Interesting Astrophysics: Feb 02 to Feb 06, 2009.

Its crunch time for writing Astro2010 Decadal Survey White Papers, at least for the IXO team given our internal review deadlines and "Red Teams" and other assorted buzz-words, and I've not been enjoying it at all. Nevertheless reading the new journal paper titles and astro-ph tiles on arXiv has given me a valid way to procrastinate... so here is what I think sounds interesting.

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Galaxies and Starbursts

The optical structure of the starburst galaxy M82 - I: Dynamics of the disk and inner-wind
M. S. Westmoquette, L. J. Smith, J. S. Gallagher III, G. Trancho, N. Bastian, I. S. Konstantopoulos, arXiv:0902.0064 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 36 pages, 21 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Luminous Infrared Galaxies with the Submillimeter Array: II. Comparing the CO(3-2) Sizes and Luminosities of Local and High-Redshift Luminous Infrared Galaxies
Daisuke Iono, Christine D. Wilson, Min S. Yun, Andrew J. Baker, Glen R. Petitpas, Alison B. Peck, Melanie Krips, T. J. Cox, Satoki Matsushita, J. Christopher Mihos, Ylva Pihlstrom, arXiv:0902.0121 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 16 pages, 5 figures, ApJ Accepted

A Kiloparsec-Scale Hyper-Starburst in a Quasar Host Less than 1 Gigayear after the Big Bang
F. Walter, D. Riechers, P. Cox, R. Neri, C. Carilli, F. Bertoldi, A. Weiss, R. Maiolino, arXiv:0902.0662 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: Nature, in press, Feb 5 issue, p. 699-701

Perhaps unsurprisingly this object looks like it obeys the classic starburst intensity (SF/area) limit. Still impressive though.

Evidence for a Non-Uniform Initial Mass Function in the Local Universe
Gerhardt R. Meurer, O.I. Wong, J.H. Kim, D.J. Hanish, T.M. Heckman, J. Werk, J. Bland-Hawthorn, M.A. Dopita, M.A. Zwaan, B. Koribalski, M. Seibert, D.A. Thilker, H.C. Ferguson, R.L. Webster, M.E. Putman, P.M. Knezek, M.T. Doyle, M.J. Drinkwater, C.G. Hoopes, V.A. Kilborn, M. Meyer, E.V. Ryan-Weber, R.C. Smith, L. Staveley-Smith, arXiv:0902.0384 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: ApJ in press. 16 pages, 10 figures 2 tables. Some of the imaging data
used in this study are available at this http URL . Typo fixed in
this version

HI in Local Group Dwarf Galaxies and Stripping by the Galactic Halo
Jana Grcevich, Mary E Putman, arXiv:0901.4975 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 18 pages, 4 tables, 6 figures

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Black Holes and AGN

The Nuclear Outflows and Feedback in the Seyfert 2 Galaxy Markarian 573
K. Schlesinger, Richard W. Pogge, Paul Martini, Joseph C. Shields, Dale Fields, arXiv:0902.0004 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 31 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables

The Space Density of Compton Thick AGN and the X-ray Background
E. Treister, C. Megan Urry, Shanil Virani, arXiv:0902.0608 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: Accepted by The Astrophysical Journal, 12 pages in emulateapj format, 8 figures

X-ray Absorption and Reflection in Active Galactic Nuclei
T.J. Turner, L. Miller, arXiv:0902.0651 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: Accepted for publication in the Astronomy and Astrophysics Review. 58

pages, 9 figures

The starburst-AGN disconnection
R. Cid Fernandes, M. Schlickmann, G. Stasinska, N. Vale Asari, J. M. Gomes, W. Schoenell, A. Mateus, L. Sodre Jr., for the SEAGal collaboration, arXiv:0902.0523 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: To appear in the proceedings of "The Starburst-AGN Connection" conference (2008)

Star-powered LINERs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
N. Vale Asari, G. Stasinska, R. Cid Fernandes, J. M. Gomes, M. Schlickmann, A. Mateus, W. Schoenell, L. Sodre Jr., for the SEAGal collaboration, arXiv:0902.0528 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: To appear in the proceedings of "The Starburst-AGN Connection" conference (2008)

Revenge of the Warmers! (Warmers were part of 1980s/1990s alternative model for AGN that invoked hypothesized very hot stars to account for the high ionization emission of AGN, rather than relying on accretion onto super-massive black holes. Heretical even at that time and almost forgotten about now, it nevertheless motivated a lot of research on both sides of the argument and was important in creating the ongoing interest in the starburst/AGN connection. Hence [I presume] the ironic title of Roberto Cid Fernandes' paper, as he was one of the players in the original Warmer hypothesis) These papers really aren't about Warmers, but the core idea of high ISM ionization created by hot evolved stars is Warmer-like physics.

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Numerical Astrophysics and Hydrodynamics

Galactic dynamo simulations
Detlef Elstner, Oliver Gressel, Günther Rüdiger, arXiv:0901.4929 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 10 pages, 5 figures, IAU Symp. 259 proceedings (in press)

A Field-length based refinement criterion for adaptive mesh simulations of the interstellar medium
Oliver Gressel, arXiv:0902.0260 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

Type-Ia Supernova-driven Galactic Bulge Wind
Shikui Tang, Q. Daniel Wang, Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, M. Ryan Joung, arXiv:0902.0386 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 37 pages, 19 figures, submitted to MNRAS; comments are welcome

Scalability of Hydrodynamic Simulations
Shikui Tang, Q. Daniel Wang, arXiv:0902.0403 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 12 pages, 1 figure, submitted to MNRAS; comments are welcome

Are There Phases in the ISM?
Enrique Vazquez-Semadeni, arXiv:0902.0820 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 11 pages, 8 figures. Invited review for the proceedings of "The Role of Disk-Halo Interaction in Galaxy Evolution: Outflow vs. Infall?", held in Espinho, Portugal, 18-22 August 2008

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Stars, Supernovae, and Planets

Challenges for stellar pulsation and evolution theory
Jadwiga Daszynska-Daszkiewicz, arXiv:0901.4842 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: Invited talk presented at the JENAM 2008 Symposium No.4 "Asteroseismology and stellar evolution", eds. S. Schuh and G. Handler., Communications in Asteroseismology, 159, in press; 11 pages, 1 figure

This is a neat conference proceedings. I certainly hadn't realized how much of the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram was covered with stars with pulsational modes in addition to the classic RR Lyrae, Cepheids and Mira variables we were taught about in undergraduate astronomy.

60Fe and Massive Stars
W. Wang, arXiv:0902.0214 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 6 pages, 5 figures, talk at IAUS 252, The Art of Modeling Stars in the 21st Century, Sanya, April 6-11, 2008

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Instrumentation

Astrophotonics: a new era for astronomical instruments
J. Bland-Hawthorn, Pierre Kern, arXiv:0902.0415 [pdf]

Comments: 5 pages, Editorial for the Focus Issue on Astrophotonics (Optics Express); all 12 papers are free to air at this http URL

Journal-ref: Optics Express, 17, 1880 (2009)