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At least 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1985

Cosmic ray secondary nuclei and the structure of the galaxy

The consequencies of diffusive acceleration of cosmic rays in supernova shocks propagation through an inhomogeneous interstellar medium are explored. The acceleration takes place in the hot, tenuous, intercloud gas, while nuclear collisions, leading to the production of cosmic ray secondaries, predominantly occur in those regions where the supernova shocks collide with interstellar clouds. A simple model is used to calculate the interaction of a (cosmic ray + gas) shock with a cloud, and thus determine the gross topology. Extending this to the whole system, using mean cloud sizes and space densities, allows us to calculate the secondary/primary cosmic ray abundance ratios for light and heavy nuclei.

Morfill, G. E.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Multi-waveband observations of colliding galaxies

Colliding galaxies represent a major challenge to both theorists and observers because of the large variety of phenomena which are expected to come into play during the interaction. Strong gravitational fluctuations may drive non-linear waves and instabilities throughout the stars and gas leading to enhanced star formation, nuclear activity and ultimately a mixing of the morphological components of the original galaxies. One relatively uncomplicated class of colliding galaxy where stellar waves play an important role in star formation are ring galaxies. Ring galaxies are probably formed when a companion galaxy passes through the center of a disk system driving circular waves through the disk (Lynds and Toomre 1976, Toomre 1978, Struck-Marcell 1990). Off-center collisions can generate non-circular waves and can be loosely described as banana-shaped although they may exhibit more complex forms as the waves expand into the disk. The propagation of such stellar and gaseous waves through the disk leads to enhanced star formation (e.g., Appleton and Struck-Marcell 1987a; Jeske 1986) and provides a unique probe of the response of the interstellar medium (ISM) to a propagating wave (see Appleton and Struck-Marcell 1987b). Here, the authors report results for 3 systems; the irregular ring Arp 143 (=VV 117); Wakamatsu's Seyfert ring (A0959-755; see Wakamatsu and Nishida 1987) and the brighter member of the pair of ring galaxies comprising of AM 1358-221. The most complete multi-wavelength data is for Arp 143. Optical charge coupled device (CCD) observations made with the 60 inch Palomar telescope at BV and r band, near-IR images at J (1.25 microns), H (1.65 microns) and k (2.2 microns) bands from the infrared camera (IRCAM) InSb array camera on the 3.8m United Kingdon Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) telescope and very large array (VLA) observations at 20cm in both the neutral hydrogen line and radio continuum are described. The observations of Wakamatsu's ring and AM 1358 were made only in the near-IR, and a comparison is made with available optical plate material.

Appleton, P. N.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Interacting binary galaxies. V - NGC 4782/4783 (3C 278): Unbound colliders, not a supermassive pair

CCD imaging data of the elliptical galaxies NGC 4782 and NGC 4783 have been analyzed along with published spectroscopic measurements in order to develop a viable interaction model for this system. The best-fit model suggests that the binary orbit was hyperbolic before the encounter, but that the energy loss during the collision has led to a loosely bound system. The total system mass in the region occupied by the luminous matter is shown to be 1.4 x 10 to the 12th solar masses. The results support the previous theory that the internal velocity dispersions of colliding galaxies tend to increase just past closest approach.

Borne, Kirk D.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Local shear instabilities in weakly ionized, weakly magnetized disks

We extend the analysis of axisymmetric magnetic shear instabilities from ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flows to weakly ionized plasmas with coupling between ions and neutrals caused by collisions, ionization, and recombination. As part of the analysis, we derive the single-fluid MHD dispersion relation without invoking the Boussinesq approximation. This work expands the range of applications of these instabilities from fully ionized accretion disks to molecular disks in galaxies and, with somewhat more uncertainty, to protostellar disks. Instability generally requires the angular velocity to decrease outward, the magnetic field strengths to be subthermal, and the ions and neutrals to be sufficiently well coupled. If ionization and recombination processes can be neglected on an orbital timescale, adequate coupling is achieved when the collision frequency of a given neutral with the ions exceeds the local epicyclic freqency. When ionization equilibrium is maintained on an orbital timescale, a new feature is present in the disk dynamics: in contrast to a single-fluid system, subthermal azimuthal fields can affect the axisymmetric stability of weakly ionized two-fluid systems. We discuss the underlying causes for this behavior. Azimuthal fields tend to be stabilizing under these circumstances, and good coupling between the neutrals and ions requires the collision frequency to exceed the epicyclic frequency by a potentially large secant factor related to the magnetic field geometry. When the instability is present, subthermal azimuthal fields may also reduce the growth rate unless the collision frequency is high, but this is important only if the field strengths are very subthermal and/or the azimuthal field is the dominant field component. We briefly discuss our results in the context of the Galactic center circumnuclear disk, and suggest that the shear instability might be present there, and be responsible for the observed turbulent motions.

