Fossil AGN jets as ultrahigh-energy particle accelerators     

Gregory Benford  R. J. Protheroe 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2008,383(2):663-672

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Ram-pressure histories of cluster galaxies     

M. Brüggen  G. De Lucia 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2008,383(4):1336-1342

Ram-pressure stripping can remove significant amounts of gas from galaxies that orbit in clusters and massive groups, and thus has a large impact on the evolution of cluster galaxies. In this paper, we reconstruct the present-day distribution of ram pressure and the ram-pressure histories of cluster galaxies. To this aim, we combine the Millennium Simulation and an associated semi-analytic model of galaxy evolution with analytic models for the gas distribution in clusters. We find that about one quarter of galaxies in massive clusters are subject to strong ram pressures that are likely to cause an expedient loss of all gas. Strong ram pressures occur predominantly in the inner core of the cluster, where both the gas density and the galaxy velocity are higher. Since their accretion on to a massive system, more than 64 per cent of galaxies that reside in a cluster today have experienced strong ram pressures of  >10⁻¹¹ dyn cm⁻²  which most likely led to a substantial loss of the gas.  相似文献   

Detectable signatures of cosmic radiative feedback     

R. Schneider  R. Salvaterra  T. Roy Choudhury  A. Ferrara  C. Burigana  L. A. Popa 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2008,384(4):1525-1532

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Neutralino annihilations and the gas temperature in the dark ages     

Zacharia Myers  Adi Nusser 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2008,384(2):727-732

Assuming that the dark matter is entirely made up of neutralinos, we re-visit the role of their annihilation on the temperature of diffuse gas in the high-redshift universe  ( z > 10)  , before the formation of luminous structures. We consider neutralinos of particle mass 36 and 100 GeV. The former is able to produce  ∼7  e ⁻ e ⁺  particles per annihilation through the fremionic channel, and the latter ∼53 particles assuming a purely bosonic channel. High-energy   e ⁻ e ⁺  particles up-scatter the cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons into higher energies via the inverse-Compton scattering. The process produces a power-law   e ⁻ e ⁺  energy spectrum of index −1 in the energy range of interest, independent of the initial energy distribution. The corresponding energy spectrum of the up-scattered photons is a power law of index −1/2, if absorption by the gas is not included. The scattered photons photoheat the gas by releasing electrons which deposit a fraction (14 per cent) of their energy as heat into the ambient medium. For uniformly distributed neutralinos, the heating is insignificant. The effect is greatly enhanced by the clumping of neutralinos into dense haloes. We use a time-dependent clumping model which takes into account the damping of density fluctuations on mass-scales smaller than  ∼10⁻⁶ M_⊙  . With this clumping model, the heating mechanism boosts the gas temperature above that of the CMB after a redshift of   z ∼ 30  . By   z ≈ 10  , the gas temperature is nearly 100 times its temperature when no heating is invoked. Similar increase is obtained for the two neutralino masses considered.  相似文献   

Cosmic dynamics in the era of Extremely Large Telescopes     

J. Liske  A. Grazian  E. Vanzella  M. Dessauges  M. Viel  L. Pasquini  M. Haehnelt  S. Cristiani  F. Pepe  G. Avila  P. Bonifacio  F. Bouchy  H. Dekker  B. Delabre  S. D'Odorico  V. D'Odorico  S. Levshakov  C. Lovis  M. Mayor  P. Molaro  L. Moscardini  M. T. Murphy  D. Queloz  P. Shaver  S. Udry  T. Wiklind  S. Zucker 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2008,386(3):1192-1218

The redshifts of all cosmologically distant sources are expected to experience a small, systematic drift as a function of time due to the evolution of the Universe's expansion rate. A measurement of this effect would represent a direct and entirely model-independent determination of the expansion history of the Universe over a redshift range that is inaccessible to other methods. Here we investigate the impact of the next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes on the feasibility of detecting and characterizing the cosmological redshift drift. We consider the Lyα forest in the redshift range  2 < z < 5  and other absorption lines in the spectra of high-redshift QSOs as the most suitable targets for a redshift drift experiment. Assuming photon-noise-limited observations and using extensive Monte Carlo simulations we determine the accuracy to which the redshift drift can be measured from the Lyα forest as a function of signal-to-noise ratio and redshift. Based on this relation and using the brightness and redshift distributions of known QSOs we find that a 42-m telescope is capable of unambiguously detecting the redshift drift over a period of ∼20 yr using 4000 h of observing time. Such an experiment would provide independent evidence for the existence of dark energy without assuming spatial flatness, using any other cosmological constraints or making any other astrophysical assumption.  相似文献   

The impact of a percolating IGM on redshifted 21-cm observations of quasar H ii regions     

Paul M. Geil  J. Stuart B. Wyithe 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2008,386(3):1683-1694

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Is AGN feedback necessary to form red elliptical galaxies?     

