748 research outputs found
Abundance patterns in early-type galaxies: is there a 'knee' in the [Fe/H] vs. [alpha/Fe] relation?
Early-type galaxies (ETGs) are known to be enhanced in alpha elements, in
accordance with their old ages and short formation timescales. In this
contribution we aim to resolve the enrichment histories of ETGs. This means we
study the abundance of Fe ([Fe/H]) and the alpha-element groups ([alpha/Fe])
separately for stars older than 9.5 Gyr ([Fe/H]o, [alpha/Fe]o) and for stars
between 1.5 and 9.5 Gyr ([Fe/H]i, [alpha/Fe]i). Through extensive simulation we
show that we can indeed recover the enrichment history per galaxy. We then
analyze a spectroscopic sample of 2286 early-type galaxies from the SDSS
selected to be ETGs. We separate out those galaxies for which the abundance of
iron in stars grows throughout the lifetime of the galaxy, i.e. in which
[Fe/H]o < [Fe/H]i. We confirm earlier work where the [Fe/H] and [alpha/Fe]
parameters are correlated with the mass and velocity dispersion of ETGs. We
emphasize that the strongest relation is between [alpha/Fe] and age. This
relation falls into two regimes, one with a steep slope for old galaxies and
one with a shallow slope for younger ETGs. The vast majority of ETGs in our
sample do not show the 'knee' in the plot of [Fe/H] vs. [alpha/Fe] commonly
observed in local group galaxies. This implies that for the vast majority of
ETGs, the stars younger than 9.5 Gyrs are likely to have been accreted or
formed from accreted gas. The properties of the intermediate-age stars in
accretion-dominated ETGs indicate that mass growth through late (minor) mergers
in ETGs is dominated by galaxies with low [Fe/H] and low [alpha/Fe]. The method
of reconstructing the stellar enrichment histories of ETGs introduced in this
paper promises to constrain the star formation and mass assembly histories of
large samples of galaxies in a unique way.Comment: 22 pages, 25 figures, accepted for publication by A&
Nuclear Star Clusters across the Hubble Sequence
Over the last decade, HST imaging studies have revealed that the centers of
most galaxies are occupied by compact, barely resolved sources. Based on their
structural properties, position in the fundamental plane, and spectra, these
sources clearly have a stellar origin. They are therefore called ``nuclear star
clusters'' (NCs) or ``stellar nuclei''. NCs are found in galaxies of all Hubble
types, suggesting that their formation is intricately linked to galaxy
evolution. In this contribution, I briefly review the results from recent
studies of NCs, touch on some ideas for their formation, and mention some open
issues related to the possible connection between NCs and supermassive black
holes.Comment: 6 page conference proceedings, to appear in "The impact of HST on
European Astronomy" (41st ESLAB Symposium), pdflatex file, uses svmult.cls
(included
Neutron electric form factor at large momentum transfer
Based on the recent, high precision data for elastic electron scattering from
protons and deuterons, at relatively large momentum transfer , we
determine the neutron electric form factor up to GeV. The values
obtained from the data (in the framework of the nonrelativistic impulse
approximation) are larger than commonly assumed and are in good agreement with
the Gari-Kr\"umpelmann parametrization of the nucleon electromagnetic form
factors.Comment: 11 pages 2 figure
Large scale kinematics and dynamical modelling of the Milky Way nuclear star cluster
Within the central 10pc of our Galaxy lies a dense nuclear star cluster
(NSC), and similar NSCs are found in most nearby galaxies. Studying the
structure and kinematics of NSCs reveals the history of mass accretion of
galaxy nuclei. Because the Milky Way (MW) NSC is at a distance of only 8kpc, we
can spatially resolve the MWNSC on sub-pc scales. This makes the MWNSC a
reference object for understanding the formation of all NSCs. We have used the
NIR long-slit spectrograph ISAAC (VLT) in a drift-scan to construct an
integral-field spectroscopic map of the central 9.5 x 8pc of our Galaxy. We use
this data set to extract stellar kinematics both of individual stars and from
the unresolved integrated light spectrum. We present a velocity and dispersion
map from the integrated light and model these kinematics using kinemetry and
axisymmetric Jeans models. We also measure CO bandhead strengths of 1,375
spectra from individual stars. We find kinematic complexity in the NSCs radial
velocity map including a misalignment of the kinematic position angle by 9
degree counterclockwise relative to the Galactic plane, and indications for a
rotating substructure perpendicular to the Galactic plane at a radius of 20" or
0.8pc. We determine the mass of the NSC within r = 4.2pc to 1.4 x 10^7 Msun. We
also show that our kinematic data results in a significant underestimation of
the supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass. The kinematic substructure and
position angle misalignment may hint at distinct accretion events. This
indicates that the MWNSC grew at least partly by the mergers of massive star
clusters. Compared to other NSCs, the MWNSC is on the compact side of the r_eff
- M_NSC relation. The underestimation of the SMBH mass might be caused by the
kinematic misalignment and a stellar population gradient. But it is also
possible that there is a bias in SMBH mass measurements obtained with
integrated light.Comment: 20 pages, 19 Figures, Accepted for publication in A&
Algorithmic Reduction of Biological Networks With Multiple Time Scales
