Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Blakesley Burkhart

Publications and source records attributed to Blakesley Burkhart.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

CARMA-NRO Orion Survey: unbiased survey of dense cores and core mass functions in Orion A

The mass distribution of dense cores is a potential key to understand the process of star formation. Applying dendrogram analysis to the CARMA-NRO Orion C$^{18}$O ($J$=1--0) data, we identify 2342 dense cores, about 22 \% of which have virial ratios smaller than 2, and can be classified as gravitationally bound cores. The derived core mass function (CMF) for bound starless cores which are not associate with protostars has a slope similar to Salpeter's initial mass function (IMF) for the mass range above 1 $M_\odot$, with a peak at $\sim$ 0.1 $M_\odot$. We divide the cloud into four parts based on the declination, OMC-1/2/3, OMC-4/5, L1641N/V380 Ori, and L1641C, and derive the CMFs in these regions. We find that starless cores with masses greater than 10 $M_\odot$ exist only in OMC-1/2/3, whereas the CMFs in OMC-4/5, L1641N, and L1641C are truncated at around 5--10 $M_\odot$. From the number ratio of bound starless cores and Class II objects in each subregion, the lifetime of bound starless cores is estimated to be 5--30 free-fall times, consistent with previous studies for other regions. In addition, we discuss core growth by mass accretion from the surrounding cloud material to explain the coincidence of peak masses between IMFs and CMFs. The mass accretion rate required for doubling the core mass within a core lifetime is larger than that of Bondi-Hoyle accretion by a factor of order 2. This implies that more dynamical accretion processes are required to grow cores.

astro-ph.GA↗

Spiral Arms are Metal Freeways: Azimuthal Gas-Phase Metallicity Variations in Simulated Cosmological Zoom-in Flocculent Disks

We examine the azimuthal variations in gas-phase metallicity profiles in simulated Milky Way mass disk galaxies from the Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE-2) cosmological zoom-in simulation suite, which includes a sub-grid turbulent metal mixing model. We produce spatially resolved maps of the disks at $z \approx 0$ with pixel sizes ranging from 250 to 750~pc, analogous to modern integral field unit (IFU) galaxy surveys, mapping the gas-phase metallicities in both the cold & dense gas and the ionized gas correlated with HII regions. We report that the spiral arms alternate in a pattern of metal rich and metal poor relative to the median metallicity on the order of $\lesssim 0.1$~dex, appearing generally in this sample of flocculent spirals. The pattern persists even in a simulation with different strengths of metal mixing, indicating that the pattern emerges from physics above the sub-grid scale. Local enrichment does not appear to be the dominant source of the azimuthal metallicity variations at $z \approx 0$: there is no correlation with local star formation on these spatial scales. Rather, the arms are moving inwards and outwards relative to each other, carrying their local metallicity gradients with them radially before mixing into the larger-scale interstellar medium. We propose that the arms act as freeways channeling relatively metal poor gas radially inwards, and relatively enriched gas radially outwards.

astro-ph.GA↗

The low redshift Lyman-$α$ Forest as a constraint for models of AGN feedback

We study the sensitivity of the $z=0.1$ Lyman-$α$ Forest observables, such as the column density distribution function (CDD), flux PDF, flux power spectrum, and line width distribution, to sub-grid models of active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback using the Illustris and IllustrisTNG (TNG) cosmological simulations. The two simulations share an identical Ultraviolet Background (UVB) prescription and similar cosmological parameters, but TNG features an entirely reworked AGN feedback model. Due to changes in the AGN radio mode model, the original Illustris simulations have a factor of 2-3 fewer Lyman-$α$ absorbers than TNG at column densities $N_{\rm HI}< 10^{15.5}$ cm$^{-2}$. We compare the simulated forest statistics to UV data from the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) and find that neither simulation can reproduce the slope of the absorber distribution. Both Illustris and TNG also produce significantly smaller line width distributions than observed in the COS data. We show that TNG is in much better agreement with the observed $z=0.1$ flux power spectrum than Illustris. We explore which statistics can disentangle the effects of AGN feedback from alternative UVB models by rescaling the UVB of Illustris to produce a CDD match to TNG. While this UVB rescaling is degenerate with the effect of AGN feedback on the CDD, the amplitude and shape of the flux PDF and 1D flux power spectrum change in a way distinct from a scaling of the UVB. Our study suggests that the $z=0.1$ Lyman-$α$ forest observables can be used as a diagnostic of AGN feedback models.

