Found 29 talks width keyword abundances
Monday February 8, 2010
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianopolis, Brazil
Abstract
This talk is divided into two related parts. First, we will call your attention to a basic, but often overlooked worrying fact, and presents ways of dealing with it. The fact is: an enormous number of galaxies in surveys like the SDSS have emission lines which are too weak (low S/N) to be classified by usual schemes (ie, diagnostic diagrams). It turns out that most of these are AGN-like, so ignoring them on the basis of low S/N (which most people do) leaves as much as 2/3 of these emission line galaxies unaccounted for. The solution: We present a number of alternative methods to rescue this numerous population from the classification limbo. We find that about 1/3 of these weak-line galaxies are massive, metal rich star-forming systems, while the remaining 2/3 are more like LINERs. In the second part, we revisit the old idea by Binette et al (1994) that post-AGB stars can account for the emission line properties of some galaxies. A "retired galaxy" model is presented and compared to data in the SDSS. We find that about 1/4 of the galaxies classified as LINERs in the SDSS are consistent with this model, where all ionizing radiation is of stellar origin. More dramatically, nearly 100% of weak-line LINERs are perfectly consistent with being just retired galaxies, with no active nucleus. If these ideas are correct, contrary to current practice, relatively few LINERs should be counted as bona fide AGN.
Wednesday December 2, 2009
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain
Abstract
The surface abundance of lithium on the Sun is 140 times less than protosolar, yet the temperature at the base of the surface convective zone is not hot enough to burn Li. A large range of Li abundances in solar type stars of the same age, mass and metallicity is observed, but theoretically difficult to understand. An earlier suggestion that Li is more depleted in stars with planets was weakened by the lack of a proper comparison sample of stars without detected planets. Here we report Li abundances for an unbiased sample of solar-analogue stars with and without detected planets. We find that the planet-bearing stars have less than 1 per cent of the primordial Li abundance, while about 50 per cent of the solar analogues without detected planets have on average 10 times more Li. The presence of planets may increase the amount of mixing and deepen the convective zone to such an extent that the Li can be burned. We also present Be abundances for a sample of stars with and without known planets and discuss the possible relation of these light element with the presence of planetary systems.
Thursday November 12, 2009
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain
Abstract
Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars are a principal source of gas and dust input into the interstellar medium, being an important driver of chemical evolution in galaxies. Rubidium is a key element to distinguish between high mass (~4-8 M⊙) AGB stars and low mass (~1-4 M⊙) AGBs - high mass AGBs are predicted to produce a lot of rubidium as a consequence of the genuine nucleosynthetic processes (the s-process) that characterise these stars. The Magellanic Clouds (MCs) offer a unique opportunity to study the stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis of AGB stars in low metallicity environments where distances (and so the star's luminosity) are known. We present the discovery of extragalactic rubidium-rich AGB stars in the MCs confirming that the more massive AGB stars are generally brighter than the standard adopted luminosity limit (Mbol~-7.1) for AGB's. In addition, massive MC-AGBs are more enriched in Rb than their galactic counterparts, as it is qualitatively predicted by the present theoretical models; the Rb over-abundance increase with increasing stellar mass and with decreasing metallicity. However, present theoretical models are far from matching the extremely high Rb overabundances observed.
Thursday September 3, 2009
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain
Abstract
The Orion star forming region is an ideal laboratory for many astrophysical studies. In this talk I will present a study of the chemical composition of early B-type stars in the Orion OB1 association. The main ideas I will talk about are: (1) The importance of self-consistent spectroscopic techniques for the abundance analysis in this type of stellar objects; (2) the study of the homogeneity of abundances in stars from the various stellar subgroups in OriOB1; (3) the comparison of O stellar abundances with recent Solar determinations; (4) the comparison of stellar abundances with those resulting from the analysis of the emission line spectra of the Orion nebula (M42); (5) the study of the oxygen depletion onto dust grains in the Orion nebula. La región de formación estelar de Orión es una laboratorio perfecto para muchos tipos de estudios en astrofísica. En esta charla me centraré en el estudio de abundancias de las estrellas de tipo B temprano presentes en la asociación OriOB1. Las principales ideas que presentaré son: (1) La importancia de los análisis espectroscópicos detallados en la determinación de abundancias en estrellas de tipo B temprano; (2) el estudio de la homogeneidad química de los distintos subgrupos estelares que componen OriOB1; (3) la comparación de la abundancias estelares de oxígeno con determinaciones recientes en el Sol; (4) La comparación de abundancias estelares con aquellas obtenidas a partir de análisis del espectro de M42, la nebulosa de Orion; (5) el estudio de la depleción de oxígeno en granos de polvo en la nebulosa de Orión.
Thursday July 16, 2009
University of California Observatories, Lick Observatory, USA
Abstract
AEGIS (All-wavelength Extended Groth strip International Survey: aegis.ucolick.org) is on-going survey that opens up new views of the development of galaxies and AGN's at redshifts z about 1. AEGIS is panchromatic like GOODS, with coverage ranging from X-ray to radio, and nearly as deep but more panoramic by covering a 4x larger region. Its backbone is the most Northern (accessible to the GTC) of the four fields of the DEEP2 Keck spectroscopic survey, which provides not only precision redshifts that yield reliable pairs, groups, and environments, but also internal kinematics and chemical abundances. After an overview of the DEEP and AEGIS surveys, I will share some recent highlights, including using a new kinematic measure for distant galaxies to track Tully-Fisher-like evolution; discovering metal poor, massive, luminous galaxies; finding ubiquitous galactic gas outflows among distant star forming galaxies; and exploring the nature of distant x-ray AGNs.
