arXiv subjects

Y. Fukui

Publications and source records attributed to Y. Fukui.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Isolating signatures of major cloud-cloud collisions using position-velocity diagrams

Collisions between giant molecular clouds are a potential mechanism for triggering the formation of massive stars, or even super star clusters. The trouble is identifying this process observationally and distinguishing it from other mechanisms. We produce synthetic position-velocity diagrams from models of: cloud-cloud collisions, non-interacting clouds along the line of sight, clouds with internal radiative feedback and a more complex cloud evolving in a galactic disc, to try and identify unique signatures of collision. We find that a broad bridge feature connecting two intensity peaks, spatially correlated but separated in velocity, is a signature of a high velocity cloud-cloud collision. We show that the broad bridge feature is resilient to the effects of radiative feedback, at least to around 2.5Myr after the formation of the first massive (ionising) star. However for a head on 10km/s collision we find that this will only be observable from 20-30 per cent of viewing angles. Such broad-bridge features have been identified towards M20, a very young region of massive star formation that was concluded to be a site of cloud-cloud collision by Torii et al (2011), and also towards star formation in the outer Milky Way by Izumi et al (2014).

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arXiv2015

Revealing the Large-Scale Structures of Interstellar Gas Associated with the Magellanic SNR N132D

We report preliminary results of large-scale distribution toward the Magellanic supernova remnant N132D using Mopra and Chandra archival datasets. We identified a cavity-like CO structure along the X-ray shell toward the southern half of it. The total mass of associating molecular gas is $\sim10^4 M_\odot$, which is smaller than the previous study by an order of magnitude. Further observations using ALMA, ASTE, and Mopra will reveal the detailed spatial structures and its physical conditions.

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arXiv2015

Planck intermediate results. XXVIII. Interstellar gas and dust in the Chamaeleon clouds as seen by Fermi LAT and Planck

Shortened abstract: Observations of the nearby Chamaeleon clouds in gamma rays with the Fermi Large Area Telescope and in thermal dust emission with Planck and IRAS have been used with the HI and CO radio data to (i) map the gas column densities in the different phases and at the dark neutral medium (DNM) transition between the HI-bright and CO-bright media; (ii) constrain the CO-to-$H_2$ conversion factor, $X_{CO}$; (iii) probe the dust properties per gas nucleon in each gas phase and spatially across the clouds. We have separated clouds in velocity in HI and CO emission and modelled the 0.4-100 GeV intensity, the dust optical depth at 353 GHz, the thermal radiance of the large grains, and an estimate of the dust extinction empirically corrected for the starlight intensity, $A_{VQ}$. The gamma-ray emissivity spectra confirm that the GeV-TeV cosmic rays uniformly permeate all gas phases up to the CO cores. The dust and cosmic rays reveal large amounts of DNM gas, with comparable spatial distributions and twice as much mass as in the CO-bright clouds. We give constraints on the HI-DNM-CO transitions and CO-dark $H_2$ fractions for separate clouds. The corrected extinction provides the best fit to the total gas traced by the gamma rays, but we find evidence for a rise in $A_{VQ}/N_H$ and a steep rise in opacity, with increasing $N_H$ and $H_2$ fraction, and with decreasing dust temperature. We observe less variations for the specific power of the grains, except for a decline by half in the CO cores. This combined information suggests grain evolution. The gamma rays and dust radiance yield consistent $X_{CO}$ estimates near $0.7\times10^{20}$ cm$^{-2}$ (K km/s)$^{-1}$. The other dust tracers yield biased values because of the grain opacity rise in the CO clouds. These results also confirm a factor of 2 difference between $X_{CO}$ estimates at pc and kpc scales.

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arXiv2015

Dust Heating by Low-mass Stars in Massive Galaxies at z<1

Using the Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Camera 3 imaging data and multi-wavelength photometric catalog, we investigated the dust temperature of passively evolving and star-forming galaxies at 0.2 10^{10} Msun have a relatively high dust temperature of Tdust > 20 K, for which the formation efficiency of molecular hydrogen on the surface of dust grains in the diffuse ISM is expected to be very low from the laboratory experiments. The fraction of passively evolving galaxies strongly depends on the expected dust temperature at all redshifts and increases rapidly with increasing the temperature around Tdust ~ 20 K. These results suggest that the dust heating by low-mass stars in massive galaxies plays an important role for the continuation of their passive evolution, because the lack of the shielding effect of the molecular hydrogen on the UV radiation can prevent the gas cooling and formation of new stars.

