Search

Based on space velocity components UVW and using a recent dataset for Castor and Ursa Major moving groups, we compute the apex position with two methods. Classical convergent procedures give (Acp, Dcp) = (80$$_{.}^{\circ}$$7830, –17$$_{.}^{\circ}$$2598; Castor, 298$$_{.}^{\circ}$$334, –34$$_{.}^{\circ}$$6405; UMa) for Castor and Ursa Major groups. According to the AD-map method we deduce the apex position (A0, D0) = (79$$_{.}^{\circ}$$5514, –17$$_{.}^{\circ}$$3948; Castor, 304$$_{.}^{\circ}$$767, ‒35$$_{.}^{\circ}$$2045; UMa) for these two objects. These results are in good agreement with other published coordinated. Also, we calculate all parameters with a model of stream velocity ellipsoidal motions, which reveals inner kinematical structure. Finally, we consider the intrinsic variations considered with late-type moving groups (streams) for the longitude of the vertex versus temperature (spectral types).

We determined the HI mass function of galaxies in the Ursa Major association of galaxies using a blind VLA-D array survey, consisting of 54 pointings in a cross pattern, covering the centre as well as the outskirts of the Ursa Major volume. The calculated HI mass function has best-fitting Schechter parameters {\theta}^* = 0.19+/-0.11 Mpc^{-3}, log(M^*_{HI}/M_{\odot}) = 9.8+/-0.8 and {\alpha} = -0.92+/-0.16. The high-mass end is determined by a complementary, targeted WSRT survey, the low-mass end is determined by the blind VLA survey. The slope is significantly shallower than the slopes of the HIPASS ({\alpha} = -1.37+/-0.03+/-0.05) and ALFALFA ({\alpha} = -1.33+/-0.02) HI mass functions, which are measured over much larger volumes and cover a wider range of cosmic environments: There is a relative lack of low HI mass galaxies in the Ursa Major region. This difference in the slope strongly hints at an environmental dependence of the HI mass function slope., Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We use the second Gaia data release to investigate the kinematics of 17 ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (UFDs) and 154 globular clusters (GCs) in the Milky Way, focusing on the differences between static and evolving models of the Galactic potential. An evolving potential modifies a satellite's orbit relative to its static equivalent, though the difference is small compared to existing uncertainties on orbital parameters. We find that the UFD Bo\"otes II is likely on its first passage around the Milky Way. Depending on the assumed mass of the Milky Way, the UFDs Triangulum II, Hydrus I, Coma Berenices, Draco II, and Ursa Major II, as well as the GC Pyxis, may also be on first infall so may be useful for constraining the mass of the Galaxy. We identify a clear kinematic distinction between metal-rich (${\rm [Fe/H]}>-1.1$) and metal-poor GCs (${\rm [Fe/H]}\leq-1.1$). Although most metal-rich clusters occupy predominately prograde orbits, with low eccentricities ($e\approx 0.35$) and similar specific angular momenta and orbital planes as the Galactic disc, 7 show potentially retrograde orbits, the origin of which is unclear. Metal-poor clusters have more diverse orbits, higher eccentricities ($e\approx 0.65$), and half have orbital planes offset from the disc by 60 to 120 degrees. The UFDs have similar $\theta$ and $\phi$ to the metal-poor GCs, suggesting a similar origin. We provide a catalogue of orbital parameters for UFDs and GCs for two different Galaxy masses and their observational uncertainties., Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Context. We present a large homogeneous set of stellar parameters and abundances across a broad range of metallicities, involving 13 classical dwarf spheroidal (dSph) and ultra-faint dSph (UFD) galaxies. In total, this study includes 380 stars in Fornax, Sagittarius, Sculptor, Sextans, Carina, Ursa Minor, Draco, Reticulum II, Bootes I, Ursa Major II, Leo I, Segue I, and Triangulum II. This sample represents the largest, homogeneous, high-resolution study of dSph galaxies to date. Aims. With our homogeneously derived catalog, we are able to search for similar and deviating trends across different galaxies. We investigate the mass dependence of the individual systems on the production of α-elements, but also try to shed light on the long-standing puzzle of the dominant production site of r-process elements. Methods. We used data from the Keck observatory archive and the ESO reduced archive to reanalyze stars from these 13 classical dSph and UFD galaxies. We automatized the step of obtaining stellar parameters, but ran a full spectrum synthesis (1D, local thermal equilibrium) to derive all abundances except for iron to which we applied nonlocal thermodynamic equilibrium corrections where possible. Results. The homogenized set of abundances yielded the unique possibility of deriving a relation between the onset of type Ia supernovae and the stellar mass of the galaxy. Furthermore, we derived a formula to estimate the evolution of α-elements. This reveals a universal relation of these systems across a large range in mass. Finally, we show that between stellar masses of 2.1 × 107 M⊙ and 2.9 × 105 M⊙, there is no dependence of the production of heavy r-process elements on the stellar mass of the galaxy. Conclusions. Placing all abundances consistently on the same scale is crucial to answering questions about the chemical history of galaxies. By homogeneously analyzing Ba and Eu in the 13 systems, we have traced the onset of the s-process and found it to increase with metallicity as a function of the galaxy’s stellar mass. Moreover, the r-process material correlates with the α-elements indicating some coproduction of these, which in turn would point toward rare core-collapse supernovae rather than binary neutron star mergers as a host for the r-process at low [Fe/H] in the investigated dSph systems.

