Interesting Astrophysics: Apr 27 to May 01

This week's worth of interesting preprints and papers sports a fine crop of galaxy-related works, many related to starbursts and in three cases (Sato et al; Westmoquette et al; Howk) outflows. There are also two interesting papers on the mysterious hard X-ray emission within our own Galaxy.

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Galaxies and Starbursts

AEGIS: The Nature of the Host Galaxies of Low-Ionization Outflows at z < 0.6
Sato, T; Martin, C.L.; Noeske, K.G.; Koo, D.C.; Lotz, J.M., 2009, ApJ, 696, 214
PDF (1.31 MB) | HTML

The Optical Structure of the Starburst Galaxy M82. I. Dynamics of the Disk and Inner-Wind
Westmoquette, M.S.; Smith, L.J.; Gallagher, J.S.; Trancho, G.; Bastian, N.; Konstantopoulos, I. S., 2009, ApJ, 696, 192
PDF (2.04 MB) | HTML

Deep V and K band photometry of the host galaxy of Haro 11
Genoveva Micheva, Erik Zackrisson, Göran Östlin, Nils Bergvall, arXiv:0904.4502 [pdf]
Comments: 6 pages, 4 figures, to be published in conference proceedings of "Star-forming Dwarf Galaxies: Ariadne's Thread in the Cosmic Labyrinth", Crete, Greece, in Physica Scripta

Resolving the molecular environment of Super Star Clusters in Henize 2-10
G. Santangelo, L. Testi, L. Gregorini, S. Leurini, L. Vanzi, C.M. Walmsley, D.J. Wilner, arXiv:0904.4784 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 10 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables; Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

The H alpha Galaxy Survey VII. The spatial distribution of star formation within disks and bulges
P. A. James, C. F. Bretherton, J. H. Knapen, arXiv:0904.4261 [ps, pdf, other]

Comments: 15 pages, accepted for publication by Astronomy and Astrophysics. See also arXiv:0904.4263

The H alpha Galaxy Survey. VIII. Close companions and interactions, and the definition of starbursts
Johan H. Knapen, Philip A. James, arXiv:0904.4263 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: ApJ, in press (June 20, 2009 issue). With HaGS Paper VII (James, Bretherton, and Knapen 2009, arXiv:0904.4261), this paper concludes the H alpha Galaxy Survey

Worth a closer look. From the abstract: "We conclude that no one starburst definition can be devised which is objective and generally discriminant. Unless one restricts the use of the term "starburst" to a very small number of galaxies, the term will continue to be used for a heterogeneous and wide-ranging collection of objects with no physical basis for their classification as starburst."

GOALS: The Great Observatories All-Sky LIRG Survey
L. Armus, et al, arXiv:0904.4498 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 17 pages, 2 tables, 7 postscript figures. Accepted for publication in PASP

Neat.

Spitzer IRS observations of k+a galaxies: A link between PAH emission properties and AGN feedback?
I. G. Roseboom, S. Oliver, D. Farrah, arXiv:0904.4410 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 13 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApjL

Spectral Energy Distribution Fitting: Application to Lyman Alpha-Emitting Galaxies
Eric Gawiser, arXiv:0904.3798 [ps, pdf, other]

Comments: A review and discussion from the "Understanding Lyman-alpha Emitters" meeting in Heidelberg, Oct. 2008, 10 pages, to be published in New Astronomy Reviews. Ful
conference summary available as arXiv:0904.3335. Conference home-page, with presentations, is this http URL

From the abstract: "Lyman Alpha-emitter SED fitting results from the literature find star formation rates ~3 M_sun/yr, stellar masses ~10^9 M_sun for the general population but ~10^10 M_sun for the subset detected by IRAC, and very low dust extinction, A_V < 0.3, although a couple of outlying analyses prefer significantly more dust and higher intrinsic star formation rates."

Ram pressure stripping of tilted galaxies
P. Jachym, J. Koppen, J. Palous, F. Combes, arXiv:0904.3886 [ps, pdf, other]

Extraplanar Dust in Spiral Galaxies: Tracing Outflows in the Disk-Halo Interface
J. Christopher Howk, arXiv:0904.4928 [ps, pdf, other]

Comments: 8 pages; Invited review for the proceedings of "The Role of Disk-Halo Interaction in Galaxy Evolution: Outflow vs. Infall?" (Ed. M. de Avillez), in Espinho, Portugal, 18-22 August 2008 ; high resolution version at this http URL

Structures of Local Galaxies Compared to High Redshift Star-forming Galaxies
Sara M. Petty, Duilia F. de Mello, John S. Gallagher III, Jonathan P. Gardner, Jennifer M. Lotz, C. Matt Mountain, Linda J. Smith, arXiv:0904.4433 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: Submitted to the Astronomical Journal after responding to referee comments

An interesting experiment, and one that does not reassure me that the apparent morphologies of high red-shift galaxies are always accurately determined.

An X-Ray Face-on View of the Sgr B Molecular Clouds Observed with Suzaku
Syukyo G. Ryu, Katsuji Koyama, Masayoshi Nobukawa, Ryosuke Fukuoka, Takeshi Go Tsuru, arXiv:0904.4550 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 11 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in PASJ (Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan)

Discrete sources as the origin of the Galactic X-ray ridge emission
Revnivtsev M., Sazonov S., Churazov E., Forman W., Vikhlinin A., Sunyaev R., arXiv:0904.4649 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 16 pages, 3 figures. Draft version of the paper that will appear in Nature, Issue April 30, 2009

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Stars, Supernovae and Planets

X-rays from the explosion site: Fifteen years of light curves of SN 1993J
Poonam Chandra, Vikram V. Dwarkadas, Alak Ray, Stefan Immler, David Pooley, arXiv:0904.3955 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 33 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal

Hydrodynamic simulations of the core helium flash
M.Mocak, E.Mueller, A.Weiss, K.Kifonidis, arXiv:0904.4867 [pdf, other]
Comments: 6 pages, 5 figures. IAUS 252 Conference Proceeding (Sanya, China): "The art of modeling stars in the 21st century" Journal-ref: 2008IAUS..252..215M

On the correlation between metallicity and the presence of giant planets
M. Haywood, arXiv:0904.4445 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: Accepted in ApJL

Argues that the correlation between stellar metallicity and the presence of giant planets is NOT explained by the well-publicized hypothesis that the planet formation probability is increased in stellar disks with higher metallicities. I have no idea how the planet formation community will view this paper.