Engineering topics

Esquivel, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Esquivel, A..

8 records

DOE OSTI2016

THE TIME-EVOLUTION OF HH 2 FROM FOUR EPOCHS OF HST IMAGES

We have analyzed four epochs of Hα and [S ii] Hubble Space Telescope images of the HH 1/2 outflow (covering a time interval from 1994 to 2014) to determine proper motions and emission line fluxes of the knots of HH 2. We find that our new proper motions agree surprisingly well with the motions measured by Herbig and Jones, although there is partial evidence for a slight deceleration of the motion of the HH 2 knots from 1945 to 2014. We also measure the time-variability of the Hα intensities and the [S ii]/Hα line ratios and find that knots H and A have the largest intensity variabilities (in 1994→2014). Knot H, which now dominates the HH 2 emission, has strengthened substantially, while keeping an approximately constant [S ii]/Hα ratio. Knot A has dramatically faded and at the same time has had a substantial increase in its [S ii]/Hα ratio. Possible interpretations of these results are discussed.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2016

THE TIME EVOLUTION OF HH 1 FROM FOUR EPOCHS OF HST IMAGES

We present an analysis of four epochs of Hα and [S ii] λλ 6716/6731 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of HH 1. For determining proper motions, we explore a new method based on the analysis of spatially degraded images obtained convolving the images with wavelet functions of chosen widths. With this procedure, we are able to generate maps of proper motion velocities along and across the outflow axis, as well as (angularly integrated) proper motion velocity distributions. From the four available epochs, we find the time evolution of the velocities, intensities, and spatial distribution of the line emission. We find that over the last two decades HH 1 shows a clear acceleration. Also, the Hα and [S ii] intensities first dropped and then recovered in the more recent (2014) images. Finally, we show a comparison between the two available HST epochs of [O iii] λ 5007 (1994 and 2014), in which we see a clear drop in the value of the [O iii]/Hα ratio.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2015

STUDYING THE INTERSTELLAR MAGNETIC FIELD FROM ANISOTROPIES IN VELOCITY CHANNELS

Turbulence in the interstellar medium is anisotropic due to the ubiquitous magnetic fields. This anisotropy depends on the strength of the magnetic field and leaves an imprint on observations of spectral line maps. We use a grid of ideal magnetohydrodynamic simulations of driven turbulence and produce synthetic position–position–velocity maps to study the turbulence anisotropy in velocity channels of various resolutions. We found that the average structure function of velocity channels is aligned with the projection of the magnetic field on the plane of the sky. We also found that the degree of such anisotropy increases with the magnitude of the magnetic field. For thick velocity channels (low velocity resolution), the anisotropy is dominated by density, and the degree of anisotropy in these maps allows one to distinguish sub-Alfvénic and super-Alfvénic turbulence regimes, but it also depends strongly on the sonic Mach number. For thin channels (high velocity resolution), we find that the anisotropy depends less on the sonic Mach number. An important limitation of this technique is that it only gives a lower limit on the magnetic field strength because the anisotropy is related only to the magnetic field component on the plane of the sky. It can, and should, be used in combination with other techniques to estimate the magnetic field, such as the Fermi-Chandrasekhar method, anisotropies in centroids, Faraday rotation measurements, or direct line-of-sight determinations of the field from Zeeman effect observations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2014

Measuring the Alfvénic nature of the interstellar medium: Velocity anisotropy revisited

The dynamics of the interstellar medium (ISM) are strongly affected by turbulence, which shows increased anisotropy in the presence of a magnetic field. We expand upon the Esquivel and Lazarian method to estimate the Alfvén Mach number using the structure function anisotropy in velocity centroid data from Position-Position-Velocity maps. We utilize three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations of fully developed turbulence, with a large range of sonic and Alfvénic Mach numbers, to produce synthetic observations of velocity centroids with observational characteristics such as thermal broadening, cloud boundaries, noise, and radiative transfer effects of carbon monoxide. In addition, we investigate how the resulting anisotropy-Alfvén Mach number dependency found in Esquivel and Lazarian might change when taking the second moment of the Position-Position-Velocity cube or when using different expressions to calculate the velocity centroids. We find that the degree of anisotropy is related primarily to the magnetic field strength (i.e., Alfvén Mach number) and the line-of-sight orientation, with a secondary effect on sonic Mach number. If the line of sight is parallel to up to ≈45 deg off of the mean field direction, the velocity centroid anisotropy is not prominent enough to distinguish different Alfvénic regimes. The observed anisotropy is not strongly affected by including radiative transfer, although future studies should include additional tests for opacity effects. These results open up the possibility of studying the magnetic nature of the ISM using statistical methods in addition to existing observational techniques.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2013

