergone a substantial merger
in the recent past, young globular clusters are not detected.Comment: 21 pages, latex, postscript figures available at
ftp://delphi.umd.edu/pub/outgoing/eshaya/fornax
Global Atmospheric Aerosol Modeling
Global aerosol models are used to study the distribution and properties of atmospheric aerosol particles as well as their effects on clouds, atmospheric chemistry, radiation, and climate. The present article provides an overview of the basic concepts of global atmospheric aerosol modeling and shows some examples from a global aerosol simulation. Particular emphasis is placed on the simulation of aerosol particles and their effects within global climate models
Impaired Chronotropic Response to Exercise Stress Testing in Patients With Diabetes Predicts Future Cardiovascular Events
OBJECTIVESâ To assess the association between impaired chronotropic response (CR) and adverse events among patients with diabetes referred for exercise treadmill testing (ETT)
Can Standard Cosmological Models Explain the Observed Abell Cluster Bulk Flow?
Lauer \& Postman (LP) observe that all Abell clusters with redshifts less
than 15,000\kms\ appear to be participating in a bulk flow of 689 km s
with respect to the Cosmic Microwave Background. We find this result difficult
to reconcile with all popular models for large-scale structure formation that
assume Gaussian initial conditions. This conclusion is based on Monte-Carlo
realizations of the LP data, drawn from large Particle-Mesh -body
simulations.
We have taken special care to treat properly the longest-wavelength
components of the power spectra. Bulk flows with amplitude as large as that
reported by LP are not uncommon in the Monte-Carlo datasets. However, the
of the observed bulk flow, taking into account the anisotropy of the
error ellipsoid, is much more difficult to match in the simulations. The models
examined are ruled out at confidence levels between 94\% and 98\%. Any model
that has {\it intrinsic} flows of less than 480\kms\ on the scales probed by LP
scales can be ruled out at a similar level.Comment: Submitted to ApJ. 31 pages of uuencoded compressed postscript (810
kbytes); figures included. Also available via anonymous ftp to eku.ias.edu in
/pub/strauss/warpfire/warpfire.ps.
A Search for the Most Massive Galaxies. III. Global and Central Structure
We used the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the Hubble Space Telescope
to obtain high resolution i-band images of the centers of 23 single galaxies,
which were selected because they have SDSS velocity dispersions larger than 350
km/s. The surface brightness profiles of the most luminous of these objects
(M_i<-24) have well-resolved `cores' on scales of 150-1000 pc, and share
similar properties to BCGs. The total luminosity of the galaxy is a better
predictor of the core size than is the velocity dispersion. The correlations of
luminosity and velocity dispersion with core size agree with those seen in
previous studies of galaxy cores. Because of high velocity dispersions, our
sample of galaxies can be expected to harbor the most massive black holes, and
thus have large cores with large amounts of mass ejection. The mass-deficits
inferred from core-Sersic fits to the surface-brightness profiles are
approximately double the black-hole masses inferred from the M_bh-sigma
relation and the same as those inferred from the M_bh-L relation. The less
luminous galaxies (M_i>-23) tend to have steeper `power-law' inner profiles,
higher-ellipticity, diskier isophotes, and bulge-to-total ratios of order 0.5
-- all of which suggest that they are `fast-rotators' and rotational motions
could have contaminated the velocity dispersion estimate. There are obvious
dust features within about 300 pc of the center in about 35% of the sample,
predominantly in power-law rather than core galaxies.Comment: 27 Pages, 22 Figures, 2 Tables, Accepted for Publication in MNRA
The QUEST large area CCD camera
We have designed, constructed, and put into operation a very large area CCD camera that covers the field of view of the 1.2 m Samuel Oschin Schmidt Telescope at the Palomar Observatory. The camera consists of 112 CCDs arranged in a mosaic of four rows with 28 CCDs each. The CCDs are 600 x 2400 pixel Sarnoff thinned, back-illuminated devices with 13 ”m x 13 ”m pixels. The camera covers an area of 4.6° x 3.6° on the sky with an active area of 9.6 deg_2. This camera has been installed at the prime focus of the telescope and commissioned, and scientific-quality observations on the Palomar-QUEST Variability Sky Survey were started in 2003 September. The design considerations, construction features, and performance parameters of this camera are described in this paper
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