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A. J. S. Hamilton

Publications and source records attributed to A. J. S. Hamilton.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Interpretation of UV Absorption Lines in SN1006

We present a theoretical interpretation of the broad silicon and iron UV absorption features observed with the Hubble Space Telescope in the spectrum of the Schweizer-Middleditch star behind the remnant of Supernova 1006. These features are caused by supernova ejecta in SN1006. We propose that the redshifted SiII2 1260 A feature consists of both unshocked and shocked SiII. The sharp red edge of the line at 7070 km/s indicates the position of the reverse shock, while its Gaussian blue edge reveals shocked Si with a mean velocity of 5050 km/s and a dispersion of 1240 km/s, implying a reverse shock velocity of 2860 km/s. The measured velocities satisfy the energy jump condition for a strong shock, provided that all the shock energy goes into ions, with little or no collisionless heating of electrons. The line profiles of the SiIII and SiIV absorption features indicate that they arise mostly from shocked Si. The total mass of shocked and unshocked Si inferred from the SiII, SiIII and SiIV profiles is M_Si = 0.25 \pm 0.01 Msun on the assumption of spherical symmetry. Unshocked Si extends upwards from 5600 km/s. Although there appears to be some Fe mixed with the Si at lower velocities < 7070 km/s, the absence of FeII absorption with the same profile as the shocked SiII suggests little Fe mixed with Si at higher (before being shocked) velocities. The column density of shocked SiII is close to that expected for SiII undergoing steady state collisional ionization behind the reverse shock, provided that the electron to SiII ratio is low, from which we infer that most of the shocked Si is likely to be of a fairly high degree of purity, unmixed with other elements. We propose that the ambient interstellar density on the far side of SN1006 is anomalously low compared to the density around the rest of the remnant. This

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Nonlinear Cosmological Power Spectra in Real and Redshift--Space

We present an expression for the nonlinear evolution of the cosmological power spectrum based on following Lagrangian trajectories. This is simplified using the Zel'dovich approximation to trace particle displacements, assuming Gaussian initial conditions. The model is found to exhibit the transfer of power from large to small scales expected in self- gravitating fields. We have extended this analysis into redshift-space and found a solution for the nonlinear, anisotropic redshift-space power spectrum in the limit of plane--parallel redshift distortions. The quadrupole-to- monopole ratio is calculated for the case of power-law initial spectra. We find that the shape of this ratio depends on the shape of the initial spectrum, but when scaled to linear theory depends only weakly on the redshift-space distortion parameter, $β$. The point of zero-crossing of the quadrupole, $k_0$, is found to obey a scaling relation. This model is found to be in agreement with $N$-body simulations on scales down to the zero-crossing of the quadrupole, although the wavenumber at zero-crossing is underestimated. These results are applied to the quadrupole--monopole ratio found in the merged QDOT+1.2 Jy IRAS redshift survey. We have estimated that the distortion parameter is constrained to be $β>0.5$ at the $95 \%$ level. The local primordial spectral slope is not well constrained, but analysis suggests $n \approx -2$ in the translinear regime. The zero-crossing scale of the quadrupole is $k_0=0.5 \pm 0.1 h/Mpc$ and from this we infer the amplitude of clustering is $σ_8=0.7 \pm 0.05$. We suggest that the success of this model is due to nonlinear redshift--space effects arising from infall onto caustics and is not dominated by virialised cluster cores.

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Lagrangian Evolution of the Weyl Tensor

We derive the evolution equations for the electric and magnetic parts of the Weyl tensor for cold dust from both general relativity and Newtonian gravity. In a locally inertial frame at rest in the fluid frame, the Newtonian equations agree with those of general relativity. We give explicit expressions for the electric and magnetic parts of the Weyl tensor in the Newtonian limit. In general, the magnetic part does not vanish, implying that the Lagrangian evolution of the fluid is not purely local.

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