arXiv subjects

Tabassum S. Tanvir

Publications and source records attributed to Tabassum S. Tanvir.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

ACES VII. Compact Continuum Source Catalog of the Central Molecular Zone

The Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) resides in the inner few hundred parsecs of our Galaxy, and despite being the largest reservoir of dense molecular gas in the Milky Way, it has a relatively low present-day star formation rate (SFR) of $\sim0.08~M_{\odot}~\text{yr}^{-1}$. Continuum and spectral line observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) CMZ Exploration Survey (ACES) provide the first full-coverage, high-resolution map of the inner 200 parsecs of the CMZ at 3 mm. In this paper we present the ACES catalog of compact continuum sources, the most complete catalog of potential sites of star formation in the CMZ to date. Using an automated dendrogram-based source extraction procedure in combination with a by-eye morphological classification scheme, we produce a `full' catalog of 1735 detections in total. Additionally, we use spectral index measurements to generate a `filtered' catalog of 567 sources with minimal contamination from non-thermal filaments and extended free-free emission. We find that 359 ($\sim63\%$) of the filtered catalog sources are located at column densities $< 10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$, outside of the densest molecular cloud regions, 195 of which have not been identified in previous surveys. After cross-referencing with various catalogs generated from data at different wavelengths, we consider it likely that many of these newly discovered detections are produced by pre/protostellar sources or compact HII regions.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2026

Collision between molecular clouds IV: The role of feedback and magnetic field in head on collisions

We systematically investigate how cloud-cloud collisions influence star formation, emphasizing the roles of collision velocity, magnetic field orientation, and radiative feedback. Using the first cloud-cloud collision simulations that model individual star formation and accretion with all stellar feedback mechanisms, we explore the morphological evolution, star formation efficiency (SFE), fragmentation, stellar mass distribution, and feedback-driven gas dispersal. Our results show that cloud collisions substantially enhance the rate and timing of star formation compared to isolated scenarios, though the final SFE remains broadly similar across all setups. Lower collision velocities facilitate prolonged gravitational interaction and accumulation of gas, promoting sustained star formation characterized by elongated filamentary structures. Conversely, high-velocity collisions induce rapid gas compression and turbulent motions, leading to intense but transient episodes of star formation, which are curtailed by feedback-driven dispersal. The orientation of the magnetic field markedly affects collision outcomes. Parallel fields allow gas to collapse efficiently along magnetic lines, forming fewer but more massive stars. In contrast, perpendicular fields generate significant magnetic pressure, which stabilizes the shock-compressed gas and delays gravitational collapse, resulting in more distributed and less massive stellar fragments. Radiative feedback from massive stars consistently regulates star formation, halting further gas accretion at moderate efficiencies (10-15%) and initiating feedback-driven dispersal. Although the cloud dynamics vary significantly, the stellar mass function remains robust across scenarios-shaped modestly by magnetic orientation but only weakly influenced by collision velocity.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

The metallicity dependence of the stellar initial mass function

Dust is important for star formation because it is the crucial component that couples gas to stellar radiation fields, allowing radiation feedback to influence gas fragmentation and thus the stellar initial mass function (IMF). Variations in dust abundance therefore provide a potential avenue by which variation in galaxy metallicity might affect the IMF. In this paper we present a series of radiation-magnetohydrodynamic simulations in which we vary the metallicity and thus the dust abundance from 1% of Solar to 3$\times$ Solar, spanning the range from the lowest metallicity dwarfs to the most metal-rich early-type galaxies found in the local Universe. We design the simulations to keep all dimensionless parameters constant so that the interaction between feedback and star-forming environments of varying surface density and metallicity is the only factor capable of breaking the symmetry between the simulations and modifying the IMF, allowing us to cleanly isolate and understand the effects of each environmental parameter. We find that at a fixed surface density more metal-rich clouds tend to form a slightly more bottom-heavy IMF than metal-poor ones, primarily because in metal-poor gas radiation feedback is able to propagate further, heating somewhat larger volumes of gas. However, shifts in IMF with metallicity at a fixed surface density are much smaller than shifts with surface density at fixed metallicity; metallicity-induced IMF variations are too small to explain the variations in mass-to-light ratio reported in galaxies of different mass and metallicity. We, therefore, conclude that metallicity variations are much less important than variations in surface density in driving changes in the IMF and that the latter rather than the former are most likely responsible for the IMF variations found in early-type galaxies.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2020

HiFLEx -- a highly flexible package to reduce cross-dispersed echelle spectra

We describe a flexible data reduction package for high resolution cross-dispersed echelle data. This open-source package is developed in Python and includes optional GUIs for most of the steps. It does not require any pre-knowledge about the form or position of the echelle-orders. It has been tested on cross-dispersed echelle spectrographs between 13k and 115k resolution (bifurcated fiber-fed spectrogaph ESO-HARPS and single fiber-fed spectrograph TNT-MRES). HiFLEx can be used to determine radial velocities and is designed to use the TERRA package but can also control the radial velocity packages such as CERES and SERVAL to perform the radial velocity analysis. Tests on HARPS data indicates radial velocities results within 3m/s of the literature pipelines without any fine tuning of extraction parameters.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2017

A catalogue of close encounter pairs

We provide a catalogue of pairs of stars whose periapses are less than 1pc within the past or future 100 Myr. We use astrometric data from TGAS, Hipparcos and radial velocity data from RAVE and XHIP to find the space motions and hence the initial conditions of 229, 441 stars in Galactic coordinates. We simulate the orbits of these stars and focus on the time, distance and velocity at periastron for 8149 pairs using the k-d tree algorithm to find nearest neighbors. We find an anisotropy in the directions of encounter pairs caused by the solar apex motion, indicating a role of peculiar motion imposing an anisotropic tidal force on planetary systems. We call this effect "kinematic tide". Among the encounter pairs there are 4 encounters with the Solar System with periapses less than 1 pc and 96 pairs with periapses less than 0.1 pc. We also find 577 close encounters of stars which host planetary systems and/or debris disks. We discuss a range of uses for an encounter catalogue and present an example of how the time-varying network of stellar motions will be crucial for efficient interstellar travel between planetary systems. The catalogues are available at http://star.herts.ac.uk/pandora/cep1.

astro-ph.SR↗