305 research outputs found
Abundance Patterns in Stars in the Bulge and Galactic Center
We discuss oxygen and iron abundance patterns in K and M red-giant members of
the Galactic bulge and in the young and massive M-type stars inhabiting the
very center of the Milky Way. The abundance results from the different bulge
studies in the literature, both in the optical and the infrared, indicate that
the [O/Fe]-[Fe/H] relation in the bulge does not follow the disk relation, with
[O/Fe] values falling above those of the disk. Based on these elevated values
of [O/Fe] extending to large Fe abundances, it is suggested that the bulge
underwent a rapid chemical enrichment with perhaps a top-heavy initial mass
function. The Galactic Center stars reveal a nearly uniform and slightly
elevated (relative to solar) iron abundance for a studied sample which is
composed of 10 red giants and supergiants. Perhaps of more significance is the
fact that the young Galactic Center M-type stars show abundance patterns that
are reminiscent of those observed for the bulge population and contain enhanced
abundance ratios of alpha-elements relative to either the Sun or Milky Way disk
at near-solar metallicities.Comment: requires iaus.cls; to appear in Formation and Evolution of Galaxy
Bulges, Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 245, 2007, M. Bureau et al. eds., in
pres
Plants and traditional knowledge: An ethnobotanical investigation on Monte Ortobene (Nuoro, Sardinia)
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Most of the traditional knowledge about plants and their uses is fast disappearing as a consequence of socio-economic and land use changes. This trend is also occurring in areas that are historically exposed to very few external influences, such as Sardinia (Italy). From 2004 to 2005, an ethnobotanical investigation was carried out in the area of Monte Ortobene, a mountain located near Nuoro, in central Sardinia.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews. All the records – defined as 'citations', i.e. a single use reported for a single botanical species by a single informant – were filed in a data base ('analytical table'), together with additional information: i.e. local names of plants, parts used, local frequencies, and habitats of plants, etc. In processing the data, plants and uses were grouped into general ('categories') and detailed ('secondary categories') typologies of use. Some synthetic indexes have also been used, such as Relative Frequency of Citation (RFC), Cultural Importance Index (CI), the Shannon-Wiener Index (H'), and Evenness Index (J).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Seventy-two plants were cited by the informants as being traditionally used in the area. These 72 'ethnospecies' correspond to 99 botanical taxa (species or subspecies) belonging to 34 families. Three-hundred and one citations, 50 secondary categories of use, and 191 different uses were recorded, most of them concerning alimentary and medicinal plants.</p> <p>For the alimentary plants, 126 citations, 44 species, and 13 different uses were recorded, while for the medicinal plants, there were 106 citations, 40 species, and 12 uses. Few plants and uses were recorded for the remaining categories. Plants and uses for each category of use are discussed. Analyses of results include the relative abundance of botanical families, wild vs. cultivated species, habitats, frequency, parts of plant used, types of use, knowledge distribution, and the different cultural importance of the species in question.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The study provides examples of several interesting uses of plants in the community, which would seem to show that the custom of using wild plants is still alive in the Monte Ortobene area. However, many practices are no longer in use, and survive only as memories from the past in the minds of elderly people, and often only in one or just a few informants. This rapidly vanishing cultural diversity needs to be studied and documented before it disappears definitively.</p
The Evolution of Oxygen and Magnesium in the Bulge and Disk of the Milky Way
We show that the Galactic bulge and disk share a similar, strong, decline in
[O/Mg] ratio with [Mg/H]. The similarity of the [O/Mg] trend in these two,
markedly different, populations suggests a metallicity-dependent modulation of
the stellar yields from massive stars, by mass loss from winds, and related to
the Wolf-Rayet phenomenon, as proposed by McWilliam & Rich (2004). We have
modified existing models for the chemical evolution of the Galactic bulge and
the solar neighborhood with the inclusion of metallicity-dependent oxygen
yields from theoretical predictions for massive stars that include mass loss by
stellar winds. Our results significantly improve the agreement between
predicted and observed [O/Mg] ratios in the bulge and disk above solar
metallicity; however, a small zero-point normalization problem remains to be
resolved. The zero-point shift indicates that either the semi-empirical yields
of Francois et al. (2004) need adjustment, or that the bulge IMF is not quite
as flat as found by Ballero et al. (2007); the former explanation is preferred.
