Ionization, Kinematics, and Extent of the Diffuse Ionized Gas Halo of NGC 5775

We present key results from deep spectra of the Diffuse Ionized Gas (DIG) halo of the edge-on galaxy NGC 5775. [NII]6583 has been detected up to about z=13 kpc above the plane in one of two vertically oriented long slits -- making this the spiral galaxy with the greatest spectroscopically detected halo extent in emission. Key diagnostic line ratios have been measured up to about z=8 kpc, allowing the source of ionization and physical state to be probed. Ionization by a dilute radiation field from massive stars in the disk can explain some of the line ratio behavior, but departures from this picture are clearly indicated, most strongly by the rise of [OIII]/Halpha with z. Velocities of the gas in both slits approach the systemic velocity of the galaxy at several kpc above the plane. We interpret this trend as a decrease in rotation velocity with z, with essentially no rotation at heights of several kpc. Such a trend was observed in the edge-on galaxy NGC 891, but here much more dramatically. This falloff is presumably due to the gravitational potential changing with z, but will also depend on the hydrodynamic nature of the disk-halo cycling of gas and projection effects. More detailed modeling of the ionization and kinematics of this and other edge-ons will be presented in future papers.Comment: figures 1, 2a-d and 3 included. ApJ Letters, in pres

Opportunities for and challenges to further reductions in the “specific power” rating of wind turbines installed in the United States

A wind turbine’s “specific power” rating relates its capacity to the swept area of its rotor in terms of Watt per square meter. For a given generator capacity, specific power declines as rotor size increases. In land-rich but capacity-constrained wind power markets, such as the United States, developers have an economic incentive to maximize megawatt-hours per constrained megawatt, and so have favored turbines with ever-lower specific power. To date, this trend toward lower specific power has pushed capacity factors higher while reducing the levelized cost of energy. We employ geospatial levelized cost of energy analysis across the United States to explore whether this trend is likely to continue. We find that under reasonable cost scenarios (i.e. presuming that logistical challenges from very large blades are surmountable), low-specific-power turbines could continue to be in demand going forward. Beyond levelized cost of energy, the boost in market value that low-specific-power turbines provide could become increasingly important as wind penetration grows

On a Test of Independence via Quantiles that is Sensitive to Curvature

Let (Yi ,Xi ) , i =1,..., n , be a random sample from some p+1 variate distribution where Xi is a vector having length p. Many methods for testing the hypothesis that Y is independent of X are relatively insensitive to a broad class of departures from independence. Power improvements focus on the median of Y or some other quantile and test the hypothesis that the regression surface is a horizontal plane versus some unknown form. A wild bootstrap method (Stute et al. 1998) can be used based on quantiles, but with small or moderate sample sizes, control over the probability of a Type I error can be unsatisfactory when sampling from asymmetric distributions. He and Zhu (2003) is readily adapted to testing the hypothesis that the conditional & gamma; quantile of Y does not depend on X where critical values are determined via simulations. A modification is suggested that avoids the need for simulations to obtain critical values, and perform wells in terms of Type I errors even when sampling from asymmetric distributions

Comparing Two Independent Groups Via a Quantile Generalization of the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney Test

The Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test, as well as modern improvements, are based in part on an estimate of p = P(D \u3c 0), where D = X−Y and X and Y are independent random variables; a common goal is to test H0: p = 0.5. This corresponds to testing H0: ξ0.5, where ξ0.5 is the 0.5 quantile of the distribution of D. If the distributions associated with X and Y do not differ, then D has a symmetric distribution about zero. In particular, ξq + ξ1-q = 0 for any q ≤ 0.5, where ξq is the qth quantile. Methods aimed at testing H0: p = 0.5 are generalized by suggesting a method for testing H0: ξq + ξ1-q = 0, q \u3c 0.

Infrared Spectroscopy of the Diffuse Ionized Halo of NGC 891

We present infrared spectroscopy from the Spitzer Space Telescope at one disk position and two positions at a height of 1 kpc from the disk in the edge-on spiral NGC 891, with the primary goal of studying halo ionization. Our main result is that the [Ne III]/[Ne II] ratio, which provides a measure of the hardness of the ionizing spectrum free from the major problems plaguing optical line ratios, is enhanced in the extraplanar pointings relative to the disk pointing. Using a 2D Monte Carlo-based photo-ionization code which accounts for the effects of radiation field hardening, we find that this trend cannot be reproduced by any plausible photo-ionization model, and that a secondary source of ionization must therefore operate in gaseous halos. We also present the first spectroscopic detections of extraplanar PAH features in an external normal galaxy. If they are in an exponential layer, very rough emission scale-heights of 330-530 pc are implied for the various features. Extinction may be non-negligible in the midplane and reduce these scale-heights significantly. There is little significant variation in the relative emission from the various features between disk and extraplanar environment. Only the 17.4 micron feature is significantly enhanced in the extraplanar gas compared to the other features, possibly indicating a preference for larger PAHs in the halo.Comment: 35 pages in ApJ preprint format, 8 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ. Minor change to Introduction to give appropriate credit to earlier, related wor

The interstellar halo of spiral galaxies: NGC 891

Researchers have detected the Warm Ionized Medium (WIM) phase in the galaxy NGC 891. They found that the radial distribution of the WIM follows the molecular or young star distribution - an expected dependence. The amount of the WIM in this galaxy exceeds that in our Galaxy. The major surprize is the large thickness of the WIM phase - about 9 kpc instead 3 kpc as in our Galaxy. Clearly, this is the most significant result of the observations. The presence of low ionization gas at high z as well as at large galactocentric radii (where young stars are rare) is an important clue to the origin of the halo and observations such as the one reported here provide important data on this crucial question. In particular, the ionization of gas at high absolute z implies that either the UV photons manage to escape from the disk of the galaxy or that the extragalactic UV background plays an important role. The bulk of the WIM in spiral galaxies is a result of star-formation activity and thus these results can be understood by invoking a high star formation rate in NGC 891. Only the concerted action of supernovae can get the gas to the large z-heights as is observed in this galaxy. Support for this view comes from our detection of many worms i.e., bits and pieces of supershells in the form of kilo-parsec long vertical filaments. Researchers also saw a 600-pc size supershell located nearly one kpc above the plane of the galaxy

Estimating Explanatory Power in a Simple Regression Model Via Smoothers

Consider the regression model Y = γ(X) + ε , where γ(X) is some conditional measure of location associated with Y , given X. Let Υ̂ be some estimate of Y, given X, and let τ2 (Y) be some measure of variation. Explanatory power is η2 = τ2 (Υ̂) /τ2(Y) . When γ(X) = β0 + β1X and τ2(Y) is the variance of Y , η2 = ρ2 , where ρ is Pearson\u27s correlation. The small-sample properties of some methods for estimating a robust analog of explanatory power via smoothers is investigated. The robust version of a smoother proposed by Cleveland is found to be best in most cases

Inferences About the Components of a Generalized Additive Model

A method for making inferences about the components of a generalized additive model is described. It is found that a variation of the method, based on means, performs well in simulations. Unlike many other inferential methods, switching from a mean to a 20% trimmed mean was found to offer little or no advantage in terms of both power and controlling the probability of a Type I error