ABSTRACT The most frequently proposed model for the origin of quasars holds that the high accretion rates seen in luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) are primarily triggered during major mergers ...between gas-rich galaxies. While plausible for decades, this model has only begun to be tested with statistical rigor in the past few years. Here, we report on a Hubble Space Telescope study to test this hypothesis for z = 2 quasars with high supermassive black hole masses ( ), which dominate cosmic black hole growth at this redshift. We compare Wide Field Camera 3 (rest-frame V-band) imaging of 19 point source-subtracted quasar hosts to a matched sample of 84 inactive galaxies, testing whether the quasar hosts have greater evidence for strong gravitational interactions. Using an expert ranking procedure, we find that the quasar hosts are uniformly distributed within the merger sequence of inactive galaxies, with no preference for quasars in high-distortion hosts. Using a merger/non-merger cutoff approach, we recover distortion fractions of for quasar hosts and for inactive galaxies (distribution modes, 68% confidence intervals), with both measurements subjected to the same observational conditions and limitations. The slight enhancement in distorted fraction for quasar hosts over inactive galaxies is not significant, with a probability that the quasar fraction is higher ( ), in line with results for lower mass and lower z AGN. We find no evidence that major mergers are the primary triggering mechanism for the massive quasars that dominate accretion at the peak of cosmic quasar activity.
While major mergers have long been proposed as a driver of both active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity and the relation, studies of moderate to high-redshift Seyfert-luminosity AGN hosts have found ...little evidence for enhanced rates of interactions. However, both theory and observation suggest that while these AGNs may be fueled by stochastic accretion and secular processes, high-luminosity, high-redshift, and heavily obscured AGNs are the AGNs most likely to be merger-driven. To better sample this population of AGNs, we turn to infrared selection in the CANDELS/COSMOS field. Compared to their lower-luminosity and less obscured X-ray-only counterparts, IR-only AGNs (luminous, heavily obscured AGNs) are more likely to be classified as either irregular ( versus ) or asymmetric ( versus ) and are less likely to have a spheroidal component ( versus ). Furthermore, IR-only AGNs are also significantly more likely than X-ray-only AGNs ( versus ) to be classified either as interacting or merging in a way that significantly disturbs the host galaxy or as disturbed, though not clearly interacting or merging, which potentially represents the late stages of a major merger. This suggests that while major mergers may not contribute significantly to the fueling of Seyfert-luminosity AGNs, interactions appear to play a more dominant role in the triggering and fueling of high-luminosity heavily obscured AGNs.
Historical records of an earthquake that occurred in 1730 affecting Metropolitan Chile provide essential clues on the source characteristics for the future earthquakes in the region. The earthquake ...and tsunami of 1730 have been recognized as the largest to occur in Metropolitan Chile since the beginning of written history. The earthquake destroyed buildings along >1000 km of the coast and produced a large tsunami that caused damage as far as Japan. Here its source characteristics are inferred by comparing local tsunami inundations computed from hypothetical earthquakes with varying magnitude and depth, with those inferred from historical observations. It is found that a 600–800 km long rupture involving average slip amounts of 10–14 m (Mw 9.1–9.3) best explains the observed tsunami heights and inundations. This large earthquake magnitude is supported by the 1730 tsunami heights inferred in Japan. The inundation results combined with local uplift reports suggest a southward increase of the slip depth along the rupture zone of the 1730 earthquake. While shallow slip on the area to the north of the 2010 earthquake rupture zone is required to explain the reported inundation, only deeper slip at this area can explain the coastal uplift reports. Since the later earthquakes of the region involved little or no slip at shallow depths, the near‐future earthquakes on Metropolitan Chile could release the shallow slip accumulated since 1730 and thus lead to strong tsunami excitation. Moderate shaking from a shallow earthquake could delay tsunami evacuation for the most populated coastal region of Chile.
