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J.P. Magué & B. Ménard

[1]
Title: Variability in tidal disruption events: gravitationally unstable streams
Comments: 6 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJL
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

We present simulations of the tidal disruption of a solar mass star by a $10^6M_{\odot}$ black hole. These, for the first time, cover the full time evolution of the tidal disruption event, starting well before the initial encounter and continuing until more than 90% of the bound material has returned to the vicinity of the hole. Our results are compared to the analytical prediction for the rate at which tidally-stripped gas falls back. We find that, for our chosen parameters, the overall scaling of the fallback rate, $\dot{M}_{\rm{fb}}$, closely follows the canonical $t^{-5/3}$ power-law. However, our simulations also show that the self-gravity of the tidal stream, which dominates the tidal gravity of the hole at large distances, causes some of the debris to recollapse into bound fragments before returning to the hole. This causes $\dot{M}_{\rm{fb}}$ to vary significantly around the $t^{-5/3}$ average. We discuss the implications of our findings in the context of the event Swift J1644+57.

[2]
Title: Stability of Gas Clouds in Galactic Nuclei: An Extended Virial Theorem
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

Cold gas entering the central $1$ to $10^2$ pc of a galaxy fragments and condenses into clouds. The stability of the clouds determines whether they will be turned into stars or can be delivered to the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) to turn on an active galactic nucleus (AGN). The conventional criteria to assess the stability of these clouds, such as the Jeans criterion and Roche (or tidal) limit, are insufficient here, because they assume the dominance of self-gravity in binding a cloud, and neglect external agents, such as pressure and tidal forces, which are common in galactic nuclei. We formulate a new scheme for judging this stability. We first revisit the conventional Virial theorem, taking into account an external pressure, to identify the correct range of masses that lead to stable clouds. We then extend the theorem to include an external tidal field, crucial for the stability in the region of interest -- in dense star clusters, around SMBHs. We apply our extended Virial theorem to find the correct solutions to practical problems that until now were controversial, namely, the stability of the gas clumps in AGN tori, the circum-nuclear disk in the Galactic Center, and the central molecular zone of the Milky Way. The masses we derive for these structures are orders of magnitude smaller than the commonly-used Virial masses (equivalent to the Jeans mass). Moreover, we prove that these clumps are stable, contrary to what one would naively deduce from the Roche (tidal) limit.

[3]
Title: Second generation stellar disks in Globular Clusters and cluster ellipticities
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

Globular clusters (GCs) and Nuclear Stellar Clusters (NSCs) are typically composed by several stellar generations, characterized by different ages and chemical compositions. The youngest populations in NSCs appear to reside in disk-like structures, as observed in our Galaxy and in M31. Gas infall followed by formation of second generation (SG) stars in GCs may similarly form disk-like structures in the clusters nuclei. Here we explore this possibility and follow the long term evolution of stellar disks embedded in GCs, and study their affects on the evolution of the clusters. We study disks with different masses by means of detailed N-body simulations and explore their morphological and kinematic signatures on the GC structures. We find that as a second generation disk relaxes, the old, first generation, stellar population flattens and becomes more radially anisotropic, making the GC structure become more elliptical. The second generation stellar population is characterized by a lower velocity dispersion, and a higher rotational velocity, compared with the primordial older population. The strength of these kinematic signatures depends both on the relaxation time of the system and on the fractional mass of the second generation disk. We therefore conclude that SG populations formed in flattened configurations will give rise to two systematic trends: (1) Positive correlation between GC ellipticity and fraction of SG population (2) Positive correlation between GC relaxation time and ellipticity. Thereby GC ellipticities and rotation could be related to the formation of SG stars and their initial configuration.

[4]
Title: A High-Resolution Hubble Space Telescope Study of Lyman Continuum Leakers at $z\sim3$
Comments: 30 pages, 5 tables, 19 figures. Submitted to ApJ. Version with full-resolution figures is available at: this http URL
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

We present $U_{336}V_{606}J_{125}H_{160}$ follow-up $HST$ observations of 16 $z\sim3$ candidate LyC emitters in the HS1549+1933 field. With these data, we obtain high spatial-resolution photometric redshifts of all sub-arcsecond components of the LyC candidates in order to eliminate foreground contamination and identify robust candidates for leaking LyC emission. Of the 16 candidates, we find one object with a robust LyC detection that is not due to foreground contamination. This object (MD5) resolves into two components; we refer to the LyC-emitting component as MD5b. MD5b has an observed 1500\AA\ to 900\AA\ flux-density ratio of $(F_{UV}/F_{LyC})_{obs}=4.0\pm2.0$, compatible with predictions from stellar population synthesis models. Neglecting IGM absorption, this ratio corresponds to lower limits to the relative (absolute) escape fraction of $f_{esc,rel}^{MD5b}=75\%\pm38\%$ ($f_{esc,abs}^{MD5b}=14\%\pm7\%$). The stellar population fit to MD5b indicates an age of $\lesssim50$Myr, which is in the youngest 10% of the $HST$ sample and the youngest third of typical $z\sim3$ Lyman break galaxies, and may be a contributing factor to its LyC detection. We obtain a revised, contamination-free estimate for the comoving specific ionizing emissivity at $z=2.85$, indicating (with large uncertainties) that star-forming galaxies provide roughly the same contribution as QSOs to the ionizing background at this redshift. Our results show that foreground contamination prevents ground-based LyC studies from obtaining a full understanding of LyC emission from $z\sim3$ star-forming galaxies. Future progress in direct LyC searches is contingent upon the elimination of foreground contaminants through high spatial-resolution observations, and upon acquisition of sufficiently deep LyC imaging to probe ionizing radiation in high-redshift galaxies.

[5]
Title: Monochromatic neutrino lines from sneutrino dark matter
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)

We investigate the possibility of observing monochromatic neutrino lines originating from annihilation of dark matter. We analyse several astrophysical sources with overdensities of dark matter that can amplify the signal. As a case study, we consider mixed left and right handed sneutrino dark matter. We demonstrate that in the physically viable region of the model, one can obtain a prominent monochromatic neutrino line. We propose a search strategy to observe these neutrino lines in future generations of neutrino telescopes that is especially sensitive to dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We demonstrate that the presence of massive black holes in the cores of dwarfs as well as of more massive galaxies substantially boosts any putative signal. In particular, dark matter in dwarf galaxies spiked by IMBH provides a powerful means of probing low annihilation cross-sections well below $10^{-26} \rm cm^3 s^{-1}$ that are otherwise inaccessible by any future direct detection or collider experiment.

[6]
Title: The Spectroscopic Properties of Lyα-Emitters at z $\approx$ 2.7: Escaping Gas and Photons from Faint Galaxies
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

We present a spectroscopic survey of 318 faint $(R\sim 27$, $L\sim0.1L_*)$, Ly{\alpha}-emission-selected galaxies (LAEs) at 2.5<z<3. A sample of 32 LAEs with rest-frame optical spectra from Keck/MOSFIRE are used to interpret the LAE spectra in the context of their systemic redshifts. We find that the Ly{\alpha} emission of LAEs is typically less spectrally extended than among samples of more luminous continuum-selected galaxies (LBGs) at similar redshifts. Using the MOSFIRE subsample, we find that the peak of the Ly{\alpha} line is shifted by +200 km/s with respect to systemic across a diverse set of galaxies including both LAEs and LBGs. We also find a small number of objects with significantly blueshifted Ly{\alpha} emission, a potential indicator of accreting gas. The Ly{\alpha}-to-H{\alpha} line ratios suggest that the LAEs have Ly{\alpha} escape fractions $f_{\rm esc,Ly{\alpha}} \approx 30$%, significantly higher than typical LBG samples. Using redshifts calibrated by our MOSFIRE sample, we construct composite LAE spectra, finding the first evidence for metal-enriched outflows in such intrinsically-faint high-redshift galaxies. These outflows have smaller continuum covering fractions $(f_c \approx 0.3)$ and velocities $(v_{\rm ave} \approx 100-200$ km/s, $v_{\rm max} \approx 500$ km/s$)$ than those associated with typical LBGs, suggesting that gas covering fraction is a likely driver of the high Ly{\alpha} and Ly-continuum escape fractions of LAEs. Our results suggest a similar scaling of outflow velocity with star formation rate as is observed at lower redshifts $(v_{\rm outflow} \sim {\rm SFR}^{0.25})$ and indicate that a substantial fraction of gas is ejected with $v > v_{esc}$.

