1,452 research outputs found
The Large, Oxygen-Rich Halos of Star-Forming Galaxies Are A Major Reservoir of Galactic Metals
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) is fed by galaxy outflows and accretion of
intergalactic gas, but its mass, heavy element enrichment, and relation to
galaxy properties are poorly constrained by observations. In a survey of the
outskirts of 42 galaxies with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph onboard the
Hubble Space Telescope, we detected ubiquitous, large (150 kiloparsec) halos of
ionized oxygen surrounding star-forming galaxies, but we find much less ionized
oxygen around galaxies with little or no star formation. This ionized CGM
contains a substantial mass of heavy elements and gas, perhaps far exceeding
the reservoirs of gas in the galaxies themselves. It is a basic component of
nearly all star-forming galaxies that is removed or transformed during the
quenching of star formation and the transition to passive evolution.Comment: This paper is part of a set of three papers on circumgalactic gas
observed with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on HST, to be published in
Science, together with related papers by Tripp et al. and Lehner & Howk, in
the November 18, 2011 edition. This version has not undergone final
copyediting. Please see Science online for the final printed versio
Low Redshift Intergalactic Absorption Lines in the Spectrum of HE0226-4110
We present an analysis of the FUSE and STIS E140M spectra of HE0226-4110
(z=0.495). We detect 56 Lyman absorbers and 5 O VI absorbers. The number of
intervening O VI systems per unit redshift with W>50 m\AA is dN(O VI)/dz~ 11.
The O VI systems unambiguously trace hot gas only in one case. For the 4 other
O VI systems, photoionization and collisional ionization models are viable
options to explain the observed column densities of the O VI and the other
ions. If the O VI systems are mostly photoionized, only a fraction of the
observed O VI will contribute to the baryonic density of the warm-hot ionized
medium (WHIM) along this line of sight. Combining our results with previous
ones, we show that there is a general increase of N(O VI) with increasing b(O
VI). Cooling flow models can reproduce the N-b distribution but fail to
reproduce the observed ionic ratios. A comparison of the number of O I, O II, O
III, O IV, and O VI systems per unit redshift show that the low-z IGM is more
highly ionized than weakly ionized. We confirm that photoionized O VI systems
show a decreasing ionization parameter with increasing H I column density. O VI
absorbers with collisional ionization/photoionization degeneracy follow this
relation, possibly suggesting that they are principally photoionized. We find
that the photoionized O VI systems in the low redshift IGM have a median
abundance of 0.3 solar. We do not find additional Ne VIII systems other than
the one found by Savage et al., although our sensitivity should have allowed
the detection of Ne VIII in O VI systems at T~(0.6-1.3)x10^6 K (if CIE
applies). Since the bulk of the WHIM is believed to be at temperatures T>10^6
K, the hot part of the WHIM remains to be discovered with FUV--EUV metal-line
transitions.Comment: Accepted for publication in the ApJS. Full resolution figures
available at
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/journal/preprints/ApJS63975.preprint.pd
Multi-Color Light Curves of Type Ia Supernovae on the Color-Magnitude Diagram: a Novel Step Toward More Precise Distance and Extinction Estimates
We show empirically that fits to the color-magnitude relation of Type Ia
supernovae after optical maximum can provide accurate relative extragalactic
distances. We report the discovery of an empirical color relation for Type Ia
light curves: During much of the first month past maximum, the magnitudes of
Type Ia supernovae defined at a given value of color index have a very small
magnitude dispersion; moreover, during this period the relation between
magnitude and color (or or color) is strikingly linear, to
the accuracy of existing well-measured data. These linear relations can provide
robust distance estimates, in particular, by using the magnitudes when the
supernova reaches a given color. After correction for light curve strech factor
or decline rate, the dispersion of the magnitudes taken at the intercept of the
linear color-magnitude relation are found to be around 0.08 for the
sub-sample of supernovae with \BVm , and around 0.11 for the
sub-sample with \BVm . This small dispersion is consistent with
being mostly due to observational errors. The method presented here and the
conventional light curve fitting methods can be combined to further improve
statistical dispersions of distance estimates. It can be combined with the
magnitude at maximum to deduce dust extinction. The slopes of the
color-magnitude relation may also be used to identify intrinsically different
SN Ia systems. The method provides a tool that is fundamental to using SN Ia to
estimate cosmological parameters such as the Hubble constant and the mass and
dark energy content of the universe.Comment: ApJ, in pres
Two Strains of Crocosphaera watsonii with Highly Conserved Genomes are Distinguished by Strain-Specific Features
Unicellular nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria are important components of marine phytoplankton. Although non-nitrogen-fixing marine phytoplankton generally exhibit high gene sequence and genomic diversity, gene sequences of natural populations and isolated strains of Crocosphaera watsonii, one of the two most abundant open ocean unicellular cyanobacteria groups, have been shown to be 98–100% identical. The low sequence diversity in Crocosphaera is a dramatic contrast to sympatric species of Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus, and raises the question of how genome differences can explain observed phenotypic diversity among Crocosphaera strains. Here we show, through whole genome comparisons of two phenotypically different strains, that there are strain-specific sequences in each genome, and numerous genome rearrangements, despite exceptionally low sequence diversity in shared genomic regions. Some of the strain-specific sequences encode functions that explain observed phenotypic differences, such as exopolysaccharide biosynthesis. The pattern of strain-specific sequences distributed throughout the genomes, along with rearrangements in shared sequences is evidence of significant genetic mobility that may be attributed to the hundreds of transposase genes found in both strains. Furthermore, such genetic mobility appears to be the main mechanism of strain divergence in Crocosphaera which do not accumulate DNA microheterogeneity over the vast majority of their genomes. The strain-specific sequences found in this study provide tools for future physiological studies, as well as genetic markers to help determine the relative abundance of phenotypes in natural populations
Warm-Hot Gas in and around the Milky Way: Detection and Implications of OVII Absorption toward LMC X-3
X-ray absorption lines of highly-ionized species such as OVII at about zero
redshift have been firmly detected in the spectra of several active galactic
nuclei. However, the location of the absorbing gas remains a subject of debate.
