770 research outputs found
HST/NICMOS Observations of Fast Infrared Flickering in the Microquasar GRS 1915+105
We report infrared observations of the microquasar GRS 1915+105 using the
NICMOS instrument of the Hubble Space Telescope during 9 visits in April-June
2003. During epochs of high X-ray/radio activity near the beginning and end of
this period, we find that the \um infrared flux is generally low ( mJy) and relatively steady. However, during the X-ray/radio ``plateau''
state between these epochs, we find that the infrared flux is significantly
higher ( mJy), and strongly variable. In particular, we find events
with amplitudes % occurring on timescales of s
(e-folding timescales of s). These flickering timescales are several
times faster than any previously-observed infrared variability in GRS 1915+105
and the IR variations exceed corresponding X-ray variations at the same () timescale. These results suggest an entirely new type of infrared
variability from this object. Based on the properties of this flickering, we
conclude that it arises in the plateau-state jet outflow itself, at a distance
AU from the accretion disk. We discuss the implications of this work and
the potential of further flickering observations for understanding jet
formation around black holes.Comment: 19 pages, incl. 4 figures; accepted for publication in Ap
Fourteen New Companions from the Keck & Lick Radial Velocity Survey Including Five Brown Dwarf Candidates
We present radial velocities for 14 stars on the California & Carnegie Planet
Search target list that reveal new companions. One star, HD 167665, was fit
with a definitive Keplerian orbit leading to a minimum mass for the companion
of 50.3 Mjup at a separation from its host of ~5.5 AU. Incomplete or limited
phase coverage for the remaining 13 stars prevents us from assigning to them
unique orbital parameters. Instead, we fit their radial velocities with
Keplerian orbits across a grid of fixed values for Msini and period, P, and use
the resulting reduced chi-square surface to place constraints on Msini, P, and
semimajor axis, a. This technique allowed us to restrict Msini below the brown
dwarf -- stellar mass boundary for an additional 4 companions (HD 150554, HD
8765, HD 72780, HD 74014). If the combined 5 companions are confirmed as brown
dwarfs, these results would comprise the first major catch of such objects from
our survey beyond ~3 AU.Comment: 29 pages, 14 figures, accepted to Ap
The Dependence of Star Formation Rates on Stellar Mass and Environment at z~0.8
We examine the star formation rates (SFRs) of galaxies in a redshift slice
encompassing the z=0.834 cluster RX J0152.7-1357. We used a low-dispersion
prism in the Inamori Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph (IMACS) to identify
galaxies with z<23.3 AB mag in diverse environments around the cluster out to
projected distances of ~8 Mpc from the cluster center. We utilize a
mass-limited sample (M>2x10^{10} M_sun) of 330 galaxies that were imaged by
Spitzer MIPS at 24 micron to derive SFRs and study the dependence of specific
SFR (SSFR) on stellar mass and environment. We find that the SFR and SSFR show
a strong decrease with increasing local density, similar to the relation at
z~0. Our result contrasts with other work at z~1 that find the SFR-density
trend to reverse for luminosity-limited samples. These other results appear to
be driven by star-formation in lower mass systems (M~10^{10} M_sun). Our
results imply that the processes that shut down star-formation are present in
groups and other dense regions in the field. Our data also suggest that the
lower SFRs of galaxies in higher density environments may reflect a change in
the ratio of star-forming to non-star-forming galaxies, rather than a change in
SFRs. As a consequence, the SFRs of star-forming galaxies, in environments
ranging from small groups to clusters, appear to be similar and largely
unaffected by the local processes that truncate star-formation at z~0.8.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
Quiescent Galaxies in the 3D-HST Survey: Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Large Number of Galaxies with Relatively Old Stellar Populations at z~2
Quiescent galaxies at z~2 have been identified in large numbers based on
rest-frame colors, but only a small number of these galaxies have been
spectroscopically confirmed to show that their rest-frame optical spectra show
either strong Balmer or metal absorption lines. Here, we median stack the
rest-frame optical spectra for 171 photometrically-quiescent galaxies at 1.4 <
z < 2.2 from the 3D-HST grism survey. In addition to Hbeta (4861A), we
unambiguously identify metal absorption lines in the stacked spectrum,
including the G-band (4304A), Mg I (5175A), and Na I (5894A). This finding
demonstrates that galaxies with relatively old stellar populations already
existed when the universe was ~3 Gyr old, and that rest-frame color selection
techniques can efficiently select them. We find an average age of 1.3^0.1_0.3
Gyr when fitting a simple stellar population to the entire stack. We confirm
our previous result from medium-band photometry that the stellar age varies
with the colors of quiescent galaxies: the reddest 80% of galaxies are
dominated by metal lines and have a relatively old mean age of 1.6^0.5_0.4 Gyr,
whereas the bluest (and brightest) galaxies have strong Balmer lines and a
spectroscopic age of 0.9^0.2_0.1 Gyr. Although the spectrum is dominated by an
evolved stellar population, we also find [OIII] and Hbeta emission.
Interestingly, this emission is more centrally concentrated than the continuum
with L_[OIII] = 1.7 +/- 0.3 x 10^40 erg s^-1, indicating residual central star
formation or nuclear activity.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journal Letter
Exploring the chemical link between local ellipticals and their high-redshift progenitors
We present Keck/MOSFIRE K-band spectroscopy of the first mass-selected sample
of galaxies at . Targets are selected from the 3D-HST Treasury
survey. The six detected galaxies have a mean [NII]6584/H
ratio of , with a small standard deviation of 0.05. This mean
value is similar to that of UV-selected galaxies of the same mass. The mean
gas-phase oxygen abundance inferred from the [NII]/H ratios depends on
the calibration method, and ranges from 12+log(O/H) for the
{Pettini} & {Pagel} (2004) calibration to 12+log(O/H) for the
{Maiolino} {et~al.} (2008) calibration. Measurements of the stellar oxygen
abundance in nearby quiescent galaxies with the same number density indicate
12+log(O/H), similar to the gas-phase abundances of the
galaxies if the {Maiolino} {et~al.} (2008) calibration is used. This
suggests that these high-redshift star forming galaxies may be progenitors of
today's massive early-type galaxies. The main uncertainties are the absolute
calibration of the gas-phase oxygen abundance and the incompleteness of the
sample: the galaxies with detected H tend to be larger and
have higher star formation rates than the galaxies without detected H,
and we may still be missing the most dust-obscured progenitors.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ
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