We present self-consistent models of gas in optically-thick dusty disks and calculate its thermal, density and chemical structure. The models focus on an accurate treatment of the upper layers where line emission originates, and at radii $\gtrsim 0.7$ AU. We present results of disks around $\sim 1{\rm M}_{\odot}$ stars where we have varied dust properties, X-ray luminosities and UV luminosities. We separately treat gas and dust thermal balance, and calculate line luminosities at infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths from all transitions originating in the predominantly neutral gas that lies below the ionized surface of the disk. We find that the [ArII] 7$μ$m, [NeII] 12.8$μ$m, [FeI] 24$μ$m, [SI] 25$μ$m, [FeII] 26$μ$m, [SiII] 35 $μ$m, [OI] 63$μ$m and pure rotational lines of H$_2$, H$_2$O and CO can be quite strong and are good indicators of the presence and distribution of gas in disks. We apply our models to the disk around the nearby young star, TW Hya, and find good agreement between our model calculations and observations. We also predict strong emission lines from the TW Hya disk that are likely to be detected by future facilities. A comparison of CO observations with our models suggests that the gas disk around TW Hya may be truncated to $\sim 120 $ AU, compared to its dust disk of 174 AU. We speculate that photoevaporation due to the strong stellar FUV field from TW Hya is responsible for the gas disk truncation.
A combined analysis of the profiles of the main broad quasar emission lines in both Hubble Space Telescope and optical spectra shows that while the profiles of the strong UV lines are quite similar, there is frequently a strong increase in the Ly-alpha/H-alpha ratio in the high-velocity gas. We show that the suggestion that the high velocity gas is optically-thin presents many problems. We show that the relative strengths of the high velocity wings arise naturally in an optically-thick BLR component. An optically-thick model successfully explains the equivalent widths of the lines, the Ly-alph…
We report our search for optically thick radio cores in sixteen narrow-waist bipolar nebulae. Optically thick cores are a characteristic signature of collimated ionized winds. Eleven northern nebulae were observed with the Very Large Array (VLA) at 1.3 cm and 0.7 cm, and five southern nebulae were observed with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) at 6 cm and 3.6 cm. Two northern objects, 19W32 and M 1-91, and three southern objects, He 2-25, He 2-84 and Mz 3, were found to exhibit a compact radio core with a rising spectrum consistent with an ionized jet. Such jets have been seen in M…
The surface flux (and the corresponding observed flux) of a geometrically thick ``funnel'' shaped disk is computed taking into account the radiation impinging on the surface from other parts of the disk. It is found that the ratio of the maximum apparent luminosity to the real luminosity of the disk is only a factor $\approx 5$ even when the opening angle of the disk is small ($\approx 15^o$). Thus, geometrically beamed emission from ``funnel'' shaped sub-Eddington disks around stellar mass black holes, cannot explain the Ultra-Luminous X-ray sources detected in nearby galaxies.
Highly supercritical accretion discs are probable sources of dense optically thick axisymmetric winds. We introduce a new approach based on diffusion approximation radiative transfer in a funnel geometry and obtain an analytical solution for the energy density distribution inside the wind assuming that all the mass, momentum and energy are injected well inside the spherization radius. This allows to derive the spectrum of emergent emission for various inclination angles. We show that self-irradiation effects play an important role altering the temperature of the outcoming radiation by about 20…
Recent Chandra observations of nearby galaxies have revealed a number of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) with super-Eddington luminosities, away from the central regions of non-active galaxies. The nature of these sources is still debated. We argue that a fraction of them could be young, Crab-like pulsars, the X-ray luminosity of which is powered by rotation. We use the pulsar birth parameters estimated from radio pulsar data to compute the steady-state pulsar X-ray luminosity distribution as a function of the star formation rate (SFR) in the galaxy. We find that ~10% of optically dull gala…
The vertical structure of optically thick accretion disks is investigated in the two-zone approximation. The disk is divided into an underlying disk and a corona, where the latter is defined as the upper surface layers for which the effective optical depth is unity. It is found that a significant part of the accretion flow (or dissipation rate) can take place in the corona if the scale height of the magnetic field is larger than that of the disk. The presence of such a dissipative corona leads to a modification in the topology of local disk solutions. For example, these solutions are found fro…
