# Stars, Interstellar Medium and the Galaxy Commons™

## All Articles in Stars, Interstellar Medium and the Galaxy

588 full-text articles. Page 1 of 14.

The Megasecond Chandra X-Ray Visionary Project Observation Of Ngc 3115. Iii. Luminosity Functions Of Lmxbs And Dependence On Stellar Environments, 2017 University of New Hampshire, Durham

#### The Megasecond Chandra X-Ray Visionary Project Observation Of Ngc 3115. Iii. Luminosity Functions Of Lmxbs And Dependence On Stellar Environments, Dacheng Lin, Jimmy A. Irwin, Ka-Wah Wong, Zachary G. Jennings, Jeroen Homan, Aaron J. Romanowsky, Jay Strader, Jean P. Brodie, Gregory R. Sivakoff, Ronald A. Remillard

##### Aaron J. Romanowsky

We studied the X-ray luminosity function (XLF) of low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) in the nearby lenticular galaxy NGC 3115, using the Megasecond Chandra X-ray Visionary Project Observation. With a total exposure time of ~1.1 Ms, we constructed the XLF down to a limiting luminosity of ~1036 erg s−1, which is much deeper than that typically reached for other early-type galaxies. We found significant flattening of the overall LMXB XLF from dN/dLL−2.2±0.4 above 5.5 × 1037 erg s−1 to dN/dLL−1.0±0.1 below it, although we ...

The Sluggs Survey: Hst/Acs Mosaic Imaging Of The Ngc 3115 Globular Cluster System, 2017 University of California Observatories

#### The Sluggs Survey: Hst/Acs Mosaic Imaging Of The Ngc 3115 Globular Cluster System, Zachary G. Jennings, Jay Strader, Aaron J. Romanowsky, Jean P. Brodie, Jacob A. Arnold, Dacheng Lin, Jimmy A. Irwin, Gregory R. Sivakoff, Ka-Wah Wong

##### Aaron J. Romanowsky

We present Hubble Space Telescope/Advanced Camera for Surveys (HST/ACS) g and z photometry and half-light radii R h measurements of 360 globular cluster (GC) candidates around the nearby S0 galaxy NGC 3115. We also include Subaru/Suprime-Cam g, r, and i photometry of 421 additional candidates. The well-established color bimodality of the GC system is obvious in the HST/ACS photometry. We find evidence for a "blue tilt" in the blue GC subpopulation, wherein the GCs in the blue subpopulation get redder as luminosity increases, indicative of a mass-metallicity relationship. We find a color gradient in both the ...

The Megasecond Chandra X-Ray Visionary Project Observation Of Ngc 3115. Ii. Properties Of Point Sources, 2017 University of New Hampshire, Durham

#### The Megasecond Chandra X-Ray Visionary Project Observation Of Ngc 3115. Ii. Properties Of Point Sources, Dacheng Lin, Jimmy A. Irwin, Ka-Wah Wong, Zachary G. Jennings, Jeroen Homan, Aaron J. Romanowsky, Jay Strader, Gregory R. Sivakoff, Jean P. Brodie, Ronald A. Remillard

##### Aaron J. Romanowsky

We carried out an in-depth study of low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) detected in the nearby lenticular galaxy NGC 3115 using the Megasecond Chandra X-ray Visionary Project observation (total exposure time 1.1 Ms). In total we found 136 candidate LMXBs in the field and 49 in globular clusters (GCs) above 2σ detection, with 0.3–8 keV luminosity LX ~ 1036–1039 erg s−1. Other than 13 transient candidates, the sources overall have less long-term variability at higher luminosity, at least at erg s−1. In order to identify the nature and spectral state of our sources, we compared their ...

Gama/H-Atlas : Common Star Formation Rate Indicators And Their Dependence On Galaxy Physical Parameters., 2017 Durham University

#### Gama/H-Atlas : Common Star Formation Rate Indicators And Their Dependence On Galaxy Physical Parameters., L. Wang, P. Norberg, M. L. P. Gunawardhana, S. Heinis, I. K. Baldry, J. Bland-Hawthorn, N. Bourne, S. Brough, M. J. I. Brown, M. E. Cluver, A. Cooray, E. Da Cunha, S. P. Driver, L. Dunne, S. Dye, S. Eales, M. W. Grootes, Benne W. Holwerda, A. M. Hopkins, E. Ibar, R. Ivison, C. Lacey, M. A. Lara-Lopez, J. Loveday, S. J. Maddox, M. J. Michalowski, I. Oteo, M. S. Owers, C. C. Popescu, D. J. B. Smith, E. N. Taylor, R. J. Tuffs, P. Van Der Werf

##### Benne Holwerda

We compare common star formation rate (SFR) indicators in the local Universe in the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) equatorial fields (∼160 deg2), using ultraviolet (UV) photometry from GALEX, far-infrared and sub-millimetre (sub-mm) photometry from Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey, and Hα spectroscopy from the GAMA survey. With a high-quality sample of 745 galaxies (median redshift z = 0.08), we consider three SFR tracers: UV luminosity corrected for dust attenuation using the UV spectral slope β (SFRUV, corr), Hα line luminosity corrected for dust using the Balmer decrement (BD) (SFRH α, corr), and the combination of UV and infrared ...

