Gas physical conditions and kinematics of the giant outflow Ou4

Ou4 is a recently discovered bipolar outflow with a projected size of more than one degree in the plane of the sky. It is apparently centred on the young stellar cluster -whose most massive representative is the triple system HR8119- inside the HII region Sh 2-129. The driving source, the nature, and the distance of Ou4 are not known. Deep narrow-band imagery of the whole nebula at arcsec resolution was obtained to study its morphology. Long-slit spectroscopy of the tips of the bipolar lobes was secured to determine the gas ionization mechanism, physical conditions, and line-of-sight velocities. An estimate of the proper motions at the tip of the south lobe using archival images is attempted. The existing multi-wavelength data for Sh 2-129 and HR 8119 are also comprehensively reviewed. The morphology of Ou4, its emission-line spatial distribution, line flux ratios, and the kinematic modelling adopting a bow-shock parabolic geometry, illustrate the expansion of a shock-excited fast collimated outflow. The radial velocities and reddening are consistent with those of Sh 2-129 and HR 8119. The improved determination of the distance to HR8119 (composed of two B0 V and one B0.5 V stars) and Sh 2-129 is 712 pc. We identify in WISE images a 5 arcmin-radius (1 pc at the distance above) bubble of emission at 22 micron emitted by hot (107 K) dust, located inside the central part of Ou4 and corresponding to several [O III] features of Ou4. The apparent position and the properties studied in this work are consistent with the hypothesis that Ou4 is located inside the Sh 2-129 HII region, suggesting that it was launched some 90 000 yrs ago by HR8119. The outflow total kinetic energy is estimated to be ~4e47~ergs. However, the alternate possibility that Ou4 is a bipolar planetary nebula, or the result of an eruptive event on a massive AGB or post-AGB star not yet identified, cannot be ruled out.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Also available at http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-0102228

A sensitive survey for 13CO, CN, H2CO and SO in the disks of T Tauri and Herbig Ae stars

We use the IRAM 30-m telescope to perform a sensitive search for CN N=2-1 in 42 T Tauri or Herbig Ae systems located mostly in the Taurus-Auriga region. $^{13}$CO J=2-1 is observed simultaneously to indicate the level of confusion with the surrounding molecular cloud. The bandpass also contains two transitions of ortho-H$_2$CO, one of SO and the C$^{17}$O J=2-1 line which provide complementary information on the nature of the emission. While $^{13}$CO is in general dominated by residual emission from the cloud, CN exhibits a high disk detection rate $> 50$% in our sample. We even report CN detection in stars for which interferometric searches failed to detect $^{12}$CO, presumably because of obscuration by a foreground, optically thick, cloud. Comparison between CN and o-H$_2$CO or SO line profiles and intensities divide the sample in two main categories. Sources with SO emission are bright and have strong H$_2$CO emission, leading in general to [H$_2$CO/CN]$> 0.5$. Furthermore, their line profiles, combined with a priori information on the objects, suggest that the emission is coming from outflows or envelopes rather than from a circumstellar disk. On the other hand, most sources have [H$_2$CO/CN]$< 0.3$, no SO emission, and some of them exhibit clear double-peaked profiles characteristics of rotating disks. In this second category, CN is likely tracing the proto-planetary disks. From the line flux and opacity derived from the hyperfine ratios, we constrain the outer radii of the disks, which range from 300 to 600 AU. The overall gas disk detection rate (including all molecular tracers) is $\sim 68$, and decreases for fainter continuum sources. This study shows that gas disks, like dust disks, are ubiquitous around young PMS stars in regions of isolated star formation, and that a large fraction of them have $R > 300$ AU.Comment: 31 pages (including 59 figures

Local Density of States and Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectral Function of an Inhomogeneous D-wave Superconductor

Nanoscale inhomogeneity seems to be a central feature of the d-wave superconductivity in the cuprates. Such a feature can strongly affect the local density of states (LDOS) and the spectral weight functions. Within the Bogoliubov-de Gennes formalism we examine various inhomogeneous configurations of the superconducting order parameter to see which ones better agree with the experimental data. Nanoscale large amplitude oscillations in the order parameter seem to fit the LDOS data for the underdoped cuprates. The one-particle spectral function for a general inhomogeneous configuration exhibits a coherent peak in the nodal direction. In contrast, the spectral function in the antinodal region is easily rendered incoherent by the inhomogeneity. This throws new light on the dichotomy between the nodal and antinodal quasiparticles in the underdoped cuprates.Comment: 5 pages, 9 pictures. Phys. Rev. B (in press

Image-charge induced localization of molecular orbitals at metal-molecule interfaces: Self-consistent GW calculations

Quasiparticle (QP) wave functions, also known as Dyson orbitals, extend the concept of single-particle states to interacting electron systems. Here we employ many-body perturbation theory in the GW approximation to calculate the QP wave functions for a semi-empirical model describing a $\pi$-conjugated molecular wire in contact with a metal surface. We find that image charge effects pull the frontier molecular orbitals toward the metal surface while orbitals with higher or lower energy are pushed away. This affects both the size of the energetic image charge shifts and the coupling of the individual orbitals to the metal substrate. Full diagonalization of the QP equation and, to some extent, self-consistency in the GW self-energy, is important to describe the effect which is not captured by standard density functional theory or Hartree-Fock. These results should be important for the understanding and theoretical modeling of electron transport across metal-molecule interfaces.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Making precise predictions of the Casimir force between metallic plates via a weighted Kramers-Kronig transform