Thursday June 11, 2009
Department of Physics, University of Oxford, UK
Abstract
The SAURON survey has revised our view of early type galaxies discovering that central disks and multiple kinematic components are common; 75% of the sample have extended ionized gas, often misaligned with the stars; half of S0s and 25% of Es have intermediate age populations. There is a tight relationship between the escape velocity and Mg line strength which holds both within and between galaxies raising uncomfortable questions for hierarchical assembly. Many of the properties of ETGs are related to a measure of their specific angular momentum : slow rotators are triaxial, close to spherical, isotropic and frequently exhibit decoupled central kinematics, whereas fast rotators are intrinsically flatter, oblate, have disk-like (anisotropic) kinematics and often have Mg enhanced disks. In general the slow rotators are more massive and have older populations Only half of the elliptical galaxies exhibit slow rotation, the remainder have stellar disks showing that the historic division by morphological class is physically misleading. We suggest that the contrasting physical properties of fast and slow rotators arise through distinct assembly histories with slow rotators forming in gas free, dry mergers and fast rotators retaining a disk component through a dissipative merger.
Wednesday March 18, 2009
Astronomical Institute Utrecht, the Netherlands
Abstract
The colour distribution of globular cluster (GC) systems in the majority of galaxies is bi/multimodal in optical colours. It is widely accepted that multiple populations differing in metallicity exist implying different mechanisms/epochs of star formation, with small age differences still being allowed due to the large current uncertainties. Recently Yoon, Yi and Lee (2006) challenged this interpretation stating that the metallicity bimodality is an artifact of the horizontal branch (HB) morphologies that can transform a unimodal metallicity distribution in a bimodal (optical) colour distribution. The combination of optical and near-infrared (NIR) colours can in principal break the age/metallicity degeneracy inherent in optical colours alone, allowing age estimates for a large sample of GCs possible at the same time. It has been shown that the colours that best represent the true metallicity distributions are the combination of optical and NIR (eg. Puzia et al. 2002, Cantiello & Blakeslee 2007). Therefore studying GCs in the NIR is crucial to reveal their true metallicity distributions. We are currently building a homogeneous optical/NIR data set of GC systems in a large sample of elliptical and lenticular galaxies. I will present the sample, an attempt to estimate overall ages and metallicities for the GC systems and the optical/NIR colour distributions.
Friday October 24, 2008
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain
Abstract
(1) We present SAURON integral-field stellar velocity and velocity dispersion maps for four double-barred early-type galaxies: NGC2859, NGC3941,NGC4725 and NGC5850. The presence of the nuclear bar is not evident from the radial velocity, but it appears to have an important effect in the stellar velocity dispersion maps: we find two sigma-hollows of amplitudes between 10 and 40 km/s at either sides of the center, at the ends of the nuclear bars. We have performed numerical simulations to explain these features. Ruling out other possibilities, we finally conclude that, although the sigma-hollows may be originated by a younger stellar population component with low velocity dispersion, more likely they are an effect of the contrast between two kinematically different components: the high velocity dispersion of the bulge and the ordered motion (low velocity dispersion) of the nuclear bar.(2) We have explored radial color and stellar surface mass density profiles for a sample of 85 late-type galaxies with available deep (down to ~27.0 mag/arcsec2 SDSS g'- and r'-band surface brightness profiles. About 90% of the light profiles have been classified as broken exponentials, exhibiting either truncations (Type II galaxies) or antitruncations (Type III galaxies). Their associated color profiles show significantly different behavior. For the truncated galaxies a radial inside-out bluing reaches a minimum of (g' - r') = 0.47 +/- 0.02 mag at the position of the break radius, this is followed by a reddening outwards. The anti-truncated galaxies reveal a more complex behavior: at the break position (calculated from the light profiles) the color profile reaches a plateau region - preceded with a reddening - with a mean color of about (g' - r') = 0.57 +/- 0.02 mag. Using the color to calculate the stellar surface mass density profiles reveals a surprising result. The breaks, well established in the light profiles of the Type II galaxies, are almost gone, and the mass profiles resemble now those of the pure exponential Type I galaxies. This result suggests that the origin of the break in Type II galaxies are most likely to be a radial change in stellar population, rather than being caused by an actual drop in the distribution of mass. The anti-truncated galaxies on the other hand preserve their shape to some extent in the stellar surface mass density profiles. We find that the stellar surface mass density at the break for truncated (Type II) galaxies is 13.6 +/- 1.6 Msun/pc2 and 9.9 +/- 1.3 Msun/pc2 for the anti-truncated (Type III) ones. We estimate that ~15% of the total stellar mass in case of Type II galaxies and ~9% in case of Type III galaxies are to be found beyond the measured break radii.
Tuesday July 1, 2008
SETI/NASA Ames Research Center, USA
Abstract
The composition of the outer solar system is of particular interest because it holds the key to understanding the chemical evolution of the Solar System. Observations at the edge of the Solar System are difficult because of distance and size limitations. The Spitzer Space Telescope has provided a wealth of data for Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), the small inhabitants of this remote part of the Solar System past the orbit of Neptune, as well as for Centaurs, similar objects to the KBOs but with orbits that come closer to the Sun. Are these observations sufficient to tell us what the composition of these objects is? We briefly introduce spectral modeling, its strengths and limitations. Making use of synthetic surface reflectance spectra we assess the feasibility of determining the composition of Kuiper Belt Objects and Centaurs making use of Spitzer-IRAC data alone.<< First « Newer 1 | 2 | 3 Older »
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