The circumstellar environment of low-mass protostars

We present a complete 1.3 mm continuum mapping survey of the embedded young stellar objects (YSOs) in the Taurus molecular cloud. We have also imaged several isolated Bok globules, as well as protostellar objects in the Perseus cluster. Our maps, taken with the IRAM 30 m telescope and the MPIfR bolometer arrays, are sensitive to the column density structure of the sources on spatial scales ranging from 1 500-5 000 AU to > 15 000-50 000 AU. For the protostellar envelopes mapped in Taurus, the results are roughly consistent with the predictions of the self-similar inside-out collapse model of Shu and collaborators. The envelopes observed in Bok globules are also qualitatively consistent with these predictions, providing the effects of magnetic pressure are included in the model. By contrast, the envelopes of Class 0 protostars in Perseus have finite radii ≾ 10 000 AU and are a factor of 3 to 12 denser than is predicted by the standard model. In cluster-forming regions, individual protostellar collapse thus appears to be induced in compact condensations resembling more finite-sized Bonnor-Ebert condensations than singular isothermal spheres. Accordingly, the beginning of protostellar evolution is suggested to be more violent, with larger accretion rates, in protoclusters compared to regions of distributed star formation like Taurus. Follow-up line observations of the envelopes' velocity fields are required to confirm this suggestion. We also find that roughly half of the Class I infrared sources of Taurus are either at the very end of the main accretion phase or already in the pre-main sequence phase. These sources are surrounded by only remnant, finite-sized envelopes (Menv4200 AU ≾ 0.01 M⊙ and Rout ≾ 1 500 AU). Lastly, our 1.3 mm continuum images reveal the presence of new candidate pre-stellar condensations and/or Class 0 protostars in the close environment of 8 Taurus Class I YSOs, 2 Bok globules, and 3 Perseus protostars

A multi-scale, multi-wavelength source extraction method: getsources

We present a multi-scale, multi-wavelength source extraction algorithm called getsources. Although it has been designed primarily for use in the far-infrared surveys of Galactic star-forming regions with Herschel, the method can be applied to many other astronomical images. Instead of the traditional approach of extracting sources in the observed images, the new method analyzes fine spatial decompositions of original images across a wide range of scales and across all wavebands. It cleans those single-scale images of noise and background, and constructs wavelength-independent single-scale detection images that preserve information in both spatial and wavelength dimensions. Sources are detected in the combined detection images by following the evolution of their segmentation masks across all spatial scales. Measurements of the source properties are done in the original background-subtracted images at each wavelength; the background is estimated by interpolation under the source footprints and overlapping sources are deblended in an iterative procedure. In addition to the main catalog of sources, various catalogs and images are produced that aid scientific exploitation of the extraction results. We illustrate the performance of getsources on Herschel images by extracting sources in sub-fields of the Aquila and Rosette star-forming regions. The source extraction code and validation images with a reference extraction catalog are freely available.Comment: 31 pages, 27 figures, to be published in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Pierre Brulé, La Grèce d’à côté. Réel et imaginaire en miroir en Grèce antique

Cet historien de l’Antiquité (qu’on ne présente pas aux familiers de la religion grecque) rassemble ici une vingtaine d’études dont la plupart ont déjà été publiées entre 1992 et 2006, deux d’entre elles étant encore à paraître, une étant inédite, et qui sont réparties entre les sept parties de l’ouvrage correspondant à autant de thématiques distinctes; les intitulés de chacun des articles sont présentés en détail plus loin (p. 1). Une solide préface met en perspective les études réunies et l..