46,797 research outputs found
Tidal stability of giant molecular clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Star formation does not occur until the onset of gravitational collapse
inside giant molecular clouds. However, the conditions that initiate cloud
collapse and regulate the star formation process remain poorly understood.
Local processes such as turbulence and magnetic fields can act to promote or
prevent collapse. On larger scales, the galactic potential can also influence
cloud stability and is traditionally assessed by the tidal and shear effects.
In this paper, we examine the stability of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in the
Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) against shear and the galactic tide using CO data
from the Magellanic Mopra Assessment (MAGMA) and rotation curve data from the
literature. We calculate the tidal acceleration experienced by individual GMCs
and determine the minimum cloud mass required for tidal stability. We also
calculate the shear parameter, which is a measure of a clouds susceptibility to
disruption via shearing forces in the galactic disk. We examine whether there
are correlations between the properties and star forming activity of GMCs and
their stability against shear and tidal disruption. We find that the GMCs are
in approximate tidal balance in the LMC, and that shear is unlikely to affect
their further evolution. GMCs with masses close to the minimal stable mass
against tidal disruption are not unusual in terms of their mass, location, or
CO brightness, but we note that GMCs with large velocity dispersion tend to be
more sensitive to tidal instability. We also note that GMCs with smaller radii,
which represent the majority of our sample, tend to more strongly resist tidal
and shear disruption. Our results demonstrate that star formation in the LMC is
not inhibited by to tidal or shear instability.Comment: 18 pages, 10 Figures, Accepted in PAS
Exact mean first-passage time on the T-graph
We consider a simple random walk on the T-fractal and we calculate the exact
mean time to first reach the central node . The mean is performed
over the set of possible walks from a given origin and over the set of starting
points uniformly distributed throughout the sites of the graph, except .
By means of analytic techniques based on decimation procedures, we find the
explicit expression for as a function of the generation and of the
volume of the underlying fractal. Our results agree with the asymptotic
ones already known for diffusion on the T-fractal and, more generally, they are
consistent with the standard laws describing diffusion on low-dimensional
structures.Comment: 6 page
Extreme Mass Ratio Binary: Radiation reaction and gravitational waveform
For a successful detection of gravitational waves by LISA, it is essential to
construct theoretical waveforms in a reliable manner. We discuss gravitational
waves from an extreme mass ratio binary system which is expected to be a
promising target of the LISA project.
The extreme mass ratio binary is a binary system of a supermassive black hole
and a stellar mass compact object. As the supermassive black hole dominates the
gravitational field of the system, we suppose that the system might be well
approximated by a metric perturbation of a Kerr black hole. We discuss a recent
theoretical progress in calculating the waveforms from such a system.Comment: Classical and Quantum Gravity 22 (2005) S375-S379, Proceedings for
5th International LISA Symposiu
The Cosmological Constant From The Viewpoint Of String Theory
The mystery of the cosmological constant is probably the most pressing
obstacle to significantly improving the models of elementary particle physics
derived from string theory. The problem arises because in the standard
framework of low energy physics, there appears to be no natural explanation for
vanishing or extreme smallness of the vacuum energy, while on the other hand it
is very difficult to modify this framework in a sensible way. In seeking to
resolve this problem, one naturally wonders if the real world can somehow be
interpreted in terms of a vacuum state with unbroken supersymmetry.Comment: 12 pp., Lecture at DM2000, new reference and more conservative
scenario adde
Charged spin 1/2 particle in an arbitrary magnetic field in two spatial dimensions: a supersymmetric quantum mechanical system
It is shown that the 2 X 2 matrix Hamiltonian describing the dynamics of a
charged spin 1/2 particle with g-factor 2 moving in an arbitrary, spatially
dependent, magnetic field in two spatial dimensions can be written as the
anticommuator of a nilpotent operator and its hermitian conjugate.
Consequently, the Hamiltonians for the two different spin projections form
partners of a supersymmetric quantum mechanical system. The resulting
supersymmetry algebra can then be exploited to explicitly construct the exact
zero energy ground state wavefunction for the system. Modulo this ground state,
the remainder of the eigenstates and eigenvalues of the two partner
Hamiltonians form positive energy degenerate pairs. We also construct the
spatially asymptotic form of the magnetic field which produces a finite
magnetic flux and associated zero energy normalizable ground state
wavefunction.Comment: 10 pages, LaTe
Current status of MCNP6 as a simulation tool useful for space and accelerator applications
For the past several years, a major effort has been undertaken at Los Alamos
National Laboratory (LANL) to develop the transport code MCNP6, the latest LANL
Monte-Carlo transport code representing a merger and improvement of MCNP5 and
MCNPX. We emphasize a description of the latest developments of MCNP6 at higher
energies to improve its reliability in calculating rare-isotope production,
high-energy cumulative particle production, and a gamut of reactions important
for space-radiation shielding, cosmic-ray propagation, and accelerator
applications. We present several examples of validation and verification of
MCNP6 compared to a wide variety of intermediate- and high-energy experimental
data on reactions induced by photons, mesons, nucleons, and nuclei at energies
from tens of MeV to about 1 TeV/nucleon, and compare to results from other
modern simulation tools.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, Proc. 11th Conference on the Intersections of
Particle and Nuclear Physics (CIPANP 2012), St. Petersburg, FL, May 28 - June
3, 201
A submillimetre survey of the star-formation history of radio galaxies
We present the results of the first major systematic submillimetre survey of
radio galaxies spanning the redshift range 1 < z < 5. The primary aim of this
work is to elucidate the star-formation history of this sub-class of elliptical
galaxies by tracing the cosmological evolution of dust mass. Using SCUBA on the
JCMT we have obtained 850-micron photometry of 47 radio galaxies to a
consistent rms depth of 1 mJy, and have detected dust emission in 14 cases. The
radio galaxy targets have been selected from a series of low-frequency radio
surveys of increasing depth (3CRR, 6CE, etc), in order to allow us to separate
the effects of increasing redshift and increasing radio power on submillimetre
luminosity. Although the dynamic range of our study is inevitably small, we
find clear evidence that the typical submillimetre luminosity (and hence dust
mass) of a powerful radio galaxy is a strongly increasing function of redshift;
the detection rate rises from 15 per cent at z 2.5,
and the average submillimetre luminosity rises as (1+z)^3 out to z~4. Moreover
our extensive sample allows us to argue that this behaviour is not driven by
underlying correlations with other radio galaxy properties such as radio power,
radio spectral index, or radio source size/age. Although radio selection may
introduce other more subtle biases, the redshift distribution of our detected
objects is in fact consistent with the most recent estimates of the redshift
distribution of comparably bright submillimetre sources discovered in blank
field surveys. The evolution of submillimetre luminosity found here for radio
galaxies may thus be representative of massive ellipticals in general.Comment: 31 pages - 10 figures in main text, 3 pages of figures in appendix.
This revised version has been re-structured, but the analysis and conclusions
have not changed. Accepted for publication in MNRA
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