941 research outputs found
Comment on "On the Origin of the Highest Energy Cosmic Rays"
We show that the photodisintegration of heavy cosmic ray nuclei with energies
above 10^20 eV is dominated by interactions with photons from the cosmic
microwave background radiation, rather than from infrared ones. This implies
that the observed air shower events with energies 2-3 10^20 eV cannot originate
from Fe nuclei coming from distances beyond 10 MpcComment: 1 page, 2 figure
Correlated Anisotropies in the Cosmic Far-Infrared Background Detected by MIPS/Spitzer: Constraint on the Bias
We report the detection of correlated anisotropies in the Cosmic Far-Infrared
Background at 160 microns. We measure the power spectrum in the Spitzer/SWIRE
Lockman Hole field. It reveals unambiguously a strong excess above cirrus and
Poisson contributions, at spatial scales between 5 and 30 arcminutes,
interpreted as the signature of infrared galaxy clustering. Using our model of
infrared galaxy evolution we derive a linear bias b=1.74 \pm 0.16. It is a
factor 2 higher than the bias measured for the local IRAS galaxies. Our model
indicates that galaxies dominating the 160 microns correlated anisotropies are
at z~1. This implies that infrared galaxies at high redshifts are biased
tracers of mass, unlike in the local Universe.Comment: ApJ Letters, in pres
Parametric instability in dark molecular clouds
The present work investigates the parametric instability of parallel
propagating circularly polarized Alfven(pump) waves in a weakly ionized
molecular cloud. It is shown that the relative drift between the plasma
particles gives rise to the Hall effect resulting in the modified pump wave
characteristics. Although the linearized fluid equations with periodic
coefficients are difficult to solve analytically, it is shown that a linear
transformation can remove the periodic dependence. The resulting linearized
equations with constant coefficients are used to derive an algebraic dispersion
relation. The growth rate of the parametric instability is a sensitive function
of the amplitude of the pump wave as well as to the ratio of the pump and the
modified dust-cyclotron frequencies. The instability is insensitive to the
plasma-beta The results are applied to the molecular clouds.Comment: 27 page, 5 figures, accepted in Ap
Cosmic ray photodisintegration and the knee of the spectrum
We explore in some detail the scenario proposed to explain the observed knee
of the cosmic ray (CR) spectrum as due to the effects of photodisintegration of
the CR nuclei by interactions with optical and soft UV photons in the source
region. We show that the photon column densities needed to explain the
experimental data are significantly lower than those obtained in previous
estimations which neglected multinucleon emission in the photodisintegration
process. We also treat more accurately the photodisintegration thresholds, we
discuss the effects of photopion production processes and the neutron escape
mechanism, identifying the physical processes responsible for the qualitative
features of the results. This scenario would require the CR nuclei to traverse
column densities of eV/cm after
being accelerated in order to reproduce the observed knee, and predicts that
the CR composition should become lighter above eV.Comment: 17 pp. Comments and references added. To appear in Astroparticle
Physic
A Semi-Empirical Model of the Infra-Red Universe
We present a simple model of the infra-red universe, based as much as
possible on local observations. We model the luminosity and number evolution of
disk and starburst galaxies, including the effects of dust, gas and spectral
evolution. Although simple, our approach is able to reproduce observations of
galaxy number counts and the infra-red and sub-millimeter extra-galactic
backgrounds. It provides a useful probe of galaxy formation and evolution out
to high redshift. The model demonstrates the significant role of the starburst
population and predicts high star formation rates at redshifts 3 to 4,
consistent with recent extinction-corrected observations of Lyman break
galaxies. Starbursting galaxies are predicted to dominate the current SCUBA
surveys. Their star formation is driven predominantly by strong tidal
interactions and mergers of galaxies. This leads to the creation of spheroidal
stellar systems, which may act as the seeds for disk formation as gas infalls.
We predict the present-day baryonic mass in bulges and halos is comparable to
that in disks. From observations of the extra-galactic background, the model
predicts that the vast majority of star formation in the Universe occurs at
z<5.Comment: 23 pages including 9 figures. To appear in ApJ. Model results
available electronically at http://astro.berkeley.edu/~jt/irmodel.htm
The Submillimeter Properties of the 1 Ms Chandra Deep Field North X-ray Sample
We present submillimeter observations for 136 of the 370 X-ray sources
detected in the 1 Ms exposure of the Chandra Deep Field North. Ten of the X-ray
sources are significantly detected in the submillimeter. The average X-ray
source in the sample has a significant 850 micron flux of 1.69+/-0.27 mJy. This
value shows little dependence on the 2-8 keV flux from 5e-16 erg/cm^2/s to
1e-14 erg/cm^2/s. The ensemble of X-ray sources contribute about 10% of the
extragalactic background light at 850 microns. The submillimeter excess is
found to be strongest in the optically faint X-ray sources that are also seen
at 20 cm, which is consistent with these X-ray sources being obscured and at
high redshift (z>1).Comment: 5 pages, submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letter
Determination of the Far-Infrared Cosmic Background Using COBE/DIRBE and WHAM Data
Determination of the cosmic infrared background (CIB) at far infrared
wavelengths using COBE/DIRBE data is limited by the accuracy to which
foreground interplanetary and Galactic dust emission can be modeled and
subtracted. Previous determinations of the far infrared CIB (e.g., Hauser et
al. 1998) were based on the detection of residual isotropic emission in skymaps
from which the emission from interplanetary dust and the neutral interstellar
medium were removed. In this paper we use the Wisconsin H-alpha Mapper (WHAM)
Northern Sky Survey as a tracer of the ionized medium to examine the effect of
this foreground component on determination of the CIB. We decompose the DIRBE
far infrared data for five high Galactic latitude regions into H I and H-alpha
correlated components and a residual component. We find the H-alpha correlated
component to be consistent with zero for each region, and we find that addition
of an H-alpha correlated component in modeling the foreground emission has
negligible effect on derived CIB results. Our CIB detections and 2 sigma upper
limits are essentially the same as those derived by Hauser et al. and are given
by nu I_nu (nW m-2 sr-1) < 75, < 32, 25 +- 8, and 13 +- 3 at 60, 100, 140, and
240 microns, respectively. Our residuals have not been subjected to a detailed
anisotropy test, so our CIB results do not supersede those of Hauser et al. We
derive upper limits on the 100 micron emissivity of the ionized medium that are
typically about 40% of the 100 micron emissivity of the neutral atomic medium.
This low value may be caused in part by a lower dust-to-gas mass ratio in the
ionized medium than in the neutral medium, and in part by a shortcoming of
using H-alpha intensity as a tracer of far infrared emission.Comment: 38 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
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