Engineering topics

Floyd, David J. E.

Publications and source records attributed to Floyd, David J. E..

5 records

DOE OSTI2013

THE CLUSTERING OF GALAXIES AROUND RADIO-LOUD ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI

We examine the hypothesis that mergers and close encounters between galaxies can fuel active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by increasing the rate at which gas accretes toward the central black hole. We compare the clustering of galaxies around radio-loud AGNs with the clustering around a population of radio-quiet galaxies with similar masses, colors, and luminosities. Our catalog contains 2178 elliptical radio galaxies with flux densities greater than 2.8 mJy at 1.4 GHz from the Six Degree Field Galaxy Survey. We find tentative evidence that radio AGNs with more than 200 times the median radio power have, on average, more close (r < 160 kpc) companions than their radio-quiet counterparts, suggesting that mergers play a role in forming the most powerful radio galaxies. For ellipticals of fixed stellar mass, the radio power is neither a function of large-scale environment nor halo mass, consistent with the radio powers of ellipticals varying by orders of magnitude over billions of years.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2012

TIDAL INTERACTIONS AT THE EDGE OF THE LOCAL GROUP: NEW EVIDENCE FOR TIDAL FEATURES IN THE ANTLIA DWARF GALAXY

Using deep B-band imaging down to {approx}{mu}{sub B} = 26 mag arcsec{sup -2}, we present evidence for tidal tails in the Antlia Dwarf galaxy, one of the most distant members of the Local Group. This elongation is in the direction of Antlia's nearest neighbor, the Magellanic-type NGC 3109. The tail is offset by <10 Degree-Sign from a vector linking the centers of the two galaxies, indicative of interactions between the pair. Combined with the warped disk previously identified in NGC 3109, Antlia and NGC 3109 must be at a small separation for tidal features to be present in Antlia. We calculate that Antlia cannot be completely disrupted by NGC 3109 in a single interaction unless its orbit pericenter is <6 kpc; however, multiple interactions could significantly alter its morphology. Therefore despite being located right at the edge of the Local Group, environmental effects are playing an important role in Antlia's evolution.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2012

NEW CONSTRAINTS ON THE QUASAR BROAD EMISSION LINE REGION

We demonstrate a new technique for determining the physical conditions of the broad-line-emitting gas in quasars, using near-infrared hydrogen emission lines. Unlike higher ionization species, hydrogen is an efficient line emitter for a very wide range of photoionization conditions, and the observed line ratios depend strongly on the density and photoionization state of the gas present. A locally optimally emitting cloud model of the broad emission line region was compared to measured emission lines of four nearby (z Almost-Equal-To 0.2) quasars that have optical and NIR spectra of sufficient signal to noise to measure their Paschen lines. The model provides a good fit to three of the objects, and a fair fit to the fourth object, an ultraluminous infrared galaxy. We find that low-incident-ionizing fluxes ({Phi}{sub H} < 10{sup 18} cm{sup -2} s{sup -1}) and high gas densities (n{sub H} > 10{sup 12} cm{sup -3}) are required to reproduce the observed hydrogen emission line ratios. This analysis demonstrates that the use of composite spectra in photoionization modeling is inappropriate; models must be fitted to the individual spectra of quasars.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2011

THE UBIQUITOUS RADIO CONTINUUM EMISSION FROM THE MOST MASSIVE EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES

We have measured the radio continuum emission of 396 early-type galaxies brighter than K = 9, using 1.4 GHz imagery from the NRAO Very Large Array Sky Survey, Green Bank 300 ft Telescope, and 64 m Parkes Radio Telescope. For M{sub K} < -24 early-type galaxies, the distribution of radio powers at fixed absolute magnitude spans four orders of magnitude and the median radio power is proportional to K-band luminosity to the power 2.78 {+-} 0.16. The measured flux densities of M{sub K} < -25.5 early-type galaxies are greater than zero in all cases. It is thus highly likely that the most massive galaxies always host an active galactic nucleus or have recently undergone star formation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2011

Limits on spacetime foam

Plausibly spacetime is foamy on small distance scales, due to quantum fluctuations. We elaborate on the proposal to detect spacetime foam by looking for seeing disks in the images of distant quasars and active galactic nuclei. This is a null test in the sense that the continued presence of unresolved point sources at the milliarcsecond level in samples of distant compact sources puts severe constraints on theories of quantized spacetime foam at the Planckian level. We discuss the geometry of foamy spacetime, and the appropriate distance measure for calculating the expected angular broadening. We then deal with recent data and the constraints they put on spacetime foam models. While time lags from distant pulsed sources such as gamma ray bursts have been posited as a possible test of spacetime foam models, we demonstrate that the time-lag effect is rather smaller than has been calculated, due to the equal probability of positive and negative fluctuations in the speed of light inherent in such models. Thus far, images of high-redshift quasars from the Hubble ultra-deep field provide the most stringent test of spacetime foam theories. While random-walk models ({alpha}=1/2) have already been ruled out, the holographic ({alpha}=2/3) model remains viable. Here {alpha}{approx}1 parametrizes the different spacetime foam models according to which the fluctuation of a distance l is given by {approx}l{sup 1-{alpha}l}{sub P}{sup {alpha}} with l{sub P} being the Planck length. Indeed, we see a slight wavelength-dependent blurring in the ultra-deep field images selected for this study. Using existing data in the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) archive we find it is impossible to rule out the {alpha}=2/3 model, but exclude all models with {alpha}<0.65. By comparison, current gamma ray burst time-lag observations only exclude models with {alpha}<0.3.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