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University of Kentucky

Intergalactic medium

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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Collisional Excitation Of [C Ii], [O I] And Co In Massive Galaxies, R. E. A. Canning, Gary J. Ferland, A. C. Fabian, R. M. Johnstone, P. A. M. Van Hoof, R. L. Porter, N. Werner, R. J. R. Williams Nov 2015

Collisional Excitation Of [C Ii], [O I] And Co In Massive Galaxies, R. E. A. Canning, Gary J. Ferland, A. C. Fabian, R. M. Johnstone, P. A. M. Van Hoof, R. L. Porter, N. Werner, R. J. R. Williams

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Many massive galaxies at the centres of relaxed galaxy clusters and groups have vast reservoirs of warm (∼10 000 K) and cold (≲100 K) gas. In many such low-redshift systems this gas is lifted into the hot interstellar medium in filamentary structures, which are long lived and are typically not forming stars. Two important questions are how far do these reservoirs cool and if cold gas is abundant what is the cause of the low star formation efficiency? Heating and excitation of the filaments from collisions and mixing of hot particles in the surrounding X-ray gas describes well the optical …


Hydrogen Two-Photon Continuum Emission From The Horseshoe Filament In Ngc 1275, R. M. Johnstone, R. E.A. Canning, A. C. Fabian, Gary J. Ferland, Matt Lykins, R. L. Porter, P. A.M. Vanhoof, R. J.R. Williams Jan 2012

Hydrogen Two-Photon Continuum Emission From The Horseshoe Filament In Ngc 1275, R. M. Johnstone, R. E.A. Canning, A. C. Fabian, Gary J. Ferland, Matt Lykins, R. L. Porter, P. A.M. Vanhoof, R. J.R. Williams

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Far-ultraviolet emission has been detected from a knot of Hα emission in the Horseshoe filament, far out in the NGC 1275 nebula. The flux detected relative to the brightness of the Hα line in the same spatial region is very close to that expected from hydrogen two-photon continuum emission in the particle heating model of Ferland et al. if reddening internal to the filaments is taken into account. We find no need to invoke other sources of far-ultraviolet emission such as hot stars or emission lines from C IV in intermediate-temperature gas to explain these data.


The Energy Source Of The Filaments Around The Giant Galaxy Ngc 1275, A. C. Fabian, J. S. Sanders, R. J. R. Williams, A. Lazarian, Gary J. Ferland, R. M. Johnstone Jan 2011

The Energy Source Of The Filaments Around The Giant Galaxy Ngc 1275, A. C. Fabian, J. S. Sanders, R. J. R. Williams, A. Lazarian, Gary J. Ferland, R. M. Johnstone

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

The brightest galaxy in the nearby Perseus cluster, NGC 1275, is surrounded by a network of filaments. These were first observed through their Hα emission but are now known to have a large molecular component with a total mass approaching 1011 M of gas. The filaments are embedded in hot intracluster gas and stretch over 80 kpc. They have an unusually low excitation spectrum which is well modelled by collisional heating and ionization by secondary electrons. Here we note that the surface radiative flux from the outer filaments is close to the energy flux impacting on them from …


A Bare Molecular Cloud At Z ~ 0.45*, Therese M. Jones, Toru Misawa, Jane C. Charlton, Andrew C. Mshar, Gary J. Ferland Jun 2010

A Bare Molecular Cloud At Z ~ 0.45*, Therese M. Jones, Toru Misawa, Jane C. Charlton, Andrew C. Mshar, Gary J. Ferland

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Several neutral species (Mg I, Si I, Ca I, Fe I) have been detected in a weak Mg II absorption line system (Wr (2796) ~ 0.15 Å) at z ~ 0.45 along the sightline toward HE0001-2340. These observations require extreme physical conditions, as noted in D'Odorico. We place further constraints on the properties of this system by running a wide grid of photoionization models, determining that the absorbing cloud that produces the neutral absorption is extremely dense (~100-1000 cm-3), cold (< 100 K), and has significant molecular content (~72%-94%). Structures of this size and temperature have been detected in Milky Way CO surveys and have been predicted in hydrodynamic simulations of turbulent gas. In order to explain the observed line profiles in all neutral and singly ionized chemical transitions, the lines must suffer from unresolved saturation and/or the absorber must partially cover the broad emission line region of the background quasar. In addition to this highly unusual cloud, three other ordinary weak Mg II clouds (within densities of ~0.005 cm-3 and temperatures of ~10, 000 K) lie within 500 km s-1 along the …


