Can gas dynamics in centres of galaxies reveal orbiting massive black holes?     

James Etherington  Witold Maciejewski 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,367(3):1003-1010

If supermassive black holes in centres of galaxies form by merging of black hole remnants of massive Population III stars, then there should be a few black holes of mass one or two orders of magnitude smaller than that of the central ones, orbiting around the centre of a typical galaxy. These black holes constitute a weak perturbation in the gravitational potential, which can generate wave phenomena in gas within a disc close to the centre of the galaxy. Here, we show that a single orbiting black hole generates a three-arm spiral pattern in the central gaseous disc. The density excess in the spiral arms in the disc reaches values of 3–12 per cent when the orbiting black hole is about 10 times less massive than the central black hole. Therefore, the observed density pattern in gas can be used as a signature in detecting the most massive orbiting black holes.  相似文献   

The size distribution of trans-Neptunian bodies     

J.R. Donnison 《Planetary and Space Science》2006,54(3):243-250

The magnitude distribution of the trans-Neptunian bodies composed of the Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) and Scattered Disk Objects (SDOs) is determined for absolute magnitudes H?7, using maximum likelihood estimation methods. This is translated into a corresponding size distribution. This gave a differential size index of q=3.966±0.15 for KBOs and q=3.016±0.32 for SDOs. It was found that these two distributions were statistically different. The KBOs were further split into classical KBOs and Plutinos which had indices of q=4.074±0.18 and q=3.301±0.37, respectively. There was no statistical evidence that these are different populations. The classical KBOs were further split and examined for four different semi-major axis ranges and it was found that there was moderate evidence that the entire sample was not well represented by one index. The distribution indices of the SDOs were compared with the distributions of short period comets and found to be similar. It is likely that the scattered disk population is the source of the short period comets.  相似文献   

Amino acid analyses of Antarctic CM2 meteorites using liquid chromatography‐time of flight‐mass spectrometry     

Daniel P. Glavin  Jason P. Dworkin  Andrew Aubrey  Oliver Botta  James H. Doty  Zita Martins  Jeffrey L. Bada 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2006,41(6):889-902

Abstract— Amino acid analyses of the Antarctic CM2 chondrites Allan Hills (ALH) 83100 and Lewis Cliff (LEW) 90500 using liquid chromatography‐time of flight‐mass spectrometry (LC‐ToF‐MS) coupled with UV fluorescence detection revealed that these carbonaceous meteorites contain a suite of indigenous amino acids not present in Antarctic ice. Several amino acids were detected in ALH 83100, including glycine, alanine, β‐alanine, γ‐amino‐n‐butyric acid (γ‐ABA), and α‐aminoisobutyric acid (AIB) with concentrations ranging from 250 to 340 parts per billion (ppb). In contrast to ALH 83100, the CM2 meteorites LEW 90500 and Murchison had a much higher total abundance of these amino acids (440–3200 ppb). In addition, ALH 83100 was found to have lower abundances of the α‐dialkyl amino acids AIB and isovaline than LEW 90500 and Murchison. There are three possible explanations for the depleted amino acid content in ALH 83100: 1) amino acid leaching from ALH 83100 during exposure to Antarctic ice meltwater, 2) a higher degree of aqueous alteration on the ALH 83100 parent body, or 3) ALH 83100 originated on a chemically distinct parent body from the other two CM2 meteorites. The high relative abundance of ?‐amino‐n‐caproic acid (EACA) in the ALH 83100 meteorite as well as the Antarctic ice indicates that Nylon‐6 contamination from the Antarctic sample storage bags may have occurred during collection.  相似文献   

Finite source effects in strong lensing: implications for the substructure mass scale     

Gregory Dobler  Charles R. Keeton 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,365(4):1243-1262

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Opening angles, Lorentz factors and confinement of X-ray binary jets     

