To appear in a special volume of the journal Communications in Asteroseismology dedicated to the Proceedings of the Liege conference; 6 pages, 3 figures
Since the use of high-resolution high signal-to-noise spectroscopy in the study of massive stars, it became clear that an ad-hoc velocity field at the stellar surface, termed macroturbulence, is needed to bring the observed shape of spectral lines into agreement with observations. We seek a physical explanation of this unknown broadening mechanism. We interprete the missing line broadening in terms of collective pulsational velocity broadening due to non-radial gravity-mode oscillations. We also point out that the rotational velocity can be seriously underestimated whenever the line profiles are fitted assuming a Gaussian macroturbulent velocity rather than an appropriate pulsational velocity expression.
We compare evolutionary models for close-in exoplanets coupling irradiation and evaporation due respectively to the thermal and high energy flux of the parent star with observations of recently discovered new transiting planets. The models provide an overall good agreement with observations, although at the very limit of the quoted error bars of OGLE-TR-10, depending on its age. Using the same general theory, we show that the three recently detected hot-Neptune planets (GJ436, $ρ$ Cancri, $μ$ Ara) may originate from more massive gas giants which have undergone significant evaporation. We thus …
We present results from the first extensive study of convection zones in the envelopes of hot massive stars, which are caused by opacity peaks associated with iron and helium ionization. These convective regions can be located very close to the stellar surface. Recent observations of microturbulence in massive stars from the VLT-Flames survey are in good agreement with our predictions concerning the occurrence and the strength of sub-surface convection in hot stars. We argue further that convection close to the surface may trigger clumping at the base of the stellar wind of massive stars.
Brown dwarfs, which straddle the mass range between stars and planets, appear to be common both in the solar neighborhood and in star-forming regions. Their ubiquity makes the question of their origin an important one both for our understanding of brown dwarfs themselves as well as for theories on the formation of stars and planets. Studies of young sub-stellar objects could provide valuable insight into their formation and early evolution. Here I report on the latest results from our observational programs at Keck, VLT and Magellan on the disk and accretion properties of young brown dwarfs. W…
Consequences of anisotropic cascade radiation in AGN are investigated. The anisotropic cascades are produced by protons accelerated in a nuclear jet. The protons are assumed to cool in the UV photon field of an accretion disk by photo-production of secondary particles. Most cascade photons are produced in the direction of the accretion disk leading to strong high-energy irradiation and weak emission of observable MeV photons. Nuclear, turbulent jets rapidly disrupt and remain radio-faint, so that the scenario could hold the clue to the understanding of the X-ray spectra of radio-quiet AGN.
In this paper we test the idea that the low-metallicity hot gas in the centre of NGC 1291 is heated via a dynamical process. In this scenario, the gas from the outer gas-rich ring loses energy through bar-driven shocks and falls to the centre. Heating of the gas to X-ray temperatures comes from the high velocity that it reaches ($\approx$ 700 \kms) as it falls to the bottom of the potential well. This would explain why the stellar metallicity in the bulge region is around solar while the hot gas metallicity is around 0.1 solar. We carried out an observational test to check this hypothesis by m…
The origin of the extragalactic gamma-ray background radiation at 1-10 MeV is still unknown. Although the cosmic X-ray background (CXB) up to a few hundreds keV can be accounted for by the sum of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs), current models of AGN spectra cannot explain the background spectrum beyond ~1 MeV, because of the thermal exponential cutoff of electron energy distribution assumed in the models. Here we construct a new spectral model by calculating the Comptonization process including nonthermal electrons, which are expected to exist in an AGN hot corona if it is heated by magnetic re…
We investigate accretion disc models for the X-ray emission of Seyfert-1 galaxies and the hard state of black-hole X-ray binaries. We concentrate on two hot accretion disc models: advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF) and recently found luminous hot accretion flow (LHAF). We solve for the global solution of both ADAF and LHAF to obtain the electron temperature, $T_{\rm e}$, and Thompson optical depth, $τ$, at the radius where most of the radiation comes from. We adopt two kinds of electron energy equations. In one, only synchrotron and bremsstrahlung radiation and their Comptonization are …
Deep Chandra exposures reveal the presence of diffuse X-ray emission with a luminosity of 1.3x10^{39} ergs s^{-1} from the spiral galaxy NGC 3184. This appears to be truly diffuse thermal emission distinct from the low-luminosity LMXB emission. While the unresolved emission from older LMXBs is more uniformly distributed across the galaxy, the diffuse X-ray emission is concentrated in areas of younger stellar populations and star forming regions. The surface brightness of the diffuse emission over the spiral arms is five times greater than in off-arm regions, and eight times brighter in H II re…
We review the origin, evolution and physical nature of hot gas in elliptical galaxies and associated galaxy groups. Unanticipated recent X-ray observations with Chandra and XMM indicate much less cooling than previously expected. Consequently, many long-held assumptions need to be reexamined or discarded and new approaches must be explored. Chief among these are the role of heating by active galactic nuclei, the influence of radio lobes on the hot gas, details of the cooling process, possible relation between the hot and colder gas in elliptical galaxies, and the complexities of stellar enrich…
Recently, with the Chandra X-ray Telescope we have detected several local X-ray absorption lines along lines-of-sight towards distant quasars. These absorption lines are produced by warm/hot gas located in local intergalactic space and/or in our Galaxy. I will present our observations and discuss the origin of the X-ray absorption and its implications in probing the warm/hot component of local baryons.
