286 research outputs found
Thermal stability of cold clouds in galaxy halos
We consider the thermal properties of cold, dense clouds of molecular
hydrogen and atomic helium. For cloud masses below 10^-1.7 Msun, the internal
pressure is sufficient to permit the existence of particles of solid or liquid
hydrogen at temperatures above the microwave background temperature. Optically
thin thermal continuum emission by these particles can balance cosmic-ray
heating of the cloud, leading to equilibria which are thermally stable even
though the heating rate is independent of cloud temperature. For the Galaxy,
the known heating rate in the disk sets a minimum mass of order 10^-6 Msun
necessary for survival. Clouds of this type may in principle comprise most of
the dark matter in the Galactic halo. However, we caution that the equilibria
do not exist at redshifts z > 1 when the temperature of the microwave
background was substantially larger than its current value; the formation and
survival of such clouds to the present epoch therefore remain open questions.Comment: 5 pp incl 2 figs, LaTeX, emulateapj.sty; ApJ Letters in press.
Significant revisions, results qualitatively unchange
CO map and steep Kennicutt-Schmidt relation in the extended UV disk of M63
Results from the UV satellite GALEX revealed large extensions of disks in
some nearby spiral galaxies, extending out to 3 to 4 times the isophotal
radius, r25. M63 is a remarkable example of a spiral galaxy with one of the
most extended UV disks, so it offers the opportunity to search for the
molecular gas and characterize the star formation in outer disk regions as
revealed by the UV emission. We obtained deep CO(1-0) and CO(2-1) observations
on the IRAM 30 m telescope along the major axis of the M63 disk from the center
out to the galactocentric radius rgal = 1.6 r25 and over a bright UV region at
rgal = 1.36 r25. CO(1-0) is detected all along the M63 major axis out to r25,
and CO(2-1) is confined to rgal = 0.68 r25, which may betray lower excitation
temperatures in the outer disk. CO(1-0) is also detected in the external bright
UV region of M63. The radial profiles of the CO emission and of the Halpha, 24
micron, NUV and FUV star formation tracers and HI taken from the literature
show a severe drop with the galactocentric radius, such that beyond r25 they
are all absent with the exception of a faint UV emission and HI. The CO
emission detection in the external UV region, where the UV flux is higher than
the UV flux observed beyond r25, highlights a tight correlation between the CO
and UV fluxes, namely the amount of molecular gas and the intensity of star
formation. This external UV region is dominated by the atomic gas, suggesting
that HI is more likely the precursor of H2 rather than the product of UV
photodissociation. A broken power law needs to be invoked to describe the
Kennicutt-Schmidt (K-S) relation of M63 from the center of the galaxy out to
rgal = 1.36 r25. While all along the major axis out to r25 the K-S relation is
almost linear, in the external UV region the SFR regime is highly nonlinear and
characterized by a steep K-S relation and very low star formation efficiency.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, A&A accepte
Search for Turbulent Gas through Interstellar Scintillation
Stars twinkle because their light propagates through the atmosphere. The same
phenomenon is expected when the light of remote stars crosses a Galactic - disk
or halo - refractive medium such as a molecular cloud.We present the promising
results of a test performed with the ESO-NTT and the perspectives.Comment: Tenth Symposium on Sources and Detection of Dark Matter and Dark
Energy in the Universe, Los-Angeles : \'Etats-Unis (2012
The structure and evolution of confined tori near a Hamiltonian Hopf Bifurcation
We study the orbital behavior at the neighborhood of complex unstable
periodic orbits in a 3D autonomous Hamiltonian system of galactic type. At a
transition of a family of periodic orbits from stability to complex instability
(also known as Hamiltonian Hopf Bifurcation) the four eigenvalues of the stable
periodic orbits move out of the unit circle. Then the periodic orbits become
complex unstable. In this paper we first integrate initial conditions close to
the ones of a complex unstable periodic orbit, which is close to the transition
point. Then, we plot the consequents of the corresponding orbit in a 4D surface
of section. To visualize this surface of section we use the method of color and
rotation [Patsis and Zachilas 1994]. We find that the consequents are contained
in 2D "confined tori". Then, we investigate the structure of the phase space in
the neighborhood of complex unstable periodic orbits, which are further away
from the transition point. In these cases we observe clouds of points in the 4D
surfaces of section. The transition between the two types of orbital behavior
is abrupt.Comment: 10 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in the International
Journal of Bifurcation and Chao
Stellar Bar Evolution in Cuspy and Flat-Cored Triaxial CDM Halos
We analyze the evolution of stellar bars in galactic disks in mildly triaxial
flat-core and cuspy CDM halos. We use tailored simulations of rigid and live
halos which include the feedback from disk/bar onto the halo in order to test
the work by El-Zant & Shlosman (2002). The latter used the Liapunov exponents
to analyze the fate of bars in analytical asymmetric halos. We find: (1) The
bar growth is similar in all rigid axisymmetric and triaxial halos. (2) Bars in
live models vertically buckle and form a pseudobulge with a boxy/peanut shape.
