Direct detection of a magnetic field in the innermost regions of an accretion disk

Models predict that magnetic fields play a crucial role in the physics of astrophysical accretion disks and their associated winds and jets. For example, the rotation of the disk twists around the rotation axis the initially vertical magnetic field, which responds by slowing down the plasma in the disk and by causing it to fall towards the central star. The magnetic energy flux produced in this process points away from the disk, pushing the surface plasma outwards, leading to a wind from the disk and sometimes a collimated jet. But these predictions have hitherto not been supported by observations. Here we report the direct detection of the magnetic field in the core of the protostellar accretion disk FU Orionis. The surface field reaches strengths of about 1 kG close to the centre of the disk, and it includes a significant azimuthal component, in good agreement with recent models. But we find that the field is very filamentary and slows down the disk plasma much more than models predict, which may explain why FU Ori fails to collimate its wind into a jet.     

Discovery of very-high-energy gamma-rays from the Galactic Centre ridge

The source of Galactic cosmic rays (with energies up to 10(15) eV) remains unclear, although it is widely believed that they originate in the shock waves of expanding supernova remnants. At present the best way to investigate their acceleration and propagation is by observing the gamma-rays produced when cosmic rays interact with interstellar gas. Here we report observations of an extended region of very-high-energy (> 10(11) eV) gamma-ray emission correlated spatially with a complex of giant molecular clouds in the central 200 parsecs of the Milky Way. The hardness of the gamma-ray spectrum and the conditions in those molecular clouds indicate that the cosmic rays giving rise to the gamma-rays are likely to be protons and nuclei rather than electrons. The energy associated with the cosmic rays could have come from a single supernova explosion around 10(4) years ago.     

Deuterium in the Galactic Centre as a result of recent infall of low-metallicity gas

The Galactic Centre is the most active and heavily processed region of the Milky Way, so it can be used as a stringent test for the abundance of deuterium (a sensitive indicator of conditions in the first 1,000 seconds in the life of the Universe). As deuterium is destroyed in stellar interiors, chemical evolution models predict that its Galactic Centre abundance relative to hydrogen is D/H = 5 x 10(-12), unless there is a continuous source of deuterium from relatively primordial (low-metallicity) gas. Here we report the detection of deuterium (in the molecule DCN) in a molecular cloud only 10 parsecs from the Galactic Centre. Our data, when combined with a model of molecular abundances, indicate that D/H = (1.7 +/- 0.3) x 10(-6), five orders of magnitude larger than the predictions of evolutionary models with no continuous source of deuterium. The most probable explanation is recent infall of relatively unprocessed metal-poor gas into the Galactic Centre (at the rate inferred by Wakker). Our measured D/H is nine times less than the local interstellar value, and the lowest D/H observed in the Galaxy. We conclude that the observed Galactic Centre deuterium is cosmological, with an abundance reduced by stellar processing and mixing, and that there is no significant Galactic source of deuterium.     

活动星系核中的尘埃

尘埃是活动星系核统一模型的基石,该模型认为呈现不同观测特征的活动星系核在物理本质上属于同一类天体,活动星系核外围绕着一个光学厚尘埃环,不同类型的活动星系核只是因观测者视线相对于活动星系核对称轴的取向不同而已.观测表明,活动星系核中尘埃的组成成分及尺寸与银河系星际尘埃有很大的差别.本文介绍活动星系核核周尘埃的消光和红外辐射以及尘埃可能的化学组成和尺寸分布的研究现状.     

Circular polarimetry reveals helical magnetic fields in the young stellar object HH 135-136

Magnetic fields are believed to have a vital role in regulating and shaping the flow of material onto and away from protostars during their initial mass accretion phase. It is becoming increasingly accepted that bipolar outflows are generated and collimated as material is driven along magnetic field lines and centrifugally accelerated off a rotating accretion disk. However, the precise role of the magnetic field is poorly understood and evidence for its shape and structure has not been forthcoming. Here we report imaging circular polarimetry in the near-infrared and Monte Carlo modelling showing that the magnetic field along the bipolar outflow of the HH 135-136 young stellar object is helical. The field retains this shape for large distances along the outflow, so the field structure can also provide the necessary magnetic pressure for collimation of the outflow. This result lends further weight to the hypothesis--central to any theory of star formation--that the outflow is an important instrument for the removal of high-angular-momentum material from the accretion disk, thereby allowing the central protostar to increase its mass.     