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arXiv2014

Optically thick HI dominant in the local interstellar medium; an alternative interpretation to "dark gas"

Dark gas in the interstellar medium (ISM) is believed to not be detectable either in CO or Hi radio emission, but it is detected by other means including gamma-rays, dust emission and extinction traced outside the Galactic plane at |b|>5 degree. In these analyses, the 21-cm HI emission is usually assumed to be completely optically thin. We have reanalyzed the HI emission from the whole sky at |b|>15 degree by considering temperature stratification in the ISM inferred from the Planck/IRAS analysis of the dust properties. The results indicate that the HI emission is saturated with an optical depth ranging from 0.5 to 3 for 85% of the local HI gas. This optically thick HI is characterized by spin temperature in the range 10K-60K, significantly lower than previously postulated in the literature, whereas such low temperature is consistent with emission/absorption measurements of the cool HI toward radio continuum sources. The distribution and the column density of the HI are consistent with those of the dark gas sug- gested by gamma-rays, and it is possible that the dark gas in the Galaxy is dominated by optically thick cold HI gas. This result implies that the average density of HI is 2-2.5 times higher than that derived on the optically-thin assumption in the local ISM.

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arXiv2014

A Young GMC Formed at the Interface of Two Colliding Supershells: Observations Meet Simulations

Dense, star-forming gas is believed to form at the stagnation points of large-scale ISM flows, but observational examples of this process in action are rare. We here present a giant molecular cloud (GMC) sandwiched between two colliding Milky Way supershells, which we argue shows strong evidence of having formed from material accumulated at the collision zone. Combining 12CO, 13CO and C18O(J=1-0) data with new high-resolution, 3D hydrodynamical simulations of colliding supershells, we discuss the origin and nature of the GMC (G288.5+1.5), favoring a scenario in which the cloud was partially seeded by pre-existing denser material, but assembled into its current form by the action of the shells. This assembly includes the production of some new molecular gas. The GMC is well interpreted as non-self-gravitating, despite its high mass (MH2 ~ 1.7 x 10^5 Msol), and is likely pressure confined by the colliding flows, implying that self-gravity was not a necessary ingredient for its formation. Much of the molecular gas is relatively diffuse, and the cloud as a whole shows little evidence of star formation activity, supporting a scenario in which it is young and recently formed. Drip-like formations along its lower edge may be explained by fluid dynamical instabilities in the cooled gas.

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arXiv2014

A detailed study of non-thermal X-ray properties and interstellar gas toward the γ-ray supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946

We have carried out a spectral analysis of the Suzaku X-ray data in the 0.4-12 keV range toward the shell-type very-high-energy γ-ray supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946. The aims of this analysis are to estimate detailed X-rays spectral properties at a high angular resolution up to 2 arcmin, and to compare them with the interstellar gas. The X-ray spectrum is non-thermal and used to calculate absorbing column density, photon index, and absorption-corrected X-ray flux. The photon index varies significantly from 2.1 to 2.9. It is shown that the X-ray intensity is well correlated with the photon index, especially in the west region, with a correlation coefficient of 0.81. The X-ray intensity tends to increase with the averaged interstellar gas density while the dispersion is relatively large. The hardest spectra having the photon index less than 2.4 are found outside of the central 10 arcmin of the SNR, from the north to the southeast (~430 arcmin^2) and from the southwest to the northwest (~150 arcmin^2). The former region shows low interstellar gas density, while the latter high interstellar gas density. We present discussion for possible scenarios which explain the distribution of the photon index and its relationship with the interstellar gas.

