Radiative signatures of dust and lines: From protostellar disks to active galactic nuclei

AST-0807417Elitzur该项目继续进行一项长期计划，以开发实用的辐射传输方法，并改进它们以适应新观测的进展。这一计划已经对天文脉泽和活动星系核(AGN)的尘埃红外发射的研究产生了革命性的影响。本工作将扩展和加强最近发展的两种技术，一种是多能级系统线发射的新的精确方法，另一种是处理块状介质辐射的新方法。这些改进将用于改进尘埃发射模型与即将到来的高分辨率观测的匹配，用于修正来自活动星系核的线发射的计算，删除错误的假设，用于实际计算尘埃的辐射压力，以及研究来自吸积盘的热线和脉泽线发射。该理论项目和观测团队之间的密切合作是这项研究的主要组成部分，因为该理论强烈植根于观测，开发的建模代码将继续放在公共领域，而过去的代码已被用于许多无关的研究。首席研究员保持着广泛的国际合作，以前的学生都继续积极参与该项目：该小组的一个主要成就是其持续的教育影响。

AST-0807417ElitzurThis project continues a long-term program to develop practical radiative transfer methods, and refine them to match the progress of new observations. This program has already had a transformative impact on studies of astronomical masers and dust infrared emission from active galactic nuclei (AGN). The present work will expand and enhance two recently developed techniques, one a new exact method for line emission from multi-level systems and the other for handling radiation from clumpy media. These enhancements will be used for improved matching of dust emission models to forthcoming high-resolution observations, for corrected calculations of line emission from AGN that remove faulty assumptions, for realistic calculations of radiation pressure on dust, and to study the thermal and maser line emission from accretion disks. Close collaboration between this theory program and the observing teams is a major ingredient of the research, because the theory is strongly anchored in observationsDeveloped modeling codes will continue to be placed in the public domain, and past codes have been used in many unrelated studies. The principal investigator maintains a broad range of international collaborations, and former students all continue active involvement with the program: a major accomplishment of this group has been its continuing educational impact.