The distribution of dark matter in dwarf galaxies can have important implications on our understanding of galaxy formation as well as the particle physics properties of dark matter. However, accurately characterizing the dark matter content of dwarf galaxies is challenging due to limited data and complex dynamics that are difficult to accurately model. In this paper, we apply spherical Jeans modeling to simulated stellar kinematic data of spherical, isotropic dwarf galaxies with the goal of identifying the future observational directions that can improve the accuracy of the inferred dark matter distributions in the Milky Way dwarf galaxies. We explore how the dark matter inference is affected by the location and number of observed stars as well as the line-of-sight velocity measurement errors. We use mock observation to demonstrate the difficulty in constraining the inner core/cusp of the dark matter distribution with datasets of fewer than 10,000 stars. We also demonstrate the need for additional measurements to make robust estimates of the expected dark matter annihilation signal strength. For the purpose of deriving robust indirect detection constraints, we identify Ursa Major II, Ursa Minor, and Draco as the systems that would most benefit from additional stars being observed., 27+16 pages, 12+17 figures

A study on the CO 12 , CO 13 , and C18O lines of the high Galactic latitude cloud HSVMT 27, located in Ursa Major, was conducted. A relatively low CO 12 excitation temperature was found. While some C18O emissions were detected, they were too weak to be mapped. With the spatial resolution of 0.08 pc and the velocity resolution of 0.17 km·s−1, 26 CO 13 cores were identified in the dense regions. All the local thermodynamic equilibrium masses of these cores are less than their Virial masses, ranging in 0.5–10 M⊙, and have no infrared point sources associated with them. Overall, the data indicate that there is no recent or ongoing star formation in this cloud.

We search for RR Lyrae stars in 27 nearby ($, Accepted for publication in ApJSS

Our view of the interstellar medium of the Milky Way and the universe beyond is affected by the structure of the local environment in the solar neighborhood. We present the discovery of a 30-degree-long arc of ultraviolet emission with a thickness of only a few arcminutes: the Ursa Major arc. This consists of several arclets seen in the near- and far-ultraviolet bands of the GALEX satellite. A two degree section of the arc was first detected in the Hα optical spectral line in 1997; additional sections were seen in the optical by the team of amateur astronomers included in this work. This direction of the sky is known for very low hydrogen column density and dust extinction; many deep fields for extragalactic and cosmological investigations lie in this direction. Diffuse ultraviolet and optical interstellar emission are often attributed to scattering of light by interstellar dust. The lack of correlation between the Ursa Major arc and thermal dust emission observed with the Planck satellite, however, suggests that other emission mechanisms must be at play. We discuss the origin of the Ursa Major arc as the result of an interstellar shock in the solar neighborhood.

Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) at low acceleration has been astonishingly powerful at explaining the flat rotation curve of galaxies and the relation between the baryonic content of the galaxies and their observed circular velocity, known as the Baryonic Tully-Fisher Relationship (BTFR). It is known that MOND fails at explaining the observed velocity dispersion of the ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (UFDs) with the justification that UFDs are more prone to tidal disruption in MOND compared to cold dark matter model. We show that: (i) the ratio of tidal to internal acceleration in UFDs is extremely low, (ii) there is no correlation between the deviation of UFDs from MOND's prediction as a function of tidal susceptibility, and (iii) recent constraints from Gaia proper motion analysis on the orbital parameters of the UFDs exacerbates the challenge to MOND. In particular, Gaia data indicates that Ursa Major I is experiencing a recent infall into the Milky Way's halo, and its inconsistency with MOND at 7-$\sigma$ level can not be attributed to being an early infall satellite. Moreover, the new data from Gaia DR2 shows Willman I to have the least eccentric orbit of all UFDs, and its deviation from MOND at 4-$\sigma$ level can not be attributed to a highly eccentric orbit as previously suggested. Finally, given that Tucana III is the only UFD observed to show tidal features, Reticulum II and Segue I are two other UFDs that potentially challenge MOND as they have comparable galactocentric distances to Tucana III while showing no tidal features. Whether wide binaries have inflated the velocity dispersion of the UFDs remains an open question to be addressed with future multi-epoch observations., Comment: Revised version, accepted for publication at ApJ Letters