[7]
Title: Sensitivity to interlopers in stellar-kinematic samples for ultrafaint dwarf galaxies: Uncertainty about the dark matter annihilation profile of Segue I
Comments: 11 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to MNRAS
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

The expected gamma-ray flux coming from dark matter annihilation in dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies depends on the so-called 'J-factor', the integral of the squared dark matter density along the line-of-sight. We examine the degree to which estimates of J are sensitive to contamination (by foreground Milky Way stars and stellar streams) of the stellar-kinematic samples that are used to infer dark matter densities in 'ultrafaint' dSphs. Applying standard kinematic analyses to hundreds of mock data sets that include varying levels of contamination, we find that mis-classified contaminants can cause J-factors to be overestimated by orders of magnitude. Stellar-kinematic data sets for which we obtain such biased estimates tend 1) to include relatively large fractions of stars with ambiguous membership status, and 2) to give estimates for J that are sensitive to specific choices about how to weight and/or to exclude stars with ambiguous status. Comparing publicly-available stellar-kinematic samples for the nearby dSphs Reticulum II and Segue I, we find that only the latter displays both of these characteristics. Estimates of Segue I's J-factor should therefore be regarded with a larger degree of caution when planning and interpreting gamma-ray observations.

[8]
Title: The DICE calibration project: design, characterization, and first results
Comments: 25 pages, 27 figures, accepted for publication in A&A
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

We describe the design, operation, and first results of a photometric calibration project, called DICE (Direct Illumination Calibration Experiment), aiming at achieving precise instrumental calibration of optical telescopes. The heart of DICE is an illumination device composed of 24 narrow-spectrum, high-intensity, light-emitting diodes (LED) chosen to cover the ultraviolet-to-near-infrared spectral range. It implements a point-like source placed at a finite distance from the telescope entrance pupil, yielding a flat field illumination that covers the entire field of view of the imager. The purpose of this system is to perform a lightweight routine monitoring of the imager passbands with a precision better than 5 per-mil on the relative passband normalisations and about 3{\AA} on the filter cutoff positions. The light source is calibrated on a spectrophotometric bench. As our fundamental metrology standard, we use a photodiode calibrated at NIST. The radiant intensity of each beam is mapped, and spectra are measured for each LED. All measurements are conducted at temperatures ranging from 0{\deg}C to 25{\deg}C in order to study the temperature dependence of the system. The photometric and spectroscopic measurements are combined into a model that predicts the spectral intensity of the source as a function of temperature. We find that the calibration beams are stable at the $10^{-4}$ level -- after taking the slight temperature dependence of the LED emission properties into account. We show that the spectral intensity of the source can be characterised with a precision of 3{\AA} in wavelength. In flux, we reach an accuracy of about 0.2-0.5% depending on how we understand the off-diagonal terms of the error budget affecting the calibration of the NIST photodiode. With a routine 60-mn calibration program, the apparatus is able to constrain the passbands at the targeted precision levels.

[9]
Title: Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): end of survey report and data release 2
Comments: Accepted for publication in MMRAS, 40 pages, 33 figures
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

The Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey is one of the largest contemporary spectroscopic surveys of low-redshift galaxies. Covering an area of ~286 deg^2 (split among five survey regions) down to a limiting magnitude of r < 19.8 mag, we have collected spectra and reliable redshifts for 238,000 objects using the AAOmega spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. In addition, we have assembled imaging data from a number of independent surveys in order to generate photometry spanning the wavelength range 1 nm - 1 m. Here we report on the recently completed spectroscopic survey and present a series of diagnostics to assess its final state and the quality of the redshift data. We also describe a number of survey aspects and procedures, or updates thereof, including changes to the input catalogue, redshifting and re-redshifting, and the derivation of ultraviolet, optical and near-infrared photometry. Finally, we present the second public release of GAMA data. In this release we provide input catalogue and targeting information, spectra, redshifts, ultraviolet, optical and near-infrared photometry, single-component S\'ersic fits, stellar masses, H$\alpha$-derived star formation rates, environment information, and group properties for all galaxies with r < 19.0 mag in two of our survey regions, and for all galaxies with r < 19.4 mag in a third region (72,225 objects in total). The database serving these data is available at this http URL

[10]
Title: Magnetized Interstellar Molecular Clouds. I. Comparison Between Simulations and Zeeman Observations
Comments: 31 pages, 14 figures, MNRAS accepted
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

The most accurate measurements of magnetic fields in star-forming gas are based on the Zeeman observations analyzed by Crutcher et al. (2010). We show that their finding that the 3D magnetic field scales approximately as density$^{0.65}$ can also be obtained from analysis of the observed line-of-sight fields. We present two large-scale AMR MHD simulations of several thousand $M_\odot$ of turbulent, isothermal, self-gravitating gas, one with a strong initial magnetic field (Alfven Mach number $M_{A,0}= 1$) and one with a weak initial field ($M_{A,0}=10$). We construct samples of the 100 most massive clumps in each simulation and show that they exhibit a power-law relation between field strength and density in excellent agreement with the observed one. Our results imply that the average field in molecular clumps in the interstellar medium is $<B_{tot}> \sim 42 n_{H,4}^{0.65} \mu$G. Furthermore, the median value of the ratio of the line-of-sight field to density$^{0.65}$ in the simulations is within a factor of about (1.3, 1.7) of the observed value for the strong and weak field cases, respectively. The median value of the mass-to-flux ratio, normalized to the critical value, is 70% of the line-of-sight value. This is larger than the 50% usually cited for spherical clouds because the actual mass-to-flux ratio depends on the volume-weighted field, whereas the observed one depends on the mass-weighted field. Our results indicate that the typical molecular clump in the ISM is significantly supercritical (~ factor of 3). The results of our strong-field model are in very good quantitative agreement with the observations of Li et al. (2009), which show a strong correlation in field orientation between small and large scales. Because there is a negligible correlation in the weak-field model, we conclude that molecular clouds form from strongly magnetized (although magnetically supercritical) gas.

[11]
Title: A Systematic Search for Lensed High-Redshift Galaxies in HST Images of MACS Clusters
Comments: 12 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

We present the results of a 135-arcmin$^2$ search for high-redshift galaxies lensed by clusters from the MAssive Cluster Survey. We use relatively shallow images obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope in four passbands, namely, F606W, F814W, F110W, and F140W. We identify 124 F814W dropouts as candidates for galaxies at $z \ge 6$. In order to fit the available broad-band photometry to galaxy spectral energy distribution templates, we develop a prior for the level of dust extinction at various redshifts. We also investigate the systematic biases incurred by the use of SED-fit software. The fits we obtain yield an estimate of 27 Lyman-break galaxies with photometric redshifts from $z \sim 7$ to 9. In addition, our survey has identified over 70 candidates with a significant probability of being lower-redshift ($z \sim 2$) interlopers. We conclude that even as few as four broad-band filters -- when combined with fitting the SEDs -- are capable of isolating promising objects. Such surveys are thus ideal both for investigating the bright end ($M_{1500} \le -19$) of the high-redshift UV luminosity function and for identifying candidate massive evolved galaxies at lower redshifts.

[12]
Title: A beam-displacement prism based, three band stellar photo-polarimeter
Comments: 116 pages, 44 figures and 19 tables. Accepted for publication in 'IIA Technical Report Series'
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)

A new astronomical photo-polarimeter that can measure linear polarization of point sources simultaneously in three spectral bands was designed and built in Indian Institute of Astrophysics. The polarimeter has a Calcite beam-displacement prism as the analyzer. The ordinary and extra-ordinary emerging beams in each spectral band are quasi-simultaneously detected by the same photomultiplier by using a high speed rotating chopper. The effective chopping frequency can be set to as high as 200 Hz. A rotating superachromatic Pancharatnam halfwave plate is used to modulate the light incident on the analyzer. The spectral bands are isolated using appropriate dichroic and glass filters. A detailed analysis shows that the reduction of 50% in the efficiency of the polarimeter because of the fact that the intensities of the two beams are measured alternately is partly compensated by the reduced time to be spent on the observation of the sky background. The position angle of polarization produced by the Glan-Taylor prism in the light path is found to be slightly wavelength dependent, indicating that the fixed super-achromatic halfwave plate in the beam does not fully compensate for the variation in the position angle of the effective optical axis of the rotating plate. However, the total amplitude of variation in the U-I spectral region is only 0.92 degree. The polarization efficiency is also found to be wavelength-dependent with a total amplitude of 0.271% in the U-I region; its mean value is 99.211%. The instrumental polarization is found to be very low. It is nearly constant in the V-I spectral region (~0.04%), and apparently, it increases slightly towards the ultraviolet. The observations of polarized stars show that the agreement between the measured polarization values and those available in the literature to be excellent.

