959 research outputs found
Pre-Existing Superbubbles as the Sites of Gamma-Ray Bursts
According to recent models, gamma-ray bursts apparently explode in a wide
variety of ambient densities ranging from ~ 10^{-3} to 30 cm^{-3}. The lowest
density environments seem, at first sight, to be incompatible with bursts in or
near molecular clouds or with dense stellar winds and hence with the
association of gamma-ray bursts with massive stars. We argue that low ambient
density regions naturally exist in areas of active star formation as the
interiors of superbubbles. The evolution of the interior bubble density as a
function of time for different assumptions about the evaporative or
hydrodynamical mass loading of the bubble interior is discussed. We present a
number of reasons why there should exist a large range of inferred afterglow
ambient densities whether gamma-ray bursts arise in massive stars or some
version of compact star coalescence. We predict that many gamma-ray bursts will
be identified with X-ray bright regions of galaxies, corresponding to
superbubbles, rather than with blue localized regions of star formation.
Massive star progenitors are expected to have their own circumstellar winds.
The lack of evidence for individual stellar winds associated with the
progenitor stars for the cases with afterglows in especially low density
environments may imply low wind densities and hence low mass loss rates
combined with high velocities. If gamma-ray bursts are associated with massive
stars, this combination might be expected for compact progenitors with
atmospheres dominated by carbon, oxygen or heavier elements, that is,
progenitors resembling Type Ic supernovae.Comment: 14 pages, no figures, submitted to The Astrophysical Journa
The Fractal Dimension of Projected Clouds
The interstellar medium seems to have an underlying fractal structure which
can be characterized through its fractal dimension. However, interstellar
clouds are observed as projected two-dimensional images, and the projection of
a tri-dimensional fractal distorts its measured properties. Here we use
simulated fractal clouds to study the relationship between the tri-dimensional
fractal dimension (D_f) of modeled clouds and the dimension resulting from
their projected images. We analyze different fractal dimension estimators: the
correlation and mass dimensions of the clouds, and the perimeter-based
dimension of their boundaries (D_per). We find the functional forms relating
D_f with the projected fractal dimensions, as well as the dependence on the
image resolution, which allow to estimatethe "real" D_f value of a cloud from
its projection. The application of these results to Orion A indicates in a
self-consistent way that 2.5 < D_f < 2.7 for this molecular cloud, a value
higher than the result D_per+1 = 2.3 some times assumed in literature for
interstellar clouds.Comment: 27 pages, 13 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Minor
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Optimizing patient risk stratification for colonoscopy screening and surveillance of colorectal cancer: The role for linked data
No abstract available for this article
Constraining ^(26)Al+p resonances using ^(26)Al(^3He,d)^(27)Si
The ^(26)Al(^3He,d)^(27)Si reaction was measured from 0°≤θ_(c.m.)≤35° at E(^3He)=20 MeV using a quadrupole-dipole-dipole-dipole magnetic spectrometer. States in ^(27)Si were observed above the background at 7652 and 7741 keV and upper limits were set for the state at 7592 keV. Implications for the ^(26)Al(p,γ)^(27)Si stellar reaction rate are discussed
Low-Background gamma counting at the Kimballton Underground Research Facility
The next generation of low-background physics experiments will require the
use of materials with unprecedented radio-purity. A gamma-counting facility at
the Kimballton Underground Research Facility (KURF) has been commissioned to
perform initial screening of materials for radioactivity primarily from
nuclides in the 238U and 232Th decay chains, 40K and cosmic-ray induced
isotopes. The facility consists of two commercial low-background high purity
germanium (HPGe) detectors. A continuum background reduction better than a
factor of 10 was achieved by going underground. This paper describes the
facility, detector systems, analysis techniques and selected assay results.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to NIM
Can Reflection from Grains Diagnose the Albedo?
By radiation transfer models with a realistic power spectra of the projected
density distributions, we show that the optical properties of grains are poorly
constrained by observations of reflection nebulae. The ISM is known to be
hierarchically clumped from a variety of observations (molecules, H I,
far-infrared). Our models assume the albedo and phase parameter of the dust,
the radial optical depth of the sphere averaged over all directions, and random
distributions of the dust within the sphere. The outputs are the stellar
extinction, optical depth, and flux of scattered light as seen from various
viewing angles. Observations provide the extinction and scattered flux from a
particular direction.
Hierarchical geometry has a large effect on the flux of scattered light
emerging from a nebula for a particular extinction of the exciting star. There
is a very large spread in both scattered fluxes and extinctions for any
distribution of dust. Consequently, an observed stellar extinction and
scattered flux can be fitted by a wide range of albedos. With hierarchical
geometry it is not completely safe to determine even relative optical constants
from multiwavelength observations of the same reflection nebula. The geometry
effectively changes with wavelength as the opacity of the clumps varies. Limits
on the implications of observing the same object in various wavelengths are
discussed briefly.
Henry (2002) uses a recipe to determine the scattered flux from a star with a
given extinction. It is claimed to be independent of the geometry. It provides
considerably more scattering than our models, probably leading to an
underestimate of the grain albedos from the UV Diffuse Galactic Light.Comment: 27 pages, including 7 figures. Accepted by Ap
Modeling a high mass turn down in the stellar initial mass function
Statistical sampling from the stellar initial mass function (IMF) for all
star-forming regions in the Galaxy would lead to the prediction of ~1000 Msun
stars unless there is a rapid turn-down in the IMF beyond several hundred solar
masses. Such a turndown is not necessary for dense clusters because the number
of stars sampled is always too small. Here we explore several mechanisms for an
upper mass cutoff, including an exponential decline of the star formation
probability after a turbulent crossing time. The results are in good agreement
with the observed IMF over the entire stellar mass range, and they give a
gradual turn down compared to the Salpeter function above ~100 Msun for normal
thermal Jeans mass, M_J. The upper mass turn down should scale with M_J in
different environments. A problem with the models is that they cannot give both
the observed power-law IMF out to the high-mass sampling limit in dense
clusters, as well as the observed lack of supermassive stars in whole galaxy
disks. Either there is a sharper upper-mass cutoff in the IMF, perhaps from
self-limitation, or the IMF is different for dense clusters than for the
majority of star formation that occurs at lower density. Dense clusters seem to
have an overabundance of massive stars relative to the average IMF in a galaxy.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures, Astrophysical Journal, Vol 539, August 10, 200
On the use of fractional Brownian motion simulations to determine the 3D statistical properties of interstellar gas
Based on fractional Brownian motion (fBm) simulations of 3D gas density and
velocity fields, we present a study of the statistical properties of
spectro-imagery observations (channel maps, integrated emission, and line
centroid velocity) in the case of an optically thin medium at various
temperatures. The power spectral index gamma_W of the integrated emission is
identified with that of the 3D density field (gamma_n) provided the medium's
depth is at least of the order of the largest transverse scale in the image,
and the power spectrum of the centroid velocity map is found to have the same
index gamma_C as that of the velocity field (gamma_v). Further tests with
non-fBm density and velocity fields show that this last result holds, and is
not modified either by the effects of density-velocity correlations. A
comparison is made with the theoretical predictions of Lazarian & Pogosyan
(2000).Comment: 28 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ. For preprint
with higher-resolution figures, see
http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~mamd/miville_fbm2003.pd
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