arXiv subjects

T. P. Downes

Publications and source records attributed to T. P. Downes.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2021

Stellar versus Galactic: The intensity of energetic particles at the evolving Earth and young exoplanets

Energetic particles may have been important for the origin of life on Earth by driving the formation of prebiotic molecules. We calculate the intensity of energetic particles, in the form of stellar and Galactic cosmic rays, that reach Earth at the time when life is thought to have begun ($\sim$3.8Gyr ago), using a combined 1.5D stellar wind model and 1D cosmic ray model. We formulate the evolution of a stellar cosmic ray spectrum with stellar age, based on the Hillas criterion. We find that stellar cosmic ray fluxes are larger than Galactic cosmic ray fluxes up to $\sim$4 GeV cosmic ray energies $\sim$3.8Gyr ago. However, the effect of stellar cosmic rays may not be continuous. We apply our model to HR 2562b, a young warm Jupiter-like planet orbiting at 20au from its host star where the effect of Galactic cosmic rays may be observable in its atmosphere. Even at 20au, stellar cosmic rays dominate over Galactic cosmic rays.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2021

Stellar versus Galactic: The intensity of cosmic rays at the evolving Earth and young exoplanets around Sun-like stars

Energetic particles, such as stellar cosmic rays, produced at a heightened rate by active stars (like the young Sun) may have been important for the origin of life on Earth and other exoplanets. Here we compare, as a function of stellar rotation rate ($Ω$), contributions from two distinct populations of energetic particles: stellar cosmic rays accelerated by impulsive flare events and Galactic cosmic rays. We use a 1.5D stellar wind model combined with a spatially 1D cosmic ray transport model. We formulate the evolution of the stellar cosmic ray spectrum as a function of stellar rotation. The maximum stellar cosmic ray energy increases with increasing rotation i.e., towards more active/younger stars. We find that stellar cosmic rays dominate over Galactic cosmic rays in the habitable zone at the pion threshold energy for all stellar ages considered ($t_*=0.6-2.9\,$Gyr). However, even at the youngest age, $t_*=0.6\,$Gyr, we estimate that $\gtrsim\,80$MeV stellar cosmic ray fluxes may still be transient in time. At $\sim1\,$Gyr when life is thought to have emerged on Earth, we demonstrate that stellar cosmic rays dominate over Galactic cosmic rays up to $\sim$4$\,$GeV energies during flare events. Our results for $t_*=0.6\,$Gyr ($Ω= 4Ω_\odot$) indicate that $\lesssim$GeV stellar cosmic rays are advected from the star to 1$\,$au and are impacted by adiabatic losses in this region. The properties of the inner solar wind, currently being investigated by the Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter, are thus important for accurate calculations of stellar cosmic rays around young Sun-like stars.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2020

The Galactic cosmic ray intensity at the evolving Earth and young exoplanets

Cosmic rays may have contributed to the start of life on Earth. Here, we investigate the evolution of the Galactic cosmic ray spectrum at Earth from ages $t = 0.6-6.0\,$Gyr. We use a 1D cosmic ray transport model and a 1.5D stellar wind model to derive the evolving wind properties of a solar-type star. At $t=1\,$Gyr, approximately when life is thought to have begun on Earth, we find that the intensity of $\sim$GeV Galactic cosmic rays would have been $\sim10$ times smaller than the present-day value. At lower kinetic energies, Galactic cosmic ray modulation would have been even more severe. More generally, we find that the differential intensity of low energy Galactic cosmic rays decreases at younger ages and is well described by a broken power-law in solar rotation rate. We provide an analytic formula of our Galactic cosmic ray spectra at Earth's orbit for different ages. Our model is also applicable to other solar-type stars with exoplanets orbiting at different radii. Specifically, we use our Galactic cosmic ray spectrum at 20$\,$au for $t=600\,$Myr to estimate the penetration of cosmic rays in the atmosphere of HR$\,$2562b, a directly imaged exoplanet orbiting a young solar-type star. We find that the majority of particles $<0.1$GeV are attenuated at pressures $\gtrsim10^{-5}\,$bar and thus do not reach altitudes below $\sim100\,$km. Observationally constraining the Galactic cosmic ray spectrum in the atmosphere of a warm Jupiter would in turn help constrain the flux of cosmic rays reaching young Earth-like exoplanets.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2019

Stellar cosmic rays as an important source of ionisation in protoplanetary disks: a disk mass dependent process