[13]
Title: Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging of Three-dimensional Magnetic Reconnection in a Solar Eruption
Comments: 16 pages, 4 figures, Nature Communications 6, Article number: 7598
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph); Space Physics (physics.space-ph)

Magnetic reconnection, a change of magnetic field connectivity, is a fundamental physical process in which magnetic energy is released explosively. It is responsible for various eruptive phenomena in the universe. However, this process is difficult to observe directly. Here, the magnetic topology associated with a solar reconnection event is studied in three dimensions (3D) using the combined perspectives of two spacecraft. The sequence of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images clearly shows that two groups of oppositely directed and non-coplanar magnetic loops gradually approach each other, forming a separator or quasi-separator and then reconnecting. The plasma near the reconnection site is subsequently heated from $\sim$1 to $\ge$5 MK. Shortly afterwards, warm flare loops ($\sim$3 MK) appear underneath the hot plasma. Other observational signatures of reconnection, including plasma inflows and downflows, are unambiguously revealed and quantitatively measured. These observations provide direct evidence of magnetic reconnection in a 3D configuration and reveal its origin.

[14]
Title: Improved SOT (Hinode mission) high resolution solar imaging observations
Comments: 15 pages, 22 figures, 1 movie
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

We consider the best today available observations of the Sun free of turbulent Earth atmospheric effects, taken with the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) onboard the Hinode spacecraft. Both the instrumental smearing and the observed stray light are analyzed in order to improve the resolution. The Point Spread Function (PSF) corresponding to the blue continuum Broadband Filter Imager (BFI) near 450 nm is deduced by analyzing i/ the limb of the Sun and ii/ images taken during the transit of the planet Venus in 2012. A combination of Gaussian and Lorentzian functions is selected to construct a PSF in order to remove both smearing due to the instrumental diffraction effects (PSF core) and the large-angle stray light due to the spiders and central obscuration (wings of the PSF) that are responsible for the parasitic stray light. A Max-likelihood deconvolution procedure based on an optimum number of iterations is discussed. It is applied to several solar field images, including the granulation near the limb. The normal non-magnetic granulation is compared to the abnormal granulation which we call magnetic. A new feature appearing for the first time at the extreme- limb of the disk (the last 100 km) is discussed in the context of the definition of the solar edge and of the solar diameter. A single sunspot is considered in order to illustrate how effectively the restoration works on the sunspot core. A set of 125 consecutive deconvolved images is assembled in a 45 min long movie illustrating the complexity of the dynamical behavior inside and around the sunspot.

[15]
Title: Cosmological implications of two types of baryon acoustic oscillation data
Comments: 11 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1501.06962
Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

Aims: We explore the cosmological implications of two types of baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) data that are extracted by using the spherically averaged one-dimensional galaxy clustering (GC) statistics (hereafter BAO1) and the anisotropic two-dimensional GC statistics (hereafter BAO2), respectively.
Methods: Firstly, making use of the BAO1 and the BAO2 data, as well as the SNLS3 type Ia supernovae sample and the Planck distance priors data, we constrain the parameter spaces of the $\Lambda$CDM, the $w$CDM, and the Chevallier-Polarski-Linder (CPL) model. Then, we discuss the impacts of different BAO data on parameter estimation, equation of state $w$, figure of merit and deceleration-acceleration transition redshift. At last, we use various dark energy diagnosis, including Hubble diagram $H(z)$, deceleration diagram $q(z)$, statefinder hierarchy $\{S^{(1)}_3, S^{(1)}_4\}$, composite null diagnosic (CND) $\{S^{(1)}_3, \epsilon(z)\}$ and $\{S^{(1)}_4, \epsilon(z)\}$, to distinguish the differences between the results given by different BAO data.
Results: We find that, for all the models, BAO2 data always give a smaller fractional matter density $\Omega_{m0}$, a larger fractional curvature density $\Omega_{k0}$, and a larger Hubble constant $h$; for the $w$CDM and the CPL model, BAO2 data always give a slightly smaller $w$. In addition, BAO1 data always yield a cosmological result that is closer to the $\Lambda$CDM model, while BAO2 data give a cosmological constraint that has a slightly better accuracy. Moreover, we find that using the $H(z)$ and the $q(z)$ diagram have difficulty to distinguish the differences between different BAO data; in contrast, both the statefinder hierarchy $\{S^{(1)}_3, S^{(1)}_4\}$, the CND $\{S^{(1)}_3, \epsilon(z)\}$ and $\{S^{(1)}_4, \epsilon(z)\}$ are powerful tools that have the ability to distinguish the impacts of different BAO data.

[16]
Title: Do Magnetic Fields Destroy Black Hole Accretion Disk g-Modes?
Comments: 15 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

Diskoseismology, the theoretical study of normal mode oscillations in geometrically thin, optically thick accretion disks, is a strong candidate to explain some QPOs in the power spectra of many black hole X-ray binary systems. The existence of g-modes, presumably the most robust and visible of the modes, depends on general relativistic gravitational trapping in the hottest part of the disk. As the existence of the required cavity in the presence of magnetic fields has been put into doubt by theoretical calculations, we will explore in greater generality what the inclusion of magnetic fields has to say on the existence of g-modes. We use an analytical perturbative approach on the equations of MHD to assess the impact of such effects. Our main conclusion is that there appears to be no compelling reason to discard g-modes. In particular, the inclusion of a non-zero {\it radial} component of the magnetic field enables a broader scenario for cavity non-destruction, especially taking into account recent simulations' saturation values for the magnetic field.

[17]
Title: UV spectra, bombs, and the solar atmosphere
Authors: Philip G. Judge
Comments: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical journal
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

A recent analysis of UV data from the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph {\em IRIS} reports plasma "bombs" with temperatures near \hot{} within the solar photosphere. This is a curious result, firstly because most bomb plasma pressures $p$ (the largest reported case exceeds $10^3$ dyn~cm$^{-2}$) fall well below photospheric pressures ($> 7\times10^3$), and secondly, UV radiation cannot easily escape from the photosphere. In the present paper the {\em IRIS} data is independently analyzed. I find that the bombs arise from plasma originally at pressures between $\lta80$ and 800 dyne~cm$^{-2}$ before explosion, i.e. between $\lta850$ and 550 km above $\tau_{500}=1$. This places the phenomenon's origin in the low-mid chromosphere or above. I suggest that bomb spectra are more compatible with Alfv\'enic turbulence than with bi-directional reconnection jets.

[18]
Title: Temporal Analysis of Dissipative Structures in Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence
Comments: Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal. 48 pages, 18 figures
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn); Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph); Space Physics (physics.space-ph)

Energy dissipation is highly intermittent in turbulent plasmas, being localized in coherent structures such as current sheets. The statistical analysis of spatial dissipative structures is an effective approach to studying turbulence. In this paper, we generalize this methodology to investigate four-dimensional spatiotemporal structures, i.e., dissipative processes representing sets of interacting coherent structures, which correspond to flares in astrophysical systems. We develop methods for identifying and characterizing these processes, and then perform a statistical analysis of dissipative processes in numerical simulations of driven magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. We find that processes are often highly complex, long-lived, and weakly asymmetric in time. They exhibit robust power-law probability distributions and scaling relations, including a distribution of dissipated energy with power-law index near -1.75, indicating that intense dissipative events dominate the overall energy dissipation. We compare our results with the previously observed statistical properties of solar flares.