2017 Graduate Center, City University of New York

#### Diffuse Gamma-Ray Emission From Nearby Molecular Clouds As A Probe Of Cosmic Ray Density Variations, Ryan Abrahams

##### All Graduate Works by Year: Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

We analyze gamma-ray emission from nearby, interstellar molecular clouds in order to calibrate current tracers of the interstellar medium and to probe local cosmic ray gradients. Gamma-rays detected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope are created when cosmic rays collide with atomic nuclei in the interstellar medium, and thus provide a unique, unbiased view of the distribution of gas. The gamma-ray flux per proton in the interstellar medium, also known as the gamma-ray emissivity, contains information about the density of high energy cosmic rays. These cosmic rays are born in supernovae shock waves and diffuse throughout the Galaxy. The cosmic ...

2017 Claremont McKenna College

#### Maximum Mass Restraint Of Neutron Stars: Quarks, Pion, Kaons, And Hyperons, Garrett Ryan

##### CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the topic of maximum mass stability of neutron stars. The outer structure is detailed and explores nuclear pasta phases, the neutron drip line, and density transitions of matter in the crust and atmosphere layers. Other discussion points include superfluids in the crust and core, vortex roles in neutron stars, and magnetic field effects on the EOS in neutron stars. The inner core is studied in much more detail due to its significant role in EOS. The variety of stars include pion condensate stars, kaon condensate stars, npeu stars, npeu stars with the inclusion of hyperons, quark-hybrid stars ...

2017 University of Massachusetts - Amherst

#### Astrophysical Accretion And Feedback: The Bayesian Linchpin Of Theory And Observation, Shawn Roberts

##### Doctoral Dissertations May 2014 - current

Despite being a major pillar of galaxy evolution, galactic feedback from stars and supermassive black holes (SMBHs) is subject to very little observational constraint. This is particularly true of the hot component, as viewed in X-rays. Yet, the hot component is directly linked to much of the energetic feedback released from these compact objects. X-ray observations suffer from several challenges that make placing this constraint a difficult task. In the face of considerable model uncertainty, these challenges underscore the need for novel X-ray data analysis techniques. In this dissertation, I seek to lend a unique perspective to X-ray data analysis ...

The Sdss–2mass–Wise 10 Dimensional Stellar Color Locus, 2016 Western Washington University

#### The Sdss–2mass–Wise 10 Dimensional Stellar Color Locus, James R. A. Davenport, Željko Ivezić, Andrew C. Becker, John J. Ruan, Nicholas M. Hunt-Walker, Kevin R. Covey, Alexia R. Lewis, Yusra Alsayyad, Lauren M. Anderson

##### James Davenport

We present the fiducial main-sequence stellar locus traced by 10 photometric colours observed by Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer(WISE). Median colours are determined using 1052 793 stars with r-band extinction less than 0.125. We use this locus to measure the dust extinction curve relative to the r band, which is consistent with previous measurements in the SDSS and 2MASS bands. The WISE band extinction coefficients are larger than predicted by standard extinction models. Using 13 lines of sight, we find variations in the extinction curve in H ...

Improved Photometric Calibrations For Red Stars Observed With The Sdss Photometric Telescope, 2016 Western Washington University

#### Improved Photometric Calibrations For Red Stars Observed With The Sdss Photometric Telescope, James R. A. Davenport, John J. Bochanski, Kevin R. Covey, Suzanne L. Hawley, Andrew A. West, Doanld P. Schneider

##### James Davenport

We present a new set of photometric transformations for red stars observed with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) 0.5 m Photometric Telescope (PT) and the SDSS 2.5 m telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. Nightly PT observations of US Naval Observatory standards are used to determine extinction corrections and calibration terms for SDSS 2.5 m photometry. Systematic differences between the PT and native SDSS 2.5 m ugriz photometry require conversions between the two systems which have previously been undefined for the reddest stars. By matching ~43,000 stars observed with both the ...

