ترغب بنشر مسار تعليمي؟ اضغط هنا

Probability distribution functions of gas in M31 and M51

139   0   0.0 ( 0 )
 نشر من قبل Andrew Fletcher
 تاريخ النشر 2015
  مجال البحث فيزياء
والبحث باللغة English




اسأل ChatGPT حول البحث

We present probability distribution functions (PDFs) of the surface densities of ionized and neutral gas in the nearby spiral galaxies M31 and M51, as well as of dust emission and extinction Av in M31. The PDFs are close to lognormal and those for HI and Av in M31 are nearly identical. However, the PDFs for H2 are wider than the HI PDFs and the M51 PDFs have larger dispersions than those for M31. We use a simple model to determine how the PDFs are changed by variations in the line-of-sight (LOS) pathlength L through the gas, telescope resolution and the volume filling factor of the gas, f_v. In each of these cases the dispersion sigma of the lognormal PDF depends on the variable with a negative power law. We also derive PDFs of mean LOS volume densities of gas components in M31 and M51. Combining these with the volume density PDFs for different components of the ISM in the Milky Way (MW), we find that sigma decreases with increasing length L with an exponent of -0.76 +/- 0.06, which is steeper than expected. We show that the difference is due to variations in f_v. As f_v is similar in M31, M51 and the MW, the density structure in the gas in these galaxies must be similar. Finally, we demonstrate that an increase in f_v with increasing distance to the Galactic plane explains the decrease in sigma with latitude of the PDFs of emission measure and FUV emission observed for the MW.



قيم البحث

اقرأ أيضاً

The probability distribution functions (PDFs) for atomic, molecular, and total gas surface densities of M33 are determined at a resolution of about 50~pc over regions that share coherent morphological properties to unveil fingerprints of self-gravity across the star-forming disk. Most of the total gas PDFs from the central region to the edge of the star-forming disk are well-fitted by log-normal functions whose width decreases radially outwards. Because the HI velocity dispersion is approximately constant across the disk, the decrease of the PDF width is consistent with a lower Mach number for the turbulent ISM at large galactocentric radii where a higher fraction of HI is in the warm phase. The atomic gas is found mostly at face-on column densities below N$_{H}^{lim}$=2.5 10$^{21}$~cm$^{-2}$, with small radial variations of N$_{H}^{lim}$. The molecular gas PDFs do not show strong deviations from log-normal functions in the central region where molecular fractions are high. Here the high pressure and rate of star formation shapes the PDF as a log-normal function dispersing self-gravitating complexes with intense feedback at all column densities that are spatially resolved. Power law PDFs for the molecules are found near and above N$_H^{lim}$, in the well defined southern spiral arm and in a continuous dense filament extending at larger galactocentric radii; this is evident in cloud samples at different evolutionary stages along the star formation cycle. In the filament nearly half of the molecular gas departs from a log-normal PDF and power laws are also observed in pre-star forming molecular complexes. The slope of the power law is between -1 and -2. This slope, combined with maps showing where the different parts of the power law PDFs come from, suggest a power-law stratification of density within molecular cloud complexes, which is consistent with the dominance of self-gravity.
In a search for the signature of turbulence in the diffuse interstellar medium in gas density distributions, we determined the probability distribution functions (PDFs) of the average volume densities of the diffuse gas. The densities were derived fr om dispersion measures and HI column densities towards pulsars and stars at known distances. The PDFs of the average densities of the diffuse ionized gas (DIG) and the diffuse atomic gas are close to lognormal, especially when lines of sight at |b|<5 degrees and |b|>=5 degrees are considered separately. The PDF of <n_HI> at high |b| is twice as wide as that at low |b|. The width of the PDF of the DIG is about 30 per cent smaller than that of the warm HI at the same latitudes. The results reported here provide strong support for the existence of a lognormal density PDF in the diffuse ISM, consistent with a turbulent origin of density structure in the diffuse gas.
Molecular line images of 13CO, C18O, CN, CS, CH3OH, and HNCO are obtained toward the spiral arm of M51 at a 7 times 6 resolution with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). Distributions of the molecules averaged over a 300 pc scale are found to be almost similar to one another and to essentially trace the spiral arm. However, the principal component analysis shows a slight difference of distributions among molecular species particularly for CH3OH and HNCO. These two species do not correlate well with star-formation rate, implying that they are not enhanced by local star-formation activities but by galactic-scale phenomena such as spiral shocks. Furthermore, the distribution of HNCO and CH3OH are found to be slightly different, whose origin deserves further investigation. The present results provide us with an important clue to understanding the 300 pc scale chemical composition in the spiral arm and its relation to galactic-scale dynamics.
114 - N. Schneider 2015
We report the novel detection of complex high-column density tails in the probability distribution functions (PDFs) for three high-mass star-forming regions (CepOB3, MonR2, NGC6334), obtained from dust emission observed with Herschel. The low column density range can be fit with a lognormal distribution. A first power-law tail starts above an extinction (Av) of ~6-14. It has a slope of alpha=1.3-2 for the rho~r^-alpha profile for an equivalent density distribution (spherical or cylindrical geometry), and is thus consistent with free-fall gravitational collapse. Above Av~40, 60, and 140, we detect an excess that can be fitted by a flatter power law tail with alpha>2. It correlates with the central regions of the cloud (ridges/hubs) of size ~1 pc and densities above 10^4 cm^-3. This excess may be caused by physical processes that slow down collapse and reduce the flow of mass towards higher densities. Possible are: 1. rotation, which introduces an angular momentum barrier, 2. increasing optical depth and weaker cooling, 3. magnetic fields, 4. geometrical effects, and 5. protostellar feedback. The excess/second power-law tail is closely linked to high-mass star-formation though it does not imply a universal column density threshold for the formation of (high-mass) stars.
Using a suite of self-similar cosmological simulations, we measure the probability distribution functions (PDFs) of real-space density, redshift-space density, and their geometric mean. We find that the real-space density PDF is well-described by a f unction of two parameters: $n_s$, the spectral slope, and $sigma_L$, the linear rms density fluctuation. For redshift-space density and the geometric mean of real- and redshift-space densities, we introduce a third parameter, $s_L={sqrt{langle(dv^L_{rm pec}/dr)^2rangle}}/{H}$. We find that density PDFs for the LCDM cosmology is also well-parameterized by these three parameters. As a result, we are able to use a suite of self-similar cosmological simulations to approximate density PDFs for a range of cosmologies. We make the density PDFs publicly available and provide an analytical fitting formula for them.
التعليقات
جاري جلب التعليقات جاري جلب التعليقات
سجل دخول لتتمكن من متابعة معايير البحث التي قمت باختيارها
mircosoft-partner

هل ترغب بارسال اشعارات عن اخر التحديثات في شمرا-اكاديميا