adsabs/SciX_UAT_keywords huggingface dataset:
Revisiting a Disky Origin for the Faint Branch of the Sagittarius Stellar Stream

We investigate ways to produce the bifurcation observed in the stellar stream of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy (Sgr). Our method consists of running N-body simulations of Sgr falling into the Milky Way for the last 3 Gyr, with added test particles on disk orbits that span a wide range of initial positions, energies, and angular momenta. We find that particles that end up in the faint branch are predominantly high-angular-momentum particles that can all originate from a single plane within the progenitor, nearly perpendicular both to the orbital plane of the progenitor and to the Milky Way stellar disk. Their original configuration at the start of the simulation corresponds to spiral features already present 3 Gyr ago, which could be, e.g., the result of a disk-like component being tidally perturbed, or the tidal tails of a satellite being disrupted within Sgr. We then run a simulation including the self-gravity of this disky component. Despite the remaining ambiguity of its origin, this disk component of the Sgr dwarf with spiral overdensities provides a first step toward a working model to reproduce the observed faint branch of the bifurcated Sgr stream.

Keywords: sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy; stellar streams; dwarf galaxies; galaxy dynamics
Two Modes of Carbonaceous Dust Alignment

Radiative torques (RATs) or mechanical torques acting on irregular grains can induce the alignment of dust grains in respect to the alignment axis (AA), which can be either the direction of the magnetic field or the direction of the radiation. We show that carbonaceous grains can be aligned with their axes both parallel and perpendicular to the AA, and we explore the conditions where the particular mode of alignment takes place. We identify a new process of alignment of charged carbonaceous grains in a turbulent, magnetized interstellar medium with respect to an electric field. This field acts on grains accelerated in a turbulent medium and gyrorotating about a magnetic field. The electric field can also arise from the temporal variations of the magnetic field strength in turbulent, compressible media. The direction of the electric field is perpendicular to the magnetic field, and the carbonaceous grains precess in the electric field because of their electric moments. If this precession is faster than Larmor precession in the magnetic field, the alignment of such grains is with their long axes parallel to the magnetic field. We explore the parameter space for which the new mechanism aligns grains with long axes parallel to the magnetic field. We compare this mechanism with another process that provides the same type of alignment, namely, the RAT alignment of grains with insufficiently fast internal relaxation. We describe the conditions for which the particular mode of carbonaceous grain alignment is realized and discuss what information can be obtained by measuring the resulting polarization.

Keywords: interstellar dust; circumstellar dust; interstellar magnetic fields; magnetohydrodynamics
The Stellar Initial Mass Function and Population Properties of M89 from Optical and NIR Spectroscopy: Addressing Biases in Spectral Index Analysis

The complexity of constraining the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in early-type galaxies cannot be overstated, given the necessity of very high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) data and the difficulty of breaking the strong degeneracies that occur among several stellar population parameters, including age, metallicity, and elemental abundances. With this paper, the second in a series, we present a detailed analysis of the biases that can occur when retrieving the IMF shape by exploiting both optical and near-IR IMF-sensitive spectral indices. As a test case, here we analyze data for the nearby galaxy M89, for which we have high-S/N spectroscopic data that cover the 3500-9000 Å spectral region and allow us to study the radial variation of the stellar population properties out to 1Re. Carrying out parallel simulations that mimic the retrieval of all of the explored stellar parameters from a known input model, we quantify the amount of bias at each step of our analysis. From more general simulations, we conclude that to accurately retrieve the IMF, it is necessary to retrieve accurate estimates not only of the age and metallicity but also of all of the elemental abundances that the spectral index fits are sensitive to. With our analysis technique applied to M89, we find consistency with a bottom-heavy IMF with a negative gradient from the center to half Re when using the Conroy et al. and Vazdekis et al. EMILES stellar population models. We find agreement with both a parallel full spectral fitting of the same data and literature results. * This paper includes data gathered with the 6.5 m Magellan Telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile.

