Infall Motions in Massive Star-Forming Regions: Results from Years 1 & 2 of the MALT90 Survey

Massive star-forming regions with observed infall motions are good sites for studying the birth of massive stars. In this paper, 405 compact sources have been extracted from the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL) compact sources that also have been observed in the Millimetre Astronomy Legacy Team 90 GHz (MALT90) survey during Years 1 and 2. These observations are complemented with Spitzer GLIMPSE/MIPSGAL mid-IR survey data to help classify the elected star-forming clumps into three evolutionary stages: pre-stellar, proto-stellar and UCHII regions. The results suggest that 0.05 g cm$^{-2}$ is a reliable empirical lower bound for the clump surface densities required for massive-star formation to occur. The optically thick HCO$^{+}$(1-0) and HNC(1-0) lines, as well as the optically thin N$_{2}$H$^{+}$(1-0) line were used to search for infall motions toward these sources. By analyzing the asymmetries of the optically thick HCO$^{+}$(1-0) and HNC(1-0) lines and the mapping observations of HCO$^{+}$(1-0), a total of 131 reliable infall candidates have been identified. The HCO$^{+}$(1-0) line shows the highest occurrence of obvious asymmetric features, suggesting that it may be a better infall motion tracer than other lines such as HNC(1-0). The detection rates of infall candidates toward pre-stellar, proto-stellar and UCHII clumps are 0.3452, 0.3861 and 0.2152, respectively. The relatively high detection rate of infall candidates toward UCHII clumps indicates that many UCHII regions are still accreting matter. The peak column densities and masses of the infall candidates, in general, display a increasing trend with progressing evolutionary stages. However, the rough estimates of the mass infall rate show no obvious variation with evolutionary stage.

Observe the open universe in the sky?

We first review the related works on the observable consequence of landscape and the regulation of e-foldings during inflation. We focus on a branch of observable consequence of landscape which predicts an open universe with negative curvature if e-foldings $N>62$. After discussing the observable regulation from the aspect by Kaloper, Kleban and Sorbo, we make an argument that in the non-flat background the observable $N$ is suppressed by a factor $k/rho_{0}$. We point out that this seems to detect the information where e-foldings $N>62$ possibly. Finally, we discuss our outcomes with the recent work by Arkani-Hamed et al.

Modification from Noncommutative Inflation

We explore the noncommutative effect on single field inflation and compare with WMAP five-year data. First, we calculate the noncommutative effect from the potential and dynamical terms, and construct the general form of modified power spectrum. Second, we consider the leading order modification of slow-roll, DBI and K-inflation and unite the modification, which means the modification is nearly model independent at this level. Finally, comparing with the WMAP5 data, we find that the modified can be well realized as the origin of the relative large spectral index and the quite small running.

Exact solutions of embedding the four-dimensional perfect fluid in a five- or higher-dimensional Einstein spacetime and the cosmological interpretations

We investigate an exact solution that describes the embedding of the four-dimensional (4D) perfect fluid in a five-dimensional (5D) Einstein spacetime. The effective metric of the 4D perfect fluid as a hypersurface with induced matter is equivalent to the Robertson-Walker metric of cosmology. This general solution shows interconnections among many 5D solutions, such as the solution in the braneworld scenario and the topological black hole with cosmological constant. If the 5D cosmological constant is positive, the metric periodically depends on the extra dimension. Thus we can compactify the extra dimension on $S^1$ and study the phenomenological issues. We also generalize the metric ansatz to the higher-dimensional case, in which the 4D part of the Einstein equations can be reduced to a linear equation.

Hamiltonian formalism in Friedmann cosmology and its quantization

We propose a Hamiltonian formalism for a generalized Friedmann-Roberson-Walker cosmology model in the presence of both a variable equation of state (EOS) parameter $w(a)$ and a variable cosmological constant $Lambda(a)$, where $a$ is the scale factor. This Hamiltonian system containing 1 degree of freedom and without constraint, gives Friedmann equations as the equation of motion, which describes a mechanical system with a variable mass object moving in a potential field. After an appropriate transformation of the scale factor, this system can be further simplified to an object with constant mass moving in an effective potential field. In this framework, the $Lambda$ cold dark matter model as the current standard model of cosmology corresponds to a harmonic oscillator. We further generalize this formalism to take into account the bulk viscosity and other cases. The Hamiltonian can be quantized straightforwardly, but this is different from the approach of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation in quantum cosmology.