330 research outputs found
Accelerated post-AGB evolution, initial-final mass relations, and the star-formation history of the Galactic bulge
We study the star-formation history of the Galactic bulge, as derived from
the age distribution of the central stars of planetary nebulae that belong to
this stellar population. The high resolution imaging and spectroscopic
observations of 31 compact planetary nebulae are used to derive their central
star masses. The Bloecker tracks with the cluster IFMR result in ages, which
are unexpectedly young. We find that the Bloecker post-AGB tracks need to be
accelerated by a factor of three to fit the local white dwarf masses. This
acceleration extends the age distribution. We adjust the IFMR as a free
parameter to map the central star ages on the full age range of bulge stellar
populations. This fit requires a steeper IFMR than the cluster relation. We
find a star-formation rate in the Galactic bulge, which is approximately
constant between 3 and 10 Gyr ago. The result indicates that planetary nebulae
are mainly associated with the younger and more metal-rich bulge populations.
The constant rate of star-formation between 3 and 10 Gyr agrees with
suggestions that the metal-rich component of the bulge is formed during an
extended process, such as a bar interaction.Comment: accepted for publication in A&
Disk evaporation in a planetary nebula
We study the Galactic bulge planetary nebula M 2-29 (for which a 3-year
eclipse event of the central star has been attributed to a dust disk) using HST
imaging and VLT spectroscopy, both long-slit and integral field. The central
cavity of M 2-29 is filled with a decreasing, slow wind. An inner high density
core is detected, with radius less than 250 AU, interpreted as a rotating
gas/dust disk with a bipolar disk wind. The evaporating disk is argued to be
the source of the slow wind. The central star is a source of a very fast wind
(1000 km/s). An outer, partial ring is seen in the equatorial plane, expanding
at 12 km/s. The azimuthal asymmetry is attributed to mass-loss modulation by an
eccentric binary. M 2-29 presents a crucial point in disk evolution, where
ionization causes the gas to be lost, leaving a low-mass dust disk behind.Comment: 11 pages, accepted for publication in "Astronomy and Astrophysics
Skycorr: A general tool for spectroscopic sky subtraction
Airglow emission lines, which dominate the optical-to-near-IR sky radiation,
show strong, line-dependent variability on various time scales. Therefore, the
subtraction of the sky background in the affected wavelength regime becomes a
problem if plain sky spectra have to be taken at a different time as the
astronomical data. A solution of this issue is the physically motivated scaling
of the airglow lines in the plain sky data to fit the sky lines in the object
spectrum. We have developed a corresponding instrument-independent approach
based on one-dimensional spectra. Our code skycorr separates sky lines and
sky/object continuum by an iterative approach involving a line finder and
airglow line data. The sky lines are grouped according to their expected
variability. The line groups in the sky data are then scaled to fit the sky in
the science data. Required pixel-specific weights for overlapping groups are
taken from a comprehensive airglow model. Deviations in the wavelength
calibration are corrected by fitting Chebyshev polynomials and rebinning via
asymmetric damped sinc kernels. The scaled sky lines and the sky continuum are
subtracted separately. VLT X-Shooter data covering time intervals from two
minutes to about one year were selected to illustrate the performance. Except
for short time intervals of a few minutes, the sky line residuals were several
times weaker than for sky subtraction without fitting. Further tests show that
skycorr performs consistently better than the method of Davies (2007) developed
for VLT SINFONI data.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Molecfit: A general tool for telluric absorption correction II. Quantitative evaluation on ESO-VLT X-Shooter spectra
Context: Absorption by molecules in the Earth's atmosphere strongly affects
ground-based astronomical observations. The resulting absorption line strength
and shape depend on the highly variable physical state of the atmosphere, i.e.
pressure, temperature, and mixing ratio of the different molecules involved.
Usually, supplementary observations of so-called telluric standard stars (TSS)
are needed to correct for this effect, which is expensive in terms of telescope
time. We have developed the software package molecfit to provide synthetic
transmission spectra based on parameters obtained by fitting narrow ranges of
the observed spectra of scientific objects. These spectra are calculated by
means of the radiative transfer code LBLRTM and an atmospheric model. In this
way, the telluric absorption correction for suitable objects can be performed
without any additional calibration observations of TSS. Aims: We evaluate the
quality of the telluric absorption correction using molecfit with a set of
archival ESO-VLT X-Shooter visible and near-infrared spectra. Methods: Thanks
to the wavelength coverage from the U to the K band, X-Shooter is well suited
to investigate the quality of the telluric absorption correction with respect
to the observing conditions, the instrumental set-up, input parameters of the
code, the signal-to-noise of the input spectrum, and the atmospheric profiles.
These investigations are based on two figures of merit, I_off and I_res, that
describe the systematic offsets and the remaining small-scale residuals of the
corrections. We also compare the quality of the telluric absorption correction
achieved with moelcfit to the classical method based on a telluric standard
star. (Abridged)Comment: Acc. by A&A; Software available via ESO:
http://www.eso.org/sci/software/pipelines/skytools
Are planetary nebulae derived from multiple evolutionary scenarios?
Our understanding of planetary nebulae has been significantly enhanced as a
result of several recent large surveys (Parker et al., these proceedings).
