Magnetic excitations in the optimally doped high-$T_mathrm{c}$ superconductor Bi$_{1.5}$Pb$_{0.55}$Sr$_{1.6}$La$_{0.4}$CuO$_{6+delta}$ (OP-Bi2201, $T_mathrm{c}simeq 34$ K) are investigated by Cu $L_3$ edge resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS),
below and above the pseudogap opening temperature. At both temperatures the broad spectral distribution disperses along the (1,0) direction up to $sim$350~meV at zone boundary, similarly to other hole-doped cuprates. However, above $sim$0.22 reciprocal lattice units, we observe a concurrent intensity decrease for magnetic excitations and quasi-elastic signals with weak temperature dependence. This anomaly seems to indicate a coupling between magnetic, lattice and charge modes in this compound. We also compare the magnetic excitation spectra near the anti-nodal zone boundary in the single layer OP-Bi2201 and in the bi-layer optimally doped Bi$_{1.5}$Pb$_{0.6}$Sr$_{1.54}$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+delta}$ (OP-Bi2212, $T_mathrm{c}simeq96$ K). The strong similarities in the paramagnon dispersion and in their energy at zone boundary indicate that the strength of the super-exchange interaction and the short-range magnetic correlation cannot be directly related to $T_mathrm{c}$, not even within the same family of cuprates.
Massive quiescent galaxies at $z approx 2$ are apparently much more compact than galaxies of comparable mass today. How robust are these size measurements? We perform comprehensive simulations to determine possible biases and uncertainties in fitting
single-component light distributions to real galaxies. In particular, we examine the robustness of the measurements of the luminosity, size, and other structural parameters. We devise simulations with increasing realism to systematically disentangle effects due to the technique (specifically using GALFIT) and the intrinsic structures of the galaxies. By accurately capturing the detailed substructures of nearby elliptical galaxies and then rescaling their sizes and signal-to-noise to mimic galaxies at different redshifts, we confirm that the massive quiescent galaxies at $z approx 2$ are significantly more compact intrinsically than their local counterparts. Their observed compactness is not a result of missing faint outer light due to systematic errors in modeling. In fact, we find that fitting multi-component galaxies with a single Sersic profile, the procedure most commonly adopted in the literature, biases the inferred sizes higher by up to 10% - 20%, which accentuates the amount of size evolution required. If the sky estimation has been done robustly and the model for the point-spread function is fairly accurate, GALFIT can retrieve the properties of single-component galaxies over a wide range of signal-to-noise ratios without introducing any systematic errors.
Previous studies have found that the width of gamma-ray burst (GRB) pulse is energy dependent and that it decreases as a power-law function with increasing photon energy. In this work we have investigated the relation between the energy dependence of
pulse and the so-called Band spectrum by using a sample including 51 well-separated fast rise and exponential decay long-duration GRB pulses observed by BATSE (Burst and Transient Source Experiment on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory). We first decompose these pulses into rise, and decay phases and find the rise widths, and the decay widths also behavior as a power-law function with photon energy. Then we investigate statistically the relations between the three power-law indices of the rise, decay and total width of pulse (denoted as $delta_r$, $delta_d$ and $delta_w$, respectively) and the three Band spectral parameters, high-energy index ($alpha$), low-energy index ($beta$) and peak energy ($E_p$). It is found that (1)$alpha$ is strongly correlated with $delta_w$ and $delta_d$ but seems uncorrelated with $delta_r$; (2)$beta$ is weakly correlated with the three power-law indices and (3)$E_p$ does not show evident correlations with the three power-law indices. We further investigate the origin of $delta_d-alpha$ and $delta_w-alpha$. We show that the curvature effect and the intrinsic Band spectrum could naturally lead to the energy dependence of GRB pulse width and also the $delta_d-alpha$ and $delta_w-alpha$ correlations. Our results would hold so long as the shell emitting gamma rays has a curve surface and the intrinsic spectrum is a Band spectrum or broken power law. The strong $delta_d-alpha$ correlation and inapparent correlations between $delta_r$ and three Band spectral parameters also suggest that the rise and decay phases of GRB pulses have different origins.