[19]
Title: Detecting stellar spots through polarimetry observations of microlensing events in caustic-crossing
Comments: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 10 pages, 7 figures, 1 table
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

In this work, we investigate if gravitational microlensing can magnify the polarization signal of a stellar spot and make it be observable. A stellar spot on a source star of microlensing makes polarization signal through two channels of Zeeman effect and breaking circular symmetry of the source surface brightness due to its temperature contrast. We first explore the characteristics of perturbations in polarimetric microlensing during caustic-crossing of a binary lensing as follows: (a) The cooler spots over the Galactic bulge sources have the smaller contributions in the total flux, although they have stronger magnetic fields. (b) The maximum deviation in the polarimetry curve due to the spot happens when the spot is located near the source edge and the source spot is first entering the caustic whereas the maximum photometric deviation occurs for the spots located at the source center. (c) There is a (partial) degeneracy for indicating spot's size, its temperature contrast and its magnetic induction from the deviations in light or polarimetric curves. (d) If the time when the photometric deviation due to spot becomes zero (between positive and negative deviations) is inferred from microlensing light curves, we can indicate the magnification factor of the spot, characterizing the spot properties except its temperature contrast. The stellar spots alter the polarization degree as well as strongly change its orientation which gives some information about the spot position. Although, the photometry observations are more efficient in detecting stellar spots than the polarimetry ones, but polarimetry observations can specify the magnetic field of the source spots.

[20]
Title: A deep near-infrared survey toward the Aquila molecular cloud - I. Molecular hydrogen outflows
Comments: 77 pages, 2 tables, 53 figures, accepted by ApJS
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

We have performed an unbiased deep near-infrared survey toward the Aquila molecular cloud with a sky coverage of ~1 deg2. We identified 45 molecular hydrogen emission-line objects(MHOs), of which only 11 were previously known. Using the Spitzer archival data we also identified 802 young stellar objects (YSOs) in this region. Based on the morphology and the location of MHOs and YSO candidates, we associate 43 MHOs with 40 YSO candidates. The distribution of jet length shows an exponential decrease in the number of outflows with increasing length and the molecular hydrogen outflows seem to be oriented randomly. Moreover, there is no obvious correlation between jet lengths, jet opening angles, or jet H2 1-0 S(1) luminosities and spectral indices of the possible driving sources in this region. We also suggest that molecular hydrogen outflows in the Aquila molecular cloud are rather weak sources of turbulence, unlikely to generate the observed velocity dispersion in the region of survey.

[21]
Title: Solar ALMA: Observation-Based Simulations of the mm and sub-mm Emissions from Active Regions
Comments: 2 pages & 2 figures; presentation at the Tokyo ALMA meeting at Dec., 2014
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

We developed an efficient algorithm integrated in our 3D modeling tool, GX Simulator (Nita et al. 2015), allowing quick computation of the synthetic intensity and polarization maps of solar active regions (AR) in the ALMA spectral range. The algorithm analyzes the photospheric input (white light and magnetogram) to classify a given photospheric pixel to belong to a given photospheric structure. Then, a 1D chromospheric model (Fontenla et al. 2009) is added on top of each pixel, which forms a chromospheric model of the AR. Next step is computation of the mm and sub-mm emission produced from this chromosphere model. A huge advantage of this approach is that emission from any given AR can be synthesized very fast, on the order of a few minutes after the AR selection. Using the GX Simulator tool it is also possible to produce synthetic maps of the microwave (gyroresonance) and EUV emission from the same AR model and compare them with the ALMA synthetic maps and with the corresponding observed microwave and/or EUV data.

[22]
Title: Slimplectic Integrators: Variational Integrators for General Nonconservative Systems
Comments: 6 pages, 5 Figures; Submitted to ApJL; code repository at this http URL com/davtsang/slimplectic
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)

Symplectic integrators are widely used for long-term integration of conservative astrophysical problems due to their ability to preserve the constants of motion; however, they cannot in general be applied in the presence of nonconservative interactions. In this Letter, we develop the "slimplectic" integrator, a new type of numerical integrator that shares many of the benefits of traditional symplectic integrators yet is applicable to general nonconservative systems. We utilize a fixed time-step variational integrator formalism applied to the principle of stationary nonconservative action developed in Galley, 2013; Galley, Tsang & Stein, 2014. As a result, the generalized momenta and energy (Noether current) evolutions are well-tracked. We discuss several example systems, including damped harmonic oscillators, Poynting-Robertson drag, and gravitational radiation reaction, by utilizing our new publicly available code to demonstrate the slimplectic integrator algorithm.
Slimplectic integrators are well-suited for integrations of systems where nonconservative effects play an important role in the long-term dynamical evolution. As such they are particularly appropriate for cosmological or celestial N-body dynamics problems where nonconservative interactions, e.g. dynamical friction or dissipative tides, can play an important role.

[23]
Title: Reviewing the case of the atypical central-engine activity in GRB 110709B
Comments: 6 pages, 1 figure. In proceedings of "Swift: 10 Years of Discovery" congress (Rome, 2-4 December 2014), PoS(SWIFT 10)093
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

The unusual GRB 110709B triggered Swift/BAT twice, with a time difference of $\sim 11$ minutes. Its light curve presented three noticeable peaks but only two were originally identified. In this work, we describe each peak as due to a different central-engine phase: the first one is the millisecond-protomagnetar stage, the second one is the BH-formation collapse phase and the last one is the Collapsar scenario with a Blandford-Znajek engine. Additionally, we analyze and explain the afterglow phase evoking the standard fireball model. Our model can successfully describe the timescales, fluxes and spectral indices observed for GRB 110709B.

[24]
Title: Large-scale magnetic fields, non-Gaussianity, and gravitational waves from inflation
Authors: Kazuharu Bamba
Comments: 7 pages, no figure, contribution to Sakata Memorial KMI Workshop on "Origin of Mass and Strong Coupling Gauge Theories (SCGT15)", 3-6 March 2015, Nagoya University
Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)

We explore the generation of large-scale magnetic fields in the so-called moduli inflation. The hypercharge electromagnetic fields couple to not only a scalar field but also a pseudoscalar one, so that the conformal invariance of the hypercharge electromagnetic fields can be broken. We explicitly analyze the strength of the magnetic fields on the Hubble horizon scale at the present time, the local non-Gaussianity of the curvature perturbations originating from the massive gauge fields, and the tensor-to-scalar ratio of the density perturbations. As a consequence, we find that the local non-Gaussianity and the tensor-to-scalar ratio are compatible with the recent Planck results.

[25]
Title: Cosmological test using strong gravitational lensing systems
Authors: C. C. Yuan, F. Y. Wang (NJU)
Comments: 20 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS
Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

As one of the probes of universe, strong gravitational lensing systems allow us to compare different cosmological models and constrain vital cosmological parameters. This purpose can be reached from the dynamic and geometry properties of strong gravitational lensing systems, for instance, time-delay $\Delta\tau$ of images, the velocity dispersion $\sigma$ of the lensing galaxies and the combination of these two effects, $\Delta\tau/\sigma^2$. In this paper, in order to carry out one-on-one comparisons between $\Lambda$CDM universe and $R_h=ct$ universe, we use a sample containing 36 strong lensing systems with the measurement of velocity dispersion from the SLACS and LSD survey. Concerning the time-delay effect, 12 two-image lensing systems with $\Delta\tau$ are also used. In addition, Monte Carlo (MC) simulations are used to compare the efficiency of the three methods as mentioned above. From simulations, we estimate the number of lenses required to rule out one model at the $99.7\%$ confidence level. Comparing with constraints from $\Delta\tau$ and the velocity dispersion $\sigma$, we find that using $\Delta\tau/\sigma^2$ can improve the discrimination between cosmological models. Despite the independence tests of these methods reveal a correlation between $\Delta\tau/\sigma^2$ and $\sigma$, $\Delta\tau/\sigma^2$ could be considered as an improved method of $\sigma$ if more data samples are available.

[26]
Title: Can We Determine the Filament Chirality by the Filament Footpoint Location or the Barb-bearing?
Comments: 20 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in RAA
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

We attempt to propose a method for automatically detecting the solar filament chirality and barb bearing. We first introduce the unweighted undirected graph concept and adopt the Dijkstra shortest-path algorithm to recognize the filament spine. Then, we use the polarity inversion line (PIL) shift method for measuring the polarities on both sides of the filament, and employ the connected components labeling method to identify the barbs and calculate the angle between each barb and the spine to determine the bearing of the barbs, i.e., left or right. We test the automatic detection method with H-alpha filtergrams from the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) H-alpha archive and magnetograms observed with the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Four filaments are automatically detected and illustrated to show the results. The barbs in different parts of a filament may have opposite bearings. The filaments in the southern hemisphere (northern hemisphere) mainly have left-bearing (right-bearing) barbs and positive (negative) magnetic helicity, respectively. The tested results demonstrate that our method is efficient and effective in detecting the bearing of filament barbs. It is demonstrated that the conventionally believed one-to-one correspondence between filament chirality and barb bearing is not valid. The correct detection of the filament axis chirality should be done by combining both imaging morphology and magnetic field observations.