These new discoveries suggest that the `PN phenomenon' is in fact more
heterogeneous than previously envisaged. Even after the careful elimination of
mimics from Galactic PN catalogues, there remains a surprising diversity in the
population of PNe and especially their central stars. Indeed, several
evolutionary scenarios are implicated in the formation of objects presently
catalogued as PNe. We provide a summary of these evolutionary pathways and give
examples of each. Eventually, a full census of local PNe can be used to
confront both stellar evolution theory and population synthesis models.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. To be published in Planetary Nebulae: an Eye to
the Future, Proceedings of IAU Symposium 283, held in Puerto de la Cruz,
Tenerife, Spain, July 25-29 201
Detection of the Central Star of the Planetary Nebula NGC 6302
NGC 6302 is one of the highest ionization planetary nebulae known and shows
emission from species with ionization potential >300eV. The temperature of the
central star must be >200,000K to photoionize the nebula, and has been
suggested to be up to ~ 400,000K. On account of the dense dust and molecular
disc, the central star has not convincingly been directly imaged until now. NGC
6302 was imaged in six narrow band filters by Wide Field Camera 3 on HST as
part of the Servicing Mission 4 Early Release Observations. The central star is
directly detected for the first time, and is situated at the nebula centre on
the foreground side of the tilted equatorial disc. The magnitudes of the
central star have been reliably measured in two filters(F469N and F673N).
Assuming a hot black body, the reddening has been measured from the
(4688-6766\AA) colour and a value of c=3.1, A_v=6.6 mag determined. A G-K main
sequence binary companion can be excluded. The position of the star on the HR
diagram suggests a fairly massive PN central star of about 0.64,M_sun close to
the white dwarf cooling track. A fit to the evolutionary tracks for
(T,L,t)=(200,000K, 2000L_sun, 2200yr), where t is the nebular age, is obtained;
however the luminosity and temperature remain uncertain. The model tracks
predict that the star is rapidly evolving, and fading at a rate of almost 1 %
per year. Future observations could test this prediction.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ApJ Letters on 25.09.2009 accepted
on 19.10.200
Structural modification of nanohydroxyapatite Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2 related to Eu3+ and Sr2+ ions doping and its spectroscopic and antimicrobial properties
The Eu3+ and Sr2+ ions co-doped hydroxyapatite nanopowders (Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2) were synthesized via a precipitation method and post heat-treated at 500 °C. The concentration of Eu3+ ions was established in the range of 0.5–5 mol% to investigate the site occupancy preference. The concentration of Sr2+ ions was set at 5 mol%. The structural and morphological properties of the obtained materials were studied by an X-ray powder diffraction, a transmission electron microscopy techniques and infrared spectroscopy. As synthesized nanoparticles were in the range of 11–17 nm and annealed particles were in the range of 20–26 nm. The luminescence properties in dependence of the dopant concentration and applied temperature were investigated. The 5D0 → 7F0 transition shown the abnormally strong intensity for annealed materials connected with the increase of covalency character of Eu3+–O2− bond, which arise as an effect of charge compensation mechanism. The Eu3+ ions occupied three possible crystallographic sites in these materials revealed in emission spectra: one Ca(1) site with C3 symmetry and two Ca(2) sites with Cs symmetry arranged as cis and trans symmetry. The antibacterial properties of Eu3+ and Sr2+ ions doped and co-doped hydroxyapatite nanopowders were also determined against Gram-negative pathogens such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli. Obtained results suggest that both europium and strontium ions may implement antibacterial properties for hydroxyapatites. In the most cases, better antibacterial effect we noticed for dopants at 5 mol% ratio. However, the effect is strongly species- and strain-dependent feature
Molecfit: A general tool for telluric absorption correction. I. Method and application to ESO instruments
Context: The interaction of the light from astronomical objects with the
constituents of the Earth's atmosphere leads to the formation of telluric
absorption lines in ground-based collected spectra. Correcting for these lines,
mostly affecting the red and infrared region of the spectrum, usually relies on
observations of specific stars obtained close in time and airmass to the
science targets, therefore using precious observing time. Aims: We present
molecfit, a tool for correcting for telluric absorption lines based on
synthetic modelling of the Earth's atmospheric transmission. Molecfit is
versatile and can be used with data obtained with various ground-based
telescopes and instruments. Methods: Molecfit combines a publicly available
radiative transfer code, a molecular line database, atmospheric profiles, and
various kernels to model the instrument line spread function. The atmospheric
profiles are created by merging a standard atmospheric profile representative
of a given observatory's climate, of local meteorological data, and of
dynamically retrieved altitude profiles for temperature, pressure, and
humidity. We discuss the various ingredients of the method, its applicability,
and its limitations. We also show examples of telluric line correction on
spectra obtained with a suite of ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) instruments.
Results: Compared to previous similar tools, molecfit takes the best results
for temperature, pressure, and humidity in the atmosphere above the observatory
into account. As a result, the standard deviation of the residuals after
correction of unsaturated telluric lines is frequently better than 2% of the
continuum. Conclusion: Molecfit is able to accurately model and correct for
telluric lines over a broad range of wavelengths and spectral resolutions.
(Abridged)Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy
and Astrophysic
A biophysical model of the early olfactory system of honeybees
Experimental measurements often can only provide limited data from an animal’s sensory system. In addition, they exhibit large trial-to-trial and animal-to-animal variability. These limitations pose challenges to building mathematical models intended to make biologically relevant predictions. Here, we present a mathematical model of the early olfactory system of honeybees aiming to overcome these limitations. The model generates olfactory response patterns which conform to the statistics derived from experimental data for a variety of their properties. This allows considering the full dimensionality of the sensory input space as well as avoiding overfitting the underlying data sets. Several known biological mechanisms, including processes of chemical binding and activation of receptors, and spike generation and transmission in the antennal lobe network, are incorporated in the model at a minimal level. It can therefore be used to study how experimentally observed phenomena are shaped by these underlying biophysical processes. We verified that our model can replicate some key experimental findings that were not used when building it. Given appropriate data, our model can be generalized to the early olfactory systems of other insects. It hence provides a possible framework for future numerical and analytical studies of olfactory processing in insects
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