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Nurzhan Shaimoldin

Publications and source records attributed to Nurzhan Shaimoldin.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

ALOHA IRDCs Molecular Line Follow-up: I. Gas properties and kinematics

Infrared Dark Clouds are ideal sites for investigating the initial conditions of massive star and cluster formation. The A Lei Of the Habitat and Assembly of Infrared Dark Clouds (ALOHA IRDCs), a James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) Large Program, has mapped nearby IRDCs with SCUBA-2. Complementary molecular line observations are needed to characterise the physical, kinematic, and chemical properties of the dense gas. We aim to determine the thermal, kinematic, and chemical properties of clumps identified in the ALOHA IRDCs, and to assess their evolutionary status and level of star-forming activity. We performed single-pointing K-band and W-band observations towards 56 ALOHA IRDCs clumps using the Effelsberg 100-m and Yebes 40-m telescopes, respectively. We derived NH3 kinetic temperatures using the hyperfine group ratio (HFGR) method and identified infall and shock signatures from HCO+, H13CO+, SiO, and HNCO profiles. Water masers and NH2D emission were used as complementary tracers of chemical evolution and star formation. The clumps exhibit kinetic temperatures of 15-29 K. We detect NH2D emission towards 18 sources, with NH2D centroid velocities consistent with NH3, indicating both species trace the same dense gas component. More than half of the clumps display blue-asymmetric HCO+ profiles, identifying them as infall candidates. Water masers are detected in 22 sources, with prominent velocity ranges and variability. Broad SiO emission (>~20 km/s) indicates strong shocks, while narrower extents (<~6km/s) likely trace large-scale interactions or low-velocity shocks. The widespread infall signatures, shock tracers, masers, and NH2D emission suggest that relatively quiescent, chemically young material can coexist with dynamically active gas affected by early protostellar feedback, providing insight into the coupled physical and chemical evolution of massive IRDC clumps.

astro-ph.GA

Initial On-Sky Performance testing of the Single-Photon Imager for Nanosecond Astrophysics (SPINA) system

This work presents an initial on-sky performance measurement of the Single-Photon Imager for Nanosecond Astrophysics (SPINA) system, part of our Ultra-Fast Astronomy (UFA) program. We developed the SPINA system based on the position-sensitive silicon photomultiplier (PS-SiPM) detector to record both photoelectron (P.E.) temporal and spatial information. The initial on-sky testing of the SPINA system was successfully performed on UT 2022 Jul 10, on the 0.7-meter aperture Nazarbayev University Transient Telescope at the Assy-Turgen Astrophysical Observatory (NUTTelA-TAO). We measured stars with a wide range of brightness and a dark region of the sky without stars $< 18$ mag. We measured the SPINA system's spatial resolution to be $<232μm$ (full-width half-maximum, FWHM), limited by the unstable atmosphere. We measured the total background noise (detector dark counts and sky background) of 1914 counts per second (cps) within this resolution element. We also performed a crosstalk mapping of the detector, obtaining the crosstalk probability of $\sim0.18$ near the detector's center while reaching $\sim 50\%$ at the edges. We derived a $5σ$ sensitivity of $17.45$ Gaia-BP magnitude in a 1s exposure with no atmospheric extinction by comparing the received flux with Gaia-BP band data. For a $10ms$ window and a false alarm rate of once per 100 nights, we derived a transient sensitivity of 14.06 mag. For a $1μs$ or faster time scale, we are limited by crosstalk to a 15 P.E. detection threshold. In addition, we demonstrated that the SPINA system is capable of capturing changes in the stellar profile FWHM of $\pm1.8\%$ and $\pm5\%$ change in the stellar profile FWHM in $20ms$ and $2ms$ exposures, respectively, as well as capturing stellar light curves on the $ms$ and $μs$ scales.

astro-ph.IM