Interesting Astrophysics: Apr 06 to Apr 10

It has been a relatively quiet week in terms of papers and preprints that I consider interesting enough to make a note of. Perhaps the most interesting is Martinez and Trimble's "Cosmologists in the dark", largely as it is a historical review rather than a technical paper.

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Galaxies and Starbursts

An ultraviolet study of nearby luminous infrared galaxies: star formation histories and the role of AGN
Sugata Kaviraj, 2009, MNRAS, 394, 1167
Full Text: HTML, PDF (Size: 13559K)

Over half of the far-infrared background light comes from galaxies at z > 1.2
Mark J. Devlin, et al, arXiv:0904.1201 [pdf]

Comments: Accepted to Nature. Maps available at this http URL

Journal-ref: Nature, vol. 458, 737-739 (2009)

BLAST: A Far-Infrared Measurement of the History of Star Formation
Enzo Pascale, et al, arXiv:0904.1206 [ps, pdf, other]

Comments: Submitted to ApJ. Maps available at this http URL

X-ray nuclear activity in nearby galaxies
Wei Ming Zhang, Roberto Soria, Shuang Nan Zhang, Douglas A. Swartz, JiFeng Liu, arXiv:0904.1091 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 27 pages, 353 kB, accepted by ApJ

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Cosmology

Cosmologists in the dark
Vicent J. Martinez, Virginia Trimble, arXiv:0904.1126 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 10 pages, ASP style (asp2006.sty), invited talk, to be published in the proceedings of the conference "Cosmology across Cultures" (held at Granada, Spain, on 2008, September 8th to 12th), J. A. Belmonte, F. Prada, J. A. Rubino Martin, & A. Alberdi, Eds., ASP, S. Francisco. Comments are welcome

A nice discussion of the history of the last century of cosmology that maintains a fair balance in its critiques. It certainly does a nice job of discussing the problems with Steady State and Quasi Steady State models. The title, which you might think of as a dig at cosmologists, is actually in reference to the quote from T.S. Elliot's "East Coker" (which I'm sure you know, or should know anyway).

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Black Holes and AGN

The Contribution of Active Galactic Nuclei to the Microjansky Radio Population
D.R. Ballantyne, arXiv:0904.0996 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 30 pages, 11 figures, accepted by the ApJ

Active Galactic Nuclei with Starbursts: Sources for Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays
P.L. Biermann, J.K. Becker, L. Caramete, L. Gergely, I.C. Maris, A. Meli, V. de Souza, T. Stanev, arXiv:0904.1507 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 4 pages, 1 figure, proceedings of "High-Energy Gamma-rays and Neutrinos from Extra-Galactic Sources", Heidelberg

Quasar Feedback: More Bang for Your Buck
Philip F. Hopkins, Martin Elvis, arXiv:0904.0649 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 7 pages, 2 figures, submitted to MNRAS

Meh. I must be feeling extra cynical today as I really don't think this says anything new other than collecting old results together and packaging them together with a cartoon picture.

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Numerical Astrophysics and Hydrodynamics

The turbulent destruction of clouds – I. A k–ε treatment of turbulence in 2D models of adiabatic shock–cloud interactions
J. M. Pittard, S. A. E. G. Falle, T. W. Hartquist, J. E. Dyson, 2009, MNRAS, 394, 1351
Full Text: HTML, PDF (Size: 52479K)

Numerical approaches to star formation and SuperNovae energy feedback in simulations of galaxy clusters
Martina Giovalli, arXiv:0904.1399 [pdf, other]
Comments: Ph.D. Thesis, 203 pages

Note to self: Might be good. Try to find the time to read this carefully.

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Stars, Supernovae and Planets

The Core-collapse rate from the Supernova Legacy Survey
G. Bazin, et al, arXiv:0904.1066 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: accepted Astronomy and Astrophysics

On the Mass and Metallicity Distributions of the Parent AGB Stars of O-rich Presolar Stardust Grains
Larry R. Nittler, arXiv:0904.1388 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 8 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia

I found this part of the abstract particularly interesting: "3) The Sun appears to have a moderately low metallicity for its age and/or unusual 17O/16O and 18O/16O ratios for its metallicity. 4) The Solar 17O/18O ratio, while unusual relative to present-day molecular clouds and protostars, was not atypical for the presolar disk and does not require self-pollution of the protosolar molecular cloud by supernova ejecta."