We assess the ionising effect of low energy protostellar cosmic rays in protoplanetary disks around a young solar mass star for a wide range of disk parameters. We assume a source of low energy cosmic rays located close to the young star which travel diffusively through the protoplanetary disk. We use observationally inferred values from nearby star-forming regions for the total disk mass and the radial density profile. We investigate the influence of varying the disk mass within the observed scatter for a solar mass star. We find that for a large range of disk masses and density profiles that protoplanetary disks are "optically thin" to low energy ($\sim$3 GeV) cosmic rays. At $R\sim10$au, for all of the disks that we consider ($M_\mathrm{disk}=6.0\times10^{-4} - 2.4\times 10^{-2}M_\odot$), the ionisation rate due to low energy stellar cosmic rays is larger than that expected from unmodulated galactic cosmic rays. This is in contrast to our previous results which assumed a much denser disk which may be appropriate for a more embedded source. At $R\sim70$au, the ionisation rate due to stellar cosmic rays dominates in $\sim$50% of the disks. These are the less massive disks with less steep density profiles. At this radius there is at least an order of magnitude difference in the ionisation rate between the least and most massive disk that we consider. Our results indicate, for a wide range of disk masses, that low energy stellar cosmic rays provide an important source of ionisation at the disk midplane at large radii ($\sim$70au).

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2018

MHDSTS: a new explicit numerical scheme for simulations of partially ionised solar plasma

The interaction of plasma with magnetic field in the partially ionised solar atmosphere is frequently modelled via a single-fluid approximation, which is valid for the case of a strongly coupled collisional media, such as solar photosphere and low chromosphere. Under the single-fluid formalism the main non-ideal effects are described by a series of extra terms in the generalised induction equation and in the energy conservation equation. These effects are: Ohmic diffusion, ambipolar diffusion, the Hall effect, and the Biermann battery effect. From the point of view of the numerical solution of the single-fluid equations, when ambipolar diffusion or Hall effects dominate can introduce severe restrictions on the integration time step and can compromise the stability of the numerical scheme. In this paper we introduce two numerical schemes to overcome those limitations. The first of them is known as Super Time-Stepping (STS) and it is designed to overcome the limitations imposed when the ambipolar diffusion term is dominant. The second scheme is called the Hall Diffusion Scheme (HDS) and it is used when the Hall term becomes dominant. These two numerical techniques can be used together by applying Strang operator splitting. This paper describes the implementation of the STS and HDS schemes in the single-fluid code Mancha3D. The validation for each of these schemes is provided by comparing the analytical solution with the numerical one for a suite of numerical tests.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2015

Galaxy Cluster Scaling Relations between Bolocam Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect and Chandra X-ray Measurements

We present scaling relations between the integrated Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect (SZE) signal, $Y_{\rm SZ}$, its X-ray analogue, $Y_{\rm X}\equiv M_{\rm gas}T_{\rm X}$, and total mass, $M_{\rm tot}$, for the 45 galaxy clusters in the Bolocam X-ray-SZ (BOXSZ) sample. All parameters are integrated within $r_{2500}$. $Y_{2500}$ values are measured using SZE data collected with Bolocam, operating at 140 GHz at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO). The temperature, $T_{\rm X}$, and mass, $M_{\rm gas,2500}$, of the intracluster medium are determined using X-ray data collected with Chandra, and $M_{\rm tot}$ is derived from $M_{\rm gas}$ assuming a constant gas mass fraction. Our analysis accounts for several potential sources of bias, including: selection effects, contamination from radio point sources, and the loss of SZE signal due to noise filtering and beam-smoothing effects. We measure the $Y_{2500}$--$Y_{\rm X}$ scaling to have a power-law index of $0.84\pm0.07$, and a fractional intrinsic scatter in $Y_{2500}$ of $(21\pm7)\%$ at fixed $Y_{\rm X}$, both of which are consistent with previous analyses. We also measure the scaling between $Y_{2500}$ and $M_{2500}$, finding a power-law index of $1.06\pm0.12$ and a fractional intrinsic scatter in $Y_{2500}$ at fixed mass of $(25\pm9)\%$. While recent SZE scaling relations using X-ray mass proxies have found power-law indices consistent with the self-similar prediction of 5/3, our measurement stands apart by differing from the self-similar prediction by approximately 5$σ$. Given the good agreement between the measured $Y_{2500}$--$Y_{\rm X}$ scalings, much of this discrepancy appears to be caused by differences in the calibration of the X-ray mass proxies adopted for each particular analysis.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Cosmic-ray pressure driven magnetic field amplification: dimensional, radiative and field orientation effects