We have obtained high spatial resolution Keck OSIRIS integral field spectroscopy of four z~1.5 ultra-luminous infrared galaxies that exhibit broad H-alpha emission lines indicative of strong AGN activity. The observations were made with the Keck lase
r guide star adaptive optics system giving a spatial resolution of 0.1, or <1 kpc at these redshifts. These high spatial resolution observations help to spatially separate the extended narrow-line regions --- possibly powered by star formation --- from the nuclear regions, which may be powered by both star formation and AGN activity. There is no evidence for extended, rotating gas disks in these four galaxies. Assuming dust correction factors as high as A(H-alpha)=4.8 mag, the observations suggest lower limits on the black hole masses of (1 - 9) x 10^8 solar masses, and star formation rates <100 solar masses per year. The black hole masses and star formation rates of the sample galaxies appear low in comparison to other high-z galaxies with similar host luminosities. We explore possible explanations for these observations including, host galaxy fading, black hole growth, and the shut down of star formation.
In this paper we have analyzed the temporal and spectral behavior of 52 Fast Rise and Exponential Decay (FRED) pulses in 48 long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) observed by the CGRO/BATSE, using a pulse model with two shape parameters and the Band m
odel with three shape parameters, respectively. It is found that these FRED pulses are distinguished both temporally and spectrally from those in long-lag pulses. Different from these long-lag pulses only one parameter pair indicates an evident correlation among the five parameters, which suggests that at least $sim$4 parameters are needed to model burst temporal and spectral behavior. In addition, our studies reveal that these FRED pulses have correlated properties: (i) long-duration pulses have harder spectra and are less luminous than short-duration pulses; (ii) the more asymmetric the pulses are the steeper the evolutionary curves of the peak energy ($E_{p}$) in the $ u f_{ u}$ spectrum within pulse decay phase are. Our statistical results give some constrains on the current GRB models.
We explore the inter-relationships between mass, star-formation rate and environment in the SDSS, zCOSMOS and other surveys. The differential effects of mass and environment are completely separable to z ~ 1, indicating that two distinct processes ar
e operating, mass-quenching and environment-quenching. Environment-quenching, at fixed over-density, evidently does not change with epoch to z ~ 1, suggesting that it occurs as large-scale structure develops in the Universe. The observed constancy of the mass-function shape for star-forming galaxies, demands that the mass-quenching of galaxies around and above M*, must be proportional to their star-formation rates at all z < 2. We postulate that this simple mass-quenching law also holds over a much broader range of stellar mass and epoch. These two simple quenching processes, plus some additional quenching due to merging, then naturally produce (a) a quasi-static Schechter mass function for star-forming galaxies with a value of M* that is set by the proportionality between the star-formation and mass-quenching rates, (b) a double Schechter function for passive galaxies with two components: the dominant one is produced by mass-quenching and has exactly the same M* as the star-forming galaxies but an alpha shallower by +1, while the other is produced by environment effects and has the same M* and alpha as the star-forming galaxies, and is larger in high density environments. Subsequent merging of quenched galaxies modifies these predictions somewhat in the denser environments, slightly increasing M* and making alpha more negative. All of these detailed quantitative relationships between the Schechter parameters are indeed seen in the SDSS, lending strong support to our simple empirically-based model. The model naturally produces for passive galaxies the anti-hierarchical run of mean ages and alpha-element abundances with mass.
