39,523 research outputs found
A Sino-German 6cm polarisation survey of the Galactic plane - VIII. Small-diameter sources
Information of small-diameter sources is extracted from the Sino-German 6cm
polarisation survey of the Galactic plane carried out with the Urumqi 25-m
telescope. We performed two-dimensional elliptical Gaussian fits to the 6cm
maps to obtain a list of sources with total-intensity and polarised flux
densities. The source list contains 3832 sources with a fitted diameter smaller
than 16 arcmin and a peak flux density exceeding 30 mJy, so about 5 times the
rms noise, of the total-intensity data. The cumulative source count indicates
completeness for flux densities exceeding about 60 mJy. We identify 125
linearly polarised sources at 6cm with a peak polarisation flux density greater
than 10 mJy, so about 3 times the rms noise, of the polarised-intensity data.
Despite lacking compact steep spectrum sources, the 6cm catalogue lists about
20 percent more sources than the Effelsberg 21cm source catalogue at the same
angular resolution and for the same area. Most of the faint 6cm sources must
have a flat spectrum and are either HII regions or extragalactic. When compared
with the Green Bank 6cm (GB6) catalogue, we obtain higher flux densities for a
number of extended sources with complex structures. Polarised 6cm sources
density are uniformly distributed in Galactic latitude. Their number density
decreases towards the inner Galaxy. More than 80 percent of the polarised
sources are most likely extragalactic. With a few exceptions, the sources have
a higher percentage polarisation at 6cm than at 21cm. Depolarisation seems to
occur mostly within the sources with a minor contribution from the Galactic
foreground emission.Comment: A&A accepted, 9 pages, 5 figures, Tables 1 and 2 are accessible from
http://zmtt.bao.ac.cn/6cm
Thermal and non-thermal emission in the Cygnus X region
Radio continuum observations detect non-thermal synchrotron and thermal
bremsstrahlung radiation. Separation of the two different emission components
is crucial to study the properties of diffuse interstellar medium. The Cygnus X
region is one of the most complex areas in the radio sky which contains a
number of massive stars and HII regions on the diffuse thermal and non-thermal
background. More supernova remnants are expected to be discovered. We aim to
develop a method which can properly separate the non-thermal and thermal radio
continuum emission and apply it to the Cygnus X region. The result can be used
to study the properties of different emission components and search for new
supernova remnants in the complex. Multi-frequency radio continuum data from
large-scale surveys are used to develop a new component separation method.
Spectral analysis is done pixel by pixel for the non-thermal synchrotron
emission with a realistic spectral index distribution and a fixed spectral
index of beta = -2.1 for the thermal bremsstrahlung emission. With the new
method, we separate the non-thermal and thermal components of the Cygnus X
region at an angular resolution of 9.5arcmin. The thermal emission component is
found to comprise 75% of the total continuum emission at 6cm. Thermal diffuse
emission, rather than the discrete HII regions, is found to be the major
contributor to the entire thermal budget. A smooth non-thermal emission
background of 100 mK Tb is found. We successfully make the large-extent known
supernova remnants and the HII regions embedded in the complex standing out,
but no new large SNRs brighter than Sigma_1GHz = 3.7 x 10^-21 W m^-2 Hz^-1
sr^-1 are found.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted by A&A. The quality of the figures is
reduced due to file size limit of the websit
The sino-german 6cm polarization survey of the galactic plane: A summary
We have finished the 6cm polarization survey of the Galactic plane using the
Urumqi 25m radio telescope. It covers 10deg<l<230deg in Galactic longitude and
|b| <5deg in Galactic latitude. The new polarization maps not only reveal new
properties of the diffuse magnetized interstellar medium, but also are very
useful for studying individual objects such as Hii regions, which may act as
Faraday screens with strong regular magnetic fields inside, and supernova
remnants for their polarization properties and spectra. The high sensitivity of
the survey enables us to discover two new SNRs G178.2-4.2 and G25.3-2.1 and a
number of Hii regions.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure. International Journal of Modern Physics:
Conference Series (IJMPCS) for Proceedings of 3rd Galileo-Xu Guangqi meetin
Magnetic fields of the W4 superbubble
Superbubbles and supershells are the channels for transferring mass and
energy from the Galactic disk to the halo. Magnetic fields are believed to play
a vital role in their evolution. We study the radio continuum and polarized
emission properties of the W4 superbubble to determine its magnetic field
strength. New sensitive radio continuum observations were made at 6 cm, 11 cm,
