An aircraft borne dust particle counter and its applications to the study of clear air turbulence

Airborne photoelectric particle counter for mapping clear air turbulenc

Atomic and Molecular Absorption in Redshifted Radio Sources

We report on a survey for associated HI 21-cm and OH 18-cm absorption with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope at redshifts z = 0.2-0.4. Although the low redshift selection ensures that our targets are below the critical ultra-violet luminosity, which is hypothesised to ionise all of the neutral gas in the host galaxy, we do not obtain any detections in the six sources searched. Analysing these in context of the previous surveys, in addition to the anti-correlation with the ultra-violet luminosity (ionising photon rate), we find a correlation between the strength of the absorption and the blue -- near-infrared colour, as well as the radio-band turnover frequency. We believe that these are due to the photo-ionisation of the neutral gas, an obscured sight-line being more conducive to the presence of cold gas and the compact radio emission being better intercepted by the absorbing gas, maximising the flux coverage, respectively. Regarding the photo-ionisation, the compilation of the previous surveys increases the significance of the critical ionising photon rate, above which all of the gas in the host galaxy is hypothesised to be ionised, to >5 sigma. This reaffirms that this is an ubiquitous effect, which has profound implications for the detection of neutral gas in these objects with the Square Kilometre Array.Comment: Accepted by MNRA

Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2017: Trends and characteristics

This survey series provides England’s best source of data on trends in child mental health. Emotional, behavioural, hyperactivity, and other types of mental disorder were assessed in 5 to 15 year olds in 1999, 5 to 16 year olds in 2004, and 5 to 19 year olds in 2017. One in eight (12.8%) 5 to 19 year olds had a mental disorder when assessed in 2017. Rates were similar in boys and girls. Data for 5 to 15 year olds show a slight upward trend over time in the prevalence of emotional disorders.Rates for behavioural, hyperactivity and other disorders have remained broadly stable

HI in four star-forming low-luminosity E/S0 and S0 galaxies

We present HI data cubes of four low-luminosity early-type galaxies which are currently forming stars. These galaxies have absolute magnitudes in the range M_B=-17.9 to -19.9 (H_o=50 km/s/Mpc). Their HI masses range between a few times 10^8 and a few times 10^9 M_sun and the corresponding values for M_HI/L_B are between 0.07 and 0.42, so these systems are HI rich for their morphological type. In all four galaxies, the HI is strongly centrally concentrated with high central HI surface densities, in contrast to what is typically observed in more luminous early-type galaxies. In two galaxies (NGC 802 and ESO 118-G34), the kinematics of the HI suggests that the gas is in a strongly warped disk, which we take as evidence for recent accretion of HI. In the other two galaxies (NGC 2328 and ESO 027-G21) the HI must have been part of the systems for a considerable time. The HI properties of low-luminosity early-type galaxies appear to be systematically different from those of many more luminous early-type galaxies, and we suggest that these differences are due to a different evolution of the two classes. The star formation history of these galaxies remains unclear. Their UBV colours and Halpha emission-line strengths are consistent with having formed stars at a slowly-declining rate for most of the past 10^10 years. However, the current data do not rule out a small burst of recent star formation overlaid on an older stellar population.Comment: To appear in AJ, LateX, figures in gif format, paper also available at http://www.nfra.nl/~morganti/LowLu

Radio Sources in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey. I. Radio Source Populations

We present the first results from a study of the radio continuum properties of galaxies in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, based on thirty 2dF fields covering a total area of about 100 square degrees. About 1.5% of galaxies with b(J) < 19.4 mag are detected as radio continuum sources in the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS). Of these, roughly 40% are star-forming galaxies and 60% are active galaxies (mostly low-power radio galaxies and a few Seyferts). The combination of 2dFGRS and NVSS will eventually yield a homogeneous set of around 4000 radio-galaxy spectra, which will be a powerful tool for studying the distriibution and evolution of both AGN and starburst galaxies out to redshift z=0.3.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in PAS

Tidal Remnants and Intergalactic HII Regions

We report the discovery of two small intergalactic HII regions in the loose group of galaxies around the field elliptical NGC 1490. The HII regions are located at least 100 kpc from any optical galaxy but are associated with a number of large HI clouds that are lying along an arc 500 kpc in length and that have no optical counterpart on the Digital Sky Survey. The sum of the HI masses of the clouds is almost 10^10 M_sun and the largest HI cloud is about 100 kpc in size. Deep optical imaging reveals a very low surface brightness counterpart to this largest HI cloud, making this one of the HI richest optical galaxies known (M_HI/L_V~200). Spectroscopy of the HII regions indicates that the abundance in these HII regions is only slightly sub-solar, excluding a primordial origin of the HI clouds. The HI clouds are perhaps remnants resulting from the tidal disruption of a reasonably sized galaxy, probably quite some time ago, by the loose group to which NGC1490 belongs. Alternatively, they are remnants of the merger that created the field elliptical NGC1490. The isolated HII regions show that star formation on a very small scale can occur in intergalactic space in gas drawn from galaxies by tidal interactions. Many such intergalactic small star formation regions may exist near tidally interacting galaxies.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the IAU Symposium #217, Recycling Intergalactic and Interstellar Matter, eds. P.-A. Duc, J. Braine, and E. Brinks, 6 pages with low resolution figures. The full paper with high resolution images can be downloaded from http://www.astron.nl/~morganti/Papers/cloud.ps.g