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In the last 20 years a small group of 6.7GHz methanol maser sources displaying periodic variability have been identified. This variability is thought to reflect local processes linked to star formation. A number of models have been proposed e.g. colliding wind binary, protostellar pulsation, accretion on binary system. Recent studies of known sources as well as non-periodic flaring masers suggest an episodic accretion as a driving mechanism. We present the results of VLBI observation program aimed at studying known periodic methanol maser sources. High resolution maps of emission, source morphology and evolution in time will be discussed. Those results will help us fully understand the nature of maser periodicity in star forming regions.
We report new detections of SiO ν = 1 and ν = 2 J = 1 → 0 masers in the “water fountain” source IRAS 16552-3050, which was observed with the Nobeyama 45 m telescope from March 2021 to April 2023. Water fountains are evolved stars whose H2O maser spectra trace high-velocity outflows of >100 Km s−. This is the second known case of SiO masers in a water fountain, after their prototypical source, W 43A. The line-of-sight velocity of the SiO masers are blue-shifted by ∼25 km s−1 from the systemic velocity. This velocity offset imply that the SiO masers are associated with nozzle structure formed by a jet penetrating the circumstellar envelope, and that new gas blobs of the jet erupted recently. Thus, the SiO masers imply this star to be in a new evolutionary stage.
Since 2009, the Torun 32 m radio telescope has been used to monitor a sample of ∼140 sources of the 6.7 GHz methanol maser emission. In 2022, the sample was extended to about 250 targets. Approximately three-quarters show variability greater than 10% on timescales of a few weeks to several years. The most significant results are detecting a few flare events and discovering about a dozen periodic variables with periods ranging from a month to a few years. Here, we present the preliminary analysis of the properties of periodic masers.
Imaging the bright maser emission produced by the various molecular species from 1.6 to 116 GHz provides a way to probe the kinematics of dense molecular gas at high angular resolution. Unimpeded by the high dust optical depths that affect shorter wavelength (sub)mm observations, the high brightness temperature of these emission lines have become an essential tool for understanding the process of massive star formation. Operating from 1.2–116 GHz, the next generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) of 263 antennas will provide the capabilities needed to fully exploit these powerful tracers, including the ability to resolve accretion and outflow motions down to scales as fine as ∼1-10 au in deeply embedded Galactic star-forming regions, and at sub-pc scales in nearby galaxies. I will summarize the proposed specifications of the ngVLA, describe the current status of the project, and offer examples of future experiments designed to image the vicinity of massive protostars in continuum, thermal lines, and maser lines simultaneously.
Disk-jet systems are common in astrophysical sources of different nature, from black holes to gaseous giant planets. The disk drives the mass accretion onto a central compact object and the jet ejects material along the disk rotation axis. Magnetohydrodynamic disk winds can provide the link between mass accretion and ejection, which is essential to ensure that the excess angular momentum is removed and accretion can proceed. However, up to now, we have been lacking direct observational proof of disk winds. This work presents a direct view of the velocity field of a disk wind around a forming massive star. Achieving a very high spatial resolution of 0.05 au, our water maser observations trace the velocities of individual streamlines emerging from the disk orbiting the forming star. We find that, at low elevation above the disk midplane, the flow co-rotates with its launch point in the disk, in agreement with magneto-centrifugal acceleration. Beyond the co-rotation point, the flow rises spiraling around the disk rotation axis along a helical magnetic field. We have performed (resistive-radiative-gravito-) magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the formation of a massive star and record the development of a magneto-centrifugally launched jet presenting many properties in agreement with our observations.
Gravitational lensing in clusters of galaxies is one of the most powerful methods to probe the dark matter mass distribution inside such systems, after mapping the baryonic component, and test the currently accepted ɅCDM cosmological paradigm. With the advent of new high-resolution facilities such as the JWST, strong lensing (SL) is capable of providing extremely accurate mass measurements in the densest regions of such structures. Weak lensing (WL) provides complementary information by measuring the total mass distribution in the outskirts of galaxy clusters, where no multiple images of background sources are produced.
In my talk, I will present updates on the WL mass reconstruction of the Frontier Fields galaxy cluster Abell 2744 (z = 0.308) based on Subaru, Magellan, and JWST data, and I will show how the results obtained, combined with accurate SL modeling of this lens, provide a consistent picture of the cluster total mass distribution. I will discuss the pipeline used for this work, the extensive checks performed on the different datasets and the scientific results obtained. Being composed of several substructures undergoing a merging process, the complex geometry of this cluster makes it an ideal laboratory to verify the consistency and reliability of the results obtained with the two methods. I will compare the predictions of the SL models extrapolated in the outer regions of the cluster with the non-parametric WL mass reconstruction to look for potential systematic effects affecting the SL analysis.
