Production of trans-Neptunian binaries through chaos-assisted capture     

Ernestine A. Lee  Sergey A. Astakhov  David Farrelly 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,379(1):229-246

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Star formation and figure rotation in the early-type galaxy NGC 2974     

Hyunjin Jeong  Martin Bureau  Sukyoung K. Yi  Davor Krajnovi&#;  Roger L. Davies 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,376(3):1021-1032

We present Galaxy Evolution Explorer ( GALEX ) far-ultraviolet (FUV) and near-ultraviolet (NUV) imaging of the nearby early-type galaxy NGC 2974, along with complementary ground-based optical imaging. In the ultraviolet, the galaxy reveals a central spheroid-like component and a newly discovered complete outer ring of radius 6.2 kpc, with suggestions of another partial ring at an even larger radius. Blue FUV–NUV and UV-optical colours are observed in the centre of the galaxy and from the outer ring outwards, suggesting young stellar populations (≲1 Gyr) and recent star formation in both locations. This is supported by a simple stellar population model which assumes two bursts of star formation, allowing us to constrain the age, mass fraction and surface mass density of the young component pixel by pixel. Overall, the mass fraction of the young component appears to be just under 1 per cent (lower limit, uncorrected for dust extinction). The additional presence of a nuclear and an inner ring (radii 1.4 and 2.9 kpc, respectively), as traced by [O  iii ] emission, suggests ring formation through resonances. All three rings are consistent with a single pattern speed of  78 ± 6  km s⁻¹ kpc⁻¹, typical of S0 galaxies and only marginally slower than expected for a fast bar if traced by a small observed surface brightness plateau. This thus suggests that star formation and morphological evolution in NGC 2974 at the present epoch are primarily driven by a rotating asymmetry (probably a large-scale bar), despite the standard classification of NGC 2974 as an E4 elliptical.  相似文献   

Alignment and precession of a black hole with a warped accretion disc     

Rebecca G. Martin  J. E. Pringle  Christopher A. Tout 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,381(4):1617-1624

We consider the shape of an accretion disc whose outer regions are misaligned with the spin axis of a central black hole and calculate the steady state form of the warped disc in the case where the viscosity and surface densities are power laws in the distance from the central black hole. We discuss the shape of the resulting disc in both the frame of the black hole and that of the outer disc. We note that some parts of the disc and also any companion star maybe shadowed from the central regions by the warp. We compute the torque on the black hole caused by the Lense–Thirring precession, and hence compute the alignment and precession time-scales. We generalize the case with viscosity and hence surface density independent of radius to more realistic density distributions for which the surface density is a decreasing function of radius. We find that the alignment time-scale does not change greatly but the precession time-scale is more sensitive. We also determine the effect on this time-scale if we truncate the disc. For a given truncation radius, the time-scales are less affected for more sharply falling density distributions.  相似文献   

Unveiling soft gamma-ray repeaters with INTEGRAL     

Diego Götz  Sandro Mereghetti  Kevin Hurley 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2007,308(1-4):51-59

Thanks to INTEGRAL’s long exposures of the Galactic Plane, the two brightest Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters, SGR 1806-20 and SGR 1900+14, have been monitored and studied in detail for the first time at hard-X/soft gamma rays. This has produced a wealth of new scientific results, which we will review here. Since SGR 1806-20 was particularly active during the last two years, more than 300 short bursts have been observed with INTEGRAL and their characteristics have been studied with unprecedented sensitivity in the 15–200 keV range. A hardness-intensity anticorrelation within the bursts has been discovered and the overall Number-Intensity distribution of the bursts has been determined. In addition, a particularly active state, during which 100 bursts were emitted in 10 minutes, has been observed on October 5 2004, indicating that the source activity was rapidly increasing. This eventually led to the Giant Flare of December 27th 2004, for which a possible soft gamma-ray (>80 keV) early afterglow has been detected. The deep observations allowed us to discover the persistent emission in hard X-rays (20–150 keV) from 1806-20 and 1900+14, the latter being in a quiescent state, and to directly compare the spectral characteristics of all Magnetars (two SGRs and three Anomalous X-ray Pulsars) detected with INTEGRAL. D.G. acknowledges the French Space Agency (CNES) for financial support. Based on observations with INTEGRAL, an ESA project with instruments and the science data centre funded by ESA member states (especially the PI countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain), Czech Republic and Poland, and with the participation of Russia and the USA. ISGRI has been realized and maintained in flight by CEA-Saclay/DAPNIA with the support of CNES. K.H. is grateful for support under NASA’s INTEGRAL U.S. Guest Investigator program, Grants NAG5-13738 and NNG05GG35G.  相似文献   