Blaes, Omer M.↗
NASA NTRS1986

The molecular content of interacting and isolated galaxies The effect of environment on the efficiency of star formation

Molecular gas observations of merging/interacting and isolated galaxies are presented in order to study the relationship between environment and the efficiency of star formation. The two galaxy samples differ primarily in their IR properties and are quite similar in their molecular gas contents. The ratios of IR luminosity to H2 mass have a mean value of 78 and 12 solar luminosity/solar mass for interacting and isolated galaxies, respectively. The highest star formation efficiencies (SFEs) appear to occur in the merging and interacting pairs. The SFE in merging/interacting galaxies is greater than that found in the spiral arms of M51 and may be roughly proportional to the rate of cloud-cloud collisions in the interacting systems.

Young, Judith S.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Constraining the Properties of the Eta Carinae System via 3-D SPH Models of Space-Based Observations: The Absolute Orientation of the Binary Orbit

The extremely massive (> 90 Stellar Mass) and luminous (= 5 x 10(exp 6) Stellar Luminosity) star Eta Carinae, with its spectacular bipolar "Homunculus" nebula, comprises one of the most remarkable and intensely observed stellar systems in the Galaxy. However, many of its underlying physical parameters remain unknown. Multiwavelength variations observed to occur every 5.54 years are interpreted as being due to the collision of a massive wind from the primary star with the fast, less dense wind of a hot companion star in a highly elliptical (e approx. 0.9) orbit. Using three-dimensional (3-D) Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations of the binary wind-wind collision, together with radiative transfer codes, we compute synthetic spectral images of [Fe III] emission line structures and compare them to existing Hubble Space Telescope/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (HST/STIS) observations. We are thus able, for the first time, to tightly constrain the absolute orientation of the binary orbit on the sky. An orbit with an inclination of approx. 40deg, an argument of periapsis omega approx. 255deg, and a projected orbital axis with a position angle of approx. 312deg east of north provides the best fit to the observations, implying that the orbital axis is closely aligned in 3-D space with the Homunculus symmetry axis, and that the companion star orbits clockwise on the sky relative to the primary.

Madura, Thomas I.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Spallation processes and nuclear interaction products of cosmic rays

Most cosmic-ray nuclei heavier than helium have suffered nuclear collisions in the interstellar gas, with transformation of nuclear composition. The isotopic and elemental composition at the sources has to be inferred from the observed composition near the Earth. The source composition permits tests of current ideas on sites of origin, nucleosynthesis in stars, evolution of stars, the mixing and composition of the interstellar medium and injection processes prior to acceleration. The effects of nuclear spallation, production of radioactive nuclides and the time dependence of their decay provide valuable information on the acceleration and propagation of cosmic rays, their nuclear transformations, and their confinement time in the Galaxy. The formation of spallation products that only decay by electron capture and are relatively long-lived permits an investigation of the nature and density fluctuations (like clouds) of the interstellar medium. Since nuclear collisions yield positrons, antiprotons, gamma rays and neutrinos, we shall discuss these topics briefly.

Non-NASA Center↗
NASA NTRS2010

Constraining the Properties of the Eta Carinae System via 3-D SPH Models of Space-Based Observations: The Absolute Orientation of the Binary Orbit

The extremely massive (> 90 Solar Mass) and luminous (= 5 x 10(exp 6) Solar Luminosity) star Eta Carinae, with its spectacular bipolar "Homunculus" nebula, comprises one of the most remarkable and intensely observed stellar systems in the galaxy. However, many of its underlying physical parameters remain a mystery. Multiwavelength variations observed to occur every 5.54 years are interpreted as being due to the collision of a massive wind from the primary star with the fast, less dense wind of a hot companion star in a highly elliptical (e approx. 0.9) orbit. Using three-dimensional (3-D) Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations of the binary wind-wind collision in Eta Car, together with radiative transfer codes, we compute synthetic spectral images of [Fe III] emission line structures and compare them to existing Hubble Space Telescope/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (HST/STIS) observations. We are thus able, for the first time, to constrain the absolute orientation of the binary orbit on the sky. An orbit with an inclination of i approx. 40deg, an argument of periapsis omega approx. 255deg, and a projected orbital axis with a position angle of approx. 312deg east of north provides the best fit to the observations, implying that the orbital axis is closely aligned in 3-1) space with the Homunculus symmetry axis, and that the companion star orbits clockwise on the sky relative to the primary.

