7,955 research outputs found
Revisiting the Cooling Flow Problem in Galaxies, Groups, and Clusters of Galaxies
We present a study of 107 galaxies, groups, and clusters spanning ~3 orders
of magnitude in mass, ~5 orders of magnitude in central galaxy star formation
rate (SFR), ~4 orders of magnitude in the classical cooling rate (dM/dt) of the
intracluster medium (ICM), and ~5 orders of magnitude in the central black hole
accretion rate. For each system in this sample, we measure dM/dt using archival
Chandra X-ray data and acquire the SFR and systematic uncertainty in the SFR by
combining over 330 estimates from dozens of literature sources. With these
data, we estimate the efficiency with which the ICM cools and forms stars,
finding e_cool = SFR/(dM/dt) = 1.4 +/- 0.4% for systems with dM/dt > 30
Msun/yr. For these systems, we measure a slope in the SFR-dM/dt relation
greater than unity, suggesting that the systems with the strongest cool cores
are also cooling more efficiently. We propose that this may be related to, on
average, higher black hole accretion rates in the strongest cool cores, which
could influence the total amount (saturating near the Eddington rate) and
dominant mode (mechanical vs radiative) of feedback. For systems with dM/dt <
30 Msun/yr, we find that the SFR and dM/dt are uncorrelated, and show that this
is consistent with star formation being fueled at a low (but dominant) level by
recycled ISM gas in these systems. We find an intrinsic log-normal scatter in
SFR at fixed dM/dt of 0.52 +/- 0.06 dex, suggesting that cooling is tightly
self-regulated over very long timescales, but can vary dramatically on short
timescales. There is weak evidence that this scatter may be related to the
feedback mechanism, with the scatter being minimized (~0.4 dex) in systems for
which the mechanical feedback power is within a factor of two of the cooling
luminosity.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, 6 tables. Submitted to ApJ. Comments welcome
Homogeneous cooling of rough, dissipative particles: Theory and simulations
We investigate freely cooling systems of rough spheres in two and three
dimensions. Simulations using an event driven algorithm are compared with
results of an approximate kinetic theory, based on the assumption of a
generalized homogeneous cooling state. For short times , translational and
rotational energy are found to change linearly with . For large times both
energies decay like with a ratio independent of time, but not
corresponding to equipartition. Good agreement is found between theory and
simulations, as long as no clustering instability is observed. System
parameters, i.e. density, particle size, and particle mass can be absorbed in a
rescaled time, so that the decay of translational and rotational energy is
solely determined by normal restitution and surface roughness.Comment: 10 pages, 10 eps-figure
Stochastic Resonance in Noisy Non-Dynamical Systems
We have analyzed the effects of the addition of external noise to
non-dynamical systems displaying intrinsic noise, and established general
conditions under which stochastic resonance appears. The criterion we have
found may be applied to a wide class of non-dynamical systems, covering
situations of different nature. Some particular examples are discussed in
detail.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 3 PostScript figures available upon reques
Noise suppression by noise
We have analyzed the interplay between an externally added noise and the
intrinsic noise of systems that relax fast towards a stationary state, and
found that increasing the intensity of the external noise can reduce the total
noise of the system. We have established a general criterion for the appearance
of this phenomenon and discussed two examples in detail.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
A method of open cluster membership determination
A new method for the determination of open cluster membership based on a
cumulative effect is proposed. In the field of a plate the relative x and y
coordinate positions of each star with respect to all the other stars are
added. The procedure is carried out for two epochs t_1 and t_2 separately, then
one sum is subtracted from another. For a field star the differences in its
relative coordinate positions of two epochs will be accumulated. For a cluster
star, on the contrary, the changes in relative positions of cluster members at
t_1 and t_2 will be very small. On the histogram of sums the cluster stars will
gather to the left of the diagram, while the field stars will form a tail to
the right. The procedure allows us to efficiently discriminate one group from
another. The greater the distance between t_1 and t_2 and the more cluster
stars present, the greater is the effect. The accumulation method does not
require reference stars, determination of centroids and modelling the
distribution of field stars, necessary in traditional methods. By the proposed
method 240 open clusters have been processed, including stars up to m<13. The
membership probabilities have been calculated and compared to those obtained by
the most commonly used Vasilevskis-Sanders method. The similarity of the
results acquired the two different approaches is satisfactory for the majority
of clusters.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
Boundary effects in the stepwise structure of the Lyapunov spectra for quasi-one-dimensional systems
Boundary effects in the stepwise structure of the Lyapunov spectra and the
corresponding wavelike structure of the Lyapunov vectors are discussed
numerically in quasi-one-dimensional systems consisting of many hard-disks.
Four kinds of boundary conditions constructed by combinations of periodic
boundary conditions and hard-wall boundary conditions are considered, and lead
to different stepwise structures of the Lyapunov spectra in each case. We show
that a spatial wavelike structure with a time-oscillation appears in the
spatial part of the Lyapunov vectors divided by momenta in some steps of the
Lyapunov spectra, while a rather stationary wavelike structure appears in the
purely spatial part of the Lyapunov vectors corresponding to the other steps.
Using these two kinds of wavelike structure we categorize the sequence and the
kinds of steps of the Lyapunov spectra in the four different boundary condition
cases.Comment: 33 pages, 25 figures including 10 color figures. Manuscript including
the figures of better quality is available from
http://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/~gary/step.pd
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Plate bearing tests for working platforms
During piling and other construction works, a working platform is often constructed across the site. These platforms comprise aggregate material placed and compacted to a designed thickness. Satisfactory performance of the platform may be confirmed by a plate bearing test. Current guidance given on plate bearing testing of granular soils suggests that the plate be at least five times the nominal size of the coarsest material. For a working platform this may be large and the reaction load required from plant and resources to carry out the bearing test may become excessively high. The aim of the research presented in this paper was to investigate the effect of particle to plate size ratios to establish if the use of a smaller plate would still allow a reliable test to be performed on site. Plate bearing tests were carried out in a centrifuge using a large, coarse grained limestone. The limestone was graded to a scale representation of 6F2 material, a commonly specified particle size distribution for working platforms. The size of plate was varied and the load displacement response recorded. The measured bearing capacity was correlated with the ratio of particle to plate size
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