Keywords: early-type galaxies; initial mass function
Hemispheric Distribution of Halo Coronal Mass Ejection Source Locations

The hemispheric asymmetry of solar activity is one of the essential physical consequences of the interior dynamo process. However, the hemispheric distribution of halo coronal mass ejection (HCME) source locations has not been investigated in detail. Based on the HCME catalog identified from the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, we perform a hemispheric distribution analysis of the HCME source locations from 1996 April to 2022 June. The main results are as follows. (1) The HCME source locations are confined to the active region belt, and there is no "rush to the poles" phenomenon that is unique to large-scale magnetic activity. (2) The HCME source locations exhibit a general hemispheric asymmetry, and autoregressive moving-average model results show that the asymmetry of HCME source locations is significantly different from that of sunspot activity. (3) The hemispheric distribution of cycle 24 is different from that of cycle 23, potentially as a result of the heliospheric dynamic pressure having noticeably decreased after the polarity reversal of cycle 23. Our results contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the hemispheric asymmetry of energetic magnetic structures and give a new perspective on understanding the geoeffectiveness of HCMEs.

Keywords: solar coronal mass ejections; solar activity; solar magnetic fields
Dense Cores, Filaments, and Outflows in the S255IR Region of High-mass Star Formation

We investigate at a high angular resolution the spatial and kinematic structure of the S255IR high-mass star-forming region, which demonstrated recently the first disk-mediated accretion burst in the massive young stellar object. The observations were performed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Band 7 at an angular resolution of ∼ 0"1, which corresponds to ∼180 au. The 0.9 mm continuum, C34S(7-6) and CCH N = 4 - 3 data show a presence of very narrow (∼1000 au), very dense (n ∼ 107 cm-3), and warm filamentary structures in this area. At least some of them represent apparently dense walls around the high velocity molecular outflow with a wide opening angle from the S255IR-SMA1 core, which is associated with the NIRS3 YSO. This wide-angle outflow surrounds a narrow jet. At the ends of the molecular outflow there are shocks, traced in the SiO(8-7) emission. The SiO abundance there is enhanced by at least 3 orders of magnitude. The CO(3-2) and SiO(8-7) data show a collimated and extended high velocity outflow from another dense core in this area, SMA2. The outflow is bent and consists of a chain of knots, which may indicate periodic ejections possibly arising from a binary system consisting of low- or intermediate-mass protostars. The C34S emission shows evidence of rotation of the parent core. Finally, we detected two new low-mass compact cores in this area (designated as SMM1 and SMM2), which may represent prestellar objects.

Keywords: star formation; interstellar molecules; stellar winds; stellar jets; massive stars
The 2021 Activity of the Fast-radio-burst-emitting Galactic Magnetar SGR 1935+2154 as Observed by NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor

The galactic, fast-radio-burst-emitting magnetar SGR 1935+2154 entered an active X-ray burst episode in 2021 September, nearly a year after emitting a fast radio burst with an X-ray counterpart. We report on the temporal and spectral properties of the activity, which included bright intermediate flares, and present a burst catalog of the Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor observations. We compare this activity to the previous 6 yr history of the source since its discovery in 2014. The bursts show a mean log-Gaussian duration T 100 ~ 77.34 ms, a cutoff power-law peak energy E peak ~ 26.62 keV, and a photon index ΓCPL ~ 0.49, and blackbody soft and hard temperatures kT BBs ~ 5.23 keV and kT BBh ~ 9.24 keV, respectively. The burst fluence spans 3 orders of magnitude (10-8-10-5 erg cm-2) and follows ${dN}/{dS}\propto {S}^{-0.93}$ . The anticorrelation between the blackbody temperature and the emission area is weaker in the hard component at ${R}_{\mathrm{BBh}}^{2}\propto {{kT}}_{\mathrm{BBh}}^{-4.56}$ but is improved in the soft component at ${R}_{\mathrm{BBs}}^{2}\propto {{kT}}_{\mathrm{BBs}}^{-1.63}$ , compared to previous activities, with an overall ${R}_{\mathrm{BB}}^{2}\propto {{kT}}_{\mathrm{BB}}^{-3.82}$ correlation. The 2021 bursts have higher average and integrated fluence than the 2014-2020 episodes and are relatively shorter than the 2019-2020 activities yet comparable to the earlier episodes. During 2014-2021, the burst mean peak energy (E peak) shows a slight softening and is generally softer than other magnetars. We discuss our results in terms of magnetar physics and emission mechanisms.

