171 research outputs found
The Water Vapor Abundance in Orion KL Outflows
We present the detection and modeling of more than 70 far-IR pure rotational
lines of water vapor, including the 18O and 17O isotopologues, towards Orion
KL. Observations were performed with the Long Wavelength Spectrometer
Fabry-Perot (LWS/FP; R~6800-9700) on board the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO)
between ~43 and ~197 um. The water line profiles evolve from P-Cygni type
profiles (even for the H2O18 lines) to pure emission at wavelengths above ~100
um. We find that most of the water emission/absorption arises from an extended
flow of gas expanding at 25+-5 kms^-1. Non-local radiative transfer models show
that much of the water excitation and line profile formation is driven by the
dust continuum emission. The derived beam averaged water abundance is
2-3x10^-5. The inferred gas temperature Tk=80-100 K suggests that: (i) water
could have been formed in the "plateau" by gas phase neutral-neutral reactions
with activation barriers if the gas was previously heated (e.g. by shocks) to
>500 K and/or (ii) H2O formation in the outflow is dominated by in-situ
evaporation of grain water-ice mantles and/or (iii) H2O was formed in the
innermost and warmer regions (e.g. the hot core) and was swept up in ~1000 yr,
the dynamical timescale of the outflow.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ letters [2006 August 7] (5 pages 2,
figures, not edited
Far-IR Excited OH Lines from Orion KL Outflows
Accepted in ApJ letters, 2006 March 2As part of the first far-IR line survey towards Orion KL, we present the detection of seven new rotationally excited OH Lambda-doublets (at 48, 65, 71, 79, 98 and 115 um). Observations were performed with the Long Wavelength Spectrometer (LWS) Fabry-Perots on board the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). In total, more than 20 resolved OH rotational lines, with upper energy levels up to 620 K, have been detected at an angular and velocity resolutions of 80$'' and 33 km s^-1 respectively. OH line profiles show a complex behavior evolving from pure absorption, P-Cygni type to pure emission. We also present a large scale 6' declination raster in the OH ^2\Pi_3/2 J=5/2^+-3/2^- and ^2\Pi_3/2 J=7/2^-5/2^+ lines (at 119.441 and 84.597 um) revealing the decrease of excitation outside the core of the cloud. From the observed profiles, mean intrinsic line widths and velocity offsets between emission and absorption line peaks we conclude that most of the excited OH arises from Orion outflow(s), i.e. the ``plateau'' component. We determine an averaged OH abundance relative to H_2 of X(OH)=(0.5-1.0)x10^-6, a kinetic temperature of 100 K and a density of n(H_2)=5x10^5 cm^-3. Even with these conditions, the OH excitation is heavily coupled with the strong dust continuum emission from the inner hot core regions and from the expanding flow itself.Peer reviewe
A far-infrared molecular and atomic line survey of the Orion KL region
We have carried out a high spectral resolution line survey towards the Orion
Kleinmann-Low (KL) cluster from 44-188 um. The observations were taken with the
Long Wavelength Spectrometer (LWS) in Fabry-Perot mode, on board the Infrared
Space Observatory (ISO). A total of 152 lines are clearly detected and a
further 34 features are present as possible detections. The spectrum is
dominated by the molecular species H2O, OH and CO, along with [OI] and [CII]
lines from PDR or shocked gas and [OIII], [NIII] lines from the foreground M42
HII region. Several isotopic species, as well as NH3, are also detected. HDO
and H3O+ are tentatively detected for the first time in the far-infrared range
towards Orion-KL. A basic analysis of the line observations is carried out, by
comparing with previous measurements and published models and deriving
rotational temperatures and column densities in the case of the molecular
species. The complexity of the region requires more sophisticated models for
the interpretation of all the line observations.Comment: Accepted by MNRAS 2006 April 2
Physical parameters for Orion KL from modelling its ISO high resolution far-IR CO line spectrum
As part of the first high resolution far-IR spectral survey of the Orion KL
region (Lerate et al. 2006), we observed 20 CO emission lines with Jup=16 to
Jup=39 (upper levels from approx 752 K to 4294 K above the ground state).
