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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Astrophysics and Astronomy

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Dartmouth Scholarship

2013

Astronomy

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Optical And X-Ray Studies Of 10 X-Ray-Selected Cataclysmic Binaries, John R. Thorstensen, Jules Halpern Sep 2013

Optical And X-Ray Studies Of 10 X-Ray-Selected Cataclysmic Binaries, John R. Thorstensen, Jules Halpern

Dartmouth Scholarship

We report on ground-based optical observations of 10 cataclysmic binaries that were discovered through their X-ray emission. Time-resolved radial velocity spectroscopy yields unambiguous orbital periods for eight objects and ambiguous results for the remaining two. The orbital periods range from 87 minutes to 9.38 hr. We also obtained time-series optical photometry for six targets, four of which have coherent pulsations. These periods are 1218 s for 1RXS J045707.4+452751, 628 s for AX J1740.2–2903, 477 s for AX J1853.3–0128, and 935 s for IGR J19267+1325. A total of seven of the sources have coherent oscillations in X-rays or optical, indicating that …


Distribution Of Plasmoids In Post-Coronal Mass Ejection Current Sheets, L.-J. Guo, A. Bhattacharjee, Y.-M. Huang Jul 2013

Distribution Of Plasmoids In Post-Coronal Mass Ejection Current Sheets, L.-J. Guo, A. Bhattacharjee, Y.-M. Huang

Dartmouth Scholarship

Recently, the fragmentation of a current sheet in the high-Lundquist-number regime caused by the plasmoid instability has been proposed as a possible mechanism for fast reconnection. In this work, we investigate this scenario by comparing the distribution of plasmoids obtained from Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) observational data of a coronal mass ejection event with a resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a similar event. The LASCO/C2 data are analyzed using visual inspection, whereas the numerical data are analyzed using both visual inspection and a more precise topological method. Contrasting the observational data with numerical data analyzed with both methods, we …


The Cluster And Field Galaxy Active Galactic Nucleus Fraction At Z = 1-1.5: Evidence For A Reversal Of The Local Anticorrelation Between Environment And Agn Fraction, Paul Martini, E. D. Miller, M. Brodwin, S. A. Stanford, Anthony H. Gonzalez, M. Bautz, R. C. Hickox Apr 2013

The Cluster And Field Galaxy Active Galactic Nucleus Fraction At Z = 1-1.5: Evidence For A Reversal Of The Local Anticorrelation Between Environment And Agn Fraction, Paul Martini, E. D. Miller, M. Brodwin, S. A. Stanford, Anthony H. Gonzalez, M. Bautz, R. C. Hickox

Dartmouth Scholarship

The fraction of cluster galaxies that host luminous active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is an important probe of AGN fueling processes, the cold interstellar medium at the centers of galaxies, and how tightly black holes and galaxies co-evolve. We present a new measurement of the AGN fraction in a sample of 13 clusters of galaxies (M >= 1014 M ) at 1 < z < 1.5 selected from the Spitzer/IRAC Shallow Cluster Survey, as well as the field fraction in the immediate vicinity of these clusters, and combine these data with measurements from the literature to quantify the relative evolution of cluster and field AGN from the present to z ~ 3. We estimate that the cluster AGN fraction at 1 < z < 1.5 is f_A = 3.0^{+2.4}_{-1.4}% for AGNs with a rest-frame, hard X-ray luminosity greater than L X, H >= 1044 erg s-1. This fraction is measured relative to all cluster galaxies more luminous than M^*_{3.6}(z) + 1, where M^*_{3.6}(z) is the absolute magnitude of the break in the galaxy luminosity …


The Interior Structure Constants As An Age Diagnostic For Low-Mass, Pre-Main-Sequence Detached Eclipsing Binary Stars, Gregory A. Feiden, Aaron Dotter Feb 2013

The Interior Structure Constants As An Age Diagnostic For Low-Mass, Pre-Main-Sequence Detached Eclipsing Binary Stars, Gregory A. Feiden, Aaron Dotter

Dartmouth Scholarship

We propose a novel method for determining the ages of low-mass, pre-main-sequence stellar systems using the apsidal motion of low-mass detached eclipsing binaries. The apsidal motion of a binary system with an eccentric orbit provides information regarding the interior structure constants of the individual stars. These constants are related to the normalized stellar interior density distribution and can be extracted from the predictions of stellar evolution models. We demonstrate that low-mass, pre-main-sequence stars undergoing radiative core contraction display rapidly changing interior structure constants (greater than 5% per 10 Myr) that, when combined with observational determinations of the interior structure constants …