CHANDRA STUDY OF X-RAY POINT SOURCES IN THE EARLY-TYPE GALAXY NGC 4552 (M89)
We present a Chandra ACIS study of the early-type galaxy NGC 4552. We detect 47 X-ray point sources, most of which are likely low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs), within four effective radii (Re). The brightest X-ray source coincides with the optical, UV, and radio center of the galaxy and shows variability on >1 hr timescales, indicating the possible existence of a low-luminosity active galactic nucleus (AGN). The 46 off-center sources and the unresolved point sources contribute about 29% and 20% to the total luminosity of the galaxy, respectively. We find that after correcting for the incompleteness at the low-luminosity end, the observed cumulative X-ray luminosity function (XLF) of the off-center sources is best fitted by a broken power-law model with a break at Lb = 4.4 × 1038 ergs s-1. We identified 210 globular cluster (GC) candidates in a HST WFPC2 optical image of the galaxy's central region. Of the 25 off-center LMXBs that fall within the WFPC2 field of view, 10 sources are coincident with a GC. Thus, the fraction of the GCs hosting bright LMXBs and the fraction of the LMXBs associated with GCs are 4.8% and 40%, respectively. In the V and I bands, the GCs hosting bright LMXBs are typically 1-2 mag brighter than the GCs with no detected LMXBs. There are about 1.9 ± 0.4 times as many LMXBs in the red, metal-rich GCs as there are in the blue, metal-poor ones. We find no obvious difference between the luminosity distributions of LMXBs in GCs and in the field, but the cumulative spectrum of the LMXBs in GCs tends to be softer than that of the LMXBs in field. We detected three X-ray sources that have isotropic luminosities larger than 1039 ergs s-1. Only one of these is located in the joint Chandra-HST field and is found to be associated with a GC. By studying its ACIS spectra we infer that the this may be a candidate black hole system with a mass of 15-135 M☉. One of the other sources with a luminosity brighter than 1039 ergs s-1 reveals temporal variations in brightness on timescales greater than 1 hr.

title: Is the energy generation rate of nuclear reactions in hot accretion flows important
abstract: The temperature of hot accretion flows around black holes is sufficiently high for the ignition of nuclear reactions. This is potentially an important nucleosynthesis mechanism in the universe. As the first step in studying this problem, we need to measure physical quantities such as density and temperature of the accretion flow. In usual studies of the hot accretion flow, viscous dissipation is considered to be the only heating mechanism, while the heating caused by nuclear reactions is not considered. In this paper, we investigate whether the energy generation rate of nuclear reaction is important compared to the viscous heating. Our calculation indicates that the former is at most one percent of the latter and thus is not important. The dynamics of accretion flow can be therefore calculated in the usual way, without the need to consider heating due to nuclear reactions.

title: A High-Abundance Arc in the Compact Group of Galaxies HCG 62: An AGN- or Merger-Induced Metal Outflow?
abstract: We present a Chandra study of the metal distribution in the X-ray bright compact group of galaxies HCG 62. We find that the diffuse X-ray emission is peaked at the core of the central galaxy NGC 4778 and is dominated by the contribution of the hot gas. The diffuse emission is roughly symmetric within similar or equal to 0.25', which is straddled by double-sided X-ray cavities aligned in the northeast-southwest direction. By mapping the emission hardness ratio distributions and by performing a two-dimensional spectral analysis, we identify a remarkable high-abundance arc region at about 2' (33: 6 h(70)(-1) kpc) from the X-ray peak that spans over a vast region from south to northwest, a part of which roughly coincides with the outer edge of the southwest X-ray cavity. The measured average abundance in this arc is higher than that in its neighboring regions by a factor of about 2, and the abundance ratios therein are nicely consistent with the dominance of the SN Ia yields. We estimate that the mass of iron contained in the arc is > 3 x 10(6) h(70)(-2.5) M-circle dot, which accounts for > 3% of the iron synthesized in the galaxy. The high-abundance arc could have been formed by AGN activity. However, it is also possible that the arc was formed in a recent merger, as implied by the recent optical kinematic study by Spavone and colleagues, which suggests that mergers may be as important as AGN activity in metal redistributions in early-type galaxies and their associated groups or clusters.

title: Metal enrichment via ram pressure stripping in the IGM of the compact galaxy group RGH 80
abstract: By creating and analyzing two dimensional gas temperature and abundance maps of the RGH 80 compact galaxy group with high-quality Chandra data, we detect a high-abundance (≃0.7 Z ⊙ ) arc, where the metal abundance is significantly higher than the surrounding regions by ≃0.3 Z ⊙ . This structure shows tight spatial correlations with the member galaxy PGC 046529, as well as with the arm-like feature identified on the X-ray image in the previous work of Randall et al. (2009). Since no apparent signature of AGN activity is found to be associated with PGC 046529 in multi-band observations, and the gas temperature, metallicity, and mass of the high-abundance arc resemble those of the ISM of typical early-type galaxies, we conclude that this high-abundance structure is the remnant of the ISM of PGC 046529, which was stripped out of the galaxy by ram pressure stripping due to the motion of PGC 046529 in RGH 80. This novel case shows that ram pressure stripping can work as efficiently in the metal enrichment process in galaxy groups as it can in galaxy clusters.