and 21 cm. The total intensity measurements were used to derive the radio
spectrum of the W4 superbubble. The linear polarization data were analysed to
determine the magnetic field properties within the bubble shells. The
observations show a multi-shell structure of the W4 superbubble. A flat radio
continuum spectrum that stems from optically thin thermal emission is derived
from 1.4 GHz to 4.8 GHz. By fitting a passive Faraday screen model and
considering the filling factor fne , we obtain the thermal electron density ne
= 1.0/\sqrt{fne} (\pm5%) cm^-3 and the strength of the line-of-sight component
of the magnetic field B// = -5.0/\sqrt{fne} (\pm10%) {\mu}G (i.e. pointing away
from us) within the western shell of the W4 superbubble. When the known tilted
geometry of the W4 superbubble is considered, the total magnetic field Btot in
its western shell is greater than 12 {\mu}G. The electron density and the
magnetic field are lower and weaker in the high-latitude parts of the
superbubble. The rotation measure is found to be positive in the eastern shell
but negative in the western shell of the W4 superbubble, which is consistent
with the case that the magnetic field in the Perseus arm is lifted up from the
plane towards high latitudes. The magnetic field strength and the electron
density we derived for the W4 superbubble are important parameters for
evolution models of superbubbles breaking out of the Galactic plane.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
A Sino-German 6cm polarisation survey of the Galactic plane IX. HII regions
Large-scale radio continuum surveys provide data to get insights into the
physical properties of radio sources. HII regions are prominent radio sources
produced by thermal emission of ionised gas around young massive stars. We
identify and analyse HII regions in the Sino-German 6cm polarisation survey of
the Galactic plane. Objects with flat radio continuum spectra together with
infrared and/or Halpha emission were identified as HII regions. For HII regions
with small apparent sizes, we cross-matched the 6cm small-diameter source
catalogue with the radio HII region catalogue compiled by Paladini and the
infrared HII region catalogue based on the WISE data. Extended HII regions were
identified by eye by overlaying the Paladini and the WISE HII regions onto the
6cm survey images for coincidences. The TT-plot method was employed for
spectral index verification. A total of 401 HII regions were identified and
their flux densities were determined with the Sino-German 6cm survey data. In
the surveyed area, 76 pairs of sources are found to be duplicated in the
Paladini HII region catalogue, mainly due to the non-distinction of previous
observations with different angular resolutions, and 78 objects in their
catalogue are misclassified as HII regions, being actually planetary nebulae,
supernova remnants or extragalactic sources that have steep spectra. More than
30 HII regions and HII region candidates from our 6cm survey data, especially
extended ones, do not have counterparts in the WISE HII region catalogue, of
which 9 are identified for the first time. Based on the newly derived radio
continuum spectra and the evidence of infrared emission, the previously
identified SNRs G11.1-1.0, G20.4+0.1 and G16.4-0.5 are believed to be HII
regions.Comment: version after some minor corrections and language editing, full Table
2 - 5 will appear in CDS, accepted for publication in A&
The mass function of hydrogen-rich white dwarfs: robust observational evidence for a distinctive high-mass excess near 1Msun
The mass function of hydrogen-rich atmosphere white dwarfs has been
frequently found to reveal a distinctive high-mass excess near 1Msun. However,
a significant excess of massive white dwarfs has not been detected in the mass
function of the largest white dwarf catalogue to date from the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey. Hence, whether a high-mass excess exists or not has remained an
open question. In this work we build the mass function of the latest catalogue
of data release 10 SDSS hydrogen-rich white dwarfs, including the cool and
faint population (i.e. effective temperatures 6,000 <~ Teff <~ 12,000 K,
equivalent to 12 mag <~ Mbol <~ 13 mag). We show that the high-mass excess is
clearly present in our mass function, and that it disappears only if the
hottest (brightest) white dwarfs (those with Teff >~ 12,000 K, Mbol <~ 12 mag)
are considered. This naturally explains why previous SDSS mass functions failed
at detecting a significant excess of high-mass white dwarfs. Thus, our results
provide additional and robust observational evidence for the existence of a
distinctive high-mass excess near 1Msun. We investigate possible origins of
this feature and argue that the most plausible scenario that may lead to an
observed excess of massive white dwarfs is the merger of the degenerate core of
a giant star with a main sequence or a white dwarf companion during or shortly
after a common envelope event.Comment: Accepted for publication by MNRA
- …