717 research outputs found
Evidence for Correlated Titanium and Deuterium Depletion in the Galactic ISM
Current measurements indicate that the deuterium abundance in diffuse
interstellar gas varies spatially by a factor of ~4 among sightlines extending
beyond the Local Bubble. One plausible explanation for the scatter is the
variable depletion of D onto dust grains. To test this scenario, we have
obtained high signal-to-noise, high resolution profiles of the refractory ion
TiII along seven Galactic sightlines with D/H ranging from 0.65 to 2.1x10^-5.
These measurements, acquired with the recently upgraded Keck/HIRES
spectrometer, indicate a correlation between Ti/H and D/H at the >95% c.l.
Therefore, our observations support the interpretation that D/H scatter is
associated with differential depletion. We note, however, that Ti/H values
taken from the literature do not uniformly show the correlation. Finally, we
identify significant component-to-component variations in the depletion levels
among individual sightlines and discuss complications arising from this
behavior.Comment: 4 pages; Accepted to Astrophysical Journal Letter
Detection of Pristine Gas Two Billion Years after the Big Bang
In the current cosmological model, only the three lightest elements were
created in the first few minutes after the Big Bang; all other elements were
produced later in stars. To date, however, heavy elements have been observed in
all astrophysical environments. We report the detection of two gas clouds with
no discernible elements heavier than hydrogen. These systems exhibit the lowest
heavy-element abundance in the early universe and thus are potential fuel for
the most metal poor halo stars. The detection of deuterium in one system at the
level predicted by primordial nucleosynthesis provides a direct confirmation of
the standard cosmological model. The composition of these clouds further
implies that the transport of heavy elements from galaxies to their
surroundings is highly inhomogeneous.Comment: 32 pages, 11 figures, SOM included. To appear in Scienc
The survival of gas clouds in the Circumgalactic Medium of Milky Way-like galaxies
Observational evidence shows that low-redshift galaxies are surrounded by
extended haloes of multiphase gas, the so-called 'circumgalactic medium' (CGM).
To study the survival of relatively cool gas (T < 10^5 K) in the CGM, we
performed a set of hydrodynamical simulations of cold (T = 10^4 K) neutral gas
clouds travelling through a hot (T = 2x10^6 K) and low-density (n = 10^-4
cm^-3) coronal medium, typical of Milky Way-like galaxies at large
galactocentric distances (~ 50-150 kpc). We explored the effects of different
initial values of relative velocity and radius of the clouds. Our simulations
were performed on a two-dimensional grid with constant mesh size (2 pc) and
they include radiative cooling, photoionization heating and thermal conduction.
We found that for large clouds (radii larger than 250 pc) the cool gas survives
for very long time (larger than 250 Myr): despite that they are partially
destroyed and fragmented into smaller cloudlets during their trajectory, the
total mass of cool gas decreases at very low rates. We found that thermal
conduction plays a significant role: its effect is to hinder formation of
hydrodynamical instabilities at the cloud-corona interface, keeping the cloud
compact and therefore more difficult to destroy. The distribution of column
densities extracted from our simulations are compatible with those observed for
low-temperature ions (e.g. SiII and SiIII) and for high-temperature ions (OVI)
once we take into account that OVI covers much more extended regions than the
cool gas and, therefore, it is more likely to be detected along a generic line
of sight.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA
Constraints on the Diverse Progenitors of GRBs from the Large-Scale Environments
The pursuit of the progenitors of short duration-hard spectrum gamma-ray
bursts (SHBs) draws strongly upon similar quests for the origin of supernovae
(SNe) and long duration-soft spectrum GRBs(LSBs). Indeed the notion that, in
the absence of smoking guns, the progenitors of cosmic explosions betray their
identities both on the global and local scale, motivates the study of SHB
redshifts, host galaxies, and locations with respect to hosts. To this end, we
suggest both a historical and emergent physical analogy of GRBs with SNe:
long-soft GRBs are to core-collapsed supernovae as short-hard GRBs are to Type