Observations of non-thermal emission from several supernova remnants suggest that magnetic fields close to the blastwave are much stronger than would be naively expected from simple shock compression of the field permeating the interstellar medium (ISM). We investigate in some detail a simple model based on turbulence generation by cosmic-ray pressure gradients. Previously this model was investigated using 2D MHD simulations. Motivated by the well-known qualitative differences between 2D and 3D turbulence, we further our investigations of this model using both 2D and 3D simulations to study the influence of the dimensionality of the simulations on the field amplification achieved. Further, since the model implies the formation of shocks which can, in principle, be efficiently cooled by collisional cooling we include such cooling in our simulations to ascertain whether it could increase the field amplification achieved. Finally, we examine the influence of different orientations of the magnetic field with respect to the normal of the blastwave. We find that dimensionality has a slight influence on the overall amplification achieved, but a significant impact on the morphology of the amplified field. Collisional cooling has surprisingly little impact, primarily due to the short time which any element of the ISM resides in the precursor region for supernova blastwaves. Even allowing for a wide range of orientations of the magnetic field, we find that the magnetic field can be expected to be amplified by, on average, at least an order of magnitude in the precursors of supernova blastwaves.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

SPT 0538-50: Physical conditions in the ISM of a strongly lensed dusty star-forming galaxy at z=2.8

We present observations of SPT-S J053816-5030.8, a gravitationally-lensed dusty star forming galaxy (DSFG) at z = 2.7817, first discovered at millimeter wavelengths by the South Pole Telescope. SPT 0538-50 is typical of the brightest sources found by wide-field millimeter-wavelength surveys, being lensed by an intervening galaxy at moderate redshift (in this instance, at z = 0.441). We present a wide array of multi-wavelength spectroscopic and photometric data on SPT 0538-50, including data from ALMA, Herschel PACS and SPIRE, Hubble, Spitzer, VLT, ATCA, APEX, and the SMA. We use high resolution imaging from HST to de-blend SPT 0538-50, separating DSFG emission from that of the foreground lens. Combined with a source model derived from ALMA imaging (which suggests a magnification factor of 21 +/- 4), we derive the intrinsic properties of SPT 0538-50, including the stellar mass, far-IR luminosity, star formation rate, molecular gas mass, and - using molecular line fluxes - the excitation conditions within the ISM. The derived physical properties argue that we are witnessing compact, merger-driven star formation in SPT 0538-50, similar to local starburst galaxies, and unlike that seen in some other DSFGs at this epoch.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

ALMA redshifts of millimeter-selected galaxies from the SPT survey: The redshift distribution of dusty star-forming galaxies

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), we have conducted a blind redshift survey in the 3 mm atmospheric transmission window for 26 strongly lensd dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) selected with the South Pole Telescope (SPT). The sources were selected to have S_1.4mm>20 mJy and a dust-like spectrum and, to remove low-z sources, not have bright radio (S_843MHz<6mJy) or far-infrared counterparts (S_100um<1 Jy, S_60um<200mJy). We robustly detect 44 line features in our survey, which we identify as redshifted emission lines of 12CO, 13CO, [CI], H2O, and H2O+. We find one or more spectral features in 23 sources yielding a ~90% detection rate for this survey; in 12 of these sources we detect multiple lines, while in 11 sources we detect only a single line. For the sources with only one detected line, we break the redshift degeneracy with additional spectroscopic observations if available, or infer the most likely line identification based on photometric data. This yields secure redshifts for ~70% of the sample. The three sources with no lines detected are tentatively placed in the redshift desert between 1.7 =3.5. This finding is in contrast to the redshift distribution of radio-identified DSFGs, which have a significantly lower mean redshift of =2.3 and for which only 10-15% of the population is expected to be at z>3. We discuss the effect of gravitational lensing on the redshift distribution and compare our measured redshift distribution to that of models in the literature.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Driven Multifluid MHD Molecular Cloud Turbulence

It is believed that turbulence may have a significant impact on star formation and the dynamics and evolution of the molecular clouds in which this occurs. It is also known that non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic effects influence the nature of this turbulence. We present the results of a numerical study of 4-fluid MHD turbulence in which the dynamics of electrons, ions, charged dust grains and neutrals and their interactions are followed. The parameters describing the fluid being simulated are based directly on observations of molecular clouds. We find that the velocity and magnetic field power spectra are strongly influenced by multifluid effects on length-scales at least as large as 0.05 pc. The PDFs of the various species in the system are all found to be close to log-normal, with charged species having a slightly less platykurtic (flattened) distribution than the neutrals. We find that the introduction of multifluid effects does not significantly alter the structure functions of the centroid velocity increment.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2011

The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in weakly ionised plasmas II: multifluid effects in molecular clouds