[27]
Title: Asteroid Spin-Rate Study using the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory
Comments: Submitted to ApJ (Jan, 2015). Accepted by ApJ (June, 2015). The whole set of the folded lightcurves will be available on the published article
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)

Two dedicated asteroid rotation-period surveys have been carried out using data taken on January 6-9 and February 20-23 of 2014 by the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) in the $R$~band with $\sim 20$-min cadence. The total survey area covered 174~deg$^2$ in the ecliptic plane. Reliable rotation periods for 1,438 asteroids are obtained from a larger data set of 6,551 mostly main-belt asteroids, each with $\geq 10$~detections. Analysis of 1751, PTF based, reliable rotation periods clearly shows the "spin barrier" at $\sim 2$~hours for "rubble-pile" asteroids. We also found a new large-sized super-fast rotator, 2005 UW163 (Chang et al., 2014), and other five candidates as well. Our spin-rate distributions of asteroids with $3 < D < 15$~km shows number decrease when frequency greater than 5 rev/day, which is consistent to that of the Asteroid Light Curve Database (LCDB, Warner et al., 2009) and the result of (Masiero et al., 2009). We found the discrepancy in the spin-rate distribution between our result and (Pravec et al., 2008, update 2014-04-20) is mainly from asteroids with $\Delta m < 0.2$ mag that might be primarily due to different survey strategies. For asteroids with $D \leq 3$~km, we found a significant number drop at $f = 6$ rev/day. The YORP effect timescale for small-sized asteroid is shorter that makes more elongate objets spun up to reach their spin-rate limit and results in break-up. The K-S test suggests a possible difference in the spin-rate distributions of C- and S-type asteroids. We also find that C-type asteroids have a smaller spin-rate limit than the S-type, which agrees with the general sense that the C-type has lower bulk density than the S-type.

[28]
Title: Optical I-band Linear Polarimetry of the Magnetar 4U 0142+61 with Subaru
Authors: Z. Wang (1), Y. T. Tanaka (2), C. Wang (3), K. S. Kawabata (2), Y. Fukazawa (4), R. Itoh (4), A. Tziamtzis (1) ((1) SHAO China, (2) Hiroshima Astrophysical Science Center, Hiroshima University Japan, (3) NAOC China, (4) Department of Physical Sciences, Hiroshima University Japan)
Comments: 4 pages, 1 figure, submitted to ApJ
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

The magnetar 4U~0142+61 has been well studied at optical and infrared wavelengths and is known to have a complicated broad-band spectrum over the wavelength range. Here we report the result from our linear imaging polarimetry of the magnetar at optical $I$-band. From the polarimetric observation carried out with the 8.2-m Subaru telescope, we determine the degree of linear polarization $P=1.0\pm$3.4\%, or $P\leq$5.4\% (90\% confidence level). Considering models suggested for optical emission from magnetars, we discuss the implications of our result. The upper limit measurement indicates that different from radio pulsars, magnetars probably would not have strongly polarized optical emission if the emission arises from their magnetosphere as suggested.

[29]
Title: Constraining the Lorentz invariance violation from the continuous spectra of short gamma-ray bursts
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

In quantum gravity, a foamy structure of space-time leads to Lorentz invariance violation (LIV). As the most energetic astrophysical processes in the Universe, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) provide an effective way to probe quantum gravity effects. We use continuous spectra of 20 short GRBs detected by the Swift satellite to give a conservative lower limit of quantum gravity energy scale $M_\textrm{QG}$. Due to the LIV effect, photons with different energy have different velocities. This will lead to the delayed arrival of high energy photons relative to the low energy ones. Based on the fact that the LIV-induced time delay can't be longer than the duration of a GRB, we present the most conservative estimation of the quantum gravity energy scales from 20 short GRBs. The most strict constraint, $M_\textrm{QG}>5.05\times10^{14}$ GeV, is from GRB 140622A.

[30]
Title: Outburst evolution, historic light curve and a flash-ionized nebula around the WZ Sge-type object PNV J03093063+2638031
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

We have monitored the 2014 superoutburst of the WZ Sge-type transient PNV J03093063+2638031 for more than four months, from V=11.0 maximum brightness down to V=18.4 mag, close to quiescence value, by obtaining BVRI photometry and low resolution fluxed spectroscopy. The evolution was normal and no late-time echo' outbursts were observed. The absolute integrated flux of emission lines kept declining along the superoutburst, and their increasing contrast with the underlying continuum was simply the result of the faster decline of the continuum compared to the emission lines. Inspection of historical Harvard plates covering the 1899-1981 period did not reveal previous outbursts, neither normal' nor 'super'. We discovered an extended emission nebula (radius ~1 arcmin) around PNV J03093063+2638031, that became visible for a few months as the result of photo-ionization from the superoutburst of the central star. It is not present on Palomar I and II sky survey images and it quickly disappeared when the outburst was over. From the rate at wich the inization front swept through the nebula, we derive a distance of ~120 pc to the system. The nebula is density bounded with an outer radius of 0.03 pc, and the absolute magnitude of the central star in quiescence is M(V)~14.2 mag. The electron density in the nebula is estimated to be 10(+5) cm(-3) from the observed recombination time scale. Given the considerable substructures seen across the nebula, a low filling factor is inferred. Similar nebulae have not been reported for other WZ Sge objects and the challenges posed to models are considered.

[31]
Title: The SKA and the Unknown Unknowns
Authors: Peter Wilkinson
Comments: 8 pages, no figures, to be published in: "Advancing Astrophysics with the Square Kilometre Array", Proceedings of Science, PoS(AASKA14)065
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)

As new scientists and engineers join the SKA project and as the pressures come on to maintain costs within a chosen envelope it is worth restating and updating the rationale for the 'Exploration of the Unknown' (EoU). Maintaining an EoU philosophy will prove a vital ingredient for realizing the SKA's discovery potential. Since people make the discoveries enabled by technology a further axis in capability parameter space, the'human bandwidth' is emphasised. Using the morphological approach pioneered by Zwicky, a currently unexploited region of observational parameter space can be identified viz: time variable spectral patterns on all spectral and angular scales, one interesting example would be 'spectral transients'. We should be prepared to build up to 10 percent less collecting area for a given overall budget in order to enhance the ways in which SKA1 can be flexibly utilized.

[32]
Title: What drives the dust activity of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko?
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)

We use the gravitational instability formation scenario of cometesimals to derive the aggregate size that can be released by the gas pressure from the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for different heliocentric distances and different volatile ices. To derive the ejected aggregate sizes, we developed a model based on the assumption that the entire heat absorbed by the surface is consumed by the sublimation process of one volatile species. The calculations were performed for the three most prominent volatile materials in comets, namely, H_20 ice, CO_2 ice, and CO ice. We find that the size range of the dust aggregates able to escape from the nucleus into space widens when the comet approaches the Sun and narrows with increasing heliocentric distance, because the tensile strength of the aggregates decreases with increasing aggregate size. The activity of CO ice in comparison to H_20 ice is capable to detach aggregates smaller by approximately one order of magnitude from the surface. As a result of the higher sublimation rate of CO ice, larger aggregates are additionally able to escape from the gravity field of the nucleus. Our model can explain the large grains (ranging from 2 cm to 1 m in radius) in the inner coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko that have been observed by the OSIRIS camera at heliocentric distances between 3.4 AU and 3.7 AU. Furthermore, the model predicts the release of decimeter-sized aggregates (trail particles) close to the heliocentric distance at which the gas-driven dust activity vanishes. However, the gas-driven dust activity cannot explain the presence of particles smaller than ~1 mm in the coma because the high tensile strength required to detach these particles from the surface cannot be provided by evaporation of volatile ices. These smaller particles can be produced for instance by spin-up and centrifugal mass loss of ejected larger aggregates.