We present a description of the Dragonfly Wide Field Survey (DWFS), a deep photometric survey of a wide area of sky. The DWFS covers 330 $\mathrm{deg}^2$ in the equatorial GAMA fields and the Stripe 82 fields in the SDSS $g$ and $r$ bands. It is carried out with the 48-lens Dragonfly Telephoto Array, a telescope that is optimized for the detection of low surface brightness emission. The main goal of the survey is to study the dwarf galaxy population beyond the Local Group. In this paper, we describe the survey design and show early results. We reach $1\sigma$ depths of $\mu_g\approx 31$ mag arcsec$^{-2}$ on arcminute scales and show that Milky Way satellites such as Sextans, Bootes, and Ursa Major should be detectable out to $D\gtrsim 10$ Mpc. We also provide an overview of the elements and operation of the 48-lens Dragonfly telescope and a detailed description of its data reduction pipeline. The pipeline is fully automated, with individual frames subjected to a rigorous series of quality tests. The sky subtraction is performed in two stages, ensuring that emission features with spatial scales up to $\sim 0.^{\circ}9 \times 0.^{\circ}6$ are preserved. The DWFS provides unparalleled sensitivity to low surface brightness features on arcminute scales., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. This is the first paper in the series. Preliminary results from the survey are shown in figures 5-10

The low velocity of interstellar asteroid 1I/'Oumuamua with respect to our galaxy's Local Standard of Rest implies it is young. Adopting the young age hypothesis, we assess possible origin systems for this interstellar asteroid and for 2I/Borisov, though the latter's higher speed means it is unlikely to be young. First, their past trajectories are modelled under gravitational scattering by galactic components ('disk heating') to assess how far back one can trace them. The stochastic nature of disk heating means that a back-integration can only expect to be accurate to within 15 pc and 2 kms$^{-1}$ at -10 Myr, dropping steeply to 400 pc and 10 kms$^{-1}$ at -100 Myr, sharply limiting our ability to determine a precise origin. Nevertheless, we show `Oumuamua's origin system is likely currently within 1 kpc of Earth, in the local Orion Arm. Second, we back-integrate 'Oumuamua's trajectory to assess source regions, emphasizing young systems and moving groups. Though disk heating allows for only a statistical link to source regions, `Oumuamua passed through a considerable subset of the Carina and Columba moving groups when those groups were forming. This makes them perhaps the most plausible source region, if 'Oumuamua was ejected during planet formation or via intra-cluster interactions. We find three stars in the Ursa Major group, one brown dwarf, and seven other stars to have plausible encounters with 2I/Borisov, within 2 pc and 30 kms$^{-1}$. These encounters' high relative speeds mean none are likely to be the home of 2I/Borisov., 23 pages, 3 figures, 2 animated figures. Accepted by the Astronomical Journal. Updated to reflect changes to the accepted version

We investigated almost 500 stars distributed among 193 binary or multiple systems made of late-F, G-, or early-K primaries and late-K or M dwarf companion candidates. For all of them, we compiled or measured coordinates, J-band magnitudes, spectral types, distances, and proper motions.With these data, we established a sample of 192 physically bound systems. In parallel, we carried out observations with HERMES/Mercator and obtained high resolution spectra for the 192 primaries and five secondaries. We used these spectra and the automatic StePar code for deriving precise stellar atmospheric parameters: Teff, log g, Vmicro, and chemical abundances for 13 atomic species, including [Fe/H]. After computing Galactocentric space velocities for all the primary stars, we performed a kinematic analysis and classified them in different Galactic populations and stellar kinematic groups of very different ages, which match our own metallicity determinations and isochronal age estimations. In particular, we identified three systems in the halo and 33 systems in the young Local Association, Ursa Major and Castor moving groups, and IC 2391 and Hyades Superclusters. We finally studied the exoplanet-metallicity relation in our 193 primaries and made a list 13 M-dwarf companions with very high metallicity that can be the targets of new dedicated exoplanet surveys. All in all, our dataset will be of great help for future works on the accurate determination of metallicity of M dwarfs., accepted for publication in MNRAS, 49 pages, 11 figures and 10 tables