Collisional Heating As The Origin Of Filament Emission In Galaxy Clusters, G. J. Ferland, A. C. Fabian, N. A. Hatch, R. M. Johnstone, R. L. Porter, P. A. M. Vanhoof, R. J. R. Williams Jan 2009

Collisional Heating As The Origin Of Filament Emission In Galaxy Clusters, G. J. Ferland, A. C. Fabian, N. A. Hatch, R. M. Johnstone, R. L. Porter, P. A. M. Vanhoof, R. J. R. Williams

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

It has long been known that photoionization, whether by starlight or other sources, has difficulty in accounting for the observed spectra of the optical filaments that often surround central galaxies in large clusters. This paper builds on the first of this series in which we examined whether heating by energetic particles or dissipative magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave can account for the observations. The first paper focused on the molecular regions which produce strong H2 and CO lines. Here we extend the calculations to include atomic and low-ionization regions. Two major improvements to the previous calculations have been made. The model …


The Origin Of Molecular Hydrogen Emission In Cooling-Flow Filaments, Gary J. Ferland, A. C. Fabian, N. A. Hatch, R. M. Johnstone, R. L. Porter, P. A. M. Vanhoof, R. J. R. Williams Jan 2008

The Origin Of Molecular Hydrogen Emission In Cooling-Flow Filaments, Gary J. Ferland, A. C. Fabian, N. A. Hatch, R. M. Johnstone, R. L. Porter, P. A. M. Vanhoof, R. J. R. Williams

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

The optical filaments found in many cooling flows in galaxy clusters consist of low-density (∼103 cm−3) cool (∼103 K) gas surrounded by significant amounts of cosmic-ray and magnetic field energy. Their spectra show anomalously strong low-ionization and molecular emission lines when compared with Galactic molecular clouds exposed to ionizing radiation such as the Orion complex. Previous studies have shown that the spectra cannot be produced by O-star photoionization. Here, we calculate the physical conditions in dusty gas that is well shielded from external sources of ionizing photons and is energized either by cosmic rays or dissipative …


Discovery Of Atomic And Molecular Mid-Infrared Emission Lines In Off-Nuclear Regions Of Ngc 1275 And Ngc 4696 With The Spitzer Space Telescope, R. M. Johnstone, N. A. Hatch, Gary J. Ferland, A. C. Fabian, C. S. Crawford, R. J. Wilman Jan 2007

Discovery Of Atomic And Molecular Mid-Infrared Emission Lines In Off-Nuclear Regions Of Ngc 1275 And Ngc 4696 With The Spitzer Space Telescope, R. M. Johnstone, N. A. Hatch, Gary J. Ferland, A. C. Fabian, C. S. Crawford, R. J. Wilman

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present Spitzer high-resolution spectra of off-nuclear regions in the central cluster galaxies NGC 1275 and NGC 4696 in the Perseus and Centaurus clusters, respectively. Both objects are surrounded by extensive optical emission-line filamentary nebulae, bright outer parts of which are the targets of our observations. The 10–37 μm spectra show strong pure-rotational lines from molecular hydrogen revealing a molecular component to the filaments which has an excitation temperature of ∼300−400 K. The flux in the 0−0 S(1) molecular hydrogen line correlates well with the strength of the optical lines, having about 3 per cent of the Hα+[N II] emission. …


The Physical Conditions Within Dense Cold Clouds In Cooling Flows - Ii, Gary J. Ferland, A. C. Fabian, R. M. Johnstone Jul 2002

The Physical Conditions Within Dense Cold Clouds In Cooling Flows - Ii, Gary J. Ferland, A. C. Fabian, R. M. Johnstone

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

This is a progress report on our numerical simulations of conditions in the cold cores of cooling flow condensations. The physical conditions in any non-equilibrium plasma are the result of a host of microphysical processes, many involving reactions that are research areas in themselves. We review the dominant physical processes in our previously published simulations, to clarify those issues that have caused confusion in the literature. We show that conditions in the core of an X-ray-illuminated cloud are very different from those found in molecular clouds, largely because carbon remains substantially atomic and provides powerful cooling through its far infrared …