Observations were taken using the Long Wavelength Spectrometer (LWS) on board
the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO), in its high resolution Fabry-Perot (FP)
mode (approx 33 km s). We present here an analysis of the final
calibrated CO data, performed with a more sophisticated modelling technique
than hitherto, including a detailed analysis of the chemistry, and discuss
similarities and differences with previous results. The inclusion of chemical
modelling implies that atomic and molecular abundances are time-predicted by
the chemistry. This provides one of the main differences with previous studies
in which chemical abundances needed to be assumed as initial condition. The
chemistry of the region is studied by simulating the conditions of the
different known components of the KL region: chemical models for a hot core, a
plateau and a ridge are coupled with an accelerated Lambda-iteration
(ALI)radiative transfer model to predict line fluxes and profiles. We conclude
that the CO transitions with 18<Jup<25 mainly arise from a hot core of diameter
0.02 pc and a density of 10 cm rather from the plateau as previous
studies had indicated.Comment: The paper contains 10 pages, 7 figures and 4 tables. MNRAS accepte
Mid- and far-infrared fine-structure line sensitivities to hypothetical variability of the fine-structure constant
Sensitivity coefficients to temporal variation of the fine-structure constant
alpha for transitions between the fine-structure (FS) sub-levels of the ground
states of C I, Si I, S I, Ti I, Fe I, N II, Fe II, O III, S III, Ar III, Fe
III, Mg V, Ca V, Na VI, Fe VI, Mg VII, Si VII, Ca VII, Fe VII, and Si IX are
calculated. These transitions lie in the mid- and far-infrared regions and can
be observed in spectra of high-redshift quasars and infrared bright galaxies
with active galactic nuclei. Using FS transitions to study alpha-variation over
cosmological timescale allows to improve the limit on
by several times as compared to contemporaneous optical observations
(), and to suppress considerably systematic
errors of the radial velocity measurements caused by the Doppler noise.
Moreover, the far infrared lines can be observed at redshifts z > 10, far
beyond the range accessible to optical observations (z < 4). We have derived a
simple analytical expression which relates the FS intervals and the sensitivity
of the FS transitions to the change of alpha.Comment: RevTeX4, 7 pages, submitted to PRA; v2: results for light ions (Z<10)
have change
Dust, Ice and Gas in Time (DIGIT) Herschel program first results: A full PACS-SED scan of the gas line emission in protostar DK Cha
DK Cha is an intermediate-mass star in transition from an embedded
configuration to a star plus disk stage. We aim to study the composition and
energetics of the circumstellar material during this pivotal stage. Using the
Range Scan mode of PACS on the Herschel Space Observatory, we obtained a
spectrum of DK Cha from 55 to 210 micron as part of the DIGIT Key Program.
Almost 50 molecular and atomic lines were detected, many more than the 7 lines
detected in ISO-LWS. Nearly the entire ladder of CO from J=14-13 to 38-37
(E_u/k = 4080 K), water from levels as excited as E_u/k = 843 K, and OH lines
up to E_u/k = 290 K were detected. The continuum emission in our PACS SED scan
matches the flux expected from a model consisting of a star, a surrounding disk
of 0.03 Solar mass, and an envelope of a similar mass, supporting the
suggestion that the object is emerging from its main accretion stage.
Molecular, atomic, and ionic emission lines in the far-infrared reveal the
outflow's influence on the envelope. The inferred hot gas can be photon-heated,
but some emission could be due to C-shocks in the walls of the outflow cavity.Comment: 4 Page letter, To appear in A&A special issue on Hersche
Gaia Early Data Release 3: Parallax bias versus magnitude, colour, and position
Gaia Early Data Release 3 (Gaia EDR3) gives trigonometric parallaxes for
nearly 1.5 billion sources. Inspection of the EDR3 data for sources identified
as quasars reveals that their parallaxes are biased, that is systematically
offset from the expected distribution around zero, by a few tens of
microarcsec. We attempt to map the main dependencies of the parallax bias in
EDR3. In principle this could provide a recipe for correcting the EDR3
parallaxes. For faint sources the quasars provide the most direct way to
estimate parallax bias. In order to extend this to brighter sources and a
broader range of colours, we use differential methods based on physical pairs
(binaries) and sources in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The functional forms of
the dependencies are explored by mapping the systematic differences between
EDR3 and DR2 parallaxes. The parallax bias is found to depend in a non-trivial
way on (at least) the magnitude, colour, and ecliptic latitude of the source.
Different dependencies apply to the five- and six-parameter solutions in EDR3.