Observational data show that the correlation between supermassive black holes (MBH) and galaxy bulge (Mbulge) masses follows a nearly linear trend, and that the correlation is strongest with the bulge rather than the total stellar mass (Mgal). With i
ncreasing redshift, the ratio Gamma=MBH/Mbulge relative to z=0 also seems to be larger for MBH >~ 10^{8.5} Msol. This study looks more closely at statistics to better understand the creation and observations of the MBH-Mbulge correlation. It is possible to show that if galaxy merging statistics can drive the correlation, minor mergers are responsible for causing a *convergence to linearity* most evident at high masses, whereas major mergers have a central limit convergence that more strongly *reduces the scatter*. This statistical reasoning is agnostic about galaxy morphology. Therefore, combining statistical prediction (more major mergers ==> tighter correlation) with observations (bulges = tightest correlation), would lead one to conclude that more major mergers (throughout an entire merger tree, not just the primary branch) give rise to more prominent bulges. With regard to controversial findings that Gamma increases with redshift, this study shows why the luminosity function (LF) bias argument, taken correctly at face value, strengthens rather than weakens the results. However, correcting for LF bias is unwarranted because the BH mass scale for quasars is bootstrapped to the MBH-Sigma* correlation in normal galaxies at z=0, and quasar-quasar comparisons are internally consistent. In Monte-Carlo simulations, high Gamma objects are under-merged galaxies that take longer to converge to linearity via minor mergers. Another evidence that the galaxies are undermassive at z >~ 2 for their MBH is that the quasar hosts are very compact for their expected mass.
We present a two-dimensional (2-D) fitting algorithm (GALFIT, Version 3) with new capabilities to study the structural components of galaxies and other astronomical objects in digital images. Our technique improves on previous 2-D fitting algorithms
by allowing for irregular, curved, logarithmic and power-law spirals, ring and truncated shapes in otherwise traditional parametric functions like the Sersic, Moffat, King, Ferrer, etc., profiles. One can mix and match these new shape features freely, with or without constraints, apply them to an arbitrary number of model components and of numerous profile types, so as to produce realistic-looking galaxy model images. Yet, despite the potential for extreme complexity, the meaning of the key parameters like the Sersic index, effective radius or luminosity remain intuitive and essentially unchanged. The new features have an interesting potential for use to quantify the degree of asymmetry of galaxies, to quantify low surface brightness tidal features beneath and beyond luminous galaxies, to allow more realistic decompositions of galaxy subcomponents in the presence of strong rings and spiral arms, and to enable ways to gauge the uncertainties when decomposing galaxy subcomponents. We illustrate these new features by way of several case studies that display various levels of complexity.
We re-examine claims of redshift evolution in black hole-bulge scaling relations based on lensed quasars. In particular, we refine the black hole mass estimates using measurements of Balmer lines from near-infrared spectroscopy obtained with Triplesp
ec at Apache Point Observatory. In support of previous work, we find a large scatter between Balmer and UV line widths, both MgII 2796, 2803 and CIV 1548, 1550. There is tentative evidence that CIII] 1909, despite being a blend of multiple transitions, may correlate well with MgII, although a larger sample is needed for a real calibration. Most importantly, we find no systematic changes in the estimated BH masses for the lensed sample based on Balmer lines, providing additional support to the interpretation that black holes were overly massive compared to their host galaxies at high redshift.
Employing two samples containing of 56 and 59 well-separated FRED (fast rise and exponential decay) gamma-ray burst (GRB) pulses whose spectra are fitted by the Band spectrum and Compton model, respectively, we have investigated the evolutionary slop
e of $E_{p}$ (where $E_{p}$ is the peak energy in the $ u F u$ spectrum) with time during the pulse decay phase. The bursts in the samples were observed by the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory. We first test the $E_{p}$ evolutionary slope during the pulse decay phase predicted by Lu et al. (2007) based on the model of highly symmetric expanding fireballs in which the curvature effect of the expanding fireball surface is the key factor concerned. It is found that the evolutionary slopes are normally distributed for both samples and concentrated around the values of 0.73 and 0.76 for Band and Compton model, respectively, which is in good agreement with the theoretical expectation of Lu et al. (2007). However, the inconsistence with their results is that the intrinsic spectra of most of bursts may bear the Comptonized or thermal synchrotron spectrum, rather than the Band spectrum. The relationships between the evolutionary slope and the spectral parameters are also checked. We show the slope is correlated with $E_{p}$ of time-integrated spectra as well as the photon flux but anticorrelated with the lower energy index $alpha$. In addition, a correlation between the slope and the intrinsic $E_{p}$ derived by using the pseudo-redshift is also identified. The mechanisms of these correlations are unclear currently and the theoretical interpretations are required.