The atomic interstellar medium (ISM) is observed to be full of linear structures that are referred to as "fibers". Fibers exhibit similar properties to linear structures found in molecular clouds known as striations. Suggestive of a similar formation mechanism, both striations and fibers appear to be ordered, quasi-periodic, and well-aligned with the magnetic field. The prevailing formation mechanism for striations involves the excitation of fast magnetosonic waves. Based on this theoretical model, and through a combination of velocity centroids and column density maps, Tritsis et al. (2018) developed a method for estimating the plane-of-sky (POS) magnetic field from molecular cloud striations. We apply this method in two H\textsc{I} clouds with fibers along the same line-of-sight (LOS) towards the ultra-high-energy cosmic-ray (UHECR) hotspot, at the boundaries of Ursa Major. For the cloud located closer to Earth, where Zeeman observations from the literature were also available, we find general agreement in the distributions of the LOS and POS components of the magnetic field. We find relatively large values for the total magnetic field (ranging from $\sim$$\rm{10}$ to $\sim$$\rm{20} ~\rm{\mu G}$) and an average projection angle with respect to the LOS of $\sim$ 50$^\circ$. For the cloud located further away, we also find a large value for the POS component of the magnetic field of $15^{+8}_{-3}~\rm{\mu G}$. We discuss the potential of our new magnetic-field tomography method for large-scale application. We consider the implications of our findings for the accuracy of current reconstructions of the Galactic magnetic field and on the propagation of UHECR through the ISM., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, published in ApJ

We present a study of age-related spectral signatures observed in 25 young low-mass objects that we have previously determined as possible kinematic members of five young moving groups: the Local Association (Pleiades moving group, age = 20-150 Myr), the Ursa Major group (Sirius supercluster, age = 300 Myr), the Hyades supercluster (age = 600 Myr), IC 2391 supercluster (age = 35-55 Myr) and the Castor moving group (age = 200 Myr). In this paper we characterize the spectral properties of observed high- or low-resolution spectra of our kinematic members by fitting theoretical spectral distributions. We study signatures of youth, such as lithium i 6708A, H alpha emission and other age-sensitive spectroscopic signatures in order to confirm the kinematic memberships through age constraints. We find that 21 (84 per cent) targets show spectroscopic signatures of youth in agreement with the age ranges of the moving group to which membership is implied. For two further objects, age-related constraints remain difficult to determine from our analysis. In addition, we confirm two moving group kinematic candidates as brown dwarfs.

We present a homogeneous set of accurate atmospheric parameters for a complete sample of very and extremely metal-poor stars in the dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) Sculptor, Ursa Minor, Sextans, Fornax, Bo��tes I, Ursa Major II, and Leo IV. We also deliver a Milky Way (MW) comparison sample of giant stars covering the -4 < [Fe/H] < -1.7 metallicity range. We show that, in the [Fe/H] > -3.5 regime, the non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) calculations with non-spectroscopic effective temperature (Teff) and surface gravity (log~g) based on the photometric methods and known distance provide consistent abundances of the Fe I and Fe II lines. This justifies the Fe I/Fe II ionisation equilibrium method to determine log g for the MW halo giants with unknown distance. The atmospheric parameters of the dSphs and MW stars were checked with independent methods. In the [Fe/H] > -3.5 regime, the Ti I/Ti II ionisation equilibrium is fulfilled in the NLTE calculations. In the log~g - Teff plane, all the stars sit on the giant branch of the evolutionary tracks corresponding to [Fe/H] = -2 to -4, in line with their metallicities. For some of the most metal-poor stars of our sample, we hardly achieve consistent NLTE abundances from the two ionisation stages for both iron and titanium. We suggest that this is a consequence of the uncertainty in the Teff-colour relation at those metallicities. The results of these work provide the base for a detailed abundance analysis presented in a companion paper., 25 pages, 7 tables, 7 figures, A&A, accepted

We present the results of a survey to detect low-mass companions of UMa group members, carried out in 2003-2006 with NACO at the ESO VLT. While many extra-solar planets and planetary candidates have been found in close orbits around stars by the radial velocity and the transit method, direct detections at wider orbits are rare. The Ursa Major (UMa) group, a young stellar association at an age of about 200-600 Myr and an average distance of 25 pc, has not yet been addressed as a whole although its members represent a very interesting sample to search for and characterize sub-stellar companions by direct imaging. Our goal was to find or to provide detection limits on wide sub-stellar companions around nearby UMa group members using high-resolution imaging. We searched for faint companions around 20 UMa group members within 30 pc. The primaries were placed below a semi-transparent coronagraph, a rather rarely used mode of NACO, to increase the dynamic range of the images. In most cases, second epoch images of companion candidates were taken to check whether they share common proper motion with the primary. Our coronagraphic images rule out sub-stellar companions around the stars of the sample. A dynamical range of typically 13-15 mag in the Ks band was achieved at separations beyond 3" from the star. Candidates as faint as Ks ~ 20 were securely identified and measured. The survey is most sensitive between separations of 100 and 200 au but only on average because of the very different target distance. Field coverage reaches about 650 au for the most distant targets. Most of the 200 candidates are visible in two epochs. All of those were rejected being distant background objects., accepted for publication in A&A; 25 pages, 15 figures, 7 tables

