Prominent Bar Research Articles

Simulating nearby disc galaxies on the main star formation sequence

Past studies have long emphasised the key role played by galactic stellar bars in the context of disc secular evolution, via the redistribution of gas and stars, the triggering of star formation, and the formation of prominent structures such as rings and central mass concentrations. However, the exact physical processes acting on those structures, as well as the timescales associated with the building and consumption of central gas reservoirs are still not well understood. We are building a suite of hydro-dynamical RAMSES simulations of isolated, low-redshift galaxies that mimic the properties of the PHANGS sample. The initial conditions of the models reproduce the observed stellar mass, disc scale length, or gas fraction, and this paper presents a first subset of these models. Most of our simulated galaxies develop a prominent bar structure, which itself triggers central gas fuelling and the building of an over-density with a typical scale of 100−1000 pc. We confirm that if the host galaxy features an ellipsoidal component, the formation of the bar and gas fuelling are delayed. We show that most of our simulations follow a common time evolution, when accounting for mass scaling and the bar formation time. In our simulations, the stellar mass of 1010 M⊙ seems to mark a change in the phases describing the time evolution of the bar and its impact on the interstellar medium. In massive discs (M⋆ ≥ 1010 M⊙), we observe the formation of a central gas reservoir with star formation mostly occurring within a restricted starburst region, leading to a gas depletion phase. Lower-mass systems (M⋆ < 1010 M⊙) do not exhibit such a depletion phase, and show a more homogeneous spread of star-forming regions along the bar structure, and do not appear to host inner bar-driven discs or rings. Our results seem to be supported by observations, and we briefly discuss how this new suite of simulations can help our understanding of the secular evolution of main sequence disc galaxies.

Topological Characteristics of the Pore Network in the Tight Sandstone Using Persistent Homology.

Tight sandstone reservoirs have become important areas for unconventional reservoir development, and their pore network is a key feature for identifying tight sandstone, which affects fluid migration path and reservoir development efficiency. However, the connectivity characteristics of the pore network at different scales have remained unclear owing to the numerous pores and uneven pore shape. Here, using pore size distributions from many hundreds of tight sandstone samples and subsequent topological data analysis, we construct the topological structure of the pore network in the Yanchang Formation tight sandstone of the Ordos Basin in China and visualize the topological characteristics of the pore network with distances. We show that there are three connected groups within the pore structure of the tight sandstone. The topology of the pore network resides on a trident ring manifold, suggesting that the pore network in the tight sandstone encompasses three obvious dominant connection paths. One prominent bar on the H0 dimension in the barcode indicates a two-point connection from nanoscale to microscale in the pore network. Three prominent bars with varying durations on the H1 dimension indicate the presence of three separate multipoint connections within a limited extent in the pore network. Connectivity of combined pores is good and controlled by the topological structure of the pore network. This demonstration of pore connections on a trident ring manifold provides a population-level visualization of the pore network in the tight sandstone.

Stellar Abundance Maps of the Milky Way Disk

Abstract To understand the formation of the Milky Way’s prominent bar it is important to know whether stars in the bar differ in the chemical element composition of their birth material as compared to disk stars. This requires stellar abundance measurements for large samples across the Milky Way’s body. Such samples, e.g., luminous red giant stars observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s APOGEE survey, will inevitably span a range of stellar parameters; as a consequence, both modeling imperfections and stellar evolution may preclude consistent and precise estimates of their chemical composition at a level of purported bar signatures, which has left current analyses of a chemically distinct bar inconclusive. Here, we develop a new self-calibration approach to eliminate both modeling and astrophysical abundance systematics among red giant branch (RGB) stars of different luminosities (and hence surface gravity log g ). We apply our method to 48,853 luminous APOGEE Data Release 16 RGB stars to construct spatial abundance maps of 20 chemical elements near the Milky Way’s mid-plane, covering galactocentric radii of 0 kpc < R GC < 20 kpc. Our results indicate that there are no abundance variations whose geometry matches that of the bar, and that the mean abundance gradients vary smoothly and monotonically with galactocentric radius. We confirm that the high-α disk is chemically homogeneous, without spatial gradients. Furthermore, we present the most precise [Fe/H] versus R GC gradient to date with a slope of − 0.057 ±0.001 dex kpc−1 out to approximately 15 kpc.