Death Of A Cluster: The Destruction Of M67 As Seen By The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, 2016 Western Washington University

#### Death Of A Cluster: The Destruction Of M67 As Seen By The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, James R. A. Davenport, Eric L. Sandquist

##### James Davenport

We probe the spatial and dynamical structure of the old open cluster M67 using photometric data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's sixth data release. Making use of an optimal contrast, or matched filter, algorithm, we map the distribution of high probability members of M67. We find an extended and elongated halo of likely members to a radius of nearly 60'. Our measured core radius of R core = 824 ± 060 is somewhat larger than that of previous estimates. We attribute the larger core radius measurement to the SDSS probing lower mass main sequence stars than has been done before ...

Kepler Flares Ii: The Temporal Morphology Of White-Light Flares On Gj 1243, 2016 Western Washington University

#### Kepler Flares Ii: The Temporal Morphology Of White-Light Flares On Gj 1243, James R. A. Davenport, Suzanne L. Hawley, Leslie Hebb, John P. Wisniewski, Adam F. Kowalski, Emily C. Johnson, Michael Malatesta, Jesus Paraza, Marcus Keil, Steven M. Silverberg, Tiffany C. Jansen, Matthew S. Scheffler, Jodi R. Berdis, Daniel M. Larsen, Eric J. Hilton

##### James Davenport

We present the largest sample of flares ever compiled for a single M dwarf, the active M4 star GJ 1243. Over 6100 individual flare events, with energies ranging from 1029 to 1033 erg, are found in 11 months of 1 minute cadence data from Kepler. This sample is unique for its completeness and dynamic range. We have developed automated tools for finding flares in short-cadence Kepler light curves, and performed extensive validation and classification of the sample by eye. From this pristine sample of flares we generate a median flare template. This template shows that two exponential cooling ...

Sdss J14584479+3720215: A Benchmark Jhks Blazar Light Curve From The 2mass Calibration Scans, 2016 Western Washington University

#### Sdss J14584479+3720215: A Benchmark Jhks Blazar Light Curve From The 2mass Calibration Scans, James R. A. Davenport, John J. Ruan, Andrew C. Becker, Chelsea L. Macleod, Roc M. Cutri

##### James Davenport

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are well-known to exhibit flux variability across a wide range of wavelength regimes, but the precise origin of the variability at different wavelengths remains unclear. To investigate the relatively unexplored near-IR (NIR) variability of the most luminous AGNs, we conduct a search for variability using well sampled JHKs-band light curves from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) calibration fields. Our sample includes 27 known quasars with an average of 924 epochs of observation over three years, as well as one spectroscopically confirmed blazar (SDSS J14584479+3720215) with 1972 epochs of data. This is the best-sampled ...

The Kepler Catalog Of Stellar Flares, 2016 Western Washington University

#### The Kepler Catalog Of Stellar Flares, James R. A. Davenport

##### James Davenport

A homogeneous search for stellar flares has been performed using every available Kepler light curve. An iterative light curve de-trending approach was used to filter out both astrophysical and systematic variability to detect flares. The flare recovery completeness has also been computed throughout each light curve using artificial flare injection tests, and the tools for this work have been made publicly available. The final sample contains 851,168 candidate flare events recovered above the 68% completeness threshold, which were detected from 4041 stars, or 1.9% of the stars in the Kepler database. The average flare energy detected is ~1035 ...

Multi-Wavelength Characterization Of Stellar Flares On Low-Mass Stars Using Sdss And 2mass Time Domain Surveys, 2016 Western Washington University

#### Multi-Wavelength Characterization Of Stellar Flares On Low-Mass Stars Using Sdss And 2mass Time Domain Surveys, James R. A. Davenport, Andrew C. Becker, Adam F. Kowalski, Suzanne L. Hawley, Sarah J. Schmidt, Eric J. Hilton, Branimir Sesar, Roc Cutri

##### James Davenport

We present the first rates of flares from M dwarf stars in both red optical and near-infrared (NIR) filters. We have studied ~50,000 M dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 area and 1321 M dwarfs from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) Calibration Scan Point Source Working Database that overlap SDSS imaging fields. We assign photometric spectral types from M0 to M6 using (ri) and (iz) colors for every star in our sample. Stripe 82 stars each have 50-100 epochs of data, while 2MASS Calibration stars have ~1900 epochs. From these data ...

