Understanding Astrophysics of Galaxies part2(Astrophysics)

Monodeep Mukherjee
3 min readSep 19, 2022
Photo by NASA on Unsplash

1.Measurement of AGN dust extinction based on the near-infrared flux variability of WISE data (arXiv)

Author : Shoichiro Mizukoshi, Takeo Minezaki, Shoichi Tsunetsugu, Atsuhiro Yoshida, Hiroaki Sameshima, Mitsuru Kokubo, Hirofumi Noda

Abstract : We present the measurement of the line-of-sight extinction of the dusty torus for a large number of obscured active galactic nuclei (AGNs) based on the reddening of the colour of the variable flux component in near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. We collected long-term monitoring data by Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) for 513 local AGNs catalogued by the Swift/BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS) and found that the multi-epoch NIR flux data in two different bands (WISE W1 and W2) are tightly correlated for more than 90% of the targets. The flux variation gradient (FVG) in the W1 and W2 bands was derived by applying linear regression analysis, and we reported that those for unobscured AGNs fall in a relatively narrow range, whereas those for obscured AGNs are distributed in a redder and broader range. The AGN’s line-of-sight dust extinction (AV) is calculated using the amount of the reddening in the FVG and is compared with the neutral hydrogen column density (NH) of the BASS catalogue. We found that the NH/AV ratios of obscured AGNs are greater than those of the Galactic diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) and are distributed with a large scatter by at most two orders of magnitude. Furthermore, we found that the lower envelope of the NH/AV of obscured AGNs is comparable to the Galactic diffuse ISM. These properties of the NH/AV can be explained by increase in the NH attributed to the dust-free gas clouds covering the line of sight in the broad-line region.

2.Dipolar dark matter simulations on galaxy scales with the RAMSES code (arXiv)

Author : Clément Stahl, Benoit Famaey, Guillaume Thomas, Yohan Dubois, Rodrigo Ibata

Abstract : We numerically explore on galaxy scales the Dipolar dark matter (DM) model based on the concept of gravitational polarization. This DM model has been proposed as a natural way to reproduce observed tight galactic scaling relations such as the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation and the Radial Acceleration Relation. We present a customized version of the \texttt{RAMSES} code including for the first time the dynamics of this Dipolar DM in N-body simulations. As a first application of this code, we check that we recover an equilibrium configuration that had been found analytically, where a low density Dipolar DM halo is at rest with respect to its central galaxy, recovering the aforementioned scaling relations. A characteristic signature of this equilibrium model is that it harbours a dynamical instability with a characteristic time depending on the Dipolar DM halo density, which we recover numerically. This represents a first step towards more involved simulations needed to test this framework, ranging from galaxy interactions to structure formation.

3.xGASS: The connection between angular momentum, mass and atomic gas fraction in nearby galaxies (arXiv)

Author : Jennifer A. Hardwick, Luca Cortese, Danail Obreschkow, Barbara Catinella

Abstract : We use a sample of 559 disc galaxies extracted from the eXtended GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey (xGASS) to study the connection between baryonic angular momentum, mass and atomic gas fraction in the local Universe. Baryonic angular momenta are determined by combining Hi and H2 integrated profiles with two-dimensional stellar mass surface density profiles. In line with previous work, we confirm that specific angular momentum and atomic gas fraction are tightly correlated, but we find a larger scatter than previously observed. This is most likely due to the wider range of galaxy properties covered by our sample. We compare our findings with the predictions of the analytical stability model developed by Obreschkow et al. and find that, while the model provides a very good first-order approximation for the connection between baryonic angular momentum, mass and gas fraction, it does not fully match our data. Specifically, we find that at fixed baryonic mass, the dependence of specific angular momentum on gas fraction is significantly weaker, and at fixed gas fraction, the slope of the angular momentum vs. mass relation is shallower than what was predicted by the model. The reasons behind this tension remain unclear, but we speculate that multiple factors may simultaneously play a role, all related to the fact that the model is not able to encapsulate the full diversity of galaxy properties in our sample.

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Monodeep Mukherjee

Universe Enthusiast. Writes about Computer Science, AI, Physics, Neuroscience and Technology,Front End and Backend Development