It was recently discovered that the temperature in the surface layer of externally heated optically thick gray dust clouds increases with the optical depth for some distance from the surface, as opposed to the normal decrease in temperature with distance in the rest of the cloud. This temperature inversion is a result of efficient absorption of diffuse flux from the cloud interior by the surface dust exposed to the external radiation. A micron or bigger size grains experience this effect when the external flux is of stellar spectrum. We explore what happens to the effect when dust is a mixture…
We have discovered an optically thick, edge-on circumstellar disk around a Herbig Ae star in the binary system PDS 144, providing the first intermediate-mass analog of HK Tau and similar T Tauris. This system consists of a V ~ 13 mag. primary and a fainter companion, with spectra of both stars showing evidence for circumstellar disks and accretion; both stars were classified as Herbig Aes by the Pico dos Dias survey. In Lick adaptive optics polarimetry, we resolved extended polarized light scattered from dust around the northern star. Followup Keck adaptive optics and mid-infrared observations…
We present here the solution for accretion disk structure, which describes continuously the transition between optically thick and optically thin disk regions. We show that the disk structure equations without advection, used here, give two branches of solutions which do not intersect for $L<L_{b}\lesssim 0.6 L_{\rm Edd}$ for $α=1.0$ and $M_{BH}=10^8 M_\odot$. For larger luminosities there are no global solutions of the equations without advection. We suggest, as one of the possibilities, that advection becomes important even before, at luminosities $\sim0.1L_{\rm Edd}$, when the inner disk re…
We describe a code designed for hot media {(T $\ge$} a few 10$^4$ K), optically thick to Compton scattering. It computes the structure of a plane-parallel slab of gas in thermal and ionization equilibrium, illuminated on one or on both sides by a given spectrum. Contrary to the other photoionization codes, it solves the transfer of the continuum and of the lines in a two stream approximation, without using the local escape probability formalism to approximate the line transfer. We stress the importance of taking into account the returning flux even for small column densities (10$^{22}$ cm$^{-2…
We consider the consequences of appreciable line optical depth for the profile shape of X-ray emission lines formed in stellar winds. The hot gas is thought to arise in distributed wind shocks, and the line formation is predominantly via collisional excitation followed by radiative decay. Such lines are often modelled as optically thin, but the theory has difficulty matching resolved X-ray line profiles. We suggest that for strong lines of abundant metals, newly created photons may undergo resonance scattering, modifying the emergent profile. Using Sobolev theory in a spherically symmetric win…
The Z-burst mechanism invoked to explain ultra-high energy cosmic rays is severely constrained by measurements of the cosmic gamma-ray background by EGRET. We discuss the case of optically thick sources and show that jets and hot spots of active galaxies cannot provide the optical depth required to suppress the photon flux. Other extragalactic accelerators (AGN cores and sites of gamma ray bursts), if they are optically thick, could be tested by future measurements of the secondary neutrino flux.
We examine the local conditions for radiative damping and driving of short wavelength, propagating hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves in static, optically thick, stratified equilibria. We show that so-called strange modes in stellar oscillation theory and magnetic photon bubbles are intimately related and are both fundamentally driven by the background radiation flux acting on compressible waves. We identify the necessary criteria for unstable driving of these waves, and show that this driving can exist in both gas and radiation pressure dominated media, as well as pure Thomson s…
We study the outflow of dust particles on the surface layers of optically thick disks. At the surface of disks around young stars, small dust particles (size < 10 micron) experience stellar radiation pressure support and orbit more slowly than the surrounding gas. The resulting tail-wind imparts energy and angular momentum to the dust particles, moving them outward. This outflow occurs in the thin surface layer of the disk that is exposed to starlight, and the outward mass flux is carried primarily by particles of size ~0.1 micron. Beneath the irradiated surface layer, dust particles experienc…
The hot star wind momentum problem η= mdot*vinfty/(L/c) >> 1 is revisited, and it is shown that the conventional belief, that it can be solved by a combination of clumping of the wind and multiple scattering of photons, is not self-consistent for optically thick clumps. Clumping does reduce the mass loss rate mdot, and hence the momentum supply, required to generate a specified radio emission measure \varepsilon, while multiple scattering increases the delivery of momentum from a specified stellar luminosity L. However, in the case of thick clumps, when combined the two effects act in oppositi…