Madura, Thomas I.↗
NASA NTRS1986

6 CM OH absorption in megamaser galaxies

Absorption in the 2Pi sub 1/2 J = 1/2 Lambda doublet transitions of OH, 182 K above the ground state, is detected in the megamaser galaxies IC 4553 (Arp 220), MK 231, MK 273, MGC 3690, and IRAS 17208-0014. The 4660, 4751, and 4766 MHz lines have intensity ratios moderately deviating from the LTE values (1:2:1). The OH rotational temperatures appear to be close to the temperature of the dust, approx. 60 K. The common characteristics of these galaxies (absence of 6 cm inversion, the optical depths, the infrared properties, the systematic trends in the line parameters, and the rotational temperatures) all suggest that the same pump process is responsible for the 18 cm line inversion in the five megamaser sources. The inversion is probably not due to an excitation mechanism involving collisions with HI or H2. While excitation via photodissociation of H2O cannot entirely be ruled out, the most likely mechanism is considered to be to be a combination of the intense FIR field (populating higher excited OH rotational states) and the non-thermal radiation from the nuclei of the parent galaxies (affecting the excitation within the Lambda -doublets). According to an LVG model of the OH excitation of IC4553, the OH-cloud(s) have to be located close, within 200 to 300 pc, to the center of the galaxy. The excitation of the individual 18 cm lines depends critically on the effective background radiation field and hence on the galactocentric distance of the masing clump. With increasing distance first the 1720 MHz and then the 18 cm main line inversion is quenched, while 1612 MHz inversion is obtained up to approx. 600 pc. The 1612 MHz satellite line is predicted to be more intense than the 1720 MHz line. A critical test for our excitation model is to observe the 2 Pi 3/2 J = 5/2 Lambda-doublet transitions which are predicted to be detectable in absorption.

Henkel, C.↗
NASA NTRS1990

On the origin of metal homogeneities in globular clusters

Various transport processes which may have affected the chemical homogeneity in protocluster clouds are examined. It is shown that the characteristic diffusion time scale associated with collisions between grains and gas atoms is considerably longer than that on which star formation is expected to occur. Collisions between large grains and gas atoms lead to mass segregation and metallicity gradients on a time scale comparable to the crossing time of the clusters in the Galaxy. One possible mechanism for inducing and maintaining chemical homogeneity is turbulent diffusion in the clouds. The mixing time scale required in this case is comparable to several internal dynamical time scales, longer than the evolutionary time scale of the most massive stars, and shorter than the Galactic orbital time scale of the clouds. Thus, metals in presently observed stars probably did not originate from upper main-sequence stars of a coeval generation.

Murray, Stephen D.↗
NASA NTRS1974

The cosmic X-ray background

After a phenomenological description of the diffuse X-ray sky the various mechanisms of X-ray generation are discussed. These include radiation by high-energy particles in their interactions with magnetic fields, ambient electromagnetic waves, and interstellar grains and radiation from subrelativistic suprathermal charged particles in collisions with ambient gas. The generation of X-rays by plasmas through thermal electron-ion interactions is noted. The incidence of X-ray emission inside the Galaxy is first examined; then the extragalactic isotropic background is analyzed in the framework of modern cosmology. Interpretations of the X-ray background based on discrete sources as well as metagalactic cosmic rays are reviewed.

Boldt, E.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Neutron star collisions and the r-process

It is shown that a natural consequence of the binary pulsar's evolution is a neutron star collision. Such a collision is expected to eject neutron-rich matter of an r-process character. Taking reasonable estimates for the number of such events over the history of the galaxy, it may be that they account for all of the r-process nuclei.

Symbalisty, E.↗
NASA NTRS1992

The bow shock structure of IRS 7 - Wind-wind collision near the Galactic center

New structural details of ionized gas associated with IRS 7, a mass-losing supergiant near the Galactic center, are reported, and radio continuum and theoretical maps are compared. High-resolution multiconfiguration VLA observations of IRS 7 reveal ionized gas with a bow shock structure at a wavelength of 2 cm. The apex of the bow shock is facing more toward the cluster of blue stellar objects, known as IRS 16, than Sgr A*, the compact nonthermal source near the Galaxy's dynamical center. It is inferred that the shape of the mass-losing envelope of IRS 7 is influenced by Galactic winds from IRS 16. It is concluded from a comparison of the morphology of the ionized envelope of IRS 7 with simple theoretical modeling of the bow shock structure that the shape of the shock results from the collision between the Galactic center and stellar winds rather than from the motion of IRS 7 through the interstellar medium.

