4,504 research outputs found
ALMA data suggest the presence of a spiral structure in the inner wind of CW Leo
(abbreviated) We aim to study the inner wind of the well-known AGB star CW
Leo. Different diagnostics probing different geometrical scales have pointed
toward a non-homogeneous mass-loss process: dust clumps are observed at
milli-arcsec scale, a bipolar structure is seen at arcsecond-scale and
multi-concentric shells are detected beyond 1". We present the first ALMA Cycle
0 band 9 data around 650 GHz. The full-resolution data have a spatial
resolution of 0".42x0".24, allowing us to study the morpho-kinematical
structure within ~6". Results: We have detected 25 molecular lines. The
emission of all but one line is spatially resolved. The dust and molecular
lines are centered around the continuum peak position. The dust emission has an
asymmetric distribution with a central peak flux density of ~2 Jy. The
molecular emission lines trace different regions in the wind acceleration
region and suggest that the wind velocity increases rapidly from about 5 R*
almost reaching the terminal velocity at ~11 R*. The channel maps for the
brighter lines show a complex structure; specifically for the 13CO J=6-5 line
different arcs are detected within the first few arcseconds. The curved
structure present in the PV map of the 13CO J=6-5 line can be explained by a
spiral structure in the inner wind, probably induced by a binary companion.
From modeling the ALMA data, we deduce that the potential orbital axis for the
binary system lies at a position angle of ~10-20 deg to the North-East and that
the spiral structure is seen almost edge-on. We infer an orbital period of 55
yr and a binary separation of 25 au (or ~8.2 R*). We tentatively estimate that
the companion is an unevolved low-mass main-sequence star. The ALMA data hence
provide us for the first time with the crucial kinematical link between the
dust clumps seen at milli-arcsecond scale and the almost concentric arcs seen
at arcsecond scale.Comment: 22 pages, 18 Figures, Astronomy & Astrophysic
Homogenization induced by chaotic mixing and diffusion in an oscillatory chemical reaction
A model for an imperfectly mixed batch reactor with the chlorine dioxide-iodine-malonic acid (CDIMA) reaction, with the mixing being modelled by chaotic advection, is considered. The reactor is assumed to be operating in oscillatory mode and the way in which an initial spatial perturbation becomes homogenized is examined. When the kinetics are such that the only stable homogeneous state is oscillatory then the perturbation is always entrained into these oscillations. The rate at which this occurs is relatively insensitive to the chemical effects, measured by the Damkohler number, and is comparable to the rate of homogenization of a passive contaminant. When both steady and oscillatory states are stable, spatially homogeneous states, two possibilities can occur. For the smaller Damkohler numbers, a localized perturbation at the steady state is homogenized within the background oscillations. For larger Damkohler numbers, regions of both oscillatory and steady behavior can co-exist for relatively long times before the system collapses to having the steady state everywhere. An interpretation of this behavior is provided by the one-dimensional Lagrangian filament model, which is analyzed in detail
Mapping warm molecular hydrogen with Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC)
Photometric maps, obtained with Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC), can
provide a valuable probe of warm molecular hydrogen within the interstellar
medium. IRAC maps of the supernova remnant IC443, extracted from the Spitzer
archive, are strikingly similar to spectral line maps of the H2 pure rotational
transitions that we obtained with the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) instrument on
Spitzer. IRS spectroscopy indicates that IRAC Bands 3 and 4 are indeed
dominated by the H2 v=0-0 S(5) and S(7) transitions, respectively. Modeling of
the H2 excitation suggests that Bands 1 and 2 are dominated by H2 v=1-0 O(5)
and v=0-0 S(9). Large maps of the H2 emission in IC433, obtained with IRAC,
show band ratios that are inconsistent with the presence of gas at a single
temperature. The relative strengths of IRAC Bands 2, 3, and 4 are consistent
with pure H2 emission from shocked material with a power-law distribution of