Detecting Differential Rotation And Starspot Evolution On The M Dwarf Gj 1243 With Kepler, 2016 Western Washington University

#### Detecting Differential Rotation And Starspot Evolution On The M Dwarf Gj 1243 With Kepler, James R. A. Davenport, Leslie Hebb, Suzanne L. Hawley

##### James Davenport

We present an analysis of the starspots on the active M4 dwarf GJ 1243, using 4 years of time series photometry from Kepler. A rapid P = 0.592596 ± 0.00021 days rotation period is measured due to the ~2.2% starspot-induced flux modulations in the light curve. We first use a light curve modeling approach, using a Monte Carlo Markov Chain sampler to solve for the longitudes and radii of the two spots within 5 day windows of data. Within each window of time the starspots are assumed to be unchanging. Only a weak constraint on the starspot latitudes can ...

The Very Short Period M Dwarf Binary Sdss J001641–000925, 2016 Western Washington University

#### The Very Short Period M Dwarf Binary Sdss J001641–000925, James R. A. Davenport, Andrew C. Becker, Andrew A. West, John J. Bochanski, Suzanne L. Hawley, Jon Holtzman, Heather C. Gunning, Eric J. Hilton, Ferah A. Munshi, Meagan Albright

##### James Davenport

We present follow-up observations and analysis of the recently discovered short period low-mass eclipsing binary, SDSS J001641–000925. With an orbital period of 0.19856 days, this system has one of the shortest known periods for an M dwarf binary system. Medium-resolution spectroscopy and multi-band photometry for the system are presented. Markov Chain Monte Carlo modeling of the light curves and radial velocities yields estimated masses for the stars of M 1 = 0.54 ± 0.07 M ☉ and M 2 = 0.34 ± 0.04 M ☉, and radii of R 1 = 0.68 ± 0.03 R ☉ and R 2 = 0.58 ...

Most Observations Of Our Nearest Neighbor: Flares On Proxima Centauri, 2016 Western Washington University

#### Most Observations Of Our Nearest Neighbor: Flares On Proxima Centauri, James R. A. Davenport, David M. Kipping, Dimitar Sasselov, Jaymie M. Matthews, Chris Cameron

##### James Davenport

We present a study of white-light flares from the active M5.5 dwarf Proxima Centauri using the Canadian microsatellite Microvariability and Oscillations of STars. Using 37.6 days of monitoring data from 2014 to 2015, we have detected 66 individual flare events, the largest number of white-light flares observed to date on Proxima Cen. Flare energies in our sample range from 1029 to 1031.5erg. The flare rate is lower than that of other classic flare stars of a similar spectral type, such as UV Ceti, which may indicate Proxima Cen had a higher flare rate in ...

2016 The University of Western Ontario

#### The Geometry And Density Of B-Emission Star Disks From Statistical Analysis And Numerical Simulations, Isabelle H. Cyr

##### Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis is divided into 3 investigations. First we present a novel method to estimate the opening angles of Be star disks from interferometric axis ratio measurements, using Bayesian statistics and Monte Carlo techniques. A large set of theoretical axis ratios generated from disk models were compared to observational samples to determine which distribution best reproduces the observations. We find that the observed axis ratio distributions in the K-, H-, and N-band can best be explained by the presence of thin disks while measurements over the H$\alpha$ line point toward slightly thicker disks. Second, using a smoothed particle hydrodynamics ...

2016 The University of Western Ontario

#### The Circumstellar Environments Of B-Emission Stars By Optical Interferometry, Bethany Grzenia

##### Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A series of B-emission (Be) stars was observed interferometrically and numerically modelled to be consistent with the observations. Uniform geometrical disks were used to make first-order inferences about the configuration of the disk systems’ extended structures and their extent on the sky. Later, the Bedisk-Beray-2dDFTpipeline was used to make sophisticated non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) calculations of the conditions within the disks. In the first instance, sixteen stars were observed in the near-infrared (K-band, 2.2 micron) with the Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI). The Bedisk portion of the pipeline was used to model disk temperature and density structures for B0, B2 ...

Most Observations Of Our Nearest Neighbor: Flares On Proxima Centauri, 2016 Western Washington University

#### Most Observations Of Our Nearest Neighbor: Flares On Proxima Centauri, James R. A. Davenport, David M. Kipping, Dimitar Sasselov, Jaymie M. Matthews, Chris Cameron

##### Physics & Astronomy

We present a study of white-light flares from the active M5.5 dwarf Proxima Centauri using the Canadian microsatellite Microvariability and Oscillations of STars. Using 37.6 days of monitoring data from 2014 to 2015, we have detected 66 individual flare events, the largest number of white-light flares observed to date on Proxima Cen. Flare energies in our sample range from 1029 to 1031.5erg. The flare rate is lower than that of other classic flare stars of a similar spectral type, such as UV Ceti, which may indicate Proxima Cen had a higher flare rate in ...