Radiative transfer effects due to overlapping X-ray lines in a high-temperature, optically-thick, highly-ionized medium are investigated. One particular example, where the O VIII Ly-alpha doublet coincide in frequency with the N VII Ly-zeta lines is studied in detail to illustrate the effects on the properties of the emergent line spectrum. We solve the radiative transfer equation to study the energy transport of resonance line radiation in a static, infinite, plane-parallel geometry, which is used to compute the destruction/escape probabilities for each of the lines for various total optical …
The accepted explanation of the observed dichotomy of two orders of magnitude between in situ measurements of electron density in HII regions, derived from emission line ratios, and average measurements based on integrated emission measure, is the inhomogeneity of the ionized medium. This is expressed as a "filling factor", the volume ratio of dense to tenuous gas, measured with values of order 10^-3. Implicit in the filling factor model as normally used, is the assumption that the clumps of dense gas are optically thin to ionizing radiation. Here we explore implications of assuming the contra…
With close pairs of quasars at different redshifts, a background quasar sightline can be used to study a foreground quasar's environment in absorption. We used a sample of 17 Lyman limit systems with column density N_HI > 10^19 cm^-2 selected from 149 projected quasar pair sightlines, to investigate the clustering pattern of optically thick absorbers around luminous quasars at z ~ 2.5. Specifically, we measured the quasar-absorber correlation function in the transverse direction, and found a comoving correlation length of r_0=9.2_{+1.5}_{-1.7} Mpc/h (comoving) assuming a power law correlation …
Recently, analysis of near-infrared broad-band photometry and Spitzer IRS spectra has led to the identification of a new "pre-transitional disk" class whose members have an inner optically thick disk separated from an outer optically thick disk by an optically thin gap. This is in contrast to the "transitional disks" which have inner disk holes (i.e. large reductions of small dust from the star out to an outer optically thick wall). In LkCa 15, one of these proposed pre-transitional disks, detailed modeling showed that although the near-infrared fluxes could be understood in terms of optically…
A framework for the interpretation of the spectral states of black hole X-ray transients based on the diversity of accretion disk models is introduced. Depending on the mass accretion rate, it is proposed that the accretion disk is described by one or a combination of the following structures: optically thick disk, advection-dominated disk, corona-disk, and non-steady state disk. In particular, it is suggested that the very high, high, low, and off states are characterized by mass accretion rates of decreasing magnitude. The very high state corresponds to mass accretion rates near the Eddingto…
We describe a code designed for hot media {(T $\ge$} a few 10$^4$ K), optically thick to Compton scattering. It computes the structure of a plane-parallel slab of gas in thermal and ionization equilibrium, illuminated on one side or on both sides by a given spectrum. This code has been presented in a previous paper (Dumont, Abrassart & Collin 2000), where several aspects were already discussed. So we focus here mainly on the recent developments. Presently the code solves the transfer of the continuum with the Accelerated Lambda Iteration method (ALI) and that of the lines in a two stream Eddin…
The relations among the relative changes of surface density, temperature, disk height and vertical integrated pressure in three kinds of thermally unstable accretion disks were quantitatively investigated by assuming local perturbations. The surface density change was found to be very small in the long perturbation wavelength case but can not be ignored in the short wavelength case. It becomes significant in an optically thin, radiative cooling dominated disk when the perturbation wavelength is shorter than 15H (H is the scale height of disk) and in a geometrically thin, optically thick and ra…
VLA radio continuum imaging reveals compact (<8 pc) ~1 mJy radio sources in the central 5" starburst region of the blue compact galaxy Henize 2-10. We interpret these radio knots as extremely young, ultra-dense HII regions. We model their luminosities and spectral energy distributions, finding that they are consistent with unusually dense HII regions having electron densities, 1500 cm^-3 < n_e < 5000 cm^-3, and sizes of 3-8 pc. Since these H II regions are not visible in optical images, we propose that the radio data preferentially reveal the youngest, densest, and most highly obscured starfor…
