A moderate-resolution Nasmyth-focus spectrograph of the 6-m BTA telescope

We report on the development of a fast crossed-dispersion spectrograph (CRAB) mounted at the Nasmyth focus of the 6-m telescope. The spectrograph is designed for visible and near-infrared (3800–10 500 Å) CCD observations with the spectral resolution R=4000. We give the basic parameters of the optical scheme and the parameters of the echelle frame. We determined the gain involved in putting the spectrograph into observational practice and discuss the possible range of spectroscopic problems for which the instrument is optimal.     

Hydrodynamic simulations of merging clusters of galaxies

We present the results of high-resolution AP³M+SPH simulations of merging clusters of galaxies. We find that the compression and shocking of the core gas during a merger can lead to large increases in bolometric X-ray luminosities and emission-weighted temperatures of clusters. Cooling flows are completely disrupted during equal-mass mergers, with the mass deposition rate dropping to zero as the cores of the clusters collide. The large increase in the cooling time of the core gas strongly suggests that cooling flows will not recover from such a merger within a Hubble time. Mergers with subclumps having one eighth of the mass of the main cluster are also found to disrupt a cooling flow if the merger is head-on. However, in this case the entropy injected into the core gas is rapidly radiated away and the cooling flow restarts within a few Gyr of the merger. Mergers in which the subcluster has an impact parameter of 500 kpc do not disrupt the cooling flow, although the mass deposition rate is reduced by ∼30 per cent. Finally, we find that equal mass, off-centre mergers can effectively mix gas in the cores of clusters, while head on mergers lead to very little mixing. Gas stripped from the outer layers of subclumps results in parts of the outer layers of the main cluster being well mixed, although they have little effect on the gas in the core of the cluster. None of the mergers examined here resulted in the intracluster medium being well mixed globally.     

Morphology, photometry and kinematics of N-body bars – I. Three models with different halo central concentrations

We discuss the morphology, photometry and kinematics of the bars which have formed in three N -body simulations. These have initially the same disc and the same halo-to-disc mass ratio, but their haloes have very different central concentrations. The third model includes a bulge. The bar in the model with the centrally concentrated halo (model MH) is much stronger, longer and thinner than the bar in the model with the less centrally concentrated halo (model MD). Its shape, when viewed side-on, evolves from boxy to peanut and then to 'X'-shaped, as opposed to that of model MD, which stays boxy. The projected density profiles obtained from cuts along the bar major axis, for both the face-on and the edge-on views, show a flat part, as opposed to those of model MD which are falling rapidly. A Fourier analysis of the face-on density distribution of model MH shows very large  m=2  , 4, 6 and 8 components. Contrary to this, for model MD the components  m=6  and 8 are negligible. The velocity field of model MH shows strong deviations from axial symmetry, and in particular has wavy isovelocities near the end of the bar when viewed along the bar minor axis. When viewed edge-on, it shows cylindrical rotation, which the MD model does not. The properties of the bar of the model with a bulge and a non-centrally concentrated halo (MDB) are intermediate between those of the bars of the other two models. All three models exhibit a lot of inflow of the disc material during their evolution, so that by the end of the simulations the disc dominates over the halo in the inner parts, even for model MH, for which the halo and disc contributions were initially comparable in that region.     

Detection of transient high frequency optical oscillations of the flare star YZ CMin

In this paper we present the results of the analysis of the B ‐light curve for the flares of the red dwarf YZ CMin (dM4.5e), which were observed on February of 2002, with the help of the 30‐inch Cassegrain telescope of the Stephanion Observatory, Greece. Discrete Fourier Transform analysis and the use of the Brownian Walk noise enable us to estimate the proper random noise and detect possible weak transient optical oscillations. Our results indicate that: (1) Transient high frequency oscillations occur during the flare event and during the quiet‐star phase as well. (2) The observed frequencies range between 0.0083 Hz (period 2 min) and 0.3 Hz (period 3 s) is not rigorously bounded. The phenomenon is most pronounced during the flare state. (3) During the flare state: (a) Oscillations with period 2 to 1.5 min, 60 s, 11 s, 7.5 s, and 4 s appear around the maximum light state and persist during the whole flare state, (b) from the flare maximum phase on, a progressive increase of oscillations with periods 30 s, 20 s down to 4.0 s is markedly indicated, and (c) at the end of the flare only the oscillation of the pre‐flare state do remain. Our observations are consistent with the phenomenology of impulsively exited oscillations on a coronal magnetic loop and subsequent chromospheric heating by electronic flux at the foot of the loop or/and by soft X‐ray coronal emission. Our observation give evidence that more than one impulsive events may occur in the course of an observed flare (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

