119184279
THE c2d SPITZER SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY OF ICES AROUND LOW-MASS YOUNG STELLAR OBJECTS. IV. NH3 AND CH3OH
NH_3 and CH_3OH are key molecules in astrochemical networks leading to the formation of more complex N- and 
O-bearing molecules, such as CH3CN and CH3OCH3. Despite a number of recent studies, little is known about 
their abundances in the solid state. This is particularly the case for low-mass protostars, for which only the launch 
of the Spitzer Space Telescope has permitted high-sensitivity observations of the ices around these objects. In this 
work, we investigate the ~8–10μm region in the Spitzer IRS (InfraRed Spectrograph) spectra of 41 low-mass 
young stellar objects (YSOs). These data are part of a survey of interstellar ices in a sample of low-mass YSOs 
studied in earlier papers in this series. We used both an empirical and a local continuum method to correct for the 
contribution from the 10μm silicate absorption in the recorded spectra. In addition, we conducted a systematic 
laboratory study of NH_(3-) and CH_3OH-containing ices to help interpret the astronomical spectra. We clearly detect 
a feature at ~9μm in 24 low-mass YSOs. Within the uncertainty in continuum determination, we identify this 
feature with the NH_3 ν_2 umbrella mode and derive abundances with respect to water between ~2% and 15%. 
Simultaneously, we also revisited the case of CH_3OH ice by studying the ν_4 C–O stretch mode of this molecule at 
~9.7μm in 16 objects, yielding abundances consistent with those derived by Boogert et al. based on a simultaneous 
9.75 and 3.53μm data analysis. Our study indicates that NH_3 is present primarily in H_2O-rich ices, but that in 
some cases, such ices are insufficient to explain the observed narrow FWHM. The laboratory data point to CH_3OH 
being in an almost pure methanol ice, or mixed mainly with CO or CO_2, consistent with its formation through 
hydrogenation on grains. Finally, we use our derived NH_3 abundances in combination with previously published 
abundances of other solid N-bearing species to find that up to 10%–20% of nitrogen is locked up in known ices.
119073347
Fragmentation and Evolution of Molecular Clouds. I. Algorithm and First Results
We present a series of simulations of the fragmentation of a molecular cloud, leading to the formation of a cluster of protostellar cores. We use Gaussian initial conditions with a power spectrum P(k) ∝ k-2, assume an isothermal equation of state, and neglect turbulence and magnetic fields. The purpose of these simulations is to address a specific numerical problem called artificial fragmentation, which plagues simulations of cloud fragmentation. We argue that this is a serious problem, and that the only reasonable and practical way to address it within the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) algorithm is to use a technique called particle splitting. We performed three simulations, with Ngen = 0, 1, and 2 levels of particle splitting. All simulations start up with 643 SPH particles, but their effective resolutions correspond to 643, 1283, and 2563 particles, respectively. The third simulation properly resolves the Jeans mass throughout the entire system, at all times, thus preventing artificial fragmentation. The high resolution of our simulations results in the formation of a large number of protostellar cores, nearly 3000 for the largest simulation. The final mass distribution of cores is lognormal, and the distribution shifts down in mass as the resolution improves. The width of the distribution is about 1.5 (e.g., a factor of 30 in the mass), and the low-mass edge of the distribution corresponds to the lowest core mass that the code can resolve. This result differs from previous claims of a relationship between the mean of the distribution and the initial Jeans mass.
119498034
Submillimeter Dust Continuum Studies of Low and High Mass Star Formation
Studying the physical environments of low mass and high mass cores using dust continuum emission provides important observational constraints on theoretical models of star formation. The motivation and procedure for modeling dust continuum emission is reviewed and the results of recent surveys towards low mass and high mass star forming regions are compared.