We have conducted the first blind HI survey covering 480 deg^2 and a heliocentric velocity range from 300-1900 km/s to investigate the HI content of the nearby spiral-rich Ursa Major region and to look for previously uncatalogued gas-rich objects. Here we present the catalog of HI sources. The HI data were obtained with the 4-beam receiver mounted on the 76.2-m Lovell telescope (FWHM 12 arcmin) at the Jodrell Bank Observatory (UK) as part of the HI Jodrell All Sky Survey (HIJASS). We use the automated source finder DUCHAMP and identify 166 HI sources in the data cubes with HI masses in the range of 10^7 - 10^{10.5} M_sun. Our Ursa Major HI catalogue includes 10 first time detections in the 21-cm emission line. We identify optical counterparts for 165 HI sources (99 per cent). For 54 HI sources (33 per cent) we find numerous optical counterparts in the HIJASS beam, indicating a high density of galaxies and likely tidal interactions. Four of these HI systems are discussed in detail. We find only one HI source (1 per cent) without a visible optical counterpart out of the 166 HI detections. Green Bank Telescope (FWHM 9 arcmin) follow-up observations confirmed this HI source and its HI properties. The nature of this detection is discussed and compared to similar sources in other HI surveys., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Recently, several studies have shown that young, open clusters are characterised by a considerable over-abundance in their barium content. In particular, D'Orazi et al. (2009) reported that in some younger clusters [Ba/Fe] can reach values as high as ~0.6 dex. The work also identified the presence of an anti-correlation between [Ba/Fe] and cluster age. For clusters in the age range ~4.5 Gyr-500 Myr, this is best explained by assuming a higher contribution from low-mass asymptotic giant branch stars to the Galactic chemical enrichment. The purpose of this work is to investigate the ubiquity of the barium over-abundance in young stellar clusters. We analysed high-resolution spectroscopic data, focusing on the s-process elemental abundance for three nearby young associations, i.e. AB Doradus, Carina-Near, and Ursa Major. The clusters have been chosen such that their age spread would complement the D'Orazi et al. (2009) study. We find that while the s-process elements Y, Zr, La, and Ce exhibit solar ratios in all three associations, Ba is over-abundant by ~0.2 dex. Current theoretical models can not reproduce this abundance pattern, thus we investigate whether this unusually large Ba content might be related to chromospheric effects. Although no correlation between [Ba/Fe] and several activity indicators seems to be present, we conclude that different effects could be at work which may (directly or indirectly) be related to the presence of hot stellar chromospheres.

Two potential sites of H 2 formation have been discovered in diffuse gas at high Galactic latitude through examining the far-infrared (FIR) H I ratio and looking for an excess over that expected from an atomic medium. We call these the Spider and Ursa Major fields. New 12 CO and 13 CO Five College Radio Astronomical Observatory observations are presented for both regions (53 936 spectra in the Spider and 23 517 spectra in Ursa Major). Although there is a correlation between FIR excess and CO emission, we find that the FIR excess peaks do not coincide with the 12 CO emission peaks, indicating that CO might be a poor tracer of H 2 in diffuse regions. This implies (i) that the density is too small to allow CO excitation, (ii) that the CO self-shielding is insufficient or (iii) local variations of the dust properties. The 12 CO observations are compared with H I observation from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory. We decompose the 10 000 H I profiles of the Spider and the 20 302 H I profiles of Ursa Major into Gaussian components. We always find at most two narrow components and one broad component. CO always seems to appear where two H I velocity components merge or where there is a H I velocity-shear.

We report the detection of a faint stellar companion to the famous nearby A5V star Alcor (80 UMa). The companion has M-band ($\lambda$ = 4.8 $\mu$m) magnitude 8.8 and projected separation 1".11 (28 AU) from Alcor. The companion is most likely a low-mass ($\sim$0.3 \msun) active star which is responsible for Alcor's X-ray emission detected by ROSAT (L$_{\rm X}$ $\simeq$ 10$^{28.3}$ erg/s). Alcor is a nuclear member of the Ursa Major star cluster (UMa; d $\simeq$ 25 pc, age $\simeq$ 0.5 Gyr), and has been occasionally mentioned as a possible distant (709") companion of the stellar quadruple Mizar ($\zeta$ UMa). Comparing the revised Hipparcos proper motion for Alcor with the mean motion for other UMa nuclear members shows that Alcor has a peculiar velocity of 1.1 km/s, which is comparable to the predicted velocity amplitude induced by the newly-discovered companion ($\sim$1 km/s). Using a precise dynamical parallax for Mizar and the revised Hipparcos parallax for Alcor, we find that Mizar and Alcor are physically separated by 0.36 $\pm$ 0.19 pc (74 $\pm$ 39 kAU; minimum 18 kAU), and their velocity vectors are marginally consistent ($\chi^2$ probability 6%). Given their close proximity and concordant motions we suggest that the Mizar quadruple and the Alcor binary be together considered the 2nd closest stellar sextuplet. The addition of Mizar-Alcor to the census of stellar multiples with six or more components effectively doubles the local density of such systems within the local volume (d $, Comment: 28 pages, 2 figures, AJ, in press; emulateapj short version at http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~emamajek/alcor.pdf

