1,368 research outputs found
Temperature and Kinematics of CIV Absorption Systems
We use Keck HIRES spectra of three intermediate redshift QSOs to study the
physical state and kinematics of the individual components of CIV selected
heavy element absorption systems. Fewer than 8 % of all CIV lines with column
densities greater than 10^{12.5} cm^{-2} have Doppler parameters b < 6 km/s. A
formal decomposition into thermal and non-thermal motion using the simultaneous
presence of SiIV gives a mean thermal Doppler parameter b_{therm}(CIV) = 7.2
km/s, corresponding to a temperature of 38,000 K although temperatures possibly
in excess of 300,000 K occur occasionally. We also find tentative evidence for
a mild increase of temperature with HI column density. Non-thermal motions
within components are typically small (< 10 km/s) for most systems, indicative
of a quiescent environment. The two-point correlation function (TPCF) of CIV
systems on scales up to 500 km/s suggests that there is more than one source of
velocity dispersion. The shape of the TPCF can be understood if the CIV systems
are caused by ensembles of objects with the kinematics of dwarf galaxies on a
small scale, while following the Hubble flow on a larger scale. Individual high
redshift CIV components may be the building blocks of future normal galaxies in
a hierarchical structure formation scenario.Comment: submitted to the ApJ Letters, March 16, 1996 (in press); (13 Latex
pages, 4 Postscript figures, and psfig.sty included
Testing Cosmological Models With A \lya Forest Statistic: The High End Of The Optical Depth Distribution
We pay particular attention to the high end of the \lya optical depth
distribution of a quasar spectrum. Based on the flux distribution
(Miralda-Escud\'e et al 1996), a simple yet seemingly cosmological model
-differentiating statistic, -- the cumulative probability of
a quasar spectrum with \lya optical depth greater than a high value
-- is emphasized. It is shown that two different models -- the cold dark matter
model with a cosmological constant and the mixed hot and cold dark matter
model, both normalized to COBE and local galaxy cluster abundance -- yield
quite different values of : 0.13 of the former versus 0.058 of
the latter for at . Moreover, it is argued that
may be fairly robust to compute theoretically because it does
not seem to depend sensitively on small variations of simulations parameters
such as radiation field, cooling, feedback process, radiative transfer,
resolution and simulation volume within the plausible ranges of the concerned
quantities. Furthermore, it is illustrated that can be
obtained sufficiently accurately from currently available observed quasar
spectra for , when observational noise is properly taken
into account. We anticipate that analyses of observations of quasar \lya
absorption spectra over a range of redshift may be able to constrain the
redshift evolution of the amplitude of the density fluctuations on
small-to-intermediate scales, therefore providing an independent constraint on
, and .Comment: ApJ Letters, in press, substantial changes have been made from the
last versio
The Origin of C IV Absorption Systems at Redshifts z<1---Discovery of Extended C IV Envelopes Around Galaxies
(Abridged) We report the discovery of extended CIV gaseous envelopes around
galaxies of a wide range of luminosity and morphological type. First, we show
that CIV absorption systems are strongly clustered around galaxies on velocity
scales of v < 250 km/s and impact parameter scales of rho < 100 h^{-1} kpc but
not on larger velocity or impact parameter scales. Next, adopting measurements
of galaxy properties presented in previous papers, we examine how properties of
the CIV absorption systems depend on properties of the galaxies. On the basis
of 14 galaxy and absorber pairs and 36 galaxies that do not produce
corresponding CIV absorption lines to within sensitive upper limits, we find
that: (1) Galaxies of a range of morphological type and luminosity appear to
possess extended CIV gaseous envelopes of radius R ~ 100 h^{-1} kpc, with
abrupt boundaries between the CIV absorbing and non-absorbing regions. (2) The
extent of CIV-absorbing gas around galaxies scales with galaxy B-band
luminosity as R \propto L_B^{0.5 +/- 0.1} but does not depend strongly on