Evidence is summarized that suggests that when a protogalaxy collapses, a fraction $f$ of its gas fails to heat to the virial temperature, where $f$ is large for haloes less massive than the value $M^*$ associated with $L^*$ galaxies. Stars and galaxies form only from the cool gas fraction. Hot gas is ejected from low-mass systems as in conventional semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. In high-mass systems it is retained but does not cool and form stars. Instead it builds up as a largely inert atmosphere, in which cooling is inhibited by an episodically active galactic nucleus. Cold gas f…
NGC 4449 is an irregular galaxy with a moderately high star formation activity. The massive stars in NGC 4449 have given rise to many bright HII regions, superbubbles, supergiant shells, and "chimney-like" radial filaments. ROSAT X-ray observations of NGC 4449 have revealed four point-like sources and a wide-spread diffuse emission. The spectral properties of the diffuse component suggest that the emission originates from hot interstellar gas. We have compared deep ground-based H-alpha images with the X-ray images of NGC 4449 to determine the relationship between the hot (10^6 K) and the warm …
Recent X-ray observations by the space mission Chandra confirmed the astonishing evidence for a diffuse, hot, thermal plasma at a temperature of 9. $10^7$ K (8 keV) found by previous surveys to extend over a few hundred parsecs in the Galactic Centre region. This plasma coexists with the usual components of the interstellar medium such as cold molecular clouds and a soft (~0.8 keV) component produced by supernova remnants, and its origin remains uncertain. First, simple calculations using a mean sound speed for a hydrogen-dominated plasma have suggested that it should not be gravitationally bo…
Hot subluminous stars lying up to 0.7 mag below the extreme horizontal branch (EHB) are found in the UV color-magnitude diagrams of omega Cen and NGC 2808. Such stars are unexplained by canonical HB theory. In order to explore the origin of these subluminous stars, we evolved a set of low-mass stars from the main sequence through the helium-core flash to the HB for a wide range in the mass loss along the red-giant branch (RGB). Stars with the largest mass loss evolve off the RGB to high effective temperatures before igniting helium in their cores. Our results indicate that the subluminous EHB …
For the first time, we have identified NeVIII absorption lines in far-UV spectra of the hottest known (Teff>150,000 K) hydrogen-deficient (pre-) white dwarfs of spectral type PG1159. They are of photospheric origin and can be matched by synthetic non-LTE line profiles. We also show that a number of UV and optical emission lines in these stars can be explained as being photospheric NeVIII features and not, as hitherto suspected, as ultrahigh ionised OVIII lines created along shock-zones in the stellar wind. Consequently, we argue that the long-standing identification of the same emission lines …
We have performed soft X-ray spectroscopy of two hot white dwarfs with the Chandra observatory using the Low Energy Transmission Grating. The first target is the hot DA white dwarf LB1919 (Teff=69000 K). This star is representative of a small group of hot DAs whose metallicities lie well below predictions from radiative levitation theory. The Chandra spectrum shows a rich absorption line spectrum which may allow to find the origin of the low-metallicity nature of these DAs. The second target is PG1520+525, a very hot non-pulsating PG1159 star. We find that it is hotter (Teff=150 000 K) than th…
There is currently debate over whether the dust content of planetary systems is stochastically regenerated or originates in planetesimal belts evolving in steady state. In this paper a simple model for the steady state evolution of debris disks due to collisions is developed and confronted with the properties of the emerging population of 7 sun-like stars that have hot dust <10AU. The model shows there is a maximum possible disk mass at a given age, since more massive primordial disks process their mass faster. The corresponding maximum dust luminosity is f_max=0.00016r^(7/3)/t_age. The majori…
