ABSTRACT
ZZ Piscis Austrinus (ZZ PsA) is a neglected bright southern contact binary system with maximum V magnitude of 9.26. We present the first multiband photometric analysis and find the system to ...be in deep contact (>95 per cent) with an extremely low mass ratio of 0.078. The primary has a mass of 1.213 M⊙ in keeping with its reported spectral class of F6. In order to determine if ZZ PsA is a merger candidate, we outline the current status regarding the instability mass ratio and develop new relationship linking the mass of the primary to the instability mass ratio of the system and the degree of contact. We find that ZZ PsA along with two other examples from the literature to be merger candidates while an additional three require further observations to be confirmed as potential merger candidates.
ABSTRACT
We report the discovery of J0624–6948, a low-surface brightness radio ring, lying between the Galactic Plane and the large magellanic cloud (LMC). It was first detected at 888 MHz with the ...Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), and with a diameter of ∼196 arcsec. This source has phenomenological similarities to odd radio circles (ORCs). Significant differences to the known ORCs – a flatter radio spectral index, the lack of a prominent central galaxy as a possible host, and larger apparent size – suggest that J0624–6948 may be a different type of object. We argue that the most plausible explanation for J0624–6948 is an intergalactic supernova remnant due to a star that resided in the LMC outskirts that had undergone a single-degenerate type Ia supernova, and we are seeing its remnant expand into a rarefied, intergalactic environment. We also examine if a massive star or a white dwarf binary ejected from either galaxy could be the supernova progenitor. Finally, we consider several other hypotheses for the nature of the object, including the jets of an active galactic nucleus (30Dor) or the remnant of a nearby stellar super-flare.
RX J0046.5−7308 is a shell-type supernova remnant (SNR) in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We carried out new 12CO(J = 1-0, 3-2) observations toward the SNR using Mopra and the Atacama ...Submillimeter Telescope Experiment. We found eight molecular clouds (A-H) along the X-ray shell of the SNR. The typical cloud size and mass are ∼10-15 pc and ∼1000-3000 M☉, respectively. The X-ray shell is slightly deformed and has the brightest peak in the southwestern shell where two molecular clouds A and B are located. The four molecular clouds A, B, F, and G have high intensity ratios of 12CO(J = 3-2)/12CO(J = 1-0) > 1.2, which are not attributable to any identified internal infrared sources or high-mass stars. The H i cavity and its expanding motion are found toward the SNR, which are likely created by strong stellar winds from a massive progenitor. We suggest that the molecular clouds A-D, F, and G and H i clouds within the wind-blown cavity at VLSR = 117.1-122.5 km s−1 are associated with the SNR. The X-ray spectroscopy reveals the dynamical age of yr and the progenitor mass of 30 M☉, which is also consistent with the proposed scenario. We determine physical conditions of the giant molecular cloud LIRS 36A using the large velocity gradient analysis with archival data sets of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array; the kinematic temperature is K and the number density of molecular hydrogen is cm−3. The next generation of γ-ray observations will allow us to study the pion-decay γ-rays from the molecular clouds in the SMC SNR.
ABSTRACT
We present a comprehensive multifrequency catalogue of radio sources behind the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) between 0.2 and 20 GHz, gathered from a combination of new and legacy radio ...continuum surveys. This catalogue covers an area of ∼144 deg2 at angular resolutions from 45 arcsec to ∼3 arcmin. We find 6434 discrete radio sources in total, of which 3789 are detected at two or more radio frequencies. We estimate the median spectral index (α; where Sv ∼ να) of α = −0.89 and mean of −0.88 ± 0.48 for 3636 sources detected exclusively at two frequencies (0.843 and 1.384 GHz) with similar resolution full width at half-maximum (FWHM) ∼40–45 arcsec. The large frequency range of the surveys makes it an effective tool to investigate Gigahertz Peak Spectrum (GPS), Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS), and Infrared Faint Radio Source (IFRS) populations within our sample. We find 10 GPS candidates with peak frequencies near 5 GHz, from which we estimate their linear size. 1866 sources from our catalogue are CSS candidates with α < −0.8. We found six candidates for High Frequency Peaker (HFP) sources, whose radio fluxes peak above 5 GHz and no sources with unconstrained peaks and α > 0.5. We found optical counterparts for 343 of the radio continuum sources, of which 128 have a redshift measurement. Finally, we investigate the population of 123 IFRSs found in this study.
