46 research outputs found

    Large-Area Mapping at 850 Microns. I. Optimum Image Reconstruction from Chop Measurements

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    We present results on the optimum reconstruction of chop data taken using the Submillimeter Common-User Bolometer Array on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. Using an artificial data set with known noise properties, we analyze three techniques for constructing images of the sky from the chop data: Emerson Fourier deconvolution, matrix inversion, and maximum entropy reconstruction. We conclude that a matrix inversion formulation via an iterative procedure produces the best image reconstructions. We apply the three reconstruction techniques to produce maps of the calibration point source CRL 618 and the ? Ophiuchi A core at 850 ?m and use Wiener filtering to remove the high-frequency noise component from the matrix inversion method

    A Sub-millimeterwave ``Flare'' from GG Tau?

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    We have monitored the millimeter and submillimeter emission from the young stellar object GG Tau, a T Tauri binary system surrounded by a massive circumbinary disk. We find that between 1992 and 1994, the flux has increased significantly at 800, 1100, and 1300 microns, resulting in a steepening of the observed spectral energy distribution at those wavelengths. Such an increase appears consistent with a modest increase in disk luminosity (a factor of two). The increase in the effective disk temperature might arise from a slight change in the disk heating processes. Alternatively, the flux increase may reflect a sudden change in the underlying dust optical properties.Comment: 15 pages, AASTex v.4.0 format, four postscript figures, four tables, to appear in The Astrophysical Journa

    An Unbiased Survey of 500 Nearby Stars for Debris Disks: A JCMT Legacy Program

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    We present the scientific motivation and observing plan for an upcoming detection survey for debris disks using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. The SCUBA-2 Unbiased Nearby Stars (SUNS) Survey will observe 500 nearby main sequence and sub-giant stars (100 of each of the A, F, G, K and M spectral classes) to the 850 micron extragalactic confusion limit to search for evidence of submillimeter excess, an indication of circumstellar material. The survey distance boundaries are 8.6, 16.5, 22, 25 and 45 pc for M, K, G, F and A stars, respectively, and all targets lie between the declinations of -40 deg to 80 deg. In this survey, no star will be rejected based on its inherent properties: binarity, presence of planetary companions, spectral type or age. This will be the first unbiased survey for debris disks since IRAS. We expect to detect ~125 debris disks, including ~50 cold disks not detectable in current shorter wavelength surveys. A substantial amount of complementary data will be required to constrain the temperatures and masses of discovered disks. High resolution studies will likely be required to resolve many of the disks. Therefore, these systems will be the focus of future observational studies using a variety of observatories to characterize their physical properties. For non-detected systems, this survey will set constraints (upper limits) on the amount of circumstellar dust, of typically 200 times the Kuiper Belt mass, but as low as 10 times the Kuiper Belt mass for the nearest stars in the sample (approximately 2 pc).Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures (3 color), accepted by the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacifi

    Magnetic Fields in Star-Forming Molecular Clouds III. Submillimeter Polarimetry of Intermediate Mass Cores and Filaments in Orion B

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    Using the imaging polarimeter for the Submillimeter Common User Bolometric Array at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, we have detected polarized thermal emission at 850 micron from dust toward three star-forming core systems in the Orion B molecular cloud: NGC 2071, NGC 2024 and LBS 23N (HH 24). The polarization patterns are not indicative of those expected for magnetic fields dominated by a single field direction, and all exhibit diminished polarization percentages toward the highest intensity peaks. NGC 2024 has the most organized polarization pattern which is centered consistently along the length of a chain of 7 far-infrared sources. We have modeled NGC 2024 using a helical field geometry threading a curved filament and also as a magnetic field swept up by the ionization front of the expanding HII region. In the latter case, the field is bent by the dense ridge, which accounts for both the polarization pattern and existing measurements of the line-of-sight field strength toward the northern cores FIR 1 to FIR 4. The direction of the net magnetic field direction within NGC 2071 is perpendicular to the dominant outflow in that region. Despite evidence that line contamination exists in the 850 micron continuum, the levels of polarization measured indicate that the polarized emission is dominated by dust.Comment: 39 pages, 9 postscript figures (6 color), 3 tables; accepted for publication in Ap

