宇宙信息

综合由欧洲南方天文台负责运营的12米阿塔卡玛探路者实验望远镜、甚大望远镜和美国宇航局斯皮策空间望远镜的观测结果,天文学家们探究了遥远的明亮星系是如何聚集成群或成团的。遥远星系的暗物质晕越大,它们聚集得就会越紧密。这一结果是对此类星系成团性迄今最精确的测量。这些星系距离我们极为遥远,它们所发出的光要花100亿年的时间才能抵达我们,因此我们看到的是大约100亿年前的景象。在早期宇宙中,这些星系正在经历已知最为剧烈的恒星形成过程,被称为星暴。     

射电类星体黑洞质量和射电特性的研究

收集了117个类星体(20个射电宁静类星体和97个射电噪类星体)的红移、热光度、H_β发射线宽度、5 100 A的单色光度、射电噪度.利用反响映射法计算了样本的黑洞质量和爱丁顿比,利用总的5 GHz流量密度计算出射电光度.分析了它们之间的相关性,得到的结论如下:(1)射电宁静类星体的黑洞质量和热光度、射电噪度、射电光度之间具有弱相关性,而射电噪类星体黑洞质量和热光度、射电噪度、射电光度之间具有强相关性;(2)射电宁静类星体热光度和射电光度、5 100 A的单色光度之间具有弱的相关性,而射电噪类星体热光度和射电光度、5 100 A的单色光度之间具有强的相关性;(3)射电宁静和射电噪类星体的黑洞质量、发射线宽度和爱丁顿比分布有差异.基于这些结果得到:射电宁静和射电噪类星体发射线宽度的差异可能是导致它们黑洞质量不同的原因;射电宁静和射电噪类星体本质的不同是由于内秉物理性质的不同造成的;黑洞质量、黑洞自旋、爱丁顿比和寄主星系形态是解释射电噪度起源和双峰状分布的重要参量;射电喷流和盘的吸积率之间具有紧密的关系.     

银河系的秘密

银河系虽是我们的家,但它仍有许多大问题有回答。陋着天文学家对可观测宇宙边缘处星系的不断深入研究,你可能队内银河系对于我们而言已经没有秘密了。其实不然。问题就在于地球所环绕的太阳是一颗处于银河系外围旋臀边缘上的普通恒星,于是我们也就无法获得可以鸟瞰银河系的视野。这就有点像在浓雾天同时公交卡里又公午剩下2元钱的情况下要摸清整个上海一样。     

宇宙早期的年轻致密星系

4月29日,在“哈勃”空间望远镜的帮助下。天文学家们观测到了一群年轻的、致密得令人吃惊的星系,每个只有5000光年大小,但是质量却达到了2万亿倍太阳质量。相比之下,我们的银河系直径约为20万光年,质量也仅有1万亿倍太阳质量。它们的距离均在110亿光年之外。     

仙女座β的“幽灵”

在可见光波段看来,这个名为NGC404的星系似乎只是一个白色斑点（上面左图的中间）。它完全被仙女座β星（奎宿九）的光芒所掩盖了。仙女座β是一颗红巨星,它的辐射主要集中在可见光波段,NGC404被它的厉芒淹没,被爱好者们戏称为“仙女座β的幽灵”。     

椭圆星系中的星系际尘埃

该文总结了近年来椭圆星系中尘埃起源研究中的一些关键问题,包括尘埃大小的分布及其组成、椭圆星系恒星质量损失速率、尘埃的两种加热机制(恒星辐射加热和电子-尘埃碰撞加热),以及由此导致的尘埃温度分布;尘埃的总质量估算;由热离子导致的尘埃破坏速率,以及与此相关联的椭圆星系热气体分布,等等.综合考虑这些因素,作者认为热气体分布对于椭圆星系中尘埃存在和破坏的影响不可忽视,椭圆星系中星系内部恒星质量损失产生尘埃的起源可能占据着非常重要的地位.     

Correlated Radio-Optical Variations on Intraday Timescales

Correlated radio-optical variations on intraday timescales have been observed (e.g. In BLO 0716 714) and such radio intraday variability is suggested to have an intrinsic ori- gin. Recently, multi-wavelength observations, simultaneous at radio, mm-submm, optical and hard X-rays, of 0716 714, show that during a period of intraday/interday variations at ra- dio and mm wavelengths, the apparent brightness temperature of the source exceeded the Compton-limit (～1012 K) by 2--4 orders of magnitude, but no Compton catastrophe (or no high luminosity of inverse-Compton radiation) was detected. It is also found that the intra- day/interday variations at mm-submm wavelengths are consistent with the evolutionary be- havior of a standard synchrotron source and for the intraday/interday variations at centimeter wavelengths opacity effects can play a significant role, which is consistent with the interpreta- tion suggested previously by Qian et al. Thus the apparent high brightness temperatures may probably be explained in terms of Doppler boosting effects due to bulk relativistic motion of the source. We will argue a scenario to simulate the correlations between the radio and optical variations on intraday timescales observed in BLO 0716 714 in terms of a relativistic shock propagating through a jet with a dual structure.     

An X-Ray Study of Lobe-Dominated Radio-Loud Quasars with XMM-Newton

We report on our results of X-ray spectral analysis for a sample of radio-loud quasars covering a wide range of the radio core-dominance parameter, R, from core-dominated to lobe-dominated objects, using data obtained mostly with the XMM-Newton Observatory. We find that the spectral shape of the underlying power-law continuum is flat even for the lobe-dominated objects (average photon index ～ 1.5), indistinguishable from that of core-dominated quasars. For lobe-dominated objects, contribution of X-rays from the jets is expected to be very small based on previous unification schemes, more than one order of magnitude lower than the observed X-ray luminosities. Assuming that radio-loud quasars follow the same X-ray-UV/optical luminosity relation for the disk-corona emission as found for radio-quiet quasars, we estimate the X-ray flux contributed by the disk-corona component from the optical/UV continuum. We find that neither the luminosity, nor the spectral shape, of the disk-corona X-ray emission can account for the bulk of the observed X-ray properties. Thus in lobe-dominated quasars, either the disk-corona X-ray emission is much enhanced in strength and flatter in spectral shape (photon index～1.5) compared to normal radio-quiet quasars, or their jet X-ray emission is much enhanced compared to their weak radio core-jet emission. If the latter is the case, our result may imply that the jet emission in X-rays is less Doppler beamed than that in the radio. As a demonstrating example, we test this hypothesis by using a specific model in which the X-ray jet has a larger opening angle than the radio jet.     

BL Lac天体处于高态与低态时的短时标光变的差异及机制研究

分析了１９９３－１９９５年ＢＬ Ｌａｃ、ＯＪ２８７和ＰＫＳ０７３５＋１７８三颗ＢＬ Ｌａｃ天体光变的监测结果,并结合文献上他人发表的资料,发现一些ＢＬ Ｌａｃ天体处于高态时活动性较强,短时标光变频繁发生,而处于低态时活动性较弱,短时标光变很少发生。文中提出活动星系核的相对论性喷流方向会改变,从而导致长期光变;高态是喷流方向与观测者视线夹角较小的表现,而低态则是夹角较大的表现。利用该模型能够解释ＢＬ