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arXiv2014

Origin of the 6.4-keV line of the Galactic Ridge X-ray Emission

We report the first results from high-statistics observation of the 6.4-keV line in the region of $l= +1.5^\circ$ to $+3.5^\circ$ (hereafter referred to as GC East), with the goal to uncover the origin of the Galactic ridge X-ray emission (GRXE). By comparing this data with that from the previous observations in the region $l=-1.5^\circ$ to $-3.5^\circ$ (hereafter referred to as GC West), we discovered that the 6.4-keV line is asymmetrically distributed with respect to the Galactic center, whereas the 6.7-keV line is symmetrically distributed. The distribution of the 6.4-keV line follows that of $^{13}$CO and its flux is proportional to the column density of the molecular gas. This correlation agrees with that seen between the 6.4-keV line and the cold interstellar medium (ISM) (H$_{\rm I}$ $+$ H$_2$) in the region $|l|>4^\circ$. This result suggests that the 6.4-keV emission is diffuse fluorescence from the cold ISM not only in GC East and West but also in the entire Galactic plane. This observational result suggests that the surface brightness of the 6.4-keV line is proportional to the column density of the cold ISM in the entire Galactic plane. For the ionizing particles, we consider X-rays and low energy cosmic-ray protons and electrons .

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arXiv2014

Attitude determination for balloon-borne experiments

An attitude determination system for balloon-borne experiments is presented. The system provides pointing information in azimuth and elevation for instruments flying on stratospheric balloons over Antarctica. In-flight attitude is given by the real-time combination of readings from star cameras, a magnetometer, sun sensors, GPS, gyroscopes, tilt sensors and an elevation encoder. Post-flight attitude reconstruction is determined from star camera solutions, interpolated by the gyroscopes using an extended Kalman Filter. The multi-sensor system was employed by the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol), an experiment that measures polarized thermal emission from interstellar dust clouds. A similar system was designed for the upcoming flight of SPIDER, a Cosmic Microwave Background polarization experiment. The pointing requirements for these experiments are discussed, as well as the challenges in designing attitude reconstruction systems for high altitude balloon flights. In the 2010 and 2012 BLASTPol flights from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, the system demonstrated an accuracy of <5' rms in-flight, and <5" rms post-flight.

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arXiv2014

The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry-BLASTPol: Performance and results from the 2012 Antarctic flight

The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol) is a suborbital mapping experiment, designed to study the role played by magnetic fields in the star formation process. BLASTPol observes polarized light using a total power instrument, photolithographic polarizing grids, and an achromatic half-wave plate to modulate the polarization signal. During its second flight from Antarctica in December 2012, BLASTPol made degree scale maps of linearly polarized dust emission from molecular clouds in three wavebands, centered at 250, 350, and 500 microns. The instrumental performance was an improvement over the 2010 BLASTPol flight, with decreased systematics resulting in a higher number of confirmed polarization vectors. The resultant dataset allows BLASTPol to trace magnetic fields in star-forming regions at scales ranging from cores to entire molecular cloud complexes.

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arXiv2014

Thermal design and performance of the balloon-borne large aperture submillimeter telescope for polarimetry BLASTPol

We present the thermal model of the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol). This instrument was successfully flown in two circumpolar flights from McMurdo, Antarctica in 2010 and 2012. During these two flights, BLASTPol obtained unprecedented information about the magnetic field in molecular clouds through the measurement of the polarized thermal emission of interstellar dust grains. The thermal design of the experiment addresses the stability and control of the payload necessary for this kind of measurement. We describe the thermal modeling of the payload including the sun-shielding strategy. We present the in-flight thermal performance of the instrument and compare the predictions of the model with the temperatures registered during the flight. We describe the difficulties of modeling the thermal behavior of the balloon-borne platform and establish landmarks that can be used in the design of future balloon-borne instruments.

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arXiv2014

Magneto-hydrodynamic Simulations of a Jet Drilling an HI Cloud: Shock Induced Formation of Molecular Clouds and Jet Breakup

The formation mechanism of the jet-aligned CO clouds found by NANTEN CO observations is studied by magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) simulations taking into account the cooling of the interstellar medium. Motivated by the association of the CO clouds with the enhancement of HI gas density, we carried out MHD simulations of the propagation of a supersonic jet injected into the dense HI gas. We found that the HI gas compressed by the bow shock ahead of the jet is cooled down by growth of the cooling instability triggered by the density enhancement. As a result, cold dense sheath is formed around the interface between the jet and the HI gas. The radial speed of the cold, dense gas in the sheath is a few km/s almost independent of the jet speed. Molecular clouds can be formed in this region. Since the dense sheath wrapping the jet reflects waves generated in the cocoon, the jet is strongly perturbed by the vortices of the warm gas in the cocoon, which breaks up the jet and forms a secondary shock in the HI-cavity drilled by the jet. The particle acceleration at the shock can be the origin of radio and X-ray filaments observed near the eastern edge of W50 nebula surrounding the galactic jet source SS433.