Cold inactive disks are believed to exist in Low Luminosity AGN (LLAGN). They may also exist in the nuclei of inactive galaxies and in the center of our own Galaxy. These disks would then be embedded in the observed dense nuclear stellar clusters. Making the simplest assumption of an optically thick disk, we explore several ways to detect the disk presence through its interaction with the cluster. First of these is the eclipses of close bright stars by the disk. The second is the increase in the infrared flux of the disk due to illumination of its surface by such stars during close passages. F…
The results of numerical calculations of linear polarization from magnetized spherical optically thick and optically thin envelopes are presented. We give the methods how to distinguish magnetized optically thin envelopes from optically thick ones using observed spectral distributions of the polarization degree and the positional angle. The results of numerical calculations are used for analysis of polarimetric observations of OB and WR stars, X-ray binaries with black hole candidates (Cyg X-1, SS 433) and supernovae. The developed method allows to estimate magnetic field strength for the obje…
The central engines of active galactic nuclei (AGN) contain cold, dense material as well as hot X-ray emitting gas. The standard paradigm for the engine geometry is a cold thin disc sandwiched between hot X-ray coronae. Strong support for this geometry in Seyferts comes from the study of fluorescent iron line profiles, although the evidence is not ubiquitously air tight. The thin disc model of line profiles in AGN and in X-ray binaries should be bench marked against other plausible possibilities. One proposed alternative is an engine consisting of dense clouds embedded in an optically thin, ge…
We present a multi-epoch quantitative spectroscopic analysis of the Type IIn SN 1994W, an event interpreted by Chugai et al. as stemming from the interaction between the ejecta of a SN and a 0.4Msun circumstellar shell ejected 1.5yr before core collapse. During the brightening phase, our models suggest that the source of optical radiation is not unique, perhaps associated with an inner optically-thick Cold Dense Shell (CDS) and outer optically-thin shocked material. During the fading phase, our models support a single source of radiation, an hydrogen-rich optically-thick layer with a near-cons…
We describe the use of partially overlapping galaxies to provide direct measurements of the effective absorption in galaxy disks, independent of assumptions about internal disk structure. The non-overlapping parts of the galaxies and symmetry considerations are used to reconstruct, via differential photometry, how much background galaxy light is lost in passing through the foreground disks. Extensive catalog searches yield ~15-25 nearby galaxy pairs suitable for varying degrees of our analysis; ten of the best such examples are presented here. From these pairs, we find that interarm extinction…
We have conducted a long slit search for low surface brightness Lyman-alpha emitters at redshift 2.67 < z < 3.75. A 92 hour long exposure with VLT/FORS2 down to a 1-sigma surface brightness detection limit of 8x10^-20 erg/cm2/s/sqarcsec yielded a sample of 27 single line emitters with fluxes of a few times 10^-18 erg/s/cm2. We present arguments that most objects are indeed Lyman-alpha. The large comoving number density, the large covering factor, dN/dz ~ 0.2-1, and the often extended Lyman-alpha emission suggest that the emitters be identified with the elusive host population of damped Lyman-a…
The recently recognized class of "transitional disk" systems consists of young starswith optically-thick outer disks but inner disks which are mostly devoid of small dust. Here we introduce a further class of "pre-transitional disks" with significant near-infrared excesses which indicate the presence of an optically thick inner disk separated from an optically thick outer disk; thus, the spectral energy distributions of pre-transitional disks suggest the incipient development of disk gaps rather than inner holes. In UX Tau A, our analysis of the Spitzer IRS spectrum finds that the near-infrare…
Context: The mass-loss rate is a key parameter of massive stars. Adequate stellar atmosphere models are required for spectral analyses and mass-loss determinations. Present models can only account for the inhomogeneity of stellar winds in the approximation of small-scale structures that are optically thin. This treatment of ``microclumping'' has led to reducing empirical mass-loss rates by factors of two and more. Aims: Stellar wind clumps can be optically thick in spectral lines. We investigate how this ``macroclumping'' impacts on empirical mass-loss rates. Methods: The Potsdam Wolf-Rayet (P…
X-ray spectra transmitted through matter which is optically thick to Compton scattering are computed by means of Monte Carlo simulations. Applications to the BeppoSAX data of the Seyfert 2 galaxy in Circinus, and to the spectral modeling of the Cosmic X-ray Background, are discussed.
