Circumnuclear kinematics in NGC 5248: the origin of nuclear spiral arms

We present for the first time a two-dimensional velocity field of the central region of the grand-design spiral galaxy NGC 5248, at 0.9-arcsec spatial resolution. The H α velocity field is dominated by circular rotation. While no systematic streaming motions are seen in the area of the nuclear grand-design spiral or the circumnuclear ring, the amplitude of residual velocities, after subtracting a model circular velocity field, reaches 20 km s⁻¹ in projection. The rotation curve levels out at around 140 km s⁻¹, after a well-resolved and rather shallow rise. We have generated an analytical model for the nuclear spiral and fitted it to our observations to obtain estimates of the pattern speed of the spiral and the speed of sound in the central region of NGC 5248. Our results are consistent with a low pattern speed, suggesting that the nuclear spiral rotates with the same rate as the main spiral structure in NGC 5248, and thus that the spiral structure is coupled from scales of a few hundred parsecs to several kiloparsecs. We have also compared the observed structure and kinematics between the nuclear regions of NGC 5248 and M100. Several similarities and differences are discussed, including the location of the peak emission regions on major and minor axes, and the spiral arm streaming motions. We find no kinematic evidence for the presence of a nuclear bar in NGC 5248.     

Triaxial stellar systems following the r1/n luminosity law: an analytical mass–density expression, gravitational torques and the bulge/disc interplay

We have investigated the structural and dynamical properties of triaxial stellar systems whose surface brightness profiles follow the   r ^{1/ n}   luminosity law – extending the analysis by Ciotti, who explored the properties of spherical   r ^{1/ n}   systems. A new analytical expression that accurately reproduces the spatial (i.e., deprojected) luminosity density profiles (error less than 0.1 per cent) is presented for detailed modelling of the Sérsic family of luminosity profiles. We evaluate both the symmetric and the non-axisymmetric components of the gravitational potential and force, and compute the torques as a function of position. For a given triaxiality, stellar systems with smaller values of n have a greater non-axisymmetric gravitational field component . We also explore the strength of the non-axisymmetric forces produced by bulges with differing n and triaxiality on systems having a range of bulge-to-disc ratios. The increasing disc-to-bulge ratio with increasing galaxy type (decreasing n ) is found to greatly reduce the amplitude of the non-axisymmetric terms, and therefore reduce the possibility that triaxial bulges in late-type systems may be the mechanism or perturbation for non-symmetric structures in the disc.
Using seeing-convolved   r ^{1/ n}   -bulge plus exponential-disc fits to the K -band data from a sample of 80 nearby disc galaxies, we probe the relations between galaxy type, Sérsic index n and the bulge-to-disc luminosity ratio. These relations are shown to be primarily a consequence of the relation between n and the total bulge luminosity. In the K band, the trend of decreasing bulge-to-disc luminosity ratio along the spiral Hubble sequence is predominantly, though not entirely, a consequence of the change in the total bulge luminosity; the trend between the total disc luminosity and Hubble type is much weaker.     

川南滇北交界处杏仁状玄武岩中的沥青微形貌特征与成因研究

对产出于川南和滇北交界处杏仁状玄武岩中的沥青进行了微形貌特征研究.沥青呈皮壳状、圈层状、杏仁状、致密块状产出于杏仁状玄武岩的晶洞、气孔或裂隙中.沥青的螺旋生长花纹表明沥青是由热液相或气相转变为固相的,沥青中的气孔构造是沥青中的天然气(主要为甲烷)从沥青的气孔逸出的佐证,也表明沥青是成矿热液中的原油受热(＞ 300℃)发生热裂解的产物.沥青的元素组成、H/C比值、反射率以及微区X射线衍射、水晶晶体中的包裹体均一化温度等测试结果表明,川南普格石油热演化与变质程度比滇北昭通石油要高.沥青的碳同位素δ13C在-25‰～ 31‰之间变化,表明沥青具生物成因,有机质来自下二叠统的碳酸盐岩.川南普格玄武岩有利于气藏的形成,滇北昭通玄武岩则有利于油藏的形成.     

长螺旋旋喷搅拌帷幕止水桩在砂卵石含水地层基坑中的成功应用

结合本工程特点,从长螺旋旋喷搅拌帷幕止水桩的优点、设计条件、施工控制、质量检验等方面,对该技术在含水砂卵石地层中的有效止水作用,进行了系统的介绍。作为成功实例之一,意在使此项新技术能得到更好的推广、完善,使北京地区在含水砂卵石地层中的基坑帷幕止水工作更得心应手,减少浅部地下水排放,保护浅部地下水资源。     

一种利用低频轨迹数据提取道路交叉口的方法

为实现从低频轨迹数据中提取城市道路交叉口,本文设计了一种基于数据预处理与聚类算法的道路交叉口精准识别方法。首先结合轨迹数据的特征,采用启发式滤波算法对原始数据进行清洗,剔除冗余点与异常点;然后依据车辆的运行规律,提出了一种分步式道路交叉口的提取算法,由此计算出疑似道路交叉口的特征点;最后利用层次密度聚类算法(HDBSCAN)对筛选过后的轨迹点进行聚类并提取质心,得到道路的交叉口,最终以成都市某日的出租车行驶轨迹为数据源,进行试验分析。结果表明,使用该算法提取交叉口,精确率达95.33%、召回率达82.11%、F值达88.46%,能有效且准确识别城市道路交叉口信息,在城市管理与交通规划中具有一定的应用价值。     