    Cross-National Differences in Victimization : Disentangling the Impact of Composition and Context

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    Varying rates of criminal victimization across countries are assumed to be the outcome of countrylevel structural constraints that determine the supply ofmotivated o¡enders, as well as the differential composition within countries of suitable targets and capable guardianship. However, previous empirical tests of these ‘compositional’ and ‘contextual’ explanations of cross-national di¡erences have been performed upon macro-level crime data due to the unavailability of comparable individual-level data across countries. This limitation has had two important consequences for cross-national crime research. First, micro-/meso-level mechanisms underlying cross-national differences cannot be truly inferred from macro-level data. Secondly, the e¡ects of contextual measures (e.g. income inequality) on crime are uncontrolled for compositional heterogeneity. In this paper, these limitations are overcome by analysing individual-level victimization data across 18 countries from the International CrimeVictims Survey. Results from multi-level analyses on theft and violent victimization indicate that the national level of income inequality is positively related to risk, independent of compositional (i.e. micro- and meso-level) di¡erences. Furthermore, crossnational variation in victimization rates is not only shaped by di¡erences in national context, but also by varying composition. More speci¢cally, countries had higher crime rates the more they consisted of urban residents and regions with lowaverage social cohesion.

    The JCMT BISTRO Survey: A Spiral Magnetic Field in a Hub-filament Structure, Monoceros R2

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    We present and analyze observations of polarized dust emission at 850 μm toward the central 1 7 1 pc hub-filament structure of Monoceros R2 (Mon R2). The data are obtained with SCUBA-2/POL-2 on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) as part of the B-fields in Star-forming Region Observations survey. The orientations of the magnetic field follow the spiral structure of Mon R2, which are well described by an axisymmetric magnetic field model. We estimate the turbulent component of the magnetic field using the angle difference between our observations and the best-fit model of the underlying large-scale mean magnetic field. This estimate is used to calculate the magnetic field strength using the Davis–Chandrasekhar–Fermi method, for which we also obtain the distribution of volume density and velocity dispersion using a column density map derived from Herschel data and the C18O (J = 3 - 2) data taken with HARP on the JCMT, respectively. We make maps of magnetic field strengths and mass-to-flux ratios, finding that magnetic field strengths vary from 0.02 to 3.64 mG with a mean value of 1.0 \ub1 0.06 mG, and the mean critical mass-to-flux ratio is 0.47 \ub1 0.02. Additionally, the mean Alfv\ue9n Mach number is 0.35 \ub1 0.01. This suggests that, in Mon R2, the magnetic fields provide resistance against large-scale gravitational collapse, and the magnetic pressure exceeds the turbulent pressure. We also investigate the properties of each filament in Mon R2. Most of the filaments are aligned along the magnetic field direction and are magnetically subcritical

    The TOP-SCOPE Survey of Planck Galactic Cold Clumps : Survey Overview and Results of an Exemplar Source, PGCC G26.53+0.17

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    The low dust temperatures (<14 K) of Planck Galactic cold clumps (PGCCs) make them ideal targets to probe the initial conditions and very early phase of star formation. "TOP-SCOPE" is a joint survey program targeting similar to 2000 PGCCs in J = 1-0 transitions of CO isotopologues and similar to 1000 PGCCs in 850 mu m continuum emission. The objective of the "TOP-SCOPE" survey and the joint surveys (SMT 10 m, KVN 21 m, and NRO 45 m) is to statistically study the initial conditions occurring during star formation and the evolution of molecular clouds, across a wide range of environments. The observations, data analysis, and example science cases for these surveys are introduced with an exemplar source, PGCC G26.53+0.17 (G26), which is a filamentary infrared dark cloud (IRDC). The total mass, length, and mean line mass (M/L) of the G26 filament are similar to 6200 M-circle dot, similar to 12 pc, and similar to 500 M-circle dot pc(-1), respectively. Ten massive clumps, including eight starless ones, are found along the filament. The most massive clump as a whole may still be in global collapse, while its denser part seems to be undergoing expansion owing to outflow feedback. The fragmentation in the G26 filament from cloud scale to clump scale is in agreement with gravitational fragmentation of an isothermal, nonmagnetized, and turbulent supported cylinder. A bimodal behavior in dust emissivity spectral index (beta) distribution is found in G26, suggesting grain growth along the filament. The G26 filament may be formed owing to large-scale compression flows evidenced by the temperature and velocity gradients across its natal cloud.Peer reviewe