The possibility of making precise predictions for the Casimir force is essential for the theoretical interpretation of current precision experiments on the thermal Casimir effect with metallic plates, especially for sub-micron separations. For this purpose it is necessary to estimate very accurately the dielectric function of a conductor along the imaginary frequency axis. This task is complicated in the case of ohmic conductors, because optical data do not usually extend to sufficiently low frequencies to permit an accurate evaluation of the standard Kramers-Kronig integral used to compute $\epsilon(i \xi)$. By making important improvements in the results of a previous paper by the author, it is shown that this difficulty can be resolved by considering suitable weighted dispersions relations, which strongly suppress the contribution of low frequencies. The weighted dispersion formulae presented in this paper permit to estimate accurately the dielectric function of ohmic conductors for imaginary frequencies, on the basis of optical data extending from the IR to the UV, with no need of uncontrolled data extrapolations towards zero frequency that are instead necessary with standard Kramers-Kronig relations. Applications to several sets of data for gold films are presented to demonstrate viability of the new dispersion formulae.Comment: 18 pages, 15 encapsulated figures. In the revised version important improvements have been made, which affect the main conclusions of the pape

Sensitive survey for 13CO, CN, H2CO, and SO in the disks of T Tauri and Herbig Ae stars II: Stars in ρ\rho Oph and upper Scorpius

We attempt to determine the molecular composition of disks around young low-mass stars in the $\rho$ Oph region and to compare our results with a similar study performed in the Taurus-Auriga region. We used the IRAM 30 m telescope to perform a sensitive search for CN N=2-1 in 29 T Tauri stars located in the $\rho$ Oph and upper Scorpius regions. $^{13}$CO J=2-1 is observed simultaneously to provide an indication of the level of confusion with the surrounding molecular cloud. The bandpass also contains two transitions of ortho-H$_2$CO, one of SO, and the C$^{17}$O J=2-1 line, which provides complementary information on the nature of the emission. Contamination by molecular cloud in $^{13}$CO and even C$^{17}$O is ubiquitous. The CN detection rate appears to be lower than for the Taurus region, with only four sources being detected (three are attributable to disks). H$_2$CO emission is found more frequently, but appears in general to be due to the surrounding cloud. The weaker emission than in Taurus may suggest that the average disk size in the $\rho$ Oph region is smaller than in the Taurus cloud. Chemical modeling shows that the somewhat higher expected disk temperatures in $\rho$ Oph play a direct role in decreasing the CN abundance. Warmer dust temperatures contribute to convert CN into less volatile forms. In such a young region, CN is no longer a simple, sensitive tracer of disks, and observations with other tracers and at high enough resolution with ALMA are required to probe the gas disk population.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Multi-Wavelength Study of Sgr A*: The Short Time Scale Variability

To understand the correlation and the radiation mechanism of flare emission in different wavelength bands, we have coordinated a number of telescopes to observe SgrA* simultaneously. We focus only on one aspect of the preliminary results of our multi-wavelength observing campaigns, namely, the short time scale variability of emission from SgrA* in near-IR, X-ray and radio wavelengths. The structure function analysis indicate most of the power spectral density is detected on hourly time scales in all wavelength bands. We also report minute time scale variability at 7 and 13mm placing a strong constraint on the nature of the variable emission. The hourly time scale variability can be explained in the context of a model in which the peak frequency of emission shifts toward lower frequencies as a self-absorbed synchrotron source expands adiabatically near the acceleration site. The short time scale variability, on the other hand, places a strong constraint on the size of the emitting region. Assuming that rapid minute time scale fluctuations of the emission is optically thick in radio wavelength, light travel arguments requires relativistic particle energy, thus suggesting the presence of outflow from SgrA*.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, The Galactic Center: A Window on the Nuclear Environment of Disk Galaxies ASP Conference Series, 2010 eds: M. Morris, D. Q. Wang and F. Yua

Applications of Magnetic PsiDO Techniques to Space-adiabatic Perturbation Theory

In this review, we show how advances in the theory of magnetic pseudodifferential operators (magnetic $\Psi$DO) can be put to good use in space-adiabatic perturbation theory (SAPT). As a particular example, we extend results of [PST03] to a more general class of magnetic fields: we consider a single particle moving in a periodic potential which is subjectd to a weak and slowly-varying electromagnetic field. In addition to the semiclassical parameter \eps \ll 1 which quantifies the separation of spatial scales, we explore the influence of additional parameters that allow us to selectively switch off the magnetic field. We find that even in the case of magnetic fields with components in $C_b^{\infty}(\R^d)$, e. g. for constant magnetic fields, the results of Panati, Spohn and Teufel hold, i.e. to each isolated family of Bloch bands, there exists an associated almost invariant subspace of $L^2(\R^d)$ and an effective hamiltonian which generates the dynamics within this almost invariant subspace. In case of an isolated non-degenerate Bloch band, the full quantum dynamics can be approximated by the hamiltonian flow associated to the semiclassical equations of motion found in [PST03].Comment: 32 page