118722765
CO2 ICE TOWARD LOW-LUMINOSITY EMBEDDED PROTOSTARS: EVIDENCE FOR EPISODIC MASS ACCRETION VIA CHEMICAL HISTORY
We present Spitzer IRS spectroscopy of CO{sub 2} ice bending mode spectra at 15.2 {mu}m toward 19 young stellar objects (YSOs) with luminosity lower than 1 L{sub Sun} (3 with luminosity lower than 0.1 L{sub Sun }). Ice on dust grain surfaces can encode the history of heating because pure CO{sub 2} ice forms only at elevated temperature, T > 20 K, and thus around protostars of higher luminosity. Current internal luminosities of YSOs with L < 1L{sub Sun} do not provide the conditions needed to produce pure CO{sub 2} ice at radii where typical envelopes begin. The presence of detectable amounts of pure CO{sub 2} ice would signify a higher past luminosity. Many of the spectra require a contribution from a pure, crystalline CO{sub 2} component, traced by the presence of a characteristic band splitting in the 15.2 {mu}m bending mode. About half of the sources (9 out of 19) in the low-luminosity sample have evidence for pure CO{sub 2} ice, and 6 of these have significant double-peaked features, which are very strong evidence of pure CO{sub 2} ice. The presence of the pure CO{sub 2} ice component indicates that the dust temperature, and hence luminosity of the centralmore » star/accretion disk system, must have been higher in the past. An episodic accretion scenario, in which mixed CO-CO{sub 2} ice is converted to pure CO{sub 2} ice during each high-luminosity phase, explains the presence of pure CO{sub 2} ice, the total amount of CO{sub 2} ice, and the observed residual C{sup 18}O gas.« less
5949463
THE SPATIALLY RESOLVED STAR FORMATION LAW FROM INTEGRAL FIELD SPECTROSCOPY: VIRUS-P OBSERVATIONS OF NGC 5194
We investigate the relation between the star formation rate (SFR) surface density (SIGMA{sub SFR}) and the mass surface density of gas (SIGMA{sub gas}) in NGC 5194 (a.k.a. M51a, Whirlpool Galaxy). Visible Integral field Replicable Unit Spectrograph Prototype (VIRUS-P) integral field spectroscopy of the central 4.1 x 4.1 kpc{sup 2} of the galaxy is used to measure Halpha, Hbeta, [O III]lambda5007, [N II]lambdalambda6548,6584, and [S II]lambdalambda6717,6731 emission line fluxes for 735 regions approx170 pc in diameter. We use the Balmer decrement to calculate nebular dust extinctions, and correct the observed fluxes in order to accurately measure SIGMA{sub SFR} in each region. Archival H I 21 cm and CO maps with spatial resolution similar to that of VIRUS-P are used to measure the atomic and molecular gas surface density for each region. We present a new method for fitting the star formation law (SFL), which includes the intrinsic scatter in the relation as a free parameter, allows the inclusion of non-detections in both SIGMA{sub gas} and SIGMA{sub SFR}, and is free of the systematics involved in performing linear regressions over incomplete data in logarithmic space. After rejecting regions whose nebular spectrum is affected by the central active galactic nucleus in NGC 5194,more » we use the [S II]/Halpha ratio to separate spectroscopically the contribution from the diffuse ionized gas (DIG) in the galaxy, which has a different temperature and ionization state from those of H II regions in the disk. The DIG only accounts for 11% of the total Halpha luminosity integrated over the whole central region, but on local scales it can account for up to a 100% of the Halpha emission, especially in the inter-arm regions. After removing the DIG contribution from the Halpha fluxes, we measure a slope N = 0.82 +- 0.05, and an intrinsic scatter epsilon = 0.43 +- 0.02 dex for the molecular gas SFL. We also measure a typical depletion timescale tau=SIGMA{sub H{sub i+H{sub 2}}}/SIGMA{sub SFR}approx2 Gyr, in good agreement with recent measurements by Bigiel et al. The atomic gas density shows no correlation with the SFR, and the total gas SFL in the sampled density range closely follows the molecular gas SFL. Integral field spectroscopy allows a much cleaner measurement of Halpha emission line fluxes than narrow-band imaging, since it is free of the systematics introduced by continuum subtraction, underlying photospheric absorption, and contamination by the [N II] doublet. We assess the validity of different corrections usually applied in narrow-band measurements to overcome these issues and find that while systematics are introduced by these corrections, they are only dominant in the low surface brightness regime. The disagreement with the previous measurement of a super-linear molecular SFL by Kennicutt et al. is most likely due to differences in the fitting method. Our results support the recent evidence for a low, and close to constant, star formation efficiency (SFE =tau{sup -1}) in the molecular component of the interstellar medium. The data show an excellent agreement with the recently proposed model of the SFL by Krumholz et al. The large intrinsic scatter observed may imply the existence of other parameters, beyond the availability of gas, which are important in setting the SFR.« less
118401675
The Diskionary: A Glossary of Terms Commonly Used for Disks and Related Objects, First Edition
Based on a panel discussion at the meeting "New Light on Young Stars: Spitzer's View of Circumstellar Disks", we provide some definitions of common usage of terms describing disks and related objects.
