| 1. |
- Festin, Leif
(författare)
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The faintest stars : A study of white, red and brown dwarfs
- 1998
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The local space density of the faintest stars, including M dwarfs, white dwarfs and brown dwarfs has been studied by two different methods.By using dark nebulae as opaque outer screens, the luminosity functions of M dwarfs and white dwarfs were studied as volume-limited and dynamically unbiassed foreground samples. The surveyed volume corresponds to 464 pc3 in the solar neighbourhood and contains 21 M dwarfs and 7 white dwarfs. The derived M-dwarf luminosity function is consistent with previous findings, showing no substantial upturnbeyond Mv = 16. The white dwarf space density is consistent with a 20% fraction of the dynamical matter in the solar neighbourhood residing in white dwarfs. This is in line with the most recent independent results obtained with different methods, making the white dwarfs the best explanation to the Milky Way dark matter at present.The brown dwarfs were studied in the Pleiades open cluster. The distance and age of the Pleiades make the rapidly fading brown dwarfs still rather bright and easy to detect. 850 arcmin2 were covered in a deep RIJK survey. Nine new possible cluster members were discovered, four of which are below the brown dwarf limit. The faintest of these has an estimated mass of 0.040 M. and is thereby the lowest mass brown dwarf identified in the Pleiades cluster at present. The derived Pleiades substellar luminosity function is consistent with a mass function index between 0 and 1, making the brown dwarfs unlikely to contribute more than a few percent to the cluster mass, which is also consistent with recent dynamical results.
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| 2. |
- Hidalgo-Gámez, Ana Maria
(författare)
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A study of possible chemical inhomogeneities of dwarf irregular galaxies and the influence on the Z-L relationship
- 1999
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A study on the chemical abundances of dwarf irregular galaxies (dI's) is presented in this work. This type of galaxies have typically low metallicity. First of all, a definition of dI is proposed, in order to obtain a homogeneous group of targets.Due to the small size of the dI galaxies and the absence of strong dynamical processes a homogeneous chemical composition is normally assumed. The main argument is that the gas in the interstellar medium of the galaxies are probably not too much affected by internal dynamics and could therefore be well mixed. This hypothesis has been investigated. Optical spectra for various star-forming regions (HII regions) in five dI's have been obtained and analysed. For all the HII regions, the chemical abundances of the whole region have been determined. Spectra of four of these HII regions are of very high quality which allow an additional study of possible variations of the chemical abundances within the regions. It could be concluded that the existence of variations in the chemical abundances, especially at large scales, may depend on thephysical properties of the galaxy and its environment.Another important aspect to study is the behaviour of the dI galaxies in the metallicity-luminosity plane. A deep study of previous relationships for this kind of objects were performed as well as the possible sources of dispersion from this relationship. With the results on the chemical abundances of eight galaxies and the latest distance determinations a new, weak, relationship between the metallicity and the luminosity was derived. The influence of the environment and other physical properties of the galaxies have also been studied.
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| 3. |
- Lagerros, Johan S. V.
(författare)
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Thermal physics of asteroids
- 1998
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thermal infrared and microwave emission from asteroids have many applications. Fundamental physical properties can be investigated, which have implications for the geophysical evolution of the asteroids, and the early history of the solar system.A new thermophysical model of asteroids is presented. A number of physical processes previously neglected in the Standard Thermal Model are now considered. The new model predicts the thermal emission of asteroids, from mid-infrared to microwave wavelengths. The irregular shapes of asteroids are modelled in detail, and the spin state of the asteroids is taken into account, whereby it is possible to calculate model thermal lightcurves. The heat conduction into the surface material in general lowers the mid-infrared flux from main-belt asteroids. The model is able to explain the observed "beaming" of the emission into the solar direction, under the assumption that it is caused by the small-scale surface roughness. Subsurface scattering processes are considered when calculating the directional- and wavelength-dependent emissivity.The model is applied to a large database of observations in the wavelength range of 7-2 000 µm. The purpose is to derive the thermophysical properties of ten asteroids, selected as calibration targets for the instruments on board the Infrared Space Observatory. The results indicate very rough and porous surfaces, with low levels of heat conduction. The emissivity variessignificantly with wavelength.
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| 4. |
- Östlin, Göran A.
