119277834
Plasma diagnostics for planetary nebulae and H ii regions using the N ii and O ii optical recombination lines
We carry out plasma diagnostic analyses for 123 planetary nebulae (PNe) and 42 H II regions using the N II and O II optical recombination lines (ORLs). New effective recombination coefficients for the N II and O II optical recombination spectra are used. These data were calculated under the intermediate coupling scheme for a number of electron temperature (Te) and density (Ne) cases. We used a new method to determine the Te and Ne for the nebular sample, combining the ORLs with the most reliable measurements for each ion and the predicted intensities that are based on the new atomic data. Uncertainties of the derived Te and Ne are estimated for each object. The diagnostic results from heavy element ORLs show reasonable agreement with previous calculations in the literature. We compare the electron temperatures derived from the N II and O II ORLs, Te(ORLs), and those from the collisionally excited lines (CELs), Te(CELs), as well as the hydrogen Balmer jump, Te(H I BJ), especially for the PNe with large abundance discrepancies. Temperatures from He I recombination lines, Te(He I), are also used for comparison if available. For all the objects included in our sample, Te(ORLs) are lower than Te(H I BJ), which are in turn systematically lower than Te(CELs). Nebulae with Te(He I) available show the relation Te(ORLs) < Te(He I) < Te(H I BJ) < Te(CELs), which is consistent with predictions from the bi-abundance nebular model postulated by Liu et al. (2000).
118527168
Detections of diffuse interstellar bands in the SDSS low-resolution spectra
Diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) have been discovered for almost a century, but their nature remains one of the most challenging problems in the astronomical spectroscopy. Most recent work to identify and investigate the properties and carriers of DIBs concentrates on highresolution spectroscopy of selected sight-lines. In this paper, we report detections of DIBs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) low-resolution spectra of a large sample of Galactic stars. Using a template subtraction method, we have successfully identified the DIBs λλ5780, 6283 in the SDSS spectra of a sample of about 2000 stars and measured their strengths and radial velocities. The sample is by far the largest ever assembled. The targets span a large range of reddening, E(B − V) ∼ 0.2–1.0, and are distributed over a large sky area and involve a wide range of stellar parameters (effective temperature, surface gravity and metallicity), confirming that the carriers of DIBs are ubiquitous in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM). The sample is used to investigate relations between strengths of DIBs and magnitudes of line-of-sight extinction, yielding results [i.e. EW(5780) = 0.61 × E(B − V) and EW(6283) = 1.26 × E(B − V)] consistent with previous studies. DIB features have also been detected in the commissioning spectra of the Guoshoujing Telescope [the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST)] of resolving power similar to that of the SDSS. Detections of DIBs of hundreds of thousands of stars are expected from the on-going and up-coming large-scale spectroscopic surveys such as Radial Velocity Experiment, SDSS III and LAMOST, particularly from the LAMOST Digital Sky Survey of the Galactic Anticentre (DSS-GAC). Such a huge data base will provide an unprecedented opportunity to study the demographical distribution and nature of DIBs as well as using DIBs to probe the distribution and properties of the ISM and the dust extinction.
119225915
The LEGUE high latitude bright survey design for the LAMOST pilot survey
We describe the footprint and input catalog for bright nights in the LAMOST Pilot Survey, which began in October 2011. Targets are selected from two stripes in the north and south Galactic Cap regions, centered at delta = 29 degrees, with 10 degrees width in declination, covering right ascensions of 135 degrees to 290 degrees and -30 degrees to 30 degrees respectively. We selected spectroscopic targets from a combination of the SDSS and 2MASS point source catalogs. The catalog of stars defining the field centers (as required by the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor at the center of the LAMOST field) consists of all V < 8(m) stars from the Hipparcos catalog. We employ a statistical selection algorithm that assigns priorities to targets based on their positions in multidimensional color/magnitude space. This scheme overemphasizes rare objects and de-emphasizes more populated regions of magnitude and color phase space, while ensuring a smooth, well-understood selection function. A demonstration of plate design is presented based on the Shack-Hartmann star catalog and an input catalog that was generated by our target selection routines.