[33]
Title: The impact of beam deconvolution on noise properties in CMB measurements: Application to Planck LFI
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

We present an analysis of the effects of beam deconvolution on noise properties in CMB measurements. The analysis is built around the artDeco beam deconvolver code. We derive a low-resolution noise covariance matrix that describes the residual noise in deconvolution products, both in harmonic and pixel space. The matrix models the residual correlated noise that remains in time-ordered data after destriping, and the effect of deconvolution on it. To validate the results, we generate noise simulations that mimic the data from the Planck LFI instrument. A $\chi^2$ test for the full 70 GHz covariance in multipole range $\ell=0-50$ yields a mean reduced $\chi^2$ of 1.0037. We compare two destriping options, full and independent destriping, when deconvolving subsets of available data. Full destriping leaves substantially less residual noise, but leaves data sets intercorrelated. We derive also a white noise covariance matrix that provides an approximation of the full noise at high multipoles, and study the properties on high-resolution noise in pixel space through simulations.

[34]
Title: Too big to be real? No depleted core in Holm 15A
Comments: Accepted by ApJ (matches the accepted version)
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

Partially depleted cores, as measured by core-Sersic model "break radii", are typically tens to a few hundred parsecs in size. Here we investigate the unusually large (cusp radius of 4.57 kpc) depleted core recently reported for Holm 15A, the brightest cluster galaxy of Abell 85. We model the 1D light profile, and also the 2D image (using GALFIT-CORSAIR, a tool for fitting the core-Sersic model in 2D). We find good agreement between the 1D and 2D analyses, with minor discrepancies attributable to intrinsic ellipticity gradients. We show that a simple Sersic profile (with a low index n and no depleted core) plus the known outer exponential "halo" provide a good description of the stellar distribution. We caution that while almost every galaxy light profile will have a radius where the negative logarithmic slope of the intensity profile equals 0.5, this alone does not imply the presence of a partially depleted core within this radius.

[35]
Title: UV and X-ray monitoring of CPD -28 2561
Authors: Yael Naze (ULg), Jon O. Sundqvist (Univ. Munchen, Univ. Delaware), Alex W. Fullerton (STScI), Asif ud-Doula (Penn State Worth. Scr.), Gregg A. Wade (RMC), Gregor Rauw (ULg), Nolan R. Walborn (STScI)
Comments: 14 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication by MNRAS
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

The Of?p star CPD -28 2561 was monitored at high energies with XMM-Newton and HST. In X-rays, this magnetic oblique rotator displays bright and hard emission that varies by ~55% with rotational phase. These changes occur in phase with optical variations, as expected for magnetically confined winds; there are two maxima and two minima in X-rays during the 73d rotational period of CPD -28 2561. However, contrary to previously studied cases, no significant hardness variation is detected between minima and maxima, with the exception of the second minimum which is slightly distinct from the first one. In the UV domain, broad-band fluxes remain stable while line profiles display large variations. Stronger absorptions at low velocities are observed when the magnetic equator is seen edge-on, which can be reproduced by a detailed 3D model. However, a difference in absorption at high velocities in the CIV and NV lines is also detected for the two phases where the confined wind is seen nearly pole-on. This suggests the presence of strong asymmetries about the magnetic equator, mostly in the free-flowing wind (rather than in the confined dynamical magnetosphere).

[36]
Title: A distinct magnetic property of the inner penumbral boundary
Comments: Accepted as a Letter to A&A. Reproduced with permission from Astronomy & Astrophysics, \copyright ESO
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

A sunspot emanates from a growing pore or protospot. In order to trigger the formation of a penumbra, large inclinations at the outskirts of the protospot are necessary. The penumbra develops and establishes by colonising both umbral areas and granulation. Evidence for a unique stable boundary value for the vertical component of the magnetic field strength, $B^{\rm stable}_{\rm ver}$, was found along the umbra-penumbra boundary of developed sunspots. We use broadband G-band images and spectropolarimetric GFPI/VTT data to study the evolution of and the vertical component of the magnetic field on a forming umbra-penumbra boundary. For comparison with stable sunspots, we also analyse the two maps observed by Hinode/SP on the same spot after the penumbra formed. The vertical component of the magnetic field, $B_{\rm ver}$, at the umbra-penumbra boundary increases during penumbra formation owing to the incursion of the penumbra into umbral areas. After 2.5 hours, the penumbra reaches a stable state as shown by the GFPI data. At this stable stage, the simultaneous Hinode/SP observations show a $B_{\rm ver}$ value comparable to that of umbra-penumbra boundaries of fully fledged sunspots. We confirm that the umbra-penumbra boundary, traditionally defined by an intensity threshold, is also characterised by a distinct canonical magnetic property, namely by $B^{\rm stable}_{\rm ver}$. During the penumbra formation process, the inner penumbra extends into regions where the umbra previously prevailed. Hence, in areas where $B_{\rm ver} < B^{\rm stable}_{\rm ver}$, the magneto-convection mode operating in the umbra turns into a penumbral mode. Eventually, the inner penumbra boundary settles at $B^{\rm stable}_{\rm ver}$, which hints toward the role of $B_{\rm ver}^{\rm stable}$ as inhibitor of the penumbral mode of magneto-convection.

[37]
Title: Heliospheric Propagation of Coronal Mass Ejections: Drag-Based Model Fitting
Journal-ref: ApJS 218 (2015) 32
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

The so-called drag-based model (DBM) simulates analytically the propagation of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in interplanetary space and allows the prediction of their arrival times and impact speeds at any point in the heliosphere ("target"). The DBM is based on the assumption that beyond a distance of about 20 solar radii from the Sun, the dominant force acting on CMEs is the "aerodynamic" drag force. In the standard form of DBM, the user provisionally chooses values for the model input parameters, by which the kinematics of the CME over the entire Sun--"target" distance range is defined. The choice of model input parameters is usually based on several previously undertaken statistical studies. In other words, the model is used by ad hoc implementation of statistics-based values of the input parameters, which are not necessarily appropriate for the CME under study. Furthermore, such a procedure lacks quantitative information on how well the simulation reproduces the coronagraphically observed kinematics of the CME, and thus does not provide an estimate of the reliability of the arrival prediction. In this paper we advance the DBM by adopting it in a form that employs the CME observations over a given distance range to evaluate the most suitable model input parameters for a given CME by means of the least-squares fitting. Furthermore, the new version of the model automatically responds to any significant change of the conditions in the ambient medium (solar wind speed, density, CME--CME interactions, etc.) by changing the model input parameters according to changes in the CME kinematics. The advanced DBM is shaped in a form that can be readily employed in an operational system for real-time space-weather forecasting by promptly adjusting to a successively expanding observational dataset, thus providing a successively improving prediction of the CME arrival.

[38]
Title: Massive envelopes and filaments in the NGC 3603 star forming region
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

The formation of massive stars and their arrival on the zero-age main-sequence occurs hidden behind dense clouds of gas and dust. In the giant Hii region NGC 3603, the radiation of a young cluster of OB stars has dispersed dust and gas in its vicinity. At a projected distance of 2:5 pc from the cluster, a bright mid-infrared (mid-IR) source (IRS 9A) had been identified as a massive young stellar object (MYSO), located on the side of a molecular clump (MM2) of gas facing the cluster. We investigated the physical conditions in MM2, based on APEX sub-mm observations using the SABOCA and SHFI instruments, and archival ATCA 3 mm continuum and CS spectral line data. We resolved MM2 into several compact cores, one of them closely associated with IRS 9A. These are likely infrared dark clouds as they do not show the typical hot-core emission lines and are mostly opaque against the mid-IR background. The compact cores have masses of up to several hundred times the solar mass and gas temperatures of about 50 K, without evidence of internal ionizing sources. We speculate that IRS 9A is younger than the cluster stars, but is in an evolutionary state after that of the compact cores.

[39]
Title: Blazar Flares from Compton Dragged Shells
Comments: 18 pages, 5 figures, accepted by ApJ
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

We compute the dynamics and emission of dissipative shells that are subject to a strong Compton drag, under simplifying assumptions about the dissipation mechanism. We show that under conditions prevailing in blazars, substantial deceleration is anticipated on sub-parsec and parsec scales in cases of rapid dissipation. Such episodes may be the origin of some of the flaring activity occasionally observed in gamma ray blazars. The shape of the light curves thereby produced reflects the geometry of the emitting surface if the deceleration is very rapid, or the dynamics of the shell if the deceleration is delayed, or initially more gradual, owing, e.g., to continuous injection of energy and momentum.

