217 research outputs found
Resolving the radio nebula around beta Lyrae
In this paper we present high spatial resolution radio images of the puzzling
binary system beta Lyrae obtained with MERLIN at 5 GHz. We find a nebula
surrounding the binary with a brightness temperature of 11000+-700K
approximately 40AU across. This definitively confirms the thermal origin of the
radio emission, which is consistent with emission from the wind of the B6-8II
component (mass loss of order of 10^-7 Msun per year), ionized by the radiation
field of the hotter companion. This nebula, surrounding the binary, is the
proof that beta Layrae evolved in a non-conservative way, i. e. not all the
mass lost by the primary is accretted by the secondary, and present
measurements indicate that almost 0.015Msun had been lost from the system since
the onset of the Roche lobe overflow phase. Moreover, the nebula is aligned
with the jet-like structures inferred from recent optical measurements,
indicating a possible connection among them.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in A&
Observations and modelling of pulsed radio emission from CU Virginis
We present 13 cm and 20 cm radio observations of the magnetic chemically
peculiar star CU Virginis taken with the Australia Telescope Compact Array. We
detect two circularly polarised radio pulses every rotation period which
confirm previous detections. In the first pulse, the lower frequency emission
arrives before the higher frequency emission and the ordering reverses in the
second pulse. In order to explain the frequency dependence of the time between
the two pulses, we construct a geometric model of the magnetosphere of CU
Virginis, and consider various emission angles relative to the magnetic field
lines. A simple electron cyclotron maser emission model, in which the emission
is perpendicular to the magnetic field lines, is not consistent with our data.
A model in which the emission is refracted through cold plasma in the
magnetosphere is shown to have the correct pulse arrival time frequency
dependence.Comment: Accepted by MNRA
Observations of radio pulses from CU Virginis
The magnetic chemically peculiar star CU Virginis is a unique astrophysical
laboratory for stellar magnetospheres and coherent emission processes. It is
the only known main sequence star to emit a radio pulse every rotation period.
Here we report on new observations of the CU Virginis pulse profile in the 13
and 20\,cm radio bands. The profile is known to be characterised by two peaks
of 100 circularly polarised emission that are thought to arise in an
electron-cyclotron maser mechanism. We find that the trailing peak is stable at
both 13 and 20\,cm, whereas the leading peak is intermittent at 13\,cm. Our
measured pulse arrival times confirm the discrepancy previously reported
between the putative stellar rotation rates measured with optical data and with
radio observations. We suggest that this period discrepancy might be caused by
an unknown companion or by instabilities in the emission region. Regular
long-term pulse timing and simultaneous multi-wavelength observations are
essential to clarify the behaviour of this emerging class of transient radio
source.Comment: Accepted by MNRAS Letters; 5 pages, 2 figures, 3 table
Automated detection of extended sources in radio maps: progress from the SCORPIO survey
Automated source extraction and parameterization represents a crucial
challenge for the next-generation radio interferometer surveys, such as those
performed with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and its precursors. In this
paper we present a new algorithm, dubbed CAESAR (Compact And Extended Source
Automated Recognition), to detect and parametrize extended sources in radio
interferometric maps. It is based on a pre-filtering stage, allowing image
denoising, compact source suppression and enhancement of diffuse emission,
followed by an adaptive superpixel clustering stage for final source
segmentation. A parameterization stage provides source flux information and a
wide range of morphology estimators for post-processing analysis. We developed
CAESAR in a modular software library, including also different methods for
local background estimation and image filtering, along with alternative
algorithms for both compact and diffuse source extraction. The method was
applied to real radio continuum data collected at the Australian Telescope
Compact Array (ATCA) within the SCORPIO project, a pathfinder of the ASKAP-EMU
survey. The source reconstruction capabilities were studied over different test
fields in the presence of compact sources, imaging artefacts and diffuse
emission from the Galactic plane and compared with existing algorithms. When
compared to a human-driven analysis, the designed algorithm was found capable
of detecting known target sources and regions of diffuse emission,
outperforming alternative approaches over the considered fields.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure
New ATCA, ALMA and VISIR observations of the candidate LBV SK-67266 (S61): the nebular mass from modelling 3D density distributions
We present new observations of the nebula around the Magellanic candidate
Luminous Blue Variable S61. These comprise high-resolution data acquired with
the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), the Atacama Large
Millimetre/Submillimetre Array (ALMA), and VISIR at the Very Large Telescope
(VLT). The nebula was detected only in the radio, up to 17 GHz. The 17 GHz ATCA
map, with 0.8 arcsec resolution, allowed a morphological comparison with the
H Hubble Space Telescope image. The radio nebula resembles a spherical
shell, as in the optical. The spectral index map indicates that the radio
emission is due to free-free transitions in the ionised, optically thin gas,
but there are hints of inhomogeneities. We present our new public code RHOCUBE
to model 3D density distributions, and determine via Bayesian inference the
nebula's geometric parameters. We applied the code to model the electron
density distribution in the S61 nebula. We found that different distributions
fit the data, but all of them converge to the same ionised mass, ~0.1 , which is an order of magnitude smaller than previous estimates. We
show how the nebula models can be used to derive the mass-loss history with
high-temporal resolution. The nebula was probably formed through stellar winds,
rather than eruptions. From the ALMA and VISIR non-detections, plus the derived
extinction map, we deduce that the infrared emission observed by space
telescopes must arise from extended, diffuse dust within the ionised region.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures. Authors list corrected. In press in MNRAS.
