19 research outputs found
Using H-alpha Morphology and Surface Brightness Fluctuations to Age-Date Star Clusters in M83
We use new WFC3 observations of the nearby grand design spiral galaxy M83 to
develop two independent methods for estimating the ages of young star clusters.
The first method uses the physical extent and morphology of Halpha emission to
estimate the ages of clusters younger than tau ~10 Myr. It is based on the
simple premise that the gas in very young (tau < few Myr) clusters is largely
coincident with the cluster stars, is in a small, ring-like structure
surrounding the stars in slightly older clusters (e.g., tau ~5 Myr), and is in
a larger ring-like bubble for still older clusters (i.e., ~5-10 Myr). The
second method is based on an observed relation between pixel-to-pixel flux
variations within clusters and their ages. This method relies on the fact that
the brightest individual stars in a cluster are most prominent at ages around
10 Myr, and fall below the detection limit (i.e., M_V < -3.5) for ages older
than about 100 Myr. These two methods are the basis for a new morphological
classification system which can be used to estimate the ages of star clusters
based on their appearance. We compare previous age estimates of clusters in M83
determined from fitting UBVI Halpha measurements using predictions from stellar
evolutionary models with our new morphological categories and find good
agreement at the ~95% level. The scatter within categories is ~0.1 dex in log
tau for young clusters (10 Myr) clusters. A
by-product of this study is the identification of 22 "single-star" HII regions
in M83, with central stars having ages ~4 Myr.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables; published in March Ap
Modelling the Pan-Spectral Energy Distribution of Starburst Galaxies: III. Emission Line Diagnostics of Ensembles of Evolving HII Regions
We build, as far as theory will permit, self consistent model HII regions
around central clusters of aging stars. These produce strong emission line
diagnostics applicable to either individual HII regions in galaxies, or to the
integrated emission line spectra of disk or starburst galaxies. The models
assume that the expansion and internal pressure of individual HII regions is
driven by the net input of mechanical energy from the central cluster, be it
through winds or supernova events. This eliminates the ionization parameter as
a free variable, replacing it with a parameter which depends on the ratio of
the cluster mass to the pressure in the surrounding interstellar medium. These
models explain why HII regions with low abundances have high excitation, and
demonstrate that at least part of the warm ionized medium is the result of
overlapping faint, old, large, and low pressure HII regions. We present line
ratios (at both optical and IR wavelengths) which provide reliable abundance
diagnostics for both single HII regions or for integrated galaxy spectra, and
we find a number that can be used to estimate the mean age of the cluster stars
exciting individual HII regions.Comment: 22 pages. 18 figures. Accepted for publication in Astrophysical
journal Supplements. Electronic tabular material is available on request to
[email protected]
Chagas Disease in the New York City Metropolitan Area
Background
Chagas disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, once considered a disease confined to Mexico, Central America, and South America, is now an emerging global public health problem. An estimated 300 000 immigrants in the United States are chronically infected with T. cruzi. However, awareness of Chagas disease among the medical community in the United States is poor.
Methods
We review our experience managing 60 patients with Chagas disease in hospitals throughout the New York City metropolitan area and describe screening, clinical manifestations, EKG findings, imaging, and treatment.
Results
The most common country of origin of our patients was El Salvador (n = 24, 40%), and the most common detection method was by routine blood donor screening (n = 21, 35%). Nearly half of the patients were asymptomatic (n = 29, 48%). Twenty-seven patients were treated with either benznidazole or nifurtimox, of whom 7 did not complete therapy due to side effects or were lost to follow-up. Ten patients had advanced heart failure requiring device implantation or organ transplantation.