    Magnetic Fields toward Ophiuchus-B Derived from SCUBA-2 Polarization Measurements

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    We present the results of dust emission polarization measurements of Ophiuchus-B (Oph-B) carried out using the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array 2 (SCUBA-2) camera with its associated polarimeter (POL-2) on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii. This work is part of the B-fields in Star-forming Region Observations survey initiated to understand the role of magnetic fields in star formation for nearby star-forming molecular clouds. We present a first look at the geometry and strength of magnetic fields in Oph-B. The field geometry is traced over ~0.2 pc, with clear detection of both of the sub-clumps of Oph-B. The field pattern appears significantly disordered in sub-clump Oph-B1. The field geometry in Oph-B2 is more ordered, with a tendency to be along the major axis of the clump, parallel to the filamentary structure within which it lies. The degree of polarization decreases systematically toward the dense core material in the two sub-clumps. The field lines in the lower density material along the periphery are smoothly joined to the large-scale magnetic fields probed by NIR polarization observations. We estimated a magnetic field strength of 630 ± 410 μG in the Oph-B2 sub-clump using a Davis–Chandrasekhar–Fermi analysis. With this magnetic field strength, we find a mass-to-flux ratio λ = 1.6 ± 1.1, which suggests that the Oph-B2 clump is slightly magnetically supercritical

    Filamentary Network and Magnetic Field Structures Revealed with BISTRO in the High-Mass Star-Forming Region NGC2264 : Global Properties and Local Magnetogravitational Configurations

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    We report 850 μ\mum continuum polarization observations toward the filamentary high-mass star-forming region NGC 2264, taken as part of the B-fields In STar forming Regions Observations (BISTRO) large program on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT). These data reveal a well-structured non-uniform magnetic field in the NGC 2264C and 2264D regions with a prevailing orientation around 30 deg from north to east. Field strengths estimates and a virial analysis for the major clumps indicate that NGC 2264C is globally dominated by gravity while in 2264D magnetic, gravitational, and kinetic energies are roughly balanced. We present an analysis scheme that utilizes the locally resolved magnetic field structures, together with the locally measured gravitational vector field and the extracted filamentary network. From this, we infer statistical trends showing that this network consists of two main groups of filaments oriented approximately perpendicular to one another. Additionally, gravity shows one dominating converging direction that is roughly perpendicular to one of the filament orientations, which is suggestive of mass accretion along this direction. Beyond these statistical trends, we identify two types of filaments. The type-I filament is perpendicular to the magnetic field with local gravity transitioning from parallel to perpendicular to the magnetic field from the outside to the filament ridge. The type-II filament is parallel to the magnetic field and local gravity. We interpret these two types of filaments as originating from the competition between radial collapsing, driven by filament self-gravity, and the longitudinal collapsing, driven by the region's global gravity.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 43 pages, 32 figures, and 4 tables (including Appendix

    The JCMT BISTRO Survey: Studying the Complex Magnetic Field of L43

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    We present observations of polarized dust emission at 850 μm from the L43 molecular cloud, which sits in the Ophiuchus cloud complex. The data were taken using SCUBA-2/POL-2 on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope as a part of the BISTRO large program. L43 is a dense (NH 10 22 2 ~ –1023 cm−2) complex molecular cloud with a submillimeter-bright starless core and two protostellar sources. There appears to be an evolutionary gradient along the isolated filament that L43 is embedded within, with the most evolved source closest to the Sco OB2 association. One of the protostars drives a CO outflow that has created a cavity to the southeast. We see a magnetic field that appears to be aligned with the cavity walls of the outflow, suggesting interaction with the outflow. We also find a magnetic field strength of up to ∼160 ± 30 μG in the main starless core and up to ∼90 ± 40 μG in the more diffuse, extended region. These field strengths give magnetically super- and subcritical values, respectively, and both are found to be roughly trans-Alfvénic. We also present a new method of data reduction for these denser but fainter objects like starless cores
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