36 GHz methanol lines from nearby galaxies: maser or quasi-thermal emission?

Methanol (CH3OH) is one of the most abundant interstellar molecules, offering a vast number of transitions to be studied, including many maser lines. However, while the strongest Galactic CH3OH lines, the so-called class II masers, show no indications for the presence of superluminous counterparts in external galaxies, the less luminous Galactic class I sources appear to be different. Here we report class I 36 GHz (λ ≈ 0.8 cm) CH3OH 4−1 → 30 E line emission from the nearby galaxies Maffei 2 (D ≈ 6 Mpc) and IC 342 (D ≈ 3.5 Mpc), measured with the 100 m telescope at Effelsberg at three different epochs within a time span of about five weeks. The 36 GHz methanol line of Maffei 2 is the second most luminous among the sources detected with certainty outside the Local Group of galaxies. This is not matched by the moderate infrared luminosity of Maffei 2. Higher-resolution data are required to check whether this is related to its prominent bar and associated shocks. Upper limits for M 82, NGC 4388, NGC 5728 and Arp 220 are also presented. The previously reported detection of 36 GHz maser emission in Arp 220 is not confirmed. Nondetections are reported from the related class I 44 GHz (λ ≈ 0.7 cm) methanol transition towards Maffei 2 and IC 342, indicating that this line is not stronger than its 36 GHz counterpart. In contrast to the previously detected 36 GHz CH3OH emission in NGC 253 and NGC 4945, our 36 GHz profiles towards Maffei 2 and IC 342 are similar to those of previously detected nonmasing lines from other molecular species. However, by analogy to our Galactic center region, it may well be possible that the 36 GHz methanol lines in Maffei 2 and IC 342 are composed of a large number of faint and narrow maser features that remain spatially unresolved. In view of this, a search for a weak broad 36 GHz line component would also be desirable in NGC 253 and NGC 4945.

Discovery of an Active Intermediate-mass Black Hole Candidate in the Barred Bulgeless Galaxy NGC 3319

Abstract We report the discovery of an active intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) candidate in the center of nearby barred bulgeless galaxy NGC 3319. The point X-ray source revealed by archival Chandra and XMM-Newton observations is spatially coincident with the optical and UV galactic nuclei from Hubble Space Telescope observations. The spectral energy distribution derived from the unresolved X-ray and UV-optical flux is comparable with active galactic nuclei rather than ultraluminous X-ray sources, although its bolometric luminosity is only . Assuming an Eddington ratio range between 0.001 and 1, the black hole mass ( ) will be in the range 3 × 102 −3 × 105 , placing it in the so-called IMBH regime and making it possibly one of the lowest reported so far. Estimates from other approaches (e.g., fundamental plane, X-ray variability) also suggest ≲ 105 . Similar to other BHs in bulgeless galaxies, the discovered IMBH resides in a nuclear star cluster with mass of ∼6 × 106 . The detection of such a low-mass BH offers us an ideal chance to study the formation and early growth of SMBH seeds, which may result from the bar-driven inflow in late-type galaxies with a prominent bar such as NGC 3319.

Samarium hexaboride is a trivial surface conductor

SmB6 is predicted to be the first member of the intersection of topological insulators and Kondo insulators, strongly correlated materials in which the Fermi level lies in the gap of a many-body resonance that forms by hybridization between localized and itinerant states. While robust, surface-only conductivity at low temperature and the observation of surface states at the expected high symmetry points appear to confirm this prediction, we find both surface states at the (100) surface to be topologically trivial. We find the {bar{varGamma }} state to appear Rashba split and explain the prominent bar X state by a surface shift of the many-body resonance. We propose that the latter mechanism, which applies to several crystal terminations, can explain the unusual surface conductivity. While additional, as yet unobserved topological surface states cannot be excluded, our results show that a firm connection between the two material classes is still outstanding.