Conclusions
Based on our experience, we recommend that targeted screening be used to identify at-risk, asymptomatic patients before progression to clinical disease. Evaluation should include an electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, and chest x-ray, as well as gastrointestinal imaging if relevant symptoms are present. Patients should be treated if appropriate, but providers should be aware of adverse effects that may prevent patients from completing treatment
Spitzer Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud, Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy's Evolution (SAGE) I: Overview and Initial Results
We are performing a uniform and unbiased, ~7x7 degrees imaging survey of the
Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), using the IRAC and MIPS instruments on board the
Spitzer Space Telescope in order to survey the agents of a galaxy's evolution
(SAGE), the interstellar medium (ISM) and stars in the LMC. The detection of
diffuse ISM with column densities >1.2x10^21 H cm^-2 permits detailed studies
of dust processes in the ISM. SAGE's point source sensitivity enables a
complete census of newly formed stars with masses >3 solar masses that will
determine the current star formation rate in the LMC. SAGE's detection of
evolved stars with mass loss rates >1x10^-8 solar masses per year will quantify
the rate at which evolved stars inject mass into the ISM of the LMC. The
observing strategy includes two epochs in 2005, separated by three months, that
both mitigate instrumental artifacts and constrain source variability. The SAGE
data are non-proprietary. The data processing includes IRAC and MIPS pipelines
and a database for mining the point source catalogs, which will be released to
the community in support of Spitzer proposal cycles 4 and 5. We present initial
results on the epoch 1 data with a special focus on the N79 and N83 region. The
SAGE epoch 1 point source catalog has ~4 million sources. The point source
counts are highest for the IRAC 3.6 microns band and decrease dramatically
towards longer wavelengths consistent with the fact that stars dominate the
point source catalogs and that the dusty objects, e.g. young stellar objects
and dusty evolved stars that detected at the longer wavelengths, are rare in
comparison. We outline a strategy for identifying foreground MW stars, that may
comprise as much as 18% of the source list, and background galaxies, that may
comprise ~12% of the source list.Comment: Accepted by the Astronomical Journa
Spitzer survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud, surveying the agents of a galaxy's evolution (SAGE). IV. Dust properties in the interstellar medium
The goal of this paper is to present the results of a preliminary analysis of the extended infrared (IR) emission by dust in the interstellar medium (ISM) of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We combine Spitzer Surveying the Agents of Galaxy Evolution (SAGE) and Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) data and correlate the infrared emission with gas tracers of H I, CO, and Hα. We present a global analysis of the infrared emission as well as detailed modeling of the spectral energy distribution (SED) of a few selected regions. Extended emission by dust associated with the neutral, molecular, and diffuse ionized phases of the ISM is detected at all IR bands from 3.6 μm to 160 μm. The relative abundance of the various dust species appears quite similar to that in the Milky Way (MW) in all the regions we have modeled. We construct maps of the temperature of large dust grains. The temperature map shows variations in the range 12.1-34.7 K, with a systematic gradient from the inner to outer regions, tracing the general distribution of massive stars and individual H II regions as well as showing warmer dust in the stellar bar. This map is used to derive the far-infrared (FIR) optical depth of large dust grains. We find two main departures in the LMC with respect to expectations based on the MW: (1) excess mid-infrared (MIR) emission near 70 μm, referred to as the 70 μm excess, and (2) departures from linear correlation between the FIR optical depth and the gas column density, which we refer to as FIR excess emission. The 70 μm excess increases gradually from the MW to the LMC to the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), suggesting evolution with decreasing metallicity. The excess is associated with the neutral and diffuse ionized gas, with the strongest excess region located in a loop structure next to 30 Dor. We show that the 70 μm excess can be explained by a modification of the size distribution of very small grains with respect to that in the MW, and a corresponding mass increase of ≃13% of the total dust mass in selected regions. The most likely explanation is that the 70 μm excess is due to the production of large very small grains (VSG) through erosion of larger grains in the diffuse medium. This FIR excess could be due to intrinsic variations of the dust/gas ratio, which would then vary from 4.6 to 2.3 times lower than the MW values across the LMC, but X_(CO) values derived from the IR emission would then be about three times lower than those derived from the Virial analysis of the CO data. We also investigate the possibility that the FIR excess is associated with an additional gas component undetected in the available gas tracers. Assuming a constant dust abundance in all ISM phases, the additional gas component would have twice the known H I mass. We show that it is plausible that the FIR excess is due to cold atomic gas that is optically thick in the 21 cm line, while the contribution by a pure H_2 phase with no CO emission remains a possible explanation
Modelling the Pan-Spectral Energy Distribution of Starburst Galaxies: IV The Controlling Parameters of the Starburst SED
We combine the the stellar spectral synthesis code Starburst99, the nebular
modelling code MAPPINGSIII, and a 1-D dynamical evolution model of HII regions
around massive clusters of young stars to generate improved models of the
spectral energy distribution (SED) of starburst galaxies. We introduce a
compactness parameter, C, which characterizes the specific intensity of the
radiation field at ionization fronts in HII regions, and which controls the
shape of the far-IR dust re-emission, often referred to loosely as the dust
``temperature''. We also investigate the effect of metallicity on the overall
SED and in particular, on the strength of the PAH features. We provide
templates for the mean emission produced by the young compact HII regions, the
older (10 - 100 Myr) stars and for the wavelength-dependent attenuation
produced by a foreground screen of the dust used in our model. We demonstrate
that these components may be combined to produce a excellent fit to the
observed SEDs of star formation dominated galaxies which are often used as
templates (Arp 220 and NGC 6240). This fit extends from the Lyman Limit to
wavelengths of about one mm. The methods presented in both this paper and in
the previous papers of this series allow the extraction of the physical
parameters of the starburst region (star formation rates, star formation rate
history, mean cluster mass, metallicity, dust attenuation and pressure) from
the analysis of the pan-spectral SED.Comment: 35 pages, 21 figures, accepted for publication in ApJS full-res
available at http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~brent/publications/SEDIV.pd
Chandra X-Ray Imaging of the Interacting Starburst Galaxy System NGC 7714/5: Tidal ULXs, Emergent Wind, and Resolved HII Regions
We present Chandra X-ray images for the interacting galaxy pair NGC 7714/5.