Key Points
Historical records of the tsunami triggered by the 1730 Metropolitan Chile earthquake suggest a magnitude in the range of Mw 9.1–9.3
A southward increase of the slip depth along the rupture zone of the 1730 earthquake best explains the tsunami and uplift observations
The near‐future earthquakes on Metropolitan Chile could involve large, offshore, shallow slip with strong tsunami excitation
An uncommon coastal sedimentary record combines evidence for seismic shaking and coincident tsunami inundation since AD 1000 in the region of the largest earthquake recorded instrumentally: the giant ...1960 southern Chile earthquake (Mw 9.5). The record reveals significant variability in the size and recurrence of megathrust earthquakes and ensuing tsunamis along this part of the Nazca-South American plate boundary. A 500-m long coastal outcrop on Isla Chiloé, midway along the 1960 rupture, provides continuous exposure of soil horizons buried locally by debris-flow diamicts and extensively by tsunami sand sheets. The diamicts flattened plants that yield geologically precise ages to correlate with well-dated evidence elsewhere. The 1960 event was preceded by three earthquakes that probably resembled it in their effects, in AD 898–1128, 1300–1398 and 1575, and by five relatively smaller intervening earthquakes. Earthquakes and tsunamis recurred exceptionally often between AD 1300 and 1575. Their average recurrence interval of 85years only slightly exceeds the time already elapsed since 1960. This inference is of serious concern because no earthquake has been anticipated in the region so soon after the 1960 event, and current plate locking suggests that some segments of the boundary are already capable of producing large earthquakes. This long-term earthquake and tsunami history of one of the world's most seismically active subduction zones provides an example of variable rupture mode, in which earthquake size and recurrence interval vary from one earthquake to the next.
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•Unusual geologic evidence of shaking and coincident tsunami•Evidence clarifies seismic and tsunami history in the area of the giant 1960 Chile earthquake.•Three giant earthquakes similar to 1960 and five intervening earthquakes of lesser effects in the last millennium•Megathrust ruptures varied in length and recurrence interval.•A prehistoric recurrence interval only slightly exceeds the time already elapsed since 1960.
Here we describe biogeochemical processes that lead to the generation of acid rock drainage (ARD) and rock weathering on the Antarctic landmass and describe why they are important sources of iron ...into the Antarctic Ocean. During three expeditions, 2009–2011, we examined three sites on the South Shetland Islands in Antarctica. Two of them displayed intensive sulfide mineralization and generated acidic (pH 3.2–4.5), iron-rich drainage waters (up to 1.78 mM Fe), which infiltrated as groundwater (as Fe2+) and as superficial runoff (as Fe3+) into the sea, the latter with the formation of schwertmannite in the sea-ice. The formation of ARD in the Antarctic was catalyzed by acid mine drainage microorganisms found in cold climates, including Acidithiobacillus ferrivorans and Thiobacillus plumbophilus. The dissolved iron (DFe) flux from rock weathering (nonmineralized control site) was calculated to be 0.45 × 109 g DFe yr–1 for the nowadays 5468 km of ice-free Antarctic rock coastline which is of the same order of magnitude as glacial or aeolian input to the Southern Ocean. Additionally, the two ARD sites alone liberate 0.026 and 0.057 × 109 g DFe yr–1 as point sources to the sea. The increased iron input correlates with increased phytoplankton production close to the source. This might even be enhanced in the future by a global warming scenario, and could be a process counterbalancing global warming.
Abstract
We use data from the IAC Stripe82 Legacy Project to study the surface photometry of 22 nearby, face-on to moderately inclined spiral galaxies. The reprocessed and combined Stripe 82 g ΄, r ΄ ...and i ΄ images allow us to probe the galaxy down to 29–30 r ΄-magnitudes arcsec−2 and thus reach into the very faint outskirts of the galaxies. Truncations are found in three galaxies. An additional 15 galaxies are found to have an apparent extended stellar halo. Simulations show that the scattering of light from the inner galaxy by the point spread function (PSF) can produce faint structures resembling haloes, but this effect is insufficient to fully explain the observed haloes. The presence of these haloes and of truncations is mutually exclusive, and we argue that the presence of a stellar halo and/or light scattered by the PSF can hide truncations. Furthermore, we find that the onset of the stellar halo and the truncations scales tightly with galaxy size. Interestingly, the fraction of light does not correlate with dynamic mass. Nineteen galaxies are found to have breaks in their profiles, the radius of which also correlates with galaxy size.