We have studied some kinematic features of the coronas of near-solar stellar streams, based on Hipparcos observations. Apex diagrams for kinematic streams, open clusters, and field stars are plotted. In our analysis, we used the apex-diagram (AD) method we developed earlier. We find that the Eggen streams and Arcturus stream have similar properties, providing evidence for kinematic inhomogeneity of their coronas and the existence of stellar groups such as those detected in the corona of the Ursa Major stream.

We use kinematic data from three new, nearby, extremely low-luminosity Milky Way dwarf galaxies (Ursa Major II, Willman 1, and Coma Berenices) to constrain the properties of their dark matter halos, and from these make predictions for the gamma-ray flux from annihilation of dark matter particles in these halos. We show that these 10^3 solar luminosity dwarfs are the most dark matter dominated galaxies in the Universe, with total masses within 100 pc in excess of 10^6 solar masses. Coupled with their relative proximity, their large masses imply that they should have mean gamma-ray fluxes comparable to or greater than any other known satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. Our results are robust to both variations of the inner slope of the density profile and the effect of tidal interactions. The fluxes could be boosted by up to two orders of magnitude if we include the density enhancements caused by surviving dark matter substructure., 9 pages, 4 figures. Minor typos corrected

We consider kinematic inhomogeneities (stellar groups) in the corona of the Ursa Major flow. We show that the orientation of the major axis of the error ellipse for each star is defined by its position relative to its own apex. We apply the AD-diagram method suggested by us earlier; a statistical analysis confirms the existence of stellar groups in the corona of the Ursa Major flow.

The proper motion measurements for 143 previously known L and T dwarfs are presented. From this sample we identify and discuss 8 high velocity L dwarfs. We also find 4 new wide common proper motion binaries/multiple systems. Using the moving cluster methods we have also identified a number of L dwarfs that may be members of the Ursa Major (age ~400 Myr), the Hyades (age ~625 Myr) and the Pleiades (age ~125 Myr) moving groups., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 16 pages, 8 tables, 8 figures

The Hyades Cluster is used to analyze details of the AD-diagram method developed in our earlier works and applied to the corona of the Ursa Major stream. Hipparcos data are used to analyze the kinematics of the Hyades Cluster and determine its apex. Evidence for rotation of the cluster is presented.

We identify gravitationally bound structures in the Ursa Major region using positions, velocities and photometry from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS DR7) and the Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies (RC3). A friends-of-friends algorithm is extensively tested on mock galaxy lightcones and then implemented on the real data to determine galaxy groups whose members are likely to be physically and dynamically associated with one another. We find several galaxy groups within the region that are likely bound to one another and in the process of merging. We classify 6 galaxy groups as the Ursa Major `supergroup', which are likely to merge and form a poor cluster with a mass of ~8x10^13 Msun. Furthermore, the Ursa Major supergroup as a whole is likely bound to the Virgo cluster, which will eventually form an even larger system in the context of hierarchical structure formation. [abridged], 40 pages, 28 figures. PASA accepted 22 July 2016

We present high-resolution Large Binocular Telescope LBTI/LMIRcam images of the spectroscopic and astrometric binary NO UMa obtained as part of the LBTI Exozodi Exoplanet Common Hunt (LEECH) exoplanet imaging survey. Our H, K$_s$, and L'-band observations resolve the system at angular separations, 11 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

We have used the moving cluster method to identify three L dwarfs and one T dwarf in the Ursa Major/Sirius moving group (age 400 Myr). Five L dwarfs and two T dwarfs are found to belong to the Hyades moving group (age 625 Myr). These L and T dwarfs define 400- and 625- Myr empirical isochrones, assuming that they have the same age. Moving group membership does not guarantee coevality., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