The response of self-gravitating protostellar discs to slow reduction in cooling time-scale: the fragmentation boundary revisited     

C. J. Clarke  E. Harper-Clark  G. Lodato 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,381(4):1543-1547

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Electromagnetic fields in jets     

B. D. Sherwin  D. Lynden-Bell 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,378(2):409-415

The magnetic fields and energy flows in an astronomical jet described by our earlier model are calculated in detail. Though the field distribution varies with the external pressure function   p ( z )  , it depends only weakly on the other boundary conditions. Individual field lines were plotted; the lines become nearly vertical at the bottom and are twisted at the top. An animation of a field line's motion was made, which shows the line being wound up by the accretion disc's differential rotation and rising as a result of this. The distribution of Poynting flux within the jet indicates that much of the energy flows up the jet from the inside of the accretion disc but a substantial fraction flows back down to the outside.  相似文献   

Radio galaxies in the 2SLAQ Luminous Red Galaxy Survey – I. The evolution of low-power radio galaxies to  z∼ 0.7      

Elaine M. Sadler  Russell D. Cannon  Tom Mauch  Paul J. Hancock  David A. Wake  Nic Ross  Scott M. Croom  Michael J. Drinkwater  Alastair C. Edge  Daniel Eisenstein  rew M. Hopkins  Helen M. Johnston  Robert Nichol  Kevin A. Pimbblet  Roberto De Propris  Isaac G. Roseboom  Donald P. Schneider  Tom Shanks 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,381(1):211-227

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Proper motion L and T dwarf candidate members of the Pleiades     

S. L. Casewell  P. D. Dobbie  S. T. Hodgkin  E. Moraux  R. F. Jameson  N. C. Hambly  J. Irwin  N. Lodieu 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,378(3):1131-1140

We present the results of a deep optical–near-infrared (optical–NIR) multi-epoch survey covering 2.5 deg² of the Pleiades open star cluster to search for new very low-mass brown dwarf members. A significant (∼5 yr) epoch difference exists between the optical (CFH12k I -, Z -band) and NIR (UKIRT WFCAM J -band) observations. We construct I , I − Z and Z , Z − J colour–magnitude diagrams to select candidate cluster members. Proper motions are computed for all candidate members and compared to the background field objects to further refine the sample. We recover all known cluster members within the area of our survey. In addition, we have discovered nine new candidate brown dwarf cluster members. The seven faintest candidates have red Z − J colours and show blue NIR colours. These are consistent with being L- and T-type Pleiads. Theoretical models predict their masses to be around 11 M _Jup.  相似文献   

Erratum: Modelling the Galactic bar using OGLE-II red clump giant stars     

《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,382(3):1376-1376

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The space density of cataclysmic variables: constraints from the ROSAT North Ecliptic Pole survey     

M. L. Pretorius  C. Knigge  D. O'Donoghue  J. P. Henry  I. M. Gioia  C. R. Mullis 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,382(3):1279-1288

We use the ROSAT North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) survey to construct a small, but purely X-ray flux-limited sample of cataclysmic variable stars (CVs). The sample includes only four systems, two of which (RX J1715.6+6856 and RX J1831.7+6511) are new discoveries. We present time-resolved spectroscopy of the new CVs and measure orbital periods of 1.64 ± 0.02 and 4.01 ± 0.03 h for RX J1715.6+6856 and RX J1831.7+6511, respectively. We also estimate distances for all the CVs in our sample, based mainly on their apparent brightness in the infrared. The space density of the CV population represented by our small sample is  1.1^+2.3_−0.7× 10⁻⁵ pc⁻³  . We can also place upper limits on the space density of any subpopulation of CVs too faint to be included in the NEP survey. In particular, we show that if the overall space density of CVs is as high as  2 × 10⁻⁴ pc⁻³  (as has been predicted theoretically), the vast majority of CVs must be fainter than   L _X≃ 2 × 10²⁹ erg s⁻¹  .  相似文献