No Arabic abstract
The Local Void is the nearest void from us and is thought to be playing an important role in the kinematics of the local universe, especially as one of the suspected source of the motion of the Local Group. The imbalance between the mass in the Local Void region and that contained in the concentration at the opposite side might contribute to the velocity of the Local group perpendicular to the Supergalactic plane, and this would be a prototype of the evolution of the large-scale structure. The proximity of the Local Void provides us the exclusive opportunity to investigate the kinematics around a void. Here we report the results of our observational study of the peculiar velocities of about 40 galaxies at the far-side of the Local Void, using the near-infrared Tully-Fisher relation. The galaxies at the boundary of the void shows an excess of receding motion, suggesting the expansion of the Local Void. We examined the effect of selection biases on the peculiar velocity distribution, and concluded that the excess of receding motion could not fully attribute to selection biases.
According to models of evolution in the hierarchical structure formation scenarios, voids of galaxies are expected to expand. The Local Void (LV) is the closest large void, and it provides a unique opportunity to test observationally such an expansion. It has been found that the Local Group, which is on the border of the LV, is running away from the void center at ~260 km/s. In this study we investigate the motion of the galaxies at the far-side border of the LV to examine the presence of a possible expansion. We selected late-type, edge-on spiral galaxies with radial velocities between 3000 km/s and 5000 km/s, and carried out HI 21 cm line and H-band imaging observations. The near-infrared Tully-Fisher relation was calibrated with a large sample of galaxies and carefully corrected for Malmquist bias. It was used to compute the distances and the peculiar velocities of the LV sample galaxies. Among the 36 sample LV galaxies with good quality HI line width measurements, only 15 galaxies were selected for measuring their distances and peculiar velocities, in order to avoid the effect of Malmquist bias. The average peculiar velocity of these 15 galaxies is found to be -419+208-251 km/s, which is not significantly different from zero. Due to the intrinsically large scatter of Tully-Fisher relation, we cannot conclude whether there is a systematic motion against the center of the LV for the galaxies at the far-side boundary of the void. However, our result is consistent with the hypothesis that those galaxies at the far-side boundary have an average velocity of ~260 km/s equivalent to what is found at the position of the Local Group.
The Sun is located in a low-density region of the interstellar medium partially filled with hot gas that is the likely result of several nearby supernova explosions within the last 10 Myr. Here we use astrometric data to show that part of the Scorpius-Centaurus OB association was located closer to the present position of the Sun 5-7 Myr ago than today. Evolutionary synthesis models indicate that the association must have experienced ~20 supernova explosions in the last 10-12 Myr, a prediction that is supported by the detection of four or five runaway stars escaping from it. The ~6 SNe produced by the Lower Centaurus Crux subgroup are likely responsible for the creation of the Local Bubble.
We only see a small fraction of the matter in the universe, but the rest gives itself away by the impact of its gravity. The distortions from pure Hubble flow (or peculiar velocities) that this matter creates have the potential to be a powerful cosmological tool, but are also a nuisance for extragalactic astronomers who wish to use redshifts to estimate distances to local galaxies. We provide a quick overview of work on the local peculiar velocity field, discussing both simple spherical infall models, non-parametric modeling using redshifts surveys, and full velocity and density field reconstruction from peculiar velocities. We discuss results from a multiattractor model fit to data from the SFI++ sample of peculiar velocities - the best peculiar velocity data currently available. We also talk about the future of samples for the study of the local velocity field, especially the 2MASS Tully-Fisher (2MTF) survey.
We present a new unbiased search and analysis of all B stars in the solar neighbourhood (within a volume of 400 pc diameter) using the Arivel data base to track down the remains of the OB associations, which hosted the supernovae responsible for the Local Bubble in the interstellar gas. We find after careful dereddening and by comparison with theoretical isochrones, that besides the Upper Scorpius the Upper Centaurus Lupus and Lower Centaurus Crux subgroups are the youngest stellar associations in the solar neighbourhood with ages of 20 to 30 Myr, in agreement with previous work. In search for the ``smoking gun of the origin of the Local Bubble, we have traced the paths of the associations back into the past and found that they entered the present bubble region 10 to 15 Myr ago. We argue that the Local Bubble began to form then and estimate that 14 to 20 supernovae have gone off since. It is shown that the implied energy input is sufficient to excavate a bubble of the presently observed size.
The Parkes deep HI ZOA survey has been extended between 2002 and 2004 towards higher latitudes in the Galactic Bulge region. This area of extreme star crowding and high extinction levels remains impenetrable at any other waveband regime. Preliminary results of the 3 dimensional distribution based on the combined HI-surveys are presented. We focus on the extent and content of the Local Void as outlined by these HI surveys, followed by a preliminary discussion of the properties of the few galaxies detected in the Local Void.