Interesting Astrophysics: Mar 08 to Mar 22

I return from a much-needed holiday in the Caribbean to an energetic bunch of preprints and papers making its appearance in this edition of Interesting Astrophysics.

Galactic winds, including possible AGN-driven galactic winds, are of course my major interest, so Scannapieco & Brüggen's paper is of particular note, but note also Dadina et al, Shu et al (twice) and Jiménez-Vicente et al's papers.

X-ray emission from star forming galaxies also makes an appearance, with Wang's PNAS review, Owen & Warwick's XMM-Newton study of M33, and Anderson & Bregman's discussion of the baryon content of hot halos around galaxies. Martin Weisskopf's history of the project to build the Chandra X-ray Observatory is also well worth reading.

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Galaxies and Starbursts

X-raying Galaxies: A Chandra Legacy
Q. Daniel Wang, arXiv:1003.1282 [pdf, other]
Comments: Refereed review article to be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

The submillimetre properties of ultraluminous infrared galaxies
D. L. Clements, L. Dunne, S. Eales, 2010, MNRAS, 403, 274
Full Text: HTML, PDF (Size: 859K)

A blue tilt in the globular cluster system of the Milky Way-like galaxy NGC 5170
Duncan A. Forbes, Lee R. Spitler, W. E. Harris, Jeremy Bailin, Jay Strader, Jean P. Brodie, S. S. Larsen, 2010, MNRAS, 403, 429
Full Text: HTML, PDF (Size: 3707K)

The likeness of a galaxy to the Milky-Way often depends greatly on whose opinion you ask. NGC 5170 has a circular rotation velocity of ~250 km/s and a star formation rate of ~0.5 Solar masses per year, making it somewhat more massive and less active than the Milky Way. Nevertheless an interesting galaxy (No X-ray halo was detected around NGC 5170 in Chandra observations, see Pedersen et al 2006 and Rasmussen et al 2009. Note that the detection of an X-ray halo around NGC 5746 claimed in Pedersen et all 2006 was effectively retracted by Rasmussen et al 2009).

Ongoing Star Formation In AGN Host Galaxy Disks: A View From Core-collapse Supernovae
J. Wang, J. S. Deng, J. Y. Wei, arXiv:1003.1358 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted by MNRAS

A Region of Violent Star Formation in the Irr Galaxy IC 10: Structure and Kinematics of Ionized and Neutral Gas
O. V. Egorov, T. A. Lozinskaya, A. V. Moiseev, arXiv:1003.1705 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 22 pages, 10 figures; accepted in Astronomy Reports

Do Hot Haloes Around Galaxies Contain the Missing Baryons?
Michael E. Anderson, Joel N. Bregman, arXiv:1003.3273 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

As with most papers that pose a question in their title, the answer is no. A nice paper worth looking at.

On The GeV & TeV Detections of the Starburst Galaxies M82 & NGC 253
Brian C. Lacki, Todd A. Thompson, Eliot Quataert, Abraham Loeb, Eli Waxman, arXiv:1003.3257 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 14 pages, emulateapj format, submitted to ApJ.

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Black Holes and AGN

X-ray imaging of the ionisation cones in NGC 5252
M.Dadina, M.Guainazzi, M.Cappi, S.Bianchi, C. Vignali, G. Malaguti, A. Comastri, rXiv:1003.1665 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: Accepted for publication in A&A

NGC 2992 in an X-ray high state observed by XMM: Response of the Relativistic Fe K$\alpha$ Line to the Continuum
X. W. Shu, T. Yaqoob, K. D. Murphy, V. Braito, J. X. Wang, W. Zheng, arXiv:1003.1789 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 30 pages, 6 figures, Accepted to ApJ

The Cores of the Fe Kα Lines in Active Galactic Nuclei: an Extended Chandra High Energy Grating Sample
X. W. Shu, T. Yaqoob, J. X. Wang, arXiv:1003.1790 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 54 pages, 7 figures, and 4 tables, to appear in ApJ Supplement Series

Blasts and shocks in the disc of NGC 4258
J. Jiménez-Vicente, E. Mediavilla, A. Castillo-Morales, E. Battaner, arXiv:1003.3635 [ps, pdf, other]
Comments: 7 pages, 10 colour figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS.

Na I observations with an IFU.

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Numerical Methods

General two-dimensional least-squares image subtraction
J. L. Quinn, A. Clocchiatti and M. Hamuy, 2010, MNRAS, 403, L1
Full Text: HTML, PDF (Size: 514K)

Shape: A 3D Modeling Tool for Astrophysics
Wolfgang Steffen, Nicholas Koning, Stephan Wenger, Christophe Morisset, Marcus Magnor, arXiv:1003.2012 [pdf, other]
Comments: 13 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in the "IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics"

Simulating Supersonic Turbulence in Galaxy Outflows
Evan Scannapieco, Marcus Brüggen, arXiv:1003.3234 [pdf, other]
Comments: 22 pages, 13 figures, MNRAS, in press

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X-rays

Innovations in the Analysis of Chandra-ACIS Observations
Patrick S. Broos, Leisa K. Townsley, Eric D. Feigelson, Konstantin V. Getman, Franz E. Bauer, Gordon P. Garmire, arXiv:1003.2397 [pdf, other]
Comments: Accepted by the ApJ, 2010 Mar 10, 39 pages, 16 figures

The Making of the Chandra X-ray Observatory: the Project Scientist's Perspective
Martin C. Weisskopf, arXiv:1003.1990 [pdf]
Comments: 6 pages, 17 figures. To be published in the Proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

I found this to be a really interesting article. It discusses both technical and political development with a sprinkling of dry humor. Also note the time span between the conceptual birth of AXAF/Chandra (1963, and the updated 1976 proposal) and the actual launch in 1999.

Soft X-ray emission from the inner disc of M33
R. A. Owen and R. S. Warwick, 2010, MNRAS, 403, 558
Full Text: HTML, PDF (Size: 4702K)