(författare)
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On the origin and evolution of blue compact galaxies
- 1998
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is focused on the origin and evolution of blue compact galaxies (BCGs). BCGs are low mass galaxies characterised by blue colours, low chemical abundances and high star formation rates. The gas consumtion time scale is considerable shorter than the age of the universe and thus the high star formation rate must be transient. Such a non sustainable star formation rate is commonly referred to as a "starburst". It has been proposed that BCGs are genuinely young galaxies or alternatively that theyoccasionally undergo starbursts, separated by long quiesent periods. It is of importance for the understanding of the evolution of galaxies, and in particular dwarf galaxies, to understand under what conditions a galaxy can become a starbursting BCG.The properties of in particular intrinsically luminous BCGs have been examined photometrically and kinematically. The results show that the studied galaxies have a population of old stars underlying the luminous starbursts. Thus they are not young galaxies. It is shown that infrared photometry is a powerful method to detect underlying old populations in BCGs. Kinematical studies of the velocity field suggests that the galaxies have been perturbed by mergers, and it is proposed that mergers betweengas rich dwarf galaxies is the triggering mechanism for starbursts in luminous BCGs. Low surface brightness galaxies are promising ingredients in such mergers.Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope of the BCG ESO 338- IG04 reveal the presence of a very rich population of globular clusters (GCs) of various ages. Apparently GC formation is still going on in this starbursting galaxy. The age dating of GCs offers an efficient way of studying the starburst history of BCGs and galaxies in general. The relation between BCGs and other types of low mass galaxies is discussed.
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| 5. |
- Hultman, John
(författare)
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Dissipative formation of galaxies in hierarchical cosmology
- 1998
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A description and detailed tests of a numerical code for simulations of galaxy formation is presented. The dynamics is followed with fully adaptive and Lagrangian Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) combined with a gravitational tree method. The severe numerical problem of sub-resolution clustering is solved by merging of gas particles.The code is used for Hydrodynamical simulations of the formation of galaxies in the mass range 109 - 1013M☉. The effect of an ambient UV radiation field, and the effect of metal enrichment of halo gas due to star formation and stellar evolution, are investigated. The UV radiation field is found to strongly affect galaxies with circular velocities less than ≈ 50 km/s. The effect is, however, not large enough to reconcile hierarchical clustering models with observations.I present numerical simulations of galaxy formation in a CDM scenario, including star formation, using the SPH and tree method on scales ranging from 20 Mpc down to less than 1 kpc. The gas component is treated as a two-phase medium, governed by thermal instability and supernova feedback. For a certain degree of supernova evaporation, several general properties of elliptical galaxies are reproduced, like shapes, r1/4-profiles, half-light radii, slow rotation and anisotropic velocity dispersions. A Faber-Jackson -like relation is observed, being of the form M ~ Σ2.6.No disk shaped objects form. The elliptical objects form through a hierarchical, star-forming "inside-out" collapse. The SFR has a rapidly raising and later exponentially decaying behaviour in individual objects. The stellar contribution to the closure density is around one percent. The co-moving average SFR shows an increasing behaviour with redshift. Low mass objects are strongly suppressed. Generally, the more massive objects are in place at z ~ 0.5 - 2. Although many problems and questions still remain, the overall impression is that surprisingly many properties of ellipticals are reproduced.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Apostolakis, A, et al.
(författare)
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A determination of the CP violation parameter η+- from the decay of strangeness-tagged neutral kaons
- 1999
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Ingår i: Physics Letters B. - : Elsevier. - 0370-2693 .- 1873-2445. ; 458:4, s. 545-552
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- LEAR offered unique opportunities to study the symmetries which exist between matter and antimatter. At variance with other approaches at this facility, CPLEAR was an experiment devoted to the study of CP, T and CPT symmetries in the neutral-kaon system. A variety of measurements allowed us to determine with high precision the parameters which describe the time evolution of the neutral kaons and their antiparticles, including decay amplitudes, and the related symmetry properties. Limits concerning quantum-mechanical predictions (EPR, coherence of the wave function) or the equivalence principle of general relativity have been obtained. An account of the main features of the experiment and its performances is given here, together with the results achieved.