Ia supernovae ("LSB:CC::SHB:Ia''). Still, the SHB progenitor pursuit is just
beginning and we caution that while there are some substantive differences
between observations of LSBs and SHBs on large-scales, particularly in host
demographics, neither the offset nor the redshift distributions of SHBs are
statistically inconsistent with those of LSBs.Comment: Invited review to appear in the Proceedings of the 16th Annual
October Astrophysics Conference in Maryland, "Gamma Ray Bursts in the Swift
Era", eds. S. Holt, N. Gehrels and J. Nousek; 10 pages, 2 figures, 2 table
The Discovery of Vibrationally-Excited H_2 in the Molecular Cloud near GRB 080607
GRB 080607 has provided the first strong observational signatures of
molecular absorption bands toward any galaxy hosting a gamma-ray burst. Despite
the identification of dozens of features as belonging to various atomic and
molecular (H_2 and CO) carriers, many more absorption features remained
unidentified. Here we report on a search among these features for absorption
from vibrationally-excited H_2, a species that was predicted to be produced by
the UV flash of a GRB impinging on a molecular cloud. Following a detailed
comparison between our spectroscopy and static, as well as dynamic, models of
H_2* absorption, we conclude that a column density of 10^{17.5+-0.2} cm^{-2} of
H_2* was produced along the line of sight toward GRB 080607. Depending on the
assumed amount of dust extinction between the molecular cloud and the GRB, the
model distance between the two is found to be in the range 230--940 pc. Such a
range is consistent with a conservative lower limit of 100 pc estimated from
the presence of Mg I in the same data. These distances show that substantial
molecular material is found within hundreds of pc from GRB 080607, part of the
distribution of clouds within the GRB host galaxy.Comment: Submitted to ApJL, 6 pages emulate
Professor Ricardo Uauy; Editorial Board Member, EJCN
We present a preliminary data release from our multi-year campaign at Keck Observatory to study the host galaxies of a large sample of Swift-era gamma-ray bursts via multi-color ground-based optical imaging and spectroscopy. With over 160 targets observed to date (and almost 100 host detections, most of which have not previously been reported in the literature) our effort represents the broadest GRB host survey to date. While targeting was heterogeneous, our observations span the known diversity of GRBs including short bursts, long bursts, spectrally soft GRBs (XRFs), ultra-energetic GRBs, X-ray faint GRBs, dark GRBs, SN-GRBs, and other sub-classes. We also present a preview of our database (currently available online via a convenient web interface) including a catalog of multi-color photometry, redshifts and line ID’s. Final photometry and reduced imaging and spectra will be available in the near future
Characterizing the Low-Redshift Intergalactic Medium towards PKS1302-102
We present a detailed analysis of the intergalactic metal-line absorption
systems in the archival HST/STIS and FUSE ultraviolet spectra of the
low-redshift quasar PKS1302-102 (z_QSO = 0.2784). We supplement the archive
data with CLOUDY ionization models and a survey of galaxies in the quasar
field. There are 15 strong Lya absorbers with column densities logN_HI > 14. Of
these, six are associated with at least CIII 977 absorption (logN(C^++) > 13);
this implies a redshift density dN_CIII/dz = 36+13/-9 (68% confidence limits)
for the five detections with rest equivalent width W_r > 50 mA. Two systems
show OVI 1031,1037 absorption in addition to CIII (logN(O^+5) > 14). One is a
partial Lyman limit system (logN_HI = 17) with associated CIII, OVI, and SiIII
1206 absorption. There are three tentative OVI systems that do not have CIII
detected. For one OVI doublet with both lines detected at 3 sigma with W_r > 50
mA, dN_OVI/dz = 7+9/-4. We also search for OVI doublets without Lya absorption
but identify none. From CLOUDY modeling, these metal-line systems have
metallicities spanning the range -4 < [M/H] < -0.3. The two OVI systems with
associated CIII absorption cannot be single-phase, collisionally-ionized media
based on the relative abundances of the metals and kinematic arguments. From
the galaxy survey, we discover that the absorption systems are in a diverse set
of galactic environments. Each metal-line system has at least one galaxy within
500 km/s and 600 h^-1 kpc with L > 0.1 L_*.Comment: 21 pages in emulatepj form, 24 figures, 10 tables, accepted to Ap
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