7,110 research outputs found
Chandra LETGS spectroscopy of the Quasar MR2251-178 and its warm absorber
We present an analysis of our Chandra Low Energy Transmission Grating
Spectrometer (LETGS) observation of the quasar MR2251-178. The warm absorber of
MR2251-178 is well described by a hydrogen column density, N_H~2x10^21 cm^-2,
and an ionization parameter log(xi)~0.6. We find in the spectrum weak evidence
for narrow absorption lines from Carbon and Nitrogen which indicate that the
ionized material is in outflow. We note changes (in time) of the absorption
structure in the band (0.6-1) keV (around the UTAs plus the OVII and OVIII
K-edges) at different periods of the observation. We measure a (0.1-2) keV flux
of 2.58x10^-11 ergs cm^-2 s^-1. This flux implies that the nuclear source of
MR2251-178 is in a relatively low state. No significant variability is seen in
the light curve. We do not find evidence for an extra cold material in the line
of sight, and set an upper limit of N_H~1.2x10^20 cm^-2. The X-ray spectrum
does not appear to show evidence for dusty material, though an upper limit in
the neutral carbon and oxygen column densities can only be set to N_CI~2x10^19
cm^-2 and N_OI~9x10^19 cm^-2, respectively.Comment: 42 pages, 12 figures, Accepted in Apj. Typo in abstract (ver2): "We
do not find evidence for an extra...
SU(N) Coherent States
We generalize Schwinger boson representation of SU(2) algebra to SU(N) and
define coherent states of SU(N) using bosonic harmonic
oscillator creation and annihilation operators. We give an explicit
construction of all (N-1) Casimirs of SU(N) in terms of these creation and
annihilation operators. The SU(N) coherent states belonging to any irreducible
representations of SU(N) are labelled by the eigenvalues of the Casimir
operators and are characterized by (N-1) complex orthonormal vectors describing
the SU(N) manifold. The coherent states provide a resolution of identity,
satisfy the continuity property, and possess a variety of group theoretic
properties.Comment: 25 pages, LaTex, no figure
A Survey of Metal Lines at High-redshift (I) : SDSS Absorption Line Studies - The Methodology and First Search Results for OVI
We report the results of a systematic search for signatures of metal lines in
quasar spectra of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 3(DR3),
focusing on finding intervening absorbers via detection of their OVI doublet.
Here we present the search algorithm, and criteria for distinguishing
candidates from spurious Lyman {} forest lines. In addition, we compare
our findings with simulations of the Lyman {} forest in order to
estimate the detectability of OVI doublets over various redshift intervals. We
have obtained a sample of 1756 OVI doublet candidates with rest-frame
equivalent width > 0.05 \AA{} in 855 AGN spectra (out of 3702 objects with
redshifts in the accessible range for OVI detection). This sample is further
subdivided into 3 groups according to the likelihood of being real and the
potential for follow-up observation of the candidate. The group with the
cleanest and most secure candidates is comprised of 145 candidates. 69 of these
reside at a velocity separation > 5000 km/s from the QSO, and can therefore be
classified tentatively as intervening absorbers. Most of these absorbers have
not been picked up by earlier, automated QSO absorption line detection
algorithms. This sample increases the number of known OVI absorbers at
redshifts beyond z$_{abs} > 2.7 substantially.Comment: 41 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, accepted by AJ. This is a
substantially altered version, including an appendix with details on the
validity of the search algorithm on one pixel rather than binning. Also note
that M. Pieri was added as autho
Probing the anisotropy of the Milky Way gaseous halo: Sight-lines toward Mrk 421 and PKS2155-304
(Abridged) We recently found that the halo of the Milky Way contains a large
reservoir of warm-hot gas that contains a large fraction of the missing baryons
from the Galaxy. The average physical properties of this circumgalactic medium
(CGM) are determined by combining average absorption and emission measurements
along several extragalactic sightlines. However, there is a wide distribution
of both, the halo emission measure and the \ovii column density, suggesting
that the Galactic warm-hot gaseous halo is anisotropic. We present {\it Suzaku}
observations of fields close to two sightlines along which we have precise
\ovii absorption measurements with \chandran. The column densities along these
two sightlines are similar within errors, but we find that the emission
measures are different. Therefore the densities and pathlengths in the two
directions must be different, providing a suggestive evidence that the warm-hot
gas in the CGM of the Milky Way is not distributed uniformly. However, the
formal errors on derived parameters are too large to make such a claim. The
average density and pathlength of the two sightlines are similar to the global
averages, so the halo mass is still huge, over 10 billion solar masses. With
more such studies, we will be able to better characterize the CGM anisotropy
and measure its mass more accurately. We also show that the Galactic disk makes
insignificant contribution to the observed \ovii absorption; a similar
conclusion was also reached independently about the emission measure. We
further argue that any density inhomogeneity in the warm-hot gas, be it from
clumping, from the disk, or from a non-constant density gradient, would
strengthen our result in that the Galactic halo path-length and the mass would
become larger than what we estimate here. As such, our results are conservative
and robust.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Ap
A huge reservoir of ionized gas around the Milky Way: Accounting for the Missing Mass?
Most of the baryons from galaxies have been "missing" and several studies
have attempted to map the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxies in their
quest. Recent studies with the Hubble Space Telescope have shown that many
galaxies contain a large reservoir of ionized gas with temperatures of about
10^5 K. Here we report on X-ray observations made with the Chandra X-ray
Observatory probing an even hotter phase of the CGM of our Milky Way at about
10^6 K. We show that this phase of the CGM is massive, extending over a large
region around the Milky Way, with a radius of over 100 kpc. The mass content of
this phase is over ten billion solar masses, many times more than that in
cooler gas phases and comparable to the total baryonic mass in the disk of the
Galaxy. The missing mass of the Galaxy appears to be in this warm-hot gas
phase.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures; http://stacks.iop.org/2041-8205/756/L
Space Telescope and Optical Reverberation Mapping Project. VII. Understanding the Ultraviolet Anomaly in NGC 5548 with X-Ray Spectroscopy
During the Space Telescope and Optical Reverberation Mapping Project observations of NGC 5548, the continuum and emission-line variability became decorrelated during the second half of the six-month-long observing campaign. Here we present Swift and Chandra X-ray spectra of NGC 5548 obtained as part of the campaign. The Swift spectra show that excess flux (relative to a power-law continuum) in the soft X-ray band appears before the start of the anomalous emission-line behavior, peaks during the period of the anomaly, and then declines. This is a model-independent result suggesting that the soft excess is related to the anomaly. We divide the Swift data into on- and off-anomaly spectra to characterize the soft excess via spectral fitting. The cause of the spectral differences is likely due to a change in the intrinsic spectrum rather than to variable obscuration or partial covering. The Chandra spectra have lower signal-to-noise ratios, but are consistent with the Swift data. Our preferred model of the soft excess is emission from an optically thick, warm Comptonizing corona, the effective optical depth of which increases during the anomaly. This model simultaneously explains all three observations: the UV emission-line flux decrease, the soft-excess increase, and the emission-line anomaly
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