Our result removes a previous inconsistency between the interpretation of
[O/Fe] and [Mg/Fe] ratios in the bulge, and confirms the conclusion that the
bulge formed more rapidly than the disk, based on the over-abundances of
elements produced by massive stars. We also provide an explanation for the
long-standing difference between [Mg/Fe] and [O/Fe] trends among disk stars
more metal-rich than the sun.Comment: 22 pages including 5 figures. Submitted to the Astronomical Journa
The Richness and Beauty of the Physics of Cosmological Recombination: The Contributions from Helium
The physical ingredients to describe the epoch of cosmological recombination
are amazingly simple and well-understood. This fact allows us to take into
account a very large variety of processes, still finding potentially measurable
consequences. In this contribution we highlight some of the detailed physics
that were recently studied in connection with cosmological hydrogen and helium
recombination. The impact of these considerations is two-fold: (i) the
associated release of photons during this epoch leads to interesting and unique
deviations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) energy spectrum from a
perfect blackbody, which, in particular at decimeter wavelength, may become
observable in the near future. Despite the fact that the abundance of helium is
rather small, it also contributes a sizeable amount of photons to the full
recombination spectrum, which, because of differences in the dynamics of the
helium recombinations and the non-trivial superposition of all components, lead
to additional distinct spectral features. Observing the spectral distortions
from the epochs of hydrogen and helium recombination, in principle would
provide an additional way to determine some of the key parameters of the
Universe (e.g. the specific entropy, the CMB monopole temperature and the
pre-stellar abundance of helium), not suffering from limitations set by cosmic
variance. Also it permits us to confront our detailed understanding of the
recombination process with direct observational evidence. (ii) with the advent
of high precision CMB data, e.g. as will be available using the Planck Surveyor
or CMBpol, a very accurate theoretical understanding of the ionization history
of the Universe becomes necessary for the interpretation of the CMB temperature
and polarization anisotropies. (abridged)Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, proceedings of the conference: "A Century of
Cosmology: Past, Present and Future
Formation & evolution of the Galactic bulge: constraints from stellar abundances
We compute the chemical evolution of the Galactic bulge in the context of an
inside-out model for the formation of the Milky Way. The model contains updated
stellar yields from massive stars. The main purpose of the paper is to compare
the predictions of this model with new observations of chemical abundance
ratios and metallicity distributions in order to put constraints on the
formation and evolution of the bulge. We computed the evolution of several
alpha-elements and Fe and performed several tests by varying different
parameters such as star formation efficiency, slope of the initial mass
function and infall timescale. We also tested the effect of adopting a primary
nitrogen contribution from massive stars. The [alpha/Fe] abundance ratios in
the Bulge are predicted to be supersolar for a very large range in [Fe/H], each
element having a different slope. These predictions are in very good agreement
with most recent accurate abundance determinations. We also find a good fit of
the most recent Bulge stellar metallicity distributions. We conclude that the
Bulge formed on a very short timescale (even though timescales much shorter
than about 0.1 Gyr are excluded) with a quite high star formation efficiency of
about 20 Gyr and with an initial mass function more skewed toward high
masses (i.e. x <= 0.95) than the solar neighbourhood and rest of the disk. The
results obtained here are more robust than previous ones since they are based
on very accurate abundance measurements.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in A&
The Radio - X-ray relation as a star formation indicator: Results from the VLA--E-CDFS Survey
In order to trace the instantaneous star formation rate at high redshift, and
hence help understanding the relation between the different emission mechanisms
related to star formation, we combine the recent 4 Ms Chandra X-ray data and
the deep VLA radio data in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South region. We
find 268 sources detected both in the X-ray and radio band. The availability of
redshifts for of the sources in our sample allows us to derive
reliable luminosity estimates and the intrinsic properties from X-ray analysis
for the majority of the objects. With the aim of selecting sources powered by
star formation in both bands, we adopt classification criteria based on X-ray
and radio data, exploiting the X-ray spectral features and time variability,
taking advantage of observations scattered across more than ten years. We
identify 43 objects consistent with being powered by star formation. We also
add another 111 and 70 star forming candidates detected only in the radio or
X-ray band, respectively. We find a clear linear correlation between radio and
X-ray luminosity in star forming galaxies over three orders of magnitude and up
to . We also measure a significant scatter of the order of 0.4 dex,
higher than that observed at low redshift, implying an intrinsic scatter
component. The correlation is consistent with that measured locally, and no
evolution with redshift is observed. Using a locally calibrated relation
between the SFR and the radio luminosity, we investigate the L_X(2-10keV)-SFR
relation at high redshift. The comparison of the star formation rate measured
in our sample with some theoretical models for the Milky Way and M31, two
typical spiral galaxies, indicates that, with current data, we can trace
typical spirals only at z<0.2, and strong starburst galaxies with
star-formation rates as high as , up to .Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures, 5 table
Chemical similarities between Galactic bulge and local thick disk red giant stars
The evolution of the Milky Way bulge and its relationship with the other
Galactic populations is still poorly understood. The bulge has been suggested
to be either a merger-driven classical bulge or the product of a dynamical
instability of the inner disk. To probe the star formation history, the initial
mass function and stellar nucleosynthesis of the bulge, we performed an
elemental abundance analysis of bulge red giant stars. We also completed an
identical study of local thin disk, thick disk and halo giants to establish the
chemical differences and similarities between the various populations.