We use Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 5 photometry and spectroscopy to study a tidal stream that extends over 50 degrees in the North Galactic Cap. From the analysis of the path of the stream and the colors and magnitudes of its stars, the stream is about 20 kpc away at its nearest detection (the celestial equator). We detect a distance gradient -- the stream is farther away from us at higher declination. The contents of the stream are made up from a predominantly old and metal-poor population that is similar to the globular clusters M13 and M92. The integrated absolute magnitude of the stream stars is estimated to be M_r = -7.5. There istentative evidence for a velocity signature, with the stream moving at -40 km/s at low declinations and +100 km/s at high declinations. The stream lies on the same great circle as Complex A, a roughly linear association of HI high velocity clouds stretching over 30 degrees on the sky, and as Ursa Major II, a recently discovered dwarf spheroidal galaxy. Lying close to the same great circle are a number of anomalous, young and metal-poor globular clusters, including Palomar 1 and Ruprecht 106., Comment: ApJ, in press

Prominent in the `Field of Streams' -- the Sloan Digital Sky Survey map of substructure in the Galactic halo -- is an `Orphan Stream' without obvious progenitor. In this numerical study, we show a possible connection between the newly found dwarf satellite Ursa Major II (UMa II) and the Orphan Stream. We provide numerical simulations of the disruption of UMa II that match the observational data on the position, distance and morphology of the Orphan Stream. We predict the radial velocity of UMa II as -100 km/s as well as the existence of strong velocity gradients along the Orphan Stream. The velocity dispersion of UMa II is expected to be high, though this can be caused both by a high dark matter content or by the presence of unbound stars in a disrupted remnant. However, the existence of a gradient in the mean radial velocity across UMa II provides a clear-cut distinction between these possibilities. The simulations support the idea that some of the anomalous, young halo globular clusters like Palomar 1 or Arp 2 or Ruprecht 106 may be physically associated with the Orphan Stream.

Dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies are prime targets for present and future gamma-ray telescopes hunting for indirect signals of particle dark matter. The interpretation of the data requires careful assessment of their dark matter content in order to derive robust constraints on candidate relic particles. Here, we use an optimised spherical Jeans analysis to reconstruct the `astrophysical factor' for both annihilating and decaying dark matter in 21 known dSphs. Improvements with respect to previous works are: (i) the use of more flexible luminosity and anisotropy profiles to minimise biases, (ii) the use of weak priors tailored on extensive sets of contamination-free mock data to improve the confidence intervals, (iii) systematic cross-checks of binned and unbinned analyses on mock and real data, and (iv) the use of mock data including stellar contamination to test the impact on reconstructed signals. Our analysis provides updated values for the dark matter content of 8 `classical' and 13 `ultrafaint' dSphs, with the quoted uncertainties directly linked to the sample size; the more flexible parametrisation we use results in changes compared to previous calculations. This translates into our ranking of potentially-brightest and most robust targets---viz., Ursa Minor, Draco, Sculptor---, and of the more promising, but uncertain targets---viz., Ursa Major 2, Coma---for annihilating dark matter. Our analysis of Segue 1 is extremely sensitive to whether we include or exclude a few marginal member stars, making this target one of the most uncertain. Our analysis illustrates challenges that will need to be addressed when inferring the dark matter content of new `ultrafaint' satellites that are beginning to be discovered in southern sky surveys., 19 pages, 14 figures, submitted to MNRAS. Supplementary material available on request

We report on a 60 degree-long stream of stars, extending from Ursa Major to Sextans, in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The stream is approximately 2 degrees wide and is clearly distinct from the northern tidal arm of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. The apparent width of the stream suggests a progenitor with a size and mass similar to that of a dwarf galaxy. The stream is about 21 kpc distant and appears to be oriented almost perpendicular to our line of sight. The visible portion of the stream does not pass near any known dwarf galaxies, though we cannot rule out that the stream may form the inner part of a known dwarf galaxy's orbit. The most likely explanation is that the stream constitutes the remains a dwarf galaxy that has been completely disrupted at some point in the past. We also briefly report on the discovery of a diminutive Galactic satellite which lies near the projected path of the new stream, but is unlikely to be related to it.

Aims. We study the kinematic structure of peripheral areas of the Ursa Majoris stream (Sirius supercluster). Methods. We use diagrams of individual stellar apexes developed by us and the classical technique of proper motion diagrams generalized to a star sample distributed over the sky. Results. Out of 128 cluster members we have identified three corona (sub)structures comprised of 13, 13 and 8 stars. The substructures have a spatial extension comparable to the size of the corona. Kinematically, these groups are distinguished by their proper motions, radial velocities and by the directions of their spatial motion. Coordinates of their apexes significantly differ from those of the apexes of the stream and its nucleus. Our analysis shows that these substructures do not belong to known kinematic groups, such as Hyades or Castor. We find kinematic inhomogeneity of the corona of the UMa stream.