CDFS天区中喑蓝星系的测光红移研究

从COMBO-17数字巡天数据里,选择了CDFS(Chandra Deep Field South)天区中1231个测光红移在0.1～0.3之间的暗蓝星系作为样本,研究了这些星系分别在只有光学波段和光学加近红外波段数据情况下做测光红移得到的红移分布,以及这些星系在静止参考系下的能谱分布(Spectral Energy Distributions,SEDs)特征.结果表明有183个星系在利用光学加近红外波段数据做测光红移时得到的红移大于1.2,它们的误差为0.046,提高测光的信噪比也有利于区分这类被光学波段误认为低红移的星系.这些暗蓝星系中高红移星系的观测近红外流量相对于光学流量有上升的趋势,而低红移星系的观测近红外流量相对于光学流量有下降的趋势.     

Time evolution of galactic warps in prolate haloes

A recent observation with the Hipparcos satellite and some numerical simulations imply that the interaction between an oblate halo and a disc is inappropriate for the persistence of galactic warps. Following on from this , we have compared the time evolution of galactic warps in a prolate halo with that in an oblate halo. The haloes were approximated as fixed potentials, while the discs were represented by N -body particles. We have found that the warping in the oblate halo continues to wind up, and finally disappears. On the other hand, for the prolate halo model, the precession rate of the outer disc increases when the precession of the outer disc recedes from that of the inner disc, and vice versa. Consequently, the warping in the prolate halo persisted to the end of the simulation by retaining the alignment of the line of nodes of the warped disc. Therefore, our results suggest that prolate haloes could sustain galactic warps. The physical mechanism of the persistence of warp is discussed on the basis of the torque between a halo and a disc and that between the inner and outer regions of the disc.     

Large-scale structure, the cosmic microwave background and primordial non-Gaussianity

Cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure data will shortly improve dramatically with the Microwave Anisotropy Probe and Planck Surveyor , and the Anglo-Australian 2-Degree Field and Sloan Digital Sky Survey. It is therefore timely to ask which of the microwave background and large-scale structure will provide a better probe of primordial non-Gaussianity. In this paper we consider this question, using the bispectrum as a discriminating statistic. We consider several non-Gaussian models and find that in each case the microwave background will provide a better probe of primordial non-Gaussianity. Our results suggest that if microwave background maps appear Gaussian, then apparent deviations from Gaussian initial conditions in galaxy surveys can be attributed with confidence to the effects of biasing. We demonstrate this precisely for the spatial bispectrum induced by local non-linear biasing.     

Self-similar shocked accretion of collisional gas with radiative cooling

We describe similarity solutions that characterize the collapse of collisional gas on to scale-free perturbations in an Einstein–de Sitter universe. We consider the effects of radiative cooling and derive self-similar solutions under the assumption that the cooling function is a power law of density and temperature, Λ( T , ρ )∝ ρ ^3/2 T . We use these results to test the ability of smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) techniques to follow the collapse and accretion of shocked, rapidly cooling gas in a cosmological context. Our SPH code reproduces the analytical results very well in cases that include or exclude radiative cooling. No substantial deviations from the predicted central mass accretion rates or from the temperature, density and velocity profiles are observed in well-resolved regions inside the shock radius. This test problem lends support to the reliability of SPH techniques to model the complex process of galaxy formation.     

Testing the Gaussianity of the COBE DMR data with spherical wavelets

We investigate the Gaussianity of the 4-yr COBE DMR data (in HEALPix pixelization) using an analysis based on spherical Haar wavelets. We use all the pixels lying outside the Galactic cut and compute the skewness, kurtosis and scale–scale correlation spectra for the wavelet coefficients at each scale. We also take into account the sensitivity of the method to the orientation of the input signal. We find a detection of non-Gaussianity at >99 per cent level in just one of our statistics. Taking into account the total number of statistics computed, we estimate that the probability of obtaining such a detection by chance for an underlying Gaussian field is 0.69. Therefore, we conclude that the spherical wavelet technique shows no strong evidence of non-Gaussianity in the COBE DMR data.