Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Dynamics Of Stars And Globular Clusters In M87, Aaron J. Romanowsky, C. S. Kochanek

Aaron J. Romanowsky

We examine the dynamics of the stars and globular clusters in the nearby giant elliptical galaxy M87 and constrain the mass distribution, using all the available data over a large range of radii, including higher order moments of the stellar line-of-sight velocity distributions and the discrete velocities of over 200 globular clusters. We introduce an extension of spherical orbit modeling methods that makes full use of all the information in the data and provides very robust constraints on the mass models. We conclusively rule out a constant mass-to-light ratio model and infer that the radial density profile of the galaxy's …

Molecular Simulations Of Sound Wave Propagation In Simple Gases, Alejandro Garcia, N. Hadjiconstantinou

Alejandro Garcia

Molecular simulations of sound waves propagating in a dilute hard sphere gas have been performed using the direct simulation Monte Carlo method. A wide range of frequencies is investigated, including very high frequencies for which the period is much shorter than the mean collision time. The simulation results are compared to experimental data and approximate solutions of the Boltzmann equation. It is shown that free molecular flow is important at distances smaller than one mean free path from the excitation point.

Molecular Simulations Of Sound Wave Propagation In Simple Gases, Alejandro Garcia, N. Hadjiconstantinou

Faculty Publications

Molecular simulations of sound waves propagating in a dilute hard sphere gas have been performed using the direct simulation Monte Carlo method. A wide range of frequencies is investigated, including very high frequencies for which the period is much shorter than the mean collision time. The simulation results are compared to experimental data and approximate solutions of the Boltzmann equation. It is shown that free molecular flow is important at distances smaller than one mean free path from the excitation point.

Entropy Splitting For High Order Numerical Simulation Of Vortex Sound At Low Mach Numbers, B. Müller, H.C. Yee

United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Publications

A method of minimizing numerical errors, and improving nonlinear stability and accuracy associated with low Mach number computational aeroacoustics (CAA) is proposed. The method consists of two levels.

Verification Of A Distortion In The Microstructure Of Gan Detected By Exafs Using Ab Initio Density Functional Theory Calculations, N. Dimakis, Grant Bunker, M. Katsikini, E. C. Paloura

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) measurements on a series of epitaxially grown GaN samples have shown a distortion in the microstructure of GaN. More specifically the central N atom is 4-fold coordinated but the four Ga atoms are not equidistant. It has been shown that 2.9 to 3.5 of them (depending on the growth conditions) are found in the expected from XRD distance of 1.94 A and the remaining are at a distance longer by approximately 15%. Second derivative calculation of the conformation energy using the Density Functional Theory (DFT) is used to investigate if the symmetric GaN cluster as …

White Dwarfs In Common Proper Motion Binary Systems: Mass Distribution And Kinematics, Nicole M. Silvestri, Terry D. Oswalt, Matt A. Wood, J. Allyn Smith, I. Neill Reid, Edward M. Sion

Publications

We present the mass distribution, gravitational redshifts, radial velocities, and space motions of white dwarf stars in common proper motion binary systems. The mass distribution we derive for the 41 DA white dwarfs in this study has a mean of 0.68 ± 0.04 M_Ꙩ. This distribution has a slightly higher mean and larger dispersion than most previous white dwarf studies. We hypothesize that this is due to a higher fraction of cool (average T_eff ̴ 10,000 K), hence old, white dwarfs in our sample. Our results indicate that samples made up of predominantly cool, old white dwarf stars …

Multi-Phase Transport Study Of Relativistic Nuclear Collisions, Bin Zhang, C. M. Ko, Bao-An Li, Ziwei Lin, Subrata Pal

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

A multi-phase transport model (AMPT) is developed for the study of hot and dense matter produced in relativistic nuclear collisions. This model includes both initial partonic and final hadronic scattering. Using the AMPT model, we study the momentum distributions of charged particles such as protons, antiprotons, pions, and kaons in central heavy ion collisions at Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) energies. The results are consistent with experimental data at these energies. They indicate a significant nuclear shadowing but a relative weak jet quenching in the initial dense matter. Antiproton to proton ratio at mid-rapidity increases …

White Dwarfs In Common Proper Motion Binary Systems: Mass Distribution And Kinematics, Nicole M. Silvestri, Terry D. Oswalt, Matt A. Wood, Jonathan Allyn Smith, Iain Neill Reid, Edward M. Sión

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

We present the mass distribution, gravitational redshifts, radial velocities, and space motions of white dwarf stars in common proper motion binary systems. The mass distribution we derive for the 41 DA white dwarfs in this study has a mean of 0.68 ± 0.04 M⊙. This distribution has a slightly higher mean and larger dispersion than most previous white dwarf studies. We hypothesize that this is due to a higher fraction of cool (average Teff ~ 10,000 K), hence old, white dwarfs in our sample. Our results indicate that samples made up of predominantly cool, old white dwarf stars tend to …