118587112
Extremely metal-poor star candidates in the SDSS
For a sample of metal-poor stars ( 3.3 � (Fe/H) � 2.2) that have high- resolution spectroscopic abundance determinations, we have measured equivalent widths of the Ca II K, Mg I b and near-infrared Ca II triplet lines using low-resolution spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), calculated effective temperatures from (g z)0 color, deduced stellar surface gravities by fitting stellar isochrones, and determined metallicities based on the aforementioned quantities. Metallicities thus derived from the Ca II K line are in much better agreement with the results deter- mined from high-resolution spectra than the values given in the SDSS Data Release 7. The metallicities derived from the Mg I b lines have a large dispersion owing to the large measurement errors, whereas those deduced from the Ca II triplet lines are too high due to both non-local thermodynamical equilibrium (NLTE) effects and mea- surement errors. Abundances after correction for the NLTE effect for the Mg I b lines and Ca II triplet lines are also presented. Following this method, we have identified six candidates of ultra-metal-poor stars with (Fe/H) � 4.0 from a sample of 166 metal-poor star candidates. One of them, SDSS J102915+172927, was recently con- firmed to be an ultra-metal-poor ((Fe/H) < 4.0) star with the lowest metallicity ever measured. Follow-up high-resolution spectroscopy for the other five ultra-metal-poor stars in our sample will therefore be of great interest.
119187574
Gamma-Ray Burst Spectrum with Decaying Magnetic Field
In the internal shock model for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the synchrotron spectrum from the fast cooling electrons in a homogeneous downstream magnetic field (MF) is too soft to produce the low-energy slope of GRB spectra. However, the MF may decay downstream with distance from the shock front. Here we show that the synchrotron spectrum becomes harder if electrons undergo synchrotron and inverse-Compton cooling in a decaying MF. To reconcile this with the typical GRB spectrum with low-energy slope nu F-nu proportional to nu, the postshock MF decay time must be comparable to the cooling time of the bulk electrons (corresponding to a MF decaying length typically of similar to 10(5) skin depths); that the inverse-Compton cooling should dominate synchrotron cooling after the MF decay time; and/or that the MF decays with comoving time roughly as B proportional to t(-1.5). An internal shock synchrotron model with a decaying MF can account for the majority of GRBs with low-energy slopes not harder than nu(4/3).
118328964
SUBSTRUCTURE IN BULK VELOCITIES OF MILKY WAY DISK STARS
We find that Galactic disk stars near the anticenter exhibit velocity asymmetries in both the Galactocentric radial and vertical components across the midplane as well as azimuthally. These findings are based on Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) spectroscopic velocities for a sample of ~400, 000 F-type stars, combined with proper motions from the PPMXL catalog for which we have derived corrections to the zero points based in part on spectroscopically discovered galaxies and QSOs from LAMOST. In the region within 2 kpc outside the Sun's radius and ±2 kpc from the Galactic midplane, we show that stars above the plane exhibit net outward radial motions with downward vertical velocities, while stars below the plane have roughly the opposite behavior. We discuss this in the context of other recent findings, and conclude that we are likely seeing the signature of vertical disturbances to the disk due to an external perturbation.
15704836
Predictions of charged charmoniumlike structures with hidden-charm and open-strange channels.
We propose the initial single chiral particle emission mechanism, with which the hidden-charm dikaon decays of higher charmonia and charmoniumlike states are studied. Calculating the distributions of differential decay width, we obtain the line shape of the J/ψK(+) invariant mass spectrum of ψ(i)→J/ψK(+)K(-), where ψ(i)=ψ(4415), Y(4660), and ψ(4790). Our numerical results show that there exist enhancement structures with both hidden-charm and open-strange channels, which are near the D̄(s)(*)/D(*)D̄(s) and D(*)D̄(s)(*)/D̄(*)D(s)(*) thresholds. These charged charmoniumlike structures predicted in this Letter can be accessible in future experiments, especially BESIII, BelleII, and SuperB.
122412335
Study of baryon octet charge form factors in perturbative chiral quark model
The charge form factors of baryon octet are studied in the perturbative chiral quark model (PCQM). The relativistic quark wave function is extracted by fitting the theoretical results of the nucleon charge form factors to the experimental data and the predetermined quark wave function is applied to study the charge form factors of other octet baryons. The PCQM results are found, based on the predetermined quark wave function, in good agreement with the experimental data.