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arXiv2014

BLASTbus electronics: general-purpose readout and control for balloon-borne experiments

We present the second generation BLASTbus electronics. The primary purposes of this system are detector readout, attitude control, and cryogenic housekeeping, for balloon-borne telescopes. Readout of neutron transmutation doped germanium (NTD-Ge) bolometers requires low noise and parallel acquisition of hundreds of analog signals. Controlling a telescope's attitude requires the capability to interface to a wide variety of sensors and motors, and to use them together in a fast, closed loop. To achieve these different goals, the BLASTbus system employs a flexible motherboard-daughterboard architecture. The programmable motherboard features a digital signal processor (DSP) and field-programmable gate array (FPGA), as well as slots for three daughterboards. The daughterboards provide the interface to the outside world, with versions for analog to digital conversion, and optoisolated digital input/output. With the versatility afforded by this design, the BLASTbus also finds uses in cryogenic, thermometry, and power systems. For accurate timing control to tie everything together, the system operates in a fully synchronous manner. BLASTbus electronics have been successfully deployed to the South Pole, and flown on stratospheric balloons.

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arXiv2014

Interstellar protons in the TeV gamma-ray SNR HESS J1731-347:Possible evidence for the coexistence of hadronic and leptonic gamma-rays

HESS J1731-347 (G353.6-0.7) is one of the TeV gamma-ray SNRs which shows the shell-like morphology. We have made a new analysis of the interstellar protons toward the SNR by using both the 12CO(J=1-0) and HI datasets. The results indicate that the TeV gamma-ray shell shows significant spatial correlation with the interstellar protons at a velocity range from -90 km/s to -75 km/s, and the distance corresponding to the velocity range is ~5.2 kpc, a factor of 2 larger than the previous figure 3 kpc. The total mass of the interstellar protons is estimated to be 6.4x10^4 M_sun, 25 % of which is atomic gas. We have identified the cold HI gas observed as self-absorption which shows significant correspondence with the northeastern gamma-ray peak. While the good correspondence between the interstellar protons and TeV gamma-rays in the north of the SNR lends support to the hadronic scenario for the TeV gamma-rays, the southern part of the shell shows a break in the correspondence; in particular, the southwestern rim of the SNR shell shows a significant decrease of the interstellar protons by a factor of 2. We argue that this discrepancy can be explained as due to leptonic gamma-rays, because this region well coincides with the bright shell which emit non-thermal radio continuum emission and non-thermal X-rays, suggesting that the gamma-rays of HESS J1713-347 consist of both the hadronic and leptonic components. The leptonic contribution then corresponds to ~20 % of the total gamma-rays. The total energy of cosmic-ray protons is estimated to be 10^49 erg for the gamma-ray energy range of 1 GeV - 100 TeV by assuming that 80 % of the total gamma-ray is of the hadronic origin.

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arXiv2014

Mapping the Milky Way bulge at high resolution: the 3D dust extinction, CO, and X factor maps

Three dimensional interstellar extinction maps provide a powerful tool for stellar population analysis. We use data from the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea survey together with the Besançon stellar population synthesis model of the Galaxy to determine interstellar extinction as a function of distance in the Galactic bulge covering $ -10 < l < 10$ and $-10 < b <5$. We adopted a recently developed method to calculate the colour excess. First we constructed the H-Ks vs. Ks and J-Ks vs. Ks colour-magnitude diagrams based on the VVV catalogues that matched 2MASS. Then, based on the temperature-colour relation for M giants and the distance-colour relations, we derived the extinction as a function of distance. The observed colours were shifted to match the intrinsic colours in the Besançon model as a function of distance iteratively. This created an extinction map with three dimensions: two spatial and one distance dimension along each line of sight towards the bulge. We present a 3D extinction map that covers the whole VVV area with a resolution of 6' x 6', using distance bins of 0.5 kpc. The high resolution and depth of the photometry allows us to derive extinction maps for a range of distances up to 10 kpc and up to 30 magnitudes of extinction in $A_{V}$. Integrated maps show the same dust features and consistent values as other 2D maps. We discuss the spatial distribution of dust features in the line of sight, which suggests that there is much material in front of the Galactic bar, specifically between 5-7 kpc. We compare our dust extinction map with high-resolution $\rm ^{12}CO$ maps towards the Galactic bulge, where we find a good correlation between $\rm ^{12}CO$ and $\rm A_{V}$. We determine the X factor by combining the CO map and our dust extinction map. Our derived average value is consistent with the canonical value of the Milky Way.