RHOCUBE code available online ( https://github.com/rnikutta/rhocube
The Luminous Blue Variable RMC127 as seen with ALMA and ATCA
We present ALMA and ATCA observations of the luminous blue variable \rmc. The
radio maps show for the first time the core of the nebula and evidence that the
nebula is strongly asymmetric with a Z-pattern shape. Hints of this morphology
are also visible in the archival \emph{HST} image, which overall
resembles the radio emission. The emission mechanism in the outer nebula is
optically thin free-free in the radio. At high frequencies, a component of
point-source emission appears at the position of the star, up to the ALMA
frequencies. The rising flux density distribution () of this object suggests thermal emission from the ionized
stellar wind and indicates a departure from spherical symmetry with
. We examine different scenarios to explain this excess
of thermal emission from the wind and show that this can arise from a bipolar
outflow, supporting the suggestion by other authors that the stellar wind of
\rmc is aspherical. We fit the data with two collimated ionized wind models and
we find that the mass-loss rate can be a factor of two or more smaller than in
the spherical case. We also fit the photometry obtained by IR space telescopes
and deduce that the mid- to far-IR emission must arise from extended, cool
() dust within the outer ionized nebula. Finally we discuss two
possible scenarios for the nebular morphology: the canonical single star
expanding shell geometry, and a precessing jet model assuming presence of a
companion star.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ (minor revision included
SCORPIO-II: Spectral indices of weak Galactic radio sources
In the next few years the classification of radio sources observed by the
large surveys will be a challenging problem, and spectral index is a powerful
tool for addressing it. Here we present an algorithm to estimate the spectral
index of sources from multiwavelength radio images. We have applied our
algorithm to SCORPIO (Umana et al. 2015), a Galactic Plane survey centred
around 2.1 GHz carried out with ATCA, and found we can measure reliable
spectral indices only for sources stronger than 40 times the rms noise. Above a
threshold of 1 mJy, the source density in SCORPIO is 20 percent greater than in
a typical extra-galactic field, like ATLAS (Norris et al. 2006), because of the
presence of Galactic sources. Among this excess population, 16 sources per
square degree have a spectral index of about zero, suggesting optically thin
thermal emission such as Hii regions and planetary nebulae, while 12 per square
degree present a rising spectrum, suggesting optically thick thermal emission
such as stars and UCHii regions.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, accepted by MNRA
Performance analysis of kinetic Monte Carlo algorithms for synthesis of linear polymers
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IC 4406: a radio-infrared view
IC 4406 is a large (about 100'' x 30'') southern bipolar planetary nebula,
composed of two elongated lobes extending from a bright central region, where
there is evidence for the presence of a large torus of gas and dust. We show
new observations of this source performed with IRAC (Spitzer Space Telescope)
and the Australia Telescope Compact Array. The radio maps show that the flux
from the ionized gas is concentrated in the bright central region and
originates in a clumpy structure previously observed in H_alpha, while in the
infrared images filaments and clumps can be seen in the extended nebular
envelope, the central region showing toroidal emission. Modeling of the
infrared emission leads to the conclusion that several dust components are
present in the nebula.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical
Journal; v.2 has changes in both figures and content; preprint forma
Pushing forward the predictive power of kinetic Monte Carlo simulations for detailed (de)polymerization chemistries
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