Rediscovering the disc origin of the Milky Way bulge

AbstractWe explore morphological, kinematic and chemical trends of boxy/peanut (b/p) bulges of Milky Way (MW)-type galaxies, to better understand the formation history of the MW’s bulge. We show, using N-body simulations with both a kinematically cold and a kinematically hot disc, that colder populations develop a more prominent bar and X-shaped peanut as compared to their hotter counterpart. Colder discs also exhibit lower line-of-sight velocities (when viewed edge-on) at the edges of the b/p compared to hot discs, in agreement with what is seen for the MW bulge. Furthermore, we explore an N-body model which has three co-spatial discs with metallicities which correspond to the stellar populations of the inner Milky Way, where the α-enhanced thick disc populations are massive and centrally concentrated. The metallicity trends seen in observations of the Bulge can be reproduced in the model without the need of adding any additional components, which hints to the disc origin of the MW’s bulge.

Evidence of bar–driven secular evolution in the gamma–ray narrow–line Seyfert 1 galaxy FBQS J164442.5+261913

We present near--infrared (NIR) imaging of FBQS J164442.5+261913, one of the few $\gamma$--ray emitting Narrow Line Seyfert 1 ($\gamma-$NLSy1) galaxies detected at high significance level by $Fermi$--LAT. This study is the first morphological analysis performed of this source and the third performed of this class of objects. Conducting a detailed two--dimensional modeling of its surface brightness distribution and analysing its $J-K_s$ colour gradients, we find that FBQS J164442.5+261913 is statistically most likely hosted by a barred lenticular galaxy (SB0). We find evidence that the bulge in the host galaxy of FBQS J164442.5+261913 is not classical but pseudo, against the paradigm of powerful relativistic jets exclusively launched by giant ellipticals. Our analysis, also reveal the presence of a ring with diameter equalling the bar length ($r_{bar} = 8.13\ \textrm{kpc}\pm 0.25$), whose origin might be a combination of bar--driven gas rearrangement and minor mergers, as revealed by the apparent merger remnant in the $J$--band image. In general, our results suggest that the prominent bar in the host galaxy of FBQS J164442.5+261913 has mostly contributed to its overall morphology driving a strong secular evolution, which plays a crucial role in the onset of the nuclear activity and the growth of the massive bulge. Minor mergers, in conjunction, are likely to provide the necessary fresh supply of gas to the central regions of the host galaxy.

Ionized gas kinematics within the inner kiloparsec of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1365

We observed the nuclear region of the galaxy NGC 1365 with the integral field unit of the Gemini Multi Object Spectrograph mounted on the GEMINI-South telescope. The field of view covers $13^{\prime\prime} \times 6^{\prime\prime}$ ($1173 \times 541$ pc$^{2}$) centered on the nucleus, at a spatial resolution of $52$ pc. The spectral coverage extends from $5600$ \AA\ to $7000$ \AA, at a spectral resolution $R=1918$. NGC 1365 hosts a Seyfert 1.8 nucleus, and exhibits a prominent bar extending out to $100^{\prime\prime}$ (9 kpc) from the nucleus. The field of view lies within the inner Lindblad resonance. Within this region, we found that the kinematics of the ionized gas (as traced by [OI], [NII], H$\alpha$, and [SII]) is consistent with rotation in the large-scale plane of the galaxy. While rotation dominates the kinematics, there is also evidence for a fan-shaped outflow, as found in other studies based on the [OIII] emission lines. Although evidence for gas inflowing along nuclear spirals has been found in a few barred galaxies, we find no obvious signs of such features in the inner kiloparsec of NGC 1365. However, the emission lines exhibit a puzzling asymmetry that could originate from gas which is slower than the gas responsible for the bulk of the narrow-line emission. We speculate that it could be tracing gas which lost angular momentum, and is slowly migrating from the inner Lindblad resonance towards the nucleus of the galaxy.

Flow structure and channel morphodynamics of meander bend chute cutoffs: A case study of the Wabash River, USA

[1] This paper documents the three-dimensional structure of flow and bed morphology of two developing chute cutoffs on a single meander bend on the lower Wabash River, USA, and relates the flow structure to patterns of morphologic change in the evolving cutoff channels. The upstream end of the cutoff channels is characterized by: (1) a zone of flow velocity reduction/stagnation and bar development in the main channel across from the cutoff entrance, (2) flow separation and bar development along the inner (left) bank of the cutoff channel immediately downstream from the cutoff entrance, and (3) helical motion and outward advection of flow momentum entering the cutoff channel, leading to erosion of the outer (right) bank of the cutoff channel. At the downstream end of the cutoff channels, the major hydrodynamic and morphologic features are: (1) flow stagnation along the bank of the main channel immediately upstream of the cutoff channel mouth, (2) convergence of flows from the cutoff and main channels, (3) helical motion of flow from the cutoff, (4) a zone of reduced velocity along the bank of the main channel immediately downstream from the cutoff channel mouth, and (5) development of a prominent bar complex that penetrates into the main channel and extends from the stagnation zone upstream to downstream of the cutoff mouth. These results provide the basis for a conceptual model of chute-cutoff dynamics in which the upstream and downstream ends of a cutoff channel are treated as a bifurcation and confluence, respectively.

