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At least 397 records · Page 22

A catalog of small, optically selected molecular clouds - Optical, infrared, and millimeter properties

A catalog of small, optically selected molecular clouds is presented. The relevant selection criteria were small angular size, large central opacity, and freedom from connecting opaque material. The mean ellipticity of the clouds in the catalog is 2.0, with a maximum ellipticity of 7. The position angle of the clouds is uncorrelated with the direction of the Galactic plane. About 60 percent of the cataloged clouds have associated IRAS Point Source Catalog (PSC) sources in their cores or envelopes. The likelihood of a detection of a PSC source is some 6.1 times higher for the core regions of the clouds than for the envelopes, indicating a strong association of FIR sources and Bok globules. Of a sample of 97 of the clouds observed in the J = 2-1 line of (C-12)O, 70 percent have cold gas kinetic temperatures and approximately sonic line widths. The remaining 30 percent are about equally divided between those clouds likely to be radiatively heated by nearby stars and those undergoing active protostellar collapse or outflows with no bulk gas heating.

Clemens, Dan P.↗

Laboratory diode laser spectroscopy in molecular planetary astronomy

Infrared spectroscopy of planetary atmospheres is performed at high spectral resolution comparable to that in the laboratory. This requires that laboratory spectroscopy use the highest resolution and the most accurate techniques. Tunable diode laser spectroscopy can supply many of the spectroscopic parameters needed by astronomers. In particular, line positions, line strengths, and collisional line widths are measured with diode lasers, and these are often among the best values available. Diode laser spectra are complimentary to lower resolution, broader-coverage Fourier transform spectra. Certain procedures must be adopted, however, when using diode lasers, for determining their output characteristics and for calibrating each spectrum against quality references.

Jennings, D. E.↗

Nonlinear interactions among solar acoustic modes

The rates at which nonlinear interactions transfer energy among the normal modes of a plane-parallel, stratified atmosphere are evaluated. It is shown that every p-mode in the 5-minute band is involved in many near-resonant triplets, and, as a consequence, the energy transfer rates are independent of the mode line widths. It is also found that nonlinear mode coupling cannot limit the growth of overstable p-modes, which favors the hypothesis that the sun's p-modes are stochastically excited by turbulent convection.

Kumar, Pawan↗

UV and VUV spectroscopy and photochemistry of small molecules in a supersonic jet

UV and VUV absorption and emission spectroscopy is used to probe jet cooled molecules, free radicals, and clusters in the gas phase. Due to efficient cooling inhomogeneous effects on spectral line widths are eliminated. Therefore from these spectra, both structural and dynamical information is obtained. The photoproducts of these reactions are probed by resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization.

Ruehl, E.↗

The peculiar velocity field in the Perseus-Pisces supercluster

Results are reported from a program to study peculiar motions of galaxies in the Per-Psc supercluster. The data set consists of newly obtained CCD photometry and published 21-cm line widths for 320 spiral galaxies. The peculiar velocities of these objects are estimated using the Tully-Fisher relation, calibrated with respect to an independent sample of cluster galaxies. Analysis shows that the principal feature of the velocity field in the Per-Psc region is a coherent streaming toward the Local Group. Nearly all the galaxies well in the foreground (cz less than about 2000 km/sec) have negtive peculiar velocities of amplitude about 1000 km/sec. A great majority of objects in the background of the supercluster, out to redshifts of about 7000 km/sec, also have very large negative peculiar velocities. The supercluster ridge itself, at a redshift or about 5000 km/sec, appears to consist of positive and negative peculiar-velocity groups of galaxies, but with negative peculiar velocities predominating both in amplitude and in number of objects involved.

Willick, Jeffrey A.↗

Radius-luminosity and mass-luminosity relationships for active galactic nuclei

Broad-line region (BLR) sizes derived from spectral variability and BLR line widths are used to directly derive the mass (M) of the central objects of ten active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in a uniform manner. It is shown that the luminosity-weighted C IV 1549-emitting BLR radius (R) correlates with the bolometric luminosity L(Bol) and is consistent with R about sq rt L(Bol). The measurements also permit a verification of the Dibai mass-luminosity (M-L) relationship (previously derived indirectly). It is found that L(Bol) is proportional to M exp (1.1 + or - 0.3). It is found that the efficiency factor epsilon, defined as the ratio of L(Bol) to the Eddington luminosity increases from 0.03 in the low-luminosity Seyferts up to 0.06 in the most luminous objects in the sample.

