scholarly journals On Passing of Interstellar Clouds Through a Galactic Spiral Arm

Author(s):  
Alexander Zemlyakov ◽  
Mikhail Eremin ◽  
Ilya Kovalenko ◽  
Elena Zhukova

It is believed that the taxonomy of interstellar clouds in their vicinity can serve as an indicator of the features of the geometry and intensity of galactic shock waves. In this paper, the authors present the results of a detailed two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulation of the passage of a cloud through the spiral arm of a galaxy and provide a brief analysis of the effects arising from this motion. The model of interstellar gas used assumes adiabatic flow in the spiral arm. The external gravitational field of the galactic disk and spiral arm is taken into account. The transverse dimensions of the arm in the calculations are taken as follows: the half-width of the arm is 1 kpc along the plane of the disk and 0.6 kpc in the vertical direction. A fragment of the flow is considered near and inside the spiral arm, the effects of the curvature of the arm and the influence of the Coriolis forces are neglected. It is shown that clouds passing through the arm are strongly deformed and lose a significant part of the mass or are completely destroyed in the case of low-mass clouds. The boundary value of the cloud mass at which complete destruction occurs lies in the interval between 3 000 and 6 000 M.

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (S237) ◽  
pp. 363-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven J. Gibson ◽  
A. Russell Taylor ◽  
Jeroen M. Stil ◽  
Christopher M. Brunt ◽  
Dain W. Kavars ◽  
...  

AbstractH I 21cm-line self-absorption (HISA) reveals the shape and distribution of cold atomic clouds in the Galactic disk. Many of these clouds lack corresponding CO emission, despite being colder than purely atomic gas in equilibrium models. HISA requires background line emission at the same velocity, hence mechanisms that can produce such backgrounds. Weak, small-scale, and widespread absorption is likely to arise from turbulent eddies, while strong, large-scale absorption appears organized in cloud complexes along spiral arm shocks. In the latter, the gas may be evolving from an atomic to a molecular state prior to star formation, which would account for the incomplete HISA-CO agreement.


2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (S268) ◽  
pp. 237-242
Author(s):  
Adam M. Ritchey ◽  
S. R. Federman ◽  
Y. Sheffer ◽  
D. L. Lambert

AbstractWe present a comprehensive survey of B abundances in diffuse interstellar clouds from HST/STIS observations along 56 Galactic sight lines. Our sample is the result of a complete search of archival STIS data for the B II λ1362 resonance line, with each detection confirmed by the presence of absorption from other dominant ions at the same velocity. The data probe a range of astrophysical environments including both high-density regions of massive star formation as well as low-density paths through the Galactic halo, allowing us to clearly define the trend of B depletion onto interstellar grains as a function of gas density. Many extended sight lines exhibit complex absorption profiles that trace both local gas and gas associated with either the Sagittarius-Carina or Perseus spiral arm. Our analysis indicates a higher B/O ratio in the inner Sagittarius-Carina spiral arm than in the vicinity of the Sun, which may suggest that B production in the current epoch is dominated by a secondary process. The average gas-phase B abundance in the warm diffuse ISM [log ϵ(B) = 2.38±0.10] is consistent with the abundances determined for a variety of Galactic disk stars, but is depleted by 60% relative to the solar system value. Our survey also reveals sight lines with enhanced B abundances that potentially trace recent production of 11B either by cosmic-ray or neutrino-induced spallation. Such sight lines will be key to discerning the relative importance of the two production routes for 11B synthesis.


2009 ◽  
Vol 705 (2) ◽  
pp. L101-L103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew C. Overholt ◽  
Adrian L. Melott ◽  
Martin Pohl

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Pelisoli ◽  
S. O. Kepler ◽  
Detlev Koester

AbstractEvolved stars with a helium core can be formed by non-conservative mass exchange interaction with a companion or by strong mass loss. Their masses are smaller than 0.5 M⊙. In the database of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), there are several thousand stars which were classified by the pipeline as dwarf O, B and A stars. Considering the lifetimes of these classes on the main sequence, and their distance modulus at the SDSS bright saturation, if these were common main sequence stars, there would be a considerable population of young stars very far from the galactic disk. Their spectra are dominated by Balmer lines which suggest effective temperatures around 8 000-10 000 K. Several thousand have significant proper motions, indicative of distances smaller than 1 kpc. Many show surface gravity in intermediate values between main sequence and white dwarf, 4.75 < log g < 6.5, hence they have been called sdA stars. Their physical nature and evolutionary history remains a puzzle. We propose they are not H-core main sequence stars, but helium core stars and the outcomes of binary evolution. We report the discovery of two new extremely-low mass white dwarfs among the sdAs to support this statement.


2000 ◽  
Vol 198 ◽  
pp. 540-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Chiappini ◽  
Francesca Matteucci

In this work we present the predictions of a modified version of the ‘two-infall model’ (Chiappini et al. 1997 - CMG) for the evolution of 3He, 4He and D in the solar vicinity, as well as their distributions along the Galactic disk. In particular, we show that when allowing for extra-mixing process in low mass stars (M < 2.5 M⊙), as predicted by Charbonnel and do Nascimento (1998), a long standing problem in chemical evolution is solved, namely: the overproduction of 3He by the chemical evolution models as compared to the observed values in the sun and in the interstellar medium. Moreover, we show that chemical evolution models can constrain the primordial value of the deuterium abundance and that a value of (D/H)p < 3 × 10—5 is suggested by the present model. Finally, adopting the primordial 4He abundance suggested by Viegas et al. (1999), we obtain a value for ΔY/ΔZ ≃ 2 and a better agreement with the solar 4He abundance.


