7,268 research outputs found
Evidence against anomalous compositions for giants in the Galactic Nuclear Star Cluster
Very strong Sc I lines have been found recently in cool M giants in the
Nuclear Star Cluster in the Galactic Center. Interpreting these as anomalously
high scandium abundances in the Galactic Center would imply a unique
enhancement signature and chemical evolution history for nuclear star clusters,
and a potential test for models of chemical enrichment in these objects. We
present high resolution K-band spectra (NIRSPEC/Keck II) of cool M giants
situated in the solar neighborhood and compare them with spectra of M giants in
the Nuclear Star Cluster. We clearly identify strong Sc I lines in our solar
neighborhood sample as well as in the Nuclear Star Cluster sample. The strong
Sc I lines in M giants are therefore not unique to stars in the Nuclear Star
Cluster and we argue that the strong lines are a property of the line formation
process that currently escapes accurate theoretical modeling. We further
conclude that for giant stars with effective temperatures below approximately
3800 K these Sc I lines should not be used for deriving the scandium abundances
in any astrophysical environment until we better understand how these lines are
formed. We also discuss the lines of vanadium, titanium, and yttrium identified
in the spectra, which demonstrate a similar striking increase in strength below
3500 K effective temperature.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Detailed Abundances for the Old Population near the Galactic Center: I. Metallicity distribution of the Nuclear Star Cluster
We report the first high spectral resolution study of 17 M giants
kinematically confirmed to lie within a few parsecs of the Galactic Center,
using R=24,000 spectroscopy from Keck/NIRSPEC and a new linelist for the
infrared K band. We consider their luminosities and kinematics, which classify
these stars as members of the older stellar population and the central cluster.
We find a median metallicity of =-0.16 and a large spread from
approximately -0.3 to +0.3 (quartiles). We find that the highest metallicities
are [Fe/H]<+0.6, with most of the stars being at or below the Solar iron
abundance. The abundances and the abundance distribution strongly resembles
that of the Galactic bulge rather than disk or halo; in our small sample we
find no statistical evidence for a dependence of velocity dispersion on
metallicity.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in A
An Integral Field Study of Abundance Gradients in Nearby LIRGs
We present for the first time metallicity maps generated using data from the
Wide Field Spectrograph (WiFeS) on the ANU 2.3m of 9 Luminous Infrared Galaxies
(LIRGs) and discuss the abundance gradients and distribution of metals in these
systems. We have carried out optical integral field spectroscopy (IFS) of
several several LIRGs in various merger phases to investigate the merger
process. In a major merger of two spiral galaxies with preexisting disk
abundance gradients, the changing distribution of metals can be used as a
tracer of gas flows in the merging system as low metallicity gas is transported
from the outskirts of each galaxy to their nuclei. We employ this fact to probe
merger properties by using the emission lines in our IFS data to calculate the
gas-phase metallicity in each system. We create abundance maps and subsequently
derive a metallicity gradient from each map. We compare our measured gradients
to merger stage as well as several possible tracers of merger progress and
observed nuclear abundances. We discuss our work in the context of previous
abundance gradient observations and compare our results to new galaxy merger
models which trace metallicity gradient. Our results agree with the observed
flattening of metallicity gradients as a merger progresses. We compare our
results with new theoretical predictions that include chemical enrichment. Our
data show remarkable agreement with these simulations.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 26 pages, 18 figure
Signatures of Bulge Triaxiality from Kinematics in Baade's Window/
We study a sample of 62 Baade's Window (1,-4) K giants that have published
proper motions, radial velocity and metallicity. We construct the velocity
ellipsoids for the metal rich stars and metal poor stars. We find a vertex
deviation characteristic of a non-axisymmetric system. The long axes of the
velocity ellipsoids of two samples point to two nearly perpendicular directions
(lv,bv)=(-65+-9,+14+-9) and (25+-14,-11+-14) respectively. The vertex
deviations of the velocity ellipsoids cannot be consistently explained by ANY
oblate model. We populate orbits in a realistic bar potential with a Gaussian
