madbadgalaxyman
17-06-2014, 10:20 AM
Here are some useful summary papers, and discovery papers, from the recent literature, ranked according to increasing level of difficulty:
(1) Level of Difficulty : Moderate
(= limited maths here, but plenty of jargon, and acronyms, and also 'assumptions' that you already understand previously discovered concepts and conventions)
Here is an interesting discovery paper about an ultra-compact dwarf galaxy (= a UCD) associated with the big elliptical galaxy M60. While somewhat resembling a globular star cluster, this object is:
- more luminous than the most luminous known globulars of the MW and M31 and NGC 5128
- much less compact and much more extended than a standard globular cluster
- more massive than the most massive known globular cluster
http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.7707
What this UCD galaxy does resemble is the nucleus (= nuclear star cluster) that is often found at the centre of an elliptical galaxy of modest luminosity. It is therefore thought that compact and dense objects like this one (and like Compact Elliptical Galaxies of the "M32 type") are likely to be the remnants of tidally stripped and disrupted elliptical galaxies.
(2) Level of Difficulty : Moderate to Hard
(= little maths (or easy maths) here, but you really have to have a strong orientation towards cosmology and physics, or to have read a fair amount of the professional literature, to understand what they are getting at)
This is the summary report about a conference held to discuss the questions:
Is ever higher-precision determination of the Hubble Constant still a useful thing to do for the progress of science and cosmology?
How to determine the Hubble constant to high precision?
164373
Here is a report that summarizes the work on the HST Key Project that determined the cosmological distance scale using the Cepheid Variable method. Some of this is quite chatty and low in mathematics, indeed the basic distance scale ideas are very easy to understand, but you have to understand something about how distances are determined in astronomy before you can seriously benefit from this paper:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.5775
(Gruber Prize lecture published in transactions of IAU.)
(3) Level of Difficulty : Hard
Here, attached, is an interesting paper by Jeremy Mould on how to determine the age of an old stellar population. If you are an enthusiast for stellar properties, spectroscopy, stellar evolution, and star clusters, you may be able to tiptoe through some of this paper:
164374
___________________________________ _
Enjoy!!
______________________________
(1) Level of Difficulty : Moderate
(= limited maths here, but plenty of jargon, and acronyms, and also 'assumptions' that you already understand previously discovered concepts and conventions)
Here is an interesting discovery paper about an ultra-compact dwarf galaxy (= a UCD) associated with the big elliptical galaxy M60. While somewhat resembling a globular star cluster, this object is:
- more luminous than the most luminous known globulars of the MW and M31 and NGC 5128
- much less compact and much more extended than a standard globular cluster
- more massive than the most massive known globular cluster
http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.7707
What this UCD galaxy does resemble is the nucleus (= nuclear star cluster) that is often found at the centre of an elliptical galaxy of modest luminosity. It is therefore thought that compact and dense objects like this one (and like Compact Elliptical Galaxies of the "M32 type") are likely to be the remnants of tidally stripped and disrupted elliptical galaxies.
(2) Level of Difficulty : Moderate to Hard
(= little maths (or easy maths) here, but you really have to have a strong orientation towards cosmology and physics, or to have read a fair amount of the professional literature, to understand what they are getting at)
This is the summary report about a conference held to discuss the questions:
Is ever higher-precision determination of the Hubble Constant still a useful thing to do for the progress of science and cosmology?
How to determine the Hubble constant to high precision?
164373
Here is a report that summarizes the work on the HST Key Project that determined the cosmological distance scale using the Cepheid Variable method. Some of this is quite chatty and low in mathematics, indeed the basic distance scale ideas are very easy to understand, but you have to understand something about how distances are determined in astronomy before you can seriously benefit from this paper:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.5775
(Gruber Prize lecture published in transactions of IAU.)
(3) Level of Difficulty : Hard
Here, attached, is an interesting paper by Jeremy Mould on how to determine the age of an old stellar population. If you are an enthusiast for stellar properties, spectroscopy, stellar evolution, and star clusters, you may be able to tiptoe through some of this paper:
164374
___________________________________ _
Enjoy!!
______________________________