gas temperatures. CO vibrational emissions do not contribute significantly to
the observed Band 2 intensity. Assuming that the column density of H2 at
temperatures T to T+dT is proportional to T raised to the power -b for
temperatures up to 4000 K, we obtained a typical estimate of 4.5 for b. The
power-law index, b, shows variations over the range 3 to 6 within the set of
different sight-lines probed by the maps, with the majority of sight-lines
showing b in the range 4 to 5. The observed power-law index is consistent with
the predictions of simple models for paraboloidal bow shocks.Comment: 27 pages, including 11 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
ISO observations of far-infrared rotational emission lines of water vapor toward the supergiant star VY Canis Majoris
We report the detection of numerous far-infrared emission lines of water
vapor toward the supergiant star VY Canis Majoris. A 29.5 - 45 micron grating
scan of VY CMa, obtained using the Short Wavelength Spectrometer (SWS) of the
Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) at a spectral resolving power of approximately
2000, reveals at least 41 spectral features due to water vapor that together
radiate a total luminosity ~ 25 solar luminosities. In addition to pure
rotational transitions within the ground vibrational state, these features
include rotational transitions within the (010) excited vibrational state. The
spectrum also shows the doublet Pi 1/2 (J=5/2) <-- doublet Pi 3/2 (J=3/2) OH
feature near 34.6 micron in absorption. Additional SWS observations of VY CMa
were carried out in the instrument's Fabry-Perot mode for three water
transitions: the 7(25)-6(16) line at 29.8367 micron, the 4(41)-3(12) line
31.7721 micron, and the 4(32)-3(03) line at 40.6909 micron. The higher spectral
resolving power of approximately 30,000 thereby obtained permits the line
profiles to be resolved spectrally for the first time and reveals the "P Cygni"
profiles that are characteristic of emission from an outflowing envelope.Comment: 11 pages (inc. 2 figures), LaTeX, uses aaspp4.sty, accepted for
publication in ApJ Letter
SOFIA/EXES Observations of Water Absorption in the Protostar AFGL 2591 at High Spectral Resolution
We present high spectral resolution (~3 km/s) observations of the nu_2
ro-vibrational band of H2O in the 6.086--6.135 micron range toward the massive
protostar AFGL 2591 using the Echelon-Cross-Echelle Spectrograph (EXES) on the
Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). Ten absorption
features are detected in total, with seven caused by transitions in the nu_2
band of H2O, two by transitions in the first vibrationally excited nu_2 band of
H2O, and one by a transition in the nu_2 band of H2{18}O. Among the detected
transitions is the nu_2 1(1,1)--0(0,0) line which probes the lowest lying
rotational level of para-H2O. The stronger transitions appear to be optically
thick, but reach maximum absorption at a depth of about 25%, suggesting that
the background source is only partially covered by the absorbing gas, or that
the absorption arises within the 6 micron emitting photosphere. Assuming a
covering fraction of 25%, the H2O column density and rotational temperature
that best fit the observed absorption lines are N(H2O)=(1.3+-0.3)*10^{19}
cm^{-2} and T=640+-80 K.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJ
Detection of hydrogen fluoride absorption in diffuse molecular clouds with Herschel/HIFI: a ubiquitous tracer of molecular gas
We discuss the detection of absorption by interstellar hydrogen fluoride (HF)
along the sight line to the submillimeter continuum sources W49N and W51. We
have used Herschel's HIFI instrument in dual beam switch mode to observe the
1232.4762 GHz J = 1 - 0 HF transition in the upper sideband of the band 5a
receiver. We detected foreground absorption by HF toward both sources over a
wide range of velocities. Optically thin absorption components were detected on
both sight lines, allowing us to measure - as opposed to obtain a lower limit
on - the column density of HF for the first time. As in previous observations
of HF toward the source G10.6-0.4, the derived HF column density is typically
comparable to that of water vapor, even though the elemental abundance of
oxygen is greater than that of fluorine by four orders of magnitude. We used
the rather uncertain N(CH)-N(H2) relationship derived previously toward diffuse
