20,065 research outputs found
A Proposal for a Comprehensive Restructuring of the Public Information System
After more than ten years of legislative, judicial and bureaucratic tinkering, the public information system created by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is still far from satisfactory. The present public information system has not been successful because its drafters lacked imagination and failed to do the basic work necessary to create a sound foundation for such a comprehensive program. They failed to analyze the realistic goals of a public information system; they ignored the ultimate goals of improved government performance; they misrepresented the system\u27s costs, both in monetary expense to taxpayers and in diminished government performance. They considered neither alternative techniques nor the problem of designing the public information system as an integral part of the total governmental structure. Actual open government for the benefit of the general populace will be possible only if the basic weaknesses of the present system are explored in depth. This Article is an appeal to Congress to undertake the careful analysis necessary to construct a workable, useful public information system
Helium Recombination Lines as a Probe of Abundance and Temperature Problems
The paper presents a simplified formula to determine an electron temperature,
Te(He I), for planetary nebulae (PNe) using the He I 7281/6678 line flux ratio.
In our previous studies of Te(He I) (Zhang et al. 2005), we used the He I line
emission coefficients given by Benjamin et al. (1999). Here we examine the
results of using more recent atomic data presented by Porter et al. (2005). A
good agreement is shown, suggesting that the effect of uncertainties of atomic
data on the resultant Te(He I) is negligible. We also present an analytical
formula to derive electron temperature using the He I discontinuity at 3421 A.
Our analysis shows that Te(He I) values are significantly lower than electron
temperatures deduced from the Balmer jump of H I recombination spectra, Te(H
I), and that inferred from the collisionally excited [O III] nebular-to-auroral
forbidden line flux ratio, Te([O III]). In addition, Te(H I) covers a wider
range of values than either Te(He I) or Te([O III]). This supports the
two-abundance nebular model with hydrogen-deficient material embedded in
diffuse gas of a ``normal'' chemical composition (i.e. ~solar).Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. To appear in the RevMexAA proceedings of "The
Ninth Texas-Mexico Conference on Astrophysics
Space shuttle pogo studies
Topics covered include: (1) pogo suppression for main propulsion subsystem operation; (2) application of quarter-scale low pressure oxidizer turbopump transfer functions; (3) pogo stability during orbital maneuvering subsystem operation; and (4) errors in frequency response measurements
Shock-Wave Heating Model for Chondrule Formation: Prevention of Isotopic Fractionation
Chondrules are considered to have much information on dust particles and
processes in the solar nebula. It is naturally expected that protoplanetary
disks observed in present star forming regions have similar dust particles and
processes, so study of chondrule formation may provide us great information on
the formation of the planetary systems.
Evaporation during chondrule melting may have resulted in depletion of
volatile elements in chondrules. However, no evidence for a large degree of
heavy-isotope enrichment has been reported in chondrules. In order to meet this
observed constraint, the rapid heating rate at temperatures below the silicate
solidus is required to suppress the isotopic fractionation.