This work focuses on [O I] and [C II] emission towards NGC 6334 A, an embedded H+ region/PDR only observable at infrared or longer wavelengths. A geometry where nearly all the emission escapes out the side of the cloud facing the stars, such as Orion, is not applicable to this region. Instead, we find the geometry to be one where the H+ region and associated PDR is embedded in the molecular cloud. Constant density PDR calculations are presented which predict line intensities as a function of AV (or N(H)), hydrogen density (nH), and incident UV radiation field (G0). We find that a single compon…
We discuss the properties of the X-ray sources with faint optical counterparts in the very young open cluster NGC 6231. From their positions in the H-R diagram, we find that the bulk of these objects probably consists of low-mass pre-main sequence stars with masses in the range 0.3 to 3.0 M$_{\odot}$. The age distribution of these objects indicates that low-mass star formation in NGC 6231 started more than 10 Myr ago and culminated in a starburst-like event about 1 to 4 Myr ago when the bulk of the low-mass PMS stars as well as the massive cluster members formed. We find no evidence for a spat…
SN2006tf is the third most luminous SN discovered so far, after SN2005ap and SN2006gy. SN2006tf is valuable because it provides a link between two regimes: (1) luminous type IIn supernovae powered by emission directly from interaction with circumstellar material (CSM), and (2) the most extremely luminous SNe where the CSM interaction is so optically thick that energy must diffuse out from an opaque shocked shell. As SN2006tf evolves, it slowly transitions from the second to the first regime as the clumpy shell becomes more porous. This link suggests that the range in properties of the most lum…
We calculate line emission from relativistic accretion tori around Kerr black holes and investigate how the line profiles depend on the viewing inclination, spin of the central black hole, parameters describing the shape of the tori, and spatial distribution of line emissivity on the torus surface. We also compare the lines with those from thin accretion disks. Our calculations show that lines from tori and lines from thin disks share several common features. In particular, at low and moderate viewing inclination angles they both have asymmetric double-peaked profiles with a tall, sharp blue p…
(truncated version) The X-ray spectra of Galactic binary systems in the very high state show both strong disk emission and a strong, steep tail to high energies. We use simultaneous optical-ASCA-RXTE data from the black hole transient XTE J1550-564 as a specific example, and show that these have disc spectra which are significantly lower in temperature than those seen from the same source at the same luminosity when in the disc dominated state. If these give a true picture of the disc then either the disc emissivity has reduced, and/or the disc truncates above the last stable orbit. However, i…
Two component X-ray spectra (soft multicolor black body plus harder power law) are frequently observed from accreting black holes. These components are presumably associated with the different parts of the accretion flow (optically thick and optically thin respectively) in the vicinity of the compact source. Most of the aperiodic variability of the X-ray flux on the short time scales is associated with the harder component. We suggest that drastically different amplitudes of variability of these two components are simply related to the very different viscous time scales in the geometrically th…
The opacity of spiral galaxies is examined by modelling the dust and stellar content of individual galaxies. The model is applied to five late-type spiral galaxies (NGC 4013, IC 2531, UGC 1082, NGC 5529 and NGC 5907). Having analyzed a total of seven galaxies thus far, the five galaxies mentioned above plus UGC 2048 and NGC 891 presented in (Xilouris et al. 1997, 1998), we are able to draw some general conclusions, the most significant of which are: 1) The face-on central optical depth is less than one in all optical bands indicating that typical spiral galaxies like the ones that we have mode…
The characterization of gas in the inner disks around young stars is of particular interest because of its connection to planet formation. In order to study the gas in inner disks, we have obtained high-resolution K-band and M-band spectroscopy of 14 intermediate mass young stars. In sources that have optically thick inner disks, i.e. E(K-L)>1, our detection rate of the ro-vibrational CO transitions is 100% and the gas is thermally excited. Of the five sources that do not have optically thick inner disks, we only detect the ro-vibrational CO transitions from HD 141569. In this case, we show th…
The role of star-formation driven outflows in the obscuration of the central source in the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) is discussed. The outflow from a sub-parsec scale accretion disc is numerically modelled for parameters appropriate to the Galactic Centre. The resulting obscuration pattern is very patchy, with some lines of sight becoming optically thick to Thomson scattering. A fixed observer would see column depth changing by factors of many over time scales of order months to hundreds of years, depending on the physical size of the outflow region. Such winds may be relevant for obscurati…
The nebular evolution is followed from the vicinity of the asymptotic-giant branch across the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram until the white-dwarf domain is reached, using various central-star models coupled to different initial envelope configurations. Along each sequence the relevant line emissions of the nebulae are computed and analysed. Maximum line luminosities in Hbeta and [OIII] 5007A are achieved at stellar effective temperatures of about 65000K and 95000-100000K, respectively, provided the nebula remains optically thick for ionising photons. In the optically thin case, the maximum line …
Turbulent coagulation in protoplanetary disks is known to operate on timescale far shorter than the lifetime of the disk. In the absence of mechanisms that replenish the small dust grain population, protoplanetary disks would rapidly lose their continuum opacity-bearing dust. This is inconsistent with infrared observations of disks around T Tauri stars and Herbig Ae/Be stars, which are usually optically thick at visual wavelengths and show signatures of small (a<~ 3um) grains. A plausible replenishing mechanism of small grains is collisional fragmentation or erosion of large dust aggregates, w…
We have measured Lick index equivalent widths to derive luminosity weighted stellar ages and metallicities for thin and thick disk dominated regions of 9 edge-on disk galaxies with the ARC 3.5 meter telescope at Apache Point Observatory. In all cases, the thick disks are confirmed to be old stellar populations, with typical ages between 4 and 10 Gyr. The thin disks are uniformly younger than the thick disks, and show strong radial age gradients, with the outer regions of the disks being younger than 1 Gyr. We do not detect any significant metallicity differences or alpha-element enhancement in…
