118533417
THE NATURE OF TRANSITION CIRCUMSTELLAR DISKS. I. THE OPHIUCHUS MOLECULAR CLOUD
We have obtained millimeter-wavelength photometry, high-resolution optical spectroscopy, and adaptive optics near-infrared imaging for a sample of 26 Spitzer-selected transition circumstellar disks. All of our targets are located in the Ophiuchus molecular cloud (d ~ 125 pc) and have spectral energy distributions (SEDs) suggesting the presence of inner opacity holes. We use these ground-based data to estimate the disk mass, multiplicity, and accretion rate for each object in our sample in order to investigate the mechanisms potentially responsible for their inner holes. We find that transition disks are a heterogeneous group of objects, with disk masses ranging from <0.6 to 40 M JUP and accretion rates ranging from <10–11 to 10–7 M ☉ yr–1, but most tend to have much lower masses and accretion rates than full disks (i.e., disks without opacity holes). Eight of our targets have stellar companions: six of them are binaries and the other two are triple systems. In four cases, the stellar companions are close enough to suspect they are responsible for the inferred inner holes. We find that nine of our 26 targets have low disk mass (<2.5 M JUP) and negligible accretion (<10–11 M ☉ yr–1), and are thus consistent with photoevaporating (or photoevaporated) disks. Four of these nine non-accreting objects have fractional disk luminosities <10–3 and could already be in a debris disk stage. Seventeen of our transition disks are accreting. Thirteen of these accreting objects are consistent with grain growth. The remaining four accreting objects have SEDs suggesting the presence of sharp inner holes, and thus are excellent candidates for harboring giant planets.
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.
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
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.
119123061
Chiral phase transitions and quantum critical points of the D3/D7(D5) system with mutually perpendicular E and B fields at finite temperature and density
We study chiral symmetry restoration with increasing temperature and density in gauge theories subject to mutually perpendicular electric and magnetic fields using holography. We determine the chiral symmetry breaking phase structure of the D3/D7 and D3/D5 systems in the temperature-density-electric field directions. A magnetic field may break the chiral symmetry and an additional electric field induces Ohm and Hall currents as well as restoring the chiral symmetry. At zero temperature the D3/D5 system displays a line of holographic BKT phase transitions in the density-electric field plane, while the D3/D7 system shows a mean-field phase transition. At intermediate temperatures, the transitions in the density-electric field plane are of first order at low density, transforming to second order at critical points as density rises. At high temperature the transition is only ever first order.
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.
13898734
Confinement, glueballs and strings from deformed AdS
We study aspects of confinement in two deformed versions of the AdS/CFT correspondence — the GPPZ dual of Script N = 1* Yang Mills, and the Yang Mills* Script N = 0 dual. Both geometries describe discrete glueball spectra which we calculate numerically. The results agree at the 10% level with previous AdS/CFT computations in the Klebanov Strassler background and AdS Schwarzchild respectively. We also calculate the spectra of bound states of the massive fermions in these geometries and show that they are light, so not decoupled from the dynamics. We then study the behaviour of Wilson loops in the 10d lifts of these geometries. We find a transition from AdS-like strings in the UV to strings that interact with the unknown physics of the central singularity of the space in the IR.
8365482
Non-equilibrium physics at a holographic chiral phase transition
The D3/D7 system holographically describes an $ \mathcal{N} = 2 $ gauge theory which spontaneously breaks a chiral symmetry by the formation of a quark condensate in the presence of a magnetic field. At finite temperature it displays a first order phase transition. We study out of equilibrium dynamics associated with this transition by placing probe D7 branes in a geometry describing a boost-invariant expanding or contracting plasma. We use an adiabatic approximation to track the evolution of the quark condensate in a heated system and reproduce the phase structure expected from equilibrium dynamics. We then study solutions of the full partial differential equation that describes the evolution of out of equilibrium configurations to provide a complete description of the phase transition including describing aspects of bubble formation.
123269953
QCD‐like gauge dynamics from gravity duals
We describe attempts to study QCD-like gauge dynamics using a deformed version of the AdS/CFT Correspondence. The Yang Mills* geometry is dual to a gauge theory that is non-supersymmetric Yang Mills in the infra-red but reverts to N = 4 super Yang Mills in the ultra-violet. The geometry describes a discrete, calculable glueball spectrum with a mass gap. Wilson loops in the geometry display QCD string breaking.