astro-ph.GA↗

On the impact of runaway stars on dwarf galaxies with resolved interstellar medium

About ten to 20 percent of massive stars may be kicked out of their natal clusters before exploding as supernovae. These "runaway stars" might play a crucial role in driving galactic outflows and enriching the circumgalactic medium with metals. To study this effect, we carry out high resolution dwarf galaxy simulations that include velocity kicks to massive O/B stars above 8 M$_{\odot}$. We consider two scenarios, one that adopts a power law velocity distribution for kick velocities, resulting in more stars with high velocity kicks, and a more moderate scenario with a Maxwellian velocity distribution. We explicitly resolve the multi-phase interstellar medium (ISM), and include non-equilibrium cooling and chemistry channels. We adopt a resolved feedback scheme (\textsc{Griffin}) where we sample individual massive stars from an IMF. We follow the lifetime of these stars and add their photoionising radiation, their UV radiation field, and their photoelectric heating rate to the surrounding gas. At the end of their lifetime we explode the massive population as core collapse supernovae (CCSN). In the simulations with runaway massive stars, we add additional (natal) velocity kicks that mimic two and three body interactions that cannot be fully resolved in our simulations. We find that the inclusion of runaway or walkaway star scenarios has an impact on mass, metal, momentum and energy outflows as well as the respective loading factors. We find an increase in mass, metal and momentum loading by a factor of 2-3, whereas we find an increase in the mean energy loading by a factor of 5 in the runaway case and a factor of 3 in the walkaway case. However, we find that the peak values are increased by a factor of up to 10, independent of the adopted velocity kick model. We conclude that the inclusion of runaway stars could have a significant impact on the global outflow properties of dwarf galaxies.

astro-ph.GA↗

Bursting Bubbles: Feedback from Clustered SNe and the Trade-off Between Turbulence and Outflows

We present an analytic model for clustered supernovae (SNe) feedback in galaxy disks, incorporating the dynamical evolution of superbubbles formed from spatially overlapping SNe remnants. We propose two realistic outcomes for the evolution of superbubbles in galactic disks: (1) the expansion velocity of the shock front falls below the turbulent velocity dispersion of the ISM in the galaxy disk, whereupon the superbubble stalls and fragments, depositing its momentum entirely within the galaxy disk, or (2) the superbubble grows in size to reach the gas scale height, breaking out of the galaxy disk and driving galactic outflows/fountains. In either case, we find that superbubble breakup/breakout almost always occurs before the last Type-II SN ($\lesssim$40 Myr) in the recently formed star cluster, assuming a standard high-end IMF slope, and scalings between stellar lifetimes and masses. The threshold between these two cases implies a break in the effective strength of feedback in driving turbulence within galaxies, and a resulting change in the scalings of, e.g., star formation rates with gas surface density (the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation) and the star formation efficiency in galaxy disks.

astro-ph.GA↗

Spatially Resolved Gas-phase Metallicity in FIRE-2 Dwarfs: Late-Time Evolution of Metallicity Relations in Simulations with Feedback and Mergers

We present an analysis of spatially resolved gas-phase metallicity relations in five dwarf galaxies ($M_{halo} \approx 10^{11} M_\odot$, $M_\star \approx 10^{8.8}-10^{9.6} M_\odot$) from the FIRE-2 (Feedback in Realistic Environments) cosmological zoom-in simulation suite, which include an explicit model for sub-grid turbulent mixing of metals in gas, near $z\approx 0$, over a period of 1.4 Gyrs, and compare our findings with observations. While these dwarf galaxies represent a diverse sample, we find that all simulated galaxies match the observed mass-metallicity (MZR) and mass-metallicity gradient (MZGR) relations. We note that in all five galaxies, the metallicities are effectively identical between phases of the interstellar medium (ISM), with 95$\%$ being within $\pm$0.1 dex between various ISM phases, including the cold and dense gas ($T < 500$ K and $n_{\rm H} > 1$ cm$^{-3}$), ionized gas (near the H$α$ $T \approx 10^4$ K ridge-line), and nebular regions (ionized gas where the 10 Myr-averaged star formation rate is non-zero). We find that most of the scatter in relative metallicity between cold and dense gas and ionized gas/nebular regions can be attributed to either local starburst events or metal-poor inflows. We also note the presence of a major merger in one of our galaxies, m11e, with a substantial impact on the metallicity distribution in the spatially resolved map, showing two strong metallicity peaks and triggering a starburst in the main galaxy.