Disk Clearing In The Young Binary Ak Sco, Eric L.N. Jensen

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

The pre-main-sequence spectroscopic binary AK Sco is surrounded by a circumbinary disk. Yet while this disk must be somewhat disturbed by the binary at its center, there is no evidence from current data that it has a cleared central hole like those seen in some young binaries, nor that accretion from the outer disk has been cut off. Indeed, most of its spectral and photometric diagnostics are indistinguishable from those of young single stars. Why doesn't this system show any evidence of disturbance of its disk? It may be that the center of the disk is indeed largely cleared, but …

Disks In Young Binary Systems: Unresolved Millimeter-Wave Observations, Eric L.N. Jensen

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

Observations at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths are sensitive to the total mass of circumstellar and circumbinary dust in a multiple system, and in some cases single-dish observations can help constrain the location of disk material in spite of their lack of spatial resolution. Young binary stars show a great diversity of disk properties, with a large part of the variation accounted for by binary separation. Many of the closest binaries (those with separations a less than a few AU) harbor massive circumbinary disks. Binaries with a greater than or equal to 100 AU tend to have massive circumstellar disks. In …

Can Post T Tauri Stars Be Found? Yes!, Eric L.N. Jensen

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

I review the observational challenges of finding post T Tauri stars (PTTS), defined here as low-mass, pre-main-sequence stars with ages of 10(7)-10(8) yr. Such stars are difficult to find because they are less active than younger T Tauri stars, and they may not be associated with molecular gas. They are useful for studying the evolution of circumstellar disks and stellar activity between the 10(6)-yr ages of nearby star-forming regions and the main sequence. However, care must be taken in the search process so that the selection criteria used to locate such stars do not bias the sample used for subsequent …

Hα Imaging With Hubble Space Telescope-Nicmos Of An Elusive Damped Lyα Cloud At Z = 0.61, Nicolas Bouché, James D. Lowenthal, Jane C. Charlton, Matthew A. Bershady, Christopher W. Churchill, Charles C. Steidel

Astronomy: Faculty Publications

Despite previous intensive ground-based imaging and spectroscopic campaigns and wideband Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging of the z = 0.927 QSO 3C 336 field, the galaxy that hosts the damped Lyα system along this line of sight has eluded detection. We present a deep narrowband Hα image of the field of this zabs = 0.656 damped Lyα absorber, obtained through the F108N filter of NICMOSI on board the HST. The goal of this project was to detect any Hα emission 10 times closer than previous studies to unveil the damped absorber. We do not detect Hα emission between 0".05 and …

Exclusive Electroproduction Of ᵠ Mesons At 4.2 Gev, M. Bektasoglu, L. Ciciani, G. E. Dodge, T. A. Forest, C. E. Hyde-Wright, S. E. Kuhn, L. M. Qin, F. Sabatié, L. B. Weinstein, Et Al., The Clas Collaboration

Physics Faculty Publications

We studied the exclusive reaction ep → e' p' ᵠ using the ᵠ →K⁺K^- decay mode. The data were collected using a 4.2 GeV incident electron beam and the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. Our experiment covers the range in Q² from 0.7 to 2.2 GeV²and W from 2.0 to 2.6 GeV. Taken together with all previous data, we find a consistent picture of ᵠ production on the proton. Our measurement shows the expected decrease of the t slope with the vector-meson formation time c Δ t …

Corrected Article: Exclusive Electroproduction Of ᵠ Mesons At 4.2 Gev [Physical. Rev. C 63, 065205, (2001)], M. Bektasoglu, L. Ciciani, G. E. Dodge, T. A. Forest, C. E. Hyde-Wright, S. E. Kuhn, L. M. Qin, F. Sabatié, L. B. Weinstein, Et Al., The Clas Collaboration

Physics Faculty Publications

We studied the exclusive reaction ep → e' p' ᵠ using the ᵠ →K⁺K^- decay mode. The data were collected using a 4.2 GeV incident electron beam and the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. Our experiment covers the range in Q² from 0.7 to 2.2 GeV²and W from 2.0 to 2.6 GeV. Taken together with all previous data, we find a consistent picture of ᵠ production on the proton. Our measurement shows the expected decrease of the t slope with the vector-meson formation time c Δ t …

White Dwarfs In Open Clusters: New Tests Of Stellar Evolution And The Age Of The Galaxy, Ted Von Hippel

Publications

White dwarf cooling theory and very deep observations in star clusters provide a new tool to test stellar evolution theory and time scales. In particular, white dwarf cooling theory is now testing the degree of enhanced core mixing in stars with turnoff ages of 1 to 2 Gyr. More generally, I show the good overall agreement between white dwarf and modern isochrone ages over the range 0.1 to 4 Gyr.