[40]
Title: Activity from the Be/X-ray binary system V0332+53 during its low-luminosity outburst in 2008
Authors: M. D. Caballero-Garcia (1), A. Camero-Arranz (2), M. Ozbey Arabaci (3), C. Zurita (4,5), J. Suso (6), J. Gutierrez-Soto (7,8), E. Beklen (9), F. Kiaeerad (10,11), R. Garrido (8), R. Hudec (12,1) ((1) CTU-FEL, (2) IEEC-CSIC, (3) Middle East Technical U., (4) IAC, (5) U. de La Laguna, (6) Observatorio Astronomico U. Valencia, (7) U. de Valencia, (8) IAA-CSIC, (9) Suleyman Demirel U., (10) NOT, (11) Stockholm U., (12) ASU-CAS)
Comments: 16 pages (8 figures and 7 tables). Submitted to A&A (29/06/15)
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

Aims: We present a multiwavelength study of the Be/X-ray binary system V0332+53 with the main goal of better characterizing its behavior during a low luminosity X-ray event. We also aim to shed light on the mechanism/s which trigger the X-ray activity for this source. Methods: V0332+53 was observed by RXTE and Swift during the decay of the normal X-ray outburst of 2008, as well as with Suzaku before the rising of the third normal outburst of the 2010 series. In addition, this source has been monitored from the ground-based astronomical observatories of El Teide (Tenerife, Spain) during August 2014 to February 2015, Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma, Spain) during July and September 2012 and Sierra Nevada (Granada, Spain) since October 2012, and from the TUBITAK National Observatory (Antalya, Turkey) since September 2006. We have performed spectral and photometric temporal analyses in order to investigate the transient behavior of this binary system during Type I outbursts. Results: Our optical study revealed that continuous mass ejection episodes from the Be star have been since 2006 and another one is currently ongoing. The broad-band 1-60 keV X-ray spectrum of the neutron star during the decay of the 2008 outburst was well fitted with standard phenomenological models, enhanced by an absorption feature of unknown origin at about 10 keV and a narrow iron K-alpha fluorescence line at 6.4 keV. In contrast to previous works, we tentatively see an increase of the cyclotron line energy with increasing flux (although further and more sensitive observations are needed to confirm this). Regarding the fast aperiodic variability, we detect a Quasi-Periodic Oscillation (QPO) at 227+-9$mHz only during the lowest luminosities. The latter fact might indicate that the inner regions surrounding the neutron star are more visible during the lowest flux states. [41] Title: Can the dark matter annihilation signal be significantly boosted by substructures? Authors: Anton N. Baushev Comments: 7 pages, 1 figure Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) A very general cosmological consideration suggests that, along with galactic dark matter halos, much smaller dark matter structures may exist. These structures are usually called 'clumps', and their mass extends to$10^{-6} M_\odot$or even lower. The clumps should give the main contribution into the signal of dark matter annihilation, provided that they have survived until the present time. Recent observations favor a cored profile for low-mass astrophysical halos. We consider cored clumps and show that they are significantly less firm than the standard NFW ones. In contrast to the standard scenario, the cored clumps should have been completely destroyed inside$\sim 20$kpc from the Milky Way center. The dwarf spheroidals should not contain any dark matter clumps as well. On the other hand, even under the most pessimistic assumption about the clump structure, the clumps should have survived in the Milky Way at a distance exceeding$50$kpc from the center, as well as in low-density cosmic structures. There they significantly boost the dark matter annihilation. [42] Title: The early days of the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy Comments: accepted for publication in A&A Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) We present the high resolution spectroscopic study of five -3.9<=[Fe/H]<=-2.5 stars in the Local Group dwarf spheroidal, Sculptor, thereby doubling the number of stars with comparable observations in this metallicity range. We carry out a detailed analysis of the chemical abundances of alpha, iron peak, light and heavy elements, and draw comparisons with the Milky Way halo and the ultra faint dwarf stellar populations. We show that the bulk of the Sculptor metal-poor stars follows the same trends in abundance ratios versus metallicity as the Milky Way stars. This suggests similar early conditions of star formation and a high degree of homogeneity of the interstellar medium. We find an outlier to this main regime, which seems to miss the products of the most massive of the TypeII supernovae. In addition to its value to help refining galaxy formation models, this star provides clues to the production of cobalt and zinc. Two of our sample stars have low odd-to-even barium isotope abundance ratios, suggestive of a fair proportion of s-process; we discuss the implication for the nucleosynthetic origin of the neutron capture elements. [43] Title: Galactic Archeology - requirements on survey spectrographs Authors: Sofia Feltzing Comments: To appear in the proceedings of the conference "Multi-Object Spectroscopy in the Next Decade: Big Questions, Large Surveys and Wide Fields", held in Santa Cruz de La Palma, Canary Islands from 2nd to 6th March 2015. Eds. I. Skillen and S. Trager Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) Galactic Archeology is about exploring the Milky Way as a galaxy by, mainly, using its (old) stars as tracers of past events and thus figure out the formation and evolution of our Galaxy. I will briefly outline some of the key scientific aspects of Galactic Archeology and then discuss the associated instrumentations. Gaia will forever change the way we approach this subject. However, Gaia on its own is not enough. Ground-based complementary spectroscopy is necessary to obtain full phase-space information and elemental abundances for stars fainter than the top few percent of the bright part of the Gaia catalogue. I will review the requirement on instrumentation for Gaia follow-up that Galactic Archeology sets. In particular, I will discuss the requirements on radial velocity and elemental abundance determination, including a brief look at potential pit-falls in the abundance analysis (e.g., NLTE, atomic diffusion). This contribution also provides a non-exhaustive comparison of the various current and future spectrographs for Galactic Archeology. Finally, I will discuss the needs for astrophysical calibrations for the surveys and inter-survey calibrations. [44] Title: Energy bursts from deconfinement in high-mass twin stars Comments: 4 pages, 2 figures Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) We estimate the energy reservoir available in the deconfinement phase transition induced collapse of a neutron star to its hybrid star mass twin on the "third family" branch, using a recent equation of state of dense matter. The available energy corresponding to the mass-energy difference between configurations is comparable with energies of the most violent astrophysical burst processes. An observational outcome of such a dynamical transition might be fast radio bursts, specifically a recent example of a FRB with a double-peak structure in its light curve. [45] Title: Separated matter and antimatter domains with vanishing domain walls Comments: 9 pages, 4 figures Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) We present a model of spontaneous (or dynamical) C and CP violation where it is possible to generate domains of matter and antimatter separated by cosmologically large distances. Such C(CP) violation existed only in the early universe and later it disappeared with the only trace of generated baryonic and/or antibaryonic domains. So the problem of domain walls in this model does not exist. These features are achieved through a postulated form of interaction between inflaton and a new scalar field, realizing short time C(CP) violation. [46] Title: Relativistic Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton Accretion onto a Rotating Black-Hole: Density Gradients Comments: 14 pages, 60 png figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) In this work, we present, for the first time, a numerical study of the Bondi-Hoyle accretion with density gradients in the fully relativistic regime. In this context, we consider accretion onto a Kerr Black Hole (BH) of a supersonic ideal gas, which has density gradients perpendicular to the relative motion. The set of parameters of interest in this study are the Mach number, M, the spin of the BH, a, and the density-gradient parameter of the gas, {\rho} . We show that, unlike in the Newtonian case, all the studied cases, especially those with density gradient, approach a stationary flow pattern. To illustrate that the system reaches steady state we calculate the mass and angular momentum accretion rates on a spherical surface located almost at the event horizon. In the particular case of M = 1, {\rho} = 0.5 and BH spin a = 0.5, we observe a disk-like configuration surrounding the BH. Finally, we present the gas morphology and some of its properties. [47] Title: An automated classification approach to ranking photospheric proxies of magnetic energy build-up Journal-ref: A&A A&A, 2015, 579 Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) We study the photospheric magnetic field of ~2000 active regions in solar cycle 23 to search for parameters indicative of energy build-up and subsequent release as a solar flare. We extract three sets of parameters: snapshots in space and time- total flux, magnetic