galaxy surface brightness, redshift, or morphological type. And (3) the
covering factor of CIV clouds within ~ 100 h^{-1} kpc of galaxies is nearly
unity, but there is a large scatter in the mean number of clouds encountered
along the line of sight. The most significant implication of the study is that
galaxies of a wide range of luminosity and morphological type are surrounded by
chemically enriched gas that extends for at least ~ 100 h^{-1} kpc. We consider
various scenarios that may have produced metals at large galactic distance and
conclude that accreting satellites are most likely to be responsible for
chemically enriched gas at large galactic distances to regular looking
galaxies.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, to appear in ApJ, July 20 200
Displacement Echoes: Classical Decay and Quantum Freeze
Motivated by neutron scattering experiments, we investigate the decay of the
fidelity with which a wave packet is reconstructed by a perfect time-reversal
operation performed after a phase space displacement. In the semiclassical
limit, we show that the decay rate is generically given by the Lyapunov
exponent of the classical dynamics. For small displacements, we additionally
show that, following a short-time Lyapunov decay, the decay freezes well above
the ergodic value because of quantum effects. Our analytical results are
corroborated by numerical simulations
On the Connection Between Metal Absorbers and Quasar Nebulae
We establish a simple model for the distribution of cold gas around L*
galaxies using a large set of observational constraints on the properties of
strong MgII absorber systems. Our analysis suggests that the halos of L*
galaxies are filled with cool gaseous clouds having sizes of order 1kpc and
densities of ~10^{-2} cm^{-3}. We then investigate the physical effects of
cloud irradiation by a quasar and study the resulting spectral signatures. We
show that quasar activity gives rise to (i) extended narrow-line emission on
~100kpc scales and (ii) an anisotropy in the properties of the absorbing gas
arising from the geometry of the quasar radiation field. Provided that quasars
reside in halos several times more massive than those of L* galaxies, our model
predictions appear to be in agreement with observations of narrow emission-line
nebulae around quasars and the recent detections of ~100kpc cold gaseous
envelopes around those objects, suggesting a common origin for these phenomena.
We discuss the implications of our results for understanding absorption
systems, probing quasar environments at high redshifts, and testing the quasar
unification scheme.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures (ApJ submitted
High-Resolution Keck Spectra of the Associated Absorption Lines in 3C 191
Associated absorption lines (AALs) are valuable probes of the gaseous
environments near quasars. Here we discuss high-resolution (6.7 km/s) spectra
of the AALs in the radio-loud quasar 3C 191 (redshift z=1.956). The measured
AALs have ionizations ranging from Mg I to N V, and multi-component profiles
that are blueshifted by ~400 to ~1400 km/s relative to the quasar's broad
emission lines. These data yield the following new results. 1) The density
based on Si II*/Si II lines is ~300 cm-3, implying a distance of ~28 kpc from
the quasar if the gas is photoionized. 2) The characteristic flow time is thus
\~3 x 10^7 yr. 3) Strong Mg I AALs identify neutral gas with very low
ionization parameter and high density. We estimate n_H > 5 x 10^4 cm-3 in this
region, compared to ~15 cm-3 where the N V lines form. 4) The total column
density is N_H < 4 x 10^18 cm-2 in the neutral gas and N_H ~ 2 x 10^20 cm-2 in
the moderately ionized regions. 5) The total mass in the AAL outflow is M ~ 2 x
10^9 Mo, assuming a global covering factor (as viewed from the quasar) of ~10%
>. 6) The absorbing gas only partially covers the background light source(s)
along our line(s) of sight, requiring absorption in small clouds or filaments
<0.01 pc across. The ratio N_H/n_H implies that the clouds have radial (line-
of-sight) thicknesses <0.2 pc. These properties might characterize a sub-class
of AALs that are physically related to quasars but form at large distances. We
propose a model for the absorber in which pockets of dense neutral gas are
surrounded by larger clouds of generally lower density and higher ionization.