astro-ph.GA↗

Gas Accretion Can Drive Turbulence in Galaxies

The driving of turbulence in galaxies is deeply connected with the physics of feedback, star formation, outflows, accretion, and radial transport in disks. The velocity dispersion of gas in galaxies therefore offers a promising observational window into these processes. However, the relative importance of each of these mechanisms remains controversial. In this work we revisit the possibility that turbulence on galactic scales is driven by the direct impact of accreting gaseous material on the disk. We measure this effect in a disk-like star-forming galaxy in IllustrisTNG, using the high-resolution cosmological magnetohydrodynamical simulation TNG50. We employ Lagrangian tracer particles with a high time cadence of only a few Myr to identify accretion and other events, such as star formation, outflows, and movement within the disk. The energies of particles as they arrive in the disk are measured by stacking the events in bins of time before and after the event. The average effect of each event is measured on the galaxy by fitting explicit models for the kinetic and turbulent energies as a function of time in the disk. These measurements are corroborated by measuring the cross-correlation of the turbulent energy in the different annuli of the disk with other time series, and searching for signals of causality, i.e. asymmetries in the cross-correlation across zero time lag. We find that accretion contributes to the large-scale turbulent kinetic energy even if it is not the dominant driver of turbulence in this $\sim 5 \times 10^{9} M_\odot$ stellar mass galaxy. Extrapolating this finding to a range of galaxy masses, we find that there are regimes where energy from direct accretion may dominate the turbulent energy budget, particularly in disk outskirts, galaxies less massive than the Milky Way, and at redshift $\sim 2$.

astro-ph.GA↗

Studying Interstellar Turbulence Driving Scales using the Bispectrum

We demonstrate the utility of the bispectrum, the Fourier three-point correlation function, for studying driving scales of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence in the interstellar medium. We calculate the bispectrum by implementing a parallelized Monte Carlo direct measurement method, which we have made publicly available. In previous works, the bispectrum has been used to identify non-linear scaling correlations and break degeneracies in lower-order statistics like the power spectrum. We find that the bicoherence, a related statistic which measures phase coupling of Fourier modes, identifies turbulence driving scales using density and column density fields. In particular, it shows that the driving scale is phase-coupled to scales present in the turbulent cascade. We also find that the presence of an ordered magnetic field at large-scales enhances phase coupling as compared to a pure hydrodynamic case. We therefore suggest the bispectrum and bicoherence as tools for searching for non-locality for wave interactions in MHD turbulence.

astro-ph.GA↗

Bursting Bubbles: Clustered Supernova Feedback in Local and High-redshift Galaxies

We compare an analytic model for the evolution of supernova-driven superbubbles with observations of local and high-redshift galaxies, and the properties of intact HI shells in local star-forming galaxies. Our model correctly predicts the presence of superwinds in local star-forming galaxies (e.g., NGC 253) and the ubiquity of outflows near $z \sim 2$. We find that high-redshift galaxies may `capture' 20-50\% of their feedback momentum in the dense ISM (with the remainder escaping into the nearby CGM), whereas local galaxies may contain $\lesssim$10\% of their feedback momentum from the central starburst. Using azimuthally averaged galaxy properties, we predict that most superbubbles stall and fragment \emph{within} the ISM, and that this occurs at, or near, the gas scale height. We find a consistent interpretation in the observed HI bubble radii and velocities, and predict that most will fragment within the ISM, and that those able to break-out originate from short dynamical time regions (where the dynamical time is shorter than feedback timescales). Additionally, we demonstrate that models with constant star cluster formation efficiency per Toomre mass are inconsistent with the occurrence of outflows from high-$z$ starbursts and local circumnuclear regions.

