分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: Habitability of an exoplanet is believed to be profoundly affected by activities of the host stars, although the related coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are still rarely detected in solar-like and late-type stars. We here report an observational study on flares of two M-dwarfs triggered by the high-cadence survey performed by the Ground Wide-angle Camera system. In both events, the fast, time-resolved spectroscopy enables us to identify symmetric broad H$\alpha$ emission with not only a nearly zero bulk velocity, but also a large projected maximum velocity as high as $\sim700-800\ \mathrm{km\ s^{-1}}$. This broadening could be resulted from either Stark (pressure) effect or a flaring-associated CME at stellar limb. In the context of the CME scenario, the CME mass is estimated to be $\sim4\times10^{18}$ g and $2\times10^{19}$ g. In addition, our spectral analysis reveals a temporal variation of the line center of the narrow H$\alpha$ emission in both events. The variation amplitudes are at tens of $\mathrm{km\ s^{-1}}$, which could be ascribed to the chromospheric evaporation in one event, and to a binary scenario in the other one. With the total flaring energy determined from our photometric monitor, we show a reinforced trend in which larger the flaring energy, higher the CME mass is.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: We describe a search for gravitational waves from compact binaries with at least one component with mass 0.2 $M_\odot$ -- $1.0 M_\odot$ and mass ratio $q \geq 0.1$ in Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo data collected between 1 November 2019, 15:00 UTC and 27 March 2020, 17:00 UTC. No signals were detected. The most significant candidate has a false alarm rate of 0.2 $\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$. We estimate the sensitivity of our search over the entirety of Advanced LIGO's and Advanced Virgo's third observing run, and present the most stringent limits to date on the merger rate of binary black holes with at least one subsolar-mass component. We use the upper limits to constrain two fiducial scenarios that could produce subsolar-mass black holes: primordial black holes (PBH) and a model of dissipative dark matter. The PBH model uses recent prescriptions for the merger rate of PBH binaries that include a rate suppression factor to effectively account for PBH early binary disruptions. If the PBHs are monochromatically distributed, we can exclude a dark matter fraction in PBHs $f_\mathrm{PBH} \gtrsim 0.6$ (at 90% confidence) in the probed subsolar-mass range. However, if we allow for broad PBH mass distributions we are unable to rule out $f_\mathrm{PBH} = 1$. For the dissipative model, where the dark matter has chemistry that allows a small fraction to cool and collapse into black holes, we find an upper bound $f_{\mathrm{DBH}} < 10^{-5}$ on the fraction of atomic dark matter collapsed into black holes.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: We present WALLABY pilot data release 1, the first public release of HI pilot survey data from the Wide-field ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind Survey (WALLABY) on the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder. Phase 1 of the WALLABY pilot survey targeted three $60~{\rm deg}^2$ regions on the sky in the direction of the Hydra and Norma galaxy clusters and the NGC 4636 galaxy group, covering the redshift range of z < 0.08. The source catalogue, images and spectra of nearly 600 extragalactic HI detections and kinematic models for 109 spatially resolved galaxies are available. As the pilot survey targeted regions containing nearby group and cluster environments, the median redshift of the sample of z ~ 0.014 is relatively low compared to the full WALLABY survey. The median galaxy HI mass is $2.3 \times 10^{9}~M_{\odot}$. The target noise level of 1.6 mJy per $30''$ beam and 18.5 kHz channel translates into a $5\sigma$ HI mass sensitivity for point sources of about $5.2 \times 10^{8} \, (D_{\rm L} / \mathrm{100~Mpc})^{2} \, M_{\odot}$ across 50 spectral channels (~200 km/s) and a $5\sigma$ HI column density sensitivity of about $8.6 \times 10^{19} \, (1 + z)^{4}~\mathrm{cm}^{-2}$ across 5 channels (~20 km/s) for emission filling the $30''$ beam. As expected for a pilot survey, several technical issues and artefacts are still affecting the data quality. Most notably, there are systematic flux errors of up to several 10% caused by uncertainties about the exact size and shape of each of the primary beams as well as the presence of sidelobes due to the finite deconvolution threshold. In addition, artefacts such as residual continuum emission and bandpass ripples have affected some of the data. The pilot survey has been highly successful in uncovering such technical problems, most of which are expected to be addressed and rectified before the start of the full WALLABY survey.