title: THE NATURE OF RED DWARF GALAXIES
abstract: Using dark matter halos traced by galaxy groups selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4, we find that about 1/4 of the faint galaxies ({sup 0.1} M{sub r} - 5log h> - 17.05, hereafter dwarfs) that are the central galaxies in their own halo are not blue and star forming, as expected in standard models of galaxy formation, but are red. In contrast, this fraction is about 1/2 for dwarf satellite galaxies. Many red dwarf galaxies are physically associated with more massive halos. In total, about {approx}45% of red dwarf galaxies reside in massive halos as satellites, while another {approx}25% have a spatial distribution that is much more concentrated toward their nearest massive halos than other dwarf galaxies. We use mock catalogs to show that the reddest population of nonsatellite dwarf galaxies is distributed within about three times the virial radii of their nearest massive halos. We suggest that this population of dwarf galaxies is hosted by low-mass halos that have passed through their massive neighbors, and that the same environmental effects that cause satellite galaxies to become red are also responsible for the red colors of this population of galaxies. We do not find any significantmore » radial dependence of the population of dwarf galaxies with the highest concentrations, suggesting that the mechanisms operating on these galaxies affect color more than structure. However, over 30% of dwarf galaxies are red and isolated and their origin remains unknown.« less

title: THE CLUSTERING OF SDSS GALAXY GROUPS: MASS AND COLOR DEPENDENCE
abstract: We use a large sample of galaxy groups selected from the SDSS data release 4 with an adaptive halo-based group finder to probe how the clustering strength of groups depends on their masses and colors. In particular, we determine the relative biases of groups of different masses, as well as that of groups with the same mass but with different colors. In agreement with previous studies, we find that more massive groups are more strongly clustered, and the inferred mass dependence of the halo bias is in good agreement with predictions for the ΛCDM concordance cosmology. Regarding the color dependence, we find that groups with red centrals are more strongly clustered than groups of the same mass but with blue centrals. Similar results are obtained when the color of a group is defined to be the total color of its member galaxies. The color dependence is more prominent in less massive groups and becomes insignificant in groups with masses 1014 h−1 M☉. These results are consistent with those obtained by Yang et al. from an analysis of the 2dFGRS, but inconsistent with those obtained by Berlind et al., who also used an SDSS group catalog. We construct a mock galaxy redshift survey from the large Millennium N-body simulation. Applying our group finder to this mock survey, and analyzing the mock data in exactly the same way as the true data, we are able to accurately recover the intrinsic mass and color dependencies of the halo bias in the model. Interestingly, the semianalytical model reveals the same color dependence of the halo bias as we find in our group catalog. We discuss these results in light of the assembly bias of dark matter halos and the star formation histories of galaxies.

title: Relic Vector Field and CMB Large Scale Anomalies
abstract: We study the most general effects of relic vector fields on the inflationary background and density perturbations. Such effects are observable if the number of inflationary e-folds is close to the minimum requirement to solve the horizon problem. We show that this can potentially explain two CMB large scale anomalies: the quadrupole-octopole alignment and the quadrupole power suppression. We discuss its effect on the parity anomaly. We also provide analytical template for more detailed data comparison.

title: Prospects in extended inflation

title: Deprojected analysis of Abell 1835 observed with Chandra and compared with XMM-Newton
abstract: Using a deprojection technique, we study the X-ray properties of the galaxy cluster Abell 1835 observed with Chandra, including temperature, abundance, electron density, gas mass fraction, and total mass. A comparison with the results without deprojection shows that the properties do not change much. When we compare the results with those of XMM-Newton, the difference between the temperature profiles derived from Chandra and XMM-Newton data still exists, even if the point-spread function effect of XMM-Newton is corrected. To investigate the reasons for the difference, we used the spectra to cross-calibrate the temperatures. They show that the Chandra spectra can be fitted well with XMM-Newton temperatures. Furthermore, we derive the electron density profile from Chandra data with XMM-Newton temperatures and calculate the projected mass, which is consistent with the XMM-Newton mass and a little lower than the weak lensing mass at r(500). Thus, it seems that the temperature derived from XMM-Newton may be more reliable.

title: Cosmic star formation history associated with quasar activity: An approach using the black hole-to-bulge mass correlation
abstract: The tight correlation between the masses of central black holes and their host spheroids in nearby galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) suggests that black hole growth is closely related to their spheroid formation. Based on our previous work regarding such a joint evolutionary scheme and the consequential black hole-to-bulge mass correlation, we use the X-ray luminosity function of AGN and the cosmological evolution rate, which are from ROSAT X-ray surveys, to estimate the cosmic star formation history associated with the black hole growth. By the basic assumption that the major black hole growth occurs during the luminous AGN phase, the luminosity function of AGNs as a function of redshift traces not only the accretion history of the black holes but also the cosmic star formation history of the spheroids. Although the space density of the especially luminous quasars is very low, we show that the total amount of star formation associated with the massive black hole growth is almost the same as that of Lyman break galaxies detected by the current optical deep surveys. We thus argue that the optical deep surveys may miss about half of the net star formation in our universe. This is probably due in part to significant dust extinction, as well as the small field of view of previous optical surveys, which cannot sample such rare events with relatively short timescale. However, the far-infrared emission from the dust heated by ongoing star formation during the black hole growth could sufficiently account for the observed SCUBA number counts and would be the probable dominating energy source of the SCUBA population.

title: Development of a high power 1.2 MW CW L-band klystron
abstract: The high power CW L-band klystron has been developed as the RF source of the PNC high power CW electron linac (10 MeV, 100 mA). CW power of 1.2 MW at 1.249135 GHz and efficiencies over 65% were the design goals. RF analysis of the windows using high-frequency simulation codes provided information about power loss distribution in the ceramic and optimizing properties of the RF structure. The prototype klystron window was replaced with a long pill-box type beryllia window as a result of the simulation and hardware tests. The klystron has reached CW power of 885 kW with efficiency above 45%. This paper describes key points of the designs and results of the high power RF tests.