Abstract
We have acquired radio-continuum data between 70 MHz and 48 GHz for a sample of 19 southern starburst galaxies at moderate redshifts (0.067 < z < 0.227) with the aim of separating ...synchrotron and free–free emission components. Using a Bayesian framework, we find the radio continuum is rarely characterized well by a single power law, instead often exhibiting low-frequency turnovers below 500 MHz, steepening at mid to high frequencies, and a flattening at high frequencies where free–free emission begins to dominate over the synchrotron emission. These higher order curvature components may be attributed to free–free absorption across multiple regions of star formation with varying optical depths. The decomposed synchrotron and free–free emission components in our sample of galaxies form strong correlations with the total-infrared bolometric luminosities. Finally, we find that without accounting for free–free absorption with turnovers between 90 and 500 MHz the radio continuum at low frequency (ν < 200 MHz) could be overestimated by upwards of a factor of 12 if a simple power-law extrapolation is used from higher frequencies. The mean synchrotron spectral index of our sample is constrained to be α = −1.06, which is steeper than the canonical value of −0.8 for normal galaxies. We suggest this may be caused by an intrinsically steeper cosmic ray distribution.
We have imaged 24 spectral lines in the central molecular zone (CMZ) around the Galactic Centre, in the range 42-50 GHz. The lines include emission from the CS, CH3OH, HC3N, SiO, HNCO, HOCO+, NH2CHO, ...OCS, HCS+, CCS, C34S, 13CS, 29SiO, H13CCCN, HCC13CN and HC5N molecules, and three hydrogen recombination lines. The area covered is Galactic longitude −0
7 to 1
8 and latitude −0
3 to 0
2, including the bright cores around Sgr A, Sgr B2, Sgr C and G1.6-0.025. This work used the 22-m Mopra radio telescope in Australia, obtaining ∼1.8 km s−1 spectral and ∼65 arcsec spatial resolution. We present peak images from this study and conduct a principal component analysis on the integrated emission from the brightest 10 lines, to study similarities and differences in the line distribution. We examine the integrated line intensities and line ratios in selected apertures around the bright cores, as well as for the complete mapped region of the CMZ. We compare these 7-mm lines to the corresponding lines in the 3-mm band, for five molecules, to study the excitation. There is a variation in 3 to 7-mm line ratio across the CMZ, with relatively higher ratio in the centre around Sgr B2 and Sgr A. We find that the lines are sub-thermally excited, and from modelling with radex find that non-Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium conditions apply, with densities of the order of 104 cm−3.
We present a global study of low-mass, young stellar object (YSO) surface densities (Σ) in nearby (<500 pc) star-forming regions based on a comprehensive collection of Spitzer Space Telescope ...surveys. We show that the distribution of YSO surface densities in the solar neighbourhood is a smooth distribution, being adequately described by a lognormal function from a few to 103 YSOs pc−2, with a peak at ∼22 stars pc−2 and a dispersion of . We do not find evidence for multiple discrete modes of star formation (e.g. clustered and distributed). Comparing the observed surface density distribution to previously reported surface density threshold definitions of clusters, we find that the fraction of stars in clusters is crucially dependent on the adopted definitions, ranging from 40 to 90 per cent. However, we find that only a low fraction (<26 per cent) of stars are formed in dense environments where their formation/evolution (along with their circumstellar discs and/or planets) may be affected by the close proximity of their low-mass neighbours.
We investigate young type Ia supernova remnants (SNRs) in our Galaxy and neighbouring galaxies in order to understand their properties and early stage of their evolution. Here we present a radio ...continuum study based on new and archival data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) towards N 103B, a young (≤1000 yrs) spectroscopically confirmed type Ia SNR in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and proposed to have originated from a single degenerate (SD) progenitor. The radio morphology of this SNR is asymmetrical with two bright regions towards the north-west and south-west of the central location as defined by radio emission.