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arXiv2014

Comparison of Prestellar Core Elongations and Large-Scale Molecular Cloud Structures in the Lupus I Region

Turbulence and magnetic fields are expected to be important for regulating molecular cloud formation and evolution. However, their effects on subparsec to 100 parsec scales, leading to the formation of starless cores, is not well understood. We investigate the prestellar core structure morphologies obtained from analysis of the Herschel-SPIRE 350 $μ$m maps of the Lupus I cloud. This distribution is first compared on a statistical basis to the large scale shape of the main filament. We find the distribution of the elongation position angle of the cores to be consistent with a random distribution, which means no specific orientation of the morphology of the cores is observed with respect to a large-scale filament shape model for Lupus I, or relative to a large-scale bent filament model. This distribution is also compared to the mean orientation of the large-scale magnetic fields probed at 350 $μ$m with the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol) during its 2010 campaign. Here again we do not find any correlation between the core morphology distribution and the average orientation of the magnetic fields on parsec scales. Our main conclusion is that the local filament dynamics - including secondary filaments that often run orthogonally to the primary filament - and possibly small-scale variations in the local magnetic field direction, could be the dominant factors for explaining the final orientation of each core.

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arXiv2014

Detailed molecular observations toward the Double Helix Nebula

The Double Helix Nebula (DHN), located 100 pc above Sgr A* in the Galactic center (GC), is a unique structure whose morphology suggests it is a magnetic feature (Morris, Uchida & Do 2006). Recent molecular observations toward the DHN by Enokiya et al. (2014) revealed two candidate molecular counterparts of the DHN at radial velocities of -35 km/s and 0 km/s and discussed the model in which the DHN has its origin at the circumnuclear disk in the GC. In this paper, new CO observations toward the DHN using the CSO and Mopra telescopes are presented. The higher-resolution observations of ~1 pc scale reveal the detailed distributions and kinematics of the two CO counterparts (the 0 km/s and -35 km/s features) and provide new information on their physical conditions. As a result, we find that the 0 km/s feature with a mass of 3.3x10^4 Msun coincides with the infrared emission of the DHN, indicating clear association with the DHN. The association of the -35 km/s feature, with a mass of 0.8x10^4 Msun, is less clear compared with the 0 km/s feature, but the complementary distribution between the molecular gas and the DHN and velocity variation along the DHN support its association with the DHN. The two molecular features are highly excited, as shown by the relatively high CO J=2-1/J=1-0 intensity ratios of ~1.0, and have kinetic temperatures of ~30 K, consistent with the typical molecular clouds in the GC.

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arXiv2014

Investigation of Dense Gas Towards Relativistic Outflow Sources

We probe the interstellar medium towards the objects Circinus X-1, a low-mass X-ray binary with relativistic jets; and the highly energetic Westerlund 2 stellar cluster, which is located towards TeV gamma-ray emission and interesting arc- and jet-like features seen in Nanten 12CO data. We have mapped both regions with the Mopra radio telescope, in 7 mm and 12 mm wavebands, looking for evidence of disrupted/dense gas caused by the interaction between high energy outflows and the ISM. Towards Westerlund 2, peaks in CS(J=1-0) emission indicate high density gas towards the middle of the arc and the endpoint of the jet; and radio recombination line emission is seen overlapping the coincident HII region RCW49. Towards Circinus X-1, 12CO(J=1-0) Nanten data reveals three molecular clouds that lie in the region of Cir X-1. Gas parameters for each cloud are presented here.

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