Hydrodynamic Simulations of Galaxy Formation. I. Dissipation and the Maximum Mass of Galaxies

We describe an accurate, one-dimensional, spherically symmetric, Lagrangian hydrodynamics/gravity code, designed to study the effects of radiative cooling and photo-ionization on the formation of protogalaxies. The code can treat an arbitrary number of fluid shells (representing baryons) and collisionless shells (representing cold dark matter). As a test of the code, we reproduce analytic solutions for the pulsation behavior of a polytrope and for the self-similar collapse of a spherically symmetric, cosmological perturbation. In this paper, we concentrate on the effects of radiative cooling, examining the ability of collapsing perturbations to cool within the age of the universe. In contrast to some studies based on order-of- magnitude estimates, we find that cooling arguments alone cannot explain the sharp upper cutoff observed in the galaxy luminosity function.Comment: 33 pages, uuencoded compressed postscript with figures, Ap.J. (in press), corrections to axes in Fig

Hydrodynamic simulations of galaxy formation

We have developed an accurate, one-dimensional, spherically symmetric, Lagrangian hydrodynamics/gravity code, designed to study the effects of radiative cooling and photo-ionization on the formation of protogalaxies. We examine the ability of collapsing perturbations to cool within the age of the universe. In contrast to some studies based on order-of-magnitude estimates, we find that cooling arguments alone cannot explain the sharp upper cutoff observed in the galaxy luminosity function. We also look at the effect of a photoionizing background on the formation of low-mass galaxies

The Old Halo metallicity gradient: the trace of a self-enrichment process

Based on a model of globular cluster self-enrichment published in a previous paper, we present an explanation for the metallicity gradient observed throughout the galactic Old Halo. Our self-enrichment model is based on the ability of globular cluster progenitor clouds to retain the ejecta of a first generation of Type II Supernovae. The key point is that this ability depends on the pressure exerted on the progenitor cloud by the surrounding protogalactic medium and therefore on the location of the cloud in the protoGalaxy. Since there is no significant (if any) metallicity gradient in the whole halo, we also present a review in favour of a galactic halo partly build via accretions and mergers of satellite systems. Some of them bear their own globular clusters and therefore ``contaminate'' the system of globular clusters formed ``in situ'', namely within the original potential well of the Galaxy. Therefore, the comparison between our self-enrichment model and the observational data should be limited to the genuine galactic globular clusters, the so-called Old Halo group.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

The self-enrichment of galactic halo globular clusters : a clue to their formation ?

We present a model of globular cluster self-enrichment. In the protogalaxy, cold and dense clouds embedded in the hot protogalactic medium are assumed to be the progenitors of galactic halo globular clusters. The massive stars of a first generation of metal-free stars, born in the central areas of the proto-globular cluster clouds, explode as Type II supernovae. The associated blast waves trigger the expansion of a supershell, sweeping all the material of the cloud, and the heavy elements released by these massive stars enrich the supershell. A second generation of stars is born in these compressed and enriched layers of gas. These stars can recollapse and form a globular cluster. This work aims at revising the most often encountered argument against self-enrichment, namely the presumed ability of a small number of supernovae to disrupt a proto-globular cluster cloud. We describe a model of the dynamics of the supershell and of its progressive chemical enrichment. We show that the minimal mass of the primordial cluster cloud required to avoid disruption by several tens of Type II supernovae is compatible with the masses usually assumed for proto-globular cluster clouds. Furthermore, the corresponding self-enrichment level is in agreement with halo globular cluster metallicities.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

A new seismic analysis of Alpha Centauri

Models of alpha Cen A & B have been computed using the masses determined by Pourbaix et al. (2002) and the data derived from the spectroscopic analysis of Neuforge and Magain (1997). The seismological data obtained by Bouchy and Carrier (2001, 2002) do help improve our knowledge of the evolutionary status of the system. All the constraints are satisfied with a model which gives an age of about 6 Gyr for the binary.Comment: to be published in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Breaking the core-envelope symmetry in p-mode pulsating stars

It has been shown that there is a potential ambiguity in the asteroseismic determination of the location of internal structures in a pulsating star. We show how, in the case of high-order non-radial acoustic modes, it is possible to remove this ambiguity by considering modes of different degree. To support our conclusions we have investigated the seismic signatures of sharp density variations in the structure of quasi-homogeneous models.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Cosmological Formation of Low-Mass Objects

We investigate the early formation of bound objects with masses comparable to the cosmological Jeans mass (10^5 solar masses). We follow the growth of isolated spherically symmetric density peaks starting from the linear perturbative regime. The initial parameters correspond to density peaks of various widths and heights in a Cold Dark Matter cosmology. We use a one-dimensional spherical Lagrangian hydrodynamics code to follow the dynamical, thermal, and non-equilibrium chemical evolution of the gas. The system includes a collisionless dark matter component and a baryonic component composed of the nine species H, H^-, H^+, He, He^+, He^{++}, H_2, H_2^+, and e^-. All relevant chemical reactions between these species and their cooling mechanisms are included in the calculations. We find that radiative cooling by H_2 affects the collapse dynamics of the gas only after it has already virialized and become part of the bound object. Therefore, radiative cooling is unlikely to have triggered the initial collapse of perturbations at redshifts z>10. Nevertheless, objects with baryonic masses well below the linear-theory Jeans mass (<10^3 solar masses) collapse due to shell crossing by the dark matter. Such objects could be the progenitors of a primordial population of high-mass stars in the intergalactic medium.Comment: 40 pages, uuencoded compressed Postscript, 14 figures included as three separate file

ANOMALOUS PERTURBATIVE TRANSPORT IN TOKAMAKS DUE TO DRIFT-WAVE TURBULENCE

A new method for calculating the anomalous transport in tokamak plasmas is presented. The renormalized nonlinear plasma response function is derived using the direct-interaction approximation (DIA). A complete calculation for the case of electrostatic drift-wave turbulence is presented. Explicit expressions for all coefficients of the anomalous transport matrix relating particle and heat fluxes to density and temperature gradients in the plasma are obtained. The anomalous transport matrix calculated using the DIA does not have the Onsager symmetry. As an example of application, the parameters of the Texas Experimental Tokamak (TEXT) [Nucl. Technol. Fusion 1, 479 (1981)] are used to evaluate all transport coefficients numerically, as well as the spectrum modulation. The relation between the theoretical results and the experimental data is discussed. Although this paper focuses on electron transport for simplicity, the method can also be used to calculate anomalous transport due to ion instabilities, such as the ion-temperature-gradient instability