No Rest

No Rest X. J. Kennedy (bio) Only these maples weave with wood:Their leafless branches intertwineBlack warps and woofs against the shineOf winter sky. I wish I couldUse such a blanket, but I knowSleeping beneath it might be hard.It stands upright in my backyardAnd shows no sign of falling flat.I need a bed to lie on, though,And not a bed to stand up at. [End Page 362] X. J. Kennedy X. J. KENNEDY is the author of In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus: New and Selected Poems and the translator of The Bestiary of Guillaume Apollinaire, both from the Johns Hopkins University Press. © 2013 by the Johns Hopkins University Press

The APEX-CHAMP+view of the Orion Molecular Cloud 1 core

A high density portion of the Orion Molecular Cloud 1 (OMC-1) contains the prominent, warm Kleinmann-Low (KL) nebula that is internally powered by an energetic event plus a farther region in which intermediate to high mass stars are forming. Its outside is affected by ultraviolet radiation from the neighboring Orion Nebula Cluster and forms the archetypical photon-dominated region (PDR) with the prominent bar feature. Its nearness makes the OMC-1 core region a touchstone for research on the dense molecular interstellar medium and PDRs. Using the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope (APEX), we have imaged the line emission from the multiple transitions of several carbon monoxide (CO) isotopologues over the OMC-1 core region. Our observations employed the 2x7 pixel submillimeter CHAMP+ array to produce maps (~ 300 arcsec x 350 arcsec) of 12CO, 13CO, and C18O from mid-J transitions (J=6-5 to 8-7). We also obtained the 13CO and C18O J=3-2 images toward this region. The 12CO line emission shows a well-defined structure which is shaped and excited by a variety of phenomena, including the energetic photons from hot, massive stars in the nearby Orion Nebula's central Trapezium cluster, active high- and intermediate-mass star formation, and a past energetic event that excites the KL nebula. Radiative transfer modeling of the various isotopologic CO lines implies typical H2 densities in the OMC-1 core region of ~10^4-10^6 cm^-3 and generally elevated temperatures (~ 50-250 K). We estimate a warm gas mass in the OMC-1 core region of 86-285 solar masses.

In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus: New and Selected Poems, 1955–2007 (review)