Koratkar, Anuradha P.↗

Molecular clouds in starburst galaxy nuclei

New CO observations of a complete sample of starburst galaxies are presented in order to determine the range of molecular gas masses and star-formation efficiencies that characterize these systems. The properties of the galaxies in the sample are given, and the H-alpha and R-band CCD images for six of the galaxies are shown. The novel feature of this study is that the galaxies in this study are infrared selected as opposed to optically selected. They exhibit levels of nuclear star formation activity which are comparable to the starburst galaxies M82 and NGC 253. A subset of galaxies with unusually narrow CO line widths, high star-formation efficiencies, and compact 10-micron distributions is revealed. It is proposed that, if gas distributions in these galaxies are also compact, as the narrow linewidths suggest, the high yields of massive stars per unit mass of molecular gas may be attributed to a star-formation mechanism which becomes more efficient as the gas density increases.

Young, Judith S.↗

Thermal and mechanical damping of solar p-modes

Nonadiabatic effects associated with the transfer of energy and with turbulent stresses add small imaginary parts, omega-i(1) and omega-i(2), to solar p-mode eigenfrequencies. Numerical calculations have shown that these quite different processes make comparable contributions to omega-i at frequencies well below the acoustic cutoff at omega-ac. Analytic expressions are derived which reveal the connection between omega-i(1) and omega-i(2). The estimates yield omega-i proportional to omega exp 8 for omega much less than omega-ac in good agreement with the numerical calculations. However, the observed line width is proportional to omega exp 4.2 at low frequencies. It is suspected that there is an unmodeled component of perturbed convective energy transport or of turbulent viscosity that makes an important contribution to omega-i at omega much less than omega-ac.

Goldreich, Peter↗

Cyclotron resonant scattering and absorption

The relativistic cross-sections for first-order absorption and second-order scattering are compared to determine the conditions under which the absorption cross-section is a good approximation to the much more complex scattering cross-section for purposes of modeling cyclotron lines in gamma-ray bursts. Differences in both the cross-sections and the line profiles are presented for a range of field strengths, angles, and electron temperatures. The relative difference of the cross-sections at one line width from resonance was found to increase with field strength and harmonic number. The difference is also strongly dependent on the photon angle to the magnetic field. For the field strength, 1.7 x 10 to the 12th G, and the angle inferred from the Ginga burst features, absorption is an excellent approximation for the profiles at the first and second harmonics.

Harding, Alice K.↗

Measurement of self-broadening of the ozone nu(3) transitions

Self-broadening coefficients have been measured for a number of rovibrational lines in the nu(3) band of ozone, in the frequency range 1015-1058/cm, with J values between 0 and 27, and over a range of K(a) values. A multiparameter nonlinear least-squares fitting procedure is used to reduce the data, and the sensitivity of the procedure to instrument line width, weak satellite features, and absolute intensity has been examined. The retrieved coefficients are compared with millimeter-wave broadening coefficients, direclty measured rotational relaxation times, and recently suggested empirical representations.

Flannery, C.↗

An observation of annihilation radiation from the Galactic center region

Results are reported from observations of the 511 MeV annihilation gamma-ray line from the Galactic center, made on May 22, 1989 with a high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometer on board a balloon launched from Alice Springs (Australia). The observations were made at about 4 gm/sq cm atmospheric depth for 6 hrs in a series of target and background pointings lasting 20 min each. The results obtained from multiparameter Gaussian fits to the data were as follows: 511 keV flux = 0.00089 + or - 0.00027 ph/sq cm per sec-rad, line width of about 1.1 keV, and less than 3.2 keV FWHM at 95 percent confidence.

Matteson, J.↗

Gamma-ray lines from SN1987A

Results of gamma-ray observations of SN1987A conducted over a period of 800 days using balloon-borne high-resolution germanium detectors are discussed. Most of the measurements show red-shifted line centroids (about 500 km/s) and broadened profiles, contradicting the standard homogeneous and spherically symmetric models, which predict blue-shifted lines and narrower line widths. To explain this apparent contradiction, it may be necessary to invoke fragmentation and nonspherical geometries.