J. C. A. Miller-Jones  R. P. Fender  E. Nakar 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,367(4):1432-1440

We present a collation of the available data on the opening angles of jets in X-ray binaries, which in most cases are small (≲10°). Under the assumption of no confinement, we calculate the Lorentz factors required to produce such small opening angles via the transverse relativistic Doppler effect. The derived Lorentz factors, which are in most cases lower limits, are found to be large, with a mean >10, comparable to those estimated for active galactic nuclei (AGN) and much higher than the commonly assumed values for X-ray binaries of 2–5. Jet power constraints do not, in most cases, rule out such high Lorentz factors. The upper limits on the opening angles show no evidence for smaller Lorentz factors in the steady jets of Cygnus X-1 and GRS 1915+105. In those sources in which deceleration has been observed (notably  XTE J1550−564  and Cygnus X-3), some confinement of the jets must be occurring, and we briefly discuss possible confinement mechanisms. It is however possible that all the jets could be confined, in which case the requirement for high bulk Lorentz factors can be relaxed.  相似文献   

Photoevaporation of protoplanetary discs – I. Hydrodynamic models     

R. D. Alexander  C. J. Clarke  J. E. Pringle 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,369(1):216-228

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The HNCO ring in the Sgr B2 region     

Y.C. Minh  W.M. Irvine   《New Astronomy》2006,11(8):594-599

The large-scale structure associated with the 2′N HNCO peak in Sgr B2 [Minh, Y.C., Haikala, L., Hjalmarson, Å., Irvine, W.M., 1998. ApJ 498, 261 (Paper I)] has been investigated. A ring-like morphology of the HNCO emission has been found; this structure may be colliding with the Principal Cloud of Sgr B2. This “HNCO Ring” appears to be centered at (l,b) = (0.7°,−0.07°), with a radius of 5 pc and a total mass of 1.0 × 10⁵ to 1.6 × 10⁶ M. The expansion velocity of the Ring is estimated to be 30–40 km s⁻¹, which gives an expansion time scale of 1.5 × 10⁵ year. The morphology suggests that collision between the Ring and the Principal Cloud may be triggering the massive star formation in the Sgr B2 cloud sequentially, with the latest star formation taking place at the 2′N position. The chemistry related to HNCO is not certain yet, but if it forms mainly via reaction with the evaporated OCN⁻ from icy grain mantles, the observed enhancement of the HNCO abundance can be understood as resulting from shocks associated with the collision between the Principal Cloud and the expanding HNCO Ring.  相似文献   

Effect of signal contamination in matched-filter detection of the signal on a cluttered background     

Theiler  J. Foy  B.R. 《Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, IEEE》2006,3(1):98-102

To derive a matched filter for detecting a weak target signal in a hyperspectral image, an estimate of the band-to-band covariance of the target-free background scene is required. We investigate the effects of including some of the target signal in the background scene. Although the covariance is contaminated by the presence of a target signal (there is increased variance in the direction of the target signature), we find that the matched filter is not necessarily affected. In fact, if the variation in plume strength is strictly uncorrelated with the variation in background spectra, the matched filter and its signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR) performance will not be impaired. While there is little a priori reason to expect significant correlation between the plume and the background, there usually is some residual correlation, and this correlation leads to a suppressing effect that limits the SCR obtainable even for strong plumes. These effects are described and quantified analytically, and the crucial role of this correlation is illustrated with some numerical examples using simulated plumes superimposed on real hyperspectral imagery. In one example, we observe an order-of-magnitude loss in SCR for a matched filter based on the contaminated covariance.  相似文献   

Colour variability of asteroids in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Moving Object Catalog     

Gy. M. Szabó  &#;. Ivezi&#; †  M. Juri&#;  R. Lupton  L. L. Kiss 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2004,348(3):987-998

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The 2dF QSO Redshift Survey – XII. The spectroscopic catalogue and luminosity function     

S. M. Croom  R. J. Smith  B. J. Boyle  T. Shanks  L. Miller  P. J. Outram  N. S. Loaring 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2004,349(4):1397-1418

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