A. Khalatyan  A. Cattaneo  M. Schramm  S. Gottlöber  M. Steinmetz  L. Wisotzki 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2008,387(1):13-30

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Redshifted 21-cm observations of high-redshift quasar proximity zones     

J. Stuart B. Wyithe 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2008,387(1):469-480

The introduction of low-frequency radio arrays is expected to revolutionize the study of the reionization epoch. Observation of the contrast in redshifted 21-cm emission between a large H  ii region and the surrounding neutral intergalactic medium (IGM) will be the simplest and most easily interpreted signature. However, the highest redshift quasars known are thought to reside in an ionized IGM. Using a semi-analytic model we describe the redshifted 21-cm signal from the IGM surrounding quasars discovered using the i -drop-out technique (i.e. quasars at   z ∼ 6  ). We argue that while quasars at   z < 6.5  seem to reside in the post-overlap IGM, they will still provide valuable probes of the late stages of the overlap era because the light-travel time across a quasar proximity zone should be comparable to the duration of overlap. For redshifted 21-cm observations within a 32-MHz bandpass, we find that the subtraction of a spectrally smooth foreground will not remove spectral features due to the proximity zone. These features could be used to measure the neutral hydrogen content of the IGM during the late stages of reionization. The density of quasars at   z ∼ 6  is now well constrained. We use the measured quasar luminosity function to estimate the prospects for discovery of high-redshift quasars in fields that will be observed by the Murchison Widefield Array.  相似文献   

Hydrostatic gas distributions: global estimates of temperature and abundance     

Luca Ciotti  Silvia Pellegrini 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2008,387(2):902-914

Estimating the temperature and metal abundance of the intracluster and the intragroup media is crucial to determine their global metal content and to determine fundamental cosmological parameters. When a spatially resolved temperature or abundance profile cannot be recovered from observations (e.g. for distant objects), or deprojection is difficult (e.g. due to a significant non-spherical shape), only global average temperature and abundance are derived. After introducing a general technique to build hydrostatic gaseous distributions of prescribed density profile in potential wells of any shape, we compute the global mass-weighted and emission-weighted temperature and abundance for a large set of barotropic equilibria and an observationally motivated abundance gradient. We also compute the spectroscopic-like temperature that is recovered from a single temperature fit of observed spectra. The derived emission-weighted abundance and temperatures are higher by 50 to 100 per cent than the corresponding mass-weighted quantities, with overestimates that increase with the gas mean temperature. Spectroscopic temperatures are intermediate between mass and luminosity-weighted temperatures. Dark matter flattening does not lead to significant differences in the values of the average temperatures or abundances with respect to the corresponding spherical case (except for extreme cases).  相似文献   

Large Dust Grains Around Cometary Nuclei     

A. Molina  F. Moreno  F. J. Jiménez-Fernández 《Earth, Moon, and Planets》2008,102(1-4):521-524

Large amounts of particles ejected from the nucleus surface are present in the vicinity of the cometary nuclei when comets are near the Sun (at heliocentric distances ≤2 AU). The largest dust grains ejected may constitute a hazard for spatial vehicles. We tried to obtain the bounded orbits of those particles and to investigate their stability along several orbital periods. The model includes the solar and the cometary gravitational forces and the solar radiation pressure force. The nucleus is assumed to be spherical. The dust grains are also assumed to be spherical, and radially ejected. We include the effects of centrifugal forces owing to the comet rotation. An expression for the most heavy particles that can be lifted is proposed. Using the usual values adopted for the case of Halley’s comet, the largest grains that can be lifted have a diameter about 5 cm, and the term due to the rotation is negligible. However, that term increases the obtained value for the maximum diameter of the lifted grain in a significant amount when the rotation period is of the order of a few hours.  相似文献