510 research outputs found
Probing BH mass and accretion through X-ray variability in the CDFS
Recent work on nearby AGNs has shown that X-ray variability is correlated
with the mass and accretion rate onto the central SMBH. Here we present the
application of the variability-luminosity relation to high redshift AGNs in the
CDFS, making use of XMM-Newton observations. We use Monte Carlo simulations in
order to properly account for bias and uncertainties introduced by the sparse
sampling and the very low statistics. Our preliminary results indicate that BH
masses span over the range from 10^5 to 10^9 solar mass while accretion rates
range from 10^-3 up to values greater than 1, in unit of Eddington accretion
rate.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures,in press in the X-ray 2009 Conference Proceedings
(Bologna, 7-11 September 2009
WATCAT: a tale of wide-angle tailed radio galaxies
We present a catalog of 47 wide-angle tailed radio galaxies (WATs), the
WATCAT; these galaxies were selected by combining observations from the
National Radio Astronomy Observatory/Very Large Array Sky Survey (NVSS), the
Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters (FIRST), and the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and mainly built including a radio morphological
classification. We included in the catalog only radio sources showing two-sided
jets with two clear "warmspots" (i.e., jet knots as bright as 20% of the
nucleus) lying on the opposite side of the radio core, and having classical
extended emission resembling a plume beyond them. The catalog is limited to
redshifts z 0.15, and lists only sources with radio emission extended
beyond 30 kpc from the host galaxy. We found that host galaxies of WATCAT
sources are all luminous (-20.5 Mr -23.7), red early-type
galaxies with black hole masses in the range M M. The spectroscopic classification indicates that they
are all low-excitation galaxies (LEGs). Comparing WAT multifrequency properties
with those of FRI and FRII radio galaxies at the same redshifts, we conclude
that WATs show multifrequency properties remarkably similar to FRI radio
galaxies, having radio power of typical FRIIs
Morphology of low-redshift compact galaxy clusters I. Shapes and radial profiles
The morphology of clusters of galaxies may be described with a set of
parameters which contain information about the formation and evolutionary
history of these systems. In this paper we present a preliminary study of the
morphological parameters of a sample of 28 compact Abell clusters extracted
from DPOSS data. The morphology of galaxy clusters is parameterized by their
apparent ellipticity, position angle of the major axis, centre coordinates,
core radius and beta-model power law index. Our procedure provides estimates of
these parameters by simultaneously fitting them all, overcoming some of the
difficulties induced by sparse data and low number statistics typical of this
kind of analysis. The cluster parameters were fitted in a 3 x 3 h^-2 sqMpc
region, measuring the background in a 2 <R< 2.5 h^-1Mpc annulus. We also
explore the correlations between shape and profile parameters and other cluster
properties. One third of this compact cluster sample has core radii smaller
than 50 h^-1 kpc, i.e. near the limit that our data allow us to resolve,
possibly consistent with cusped models. The remaining clusters span a broad
range of core radii up to 750 h^-1 kpc. More than 80 per cent of this sample
has ellipticity higher than 0.2. The alignment between the cluster and the
major axis of the dominant galaxy is confirmed, while no correlation is
observed with other bright cluster members. No significant correlation is found
between cluster richness and ellipticity. Instead, cluster richness is found to
correlate, albeit with large scatter, with the cluster core radius.[abridged]Comment: 23 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS. Full paper
including full resolution figures 2 and 9 at
http://www.eso.org/~vstrazzu/P/ME1030fv.pd
An automatic procedure to extract galaxy clusters from CRoNaRio catalogs
We present preliminary results of a simple peak finding algorithm applied to
catalogues of galaxies, extracted from the Second Palomar Sky Survey in the
framework of the CRoNaRio project. All previously known Abell and Zwicky
clusters in a test region of 5x5 sq. deg. are recovered and new candidate
clusters are also detected. This algorithm represents an alternative way of
searching for galaxy clusters with respect to that implemented and tested at
Caltech on the same type of data (Gal et al. 1998).Comment: in the proceeding of the XLIII SAIt national conference Mem. Soc.
