56141689
THE BOLOCAM GALACTIC PLANE SURVEY. III. CHARACTERIZING PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF MASSIVE STAR-FORMING REGIONS IN THE GEMINI OB1 MOLECULAR CLOUD
We present the 1.1 mm Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey (BGPS) observations of the Gemini OB1 molecular cloud complex, and targeted NH{sub 3} observations of the BGPS sources. When paired with molecular spectroscopy of a dense gas tracer, millimeter observations yield physical properties such as masses, radii, mean densities, kinetic temperatures, and line widths. We detect 34 distinct BGPS sources above 5{sigma} = 0.37 Jy beam{sup -1} with corresponding 5{sigma} detections in the NH{sub 3}(1,1) transition. Eight of the objects show water maser emission (20%). We find a mean millimeter source FWHM of 1.12 pc and a mean gas kinetic temperature of 20 K for the sample of 34 BGPS sources with detections in the NH{sub 3}(1,1) line. The observed NH{sub 3} line widths are dominated by non-thermal motions, typically found to be a few times the thermal sound speed expected for the derived kinetic temperature. We calculate the mass for each source from the millimeter flux assuming the sources are isothermal and find a mean isothermal mass within a 120'' aperture of 230 {+-} 180 M{sub sun}. We find a total mass of 8400 M{sub sun} for all BGPS sources in the Gemini OB1 molecular cloud, representing 6.5% of themore » cloud mass. By comparing the millimeter isothermal mass to the virial mass calculated from the NH{sub 3} line widths within a radius equal to the millimeter source size, we find a mean virial parameter (M{sub vir}/M {sub iso}) of 1.0 {+-} 0.9 for the sample. We find mean values for the distributions of column densities of 1.0 x 10{sup 22} cm{sup -2} for H{sub 2}, and 3.0 x 10{sup 14} cm{sup -2} for NH{sub 3}, giving a mean NH{sub 3} abundance of 3.0 x 10{sup -8} relative to H{sub 2}. We find volume-averaged densities on the order of 10{sup 3}-10{sup 4} cm{sup -3}. The sizes and densities suggest that in the Gem OB1 region the BGPS is detecting the clumps from which stellar clusters form, rather than smaller, higher density cores where single stars or small multiple systems form.« 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
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
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.
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.
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.
18862703
Quark Mass in the Sakai-Sugimoto Model of Chiral Symmetry Breaking
We re-analyze D8 brane embeddings in the geometry of a D4 brane wrapped on a circle that describe chiral symmetry breaking in a strongly coupled non-supersymmetric gauge theory. We argue that if the holographic fields are correctly interpreted, the original embeddings describe a complex quark mass and condensate in the theory. We show that in this interpretation when a quark mass is present there is a massive pseudo Goldstone boson (pion). A previously identified massless fluctuation is, we argue, not a physical state in the field theory. We also determine the behaviour of the quark condensate as a function of the quark mass.
116952684
Dynamical Generation of the CKM Matrix
We argue that in dynamical models of fermion masses, which explain the three mass scales of the generations of fermions with three separate heavy scales above the electroweak symmetry breaking scale, the off diagonal CKM matrix elements must be generated at a fourth scale. The simplest form for the additional mass generation is a mechanism that has an $SU(3)_L \otimes SU(3)_R$ family symmetry. We show that such an ansatz can produce the up down mass inversion and the observed Cabibbo angle. If the mass terms for the third family quarks are enhanced by additional interactions the full CKM matrix may be realized. We present a toy model which realizes vacua with these masses.}
125436343
Holographic QCD and perfection
A holographic description of chiral symmetry breaking in the pattern of QCD is reviewed. D7 brane probes are used to include quark fields in a simple non-supersymmetric deformation of the AdS/CFT Correspondence. The axial symmetry breaking is realized geometrically and the quark condensate and meson masses are computable. Surprisingly, treating the model as a description of QCD works quantitatively at the 15% level. Models of this AdS/QCD type typically have a strongly coupled, conformal UV regime that is far from QCD. To systematically move closer to QCD, we propose cutting out the large radius gravitational description and matching operators and couplings at a finite UV cut off in the spirit of a perfect lattice action. A simple example is discussed.
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.
117963955
Electroweak Symmetry Breaking from the Top
The last decade of high energy collider experiments has verified the high accuracy of the Standard Model (SM) at describing physics below ~ 90GeV and thus placed strong constraints on extensions to the SM. The mechanism by which electroweak symmetry (EWS) is broken, however, has not been experimentally investigated and remains an open question. In the minimal SM of Glashow, Weinberg and Salam the fermion, W ± and Z 0 mass terms that break the SU(2)L ⊗ U(1) Y symmetry are replaced by gauge invariant interactions with a fundamental scalar Higgs field that acquires a non zero vacuum expectation value (vev) and breaks EWS. However, the fermion masses are replaced by Yukawa couplings to the Higgs field giving no understanding of the mass structure of the SM. Similarly the vev of the Higgs field that minimizes its potential is an arbitrary parameter of the theory. This lack of predictive power suggests that the Higgs model is at best a low energy effective theory of physics at the EW scale.