1994 ◽  
Vol 146 ◽  
pp. 61-70
Author(s):  
James Liebert

The term dwarf stars identifies objects of small radius in the Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) Diagram, but encompasses more than one phase of stellar evolution. The M dwarfs (type dM) populate the main sequence at the low mass end; these are the coolest core hydrogen-burning stars. They belong generally to the Galactic disk, or Population I, have relatively small space motions with respect to the Sun, and have similar metallicities to the Sun (although perhaps only within a factor of several). In particular, this means that the abundance of oxygen is always greater than that of carbon. The M subdwarfs (sdM) are the Population II counterparts, showing low metallicities and high space motions. Because they have smaller radii, they define a main sequence at lower luminosity than the M dwarfs for a given temperature. Hence the term subdwarf.


2019 ◽  
Vol 622 ◽  
pp. A201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Przemek Mróz ◽  
Andrzej Udalski ◽  
David P. Bennett ◽  
Yoon-Hyun Ryu ◽  
Takahiro Sumi ◽  
...  

Planet formation theories predict the existence of free-floating planets that have been ejected from their parent systems. Although they emit little or no light, they can be detected during gravitational microlensing events. Microlensing events caused by rogue planets are characterized by very short timescales tE (typically below two days) and small angular Einstein radii θE (up to several μas). Here we present the discovery and characterization of two ultra-short microlensing events identified in data from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) survey, which may have been caused by free-floating or wide-orbit planets. OGLE-2012-BLG-1323 is one of the shortest events discovered thus far (tE = 0.155 ± 0.005 d, θE = 2.37 ± 0.10μas) and was caused by an Earth-mass object in the Galactic disk or a Neptune-mass planet in the Galactic bulge. OGLE-2017-BLG-0560 (tE = 0.905 ± 0.005 d, θE = 38.7 ± 1.6μas) was caused by a Jupiter-mass planet in the Galactic disk or a brown dwarf in the bulge. We rule out stellar companions up to a distance of 6.0 and 3.9 au, respectively. We suggest that the lensing objects, whether located on very wide orbits or free-floating, may originate from the same physical mechanism. Although the sample of ultrashort microlensing events is small, these detections are consistent with low-mass wide-orbit or unbound planets being more common than stars in the Milky Way.


2019 ◽  
Vol 488 (2) ◽  
pp. 1635-1651 ◽  
Author(s):  
M S Angelo ◽  
A E Piatti ◽  
W S Dias ◽  
F F S Maia

Abstract The study of dynamical properties of Galactic open clusters (OCs) is a fundamental prerequisite for the comprehension of their dissolution processes. In this work, we characterized 12 OCs, namely: Collinder 258, NGC 6756, Czernik 37, NGC 5381, Ruprecht 111, Ruprecht 102, NGC 6249, Basel 5, Ruprecht 97, Trumpler 25, ESO 129−SC32, and BH 150, projected against dense stellar fields. In order to do that, we employed Washington CT1 photometry and Gaia DR2 astrometry, combined with a decontamination algorithm applied to the three-dimensional astrometric space of proper motions and parallaxes. From the derived membership likelihoods, we built decontaminated colour–magnitude diagrams, while structural parameters were obtained from King profiles fitting. Our analysis revealed that they are relatively young OCs (log(t  yr−1) ∼7.3–8.6), placed along the Sagittarius spiral arm, and at different internal dynamical stages. We found that the half-light radius to Jacobi radius ratio, the concentration parameter and the age to relaxation time ratio describe satisfactorily their different stages of dynamical evolution. Those relative more dynamically evolved OCs have apparently experienced more important low-mass star loss.


1970 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 189-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. W. McCuskey

Aside from the well-known spiral arm tracers such as the OB associations, young galactic clusters, WR stars and possibly the long-period classical cepheids, the more common stars in the neighborhood of the sun within 2 kpc show little or no relationship to the local spiral structure of the galaxy.


1965 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 253-257
Author(s):  
H. F. P. Knaap ◽  
C. J. N. Van Den Meijdenberg ◽  
J. J. M. Beenakker ◽  
H. C. Van De Hulst

Although Several Attempts at observing the interstellar hydrogen molecules in the ultraviolet or infrared are in preparation (ref. 1), these molecules are still undetected. They may form the most abundant unobserved constituent of the interstellar gas. The strongest indirect argument for the presence of these molecules lies in the fact that the density of atomic hydrogen observed by the 21-cm line goes down in some dark clouds, where the dust density and, presumably, the total gas density goes up by a large factor.Inasmuch as the density in the interstellar clouds is of the order of 10 atoms/cm3 and the temperature is only of the order of 100° K, any formation of molecules by atom-atom collisions is too slow to be of importance. The most eligible process for H2 formation is recombination on the surface of an interstellar dust grain. Rate estimates of this process have been made in various degrees of detail, as reported in references 2 to 4.


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