I present the first evidence of multiple populations in the globular cluster (GCs) 47 Tucanae based on images collected with the near-infrared camera (NIRCam) on board the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). While NIRCam photometry is poorly sensitive to multiple populations among stars brighter than the main-sequence (MS) knee, the M-dwarfs more-massive than ∼0.1 define a wide color range due to multiple populations. The star-to-star color differences are mostly due to the different amounts of water vapor (hence oxygen) that affect the spectra of M-dwarfs. The chromosome map unveils an extended first population (1P) composed of M-dwarfs with different metallicities and three main groups of second-population (2P) stars that are depleted in oxygen with respect to the 1P. I present the discovery of an MS of very-low-mass stars and tentatively associated it with a sequence composed of O-rich stars alone.
Strong lensing galaxy clusters provide a powerful observational test of Cold Dark Matter (CDM) structure predictions derived from simulation. Specifically, the shape and relative alignments of the dark matter halo, stars, and hot intracluster gas tells us the extent to which theoretical structure predictions hold for clusters in various dynamical states. We measure the position angles, ellipticities, and locations/centroids of the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG), intracluster light (ICL), the hot intracluster medium (ICM), and the core lensing mass for a sample of strong lensing galaxy clusters from the SDSS Giant Arcs Survey (SGAS). We use iterative elliptical isophote fitting methods and GALFIT modeling on HST WFC3/IR imaging data to extract ICL and BCG information and use CIAO’s Sherpa modeling on Chandra ACIS-I X-ray data to make measurements of the ICM. Using this multicomponent approach, we attempt to constrain the physical state of these strong lensing clusters and evaluate the different observable components in terms of their ability to trace out the gravitational potential of the cluster.
ALMA observations with angular resolution in the range ∼20–200 mas demonstrate that emission at 268.149 and 262.898 GHz in the (0,2,0) and (0,1,0) vibrationally excited states of water are widespread in the inner envelope of O-rich AGB stars and red supergiants. These transitions are either quasi-thermally excited, in which case they can be used to estimate the molecular column density, or show signs of maser emission with a brightness temperature of ∼103–107 K in a few stars. The highest spatial resolution observations probe the inner few stellar radii environment, up to ∼10–12 R* in general, while the mid resolution data probe more thermally excited gas at larger extents. In several stars, high velocity components are observed at 268.149 GHz which may be caused by the kinematic perturbations induced by a companion. Radiative transfer models of water are revisited to specify the physical conditions leading to 268.149 and 262.898 GHz maser excitation.
We aim to uncover the structure of the continuum and broad emission line (BEL) emitting regions in the gravitationally lensed quasar SDSS J1004+4112 through unique microlensing signatures. Analyzing 20 spectroscopic observations from 2003 to 2018, we study the striking deformations of various BEL profiles and determine the sizes of their respective emitting regions. We use the emission line cores as a baseline for no microlensing and then apply Bayesian methods to derive the sizes of the Lyα, Si IV, C IV, C III], and Mg II emitting regions, as well as of the underlying continuum-emitting sources. We find that the sizes of the emitting regions for the BELs are a few light-days across, notably smaller than in typical lensed quasars. The asymmetric distortions observed in the BELs suggest that the broad-line region lacks spherical symmetry and is likely confined to a plane. The inferred continuum emitting region sizes are larger than predictions based on standard thin-disk theory by a factor of ∼ 4. We find that the size-wavelength relation is in agreement with that of a geometrically thin and optically thick accretion disk.
National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand (Public Organization) initiated a national flagship project in 2017 for development of radio astronomy and geodesy in Thailand. In this project, a 40-m Thai National Radio Telescope (TNRT) and a 13-m VLBI Global Observing System (VGOS) radio telescope as its co-location are constructed in Chiang Mai. The 40-m TNRT is the largest telescope for radio astronomy in South-East Asia. Its flexible operation with a wide-coverage of observable frequencies 0.3-115 GHz will allow us to uniquely contribute to the time-domain astronomy as well as carry out unbiased surveys for a wide variety of science research fields, which were published in a white paper. Within the framework of collaboration with VLBI arrays in the world, TNRT will drastically improve the imaging quality and performances based on its unique geographical location, for both radio astronomy and geodetic VLBI studies in South-East Asia for the first time. On-going commissioning of TNRT particularly in the L-band system (1.0–1.8 GHz) is introduced as well as vision for establishment of forthcoming regional VLBI networks based on TNRT: Thai National VLBI Array and South-East Asian VLBI Network in collaboration with Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
The paper concerns the determination of the Angular Momentum Relative Amended Potential (AMR potential) in the framework of the Full n-Body problem and some of its basic properties are discussed. The AMR potential is derived using two different approaches : first using a Routh reduction of the system relative to rotation about the total angular momentum, second as a variation of the Sundman Inequality, using the Cauchy inequality.