Reviewed by: In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus: New and Selected Poems, 1955–2007 Stephen Kampa (bio) X. J. Kennedy, In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus: New and Selected Poems, 1955–2007 (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 205 pp. Perhaps the greatest danger for In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus arises from the ductility of the poet’s talent: X.J. Kennedy has managed to thread himself through so much of the tapestry of twentieth-century literature with his achievements in verse, children’s verse, children’s fiction, and translation while also working as an anthologist (for both children and adults), an editor, and a textbook author. The concurrent publication of a selection of comic verse entitled Peeping Tom’s Cabin (BOA Editions) points to Kennedy’s own sense of the diversity of his work. If anything, his selection of “less contemptible verse from previous collections” along with the “rasher of items not collected before” (from the first paragraph [End Page 645] in his Notes) runs the risk of being overlooked in light of everything else Kennedy has accomplished. “Less contemptible” is certainly a modest way of describing these witty, musical, poignant poems, which range from mordant satires of contemporary culture to elegies for childhood friends, former students, and vaudeville performers. I had thought of Kennedy primarily as an epigrammatist and a humorist, so I was surprised to discover his thematic and tonal range: many of the poems use Kennedy’s characteristic wit to probe matters of faith, as in this example with its clever syntactic transmutation of an ostensible verb into an adjective—“I thought my hangdog soul abhorred / In the fierce eyeball of the Lord” (“Flitting Flies”)—and other poems present moments of startlingly sudden violence, as in the following lines from “Loose Woman”: Someone who well knew how she’d toss her chin Passing the firehouse oglers, at their taunt, Let it be flung up higher than she’d want, Just held fast by a little hinge of skin. Two boys come from the river kicked a thatch Of underbrush and stopped. One wrecked a pair Of sneakers blundering into her hair . . . For a poet often associated with children’s verse and light verse, these outbreaks of violence seem particularly stark, but they also remind one of the Bunyan lines, “Some things are of that nature as to make / One’s fancy chuckle while his heart doth ache . . .” Kennedy has written a number of elegies—some serious, some sly, and some a bit of both. In the process of writing them, he sometimes grows impatient with artistic pretensions: Oh, let us do away with elegiac Drivel. Who can restore a thing so brittle, So new in any jingle? Still, I marvel That, making light of mountainloads of logic, So much could stay a moment in so little. The number of trochaic words, especially those ending in the liquid consonant l (drivel, brittle, jingle, marvel, little), lends an almost overwhelming music to the final stanza of “On a Child Who Lived One Minute,” and the slant rhyme of “elegiac” and “logic” testifies to the poet’s enviable linguistic resources and expert ear; if he wishes to “do away” with art, it is in a superbly artistic stanza that he has said so. A similar suspicion about art animates “Poets,” with its daydreaming Mallarmean swans frozen in ice and requiring rescue, and “Artificer,” a delightful response to Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium”: [End Page 646] Blessing his handiwork, his drawbridge closed, He sabbathed on a hill of hand-tooled wax. On stainless steel chrysanthemums there posed Little gold bees with twist-keys in their backs. Kennedy concludes his depiction of this artificial world with the sentence, “All night the world he’d locked outside / Kept thrusting newborn rats under his door.” Try as he might, the artist cannot keep the real world from invading the one he has constructed; reality’s vivid reminders come squirming in through the cracks to contrast brutally with the artist’s impeccable but inanimate family: Increase perfection! So he shaped a wife, Pleated the fabric of her chartered thigh, Begot sons by exact strokes of a knife In camphorwood. He told them not...

TRIGGERED OR SELF-REGULATED STAR FORMATION WITHIN INTERMEDIATE REDSHIFT LUMINOUS INFRARED GALAXIES. I. MORPHOLOGIES AND SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS

As part of the Center for Adaptive Optics (AO) Treasury Survey (CATS) we imaged a set of 15 intermediate redshift (z ~ 0.8) luminous infrared (IR) galaxies (LIRGs) with the Keck Laser Guide Star (LGS) AO facility. These galaxies were selected from the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) southern field, allowing us to combine the high spatial resolution Hubble Space Telescope optical (B, V, i, and z-bands) images with our near-infrared (K'-band) images to study the LIRG morphologies and spatially resolved spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Two thirds of the LIRGs are disk galaxies, with only one third showing some evidence for interactions, minor, or major mergers. In contrast with local LIRG disks (which are primarily barred systems), only 10% of the LIRG disks in our sample contain a prominent bar. While the optical bands tend to show a significant point-like substructure, indicating distributed star formation, the AO K-band images tend to be smooth. They lack point-like structures to a K ~ 23.5 limit. This places an upper bound on the number of red super giants per blue knot at less than 4000. The SEDs of the LIRGs are consistent with distributed dusty star formation, as exhibited by optical to IR colors redder than allowed by old stellar populations alone. This effect is most pronounced in the galaxy cores, possibly indicating central star formation. We also observed a set of 11 intermediate redshift comparison galaxies, selected to be non-ellipticals with apparent K-band magnitudes comparable to the LIRGs. The normal (non-LIRG) systems tended to have lower optical luminosity, lower stellar mass, and more irregular morphology than the LIRGs. Half of the normal galaxies have SEDs consistent with intermediate aged stellar populations and minimal dust. The other half show evidence for some dusty star formation, usually concentrated in their cores. Our work suggests that the LIRG disk galaxies are similar to large disk systems today, undergoing self-regulated star formation, only at 10-20 times higher rates.

