Fire Weather in Israel — Synoptic Climatological Analysis     

Noam Levin  Hadas Saaroni 《GeoJournal》1999,47(4):523-538

The study examines the synoptic situations and weather conditions under which occurred Israel's largest forest fires between the years 1987–1995. Annual rainfall and maximum temperature were found to have a positive correlation with both the size of the burnt area and the frequency of fires. A negative correlation was found for the relative humidity at 12 UTC for the same parameters. The fire season in Israel starts in May and ends in November, the peak months being May, June and July. No large fires were observed during the rainy season, December–February, despite the relatively low precipitation characterizing the region. Atmospheric disturbances as well as quasi-stationary systems were found to be favorable for the development of forest fires in Israel: the North African (‘Sharav’) cyclone and the Red Sea trough, which are common during spring and autumn. These systems carry hot, dry air from the deserts and are responsible for 55% of the burnt area from major forest fires in Israel and up to 33% of the major forest fires. Sixty-five percent of the forest fires occurred during the summer all of them under the quasi-stationary system of the Persian Gulf trough. These fires did not spread as widely as those that occurred under the North African cyclone and the Red Sea trough systems. The role of weather in the propagation of fire is exemplified in the case study of the ‘Sha'ar ha Gai’ fire of July 1995 — the biggest forest fire in the history of Israel (1300 ha). This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.  相似文献   

Dynamics of magnetic flux loops in cooling-flow clusters of galaxies     

Essam Zoabi  Noam Soker  & Oded Regev 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》1998,296(3):579-584

We study the dynamics of magnetic flux loops embedded in an intracluster medium. In order to perform the calculations semi-analytically we make several simplifying assumptions, which include a treatment of only the two ends of the magnetic flux loops, assuming a simple relation between the density and the magnetic field and neglecting heat conduction. Our results indicate that the existence of a large number of magnetic flux loops can naturally lead to a multiphase intracluster medium. A multiphase intracluster medium is inferred from observations of the mass deposition rate in many cooling-flow clusters. The loops will be observed as 'filaments' having different density and temperature from their surroundings, namely X-ray filaments. X-ray filaments have been discovered in a few cases, although their discovery is controversial. Our model predicts that many such X-ray filaments will be discovered with future high-spatial-resolution X-ray telescopes, such as AXAF .  相似文献   

Bubbles in planetary nebulae and clusters of galaxies: jet bending     

Noam Soker  Gili Bisker 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,369(3):1115-1122

We study the bending of jets in binary stellar systems. A compact companion accretes mass from the slow wind of the mass-losing primary star, forms an accretion disc and blows two opposite jets. These fast jets are bent by the slow wind. Disregarding the orbital motion, we find the dependence of the bending angle on the properties of the slow wind and the jets. Bending of jets is observed in planetary nebulae which are thought to be the descendants of interacting binary stars. For example, in some of these planetary nebulae, the two bubbles (lobes) which are inflated by the two opposite jets are displaced to the same side of the symmetry axis of the nebula. Similar displacements are observed in bubble pairs in the centre of some clusters and groups of galaxies. We compare the bending of jets in binary stellar systems with that in clusters of galaxies.  相似文献   

X-ray emission by a shocked fast wind from the central stars of planetary nebulae     

Muhammad Akashi  Noam Soker  Ehud Behar 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,368(4):1706-1716

We calculate the X-ray emission from the shocked fast wind blown by the central stars of planetary nebulae (PNe) and compare with observations. Using spherically symmetric self-similar solutions, we calculate the flow structure and X-ray temperature for a fast wind slamming into a previously ejected slow wind. We find that the observed X-ray emission of six PNe can be accounted for by shocked wind segments that were expelled during the early-PN phase, if the fast wind speed is moderate,   v ₂∼ 400–600 km s⁻¹  , and the mass-loss rate is a few times  10⁻⁷ M_⊙ yr⁻¹  . We find, as proposed previously, that the morphology of the X-ray emission is in the form of a narrow ring inner to the optical bright part of the nebula. The bipolar X-ray morphology of several observed PNe, which indicates an important role of jets, rather than a spherical fast wind, cannot be explained by the flow studied here.  相似文献   

The effect of gravitational recoil on black holes forming in a hierarchical universe     

Noam I. Libeskind  Shaun Cole  Carlos S. Frenk  John C. Helly 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,368(3):1381-1391

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Expected planets in globular clusters     

Noam Soker  Alon Hershenhorn 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,381(1):334-340

We argue that all transient searches for planets in globular clusters have a very low detection probability. Planets of low-metallicity stars typically do not reside at small orbital separations. The dependence of planetary system properties on metallicity is clearly seen when the quantity   I _e ≡ M _p[ a (1 − e )]²  is considered;   M _p, a   and e are the planet mass, semimajor axis and eccentricity, respectively. In high-metallicity systems, there is a concentration of systems at high and low values of I _e , with a low-populated gap near   I _e ∼ 0.3 M _J au²  , where M _J is Jupiter's mass. In low-metallicity systems, the concentration is only at the higher range of I _e , with a tail to low values of I _e . Therefore, it is still possible that planets exist around main-sequence stars in globular clusters, although at small numbers because of the low metallicity, and at orbital periods of ≳10 d. We discuss the implications of our conclusions on the role that companions can play in the evolution of their parent stars in globular clusters, for example, influencing the distribution of horizontal branch stars on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram of some globular clusters, and in forming low-mass white dwarfs.  相似文献   