Keywords: magnetars; soft gamma-ray repeaters; x-ray bursts
An Alternative Interpretation of Impulsive SEP Events Occurring on 1999 January 9-10

We have examined two impulsive solar energetic particle events that occurred on 1999 January 9-10 (earlier event A and later event B). Both events showed earlier velocity dispersion and later intensity dropout of ions. In particular, in event A, the dropout repeated five times. Through the onset time analysis of solar particles, we find that only at higher energies (>0.2 MeV nucleon-1 for heavy ions and >2.8 keV for electrons) can the analysis provide a consistent path length of ions and electrons. The path length in event A is larger than that in event B. In contrast, at lower energies, the analysis fails to predict the distribution of first arrival of solar particles. The divergence between observation and prediction would increase if the interplanetary scattering of ions were taken into account. We then focus on the lower-energy region, where a negative correlation of ion intensities with plasma β is displayed. We have found that the repeated dropout of ions can be caused by the magnetic reconnection acceleration in the solar wind. In addition, we have discovered an isolated proton dropout event in which a sharply anisotropic pitch-angle distribution of low-energy electrons is also seen. Our observation is consistent with the prediction of Tautz et al. that a minimum power spectral density component parallel to the magnetic field can reduce the magnetic mirroring effect, preventing electron scattering through 90°.

Keywords: interplanetary turbulence; solar energetic particles; solar magnetic fields; solar particle emission; solar wind
Observations of Current Sheet Heating in X-Ray during a Solar Flare

In the solar corona, magnetic reconnection occurs due to the finite resistivity of the plasma. At the same time, this resistivity leads to ohmic heating. Therefore, the reconnecting current sheet should heat the surrounding plasma. This paper presents experimental evidence of such plasma heating being caused by magnetic reconnection. We observed the effect during a C1.4 solar flare on 2003 February 16 at the active region NOAA 10278, near the solar limb. Thanks to such a location, we successfully identified all the principal elements of the flare: the flare arcade, the flux rope, and, most importantly, the presumed position of the current sheet. By analyzing the monochromatic X-ray images of the Sun obtained by the CORONAS-F/SPIRIT instrument in the Mg XII 8.42 Å spectral line, we detected a high-temperature (T ≥ 4 MK) emission at the predicted location of the current sheet. The high-temperature emission appeared during the CME's impulsive acceleration phase. We believe that this additionally confirms that the plasma heating around the current sheet and the magnetic reconnection inside the current sheet are strongly connected.

Keywords: solar corona; solar x-ray emission; solar coronal mass ejections; solar flares
Frequency-dispersed Ion Acoustic Waves in the Near-Sun Solar Wind: Signatures of Impulsive Ion Beams

This work reports a novel plasma wave observation in the near-Sun solar wind: frequency-dispersed ion acoustic waves. Similar waves have previously been reported in association with interplanetary shocks or planetary bow shocks, but the waves reported here occur throughout the solar wind sunward of ∼60 solar radii, far from any identified shocks. The waves reported here vary their central frequency by factors of 3–10 over tens of milliseconds, with frequencies that move up or down in time. Using a semiautomated identification algorithm, thousands of wave instances are recorded during each near-Sun orbit of the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft. Wave statistical properties are determined and used to estimate their plasma frame frequency and the energies of protons most likely to be resonant with these waves. Proton velocity distribution functions are explored for one wave interval, and proton enhancements that may be consistent with proton beams are observed. A conclusion from this analysis is that properties of the observed frequency-dispersed ion acoustic waves are consistent with driving by cold, impulsively accelerated proton beams near the ambient proton thermal speed. Based on the large number of observed waves and their properties, it is likely that the impulsive proton beam acceleration mechanism generating these waves is active throughout the inner heliosphere. This may have implications for the acceleration of the solar wind.