The gravitational torque of bars in optically unbarred and barred galaxies

The relative bar torques for 45 galaxies observed at K-band with the 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope are determined by transforming the light distributions into potentials and deriving the maximum ratios of the tangential forces relative to the radial forces. The results are combined with the bar torques for 30 other galaxies determined from our previous K-band survey (Buta & Block 2001). Relative bar torques determine the degree of spiral arm forcing, gas accretion, and bar evolution. They dier from other measures of bar strength, such as the relative amplitude of the bar determined photometrically, because they include the bulge and other disk light that contributes to the radial component of the total force. If the bulge is strong and the radial forcing large, then even a prominent bar can have a relatively weak influence on the azimuthal motions in the disk. Here we nd that the relative bar torque correlates only weakly with the optical bar type listed in the Revised Shapley-Ames and de Vaucouleurs systems. In fact, some classically barred galaxies have weaker relative bar torques than classically unbarred galaxies. The optical class is a poor measure of azimuthal disk forcing for two reasons: some infrared bars are not seen optically, and some bars with strong bulges have their azimuthal forces so strongly diluted by the average radial force that they exert only small torques on their disks. The Hubble classication scheme poorly recognizes the gravitational influence of bars. Applications of our bar torque method to the high-redshift universe are briefly discussed.

Circumnuclear Spiral Arms and Starburst Rings in Magnetized Barred Spiral Galaxies

The Seyfert galaxy NGC 1097 has a prominent bar and a luminous circumnuclear starburst ring. Magnetic fields as revealed by nonthermal radio continuum emissions correlate well with the optical barred spiral structure on large scales, have a gross enhancement overlapping with the optical/infrared ring, and show a trailing swirl around and within the ring. We propose a scenario of bar-excited long-trailing fast magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) density waves at the modified inner Lindblad resonance (mILR), physically identified with the outer rim of the ring. These sustained outgoing long waves are bounced back by the QM-barrier in the form of incoming short-trailing waves. The damping of these waves deposits a negative angular momentum into the magnetized circumnuclear gas disk. Thus, gas materials spiral inward, bring in frozen-in magnetic flux, and accumulate inside the mILR to create a circular zone of high density and magnetic flux vulnerable to massive star formation. Depending on the wave damping efficiency, this process may simultaneously sustain a net mass inflow across the ring and toward the nucleus. A wavelet analysis on a Hubble Space Telescope image of central NGC 1097 shows a distinct two-arm spiral structure extended down to the nucleus as a strong evidence for circumnuclear MHD density waves. We predict that magnetic field observations with improved sensitivity and resolution would eventually reveal a specific correspondence between circumnuclear optical and magnetic field spirals similar to those known to exist on large scales in nearby spiral galaxies, including NGC 1097.

Occludin is a functional component of the tight junction.

Occludin's role in mammalian tight junction activity was examined by 'labeling' the occludin pool with immunologically detectable chick occludin. This was accomplished by first transfecting MDCK cell with the Lac repressor gene. HygR clones were then transfected with chick occludin cDNA inserted into a Lac operator construct. The resulting HygR/NeoR clones were plated on porous inserts and allowed to form tight junctions. Once steady state transepithelial electrical resistance was achieved, isopropyl- beta-D-thiogalactoside was added to induce chick occludin expression. Confocal laser scanning microscopy of monolayers immunolabeled with Oc-2 monoclonal antibody revealed that chick occludin localized precisely to the preformed tight junctions. When sparse cultures were maintained in low Ca2+ medium, chick occludin and canine ZO-1 co-localized to punctate sites in the cytoplasm suggesting their association within the same vesicular structures. In low calcium medium both proteins also co-localized to contact sites between occasional cell pairs, where a prominent bar was formed at the plasma membrane. Chick occludin was detectable by western blot within two hours of adding isopropyl- beta-D-thiogalactoside to monolayers that had previously achieved steady state transepithelial electrical resistance; this coincided with focal immunofluorescence staining for chick occludin at the cell membrane of some cells. A gradual rise in transepithelial electrical resistance, above control steady state values, began five hours after addition of the inducing agent reaching new steady state values, which were 30-40% above baseline, 31 hours later. Upon removal of isopropyl- beta-D-thiogalactoside chick occludin expression declined slowly until it was no longer detected in western blots 72 hours later; transepithelial electrical resistance also returned to baseline values during this time. While densitometric analysis of western blots indicated that the presence of chick occludin had no detectable effect on E-cadherin or ZO-1 expression, the possibility cannot be excluded that ZO-1 might be a limiting factor in the expression of chick occludin at the cell surface. To test whether expression of chick occludin affected the process of tight junction assembly, monolayers in low Ca2+ medium were treated with isopropyl- beta-D-thiogalactoside for 24 or 48 hours, before Ca2+ was added to stimulate tight junction assembly. Chick occludin did not alter the rate at which transepithelial electrical resistance developed, however, steady state values were 30-40% above control monolayers not supplemented with the inducing agent. By freeze fracture analysis, the number of parallel tight junction strands shifted from a mode of three in controls to four strands in cells expressing chick occludin and the mean width of the tight junction network increased from 175 +/- 11 nm to 248 +/- 16 nm. Two days after plating confluent monolayers that were induced to express chick occludin, mannitol flux was reduced to a variable degree relative to control monolayers. With continued incubation with the inducing agent, mannitol flux increased on day 11 to 50%, and TER rose to 45% above controls. Both of these changes were reversible upon removal of isopropyl- beta-D-thiogalactoside. These data are consistent with the notion that occludin contributes to the electrical barrier function of the tight junction and possibly to the formation of aqueous pores within tight junction strands.