Astr. It., in pres
Statistical image processing for the detection of dermoscopic criteria
An image based system implementing a well-known diagnostic method is disclosed for the automatic detection of melanomas as support to clinicians. The software procedure is able to recognize automatically the skin lesion within the digital image, measure morphological and chromatic feature, carry out a suitable classification for the detection of structural dermoscopic criteria provided by the 7-Point Check List. Experimental results about the adoption of statistical techniques applied to the border detection, feature extraction and classification as well as the resulting diagnostic score are described with reference to a large image set. Copyright © 2011 by the International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO) All rights reserved
Spinal motoneurons of the human newborn are highly synchronized during leg movements
Motoneurons of neonatal rodents show synchronous activity that modulates the development of the neuromuscular system. However, the characteristics of the activity of human neonatal motoneurons are largely unknown. Using a noninvasive neural interface, we identified the discharge timings of individual spinal motoneurons in human newborns. We found highly synchronized activities of motoneurons of the tibialis anterior muscle, which were associated with fast leg movements. Although neonates' motor units exhibited discharge rates similar to those of adults, their synchronization was significantly greater than in adults. Moreover, neonatal motor units showed coherent oscillations in the delta band, which is directly translated into force generation. These results suggest that motoneuron synchronization in human neonates might be an important mechanism for controlling fast limb movements, such as those of primitive reflexes. In addition to help revealing mechanisms of development, the proposed neural interface might monitor children at risk of developing motor disorders
The Fornax Deep Survey with VST. I. The extended and diffuse stellar halo of NGC~1399 out to 192 kpc
[Abrigded] We have started a new deep, multi-imaging survey of the Fornax
cluster, dubbed Fornax Deep Survey (FDS), at the VLT Survey Telescope. In this
paper we present the deep photometry inside two square degrees around the
bright galaxy NGC1399 in the core of the cluster. We found a very extended and
diffuse envelope surrounding the luminous galaxy NGC1399: we map the surface
brightness out to 33 arcmin (~ 192 kpc) from the galaxy center and down to
about 31 mag/arcsec^2 in the g band. The deep photometry allows us to detect a
faint stellar bridge in the intracluster region between NGC1399 and NGC1387. By
analyzing the integrated colors of this feature, we argue that it could be due
to the ongoing interaction between the two galaxies, where the outer envelope
of NGC1387 on its east side is stripped away. By fitting the light profile, we
found that it exists a physical break radius in the total light distribution at
R=10 arcmin (~58 kpc) that sets the transition region between the bright
central galaxy and the outer exponential stellar halo. We discuss the main
implications of this work on the build-up of the stellar halo at the center of
the Fornax cluster. By comparing with the numerical simulations of the stellar
halo formation for the most massive BCGs, we find that the observed stellar
halo mass fraction is consistent with a halo formed through the multiple
accretion of progenitors with a stellar mass in the range 10^8 - 10^11 M_sun.
This might suggest that the halo of NGC1399 has also gone through a major
merging event. The absence of a significant number of luminous stellar streams
and tidal tails out to 192 kpc suggests that the epoch of this strong
interaction goes back to an early formation epoch. Therefore, differently from
the Virgo cluster, the extended stellar halo around NGC1399 is characterised by
a more diffuse and well-mixed component, including the ICL.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ; 25 pages and 14 figures. An higher
resolution file is available at the following link
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fvltppduysdn6pb/NGC1399_fin_2c.pdf?dl=
A Naive Bayes Source Classifier for X-ray Sources
The Chandra Carina Complex Project (CCCP) provides a sensitive X-ray survey
of a nearby starburst region over >1 square degree in extent. Thousands of
faint X-ray sources are found, many concentrated into rich young stellar
clusters. However, significant contamination from unrelated Galactic and
extragalactic sources is present in the X-ray catalog. We describe the use of a
naive Bayes classifier to assign membership probabilities to individual
sources, based on source location, X-ray properties, and visual/infrared
properties. For the particular membership decision rule adopted, 75% of CCCP
sources are classified as members, 11% are classified as contaminants, and 14%
remain unclassified. The resulting sample of stars likely to be Carina members
is used in several other studies, which appear in a Special Issue of the ApJS
devoted to the CCCP.Comment: Accepted for the ApJS Special Issue on the Chandra Carina Complex
Project (CCCP), scheduled for publication in May 2011. All 16 CCCP Special
Issue papers are available at
http://cochise.astro.psu.edu/Carina_public/special_issue.html through 2011 at
least. 19 pages, 7 figure
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