GHASP: an Hα kinematic survey of spiral and irregular galaxies – V. Dark matter distribution in 36 nearby spiral galaxies

The results obtained from a study of the mass distribution of 36 spiral galaxies are presented. The galaxies were observed using Fabry–Perot interferometry as part of the GHASP survey. The main aim of obtaining high-resolution Hα 2D velocity fields is to define more accurately the rising part of the rotation curves which should allow to better constrain the parameters of the mass distribution. The Hα velocities were combined with low resolution H  i data from the literature, when available. Combining the kinematical data with photometric data, mass models were derived from these rotation curves using two different functional forms for the halo: an isothermal sphere (ISO) and a Navarro–Frenk–White (NFW) profile. For the galaxies already modelled by other authors, the results tend to agree. Our results point at the existence of a constant density core in the centre of the dark matter haloes rather than a cuspy core, whatever the type of the galaxy from Sab to Im. This extends to all types the result already obtained by other authors studying dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies but would necessitate a larger sample of galaxies to conclude more strongly. Whatever model is used (ISO or NFW), small core radius haloes have higher central densities, again for all morphological types. We confirm different halo scaling laws, such as the correlations between the core radius and the central density of the halo with the absolute magnitude of a galaxy: low-luminosity galaxies have small core radius and high central density. We find that the product of the central density with the core radius of the dark matter halo is nearly constant, whatever the model and whatever the absolute magnitude of the galaxy. This suggests that the halo surface density is independent from the galaxy type.     

Magnetic fields and the dynamics of spiral galaxies

We investigate the dynamics of magnetic fields in spiral galaxies by performing 3D magnetohydrodynamics simulations of galactic discs subject to a spiral potential using cold gas, warm gas and a two-phase mixture of both. Recent hydrodynamic simulations have demonstrated the formation of interarm spurs as well as spiral arm molecular clouds, provided the interstellar medium model includes a cold H  i phase. We find that the main effect of adding a magnetic field to these calculations is to inhibit the formation of structure in the disc. However, provided a cold phase is included, spurs and spiral arm clumps are still present if β≳ 0.1 in the cold gas. A caveat to the two-phase calculations though is that by assuming a uniform initial distribution, β≳ 10 in the warm gas, emphasizing that models with more consistent initial conditions and thermodynamics are required. Our simulations with only warm gas do not show such structure, irrespective of the magnetic field strength.
Furthermore, we find that the introduction of a cold H  i phase naturally produces the observed degree of disorder in the magnetic field, which is again absent from simulations using only warm gas. Whilst the global magnetic field follows the large-scale gas flow, the magnetic field also contains a substantial random component that is produced by the velocity dispersion induced in the cold gas during the passage through a spiral shock. Without any cold gas, the magnetic field in the warm phase remains relatively well ordered apart from becoming compressed in the spiral shocks. Our results provide a natural explanation for the observed high proportions of disordered magnetic field in spiral galaxies and we thus predict that the relative strengths of the random and ordered components of the magnetic field observed in spiral galaxies will depend on the dynamics of spiral shocks.     

The statistical investigation of type Ib/c and II supernovae and their host galaxies

This is a statistical study of the properties of type Ib/c and II supernovae and of the integral parameters of their spiral host galaxies. The methods of one-dimensional and multivariate statistics were applied to the data sample. It was found that the Ib/c supernovae are more concentrated radially toward the centers of the galaxies than those of type II. The distributions of the radial distances R_SN/R₂₅ for the type Ib/c and II supernovae in active galaxies are more concentrated toward the center than in normal galaxies. This effect is stronger for type Ib/c than for type II supernovae. __________ Translated from Astrofizika, Vol. 51, No. 1, pp. 89–98 (February 2008).     

OB stars in the Tycho-2 and 2MASS catalogues

The Tycho-2 proper motions and five-band Tycho-2 and 2MASS photometry for approximately 2.5 million common stars have been used to select OB stars and to determine the extinction and photometric distance for each of them. We have selected 37 485 stars and calculated their reddenings based on their positions in the two-color V _T -H, J-Ks diagrams relative to the zero-age main sequence and the theoretical reddening line for B5 stars. Tests confirm that the selected stars belong to the spectral types O-B with a small admixture of later types. We calculate the extinction coefficient R and its variations with Galactic longitude based on the positions of the selected stars in the two-color B _T -V _T , V _T -Ks diagram. The interstellar extinction for each star is calculated as the product of the reddening found and the coefficient R. The extinction and its variations with Galactic longitude agree well with the extinction based on the model by Arenou et al. (1992). Calibration of the relation between the absolute magnitude and reduced proper motion V _T − + 5 + 5 log μ for Hipparcos stars has allowed us to calculate the absolute magnitudes and photometric distances for the selected stars. The distances found agree with those derived from the Hipparcos parallaxes within 500 pc. The distribution of the stars and the extinction variations with distance found show that the selected stars form an almost complete sample of stars with spectral types earlier than B5 within about 750 pc of the Sun. The sample includes many noticeably reddened stars in the first and second Galactic quadrants that are absent from the Hipparcos and Tycho Spectral Types Catalogues. This slightly changes the pattern of the distribution of OB stars compared to the classical pattern based on Hipparcos. Original Russian Text ? G.A. Goncharov, 2008, published in Pis’ma v Astronomicheskiĭ Zhurnal, 2008, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 10–20.