We present a study of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in a weakly ionised, multifluid MHD plasma with parameters matching those of a typical molecular cloud. The instability is capable of transforming well-ordered flows into disordered flows. As a result, it may be able to convert the energy found in, for example, bowshocks from stellar jets into the turbulent energy found in molecular clouds. As these clouds are weakly ionised, the ideal magnetohydrodynamic approximation does not apply at scales of around a tenth of a parsec or less. This paper extends the work of Jones & Downes (2011) on the evolution of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in the presence of multifluid magnetohydrodynamic effects. These effects of ambipolar diffusion and the Hall effect are here studied together under physical parameters applicable to molecular clouds. We restrict our attention to the case of a single shear layer with a transonic, but super-Alfvenic, velocity jump and the computational domain is chosen to match the wavelength of the linearly fastest growing mode of the instability. We find that while the introduction of multifluid effects does not affect the linear growth rates of the instability, the non-linear behaviour undergoes considerable change. The magnetic field is decoupled from the bulk flow as a result of the ambipolar diffusion, which leads to a significant difference in the evolution of the field. The Hall effect would be expected to lead to a noticeable re-orientation of the magnetic field lines perpendicular to the plane. However, the results reveal that the combination with ambipolar diffusion leads to a surprisingly effective suppression of this effect.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2011

AzTEC millimeter survey of the COSMOS field - III. Source catalog over 0.72 sq. deg. and plausible boosting by large-scale structure

We present a 0.72 sq. deg. contiguous 1.1mm survey in the central area of the COSMOS field carried out to a 1sigma ~ 1.26 mJy/beam depth with the AzTEC camera mounted on the 10m Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment (ASTE). We have uncovered 189 candidate sources at a signal-to-noise ratio S/N >= 3.5, out of which 129, with S/N >= 4, can be considered to have little chance of being spurious (< 2 per cent). We present the number counts derived with this survey, which show a significant excess of sources when compared to the number counts derived from the ~0.5 sq. deg. area sampled at similar depths in the Scuba HAlf Degree Extragalactic Survey (SHADES, Austermann et al. 2010). They are, however, consistent with those derived from fields that were considered too small to characterize the overall blank-field population. We identify differences to be more significant in the S > 5 mJy regime, and demonstrate that these excesses in number counts are related to the areas where galaxies at redshifts z < 1.1 are more densely clustered. The positions of optical-IR galaxies in the redshift interval 0.6 < z < 0.75 are the ones that show the strongest correlation with the positions of the 1.1mm bright population (S > 5 mJy), a result which does not depend exclusively on the presence of rich clusters within the survey sampled area. The most likely explanation for the observed excess in number counts at 1.1mm is galaxy-galaxy and galaxy-group lensing at moderate amplification levels, that increases in amplitude as one samples larger and larger flux densities. This effect should also be detectable in other high redshift populations.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Non-ideal MHD turbulent decay in molecular clouds

It is well known that non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic effects are important in the dynamics of molecular clouds: both ambipolar diffusion and possibly the Hall effect have been identified as significant. We present the results of a suite of simulations with a resolution of 512-cubed of turbulent decay in molecular clouds incorporating a simplified form of both ambipolar diffusion and the Hall effect simultaneously. The initial velocity field in the turbulence is varied from being super-Alfvénic and hypersonic, through to trans-Alfvénic but still supersonic. We find that ambipolar diffusion increases the rate of decay of the turbulence increasing the decay from $t^{-1.25}$ to $t^{-1.4}$. The Hall effect has virtually no impact in this regard. The power spectra of density, velocity and the magnetic field are all affected by the non-ideal terms, being steepened significantly when compared with ideal MHD turbulence with exponents. The density power spectra components change from about 1.4 to about 2.1 for the ideal and non-ideal simulations respectively, and power spectra of the other variables all show similar modifications when non-ideal effects are considered. Again, the dominant source of these changes is ambipolar diffusion rather than the Hall effect. There is also a decoupling between the velocity field and the magnetic field at short length scales. The Hall effect leads to enhanced magnetic reconnection, and hence less power, at short length scales. The dependence of the velocity dispersion on the characteristic length scale is studied and found not to be power-law in nature.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2006