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: We present EUV solar observations showing evidence for omnipresent jetting activity driven by small-scale magnetic reconnection at the base of the solar corona. We argue that the physical mechanism that heats and drives the solar wind at its source is ubiquitous magnetic reconnection in the form of small-scale jetting activity (i.e., a.k.a. jetlets). This jetting activity, like the solar wind and the heating of the coronal plasma, are ubiquitous regardless of the solar cycle phase. Each event arises from small-scale reconnection of opposite polarity magnetic fields producing a short-lived jet of hot plasma and Alfv\'en waves into the corona. The discrete nature of these jetlet events leads to intermittent outflows from the corona, which homogenize as they propagate away from the Sun and form the solar wind. This discovery establishes the importance of small-scale magnetic reconnection in solar and stellar atmospheres in understanding ubiquitous phenomena such as coronal heating and solar wind acceleration. Based on previous analyses linking the switchbacks to the magnetic network, we also argue that these new observations might provide the link between the magnetic activity at the base of the corona and the switchback solar wind phenomenon. These new observations need to be put in the bigger picture of the role of magnetic reconnection and the diverse form of jetting in the solar atmosphere.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: The flare-associated stellar coronal mass ejection (CME) in solar-like and late type stars is quite essential for the habitability of an exoplanet. In this paper, we report detection of flare-associated CMEs in two M-dwarfs, thanks to the high cadence survey carried out by the Ground Wide-angle Camera system and the fast photometric and spectroscopic follow-ups. The flare energy in $R-$band is determined to be $1.6\times10^{35}\ \mathrm{erg}$ and $8.1\times10^{33}\ \mathrm{erg}$ based on the modeling of their light curves. The time-resolved spectroscopyic observations start at about 20 and 40 minutes after the trigger in both cases. The large projected maximum velocity of $\sim500-700\ \mathrm{km\ s^{-1}}$ suggests that the high velocity wing of their H$\alpha$ emission lines are most likely resulted from a CME event in both stars, after excluding the possibility of chromospheric evaporation and coronal rain. The masses of the CMEs are estimated to be $1.5-4.5\times10^{19}\mathrm{g}$ and $7.1\times10^{18}\ \mathrm{g}$.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: Our aim is to measure the interstellar 14N/15N ratio across the Galaxy, to establish a standard data set on interstellar ammonia isotope ratios, and to provide new constraints on the Galactic chemical evolution. The (J, K ) = (1, 1), (2, 2), and (3, 3) lines of 14NH3 and 15NH3 were observed with the Shanghai Tianma 65 m radio telescope (TMRT) and the Effelsberg 100 m telescope toward a large sample of 210 sources. One hundred fourty-one of these sources were detected by the TMRT in 14NH3. Eight of them were also detected in 15NH3. For 10 of the 36 sources with strong NH3 emission, the Effelsberg 100 m telescope successfully detected their 15NH3(1, 1) lines, including 3 sources (G081.7522, W51D, and Orion-KL) with detections by the TMRT telescope. Thus, a total of 15 sources are detected in both the 14NH3 and 15NH3 lines. Line and physical parameters for these 15 sources are derived, including optical depths, rotation and kinetic temperatures, and total column densities. 14N/15N isotope ratios were determined from the 14NH3/15NH3 abundance ratios. The isotope ratios obtained from both telescopes agree for a given source within the uncertainties, and no dependence on heliocentric distance and kinetic temperature is seen. 14N/15N ratios tend to increase with galactocentric distance, confirming a radial nitrogen isotope gradient. This is consistent with results from recent Galactic chemical model calculations, including the impact of superasymptotic giant branch stars and novae.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: The widely accepted active galactic nucleus (AGN) paradigm has been recently challenged by the discovery of the so-called ``changing-look'' (CL) phenomenon characterized by spectral-type transitions. By comparing the SDSS-V and SDSS DR16 spectroscopic datasets, here we report the identification of 14 new CL-AGNs (redshift $z<0.5$) exhibiting spectral-type changes on a timescale of $\sim 10$yr. Follow-up spectroscopy was conducted with the Lick Shane 3m and Keck 10m telescopes for three of the objects. Detailed analysis of these spectra enables us to arrive at the following two main results. (1) By compiling a sample of 65 CL-AGNs with good measurements, we reinforce the previous claim that CL-AGNs tend to be biased against both a high Eddington ratio ($\lesssim 0.1$) and a high bolometric luminosity ($\lesssim 10^{46}\,\mathrm{erg\,s^{-1}}$). This bias suggests that the disk-wind broad-line-region model is a plausible explanation of the CL phenomenon. (2) The host galaxies of CL-AGNs tend to be dominated by intermediate stellar populations, which motivates us to propose that CL-AGNs are probably particular AGNs at a special evolutionary stage, such as a transition stage from ``feast'' to ``famine'' fueling of the supermassive black hole. In addition, with our spectra, we identify SDSS J025951.22+003744.2 as a new repeat CL narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy with a rapid ``turn-on'' timescale of $\sim 1$yr.