(3) In live axisymmetric halos, the bar strength varies little during the
secular evolution. The bar pattern speed anticorrelates with the halo core
size. The bar strength is larger for smaller disk-to-halo mass ratios within
disk radii, the bar size correlates with the halo core sizes, and the bar
pattern speeds -- with the halo central mass concentration. Bars embedded in
live triaxial halos have a starkly different fate: they dissolve on ~1.5-5 Gyr
due to the onset of chaos over continuous zones, leaving behind a weak oval
distortion. The onset of chaos is related to the halo triaxiality, the fast
rotating bar and the halo cuspiness. Before the bar dissolves, the region
outside it develops strong spiral structures, especially in the live triaxial
halos. (4) More angular momentum is absorbed by the triaxial halos as compared
to the axisymmetric models and its exchange is mediated by resonances. (5)
Cuspy halos are more susceptible than flat-core halos to having their
prolateness washed out by the bar. We analyze these results in terms of the
stability of trajectories and development of chaos. We set constraints on the
triaxiality of DM halos by comparing our predictions to recent observations of
bars out to z~1.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, Astrophysical Journal, in press, Vol. 637.
Updated version (text, references
Why Buckling Stellar Bars Weaken in Disk Galaxies
Young stellar bars in disk galaxies experience a vertical buckling
instability which terminates their growth and thickens them, resulting in a
characteristic peanut/boxy shape when viewed edge on. Using N-body simulations
of galactic disks embedded in live halos, we have analyzed the bar structure
throughout this instability and found that the outer third of the bar dissolves
completely while the inner part (within the vertical inner Lindblad resonance)
becomes less oval. The bar acquires the frequently observed peanut/boxy-shaped
isophotes. We also find that the bar buckling is responsible for a mass
injection above the plane, which is subsequently trapped by specific 3-D
families of periodic orbits of particular shapes explaining the observed
isophotes, in line with previous work. Using a 3-D orbit analysis and surfaces
of sections, we infer that the outer part of the bar is dissolved by a rapidly
widening stochastic region around its corotation radius -- a process related to
the bar growth. This leads to a dramatic decrease in the bar size, decrease in
the overall bar strength and a mild increase in its pattern speed, but is not
expected to lead to a complete bar dissolution. The buckling instability
appears primarily responsible for shortening the secular diffusion timescale to
a dynamical one when building the boxy isophotes. The sufficiently long
timescale of described evolution, ~1 Gyr, can affect the observed bar fraction
in local universe and at higher redshifts, both through reduced bar strength
and the absence of dust offset lanes in the bar.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, ApJ Letters, in pres
Stellar Dynamics at the Galactic Center with an Extremely Large Telescope
We discuss experiments achievable via monitoring of stellar dynamics near the
massive black hole at the Galactic center with a next generation, extremely
large telescope (ELT). Given the likely observational capabilities of an ELT
and current knowledge of the stellar environment at the Galactic center, we
synthesize plausible samples of stellar orbits around the black hole. We use
the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to evaluate the constraints that orbital
monitoring places on the matter content near the black hole. Results are
expressed as functions of the number N of stars with detectable orbital motions
and the astrometric precision dtheta and spectroscopic precision dv at which
stellar proper motions and radial velocities are monitored. For N = 100, dtheta
= 0.5 mas, and dv = 10 km/s -- a conservative estimate of the capabilities of a
30 meter telescope -- the extended matter distribution enclosed by the orbits
will produce measurable deviations from Keplerian motion if >1000 Msun is
enclosed within 0.01 pc. The black hole mass and distance to the Galactic
center will be measured to better than ~0.1%. Lowest-order relativistic
effects, such as the prograde precession, will be detectable if dtheta < 0.5
mas. Higher-order effects, including frame dragging due to black hole spin,
requires dtheta < 0.05 mas, or the favorable discovery of a compact, highly
eccentric orbit. Finally, we calculate the rate at which monitored stars
undergo detectable nearby encounters with background stars. Such encounters
probe the mass function of stellar remnants that accumulate near the black
hole. We find that ~30 encounters will be detected over a 10 yr baseline for
dtheta = 0.5 mas.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures; discussion no longer aperture-specific (TMT ->
ELT), matches ApJ versio
Analytical Approximations for Calculating the Escape and Absorption of Radiation in Clumpy Dusty Environments
We present analytical approximations for calculating the scattering,
absorption and escape of nonionizing photons from a spherically symmetric
two-phase clumpy medium, with either a central point source of isotropic
radiation, a uniform distribution of isotropic emitters, or uniformly
illuminated by external sources. The analytical approximations are based on the
mega-grains model of two-phase clumpy media, as proposed by Hobson & Padman,
combined with escape and absorption probability formulae for homogeneous media.