A three-dimensional numerical method for modelling weakly ionized plasmas

Astrophysical fluids under the influence of magnetic fields are often subjected to single-fluid or two-fluid approximations. In the case of weakly ionized plasmas however, this can be inappropriate due to distinct responses from the multiple constituent species to both collisional and non-collisional forces. As a result, in dense molecular clouds and proto-stellar accretion discs for instance, the conductivity of the plasma may be highly anisotropic leading to phenomena such as Hall and ambipolar diffusion strongly influencing the dynamics. Diffusive processes are known to restrict the stability of conventional numerical schemes which are not implicit in nature. Furthermore, recent work establishes that a large Hall term can impose an additional severe stability limit on standard explicit schemes. Following a previous paper which presented the one-dimensional case, we describe a fully three-dimensional method which relaxes the normal restrictions on explicit schemes for multifluid processes. This is achieved by applying the little known Super TimeStepping technique to the symmetric (ambipolar) component of the evolution operator for the magnetic field in the local plasma rest-frame, and the new Hall Diffusion Scheme to the skew-symmetric (Hall) component.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2006

The optical performance of frequency selective bolometers

Frequency Selective Bolometers (FSBs) are a new type of detector for millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths that are transparent to all but a narrow range of frequencies as set by characteristics of the absorber itself. Therefore, stacks of FSBs tuned to different frequencies provide a low-loss compact method for utilizing a large fraction of the light collected by a telescope. Tests of prototype FSBs, described here, indicate that the absorption spectra are well predicted by models, that peak absolute absorption efficiencies of order 50% are attainable, and that their out-of-band transmission is high.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2003

An evolutionary model for pulsar-driven supernova remnants

We present a model of a pulsar wind nebula evolving inside its associated supernova remnant. The model uses a hydrodynamics code to simulate the evolution of this system when the pulsar has a high velocity. The simulation distinguishes four different stages of pulsar wind nebula evolution: the supersonic expansion stage, the reverse shock interaction stage, the subsonic expansion stage and ultimately the bow shock stage. The simulation bears out that, due to the high velocity of the pulsar, the position of the pulsar is off-centered with respect to its pulsar wind nebula, after the passage of the reverse shock. Subsequently the pulsar wind nebula expands subsonically untill the event of the bow shock formation, when the motion of the pulsar becomes supersonic. The bow shock formation event occurs at roughly half the crossing time, when the pulsar is positioned at 0.677 times the radius of the supernova remnant blastwave, in complete agreement with analytical predictions. The crossing time is defined by the age of the supernova remnant, when the pulsar overtakes the blastwave bounding the supernova remnant. The results of the model are applied to three supernova remnants: N157B, G327.1-1.1 and W44. We argue that the head of the pulsar wind nebula, containing the active pulsar, inside the first two systems are not bounded by a bow shock. However, in the case of W44 we argue for a scenario in which the pulsar wind nebula is bounded by a bow shock, due to the supersonic motion of the pulsar.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2002

Interaction of High-Velocity Pulsars with Supernova Remnant Shells

Hydrodynamical simulations are presented of a pulsar wind emitted by a supersonically moving pulsar. The pulsar moves through the interstellar medium or, in the more interesting case, through the supernova remnant created at its birth event. In both cases there exists a three-fold structure consisting of the wind termination shock, contact discontinuity and a bow shock bounding the pulsar wind nebula. Using hydrodynamical simulations we study the behaviour of the pulsar wind nebula inside a supernova remnant, and in particular the interaction with the outer shell of swept up interstellar matter and the blast wave surrounding the remnant. This interaction occurs when the pulsar breaks out of the supernova remnant. We assume the remnant is in the Sedov stage of its evolution. Just before break-through, the Mach number associated with the pulsar motion equals ${\cal M}_{\rm psr} = 7/\sqrt{5}$, {\em independent} of the supernova explosion energy and pulsar velocity. The bow shock structure is shown to survive this break-through event.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2002

Relativistic Blastwaves and Synchrotron Emission

Relativistic shocks accelerate particles by the first order Fermi mechanism. These particles then emit synchrotron emission in the post shock gas. We have developed a numerical code which integrates the relativistic Euler equations for fluid dynamics with a general equation of state, together with the Liouville equation for the accelerated particles. We present tests of this code and, in addition, we use it to study the gamma ray burst afterglow predicted by the fireball model, along with the hydrodynamics of a relativistic blastwave. We find that, while, broadly speaking, the behaviour of the emission is similar to that already predicted with semi-analytic approaches, the detailed behaviour is somewhat different. The ``breaks'' in the synchrotron spectrum behave differently with time, and the spectrum above the final break is harder than previously expected. These effects are due to the incorporation of the geometry of the (spherical) blastwave, along with relativistic beaming and adiabatic cooling of the energetic particles leading to a mix, in the observed spectrum, between recently injected "uncooled" particles and the older "cooled" population in different parts of the evolving, inhomogeneous flow.

astro-ph↗