Keywords: solar wind; space plasmas; interplanetary particle acceleration; heliosphere
Direct Formation of Planetary Embryos in Self-gravitating Disks

Giant planets have been discovered at large separations from the central star. Moreover, a striking number of young circumstellar disks have gas and/or dust gaps at large orbital separations, potentially driven by embedded planetary objects. To form massive planets at large orbital separations through core accretion within the disk lifetime, however, an early solid body to seed pebble and gas accretion is desirable. Young protoplanetary disks are likely self-gravitating, and these gravitoturbulent disks may efficiently concentrate solid material at the midplane driven by spiral waves. We run 3D local hydrodynamical simulations of gravitoturbulent disks with Lagrangian dust particles to determine whether particle and gas self-gravity can lead to the formation of dense solid bodies, seeding later planet formation. When self-gravity between dust particles is included, solids of size St = 0.1-1 concentrate within the gravitoturbulent spiral features and collapse under their own self-gravity into dense clumps up to several M ⊕ in mass at wide orbits. Simulations with dust that drift most efficiently, St = 1, form the most massive clouds of particles, while simulations with smaller dust particles, St = 0.1, have clumps with masses an order of magnitude lower. When the effect of dust backreaction onto the gas is included, dust clumps become smaller by a factor of a few but more numerous. The existence of large solid bodies at an early stage of the disk can accelerate the planet formation process, particularly at wide orbital separations, and potentially explain planets distant from the central stars and young protoplanetary disks with substructures.

Keywords: protoplanetary disks; planet formation; hydrodynamical simulations
Effects of Magnetic Field Loops on the Dynamics of Advective Accretion Flows and Jets around a Schwarzschild Black Hole

Magnetic fields advected along with low angular momentum accretion flows predominantly become toroidal owing to the strong azimuthal velocity close to a black hole. We study self-consistently the movements of these flux tubes inside an advective disk and how they dynamically influence the flow. We find that the centrifugal barrier slows down the radial motion of the flux tubes. In this case, the large magnetic flux tubes with a significant drag force escape along the vertical axis owing to buoyancy. Magnetic pressure rises close to the black hole and, together with the centrifugal force, combats gravity. The tug-of-war among these forces causes the centrifugal-pressure-supported shock to oscillate radially. We study the effects of successive injection of flux tubes and find how the flux tube could be trapped inside the disk in regions of highest entropy. Most interestingly, the shock wave remains at its average location and is not destroyed. We show that the toroidal field loops contribute significantly to collimate and accelerate the outflows from the centrifugal barrier and suggest that this mechanism is a way to collimate and accelerate jets.

Keywords: accretion; nonrotating black holes; magnetohydrodynamical simulations; shocks
Multimessenger Detection Rates and Distributions of Binary Neutron Star Mergers and Their Cosmological Implications

Gravitational wave (GW) events, produced by the coalescence of binary neutron stars (BNSs), can be treated as the standard sirens to probe the expansion history of the universe, if their redshifts can be determined from electromagnetic (EM) observations. For the high-redshift (z ≳ 0.1) events, the short γ-ray bursts (sGRBs) and the afterglows are always considered as the primary EM counterparts. In this paper, by investigating various models of sGRBs and afterglows, we discuss the rates and distributions of the multimessenger observations of BNS mergers using GW detectors in the second-generation (2G), 2.5G, and 3G era with detectable sGRBs and afterglows. For instance, for the Cosmic Explorer GW detector, the rate is about 300-3500 yr-1 with a GECAM-like detector for γ-ray emissions and an LSST/WFST detector for optical afterglows. In addition, we find that these events have redshifts z ≲ 2 and inclination angles ι ≲ 20°. These results justify the rough estimation in previous works. Considering these events as standard sirens to constrain the equation-of-state parameters of dark energy w0 and wa, we obtain the potential constraints of Δw0 ≃ 0.02-0.05 and Δwa ≃ 0.1-0.4.