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: We present the Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind surveY (WALLABY) Pilot Phase I HI kinematic models. This first data release consists of HI observations of three fields in the direction of the Hydra and Norma clusters, and the NGC 4636 galaxy group. In this paper, we describe how we generate and publicly release flat-disk tilted-ring kinematic models for 109/592 unique HI detections in these fields. The modelling method adopted here - which we call the WALLABY Kinematic Analysis Proto-Pipeline (WKAPP) and for which the corresponding scripts are also publicly available - consists of combining results from the homogeneous application of the FAT and 3DBAROLO algorithms to the subset of 209 detections with sufficient resolution and S/N in order to generate optimized model parameters and uncertainties. The 109 models presented here tend to be gas rich detections resolved by at least 3-4 synthesized beams across their major axes, but there is no obvious environmental bias in the modelling. The data release described here is the first step towards the derivation of similar products for thousands of spatially-resolved WALLABY detections via a dedicated kinematic pipeline. Such a large publicly available and homogeneously analyzed dataset will be a powerful legacy product that that will enable a wide range of scientific studies.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: Multi-wavelength simultaneous observations are essential to the constraints on the origin of fast radio bursts (FRBs). However, it is a significant observational challenge due to the nature of FRBs as transients with a radio millisecond duration, which occur randomly in the sky regardless of time and position. Here, we report the search for short-time fast optical bursts in the GWAC archived data associated with FRB 20181130B, which were detected by the Five Hundred Meter Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) and recently reported. No new credible sources were detected in all single GWAC images with an exposure time of 10 s, including image with coverage of the expected arrival time in optical wavelength by taking the high dispersion measurements into account. Our results provide a limiting magnitude of 15.43$\pm0.04$ mag in R band, corresponding to a flux density of 1.66 Jy or 8.35 mag in AB system by assuming that the duration of the optical band is similar to that of the radio band of about 10 ms. This limiting magnitude makes the spectral index of $\alpha<0.367$ from optical to radio wavelength. The possible existence of longer duration optical emission was also investigated with an upper limits of 0.33 Jy (10.10 mag), 1.74 mJy (15.80 mag) and 0.16 mJy (18.39 mag) for the duration of 50 ms, 10 s and 6060 s, respectively. This undetected scenario could be partially attributed to the shallow detection capability, as well as the high inferred distance of FRB 20181130B and the low fluence in radio wavelength. The future detectability of optical flashes associated with nearby and bright FRBs are also discussed in this paper.
分类: 物理学 >> 核物理学 提交时间: 2016-09-14
摘要: By regularly monitoring the most stable millisecond pulsars over many years, pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are positioned to detect and study correlations in the timing behaviour of those pulsars. Gravitational waves (GWs) from supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) are an exciting potentially detectable source of such correlations. We describe a straight-forward technique by which a PTA can be "phased-up" to form time series of the two polarisation modes of GWs coming from a particular direction of the sky. Our technique requires no assumptions regarding the time-domain behaviour of a GW signal. This method has already been used to place stringent bounds on GWs from individual SMBHBs in circular orbits. Here, we describe the methodology and demonstrate the versatility of the technique in searches for a wide variety of GW signals including bursts with unmodeled waveforms. Using the first six years of data from the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array, we conduct an all-sky search for a detectable excess of GW power from any direction. For the lines of sight to several nearby massive galaxy clusters, we carry out a more detailed search for GW bursts with memory, which are distinct signatures of SMBHB mergers. In all cases, we find that the data are consistent with noise.