astro-ph.GA↗

The CAMELS project: public data release

The Cosmology and Astrophysics with MachinE Learning Simulations (CAMELS) project was developed to combine cosmology with astrophysics through thousands of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and machine learning. CAMELS contains 4,233 cosmological simulations, 2,049 N-body and 2,184 state-of-the-art hydrodynamic simulations that sample a vast volume in parameter space. In this paper we present the CAMELS public data release, describing the characteristics of the CAMELS simulations and a variety of data products generated from them, including halo, subhalo, galaxy, and void catalogues, power spectra, bispectra, Lyman-$α$ spectra, probability distribution functions, halo radial profiles, and X-rays photon lists. We also release over one thousand catalogues that contain billions of galaxies from CAMELS-SAM: a large collection of N-body simulations that have been combined with the Santa Cruz Semi-Analytic Model. We release all the data, comprising more than 350 terabytes and containing 143,922 snapshots, millions of halos, galaxies and summary statistics. We provide further technical details on how to access, download, read, and process the data at \url{https://camels.readthedocs.io}.

astro-ph.CO↗

SIGAME v3: Gas Fragmentation in Post-processing of Cosmological Simulations for More Accurate Infrared Line Emission Modeling

We present an update to the framework called SImulator of GAlaxy Millimeter/submillimeter Emission (SÍGAME). SÍGAME derives line emission in the far-infrared (FIR) for galaxies in particle-based cosmological hydrodynamics simulations by applying radiative transfer and physics recipes via a post-processing step after completion of the simulation. In this version, a new technique is developed to model higher gas densities by parametrizing the gas density probability distribution function (PDF) in higher resolution simulations for use as a look-up table, allowing for more adaptive PDFs than in previous work. SÍGAME v3 is tested on redshift z = 0 galaxies drawn from the SIMBA cosmological simulation for eight FIR emission lines tracing vastly different interstellar medium phases. Including dust radiative transfer with SKIRT and high resolution photo-ionization models with Cloudy, this new method is able to self-consistently reproduce observed relations between line luminosity and star formation rate in all cases, except for [NII]122, [NII]205 and [OI]63, the luminosities of which are overestimated by median factors of 1.6, 1.2 and 1.2 dex, respectively. We attribute the remaining disagreement with observations to the lack of precise attenuation of the interstellar light on subgrid scales (<200 pc).

astro-ph.GA↗

Winds in Star Clusters Drive Kolmogorov Turbulence

Intermediate and massive stars drive fast and powerful isotropic winds that interact with the winds of nearby stars in star clusters and the surrounding interstellar medium (ISM). Wind-ISM collisions generate astrospheres around these stars that contain hot $T\sim 10^7$ K gas that adiabatically expands. As individual bubbles expand and collide they become unstable, potentially driving turbulence in star clusters. In this paper we use hydrodynamic simulations to model a densely populated young star cluster within a homogeneous cloud to study stellar wind collisions with the surrounding ISM. We model a mass-segregated cluster of 20 B-type young main sequence stars with masses ranging from 3--17 $M_{\odot}$. We evolve the winds for $\sim$11 kyrs and show that wind-ISM collisions and over-lapping wind-blown bubbles around B-stars mixes the hot gas and ISM material generating Kolmogorov-like turbulence on small scales early in its evolution. We discuss how turbulence driven by stellar winds may impact the subsequent generation of star formation in the cluster