Three classical Cepheid variable stars in the nuclear bulge of the Milky Way

The nuclear bulge is a region with a radius of about 200 parsecs around the centre of the Milky Way. It contains stars with ages ranging from a few million years to over a billion years, yet its star-formation history and the triggering process for star formation remain to be resolved. Recently, episodic star formation, powered by changes in the gas content, has been suggested. Classical Cepheid variable stars have pulsation periods that decrease with increasing age, so it is possible to probe the star-formation history on the basis of the distribution of their periods. Here we report the presence of three classical Cepheids in the nuclear bulge with pulsation periods of approximately 20?days, within 40 parsecs (projected distance) of the central black hole. No Cepheids with longer or shorter periods were found. We infer that there was a period about 25 million years ago, and possibly lasting until recently, in which star formation increased relative to the period of 30-70 million years ago.     

A high-velocity black hole on a Galactic-halo orbit in the solar neighbourhood

Only a few of the dozen or so known stellar-mass black holes have been observed away from the plane of the Galaxy. Those few could have been ejected from the plane as a result of a 'kick' received during a supernova explosion, or they could be remnants of the population of massive stars formed in the early stages of evolution of the Galaxy. Determining their orbital motion should help to distinguish between these options. Here we report the transverse motion (in the plane of the sky) for the black-hole X-ray nova XTE J1118+480 (refs 2, 3, 4, 5), from which we derive a large space velocity. This X-ray binary system has an eccentric orbit around the Galactic Centre, like most objects in the halo of the Galaxy, such as ancient stars and globular clusters. The properties of the system suggest that its age is comparable to or greater than the age of the Galactic disk. Only an extraordinary 'kick' from a supernova could have launched the black hole into an orbit like this from a birthplace in the disk of the Galaxy.     

Low-Mach-number turbulence in interstellar gas revealed by radio polarization gradients

The interstellar medium of the Milky Way is multiphase, magnetized and turbulent. Turbulence in the interstellar medium produces a global cascade of random gas motions, spanning scales ranging from 100 parsecs to 1,000 kilometres (ref. 4). Fundamental parameters of interstellar turbulence such as the sonic Mach number (the speed of sound) have been difficult to determine, because observations have lacked the sensitivity and resolution to image the small-scale structure associated with turbulent motion. Observations of linear polarization and Faraday rotation in radio emission from the Milky Way have identified unusual polarized structures that often have no counterparts in the total radiation intensity or at other wavelengths, and whose physical significance has been unclear. Here we report that the gradient of the Stokes vector (Q, U), where Q and U are parameters describing the polarization state of radiation, provides an image of magnetized turbulence in diffuse, ionized gas, manifested as a complex filamentary web of discontinuities in gas density and magnetic field. Through comparison with simulations, we demonstrate that turbulence in the warm, ionized medium has a relatively low sonic Mach number, M(s)???2. The development of statistical tools for the analysis of polarization gradients will allow accurate determinations of the Mach number, Reynolds number and magnetic field strength in interstellar turbulence over a wide range of conditions.     

磁场对中微子主导吸积盘粒子丰度的影响

中微子主导吸积盘被认为可能是伽玛射线暴中心能源机制的一种模型.为了详细地考虑微观粒子分布,计算了伪牛顿势框架下磁场对中微子主导吸积盘微观粒子丰度的影响.结果表明,在吸积盘的外区,磁场对粒子丰度和电子简并度几乎没有影响；而在吸积盘的内区,考虑和没考虑磁场时,电子简并度,电子、中子等粒子丰度具有比较大的差异.     

