On essentially non-oscillatory schemes on unstructured meshes: Analysis and implementation

A few years ago, the class of Essentially Non-Oscillatory Schemes for the numerical simulation of hyperbolic equations and systems was constructed. Since then, some extensions have been made to multidimensional simulations of compressible flows, mainly in the context of very regular structured meshes. In this paper, we first recall and improve the results of an earlier paper about non-oscillatory reconstruction on unstructured meshes, emphasizing the effective calculation of the reconstruction. Then we describe a class of numerical schemes on unstructured meshes and give some applications for its third order version. This demonstrates that a higher order of accuracy is indeed obtained, even on very irregular meshes

Molecular Hydrogen Optical Depth Templates for FUSE Data Analysis

The calculation and use of molecular hydrogen optical depth templates to quickly identify and model molecular hydrogen absorption features longward of the Lyman edge at 912 Angstroms are described. Such features are commonly encountered in spectra obtained by the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer and also in spectra obtained by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, albeit less commonly. Individual templates are calculated containing all the Lyman and Werner transitions originating from a single rotational state (J'') of the 0th vibrational level (v'') of the ground electronic state. Templates are provided with 0.01 Angstrom sampling for doppler parameters ranging from 2 <= b <= 20 km s^-1 and rotational states 0 <= J'' <= 15. Optical depth templates for excited vibrational states are also available for select doppler parameters. Each template is calculated for a fiducial column density of log[N(cm^-2)] = 21 and may be scaled to any column less than this value without loss of accuracy. These templates will facilitate the determination of the distribution of molecular hydrogen column density as a function of rotational level. The use of these templates will free the user from the computationally intensive task of calculating profiles for a large number of lines and allow concentration on line profile or curve-of-growth fitting to determine column densities and doppler parameters. The templates may be downloaded freely from http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~stephan/h2ools2.htmlComment: 20 pages, 2 tables, 6 figures, submitted to PASP 02-04-2003 Accepted for publication on 03-05-2003 with revisions, including modified fg1, modifed fg6 to become fg2 to support improved error discussion. To appear in the June 2003 issue of the PAS

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

Physical Properties and Baryonic Content of Low-Redshift Intergalactic Ly-alpha and O VI Absorption Systems: The PG1116+215 Sight Line

We present HST and FUSE observations of the intergalactic absorption toward PG1116+215 in the 900-3000 A spectral region. We detect 25 Ly-alpha absorbers at rest-frame equivalent widths W_r > 30 mA, yielding (dN/dz)_Ly-alpha = 154+/-18 over an unblocked redshift path of 0.162. Two additional weak Ly-alpha absorbers with W_r ~ 15-20 mA are also present. Eight of the Ly-alpha absorbers have large line widths (b > 40 km/sec). The detection of narrow OVI in the broad Ly-alpha absorber at z=0.06244 supports the idea that the Ly-alpha profile is thermally broadened in gas with T > 10^5 K. We find dN/dz ~ 50 for broad Ly-alpha absorbers with W_r > 30 mA and b > 40 km/sec. If the broad Ly-alpha lines are dominated by thermal broadening in hot gas, the amount of baryonic material in these absorbers is enormous, perhaps as much as half the baryonic mass in the low-redshift universe. We detect OVI absorption in several of the Ly-alpha clouds along the sight line. Two detections at z=0.13847 and z=0.16548 are confirmed by the presence of other ions at these redshifts, while the detections at z=0.04125, 0.05895, 0.05928, and 0.06244 are based upon the Ly-alpha and OVI detections alone. The information available for 13 low-redshift OVI absorbers with W_r > 50 mA along 5 sight lines yields (dN/dz)_OVI ~ 14 and Omega_b(OVI) > 0.0027/h_75, assuming a metallicity of 0.1 solar and an OVI ionization fraction < 0.2. The properties and prevalence of low-redshift OVI absorbers suggest that they too may be a substantial baryon repository, perhaps containing as much mass as stars and gas inside galaxies. The redshifts of the OVI absorbers are highly correlated with the redshifts of galaxies along the sight line, though few of the absorbers lie closer than 600/h_75 kpc to any single galaxy. [abbreviated]Comment: 99 pages, 30 figures, aastex format, ApJS in pres

Discovery of Enhanced Germanium Abundances in Planetary Nebulae with FUSE

We report the discovery of Ge III $\lambda$1088.46 in the planetary nebulae (PNe) SwSt 1, BD+30$^{\rm o}$3639, NGC 3132, and IC 4593, observed with the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer. This is the first astronomical detection of this line and the first measurement of Ge (Z = 32) in PNe. We estimate Ge abundances using S and Fe as reference elements, for a range of assumptions about gas-phase depletions. The results indicate that Ge, which is synthesized in the initial steps of the s-process and therefore can be self-enriched in PNe, is enhanced by factors of > 3-10. The strongest evidence for enrichment is seen for PNe with Wolf-Rayet central stars, which are likely to contain heavily processed material.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Spatial Variability in the Ratio of Interstellar Atomic Deuterium to Hydrogen. I. Observations toward delta Orionis by the Interstellar Medium Absorption Profile Spectrograph

Studies of the abundances of deuterium in different astrophysical sites are of fundamental importance to answering the question about how much deuterium was produced during big bang nucleosynthesis and what fraction of it was destroyed later. With this in mind, we used the Interstellar Medium Absorption Profile Spectrograph (IMAPS) on the ORFEUS-SPAS II mission to observe at a wavelength resolution of 4 km/s (FWHM) the L-delta and L-epsilon absorption features produced by interstellar atomic deuterium in the spectrum of delta Ori A. A chi-square analysis indicated that 0.96 < N(D I)< 1.45e15 cm^{-2} at a 90% level of confidence, and the gas is at a temperature of about 6000K. To obtain an accurate value of N(H I) needed for a determination of the atomic ratio of D to H, we measured the L-alpha absorption features in 57 spectra of delta Ori in the IUE archive. From our measurement of N(H I)= 1.56e20 cm^{-2}, we found that N(D I)/N(H I)= 7.4(+1.9,-1.3)e-6 (90% confidence). Our result for D/H contrasts with the more general finding along other lines of sight that D/H is approximately 1.5e-5. The underabundance of D toward delta Ori A is not accompanied by an overabundance of N or O relative to H, as one might expect if the gas were subjected to more stellar processing than usual.Comment: 37 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to the Astrophysical Journa

Are Giant Planets Forming Around HR 4796A?

We have obtained FUSE and HST STIS spectra of HR 4796A, a nearby 8 Myr old main sequence star that possesses a dusty circumstellar disk whose inclination has been constrained from high resolution near-infrared observations to be ~17 deg from edge-on. We searched for circumstellar absorption in the ground states of C II at 1036.3 A, O I at 1039.2 A, Zn II at 2026.1 A, Lyman series H2, and CO (A-X) and failed to detect any of these species. We place upper limits on the column densities and infer upper limits on the gas masses assuming that the gas is in hydrostatic equilibrium, is well-mixed, and has a temperature, Tgas ~ 65 K. Our measurements suggest that this system possesses very little molecular gas. Therefore, we infer an upper limit for the gas:dust ratio (<4.0) assuming that the gas is atomic. We measure less gas in this system than is required to form the envelope of Jupiter.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures (including 1 color figure), accepted for publication in Ap