In addition to the unresolved starburst nucleus, a variable point source with
L(X) ~ 10^40 erg/s was detected 1.5" (270 pc) northwest of the nucleus,
coincident with a blue, extremely optically-luminous (M(V) ~ -14.1) point
source on HST images. Eleven more candidate point-like ultraluminous X-ray
sources (ULXs) are seen, two >= 10^40 erg/s. Ten of these are associated with
interaction-induced features but only two with star formation. We found diffuse
emission with L(X) ~ 3 X 10^40 erg/s extending 11" (1.9 kpc) to the north of
the nucleus. Its spectrum can be fit with a 2-temperature Mekal function (0.6/8
keV) or a 0.6 keV Mekal function plus a power law. The hard component may be
due to high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) with contributions from inverse Compton
radiation, while the soft component is likely from a superwind. We also
detected extended X-ray emission from four extra-nuclear HII region complexes.
This emission may be due to HMXBs or to diffuse gas heated by winds from
supernovae, if the X-ray production efficiency L(X)/L(mech) is high (~5%). To
estimate L(X)/L(mech), we collected published data for well-studied HII regions
and superbubbles in nearby galaxies. For young HII regions (<3.5 Myrs), the
median L(X)/L(mech) ~ 0.02%, while for older regions, L(X)/L(mech) ~ 0.2-7%.
Thus gas heating by supernovae may be sufficient to account for the HII region
emission. In galaxies much more distant than NGC 7714, for example, the
Cartwheel galaxy, HII region complexes similar to those in NGC 7714 will be
unresolved by Chandra and will mimick ULXs.Comment: Accepted by the Astronomical Journal. Figures also available at
http://www.etsu.edu/physics/bsmith/research/n7714_chandra.htm
Modelling the Pan-Spectral Energy Distribution of Starburst Galaxies: I. The role of ISM pressure & the Molecular Cloud Dissipation Timescale
In this paper, we combine the stellar spectral synthesis code STARBURST 99,
the nebular modelling code MAPPINGS IIIq, a 1-D dynamical evolution model of
\HII regions around massive clusters of young stars and a simplified model of
synchrotron emissivity to produce purely theoretical self-consistent synthetic
spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for (solar metallicity) starbursts lasting
some years. These SEDs extend from the Lyman Limit to beyond 21 cm. We
find that two ISM parameters control the form of the SED; the pressure in the
diffuse phase of the ISM (or, equivalently, its density), and the molecular
cloud dissipation timescale. We present detailed SED fits to Arp 220 and NGC
6240, and we give the predicted colors for starburst galaxies derived from our
models for the IRAS and the Spitzer Space Observatory MIPS and IRAC
instruments. Our models reproduce the spread in observed colors of starburst
galaxies. Finally, we present absolute calibrations to convert observed fluxes
into star formation rates in the UV (GALEX), at optical wavelengths
(H), and in the IR (IRAS or the Spitzer Space Observatory). (Abstract
Truncated)Comment: 56 pages, 16 figures, accepted by The Apstrophysical Journal For
version with full, colour figures go to
http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~bgroves/starburst