Buckyballs may be the unknown substance in interstellar gas

Physics Today ◽  
2015 ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 239-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. J. Kerr

A review is given of information on the galactic-centre region obtained from recent observations of the 21-cm line from neutral hydrogen, the 18-cm group of OH lines, a hydrogen recombination line at 6 cm wavelength, and the continuum emission from ionized hydrogen.Both inward and outward motions are important in this region, in addition to rotation. Several types of observation indicate the presence of material in features inclined to the galactic plane. The relationship between the H and OH concentrations is not yet clear, but a rough picture of the central region can be proposed.


1967 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 117-119
Author(s):  
F. D. Kahn ◽  
L. Woltjer

The efficiency of the transfer of energy from supernovae into interstellar cloud motions is investigated. A lower limit of about 0·002 is obtained, but values near 0·01 are more likely. Taking all uncertainties in the theory and observations into account, the energy per supernova, in the form of relativistic particles or high-velocity matter, needed to maintain the random motions in the interstellar gas is estimated as 1051·4±1ergs.


1967 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 91-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Herzberg

It is suggested that the diffuse interstellar lines are produced in the interstellar gas by molecules consisting of a few hydrogen atoms and one other atom, such as CH4+ or NH4. Diffuseness of the lines is assumed to result from predissociation of these molecules.


Author(s):  
Burton B. Silver

Tissue from a non-functional kidney affected with chronic membranous glomerulosclerosis was removed at time of trnasplantation. Recipient kidney tissue and donor kidney tissue were simultaneously fixed for electron microscopy. Primary fixation was in phosphate buffered gluteraldehyde followed by infiltration in 20 and then 40% glycerol. The tissues were frozen in liquid Freon and finally in liquid nitrogen. Fracturing and replication of the etched surface was carried out in a Denton freeze-etch device. The etched surface was coated with platinum followed by carbon. These replicas were cleaned in a 50% solution of sodium hypochlorite and mounted on 400 mesh copper grids. They were examined in an Siemens Elmiskop IA. The pictures suggested that the diseased kidney had heavy deposits of an unknown substance which might account for its inoperative state at the time of surgery. Such deposits were not as apparent in light microscopy or in the standard fixation methods used for EM. This might have been due to some extraction process which removed such granular material in the dehydration steps.


Author(s):  
Thomas Geballe ◽  
C Westrick ◽  
Miwa Goto ◽  
B. Schlegelmilch ◽  
S. Yeh ◽  
...  

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (S254) ◽  
pp. 95-96
Author(s):  
Arthur M. Wolfe ◽  
Regina A. Jorgenson ◽  
Timothy Robishaw ◽  
Carl Heiles ◽  
Jason X. Prochaska

AbstractThe magnetic field pervading our Galaxy is a crucial constituent of the interstellar medium: it mediates the dynamics of interstellar clouds, the energy density of cosmic rays, and the formation of stars (Beck 2005). The field associated with ionized interstellar gas has been determined through observations of pulsars in our Galaxy. Radio-frequency measurements of pulse dispersion and the rotation of the plane of linear polarization, i.e., Faraday rotation, yield an average value B ≈ 3 μG (Han et al. 2006). The possible detection of Faraday rotation of linearly polarized photons emitted by high-redshift quasars (Kronberg et al. 2008) suggests similar magnetic fields are present in foreground galaxies with redshifts z > 1. As Faraday rotation alone, however, determines neither the magnitude nor the redshift of the magnetic field, the strength of galactic magnetic fields at redshifts z > 0 remains uncertain.Here we report a measurement of a magnetic field of B ≈ 84 μG in a galaxy at z =0.692, using the same Zeeman-splitting technique that revealed an average value of B = 6 μG in the neutral interstellar gas of our Galaxy (Heiles et al. 2004). This is unexpected, as the leading theory of magnetic field generation, the mean-field dynamo model, predicts large-scale magnetic fields to be weaker in the past, rather than stronger (Parker 1970).The full text of this paper was published in Nature (Wolfe et al. 2008).


Author(s):  
Hyungjin Kim

Abstract Primordial black holes are a viable dark matter candidate. They decay via Hawking evaporation. Energetic particles from the Hawking radiation interact with interstellar gas, depositing their energy as heat and ionization. For a sufficiently high Hawking temperature, fast electrons produced by black holes deposit a substantial fraction of energy as heat through the Coulomb interaction. Using the dwarf galaxy Leo T, we place an upper bound on the fraction of primordial black hole dark matter. For M < 5 × 10−17M⊙, our bound is competitive with or stronger than other bounds.


2021 ◽  
Vol 366 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hidetoshi Sano ◽  
Yasuo Fukui

AbstractWe review recent progress in elucidating the relationship between high-energy radiation and the interstellar medium (ISM) in young supernova remnants (SNRs) with ages of ∼2000 yr, focusing in particular on RX J1713.7−3946 and RCW 86. Both SNRs emit strong nonthermal X-rays and TeV $\gamma $ γ -rays, and they contain clumpy distributions of interstellar gas that includes both atomic and molecular hydrogen. We find that shock–cloud interactions provide a viable explanation for the spatial correlation between the X-rays and ISM. In these interactions, the supernova shocks hit the typically pc-scale dense cores, generating a highly turbulent velocity field that amplifies the magnetic field up to 0.1–1 mG. This amplification leads to enhanced nonthermal synchrotron emission around the clumps, whereas the cosmic-ray electrons do not penetrate the clumps. Accordingly, the nonthermal X-rays exhibit a spatial distribution similar to that of the ISM on the pc scale, while they are anticorrelated at sub-pc scales. These results predict that hadronic $\gamma $ γ -rays can be emitted from the dense cores, resulting in a spatial correspondence between the $\gamma $ γ -rays and the ISM. The current pc-scale resolution of $\gamma $ γ -ray observations is too low to resolve this correspondence. Future $\gamma $ γ -ray observations with the Cherenkov Telescope Array will be able to resolve the sub-pc-scale $\gamma $ γ -ray distribution and provide clues to the origin of these cosmic $\gamma $ γ -rays.


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