119236452
CONSTRAINING SUB-PARSEC BINARY SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES IN QUASARS WITH MULTI-EPOCH SPECTROSCOPY. II. THE POPULATION WITH KINEMATICALLY OFFSET BROAD BALMER EMISSION LINES*
A small fraction of quasars have long been known to show bulk velocity offsets (of a few hundred to thousands of km s–1) in the broad Balmer lines with respect to the systemic redshift of the host galaxy. Models to explain these offsets usually invoke broad-line region gas kinematics/asymmetry around single black holes (BHs), orbital motion of massive (~sub-parsec (sub-pc)) binary black holes (BBHs), or recoil BHs, but single-epoch spectra are unable to distinguish between these scenarios. The line-of-sight (LOS) radial velocity (RV) shifts from long-term spectroscopic monitoring can be used to test the BBH hypothesis. We have selected a sample of 399 quasars with kinematically offset broad Hβ lines from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Seventh Data Release quasar catalog, and have conducted second-epoch optical spectroscopy for 50 of them. Combined with the existing SDSS spectra, the new observations enable us to constrain the LOS RV shifts of broad Hβ lines with a rest-frame baseline of a few years to nearly a decade. While previous work focused on objects with extreme velocity offset (>103 km s–1), we explore the parameter space with smaller (a few hundred km s–1) yet significant offsets (99.7% confidence). Using cross-correlation analysis, we detect significant (99% confidence) radial accelerations in the broad Hβ lines in 24 of the 50 objects, of ~10-200 km s–1 yr–1 with a median measurement uncertainty of ~10 km s–1 yr–1, implying a high fraction of variability of the broad-line velocity on multi-year timescales. We suggest that 9 of the 24 detections are sub-pc BBH candidates, which show consistent velocity shifts independently measured from a second broad line (either Hα or Mg II) without significant changes in the broad-line profiles. Combining the results on the general quasar population studied in Paper I, we find a tentative anti-correlation between the velocity offset in the first-epoch spectrum and the average acceleration between two epochs, which could be explained by orbital phase modulation when the time separation between two epochs is a non-negligible fraction of the orbital period of the motion causing the line displacement. We discuss the implications of our results for the identification of sub-pc BBH candidates in offset-line quasars and for the constraints on their frequency and orbital parameters.
118442162
The two-body hadronic decays of Bc meson in the perturbative QCD approach: a short review
Along with the running of Large Hadron Collider (LHC) located at CERN in November 2009, a large number of data samples of $$B_c$$Bc meson have been collected and some hadronic $$B_c$$Bc decay modes have been measured by the LHC experiments. In view of the special and important roles of $$B_c$$Bc meson decays playing in the heavy flavor sector, we here give a short review on the status of two body hadronic decays $$B_c \rightarrow M_1 M_2$$Bc→M1M2 at both experimental and theoretical aspects. For the theoretical progresses, specifically, we will show lots of theoretical studies on two body hadronic $$B_c$$Bc decays involving pseudoscalar, vector, scalar, axial-vector, even tensor meson(s) in the final states by employing the perturbative QCD (pQCD) factorization approach. We will present a general analysis about the two-body hadronic decays of the heavy $$B_c$$Bc meson and also provide some expectations for the future developments.
118571453
Axial-vector f_1(1285)-f_1(1420) mixing and B_s \to J/\psi (f_1(1285), f_1(1420)) decays
Inspired by the very recent LHCb measurements of $B_s \to J/\psi f_1(1285)$ and the good agreement between the perturbative QCD predictions and the data for many $B \to J/\psi V$ decays, we here investigate the $B_s \to J/\psi f_1(1285)$ and $B_s \to J/\psi f_1(1420)$ decays for the first time by employing the perturbative QCD (pQCD) approach, in which the $1^3P_1$ states $f_1(1285)$ and $f_1(1420)$ are believed to be the mixture of flavor singlet $f_1$ and octet $f_8$ or of quark-flavor states $f_{1q}$ and $f_{1s}$. We show that the pQCD predictions for the branching ratio of $B_s \to J/\psi f_1(1285)$ agree well with the data within errors for the mixing angle $\theta_{^3P_1} \approx 20^\circ (\phi_{^3P_1} \approx 15^\circ)$ between $f_1 (f_{1q})$ and $f_8 (f_{1s})$ states. Furthermore, the branching ratio of $B_s \to J/\psi f_1(1420)$ and the large transverse polarization fractions in these two considered channels are also predicted and will be tested by the LHC and the forthcoming Super-B factory experiments. Based on the decay rates of $B_s \to J/\psi f_1(1285)$ and $B_s \to J/\psi f_1(1420)$ decay modes predicted in the pQCD approach, the extracted mixing angle between $f_1(1285)$ and $f_1(1420)$ is basically consistent with currently available experimental measurements and lattice QCD analysis within still large theoretical errors.