astro-ph.GA↗

The Simons Observatory: Galactic Science Goals and Forecasts

Observing in six frequency bands from 27 to 280 GHz over a large sky area, the Simons Observatory (SO) is poised to address many questions in Galactic astrophysics in addition to its principal cosmological goals. In this work, we provide quantitative forecasts on astrophysical parameters of interest for a range of Galactic science cases. We find that SO can: constrain the frequency spectrum of polarized dust emission at a level of $Δβ_d \lesssim 0.01$ and thus test models of dust composition that predict that $β_d$ in polarization differs from that measured in total intensity; measure the correlation coefficient between polarized dust and synchrotron emission with a factor of two greater precision than current constraints; exclude the non-existence of exo-Oort clouds at roughly 2.9$σ$ if the true fraction is similar to the detection rate of giant planets; map more than 850 molecular clouds with at least 50 independent polarization measurements at 1 pc resolution; detect or place upper limits on the polarization fractions of CO(2-1) emission and anomalous microwave emission at the 0.1% level in select regions; and measure the correlation coefficient between optical starlight polarization and microwave polarized dust emission in $1^\circ$ patches for all lines of sight with $N_{\rm H} \gtrsim 2\times10^{20}$ cm$^{-2}$. The goals and forecasts outlined here provide a roadmap for other microwave polarization experiments to expand their scientific scope via Milky Way astrophysics.

astro-ph.GA↗

First extragalactic measurement of the turbulence driving parameter: ALMA observations of the star-forming region N159E in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Studying the driving modes of turbulence is important for characterizing the impact of turbulence in various astrophysical environments. The driving mode of turbulence is parameterized by $b$, which relates the width of the gas density PDF to the turbulent Mach number; $b\approx 1/3$, $1$, and $0.4$ correspond to driving that is solenoidal, compressive, and a natural mixture of the two, respectively. In this work, we use high-resolution (sub-pc) ALMA $^{12}$CO ($J$ = $2-1$), $^{13}$CO ($J$ = $2-1$), and C$^{18}$O ($J$ = $2-1$) observations of filamentary molecular clouds in the star-forming region N159E (the Papillon Nebula) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) to provide the first measurement of turbulence driving parameter in an extragalactic region. We use a non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) analysis of the CO isotopologues to construct a gas density PDF, which we find to be largely log-normal in shape with some intermittent features indicating deviations from lognormality. We find that the width of the log-normal part of the density PDF is comparable to the supersonic turbulent Mach number, resulting in $b \approx 0.9$. This implies that the driving mode of turbulence in N159E is primarily compressive. We speculate that the compressive turbulence could have been powered by gravo-turbulent fragmentation of the molecular gas, or due to compression powered by H I flows that led to the development of the molecular filaments observed by ALMA in the region. Our analysis can be easily applied to study the nature of turbulence driving in resolved star-forming regions in the local as well as the high-redshift Universe.

astro-ph.GA↗

The Effects of Magnetic Fields and Outflow Feedback on the Shape and Evolution of the Density PDF in Turbulent Star-Forming Clouds

Using a suite of 3D hydrodynamical simulations of star-forming molecular clouds, we investigate how the density probability distribution function (PDF) changes when including gravity, turbulence, magnetic fields, and protostellar outflows and heating. We find that the density PDF is not lognormal when outflows and self-gravity are considered. Self-gravity produces a power-law tail at high densities and the inclusion of stellar feedback from protostellar outflows and heating produces significant time-varying deviations from a lognormal distribution at the low densities. The simulation with outflows has an excess of diffuse gas compared to the simulations without outflows, exhibits increased average sonic Mach number, and maintains a slower star formation rate over the entire duration of the run. We study the mass transfer between the diffuse gas in the lognormal peak of the PDF, the collapsing gas in the power-law tail, and the stars. We find that the mass fraction in the power-law tail is constant, such that the stars form out of the power-law gas at the same rate at which the gas from the lognormal part replenishes the power-law. We find that turbulence does not provide significant support in the dense gas associated with the power-law tail. When including outflows and magnetic fields in addition to driven turbulence, the rate of mass transfer from the lognormal to the power-law, and then to the stars, becomes significantly slower, resulting in slower star formation rates and longer depletion times.

astro-ph.GA↗

The Supersonic Project: SIGOs, a Proposed Progenitor to Globular Clusters, and their Connections to Gravitational Wave Anisotropies