Phenotypic intermediacy is an indicator of putative hybrid origin and has provided the main clues to discovering hybrid plants in nature. Mandevilla pentlandiana and M. laxa (Apocynaceae) are sister ...species with clear differences in floral phenotype and associated pollinator guilds: diurnal Hymenoptera and nocturnal hawkmoths, respectively. The presence of individuals with intermediate phenotypes in a wild population raises questions about the roles of visual and olfactory signals (i.e. corolla morphology and floral fragrances) as barriers to interbreeding, and how the breakdown of floral isolation occurs. We examined phenotypic variation in a mixed Mandevilla population, analysing the chemical composition of floral fragrances, characterising floral shape through geometric morphometrics and assessing individual grouping through taxonomically relevant traits and an unsupervised learning algorithm. We quantified the visitation frequencies of floral visitors and tracked their foraging movements using pollen analogues. The presence of morphologically intermediate individuals and pollen analogue movement suggested extensive hybridisation between M. laxa and M. pentlandiana, along with asymmetrical rates of backcrossing between these putative hybrids and M. laxa. Floral volatiles from putative hybrid individuals showed a transgressive phenotype, with additional compounds not emitted by either parental species. Our results suggest the presence of a hybrid swarm between sympatric M. pentlandiana and M. laxa and indicate that initial hybridisation events between these parental species are rare, but once they occur, visits between putative hybrids and M. laxa are common and facilitate continued introgression.
The "Cosmic Evolution Survey" (COSMOS) enables the study of the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) because of the deep coverage and rich sampling of frequencies ...from X-ray to radio. Here we present an SED catalog of 413 X-ray (XMM-Newton)-selected type 1 (emission line FWHM > 2000 km s super(-1)) AGNs with Magellan, SDSS, or VLT spectrum. The SEDs are corrected for Galactic extinction, broad emission line contributions, constrained variability, and host galaxy contribution. We present the mean SED and the dispersion SEDs after the above corrections in the rest-frame 1.4 GHz to 40 keV, and show examples of the variety of SEDs encountered. In the near-infrared to optical (rest frame ~8 mum-4000 A), the photometry is complete for the whole sample and the mean SED is derived from detections only. Reddening and host galaxy contamination could account for a large fraction of the observed SED variety. The SEDs are all available online.
Far‐field tsunami records from the Japanese tide gauge network allow the reexamination of the moment magnitudes (Mw) for the 1906 and 1922 Chilean earthquakes, which to date rely on limited ...information mainly from seismological observations alone. Tide gauges along the Japanese coast provide extensive records of tsunamis triggered by six great (Mw >8) Chilean earthquakes with instrumentally determined moment magnitudes. These tsunami records are used to explore the dependence of tsunami amplitudes in Japan on the parent earthquake magnitude of Chilean origin. Using the resulting regression parameters together with tide gauge amplitudes measured in Japan we estimate apparent moment magnitudes of Mw 8.0–8.2 and Mw 8.5–8.6 for the 1906 central and 1922 north‐central Chile earthquakes. The large discrepancy of the 1906 magnitude estimated from the tsunami observed in Japan as compared with those previously determined from seismic waves (Ms 8.4) suggests a deeper than average source with reduced tsunami excitation. A deep dislocation along the Chilean megathrust would favor uplift of the coast rather than beneath the sea, giving rise to a smaller tsunami and producing effects consistent with those observed in 1906. The 1922 magnitude inferred from far‐field tsunami amplitudes appear to better explain the large extent of damage and the destructive tsunami that were locally observed following the earthquake than the lower seismic magnitudes (Ms 8.3) that were likely affected by the well‐known saturation effects. Thus, a repeat of the large 1922 earthquake poses seismic and tsunami hazards in a region identified as a mature seismic gap.
Key Points
Far‐field tsunami amplitudes gauged in Japan provide both magnitude and source depth constraints on the Chilean 1906 and 1922 earthquakes
Peak tsunami amplitudes in Japan scale consistently with the moment magnitude for Chilean earthquakes that occur at typical source depths
While the 1922 tsunami amplitudes in Japan indicate a typical source depth, those for 1906 point to a deeper than average source
A 3D mesoscopic envelope model is used to numerically simulate the experimental X-ray observations of the equiaxed dendritic isothermal solidification of a thin sample of Al-20 wt%Cu alloy including ...the natural convection flow. Several four-grain simulations are run to investigate the effect of the convection, of the grain position, and of the grain rotation on the tip growth kinetics of one of the grains. We show that the effect of convection flow - consequence of the presence of gravity parallel to the sample thickness direction, z - on the growth kinetics of the reference grain depends significantly on the position of the grain along the sample thickness.
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