We have developed a new shock-wave heating model taking into account the
radiative transfer of the dust thermal continuum emission and the line emission
of gas molecules and calculated the thermal history of chondrules. We have
found that optically-thin shock waves for the thermal continuum emission from
dust particles can meet the rapid heating constraint, because the dust thermal
emission does not keep the dust particles high temperature for a long time in
the pre-shock region and dust particles are abruptly heated by the gas drag
heating in the post-shock region. We have also derived the upper limit of
optical depth of the pre-shock region using the radiative diffusion
approximation, above which the rapid heating constraint is not satisfied. It is
about 1 - 10.Comment: 58 pages, including 5 tables and 15 figures, accepted for publication
in The Astrophysical Journa
The ionization structure of the Orion nebula: Infrared line observations and models
Observations of the (O III) 52 and 88 micron lines and the (N III) 57 micron line have been made at 6 positions and the (Ne III) 36 micron line at 4 positions in the Orion Nebula to probe its ionization structure. The measurements, made with a -40" diameter beam, were spaced every 45" in a line south from and including the Trapezium. The wavelength of the (Ne III) line was measured to be 36.013 + or - 0.004 micron. Electron densities and abundance ratios of N(++)/O(++) have been calculated and compared to other radio and optical observations. Detailed one component and two component (bar plus halo) spherical models were calculated for exciting stars with effective temperatures of 37 to 40,000K and log g = 4.0 and 4.5. Both the new infrared observations and the visible line measurements of oxygen and nitrogen require T sub eff approx less than 37,000K. However, the double ionized neon requires a model with T sub eff more than or equal to 39,000K, which is more consistent with that inferred from the radio flux or spectral type. These differences in T sub eff are not due to effects of dust on the stellar radiation field, but are probably due to inaccuracies in the assumed stellar spectrum. The observed N(++)/O(++) ratio is almost twice the N(+)/O(+) ratio. The best fit models give N/H = 8.4 x 10 to the -5 power, O/H = 4.0 x 10 to the -4 power, and Ne/H = 1.3 x 10 to the -4 power. Thus neon and nitrogen are approximately solar, but oxygen is half solar in abundance. From the infrared O(++) lines it is concluded that the ionization bar results from an increase in column depth rather than from a local density enhancement
On the Cosmic Evolution of Fe/Mg in QSO Absorption Line Systems
We investigate the variation of the ratio of the equivalent widths of the
FeII2600 line to the MgII2796,2803 doublet as a
function of redshift in a large sample of absorption lines drawn from the
JHU-SDSS Absorption Line Catalog. We find that despite large scatter, the
observed ratio shows a trend where the equivalent width ratio
decreases monotonically with
increasing redshift over the range . Selecting the
subset of absorbers where the signal-to-noise ratio of the MgII equivalent
width is 3 and modeling the equivalent width ratio
distribution as a gaussian, we find that the mean of the gaussian distribution
varies as . We discuss various possible
reasons for the trend. A monotonic trend in the Fe/Mg abundance ratio is
predicted by a simple model where the abundances of Mg and Fe in the absorbing
clouds are assumed to be the result of supernova ejecta and where the cosmic
evolution in the SNIa and core-collapse supernova rates is related to the
cosmic star-formation rate. If the trend in reflects the
evolution in the abundances, then it is consistent with the predictions of the
simple model.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, final version published in MNRA
Galaxies Probing Galaxies in PRIMUS - I. Sample, Spectroscopy, and Characteristics of the z~0.5 MgII-Absorbing Circumgalactic Medium
Spectroscopy of background QSO sightlines passing close to foreground
galaxies is a potent technique for studying the circumgalactic medium (CGM).
QSOs are effectively point sources, however, limiting their potential to
constrain the size of circumgalactic gaseous structures. Here we present the
first large Keck/LRIS and VLT/FORS2 spectroscopic survey of bright (B_AB <
22.3) background galaxies whose lines of sight probe MgII 2796, 2803 absorption
from the CGM around close projected foreground galaxies at transverse distances
10 kpc < R_perp < 150 kpc. Our sample of 72 projected pairs, drawn from the
PRIsm MUlti-object Survey (PRIMUS), includes 48 background galaxies which do
not host bright AGN, and both star-forming and quiescent foreground galaxies
with stellar masses 9.0 < log M_*/M_sun < 11.2 at redshifts 0.35 < z_f/g < 0.8.
We detect MgII absorption associated with these foreground galaxies with
equivalent widths 0.25 Ang 2sigma significance in 20
individual background sightlines passing within R_perp < 50 kpc, and place
2sigma upper limits on W_2796 of <0.5 Ang in an additional 11 close sightlines.
Within R_perp < 50 kpc, W_2796 is anticorrelated with R_perp, consistent with
analyses of MgII absorption detected along background QSO sightlines.
Subsamples of these foreground hosts divided at log M_*/M_sun = 9.9 exhibit
statistically inconsistent W_2796 distributions at 30 kpc < R_perp < 50 kpc,
with the higher-M_* galaxies yielding a larger median W_2796 by 0.9 Ang.
Finally, we demonstrate that foreground galaxies with similar stellar masses
exhibit the same median W_2796 at a given R_perp to within <0.2 Ang toward both
background galaxies and toward QSO sightlines drawn from the literature.
Analysis of these datasets constraining the spatial coherence scale of
circumgalactic MgII absorption is presented in a companion paper.Comment: 36 pages, 18 figures, 5 tables. Accepted to Ap
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