velocity distribution, allowing us to simulate and interpret observations. We
conclude that the data are consistent with a triaxial bulge pointing towards
(l,b) with l<0 and b=0 as suggested by earlier work. We also predict that low
latitude abs(b)<4 deg bulge fields should show the vertex deviation more
strongly and would therefore be the best locations for future proper motion
studies. The metal rich and metal poor stars appear to occupy the direct boxy
and retrograde loop orbits. The correlations between the metallicity and the
orbit families can develop if the Bulge forms dissipatively on a sufficiently
long time scale. However, it is difficult to reconcile the existence of such
correlations with a violent history for the potential of the inner Galaxy.Comment: appear in AJ.,24p,PostScript,Columbia&Princeton preprin
Changing demand for animal source foods and their effects on the provision of ecosystem services
Condition-based maintenance for major airport baggage systems
Purpose: The aim of this paper is to develop a contribution to knowledge that adds to theempirical evidence of predictive condition-based maintenance by demonstrating how theavailability and reliability of current assets can be improved without costly capital investment,resulting in overall system performance improvements.Methodology: The empirical, experimental approach, technical action research (TAR), wasdesigned to study a major Middle-Eastern airport baggage handling operation. A predictivecondition-based maintenance prototype station was installed to monitor the condition of ahighly complex system of static and moving assets.Findings. The research provides evidence that the performance frontier for airport baggagehandling systems can be improved using automated dynamic monitoring of the vibration anddigital image data on baggage trays as they pass a service station. The introduction of low-endinnovation, which combines advanced technology and low-cost hardware, reduced assetfailures in this complex, high speed operating environment.Originality/Value: The originality derives from the application of existing hardware with thecombination of Edge and Cloud computing software through architectural innovation resultingin adaptations to an existing baggage handling system within the context of a time-criticallogistics system.Keywords: IoT, Condition-based maintenance, Predictive maintenance, Edge computing, IoT,Technical Action Research, Theory of Performance Frontiers,Case Stud
The scatter about the "Universal" dwarf spheroidal mass profile: A kinematic study of the M31 satellites, And V and And VI
While the satellites of the Milky Way (MW) have been shown to be largely
consistent in terms of their mass contained within one half--light radius
(M_{half}) with a "Universal" mass profile, a number of M31 satellites are
found to be inconsistent with such relations, and seem kinematically colder in
their central regions than their MW cousins. In this work, we present new
kinematic and updated structural properties for two M31 dSphs, And V and And VI
using data from the Keck Low Resolution Imaging Spectrograph (LRIS) and the
DEep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS) instruments and the Subaru
Suprime-Cam imager. We measure systemic velocities of v_r=-393.1+/-4.2km/s and
-344.8+/-2.5km/s, and dispersions of sigma_v=11.5{+5.3}{-4.4}km/s and
sigma_v=9.4{+3.2}{-2.4}km/s for And V and And VI respectively, meaning these
two objects are consistent with the trends in sigma_v and r_{half} set by their
MW counterparts. We also investigate the nature of this scatter about the MW
dSph mass profiles for the "Classical" (i.e. M_V<-8) MW and M31 dSphs. When
comparing both the "classical" MW and M31 dSphs to the best--fit mass profiles
in the size--velocity dispersion plane, we find general scatter in both the
positive (i.e. hotter) and negative (i.e. colder) directions from these
profiles. However, barring one exception (CVnI) only the M31 dSphs are found to
scatter towards a colder regime, and, excepting the And I dSph, only MW objects
scatter to hotter dispersions. We also note that the scatter for the combined
population is greater than expected from measurement errors alone. We assess
this divide in the context of the differing disc-to-halo mass (i.e. stars and
baryons to total virial mass) ratios of the two hosts and argue that the
underlying mass profiles for dSphs differ from galaxy to galaxy, and are
modified by the baryonic component of the host.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures. Small modifications made for referee report.
Accepted for publication in MNRAS (29/06/2011
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