6065903
Exact results and soft breaking masses in supersymmetric gauge theory
Abstract We give an explicit formalism connecting softly broken supersymmetric gauge theories (with QCD as one limit) to N = 2 and N = 1 supersymmetric theories possessing exact solutions, using spurion fields to embed these models in an enlarged N = 1 model. The functional forms of effective lagrangian terms resulting from soft supersymmetry breaking are constrained by the symmetries of the enlarged model, although not well enough to fully determine the vacuum structure of generic softly broken models. Nevertheless, by perturbing the exact N = 1 model results with sufficiently small soft breaking masses, we show that there exist nonsupersymmetric models that exhibit monopole condensation and confinement in the same modes as the N = 1 case.
17258815
Strong coupling effective Higgs potential and a first order thermal phase transition from AdS/CFT duality
We use anti–de Sitter/conformal field theory duality to study the thermodynamics of a strongly coupled [script N]=2 supersymmetric large Nc SU(Nc) gauge theory with Nf=2 fundamental hypermultiplets. At finite temperature T and isospin chemical potential µ, a potential on the Higgs branch is generated, corresponding to a potential on the moduli space of instantons in the anti–de Sitter description. For µ=0, there is a known first order phase transition around a critical temperature Tc. We find that the Higgs vacuum expectation value is a suitable order parameter for this transition; for T>Tc, the theory is driven to a nontrivial point on the Higgs branch. For µ[not-equal]0 and T=0, the Higgs potential is unbounded from below, leading to an instability of the field theory due to Bose-Einstein condensation.
15575800
Flavor universal dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking
The top condensate seesaw mechanism of Dobrescu and Hill allows electroweak symmetry to be broken while deferring the problem of flavor to an electroweak singlet, massive sector. We provide an extended version of the singlet sector that naturally accommodates realistic masses for all the standard model fermions, which play an equal role in breaking electroweak symmetry. The models result in a relatively light composite Higgs sector with masses typically in the range of (400{endash}700) GeV. In more complete models the dynamics will presumably be driven by a broken gauged family or flavor symmetry group. As an example of the higher scale dynamics a fully dynamical model of the quark sector with a GIM mechanism is presented, based on an earlier top condensation model of King using broken family gauge symmetry interactions (that model was itself based on a technicolor model of Georgi). The crucial extra ingredient is a reinterpretation of the condensates that form when several gauge groups become strong close to the same scale. A related technicolor model of Randall which naturally includes the leptons too may also be adapted to this scenario. We discuss the low energy constraints on the massive gauge bosons and scalars of these modelsmore » as well as their phenomenology at the TeV scale. thinsp thinsp {copyright} {ital 1999} {ital The American Physical Society}« less
14766144
On the QCD ground state at high density
Abstract We investigate the possible ground states of QCD at asymptotic densities, where the theory is expected to exhibit color superconductivity. We characterize the color–flavor structure of possible diquark condensates, and find those that are energy extrema by solving the weak-coupling Dyson–Schwinger equations, including Landau damping and the Meissner effect. We show that, as previously anticipated, in the two flavor case the vacuum breaks SU(3) color to SU(2) and in the three flavor case the vacua with color–flavor locking (CFL) have the lowest energy. We identify a number of relatively flat directions in the potential along which the pattern of gauge symmetry breaking changes and parity is violated. We discuss possible phenomenological consequences of our results.
119277454
Phase diagram of the D3/D5 system in a magnetic field and a BKT transition
Abstract We study the full temperature and chemical potential dependence of the D3/D5 2 + 1 -dimensional theory in the presence of a magnetic field. The theory displays separate transitions associated with chiral symmetry breaking and melting of the bound states. We display the phase diagram which has areas with first and second order transitions meeting at two critical points similar to that of the D3/D7 system. In addition there is the recently reported BKT transition at zero temperature leading to distinct structure at low temperatures.