This outflowing material might be leftover from a blowout associated with a
nuclear starburst, the onset of quasar activity or a past broad absorption line
(BAL) wind phase.Comment: 15 pages text plus 6 figures, in press with Ap
FastVentricle: Cardiac Segmentation with ENet
Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR) imaging is commonly used to assess cardiac
structure and function. One disadvantage of CMR is that post-processing of
exams is tedious. Without automation, precise assessment of cardiac function
via CMR typically requires an annotator to spend tens of minutes per case
manually contouring ventricular structures. Automatic contouring can lower the
required time per patient by generating contour suggestions that can be lightly
modified by the annotator. Fully convolutional networks (FCNs), a variant of
convolutional neural networks, have been used to rapidly advance the
state-of-the-art in automated segmentation, which makes FCNs a natural choice
for ventricular segmentation. However, FCNs are limited by their computational
cost, which increases the monetary cost and degrades the user experience of
production systems. To combat this shortcoming, we have developed the
FastVentricle architecture, an FCN architecture for ventricular segmentation
based on the recently developed ENet architecture. FastVentricle is 4x faster
and runs with 6x less memory than the previous state-of-the-art ventricular
segmentation architecture while still maintaining excellent clinical accuracy.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, Accepted to Functional Imaging and Modeling of
the Heart (FIMH) 201
The Ucsd/Keck Damped Lya Abundance Database: A Decade of High Resolution Spectroscopy
We publish the Keck/HIRES and Keck/ESI spectra that we have obtained during
the first 10 years of Keck observatory operations. Our full sample includes 42
HIRES spectra and 39 ESI spectra along 65 unique sightlines providing abundance
measurements on ~85 damped Lya systems. The normalized data can be downloaded
from the journal or from our supporting website:
http://www.ucolick.org/~xavier/DLA/. The database includes all of the
sightlines that have been included in our papers on the chemical abundances,
kinematics, and metallicities of the damped Lya systems. This data has also
been used to argue for variations in the fine-structure constant. We present
new chemical abundance measurements for 10 damped Lya systems and a summary
table of high-resolution metallicity measurements (including values from the
literature) for 153 damped Lya systems at z>1.6. We caution, however, that this
metallicity sample (and all previous ones) is biased to higher N(HI) values
than a random sample.Comment: 55 pages, 11 figures. Accepted to ApJS. See
http://www.ucolick.org/~xavier/DLA/ for the dat
Damped Lyman-alpha and Lyman Limit Absorbers in the Cold Dark Matter Model
We study the formation of damped \lya and Lyman limit absorbers in a
hierarchical clustering scenario using a gas dynamical simulation of an , cold dark matter universe. In the simulation, these high column density
systems are associated with forming galaxies. Damped \lya absorption, N_{HI}
\simgt 10^{20.2}\cm^{-2}, arises along lines of sight that pass near the
centers of relatively massive, dense protogalaxies. Lyman limit absorption,
10^{17}\cm^{-2} \simlt N_{HI} \simlt 10^{20.2}\cm^{-2}, develops on lines of
sight that pass through the outer parts of such objects or near the centers of
smaller protogalaxies. The number of Lyman limit systems is less than observed,
while the number of damped \lya systems is quite close to the observed
abundance. Damped absorbers are typically kpc in radius, but the
population has a large total cross section because the systems are much more
numerous than present day galaxies. Our results demonstrate that high
column density systems like those observed arise naturally in a hierarchical
theory of galaxy formation and that it is now possible to study these absorbers
directly from numerical simulations.Comment: compressed postscript, 12 pages including 2 embedded figures. A
version that also includes embedded Figure 1, a 6 Mbyte color postscript
image (which prints reasonable grey scale on a b/w printer) is available from
ftp://bessel.mps.ohio-state.edu/pub/dhw/Preprints Submitted to ApJ Letter
Strongly Variable z=1.48 FeII and MgII Absorption in the Spectra of z=4.05 GRB 060206
We report on the discovery of strongly variable FeII and MgII absorption
lines seen at z=1.48 in the spectra of the z=4.05 GRB 060206 obtained between
4.13 to 7.63 hours (observer frame) after the burst. In particular, the FeII
line equivalent width (EW) decayed rapidly from 1.72+-0.25 AA to 0.28+-0.21 AA,
only to increase to 0.96+-0.21 AA in a later date spectrum. The MgII doublet
shows even more complicated evolution: the weaker line of the doublet drops
from 2.05+-0.25 AA to 0.92+-0.32 AA, but then more than doubles to 2.47+-0.41
AA in later data. The ratio of the EWs for the MgII doublet is also variable,
being closer to 1:1 (saturated regime) when the lines are stronger and becoming
closer to 2:1 (unsaturated regime) when the lines are weaker, consistent with
expectations based on atomic physics. We have investigated and rejected the
possibility of any instrumental or atmospheric effects causing the observed
strong variations. Our discovery of clearly variable intervening FeII and MgII
lines lends very strong support to their scenario, in which the characteristic
size of intervening patches of MgII ``clouds'' is comparable to the GRB beam
size, i.e, about 10^16 cm. We discuss various implications of this discovery,
including the nature of the MgII absorbers, the physics of GRBs, and
measurements of chemical abundances from GRB and quasar absorption lines.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; ApJ Letters, accepte
- âŠ