Yusef-Zadeh, Farhad↗
NASA NTRS1990

The varieties of symmetric stellar rings and radial caustics in galaxy disks

Numerical, restricted three-body and analytic calculations are used to study the formation and propagation of cylindrically symmetric stellar ring waves in galaxy disks. It is shown that such waves can evolve in a variety of ways, depending on the amplitude of the perturbation and the potential of the target galaxy. Rings can thicken as they propagate outward, remain at a nearly constant width, or be pinched off at large radii. Multiple, closely spaced rings can result from a low-amplitude collision, while an outer ring can appear well-separated from overlapping inner rings or an apparent lens structure in halo-dominated potentials. All the single-encounter rings consist of paired fold caustics. The simple, impulsive, kinematic oscillation equations appear to provide a remarkably accurate model of the numerical simulations. Simple analytic approximations to these equations permit very good estimates of oscillation periods and amplitudes, the evolution of ring widths, and ring birth and propagation characteristics.

Struck-Marcell, Curtis↗
NASA NTRS1978

Gamma ray astronomy and the origin of the light nuclei

Nuclear reactions induced by the collisions of the protons and alphas of the galactic cosmic ray with heavy nuclei of the interstellar gas are responsible for the continuous production of the light elements lithium, beryllium, and boron in the galaxy. To better than one order of magnitude, the observed ratios of these abundances to hydrogen abundance and the nuclidic abundance ratios between themselves are accounted for by simply considering the effect of fast protons and alphas with a flux and an energy spectrum as observed in galactic cosmic rays, for a period comparable with the life of our galaxy. The role of gamma ray astronomy in solving problems that occur when accurate agreement is sought with increasingly accurate data is discussed.

Reeves, H.↗
NASA NTRS1987

The role of orbital dynamics and cloud-cloud collisions in the formation of giant molecular clouds in global spiral structures

The role of orbit crowding and cloud-cloud collisions in the formation of GMCs and their organization in global spiral structure is investigated. Both N-body simulations of the cloud system and a detailed analysis of individual particle orbits are used to develop a conceptual understanding of how individual clouds participate in the collective density response. Detailed comparisons are made between a representative cloud-particle simulation in which the cloud particles collide inelastically with one another and give birth to and subsequently interact with young star associations and stripped down simulations in which the cloud particles are allowed to follow ballistic orbits in the absence of cloud-cloud collisions or any star formation processes. Orbit crowding is then related to the behavior of individual particle trajectories in the galactic potential field. The conceptual picture of how GMCs are formed in the clumpy ISMs of spiral galaxies is formulated, and the results are compared in detail with those published by other authors.

Roberts, William W., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Two-dimensional caustics in disturbed galaxy disks

Interacting galaxies show a variety of exotic morphologies besides the well-known rings, spirals, and bars. It is proposed that many of these can be identified with nonlinear, caustic structures that are known from singularity theory to be generic in collisionless dynamics. A simple kinematical model for stellar orbits is used to study the development of caustic waveforms in galaxy disks following impulsive, nonaxially symmetric (collisional) disturbances. It appears that all of the caustics known from singularity theory to be generic in two dimensions develop as transient forms in at least some moderately off-center collisions. The more complex, higher-order caustics appear most prominently in the more off-center and larger amplitude disturbances. It is further suggested that the highly nonlinear caustic waves may play an important role in interaction-induced star formation.

Struck-Marcell, Curtis↗
NASA NTRS1990

Extended emission and star formation in I Zw 18

The results of sky limited emission-line (H-alpha and forbidden O III 5007A) and line-free (6450 A and 5100 A) continuum imagery of the super-metal-poor blue compact galaxy I Zw 18 are reported. The main body of star formation in the galaxy is surrounded by a 3 kpc diameter extended envelope in H-alpha. In addition, there exist arcs of emission emanating from both central H II regions and winding around to the west, as well as a broader ridge of emission extending northward from the main body. The total mass of ionized material is estimated to be 3 x 10 to the 6th solar masses, or about 5 percent of the mass of the observed H I clouds. Several extended stellar continuum regions exist to the northwest of the main body, the brightest three forming a line along PA = 310 deg out to a 3 kpc distance from the central region of the galaxy. The correlation of the morphology and location of stellar continuum and emission regions with the distribution of H I is discussed. It is calculated that I Zw 18 has had previous, but disconnected, episodes of star formation, possibly from chance collisions of widely separated H I clouds.

Dufour, Reginald J.↗