Effective Field Theory For The Small-X Evolution, I. Balitsky

Physics Faculty Publications

The small-x behavior of structure functions in the saturation region is determined by the non-linear generalization of the BFKL equation. I suggest the effective field theory for the small-x evolution which solves formally this equation. The result is the 2+1 functional integral for the structure functions at small x.

Break Out Session: The Future Of White Dwarf Observing, Ted Von Hippel

Publications

On Thursday, June 15, 2000 the conference participants joined on of four afternoon break out sessions. Our break out session was charged with addressing the the following questions: Astronomy is changing. Eight to ten meter telescopes looking towards the edge of the Universe will dominate the astronomical landscape. Queue scheduling, large surveys, and the current emphasis towards the red end of the spectrum will also affect us. What consequences do these changes imply for our field? How can we convince telescope assignment committees to grand observing time to proposers from our community?

The Long-Period Orbit Of The Dwarf Nova V630 Cassiopeiae, J. A. Orosz, J. R. Thorstensen, R. K. Honeycutt

Dartmouth Scholarship

We present extensive spectroscopy and photometry of the dwarf nova V630 Cassiopeiae. A late-type (K4-5) absorption spectrum is easily detectable, from which we derive the orbital parameters. We find a spectroscopic period of P=2.56387 +/- (4 times 10^{-5}) days and a semiamplitude of K_2=132.9 +/- 4.0 km/s. The resulting mass function, which is a firm lower limit on the mass of the white dwarf, is then f(M)=0.624 +/- 0.056 solar masses. The secondary star is a ``stripped giant'', and using relations between the core mass and the luminosity and the core mass and the radius we derive a lower limit …

Comparison Of The Enear Peculiar Velocities With The Pscz Gravity Field, A Nusser, L. N. Da Costa, E Branchini, M. Bernardi, M V. Alonso, G Wegner

Dartmouth Scholarship

We present a comparison between the peculiar velocity field measured from the ENEAR all-sky Dn−σ catalogue and that derived from the galaxy distribution of the IRAS Point Source Catalog Redshift Survey (PSCz). The analysis is based on a modal expansion of these data in redshift space by means of spherical harmonics and Bessel functions. The effective smoothing scale of the expansion is almost linear with redshift reaching 1500kms⁻¹ at 3000kms⁻¹. The general flow patterns in the filtered ENEAR and PSCz velocity fields agree well within 6000kms⁻¹, assuming a linear biasing relation between the mass and …

Mathematical Models Of Quiescent Solar Prominences, Iain Mckaig

Mathematics & Statistics Theses & Dissertations

Magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere suspend and insulate dense regions of cool plasma known as prominences. The convection zone may be the mechanism that both generates and expels this magnetic flux through the photosphere in order to make these formations possible. The connection is examined here by modeling the convection zone as both one-dimensional, then more realistically, two-dimensional.

First a Dirichlet problem on a semi-infinite strip is solved using conformal mapping and the method of images. The base of the strip represents the photosphere where a current distribution can be given as a boundary condition, and the strip extends …

Probing The Strong Boundary Shape Dependence Of The Casimir Force, Thorsten Emig, Andreas Hanke, Ramin Golestanian, Mehran Kardar

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We study the geometry dependence of the Casimir energy for deformed metal plates by a path integral quantization of the electromagnetic field. For the first time, we give a complete analytical result for the deformation induced change in Casimir energy δE in an experimentally testable, nontrivial geometry, consisting of a flat and a corrugated plate. Our results show an interesting crossover for δE as a function of the ratio of the mean plate distance H, to the corrugation length λ: For λ≪H we find a slower decay ∼H−4, compared to the H−5 behavior predicted by the commonly used pairwise summation …

Polymer Depletion Interaction Between Two Parallel Repulsive Walls, F. Schlesener, Andreas Hanke, R. Kimpel, S. Dietrich

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The depletion interaction between two parallel repulsive walls confining a dilute solution of long and flexible polymer chains is studied by field-theoretic methods. Special attention is paid to self-avoidance between chain monomers relevant for polymers in a good solvent. Our direct approach avoids the mapping of the actual polymer chains on effective hard or soft spheres. We compare our results with recent Monte Carlo simulations [A. Milchev and K. Binder, Eur. Phys. J. B 3, 477 (1998)] and with experimental results for the depletion interaction between a spherical colloidal particle and a planar wall in a dilute solution of nonionic …

Modified Critical Correlations Close To Modulated And Rough Surfaces, Andreas Hanke, Mehran Kardar

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Correlation functions are sensitive to the presence of a boundary. Surface modulations give rise to modified near surface correlations, which can be measured by scattering probes. To determine these correlations, we develop a perturbative calculation in deformations in height from a flat surface. The results, combined with a renormalization group around four dimensions, are also used to predict critical behavior near a self-affine rough surface. We find that a large enough roughness exponent can modify surface critical behavior.