Teegarden, B. J.↗

New measurements of the 6190-A band of methane

The present paper reports new laboratory measurements that were made of the absorption coefficient of the visible methane band at 6190 A. Data were obtained using a tunable dye laser system operating with a line width of 0.067/cm. Spectra were recorded at approximately 1-A intervals with the beam coupled to a 22-m base length White-type absorption cell adjusted for an optical path of 1584 km and filled to a density of 0.884 amagats. Errors in pressure, temperature, and path length amounted to an uncertainty in the abundance of no more than 0.4 percent. Fourteen data sets were recorded and coadded. The final signal-averaged methane data were divided by a similar set of signal-averaged empty cell scans to remove the transmittance of the White cell and system optics. The results are compared with previous low-resolution measurements in the spectral region from 6000 to 6400 A.

Mickelson, M. E.↗

A high-performance Hg(+) trapped ion frequency standard

A high-performance frequency standard based on (199)Hg(+) ions confined in a hybrid radio frequency (RF)/dc linear ion trap is demonstrated. This trap permits storage of large numbers of ions with reduced susceptibility to the second-order Doppler effect caused by the RF confining fields. A 160-mHz-wide atomic resonance line for the 40.5-GHz clock transition is used to steer the output of a 5-mHz crystal oscillator to obtain a stability of 2 x 10(exp -15) for 24,000-second averaging times. Measurements with a 37-mHz line width for the Hg(+) clock transition demonstrate that the inherent stability for this frequency standard is better than 1 x 10(exp -15) at 10,000-second averaging times.

Prestage, J. D.↗

Nonequilibrium ionization effects in asymmetrically heated loops

The effects of nonequilibrium ionization on magnetic loop models with a steady siphon flow that is driven by a nonuniform heating rate are investigated. The model developed by Mariska (1988) to explain the observed redshifts of transition region emission lines is examined, and the number densities of the ions of carbon and oxygen along the loop are computed, with and without the approximation of ionization equilibrium. Considerable deviations from equilibrium were found. In order to determine the consequences of these nonequilibrium effects on the characteristics of the EUV emission from the loop plasma, the profiles and wavelength positions of all the important emission lines due to carbon and oxygen were calculated. The calculations are in broad agreement with Mariska's conclusions, although they show a significant diminution of the Doppler shifts, as well as modifications to the line widths. It is concluded that the inclusion of nonequilibrium effects make it more difficult to reproduce the observed characteristics of the solar transition region by means of the asymmetric-heating models.

Spadaro, D.↗

Measurements of Lorentz-broadening coefficients and pressure-induced line shift coefficients in the nu2 band of D2(O-16)

Lorentz-broadening and pressure-induced line-shift coefficients are determined experimentally for 126 transitions in the nu2 band of D2(O-16) from laboratory spectra with a Fourier-transform spectrometer. A nonlinear least-squares fitting procedure is employed to measure transitions up to J double-prime = 12 in the buffer gases air, nitrogen, and oxygen. The N2-broadening/O2-broadening coefficient ratio is correlated with the magnitude of the O2-broadening coefficient, and the pressure coefficients are not correlated with line widths.

Rinsland, Curtis P.↗

Observations of the Galactic center 511 keV line

A review of observations of the positron annihilation 511 keV line from the Galactic center and plane is presented. Emphasis is given to the new data from balloon observations in 1988 and 1989. The positron annihilation source in the direction of the center was found to be turned on again in 1988 October after being observed in a quiescent state since the early 1980s. There is evidence for variability between May and October in 1988. The new observations give the first data in which the line is spectrally resolved and in which the Galactic center and plane components of the annihilation radiation are independently measured. These data support the two-component model of the emission with a variable point source near the center and a steady-state source distributed along the galactic plane. Comparing measurements of narrow and wide field instruments in the 1980s gives a flux of about 8 x 10 exp -4 photons/sq cm/s for the point source in its high state and a flux of about 1.2 x 10 exp-3 photons/sq cm/s/rad for the galactic plane component with a relatively flat distribution over the central radian. The line width for the point source component is about 3 keV FWHM.

Gehrels, Neil↗