Keywords: gravitational waves; gamma-ray bursts; dark energy
JWST's PEARLS: A JWST/NIRCam View of ALMA Sources

We report the results of James Webb Space Telescope/NIRCam observations of 19 (sub)millimeter sources detected by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). The accurate ALMA positions allowed unambiguous identifications of their NIRCam counterparts. Taking gravitational lensing into account, these represent 16 distinct galaxies in three fields and constitute the largest sample of its kind to date. The counterparts' spectral energy distributions cover from rest-frame ultraviolet to near-IR and provide photometric redshifts (1 < z < 4.5) and stellar masses (M * > 1010.5 M ⊙), which are similar to submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) studied previously. However, our sample is fainter in (sub)millimeter than the classic SMG samples are, and our sources exhibit a wider range of properties. They have dust-embedded star formation rates as low as 10 M ⊙ yr-1, and the sources populate both the star-forming main sequence and the quiescent categories. The deep NIRCam data allow us to study the rest-frame near-IR morphologies. Excluding two multiply imaged systems and one quasar, the majority of the remaining sources are disk-like and show either little or no disturbance. This suggests that secular growth is a potential route for the assembly of high-mass disk galaxies. While a few objects have large disks, the majority have small disks (median half-mass radius of 1.6 kpc). At this time, it is unclear whether this is due to the prevalence of small disks at these redshifts or some unknown selection effects of deep ALMA observations. A larger sample of ALMA sources with NIRCam observations will be able to address this question.

Keywords: millimeter astronomy; submillimeter astronomy; galaxy formation; infrared galaxies; james webb space telescope
On the Ratios of Si IV Lines (λ1394/λ1403) in an Emerging Flux Region

The resonance lines of Si IV formed at λ1394 and 1403 Å are the most critical for the diagnostics of the solar transition region in the observations of the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS). Studying the intensity ratios of these lines (1394 Å/1403 Å), which under optically thin conditions is predicted to be two, helps us to diagnose the optical thickness of the plasma being observed. Here we study the evolution of the distribution of intensity ratios in 31 IRIS rasters recorded for four days during the emergence of an active region. We found that during the early phase of the development, the majority of the pixels show intensity ratios smaller than two. However, as the active region evolves, more and more pixels show the ratios closer to two. Besides, there are a substantial number of pixels with ratio values larger than 2. At the evolved stage of the active region, the pixels with ratios smaller than two were located on the periphery, whereas those with values larger than 2 were in the core. However, for quiet Sun regions, the obtained intensity ratios were close to two irrespective of the location on the disk. Our findings suggest that the Si IV lines observed in active regions are affected by the opacity during the early phase of the flux emergence. The results obtained here could have important implications for the modeling of the solar atmosphere, including the initial stage of the emergence of an active region as well as the quiet Sun.

Keywords: active sun; solar active regions; stellar atmospheric opacity; atomic spectroscopy; the sun; emerging flux tubes
HST Imaging of Star-forming Clumps in Six GASP Ram-pressure-stripped Galaxies

Exploiting broad- and narrowband images of the Hubble Space Telescope from the near-UV to I-band rest frame, we study the star-forming clumps of six galaxies of the GASP sample undergoing strong ram pressure stripping. Clumps are detected in Hα and near-UV, tracing star formation on different timescales. We consider clumps located in galaxy disks and stripped tails and formed in stripped gas but still close to the disk, called extraplanar. We detect 2406 Hα-selected clumps (1708 in disks, 375 in extraplanar regions, and 323 in tails) and 3745 UV-selected clumps (2021 disk, 825 extraplanar, and 899 tail clumps). Only ~15% of star-forming clumps are spatially resolved, meaning that most are smaller than ~140 pc. We study the luminosity and size distribution functions (LDFs and SDFs, respectively) and the luminosity-size relation. The average LDF slope is 1.79 ± 0.09, while the average SDF slope is 3.1 ± 0.5. The results suggest that the star formation is turbulence-driven and scale-free, as in main-sequence galaxies. All of the clumps, whether they are in the disks or tails, have an enhanced Hα luminosity at a given size, compared to the clumps in main-sequence galaxies. Indeed, their Hα luminosity is closer to that of clumps in starburst galaxies, indicating that ram pressure is able to enhance the luminosity. No striking differences are found among disk and tail clumps, suggesting that the different environments in which they are embedded play a minor role in influencing the star formation.

Keywords: galaxy clusters; galaxy evolution; star formation; star forming regions; galaxy structure; galaxy tails