While it is not possible to derive a definitive recipe for the parallax
correction, we give tentative expressions to be used at the researcher's
discretion and point out some possible paths towards future improvements.Comment: 32 pages, 30 figures. Submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics. Revised
version where typos in (A.3) have been corrected. For associated code, see
https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/edr3-code (code was not affected by the
typos
Herschel observations of extra-ordinary sources: Detection of Hydrogen Fluoride in absorption towards Orion~KL
We report a detection of the fundamental rotational transition of hydrogen
fluoride in absorption towards Orion KL using Herschel/HIFI. After the removal
of contaminating features associated with common molecules ("weeds"), the HF
spectrum shows a P-Cygni profile, with weak redshifted emission and strong
blue-shifted absorption, associated with the low-velocity molecular outflow. We
derive an estimate of 2.9 x 10^13 cm^-2 for the HF column density responsible
for the broad absorption component. Using our best estimate of the H2 column
density within the low-velocity molecular outflow, we obtain a lower limit of
~1.6 x 10^-10 for the HF abundance relative to hydrogen nuclei, corresponding
to 0.6% of the solar abundance of fluorine. This value is close to that
inferred from previous ISO observations of HF J=2--1 absorption towards Sgr B2,
but is in sharp contrast to the lower limit of 6 x 10^-9 derived by Neufeld et
al. (2010) for cold, foreground clouds on the line of sight towards G10.6-0.4.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, paper to be published in the Herschel special
issue of A&A letter
Herschel observations of EXtra-Ordinary Sources: The Terahertz spectrum of Orion KL seen at high spectral resolution
We present the first high spectral resolution observations of Orion KL in the
frequency ranges 1573.4 - 1702.8 GHz (band 6b) and 1788.4 - 1906.8 GHz (band
7b) obtained using the HIFI instrument on board the Herschel Space Observatory.
We characterize the main emission lines found in the spectrum, which primarily
arise from a range of components associated with Orion KL including the hot
core, but also see widespread emission from components associated with
molecular outflows traced by H2O, SO2, and OH. We find that the density of
observed emission lines is significantly diminished in these bands compared to
lower frequency Herschel/HIFI bands.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Herschel HIFI special issue of
Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters, 5 pages, 3 figure
<i>Gaia</i> Data Release 1. Summary of the astrometric, photometric, and survey properties
Context. At about 1000 days after the launch of Gaia we present the first Gaia data release, Gaia DR1, consisting of astrometry and photometry for over 1 billion sources brighter than magnitude 20.7.
Aims. A summary of Gaia DR1 is presented along with illustrations of the scientific quality of the data, followed by a discussion of the limitations due to the preliminary nature of this release.
Methods. The raw data collected by Gaia during the first 14 months of the mission have been processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) and turned into an astrometric and photometric catalogue.
Results. Gaia DR1 consists of three components: a primary astrometric data set which contains the positions, parallaxes, and mean proper motions for about 2 million of the brightest stars in common with the HIPPARCOS and Tycho-2 catalogues – a realisation of the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) – and a secondary astrometric data set containing the positions for an additional 1.1 billion sources. The second component is the photometric data set, consisting of mean G-band magnitudes for all sources. The G-band light curves and the characteristics of ∼3000 Cepheid and RR-Lyrae stars, observed at high cadence around the south ecliptic pole, form the third component. For the primary astrometric data set the typical uncertainty is about 0.3 mas for the positions and parallaxes, and about 1 mas yr−1 for the proper motions. A systematic component of ∼0.3 mas should be added to the parallax uncertainties. For the subset of ∼94 000 HIPPARCOS stars in the primary data set, the proper motions are much more precise at about 0.06 mas yr−1. For the secondary astrometric data set, the typical uncertainty of the positions is ∼10 mas. The median uncertainties on the mean G-band magnitudes range from the mmag level to ∼0.03 mag over the magnitude range 5 to 20.7.
Conclusions. Gaia DR1 is an important milestone ahead of the next Gaia data release, which will feature five-parameter astrometry for all sources. Extensive validation shows that Gaia DR1 represents a major advance in the mapping of the heavens and the availability of basic stellar data that underpin observational astrophysics. Nevertheless, the very preliminary nature of this first Gaia data release does lead to a number of important limitations to the data quality which should be carefully considered before drawing conclusions from the data
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