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| 8. |
- Helmuth, Kristen, 1969-
(författare)
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Dynamics of the interstellar matter in galaxies : isolated barred spiral galaxies : cloud formation processes
- 1998
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The dynamical components of six isolated barred spiral (SB) galaxies are investigated. No evidence is found supporting the hypothesis of a low amount of dark matter being characteristic of SB galaxies. The presence of companion galaxies is found to correlate with an increased statistical spread in the neutral hydrogen (HI) extent. It is concluded that the selection of galaxies with large HI extent may introduce a bias towards tidally interacting systems.The circumnuclear region of the SB galaxy NGC 1365 is studied with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Numerous bright "super star clusters" (SSCs) are detected, surrounding the active nucleus. The bright compact radio source NGC 1365:A is found to coincide spatially with one of the SSCs. We conclude that the source is a "radio supernova". In the [OIII] l 5007 line, the HST resolves individual clouds within the conical outflow from the nucleus, some of which gather in larger agglomerations.An in-depth study of the dynamics of the SB galaxy NGC 1300 is presented. Multi-wavelength data yield an estimate of the velocity field and gravitational potential. Subsequent hydrodynamical simulations are able to reproduce the morphology and kinematics in the bar region using a pure bar perturbing potential. To reproduce the spiral structure a weak spiral component has to be added, indicative of stellar spiral response to the bar and/or self-gravitating gas in the arms. Two separate models, differing mainly with respect to pattern speed and associated resonance structure, are found to reproduce the observations.We study numerically the linear polarization and extinction of light from background stars passing through molecular clouds, illuminating the intricacies of the derivation of the magnetic-field-line pattern in a cloud from the observed polarization pattern: Due to a higher gas-grain collision frequency within the cloud, the polarization caused by the cloud may well be dominated by background/foreground polarization. Furthermore, variations in field-orientation along the line-of-sight may cause notable differences between the observed polarization vectors and the true magnetic-field-line pattern.Small-scale, helical, interstellar filaments are discussed on the basis of optical observations of an "elephant trunk" structure in the Rosette nebula. The observed sinusoidal filaments are suggested to be helices lined up by magnetic fields. We propose that the Rosette elephant trunks form an interconnected system of rope-like structures which are relics from filamentary skeletons of magnetic fields in the primordial cloud.Stochastic mass fractionation of a molecular cloud is simulated numerically. It is found that geometry alone may constrain the resulting mass spectrum of molecular cloud clumps. We demonstrate that further fragmentation of the cloud clumps, under the assumption of a lower limit of the self-similar regime, produces a mass spectrum that has qualitative and quantitative similarities with the empirically determined stellar initial mass function.
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| 9. |
- Näslund, Magnus, 1959-
(författare)
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Deep photometry of galaxies : to see or not to see /Magnus Näslund
- 1998
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4565 and the distant galaxy cluster MS2255.7+2039 have been studied at optical wavelengths with deep photometry using the 2.56 m Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma.By careful data reductions we traced the surface brightness of NGC 4565 to faint levels. The vertical colour profiles display a reddening in the dust lane close to the galactic plane and a hint of a reddening at large galactic heights. The presence of the previously detected photometric thick disk was confirmed. The radial colour profiles show a clear transition from the relatively red inner region to the bluer outer parts of the thin disk. This is to some extent explained by the prominent dust lane that is present in this galaxy, which causes a reddening of the inner regions.We have found, with our deep photometry, that there is no wavelength dependence of the apparent disk bending in NGC 4565. We conclude that the evidence in favour of the proposed magnetic-field hypothesis for the generation of warps is weakened.We have confirmed, by tracing the radial luminosity profiles, the clear disk cutoff found in previous studies. Outside the optical disk a faint optical counterpart to the gaseous warp was found. This is, to our knowledge, the first detection of such a structure. This warp was subsequently observed in greater detail in two wavelength bands (B and V). With the colour information, a crude estimate of the age could be achieved by use of the results from stellar-population synthesis.The results obtained for NGC 4565 fit into a picture where infall of gas, continuously or in lumps, is responsible for the warp, and furthermore makes the outer disk bluer by triggering star formation.Modelling of the light distribution revealed no clear signs of an optical halo component, as that detected in NGC 5907. This could in part be explained by the more complex structure of NGC 4565. A mass model was made from three components; a bulge, a disk, and a dark-matter halo. Although the luminous disk is dominating in the inner regions, the extended rotation curve assures that the dark-matter halo provides the largest mass.The luminosity function of the galaxy cluster MS2255.7+2039, at redshift z = 0.288, was determined. By modelling the galaxy population we converted the isophotal magnitudes to total magnitudes. The luminosity function was found to increase steeply at the faint end (M_R > -19), similar to the luminosity functions of more nearby clusters.
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| 10. |
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