Objective classification of galaxy spectra using the information bottleneck method   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Noam Slonim  Rachel Somerville  Naftali Tishby  Ofer Lahav 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2001,323(2):270-284

A new method for classification of galaxy spectra is presented, based on a recently introduced information theoretical principle, the information bottleneck . For any desired number of classes, galaxies are classified such that the information content about the spectra is maximally preserved. The result is classes of galaxies with similar spectra, where the similarity is determined via a measure of information. We apply our method to ∼6000 galaxy spectra from the ongoing 2dF redshift survey, and a mock-2dF catalogue produced by a cold dark matter (CDM) based semi-analytic model of galaxy formation. We find a good match between the mean spectra of the classes found in the data and in the models. For the mock catalogue, we find that the classes produced by our algorithm form an intuitively sensible sequence in terms of physical properties such as colour, star formation activity, morphology, and internal velocity dispersion. We also show the correlation of the classes with the projections resulting from a principal component analysis.  相似文献   

Steady‐State Homogeneous Approximations of Vertical Velocity from EC Profiles     

Daniel Kurtzman  Lior Netzer  Noam Weisbrod  Ellen R. Graber  Daniel Ronen 《Ground water》2011,49(2):275-279

Electrical conductivity (EC) logs were obtained by both open‐borehole logging and passive multilevel sampling (MLS) in an observation borehole penetrating the Coastal Aquifer in Tel Aviv, Israel. Homogeneous vertical velocities for a 70‐m thick subaquifer were approximated from each profile using a steady‐state advection‐diffusion model. The open‐borehole log led to an overestimation of the steady‐state upward advective flux of deep brines (vertical velocity of 0.95 cm/yr as compared to 0.07 cm/yr for the MLS profile). The combination of depth‐dependent data and the suggested simple modeling approach comprises a method for assessing the vertical location of salinity sources and the nature of salt transport from them (i.e., advective vs. diffusive). However, in this case, the easily obtained open‐borehole logs should not be used for collecting depth‐dependent data.  相似文献   

Turbulent dynamo in asymptotic giant branch stars     

Noam Soker  Essam Zoabi 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2002,329(1):204-208

Using recent results on the operation of turbulent dynamos, we show that a turbulent dynamo may amplify a large-scale magnetic field in the envelopes of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. We propose that a slow rotation of the AGB envelope can fix the symmetry axis, leading to the formation of an axisymmetric magnetic field structure. Unlike solar-type αω dynamos, the rotation has only a small role in amplifying the toroidal component of the magnetic field; instead of an αω dynamo we propose an α ² ω . The magnetic field may reach a value of     , where B _e is the equipartition (between the turbulent and magnetic energy densities) magnetic field. The large-scale magnetic field is strong enough for the formation of magnetic cool spots on the AGB stellar surface. The spots may regulate dust formation, and hence the mass-loss rate, leading to axisymmetric mass loss and the formation of elliptical planetary nebulae (PNe). Despite its role in forming cool spots, the large-scale magnetic field is too weak to play a dynamic role and directly influence the wind from the AGB star, as required by some models. We discuss other possible problems in models where the magnetic field plays a dynamic role in shaping the AGB winds, and argue that they cannot explain the formation of non-spherical PNe.  相似文献   

Common envelope evolution: where we stand and how we can move forward     

N. Ivanova  S. Justham  X. Chen  O. De Marco  C. L. Fryer  E. Gaburov  H. Ge  E. Glebbeek  Z. Han  X.-D. Li  G. Lu  T. Marsh  P. Podsiadlowski  A. Potter  N. Soker  R. Taam  T. M. Tauris  E. P. J. van den Heuvel  R. F. Webbink 《Astronomy and Astrophysics Review》2013,21(1):1-73

This work aims to present our current best physical understanding of common-envelope evolution (CEE). We highlight areas of consensus and disagreement, and stress ideas which should point the way forward for progress in this important but long-standing and largely unconquered problem. Unusually for CEE-related work, we mostly try to avoid relying on results from population synthesis or observations, in order to avoid potentially being misled by previous misunderstandings. As far as possible we debate all the relevant issues starting from physics alone, all the way from the evolution of the binary system immediately before CEE begins to the processes which might occur just after the ejection of the envelope. In particular, we include extensive discussion about the energy sources and sinks operating in CEE, and hence examine the foundations of the standard energy formalism. Special attention is also given to comparing the results of hydrodynamic simulations from different groups and to discussing the potential effect of initial conditions on the differences in the outcomes. We compare current numerical techniques for the problem of CEE and also whether more appropriate tools could and should be produced (including new formulations of computational hydrodynamics, and attempts to include 3D processes within 1D codes). Finally we explore new ways to link CEE with observations. We compare previous simulations of CEE to the recent outburst from V1309 Sco, and discuss to what extent post-common-envelope binaries and nebulae can provide information, e.g. from binary eccentricities, which is not currently being fully exploited.  相似文献