Faint blue objects on the Hubble Deep Field North & South as possible nearby old halo white dwarfs

Using data derived from the deepest and finest angular resolution images of the universe yet acquired by astronomers at optical wavelengths using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in two postage-stamp sections of the sky (Williams et al. 1996a,b), plus simple geometrical and scaling arguments, we demonstrate that the faint blue population of point-source objects detected on those two fields (M\'endez et al. 1996) could actually be ancient halo white dwarfs at distances closer than about 2 kpc from the Sun. This finding has profound implications, as the mass density of the detected objects would account for about half of the missing dark matter in the Milky-Way (Bahcall and Soneira 1980), thus solving one of the most controversial issues of modern astrophysics (Trimble 1987, Ashman 1992). The existence of these faint blue objects points to a very large mass locked into ancient halo white dwarfs. Our estimate indicates that they could account for as much as half of the dark matter in our Galaxy, confirming the suggestions of the MACHO microlensing experiment (Alcock et al. 1997). Because of the importance of this discovery, deep follow-up observations with HST within the next two years would be needed to determine more accurately the kinematics (tangential motions) for these faint blue old white dwarfs.Comment: Accepted for publication on The Astrophysical Journal, Part 1. 8 pages (AAS Latex macros V4.0), 1 B&W postscript figure, 2 color postscript figure

The Design of Random Surfaces with Specified Scattering Properties: Surfaces that Suppress Leakage

We present a method for generating a one-dimensional random metal surface of finite length L that suppresses leakage, i.e. the roughness-induced conversion of a surface plasmon polariton propagating on it into volume electromagnetic waves in the vacuum above the surface. Perturbative and numerical simulation calculations carried out for surfaces generated in this way show that they indeed suppress leakage.Comment: Revtex 6 pages (including 4 figures

Drastic Reduction of Shot Noise in Semiconductor Superlattices

We have found experimentally that the shot noise of the tunneling current $I$ through an undoped semiconductor superlattice is reduced with respect to the Poissonian noise value $2eI$, and that the noise approaches 1/3 of that value in superlattices whose quantum wells are strongly coupled. On the other hand, when the coupling is weak or when a strong electric field is applied to the superlattice the noise becomes Poissonian. Although our results are qualitatively consistent with existing theories for one-dimensional mulitple barriers, the theories cannot account for the dependence of the noise on superlattice parameters that we have observed.Comment: 4 Pages, 3Figure

Structural properties of disk galaxies I. The intrinsic ellipticity of bulges

(Abridged) A variety of formation scenarios was proposed to explain the diversity of properties observed in bulges. Studying their intrinsic shape can help in constraining the dominant mechanism at the epochs of their assembly. The structural parameters of a magnitude-limited sample of 148 unbarred S0--Sb galaxies were derived in order to study the correlations between bulges and disks as well as the probability distribution function (PDF) of the intrinsic equatorial ellipticity of bulges. It is presented a new fitting algorithm (GASP2D) to perform the two-dimensional photometric decomposition of galaxy surface-brightness distribution. This was assumed to be the sum of the contribution of a bulge and disk component characterized by elliptical and concentric isophotes with constant (but possibly different) ellipticity and position angles. Bulge and disk parameters of the sample galaxies were derived from the J-band images which were available in the Two Micron All Sky Survey. The PDF of the equatorial ellipticity of the bulges was derived from the distribution of the observed ellipticities of bulges and misalignments between bulges and disks. Strong correlations between the bulge and disk parameters were found. About 80% of bulges in unbarred lenticular and early-to-intermediate spiral galaxies are not oblate but triaxial ellipsoids. Their mean axial ratio in the equatorial plane is = 0.85. There is not significant dependence of their PDF on morphology, light concentration, and luminosity. The interplay between bulge and disk parameters favors scenarios in which bulges assembled from mergers and/or grew over long times through disk secular evolution. But all these mechanisms have to be tested against the derived distribution of bulge intrinsic ellipticities.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in A&A, corrected proof

Old Main-Sequence Turnoff Photometry in the Small Magellanic Cloud. I. Constraints on the Star Formation History in Different Fields

We present ground-based B and R-band color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs), reaching the oldest main-sequence turnoffs with good photometric accuracy for twelve fields in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). Our fields, located between ~1 and ~4 degrees from the center of the galaxy, are situated in different parts of the SMC such as the "Wing'' area, and towards the West and South. In this paper we perform a first analysis of the stellar content in our SMC fields through comparison with theoretical isochrones and color functions (CFs). We find that the underlying spheroidally distributed population is composed of both intermediate-age and old stars and that its age composition does not show strong galacto-centric gradients. The three fields situated toward the east, in the Wing region, show very active current star formation. However, only in the eastern field closest to the center do we find an enhancement of recent star formation with respect to a constant SFR(t). The fields corresponding to the western side of the SMC present a much less populated young MS, and the CF analysis indicates that the SFR(t) greatly diminished around 2 Gyr ago in these parts. Field smc0057, the closest to the center of the galaxy and located in the southern part, shows recent star formation, while the rest of the southern fields present few bright MS stars. The structure of the red clump in all the CMDs is consistent with the large amount of intermediate-age stars inferred from the CMDs and color functions. None of the SMC fields presented here are dominated by old stellar populations, a fact that is in agreement with the lack of a conspicuous horizontal branch in all these SMC CMDs. This could indicate that a disk population is ruling over a possible old halo in all the observed fields.Comment: To appear in A