gradients, and neutral lines; evolution in time- flux evolution; structures at multiple size scales- wavelet analysis. This combines pattern recognition and classification techniques via a relevance vector machine to determine whether a region will flare. We consider classification performance using all 38 extracted features and several feature subsets. Classification performance is quantified using both the true positive rate and the true negative rate. Additionally, we compute the true skill score which provides an equal weighting to true positive rate and true negative rate and the Heidke skill score to allow comparison to other flare forecasting work. We obtain a true skill score of ~0.5 for any predictive time window in the range 2-24hr, with a TPR of ~0.8 and a TNR of ~0.7. These values do not appear to depend on the time window, although the Heidke skill score (<0.5) does. Features relating to snapshots of the distribution of magnetic gradients show the best predictive ability over all predictive time windows. Other gradient-related features and the instantaneous power at various wavelet scales also feature in the top five ranked features in predictive power. While the photospheric magnetic field governs the coronal non-potentiality (and likelihood of flaring), photospheric magnetic field alone is not sufficient to determine this uniquely. Furthermore we are only measuring proxies of the magnetic energy build up. We still lack observational details on why energy is released at any particular point in time. We may have discovered the natural limit of the accuracy of flare predictions from these large scale studies. [48] Title: Follow-Up Observations of PTFO 8-8695: A 3 MYr Old T-Tauri Star Hosting a Jupiter-mass Planetary Candidate Comments: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) We present Spitzer 4.5\micron\ light curve observations, Keck NIRSPEC radial velocity observations, and LCOGT optical light curve observations of PTFO~8-8695, which may host a Jupiter-sized planet in a very short orbital period (0.45 days). Previous work by \citet{vaneyken12} and \citet{barnes13} predicts that the stellar rotation axis and the planetary orbital plane should precess with a period of$300 - 600$days. As a consequence, the observed transits should change shape and depth, disappear, and reappear with the precession. Our observations indicate the long-term presence of the transit events ($>3$years), and that the transits indeed do change depth, disappear and reappear. The Spitzer observations and the NIRSPEC radial velocity observations (with contemporaneous LCOGT optical light curve data) are consistent with the predicted transit times and depths for the$M_\star = 0.34\ M_\odotprecession model and demonstrate the disappearance of the transits. An LCOGT optical light curve shows that the transits do reappear approximately 1 year later. The observed transits occur at the times predicted by a straight-forward propagation of the transit ephemeris. The precession model correctly predicts the depth and time of the Spitzer transit and the lack of a transit at the time of the NIRSPEC radial velocity observations. However, the precession model predicts the return of the transits approximately 1 month later than observed by LCOGT. Overall, the data are suggestive that the planetary interpretation of the observed transit events may indeed be correct, but the precession model and data are currently insufficient to confirm firmly the planetary status of PTFO~8-8695b. [49] Title: The impact of intrinsic alignment on current and future cosmic shear surveys Comments: To be submitted, comments welcome Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) Intrinsic alignment (IA) of source galaxies is one of the major astrophysical systematics for ongoing and future weak lensing surveys. This paper presents the first forecasts of the impact of IA on cosmic shear measurements for current and future surveys (DES, Euclid, LSST, WFIRST) using simulated likelihood analyses and realistic covariances that include higher-order moments of the density field in the computation. We consider a range of possible IA scenarios and test mitigation schemes, which parameterize IA by the fraction of red galaxies, normalization, luminosity and redshift dependence of the IA signal (for a subset we consider joint IA and photo-z uncertainties). Compared to previous studies we find smaller biases in time-dependent dark energy models if IA is ignored in the analysis; the amplitude and significance of these biases vary as a function of survey properties (depth, statistical uncertainties), luminosity function, and IA scenario: Due to its small statistical errors and relatively shallow observing strategy Euclid is significantly impacted by IA. LSST and WFIRST benefit from their increased survey depth, while the larger statistical errors for DES decrease IA's relative impact on cosmological parameters. The proposed IA mitigation scheme removes parameter biases due to IA for DES, LSST, and WFIRST even if the shape of the IA power spectrum is only poorly known; successful IA mitigation for Euclid requires more prior information. We explore several alternative IA mitigation strategies for Euclid; in the absence of alignment of blue galaxies we recommend the exclusion of red (IA contaminated) galaxies in cosmic shear analyses. We find that even a reduction of 20% in the number density of galaxies only leads to a 4-10% loss in cosmological constraining power. [50] Title: NIHAO III: The constant disc gas mass conspiracy Authors: G.S. Stinson, A. A. Dutton, L. Wang, A. V. Macciò, J. Herpich (MPIA), J. D. Bradford (Yale), T. R. Quinn (U of Washington), J. Wadsley, B. Keller (McMaster) Comments: To be submitted to MNRAS. Comments very welcome in the meantime Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) We show that the cool gas masses of galactic discs reach a steady state that lasts many Gyr after their last major merger in cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. The mass of disc gas, M_{\rm gas}$, depends upon a galaxy halo's spin and virial mass, but not upon stellar feedback. Halos with low spin have high star formation efficiency and lower disc gas mass. Similarly, lower stellar feedback leads to more star formation so the gas mass ends up nearly the same irregardless of stellar feedback strength. Even considering spin, the M$_{\rm gas}$relation with halo mass, M$_{200}$only shows a factor of 3 scatter. The M$_{\rm gas}$--M$_{200}$relation show a break at M$_{200}$=$2\times10^{11}$M$_\odot$that corresponds to an observed break in the M$_{\rm gas}$--M$_\star$relation. The constant disc mass stems from a shared halo gas density profile in all the simulated galaxies. In their outer regions, the profiles are isothermal. Where the profile rises above$n=10^{-3}$cm$^{-3}$, the gas readily cools and the profile steepens. Inside the disc, rotation supports gas with a flatter density profile except where supernova explosions disrupt the disc. Energy injection from stellar feedback also provides pressure support to the halo gas to prevent runaway cooling flows. The resulting constant gas mass makes simpler models for galaxy formation possible, either using a "bathtub" model for star formation rates or when modeling chemical evolution. [51] Title: Weak lensing in non-statistically isotropic universes Comments: 16 pages Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) The Bipolar Spherical Harmonics (BipoSH) form a natural basis to study the CMB two point correlation function in a non-statistically isotropic (non-SI) universe. The coefficients of expansion in this basis are a generalisation of the well known CMB angular power spectrum and contain complete information of the statistical properties of a non-SI but Gaussian random CMB sky. We use these coefficients to describe the weak lensing of CMB photons in a non-SI universe. Finally we show that the results reduce to the standard weak lensing results in the isotropic limit. [52] Title: The Skeleton of the Milky Way Comments: Submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) Recently, Goodman et al. (2014) argued that the very long, very thin infrared dark cloud "Nessie" lies directly in the Galactic mid-plane and runs along the Scutum-Centaurus arm in position-position-velocity ($p-p-v$) space as traced by lower density$\rm {CO}$and higher density${\rm NH}_3$gas. Nessie was presented as the first "bone" of the Milky Way, an extraordinarily long, thin, high-contrast filament that can be used to map our Galaxy's "skeleton." Here, we present evidence for additional bones in the Milky Way Galaxy, arguing that Nessie is not a curiosity but one of several filaments that could potentially trace Galactic structure. Our ten bone candidates are all long, filamentary, mid-infrared extinction features which lie parallel to, and no more than 20 pc from, the physical Galactic mid-plane. We use$\rm {CO}$,${\rm N}_2{\rm H}^+$,$\rm {HCO}^+$, and${\rm NH}_3$radial velocity data to establish the three-dimensional location of the candidates in${\it p-p-v}$space. Of the ten candidates, six also: have a projected aspect ratio of$\geqq\$50:1; run along, or extremely close to, the Scutum-Centaurus arm in p-p-v space; and exhibit no abrupt shifts in velocity. Evidence suggests that these candidates are marking the locations of significant spiral features, with the bone called filament 5 ("BC_18.88-0.09") being a close analog to Nessie in the Northern Sky. As molecular spectral-line and extinction maps cover more of the sky at increasing resolution and sensitivity, it should be possible to find more bones in future studies, ultimately to create a global-fit to the Galaxy's spiral arms by piecing together individual skeletal features.