High-resolution infrared spectra of 19 bulge giants and 49 comparison giants in
the solar neighborhood were acquired with Gemini/Phoenix. All stars have
similar stellar parameters but cover a broad range in metallicity. A standard
1D local thermodynamic equilibrium analysis yielded the abundances of C, N, O
and Fe. A homogeneous and differential analysis of the bulge, halo, thin disk
and thick disk stars ensured that systematic errors were minimized. We confirm
the well-established differences for [O/Fe] (at a given metallicity) between
the local thin and thick disks. For the elements investigated, we find no
chemical distinction between the bulge and the local thick disk, which is in
contrast to previous studies relying on literature values for disk dwarf stars
in the solar neighborhood. Our findings suggest that the bulge and local thick
disk experienced similar, but not necessarily shared, chemical evolution
histories. We argue that their formation timescales, star formation rates and
initial mass functions were similar.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 5 page
Comparative analysis of medicinal plants used in traditional medicine in Italy and Tunisia
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Italy and Tunisia (Africa for the Romans), facing each other on the opposite sides of the Mediterranean Sea, have been historically linked since the ancient times. Over the centuries both countries were mutually dominated so the vestiges and traces of a mutual influence are still present. The aim of the present study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the medicinal species present in the respective Floras in order to explore potential analogies and differences in popular phytotherapy that have come out from those reciprocal exchanges having taken place over the centuries</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The comparative analysis based on the respective floras of both countries takes into consideration the bulk of medicinal species mutually present in Italy and Tunisia, but it focuses on the species growing in areas which are similar in climate. The medicinal uses of these species are considered in accordance with the ethnobotanical literature.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A list of 153 medicinal species belonging to 60 families, present in both floras and used in traditional medicine, was drawn. A considerable convergence in therapeutic uses of many species emerged from these data.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This comparative analysis strengthens the firm belief that ethno-botanical findings represent not only an important shared heritage, developed over the centuries, but also a considerable mass of data that should be exploited in order to provide new and useful knowledge.</p
The Thermodynamics of Molecular Cloud Fragmentation: Star Formation Under Non-Milky Way Conditions
Properties of candidate stars, forming out of molecular clouds, depend on the
ambient conditions of the parent cloud. We present a series of 2D and 3D
simulations of fragmentation of molecular clouds in starburst regions as well
as clouds under conditions in dwarf galaxies, leading to the formation of
protostellar cores. We explore in particular the metallicity dependence of
molecular cloud fragmentation and the possible variations in the dense core
mass function, as the expression of a multi-phase ISM, due to dynamic and
thermodynamic effects in starburst and metal-poor environments. To study the
level of fragmentation during the collapse, the adaptive mesh refinement code
FLASH is used. With this code, including self-gravity, thermal balance,
turbulence and shocks, collapse is simulated with four different metallicity
dependent cooling functions. Turbulent and rotational energies are considered
as well. During the simulations, number densities of 10^8-10^9 cm^-3 are
reached. The influences of dust and cosmic ray heating are investigated and a
comparison to isothermal cases is made. The presented results indicate that
fragmentation increases with metallicity, while cosmic ray and gas-grain
collisional heating counteract this. We also find that modest rotation and
turbulence can impact the cloud evolution as far as fragmentation is concerned.
In this light, we conclude that radiative feedback, in starburst regions, will
inhibit fragmentation, while low-metallicity dwarfs also should enjoy a star
formation mode in which fragmentation is suppressed.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures; a better resolution 'pdf' version of the paper
can be found at http://www.astro.rug.nl/~seyit/papers/HocukSpaans-2009A.pd
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