To separate the Galactic and extragalactic contributions to the absorption, we
have obtained Chandra LETG-HRC and FUSE observations of the black hole X-ray
binary LMC X--3. A joint analysis of the detected OVII and Ne IX Kalpha lines,
together with the non-detection of the OVII Kbeta and OVIII Kalpha lines, gives
the measurements of the temperature, velocity dispersion, and hot oxygen column
density. The X-ray data also allow us to place a 95% confidence lower limit to
the Ne/O ratio as 0.14. The OVII line centroid and its relative shift from the
Galactic OI Kalpha absorption line, detected in the same observations, are
inconsistent with the systemic velocity of LMC X--3 ().
The far-UV spectrum shows OVI absorption at Galactic velocities, but no OVI
absorption is detected at the LMC velocity at significance. Both
the nonthermal broadening and the decreasing scale height with the increasing
ionization state further suggest an origin of the highly-ionized gas in a
supernova-driven galactic fountain. In addition, we estimate the warm and hot
electron column densities from our detected OVII Kalpha line in the LMC X--3
X-ray spectra and from the dispersion measure of a pulsar in the LMC vicinity.
We then infer the O/H ratio of the gas to be ,
consistent with the chemically-enriched galactic fountain scenario. We conclude
that the Galactic hot interstellar medium should in general substantially
contribute to zero-redshift X-ray absorption lines in extragalactic sources.Comment: 11 pages, accepted for publication in Ap
The Role of a Hot Gas Environment on the Evolution of Galaxies
Most spiral galaxies are found in galaxy groups with low velocity
dispersions; most E/S0 galaxies are found in galaxy groups with relatively high
velocity dispersions. The mass of the hot gas we can observe in the E/S0 groups
via their thermal X-ray emission is, on average, as much as the baryonic mass
of the galaxies in these groups. By comparison, galaxy clusters have as much or
more hot gas than stellar mass. Hot gas in S-rich groups, however, is of low
enough temperature for its X-ray emission to suffer heavy absorption due to
Galactic HI and related observational effects, and hence is hard to detect. We
postulate that such lower temperature hot gas does exist in low velocity
dispersion, S-rich groups, and explore the consequences of this assumption. For
a wide range of metallicity and density, hot gas in S-rich groups can cool in
far less than a Hubble time. If such gas exists and can cool, especially when
interacting with HI in existing galaxies, then it can help link together a
number of disparate observations, both Galactic and extragalactic, that are
otherwise difficult to understand.Comment: 16 pages with one figure. ApJ Letters, in pres
Rapid Oxidation Characterization of Ultra-High Temperature Ceramics
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65673/1/j.1551-2916.2007.01861.x.pd
QSO Absorption Systems Detected in Ne VIII: High-Metallicity Clouds with a Large Effective Cross Section
Using high resolution, high signal-to-noise ultraviolet spectra of the z =
0.9754 quasar PG1148+549 obtained with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on
the Hubble Space Telescope, we study the physical conditions and abundances of
NeVIII+OVI absorption line systems at z(abs) =0.68381, 0.70152, 0.72478. In
addition to NeVIII and OVI, absorption lines from multiple ionization stages of
oxygen (OII, OIII, OIV) are detected and are well-aligned with the more highly
ionized species. We show that these absorbers are multiphase systems including
hot gas (T ~ 10^{5.7} K) that produces NeVIII and OVI, and the gas metallicity
of the cool phase ranges from Z = 0.3 Z_{solar} to supersolar. The cool
(~10^{4} K) phases have densities n_{H} ~ 10^{-4} cm^{-3} and small sizes (<
4kpc); these cool clouds are likely to expand and dissipate, and the NeVIII may
be within a transition layer between the cool gas and a surrounding, much
hotter medium. The NeVIII redshift density, dN/dz = 7^{+7}_{-3}, requires a
large number of these clouds for every L > 0.1L* galaxy and a large effective
absorption cross section (>~ 100 kpc), and indeed, we find a star forming ~L*
galaxy at the redshift of the z(abs)=0.72478 system, at an impact parameter of
217 kpc. Multiphase absorbers like these NeVIII systems are likely to be an
important reservoir of baryons and metals in the circumgalactic media of
galaxies.Comment: Final published version (Astrophysical Journal
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