The accuracy of the approximations is examined by comparison with 3D Monte
Carlo simulations of radiative transfer, including multiple scattering. Our
studies show that the combined mega-grains and escape/absorption probability
formulae provide a good approximation of the escaping and absorbed radiation
fractions for a wide range of parameters characterizing the medium. A realistic
test is performed by modeling the absorption of a starlike source of radiation
by interstellar dust in a clumpy medium, and by calculating the resulting
equilibrium dust temperatures and infrared emission spectrum of both the clumps
and the interclump medium. In particular, we find that the temperature of dust
in clumps is lower than in the interclump medium if clumps are optically thick.
Comparison with Monte Carlo simulations of radiative transfer in the same
environment shows that the analytic model yields a good approximation of dust
temperatures and the emerging UV to FIR spectrum of radiation for all three
types of source distributions mentioned above. Our analytical model provides a
numerically expedient way to estimate radiative transfer in a variety of
interstellar conditions and can be applied to a wide range of astrophysical
environments, from star forming regions to starburst galaxies.Comment: 55 pages, 27 figures. ApJ 523 (1999), in press. Corrected equations
and text so as to be same as ApJ versio
Baryonic Tully-Fisher Relation for Extremely Low Mass Galaxies
We study Tully-Fisher relations for a sample that combines extremely faint
(M_B > -14.0) galaxies along with bright (i.e. L_*) galaxies. Accurate (~ 10%)
distances, I band photometry, and B-V colors are known for the majority of the
galaxies in our sample. The faint galaxies are drawn from the Faint Irregular
Galaxy GMRT survey (FIGGS), and we have HI rotation velocities derived from
aperture synthesis observations for all of them. For the faint galaxies, we
find that even though the median HI and stellar masses are comparable, the HI
mass correlates significantly better with the circular velocity indicators than
the stellar mass. We also find that W correlates better with mass than
the rotation velocity, although the difference is not statistically
significant. The faint galaxies lie systematically below the I band TF relation
defined by bright galaxies, and also show significantly more intrinsic scatter.
This implies that the integrated star formation in these galaxies has been both
less efficient and also less regulated than in large galaxies. We find that
while the faint end deviation is greatly reduced in Baryonic Tully-Fisher (BTF)
relations, the existence of a break at the faint end of the BTF is subject to
systematics such as the assumed stellar mass to light ratio. If we assume that
there is an intrinsic BTF and try to determine the baryonic mass by searching
for prescriptions that lead to the tightest BTF, we find that scaling the HI
mass leads to a much more significant tightening than scaling the stellar mass
to light ratio. The most significant tightening that we find however, is if we
scale the entire baryonic mass of the faint (but not the bright) galaxies. Such
a scenario would be consistent with models where dwarf (but not large) galaxies
have a large fraction of dark or ``missing'' baryons (Slightly abridged)Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA
A SAURON study of stars and gas in Sa bulges
We present results from our ongoing effort to understand the morphological
and kinematical properties of early-type galaxies using the integral-field
spectrograph SAURON. We discuss the relation between the stellar and gas
morphology and kinematics in our sub-sample of 24 representative Sa spiral
bulges. We focus on the frequency of kinematically decoupled components and on
the presence of star formation in circumnuclear rings.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; To appear in the proceedings of the "Island
Universes: Structure and Evolution of Disk Galaxies" conference held in
Terschelling, Netherlands, July 2005, ed. R. de Jong. A high resolution
version is available at
http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~jfalcon/JFB_terschelling.pdf.g
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