SAURON's Challenge for the Major Merger Scenario of Elliptical Galaxy Formation

The intrinsic anisotropy delta and flattening epsilon of simulated merger remnants is compared with elliptical galaxies that have been observed by the SAURON collaboration, and that were analysed using axisymmetric Schwarzschild models. Collisionless binary mergers of stellar disks and disk mergers with an additional isothermal gas component, neglecting star formation cannot reproduce the observed trend delta = 0.55 epsilon (SAURON relationship). An excellent fit of the SAURON relationship for flattened ellipticals with epsilon >= 0.25 is however found for merger simulations of disks with gas fractions >= 20%, including star formation and stellar energy feedback. Massive black hole feedback does not strongly affect this result. Subsequent dry merging of merger remnants however does not generate the slowly-rotating SAURON ellipticals which are characterized by low ellipticities epsilon < 0.25 and low anisotropies. This indicates that at least some ellipticals on the red galaxy sequence did not form by binary mergers of disks or early-type galaxies. We show that stellar spheroids resulting from multiple, hierarchical mergers of star-bursting subunits in a cosmological context are in excellent agreement with the low ellipticities and anisotropies of the slowly rotating SAURON ellipticals and their observed trend of delta with epsilon. The numerical simulations indicate that the SAURON relation might be a result of strong violent relaxation and phase mixing of multiple, kinematically cold stellar subunits with the angular momentum of the system determining its location on the relation.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Ap

New results on SIDIS SSA from Jefferson Lab

We present studies of single-spin and double-spin asymmetries in semi-inclusive electroproduction of pions using the CEBAF 6 GeV polarized electron beam. Kinematic dependences of single and double spin asymmetries have been measured in a wide kinematic range at CLAS with a polarized NH$_3$ target. Significant target-spin $\sin2\phi$ and $\sin\phi$ asymmetries have been observed. The hypothesis of factorization has been tested with $z$-dependence of the double spin asymmetry.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

QCD radiative and power corrections and Generalized GDH sum rules

We extend the earlier suggested QCD-motivated model for the $Q^2$-dependence of the generalized Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn (GDH) sum rule which assumes the smooth dependence of the structure function $g_T$, while the sharp dependence is due to the $g_2$ contribution and is described by the elastic part of the Burkhardt-Cottingham sum rule. The model successfully predicts the low crossing point for the proton GDH integral, but is at variance with the recent very accurate JLAB data. We show that, at this level of accuracy, one should include the previously neglected radiative and power QCD corrections, as boundary values for the model. We stress that the GDH integral, when measured with such a high accuracy achieved by the recent JLAB data, is very sensitive to QCD power corrections. We estimate the value of these power corrections from the JLAB data at $Q^2 \sim 1 {GeV}^2$. The inclusion of all QCD corrections leads to a good description of proton, neutron and deuteron data at all $Q^2$.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures (to be published in Physical Review D

Global Nonradial Instabilities of Dynamically Collapsing Gas Spheres

Self-similar solutions provide good descriptions for the gravitational collapse of spherical clouds or stars when the gas obeys a polytropic equation of state, $p=K\rho^\gamma$ (with $\gamma\le 4/3$). We study the behaviors of nonradial perturbations in the similarity solutions of Larson, Penston and Yahil, which describe the evolution of the collapsing cloud prior to core formation. Our global stability analysis reveals the existence of unstable bar-modes ($l=2$) when $\gamma\le 1.09$. In particular, for the collapse of isothermal spheres, which applies to the early stages of star formation, the $l=2$ density perturbation relative to the background, $\delta\rho({\bf r},t)/\rho(r,t)$, increases as $(t_0-t)^{-0.352}\propto \rho_c(t)^{0.176}$, where $t_0$ denotes the epoch of core formation, and $\rho_c(t)$ is the cloud central density. Thus, the isothermal cloud tends to evolve into an ellipsoidal shape (prolate bar or oblate disk, depending on initial conditions) as the collapse proceeds. In the context of Type II supernovae, core collapse is described by the $\gamma\simeq 1.3$ equation of state, and our analysis indicates that there is no growing mode (with density perturbation) in the collapsing core before the proto-neutron star forms, although nonradial perturbations can grow during the subsequent accretion of the outer core and envelope onto the neutron star. We also carry out a global stability analysis for the self-similar expansion-wave solution found by Shu, which describes the post-collapse accretion (``inside-out'' collapse) of isothermal gas onto a protostar. We show that this solution is unstable to perturbations of all $l$'s, although the growth rates are unknown.Comment: 28 pages including 7 ps figures; Minor changes in the discussion; To be published in ApJ (V.540, Sept.10, 2000 issue

The Structure of Dark Matter Haloes in Dwarf Galaxies

Recent observations indicate that dark matter haloes have flat central density profiles. Cosmological simulations with non-baryonic dark matter predict however self similar haloes with central density cusps. This contradiction has lead to the conclusion that dark matter must be baryonic. Here it is shown that the dark matter haloes of dwarf spiral galaxies represent a one parameter family with self similar density profiles. The observed global halo parameters are coupled with each other through simple scaling relations which can be explained by the standard cold dark matter model if one assumes that all the haloes formed from density fluctuations with the same primordial amplitude. We find that the finite central halo densities correlate with the other global parameters. This result rules out scenarios where the flat halo cores formed subsequently through violent dynamical processes in the baryonic component. These cores instead provide important information on the origin and nature of dark matter in dwarf galaxies.Comment: uuencoded Z-compressed postscript file, 10 pages, 3 figures included, to appear in ApJ Letter

A Fast Algorithm for Solving the Poisson Equation on a Nested Grid

We present a numerical method for solving the Poisson equation on a nested grid. The nested grid consists of uniform grids having different grid spacing and is designed to cover the space closer to the center with a finer grid. Thus our numerical method is suitable for computing the gravity of a centrally condensed object. It consists of two parts: the difference scheme for the Poisson equation on the nested grid and the multi-grid iteration algorithm. It has three advantages: accuracy, fast convergence, and scalability. First it computes the gravitational potential of a close binary accurately up to the quadraple moment, even when the binary is resolved only in the fine grids. Second residual decreases by a factor of 300 or more by each iteration. We confirmed experimentally that the iteration converges always to the exact solution of the difference equation. Third the computation load of the iteration is proportional to the total number of the cells in the nested grid. Thus our method gives a good solution at the minimum expense when the nested grid is large. The difference scheme is applicable also to the adaptive mesh refinement in which cells of different sizes are used to cover a domain of computation.Comment: 22 pages 21 figures. To appear in Ap