重载流多芯电缆周围的磁场 Ⅰ. 理论模型

多芯电力电缆在低压配电系统中常被用作配电干线，这种重载流电缆周围的极低频磁场可能干扰附近敏感电子设备的正常运行，甚至影响暴露于该场下的人体的健康，为分析这种磁场的分布特性，建立了多芯电缆周围磁场的载流平行螺旋线模型，并推导了周围磁场的简化计算公式，基于所提出的理想模型对电缆周围电磁的特性进行了分析，发现在电缆的半径方向上磁场随距离衰减的速度大于指数衰减速度，在平行于电缆轴线的直线上和在电缆抽轴圆周线上，磁场的幅值和相角都随观测点的位置周期变化，理论计算结果表明，常用规格的多芯电力电缆在载额定电流的情况下，距电缆2m外空间中的磁场已小于有关国际标准的限值。     

磁场从黑洞吸积盘提取能量的解析模型

提出了一种磁场提取黑洞吸积盘能量的解析模型,其中涉及到3种能量机制: (1) Blandford-Znajek (BZ)与连接黑洞与天体物理负载的开放磁力线有关, (2) 磁耦合(MC)过程与连接黑洞与盘负载的闭合磁力线有关, (3) DL过程与连接吸积盘与天体物理负载的开放磁力线有关.利用等效电路导出上述能量机制的电磁功率和力矩表达式.此外还讨论了这个模型潜在的天体物理应用.     

The Sagittarius impact as an architect of spirality and outer rings in the Milky Way

Like many galaxies of its size, the Milky Way is a disk with prominent spiral arms rooted in a central bar, although our knowledge of its structure and origin is incomplete. Traditional attempts to understand our Galaxy's morphology assume that it has been unperturbed by major external forces. Here we report simulations of the response of the Milky Way to the infall of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy (Sgr), which results in the formation of spiral arms, influences the central bar and produces a flared outer disk. Two ring-like wrappings emerge towards the Galactic anti-Centre in our model that are reminiscent of the low-latitude arcs observed in the same area of the Milky Way. Previous models have focused on Sgr itself to reproduce the dwarf's orbital history and place associated constraints on the shape of the Milky Way gravitational potential, treating the Sgr impact event as a trivial influence on the Galactic disk. Our results show that the Milky Way's morphology is not purely secular in origin and that low-mass minor mergers predicted to be common throughout the Universe probably have a similarly important role in shaping galactic structure.     

An asymmetric solar wind termination shock

Voyager 2 crossed the solar wind termination shock at 83.7 au in the southern hemisphere, approximately 10 au closer to the Sun than found by Voyager 1 in the north. This asymmetry could indicate an asymmetric pressure from an interstellar magnetic field, from transient-induced shock motion, or from the solar wind dynamic pressure. Here we report that the intensity of 4-5 MeV protons accelerated by the shock near Voyager 2 was three times that observed concurrently by Voyager 1, indicating differences in the shock at the two locations. (Companion papers report on the plasma, magnetic field, plasma-wave and lower energy particle observations at the shock.) Voyager 2 did not find the source of anomalous cosmic rays at the shock, suggesting that the source is elsewhere on the shock or in the heliosheath. The small intensity gradient of Galactic cosmic ray helium indicates that either the gradient is further out in the heliosheath or the local interstellar Galactic cosmic ray intensity is lower than expected.     

Stabilization of the disk around beta Pictoris by extremely carbon-rich gas

The edge-on disk surrounding the nearby young star beta Pictoris is the archetype of 'debris disks', which are composed of dust and gas produced by collisions between--and evaporation of--planetesimals, analogues of Solar System comets and asteroids. These disks may provide insight into the formation and early evolution of terrestrial planets. Previous work on beta Pic concluded that the disk gas has roughly solar abundances of elements, but this poses a problem because such gas should rapidly be blown away from the star, contrary to observations showing a stable gas disk in keplerian rotation. Here we report the detection of singly and doubly ionized carbon (C II, C III) and neutral atomic oxygen (O I) gas in the beta Pic disk. Carbon is extremely overabundant relative to every other measured element. This appears to solve the problem of the stable gas disk, because the carbon overabundance should keep the gas disk in keplerian rotation. The overabundance may indicate that the gas is produced from material more carbon-rich than expected of Solar System analogues.     