molecular clouds to infer the molecular hydrogen column density in the clouds
exhibiting HF absorption. Within the uncertainties, we find that the abundance
of HF with respect to H2 is consistent with the theoretical prediction that HF
is the main reservoir of gas-phase fluorine for these clouds. Thus, hydrogen
fluoride has the potential to become an excellent tracer of molecular hydrogen,
and provides a sensitive probe of clouds of small H2 column density. Indeed,
the observations of hydrogen fluoride reported here reveal the presence of a
low column density diffuse molecular cloud along the W51 sight line, at an LSR
velocity of ~ 24kms-1, that had not been identified in molecular absorption
line studies prior to the launch of Herschel.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, A&A Letter special issue, accepted on 07/13/201
Evolution of Mass Outflow in Protostars
We have surveyed 84 Class 0, Class I, and flat-spectrum protostars in
mid-infrared [Si II], [Fe II] and [S I] line emission, and 11 of these in
far-infrared [O I] emission. We use the results to derive their mass outflow
rates. Thereby we observe a strong correlation of mass outflow rates with
bolometric luminosity, and with the inferred mass accretion rates of the
central objects, which continues through the Class 0 range the trend observed
in Class II young stellar objects. Along this trend from large to small
mass-flow rates, the different classes of young stellar objects lie in the
sequence Class 0 -- Class I/flat-spectrum -- Class II, indicating that the
trend is an evolutionary sequence in which mass outflow and accretion rates
decrease together with increasing age, while maintaining rough proportionality.
The survey results include two which are key tests of magnetocentrifugal
outflow-acceleration mechanisms: the distribution of the outflow/accretion
branching ratio b, and limits on the distribution of outflow speeds. Neither
rule out any of the three leading outflow-acceleration,
angular-momentum-ejection mechanisms, but they provide some evidence that disk
winds and accretion-powered stellar winds (APSWs) operate in many protostars.
An upper edge observed in the branching-ratio distribution is consistent with
the upper bound of b = 0.6 found in models of APSWs, and a large fraction
(0.31) of the sample have branching ratio sufficiently small that only disk
winds, launched on scales as large as several AU, have been demonstrated to
account for them.Comment: Version submitted to ApJ: 36 pages, 3 tables, 8 figure
Gas-phase CO2 emission toward Cepheus A East: the result of shock activity?
We report the first detection of gas-phase CO2 emission in the star-forming
region Cepheus A East, obtained by spectral line mapping of the v2 bending mode
at 14.98 micron with the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) instrument onboard the
Spitzer Space Telescope. The gaseous CO2 emission covers a region about 35'' x
25'' in extent, and results from radiative pumping by 15 micron continuum
photons emanating predominantly from the HW2 protostellar region. The gaseous
CO2 exhibits a temperature distribution ranging from 50 K to 200 K. A
correlation between the gas-phase CO2 distribution and that of H2 S(2), a
tracer of shock activity, indicates that the CO2 molecules originate in a cool
post-shock gas component associated with the outflow powered by HW2. The
presence of CO2 ice absorption features at 15.20 micron toward this region and
the lack of correlation between the IR continuum emission and the CO2 gas
emission distribution further suggest that the gaseous CO2 molecules are mainly
sputtered off grain mantles -- by the passage of slow non-dissociative shocks
with velocities of 15-30 km/s -- rather than sublimated through grain heating.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
Noise sensitivity of sub- and supercritically bifurcating patterns with group velocities close to the convective-absolute instability
The influence of small additive noise on structure formation near a forwards
and near an inverted bifurcation as described by a cubic and quintic Ginzburg
Landau amplitude equation, respectively, is studied numerically for group
velocities in the vicinity of the convective-absolute instability where the
deterministic front dynamics would empty the system.Comment: 16 pages, 7 Postscript figure
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
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