Chemical Transferability Of Single- And Multiple-Scattering Exafs Debye-Waller Factors, N. Dimakis, Grant Bunker

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Single- and multiple-scattering EXAFS Debye-Waller factors are amplitude reduction parameters that appear in the EXAFS x(k) equation accounting for the structural and thermal disorder of a given sample. These parameters must be known accurately in order to obtain quantitative agreement between theory and experiment. Since experimental data can only support a limited number of fitted parameters these factors must be known from another source. Although various approaches have been considered in the past with a variety of results, the self-consistent ab initio Density functional theory stands for the most accurate and reliable method regardless of molecular symmetry or other specific …

Apex Version 2.0: Latest Version Of The Cross-Platform Analysis Program For Exafs, N. Dimakis, Grant Bunker

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report describes recent progress on APEX, a free, open source, cross platform set of EXAFS data analysis software. In a previous report we described APEX 1.0 (Dimakis, N. and Bunker, G., 1999), a free and open source code suite of basic X-Ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS) data analysis programs for classical data reduction and single scattering analysis. The first version of APEX was the only cross platform (linux/irix/windows/MacOS) EXAFS analysis program to our knowledge, but it lacked important features like multiple scattering fitting, generic format conversion from ASCII to University of Washington (UW) binary-type files, and user friendly interactive …

Single-Pulse Characteristics Of The Millisecond Radio Pulsar Psr B1937 + 21 At 430 Mhz, F. A. Jenet, S. B. Anderson, T. A. Prince

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The single-pulse characteristics of the millisecond pulsar PSR B1937 + 21 are studied using the recently installed Caltech baseband recorder at the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico. This is the first such analysis of this object that includes both average intensity pulses as well as \"giant pulses.\" Pulse ensemble-averaging techniques are developed in order to study the characteristics of PSR B1937 + 21's single pulses since the high time resolution signal-to-noise ratio is less than unity. This analysis reveals that the non-giant pulse radio emission is extremely stable. All observed fluctuations are consistent with diffractive interstellar scattering. Such intrinsic …

Further Investigation Of The Time Delay, Magnification Ratios, And Variability In The Gravitational Lens 0218 + 357, A. S. Cohen, J. N. Hewitt, C. B. Moore, Deborah B. Haarsma

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

High-precision VLA flux density measurements for the lensed images of 0218 + 357 yield a time delay of 10.1 +1.5-1.6 days (95% confidence). This is consistent with independent measurements carried out at the same epoch by Biggs and colleagues in 1999, lending confidence to the robustness of the time delay measurement. However, since both measurements make use of the same features in the light curves, it is possible that the effects of unmodeled processes, such as scintillation or microlensing, are biasing both time delay measurements in the same way. Our time delay estimates result in confidence intervals that are somewhat …

Detection Of Variable Frequency Signals Using A Fast Chirp Transform, F. A. Jenet, T. A. Prince

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The detection of signals with varying frequency is important in many areas of physics and astrophysics. The current work was motivated by a desire to detect gravitational waves from the binary inspirai of neutron stars and black holes, a topic of significant interest for the new generation of interferometric gravitational wave detectors such as LIGO. However, this work has significant generality beyond gravitational wave signal detection. We define a fast chirp transform (FCT) analogous to the fast Fourier transform. Use of the FCT provides a simple and powerful formalism for detection of signals with variable frequency just as Fourier transform …

A Desktop Universe For The Introductory Astronomy Laboratory, Laurence A. Marschall, Glenn A. Snyder, Paul Richard Cooper

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

What is a well-intentioned astronomy instructor to do? There is no argument that experience with the real world is desirable in any astronomy course, especially the introductory classes that fulfill the science distribution requirements at many colleges and universities. Though it is a simple matter to take students out of doors, show them the motions of the Sun, Moon, and stars, and have them squint for a few seconds at Saturn's rings through a telescope, these activities represent only a small portion of the subject matter of modern astronomy. It is simply not possible, given the constraints of time, weather, …

Infrared Spectroscopy Of Symbiotic Stars. Ii. Orbits For Five S-Type Systems With Two-Year Periods, Francis C. Fekel, Kenneth H. Hinkle, Richard Joyce, Michael F. Skrutskie

Information Systems and Engineering Management Research Publications

Infrared radial velocities have been used to determine orbital elements for the cool giants of five well-known symbiotic systems, Z And, AG Dra, V443 Her, AX Per, and FG Ser, all of which have orbital periods near the two-year mean period for S-type symbiotics. The new orbits are in general agreement with previous orbits derived from optical velocities. From the combined optical and infrared velocities, improved orbital elements for the five systems have been determined. Each of the orbital periods has been determined solely from the radial-velocity data. The orbits are circular and have quite small mass functions of 0.001–0.03 …