Stars with very large mass loss on the red-giant branch can undergo the helium flash while descending the white-dwarf cooling curve. Under these conditions the flash convection zone will mix the hydrogen envelope with the hot helium- burning core. Such ``flash-mixed'' stars will arrive on the extreme horizontal branch (EHB) with helium- and carbon-rich envelopes and will lie at higher temperatures than the hottest canonical (i.e., unmixed) EHB stars. Flash mixing provides a new evolutionary channel for populating the hot end of the EHB and may explain the origin of the high gravity, helium-ric…
We propose a cosmological scenario in which the hot big bang universe is produced by the collision of a brane in the bulk space with a bounding orbifold plane, beginning from an otherwise cold, vacuous, static universe. The model addresses the cosmological horizon, flatness and monopole problems and generates a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of density perturbations without invoking superluminal expansion (inflation). The scenario relies, instead, on physical phenomena that arise naturally in theories based on extra dimensions and branes. As an example, we present our scenario predominantly w…
We propose that the emission of the high excitation [OIV] line observed with ISO in NGC 5253 and II Zw 40 is due to the presence of hot Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars in these objects. We construct a consistent evolutionary synthesis and photoionization model which successfully reproduces the constraints on their massive star content and the relevant optical and IR emission lines including [OIV] 25.9 micron. Our explanation for the origin of [OIV] is supported empirically by: 1) the simultaneous presence of nebular HeII and [OIV] in these objects, and 2) the close relation between nebular HeII and WR s…
We present APEX observations of HCN (9-8) and (4-3) lines toward a sample of hot cores. The spectral shapes of the main transitions are asymmetric and self-absorbed, as expected for high optical depth in a possibly infalling envelope. For spherical symmetry, the large column densities of these sources would mean that the central region is obscured by dust above a certain frequency. However, we detected the vibrationally excited satellite lines (v_2=1; J=9-8) at 797 GHz, which originate from the inner regions. This indicates that high-frequency ALMA observations of hot core centers will be feas…
We present the high-resolution X-ray spectra of Mkn 421 obtained in November 2003 with the RGS aboard the XMM-Newton satellite. This Target of Opportunity observation was triggered because the source was in a high state of activity in the X-ray band. These data are compared with three archival RGS observations of the same source performed in November and December 2002 and one in June 2003. We searched for the presence of absorption features due to warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM). We identify various spectral features, most of which are of instrumental origin. With the sensitivity provided…
Multiple radial velocity observations have been obtained for a large sample of local field subdwarf B (sdB) stars over a period of two years. SdB stars appear to fall into three distinct groups based on their kinematic and spectroscopic properties. The sdB's in Group I have no detectable spectral lines from a cool companion, and show only small or insignificant velocity variations. They represent about 35% of all sdB stars, which defines the upper limit for the total fraction of non-binary sdB's. Group II sdB's are single-lined spectroscopic binaries, comprising about 45% of the sample. Their …
The origin of dark matter in the universe may be scalar particles produced by amplification of quantum fluctuations during a period of dilaton-driven inflation. We show, for the first time, that a single species of particles, depending on its mass and interactions, can be a source of both cold and hot dark matter simultaneously. Detection of such weakly interacting particles with masses below a fraction of an eV presents a new challenge for dark matter searches.
Intense fluxes of neutrinos are emitted by the hot neutron star produced in a supernova. The electron neutrino and antineutrino capture reactions on neutrons and protons, respectively, provide heating to drive a wind from the hot neutron star. The same reactions also determine the neutron-richness of the wind material. Nucleosynthesis via rapid neutron capture, the r-process, may occur in the wind material as it expands away from the neutron star. The neutron-richness of the wind material, and hence, the r-process nucleosynthesis therein, are sensitive to mixing between the muon (or tauon) neu…