In the final phase of terrestrial planet formation, planetary embryos and planetesimals are the building blocks for the growth of rocky planets. In this investigation, we study the dynamical behaviour of a circumstellar disk in an inclined binary star system. The disk consists of 2000 planetesimals and 25 embryos and is distributed between 1 and 4 au around the primary star. To compute the gravitational interaction of the whole system, we use our recently developed GPU N-body code GANBISS. GANBISS treats all collision as perfect merging and delivers the impact parameters that will be used to distinguish between different collision outcomes.
Local Group galaxies, particularly the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, have historically played and continue to play a unique role in studies of the period–luminosity (PL), period–luminosity–color (PLC), and period–Wesenheit (PW) relations, not just for pulsating stars. In recent years, significant efforts have been devoted to calibrate the PL, PLC, and PW relationships at different wavelengths, including studies of the influence of metallicity and nonlinearities on the accuracy of measured distances. However, the PL diagram has many more astrophysical applications. It serves as a vital tool for classifying different types of pulsating stars and can even facilitate the discovery of new classes of variable stars. Moreover, it aids in distinguishing among various modes of pulsation, facilitates the identification of pulsating stars that are members of binary systems, and enables studies of the three-dimensional structures of neighboring galaxies. In this contribution, I present the latest results on the PL, PLC, and PW relations obeyed by various types of variable stars in Local Group galaxies – from δ Scuti stars to Mira variabless and from close binary systems to the mysterious long secondary periods exhibited by red giant and supergiant stars.
We present the results of a study of secular resonances in a binary star system and their effects on the formation of terrestrial planets. The systems of our interest are binaries with moderate separations (i.e., smaller than 40 AU) where planets revolve around one of the stars. Using numerical simulations, we demonstrate the appearance and evolution of secular resonances in systems with two giant planets. Results indicate that the perturbation of the binary companion suppresses secular resonances and they do not play a significant role on the formation and orbital architecture of terrestrial planets. Unlike in our solar system where the secular resonance of Saturn confines the formation of terrestrial planets to regions interior to its location, in a binary star, terrestrial planets can form interior and exterior to this resonance. We present details of our simulations and discuss the implications of their results.
Planetary nebulae (PNe) harbouring masers of H2O (H2OPNe) and/or OH (OHPNe) are thought to be nascent PNe. They are extremely scarce, and so far only eight members are know to date. Here we explain our current effort to identify new H2OPNe and/or OHPNe. We report IRAS 07027–7934 as a new bona fine OHPN. Its 1612 MHz OH spectrum seems to be changing from double- to single-peaked since the redshifted emission has vanished almost completely, and the 1667 MHz OH maser emission has disappeared. For the OHPN Vy 2-2, we found that its central star is unexpectedly carbon (C)-rich, has a low-mass progenitor, and could be a post-common envelope binary system. Moreover, we confirm Vy 2-2 as a nascent PN. We speculate that low-mass C-rich central stars in post-common envelope systems could be a common end of H2OPNe and OHPNe.
We report the detections of NH3(3,3) and 25 GHz and 278.3 GHz class I CH3OH maser emission associated with the outflow of the Extended Green Object G19.01–0.03 in sub-arcsecond resolution Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) observations. For masers associated with the outer outflow lobes (> 12.5 ″ from the central massive young stellar object; MYSO), the spatial distribution of the NH3(3,3) masers is statistically indistinguishable from that of previously known 44 GHz Class I CH3OH masers, strengthening the connection of NH3(3,3) masers to outflow shocks. In sub-arcsecond resolution VLA observations, we resolve the 6.7 GHz Class II CH3OH maser emission towards the MYSO into a partial, inclined ring, with a velocity gradient consistent with the rotationally supported circumstellar disc traced by thermal gas emission.
Galactic haloes in a Λ-CDM universe are predicted to host today a swarm of debris resulting from cannibalised dwarf galaxies. The chemo-dynamical information recorded in their stellar populations helps elucidate their nature, constraining the assembly history of the Galaxy. Using data from APOGEE and Gaia, we examine the chemical properties of various halo substructures, considering elements that sample various nucleosynthetic pathways. The systems studied are Heracles, Gaia-Enceladus/Sausage (GES), the Helmi stream, Sequoia, Thamnos, Aleph, LMS1, Arjuna, I’itoi, Nyx, Icarus, and Pontus. Abundance patterns of all substructures are cross-compared in a statistically robust fashion. Our results show that many halo substructures conjectured to be debris from individual accretions likely belong to either the omnipresent GES or to in situ populations, and that the Milky Way likely underwent three major mergers so far: Heracles, GES, Sagittarius dSph.
We study the motion of an asteroid being in retrograde 1/1 resonance with Jupiter (co-orbital motion). We consider the planar case (i=180°) and Jupiter is on a circular or elliptic orbit (e′ = 0.048). In the cirular model we compute families of symmetric periodic orbits and their stability type. In the elliptic model we have isolated periodic orbits which affect the orbital modes of motion as it is shown by the FLI dynamical maps.