自引力均分吸积盘的不稳定性

采用微扰方法导了磁粘滞情况下自引力均分薄吸积盘的色散方程研究了吸积秀斩不稳定性，并分析了自引力，磁场，粘滞对吸积盘不稳定性的影响，数值计算表明，在同时考虑自引力和磁场时，吸积盘存在着３种振荡模式（总是稳定的粘滞横模式和通常不稳定的磁声模式及中性模式）这些结果为解释ＢＬ．Ｌａｃ天体，Ｓｅｙｆｅｒｔ星系，类星体等活动星系核的光变现象提供了理论依据。     

一种异形自适应窗口局部立体匹配算法

如何通过立体匹配提高图像景深精度一直是机器视觉研究领域的一个难点, 针对自适应窗口算法易受光照不均和窗口形状难以有效描述待匹配图像边界等问题, 提出一种异形自适应窗口局部立体匹配算法. 由于传统 Census 变换易受中心像素波动影响, 因此提出一种像素信息三维化处理技术, 并通过窗口内非中心像素间差异和窗口间中心像素的差异信息计算匹配代价; 为更好地贴合图像轮廓, 提出了由双螺旋路径法确定的异形窗口进行代价聚合, 对像素区域同时沿两条搜索路径自适应确定形状大小, 形成比传统技术更加高效多变的匹配窗口. 实验结果表明, 相比 Middlebury 平台上其他算法, 所提算法具有更为准确的图像边界描述能力, 可有效提高立体匹配精度, 同时对于光照不均的情况具有更强的鲁棒性.     

The magnetic nature of disk accretion onto black holes

Although disk accretion onto compact objects-white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes-is central to much of high-energy astrophysics, the mechanisms that enable this process have remained observationally difficult to determine. Accretion disks must transfer angular momentum in order for matter to travel radially inward onto the compact object. Internal viscosity from magnetic processes and disk winds can both in principle transfer angular momentum, but hitherto we lacked evidence that either occurs. Here we report that an X-ray-absorbing wind discovered in an observation of the stellar-mass black hole binary GRO J1655 - 40 (ref. 6) must be powered by a magnetic process that can also drive accretion through the disk. Detailed spectral analysis and modelling of the wind shows that it can only be powered by pressure generated by magnetic viscosity internal to the disk or magnetocentrifugal forces. This result demonstrates that disk accretion onto black holes is a fundamentally magnetic process.     

热籽磁感应加温在肌肉体模中的升温效果

 为了探讨不同数量和不同排布方式下,热籽在等效肌肉的琼脂体模中磁感应升温效果,制作琼脂等效肌肉模型,利用模板植入不同数量热籽：1颗、2颗、3×3阵列排布、4×4阵列排布、双层4×4不同层间距排布。在选择的测温点植入热电偶,将植入完成的琼脂体模置于磁极下,进行磁场辐照,测定并记录升温情况。结果表明,1颗和2颗热籽植入体模在磁场中加热后温度可达25～32℃,热籽在体模中的发热功能稳定。9颗热籽植入体模在磁场中加热后,两颗热籽间温度达到37.5℃,热籽阵外1.0cm处温度为30.1℃。16颗热籽植入体模在磁场中加热后,热籽阵列中心温度达到52.9℃。不同层间距热籽植入体模在磁场中加热后,中心点位置温度均达到65℃以上。随着逐渐远离中心点,温度呈下降趋势,在热籽阵外1.0cm处降至42～45℃。层间距1.0cm与0.8cm的结果比较,各测温点间温度相差约1.0℃;层间距1.0cm与层间距0.5cm的结果比较,各测温点间温度相差约3.0℃。因此,本研究成功模拟了等效肌肉的琼脂体模,一定数量的热籽在既定靶区磁感应升温,可以达到肿瘤治疗所需温度。     

589nm可调谐法拉第反常色散滤光器特性分析

考虑到钠原子Ｄ２线（３Ｓ１／２→３Ｐ３／２）５８９ｎｍ的超精细结构，以及具有Ｖｏｉｇｔ线型的左右旋园偏振谱线的贡献，我们对钠原子气体的法拉第反常色散滤光器的透过率、中心频率移动、通频带宽等跟外加纵向磁场强度、原子汽室温度的关系进行了理论分析．结果表明：该滤光器的中心工作频率磁场调谐能力约为８０ＧＨｚ／Ｔ，通频带宽为０．００１～０．０１ｎｍ，透过率约可达１００％．