Supersonically Induced Gas Objects (SIGOs), are structures with little to no dark matter component predicted to exist in regions of the Universe with large relative velocities between baryons and dark matter at the time of recombination. They have been suggested to be the progenitors of present-day globular clusters. Using simulations, SIGOs have been studied on small scales (around 2 Mpc), where these relative velocities are coherent. However, it is challenging to study SIGOs using simulations on large scales due to the varying relative velocities at scales larger than a few Mpc. Here, we study SIGO abundances semi-analytically: using perturbation theory, we predict the number density of SIGOs analytically, and compare these results to small-box numerical simulations. We use the agreement between the numerical and analytic calculations to extrapolate the large-scale variation of SIGO abundances over different stream velocities. As a result, we predict similar large-scale variations of objects with high gas densities before reionization that could possibly be observed by JWST. If indeed SIGOs are progenitors of globular clusters, then we expect a similar variation of globular cluster abundances over large scales. Significantly, we find that the expected number density of SIGOs is consistent with observed globular cluster number densities. As a proof-of-concept, and because globular clusters were proposed to be natural formation sites for gravitational wave sources from binary black hole (BBH) mergers, we show that SIGOs should imprint an anisotropy on the gravitational wave signal on the sky, consistent with SIGOs' distribution.

astro-ph.GA↗

Efficient early stellar feedback can suppress galactic outflows by reducing supernova clustering

We present a novel set of stellar feedback models, implemented in the moving-mesh code Arepo, designed for galaxy formation simulations with near-parsec (or better) resolution. These include explicit sampling of stars from the IMF, allowing feedback to be linked to individual massive stars, an improved method for the modelling of H II regions, photoelectric heating from a spatially varying FUV field and supernova feedback. We perform a suite of 32 simulations of isolated $M_\mathrm{vir} = 10^{10}\,\mathrm{M_\odot}$ galaxies with a baryonic mass resolution of $20\,\mathrm{M_\odot}$ in order to study the non-linear coupling of the different feedback channels. We find that photoionization and supernova feedback are both independently capable of regulating star formation to the same level, while photoelectric heating is inefficient. Photoionization produces a considerably smoother star formation history than supernovae. When all feedback channels are combined, the additional suppression of star formation rates is minor. However, outflow rates are substantially reduced relative to the supernova only simulations. We show that this is directly caused by a suppression of supernova clustering by the photoionization feedback, disrupting star forming clouds prior to the first supernovae. We demonstrate that our results are robust to variations of our star formation prescription, feedback models and the gas fraction of the disk. Our results also imply that the burstiness of star formation and the mass loading of outflows may be overestimated if the adopted star particle mass is considerably larger than the mass of individual stars because this imposes a minimum cluster size.

astro-ph.GA↗

The CAMELS project: Cosmology and Astrophysics with MachinE Learning Simulations

We present the Cosmology and Astrophysics with MachinE Learning Simulations --CAMELS-- project. CAMELS is a suite of 4,233 cosmological simulations of $(25~h^{-1}{\rm Mpc})^3$ volume each: 2,184 state-of-the-art (magneto-)hydrodynamic simulations run with the AREPO and GIZMO codes, employing the same baryonic subgrid physics as the IllustrisTNG and SIMBA simulations, and 2,049 N-body simulations. The goal of the CAMELS project is to provide theory predictions for different observables as a function of cosmology and astrophysics, and it is the largest suite of cosmological (magneto-)hydrodynamic simulations designed to train machine learning algorithms. CAMELS contains thousands of different cosmological and astrophysical models by way of varying $Ω_m$, $σ_8$, and four parameters controlling stellar and AGN feedback, following the evolution of more than 100 billion particles and fluid elements over a combined volume of $(400~h^{-1}{\rm Mpc})^3$. We describe the simulations in detail and characterize the large range of conditions represented in terms of the matter power spectrum, cosmic star formation rate density, galaxy stellar mass function, halo baryon fractions, and several galaxy scaling relations. We show that the IllustrisTNG and SIMBA suites produce roughly similar distributions of galaxy properties over the full parameter space but significantly different halo baryon fractions and baryonic effects on the matter power spectrum. This emphasizes the need for marginalizing over baryonic effects to extract the maximum amount of information from cosmological surveys. We illustrate the unique potential of CAMELS using several machine learning applications, including non-linear interpolation, parameter estimation, symbolic regression, data generation with Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), dimensionality reduction, and anomaly detection.

astro-ph.CO↗