Diffuse ionizing radiation within HH jets

We present numerical hydrodynamical simulations of a time-dependent ejection velocity precessing jet. The parameters used in our models correspond to a high excitation Herbig-Haro object, such as HH 80/81. We have included the transfer of ionizing radiation produced within the shocked regions of the jet. The radiative transfer is computed with a ray-tracing scheme from all the cells with an emissivity above a certain threshold. We show the development of a radiative precursor, and compare the morphology with a model without the diffuse radiation. Our simulations show that the morphology of the Hα emission is affected considerably if the diffuse ionizing radiation is accounted for. The predicted Hα position-velocity diagram (i.e., spatially resolved emission line profiles) from a model with the transfer of ionizing radiation has a relatively strong component at zero velocity, corresponding to the radiative precursor. Qualitatively similar 'zero velocity components' are observed in HH 80/81 and in the jet from Sanduleak's star in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2013

MODELING THE THERMAL DIFFUSE SOFT AND HARD X-RAY EMISSION IN M17

We present numerical models of very young wind driven superbubbles. The parameters chosen for the simulations correspond to the particular case of the M17 nebula, but are appropriate for any young superbubble in which the wind sources have not completely dispersed their parental cloud. From the simulations, we computed the diffuse emission in the soft ([0.5-1.5] keV) and hard ([1.5-5] keV) X-ray bands. The total luminosity in our simulations agrees with the observations of Hyodo et al., about two orders of magnitude below the prediction of the standard model of Weaver et al.. The difference with respect to the standard (adiabatic) model is the inclusion of radiative cooling, which is still important in such young bubbles. We show that for this type of object the diffuse hard X-ray luminosity is significant compared to that of soft X-rays, contributing as much as 10% of the total luminosity, in contrast with more evolved bubbles where the hard X-ray emission is indeed negligible, being at least four orders of magnitude lower than the soft X-ray emission.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2013

GRAVITATIONAL DRAG ON A POINT MASS IN HYPERSONIC MOTION WITHIN A GAUSSIAN DISK

We develop an analytical model for the accretion and gravitational drag on a point mass that moves hypersonically in the midplane of a gaseous disk with a Gaussian vertical density stratification. Such a model is of interest for studying the interaction between a planet and a protoplanetary disk, as well as the dynamical decay of massive black holes in galactic nuclei. The model assumes that the flow is ballistic, and gives fully analytical expressions for both the accretion rate onto the point mass and the gravitational drag it suffers. The expressions are further simplified by taking the limits of a thick and of a thin disk. The results for the thick disk reduce correctly to those for a uniform density environment. We find that for a thin disk (small vertical scaleheight compared to the gravitational radius), the accretion rate is proportional to the mass of the moving object and to the surface density of the disk, while the drag force is independent of the velocity of the object. The gravitational deceleration of the hypersonic perturber in a thin disk was found to be independent of its parameters (i.e., mass or velocity) and depends only on the surface mass density of the disk. The predictions of the model are compared to the results of three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations, with reasonable agreement.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2012

MAGNETIZATION OF CLOUD CORES AND ENVELOPES AND OTHER OBSERVATIONAL CONSEQUENCES OF RECONNECTION DIFFUSION

Recent observational results for magnetic fields in molecular clouds reviewed by Crutcher seem to be inconsistent with the predictions of the ambipolar diffusion theory of star formation. These include the measured decrease in mass to flux ratio between envelopes and cores, the failure to detect any self-gravitating magnetically subcritical clouds, the determination of the flat probability distribution function (PDF) of the total magnetic field strengths implying that there are many clouds with very weak magnetic fields, and the observed scaling B{proportional_to}{rho}{sup 2/3} that implies gravitational contraction with weak magnetic fields. We consider the problem of magnetic field evolution in turbulent molecular clouds and discuss the process of magnetic field diffusion mediated by magnetic reconnection. For this process that we termed 'reconnection diffusion', we provide a simple physical model and explain that this process is inevitable in view of the present-day understanding of MHD turbulence. We address the issue of the expected magnetization of cores and envelopes in the process of star formation and show that reconnection diffusion provides an efficient removal of magnetic flux that depends only on the properties of MHD turbulence in the core and the envelope. We show that as the amplitude of turbulence as well as the scale of turbulent motions decrease from the envelope to the core of the cloud, the diffusion of the magnetic field is faster in the envelope. As a result, the magnetic flux trapped during the collapse in the envelope is being released faster than the flux trapped in the core, resulting in much weaker fields in envelopes than in cores, as observed. We provide simple semi-analytical model calculations which support this conclusion and qualitatively agree with the observational results. Magnetic reconnection is also consistent with the lack of subcritical self-gravitating clouds, with the observed flat PDF of field strengths, and with the scaling of field strength with density. In addition, we demonstrate that the reconnection diffusion process can account for the empirical Larson relations and list a few other implications of the reconnection diffusion concept. We argue that magnetic reconnection provides a solution to the magnetic flux problem of star formation that agrees better with observations than the long-standing ambipolar diffusion paradigm. Due to the illustrative nature of our simplified model we do not seek quantitative agreement, but discuss the complementary nature of our approach to the three-dimensional MHD numerical simulations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