We present a symbolic algorithmic approach that allows to compute invariant manifolds and corresponding reduced systems for differential equations modeling biological networks which comprise chemical reaction networks for cellular biochemistry, and compartmental models for pharmacology, epidemiology and ecology. Multiple time scales of a given network are obtained by scaling, based on tropical geometry. Our reduction is mathematically justified within a singular perturbation setting using a recent result by Cardin and Teixeira. The existence of invariant manifolds is subject to hyperbolicity conditions, which we test algorithmically using Hurwitz criteria. We finally obtain a sequence of nested invariant manifolds and respective reduced systems on those manifolds. Our theoretical results are generally accompanied by rigorous algorithmic descriptions suitable for direct implementation based on existing off-the-shelf software systems, specifically symbolic computation libraries and Satisfiability Modulo Theories solvers. We present computational examples taken from the well-known BioModels database using our own prototypical implementations
KMOS view of the Galactic Centre I. Young stars are centrally concentrated
The Galactic centre hosts a crowded, dense nuclear star cluster with a
half-light radius of 4 pc. Most of the stars in the Galactic centre are cool
late-type stars, but there are also >100 hot early-type stars in the central
parsec of the Milky Way. These stars are only 3-8 Myr old. Our knowledge of the
number and distribution of early-type stars in the Galactic centre is
incomplete. Only a few spectroscopic observations have been made beyond a
projected distance of 0.5 pc of the Galactic centre. The distribution and
kinematics of early-type stars are essential to understand the formation and
growth of the nuclear star cluster. We cover the central >4pc^2 of the Galactic
centre using the integral-field spectrograph KMOS. We extracted more than 1,000
spectra from individual stars and identified early-type stars based on their
spectra. Our data set contains 114 bright early-type stars: 6 have narrow
emission lines, 23 are Wolf-Rayet stars, 9 stars have featureless spectra, and
76 are O/B type stars. Our wide-field spectroscopic data confirm that the
distribution of young stars is compact, with 90% of the young stars identified
within 0.5 pc of the nucleus. We identify 24 new O/B stars primarily at large
radii. We estimate photometric masses of the O/B stars and show that the total
mass in the young population is >12,000M_sun. The O/B stars all appear to be
bound to the Milky Way nuclear star cluster, while less than 30% belong to the
clockwise rotating disk. The central concentration of the early-type stars is a
strong argument that they have formed in situ. A large part of the young O/B
stars is not on the disk, which either means that the early-type stars did not
all form on the same disk or that the disk is dissolving rapidly. [abridged]Comment: 27 pages, 17 figures, matches journal version: Corrected typos,
corrected Notes in Table B.
Extended Holomorphic Anomaly in Gauge Theory
The partition function of an N=2 gauge theory in the Omega-background
satisfies, for generic value of the parameter beta=-eps_1/eps_2, the, in
general extended, but otherwise beta-independent, holomorphic anomaly equation
of special geometry. Modularity together with the (beta-dependent) gap
structure at the various singular loci in the moduli space completely fixes the
holomorphic ambiguity, also when the extension is non-trivial. In some cases,
the theory at the orbifold radius, corresponding to beta=2, can be identified
with an "orientifold" of the theory at beta=1. The various connections give
hints for embedding the structure into the topological string.Comment: 25 page
A Note on Computations of D-brane Superpotential
We develop some computational methods for the integrals over the 3-chains on
the compact Calabi-Yau 3-folds that plays a prominent role in the analysis of
the topological B-model in the context of the open mirror symmetry. We discuss
such 3-chain integrals in two approaches. In the first approach, we provide a
systematic algorithm to obtain the inhomogeneous Picard-Fuchs equations. In the
second approach, we discuss the analytic continuation of the period integral to
compute the 3-chain integral directly. The latter direct integration method is
applicable for both on-shell and off-shell formalisms.Comment: 61 pages, 5 figures; v2: typos corrected, minor changes, references
adde
A somatosensory circuit for cooling perception in mice
The temperature of an object provides important somatosensory information for animals performing tactile tasks. Humans can perceive skin cooling of less than one degree, but the sensory afferents and central circuits that they engage to enable the perception of surface temperature are poorly understood. To address these questions, we examined the perception of glabrous skin cooling in mice. We found that mice were also capable of perceiving small amplitude skin cooling and that primary somatosensory (S1) cortical neurons were required for cooling perception. Moreover, the absence of the menthol-gated transient receptor potential melastatin 8 ion channel in sensory afferent fibers eliminated the ability to perceive cold and the corresponding activation of S1 neurons. Our results identify parts of a neural circuit underlying cold perception in mice and provide a new model system for the analysis of thermal processing and perception and multimodal integration
- …