ROSAT PSPC and HRI observations of the composite starburst/Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 1672

The nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672 is thought to have a weak Seyfert nucleus in addition to its strong starburst activity. Observations with the PSPC and HRI instruments on board the ROSAT X-ray satellite show that three X-ray sources with luminosities (1--2)\times 10^{40} erg/s are clearly identified with NGC 1672. The strongest X-ray source lies at the nucleus, and the other two lie near the ends of the prominent bar, locations that are also bright in H-alpha and near-infrared images. The nuclear source is resolved by the HRI on about the scale of the recently identified nuclear ring, and one of the sources at the ends of the bar is also probably resolved. The X-ray spectrum of the nuclear source is quite soft, having a Raymond--Smith plasma temperature of about 0.7 keV and little evidence for intrinsic absorption. The ROSAT band X-ray flux of the nuclear source appears to be dominated not by X-ray binary emission but rather by diffuse gas emission. While the properties of the nuclear source are generally supportive of a superbubble interpretation, its large density and emission measure stretch the limits that can be comfortably accommodated by such models. We do not detect direct emission from the putative Seyfert nucleus, although an alternative model for the nuclear source is thermal emission from gas that is photoionized by a hidden Seyfert nucleus. The spectra of the other two X-ray sources are harder than that of the nuclear source, and superbubble models for them have the same strengths and weaknesses.

The Analysis of the Barred Galaxy NGC 6701

Images: 1.5m Spanish telescope in Calar Alto, Thomson blue coated 1024×1024 CCD, 0.31″pixel−1. Exposition times of 1800, 1500 and 1200 (BV R) and 2000 seconds (Hα and continuum) were used. Seeing FWHM = 1″. Spectra for NGC 6701: 3.5m telescope, PA=25°, 115°, 145° and 175° (Hβ region), 2.2m telescope, PA=25° and 115° (Hα region). The spectrum along the companion galaxy (PA=0°) was also obtained with the 2.2m telescope.In Figure 1a the bar is clearly seen, extending almost all along an axis very close to the disk minor axis. The spiral arms emerge from the bar, with the arm to the north being the more luminous one. The main spiral structure delineates a pseudo-outer ring when the arms close together. The prominent bar structure has a diamond-like aspect (22″×l2″) mainly traced by the two more intense sides. The zones just immediately inside these linear paths are notably fainter, as expected for a region in which the presence of dust is important. The ellipse fitting to the µB=23.5 mag arcsec−2 isophote gives a = 13, b = 12 and PA = 25°. Total (corrected) magnitudes are mB = 12.96(12.65), mV=12.44(12.20) and mI=11.64(11.46).

X-Ray Emission from the Starburst Galaxy IC 342

Multiple supernovae in starburst galaxies should produce a hot gas bubble that evolves through stages with distinctive X-ray signatures. We obtained X-ray observations of IC 342 with the ROSAT High Resolution Imager and find both diffuse and point source X-ray emission from the central region with a luminosity of 1.5×10 39 ergs s -1 . The diffuse emission has a diameter of 400 pc, a hot gas density of 0.2 cm -3 , and a pressure of ∼10 6 K cm -3 . The X-ray size and shape are similar to that seen at 1.4 GHz and in Hα but unlike the prominent molecular bar