N 103B identified features include: a radio spectral index of
−
0.75
±
0.01
(consistent with other young type Ia SNRs in the Galaxy); a bulk SNR expansion rate as in X-rays; morphology and polarised electrical field vector measurements where we note radial polarisation peak towards the north-west of the remnant at both 5500 and 9000 MHz. The spectrum is concave-up and the most likely reason is the non-linear diffusive shock acceleration (NLDSA) effects or presence of two different populations of ultra-relativistic electrons.
We also note unpolarised clumps near the south-west region which is in agreement with this above scenario. We derive a typical magnetic field strength for N 103B of 16.4 μG for an average rotation measurement of
200
rad
m
−
2
. However, we estimate the equipartition field to be of the order of ∼235 μG with an estimated minimum energy of
E
min
=
6.3
×
10
48
erg
. The close (
∼
0.5
∘
) proximity of N 103B to the LMC mid-plane indicates that an early encounter with dense interstellar medium may have set an important constrain on SNR evolution.
Finally, we compare features of N 103B to six other young type Ia SNRs in the LMC and Galaxy, with a range of proposed degeneracy scenarios to highlight potential differences due to a different models. We suggest that the single degenerate scenario might point to morphologically asymmetric type Ia supernova explosions.
ABSTRACT
We present two new radio continuum images from the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) survey in the direction of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). These images are part of ...the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) Early Science Project (ESP) survey of the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. The two new source lists produced from these images contain radio continuum sources observed at 960 MHz (4489 sources) and 1320 MHz (5954 sources) with a bandwidth of 192 MHz and beam sizes of 30.0 × 30.0 arcsec2 and 16.3 × 15.1 arcsec2, respectively. The median root mean square (RMS) noise values are 186 $\mu$Jy beam−1 (960 MHz) and 165 $\mu$Jy beam−1 (1320 MHz). To create point source catalogues, we use these two source lists, together with the previously published Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST) and the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) point source catalogues to estimate spectral indices for the whole population of radio point sources found in the survey region. Combining our ASKAP catalogues with these radio continuum surveys, we found 7736 point-like sources in common over an area of 30 deg2. In addition, we report the detection of two new, low surface brightness supernova remnant candidates in the SMC. The high sensitivity of the new ASKAP ESP survey also enabled us to detect the bright end of the SMC planetary nebula sample, with 22 out of 102 optically known planetary nebulae showing point-like radio continuum emission. Lastly, we present several morphologically interesting background radio galaxies.
Abstract
We analyze the cooling and feedback properties of 48 galaxy clusters at redshifts 0.4 <
z
< 1.3 selected from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) catalogs to evolve like the progenitors of ...massive and well-studied systems at
z
∼ 0. We estimate the radio power at the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) location of each cluster from an analysis of Australia Telescope Compact Array data. Assuming that the scaling relation between the radio power and active galactic nucleus (AGN) cavity power
P
cav
observed at low redshift does not evolve with redshift, we use these measurements in order to estimate the expected AGN cavity power in the core of each system. We estimate the X-ray luminosity within the cooling radius
L
cool
of each cluster from a joint analysis of the available Chandra X-ray and SPT Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) data. This allows us to characterize the redshift evolution of the
P
cav
/
L
cool
ratio. When combined with low-redshift results, these constraints enable investigations of the properties of the feedback–cooling cycle across 9 Gyr of cluster growth. We model the redshift evolution of this ratio measured for cool-core clusters by a log-normal distribution
Log
-
(
α
+
β
z
,
σ
2
)
and constrain the slope of the mean evolution to
β
= −0.05 ± 0.47. This analysis improves the constraints on the slope of this relation by a factor of two. We find no evidence of redshift evolution of the feedback–cooling equilibrium in these clusters, which suggests that the onset of radio-mode feedback took place at an early stage of cluster formation. High values of
P
cav
/
L
cool
are found at the BCG location of noncool-core clusters, which might suggest that the timescales of the AGN feedback cycle and the cool core–noncool core transition are different. This work demonstrates that the joint analysis of radio, SZ, and X-ray data solidifies the investigation of AGN feedback at high redshifts.
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