We report on the detection in Sloan Digital Sky Survey data of a 45° tidal stream of stars, extending from Bootes to Ursa Major, which we associate with the halo globular cluster NGC 5466. Using an optimal contrast, matched-filter technique, we find a long, almost linear stellar stream with an average width of 14. The stream is an order of magnitude more tenuous than the stream associated with Palomar 5. The stream's orientation on the sky is consistent to a greater or lesser extent with existing proper-motion measurements for the cluster.

We examine two corollaries of MOND pertaining to the properties of the equivalent dark-matter halo. MOND predicts for pure exponential discs a tight relation involving the halo and disc scale lengths and the mean acceleration in the disc, which we find to test favorably against the Verheijen sample of Ursa Major galaxies. A correlation between halo and disc length scales is also apparent when the "maximum disc" contribution is assumed, but we demonstrate that this follows from the more general MOND prediction. The second MOND prediction involves the existence of a maximum halo acceleration, which also tests favorably against the Ursa Major sample for different assumptions on the disc contribution.

Utilizing Hipparcos parallaxes, original radial velocities and recent literature values, new Ca ii H and K emission measurements, literature-based abundance estimates, and updated photometry (including recent resolved measurements of close doubles), we revisit the Ursa Major moving group membership status of some 220 stars to produce a final clean list of nearly 60 assured members, based on kinematic and photometric criteria. Scatter in the velocity dispersions and H-R diagram is correlated with trial activity-based membership assignments, indicating the usefulness of criteria based on photometric and chromospheric emission to examine membership. Closer inspection, however, shows that activity is considerably more robust at excluding membership, failing to do so only for � 15% of objects, perhaps considerably less. Our UMa members demonstrate nonzero vertex deviation in the Bottlinger diagram, behavior seen in older and recent studies of nearby young disk stars and perhaps related to Galactic spiral structure. Comparison of isochrones and our final UMa group members indicates an age of 500 � 100 Myr, some 200 Myr older than the canonically quoted UMa age. Our UMa kinematic=photometric members’ mean chromospheric emission levels, rotational velocities, and scatter therein are indistinguishable from values in the Hyades and smaller than those evinced by members of the younger Pleiades and M34 clusters, suggesting these characteristics decline rapidly with age over 200–500 Myr. None of our UMa members demonstrate inordinately low absolute values of chromospheric emission, but several may show residual fluxes a factor of � 2 below a Hyades-defined lower envelope. If one defines a Maunder-like minimum in a relative sense, then the UMa results may suggest that solar-type stars spend 10% of their entire main-sequence lives in periods of precipitously low activity, which is consistent with estimates from older field stars. As related asides, we note six evolved stars (among our UMa nonmembers) with distinctive kinematics that lie along a 2 Gyr isochrone and appear to be late-type counterparts to disk F stars defining intermediate-age star streams in previous studies, identify a small number of potentially very young but isolated field stars, note that active stars (whether UMa members or not) in our sample lie very close to the solar composition zero-age main sequence, unlike Hipparcos-based positions in the H-R diagram of Pleiades dwarfs, and argue that some extant transformations of activity indices are not adequate for cool dwarfs, for which Ca ii infrared triplet emission seems to be a better proxy than H� -based values for Ca ii H and K indices.

We investigate the possibility of identifying substructures in velocity space in three well-known stellar streams (the Hyades, the Pleiades, and Ursa Major) using a cluster-analysis method (the maximum-density method). Only compact groups in velocity space with radii no greater than 5 km/s and containing at least 10 members were considered. As an example, we analyzed a sample of 5377 stars from the HIPPARCOS catalog with known radial velocities located within 75 pc of the Sun. We identified a total of 24 groups of stars. Monte Carlo simulations show that most (about 80%) of these groups could be the results of Poisson noise and observational errors. Bona fide identification (at a significance level greater than 90%) of compact moving groups based on kinematic data requires higher accuracy of the stellar spatial velocities (with errors no greater than 1–2 km/s in each component).

We present the results of the analysis of deep archival \sat\ observations towards the dwarf spheroidal galaxies Draco, Leo I, Ursa Major II and Ursa Minor in the Milky Way neighbourhood. The X-ray source population is characterized and cross-correlated with available databases with the aim to infer their nature. We also investigate if intermediate-mass black holes are hosted in the center of these galaxies. In the case of Draco, we detect 96 high-energy sources, two of them being possibly local stars, while no evidence for any X-ray emitting central compact object is found. Towards the Leo I and UMa II field of view we reveal 116 and 49 X-ray sources, respectively. None of them correlates with the putative central black holes and only one is likely associated with a UMa II local source. The study of the UMi dwarf galaxy shows 54 high-energy sources and a possible association {with a source at the dSph center}. We put an upper limit to the central compact object luminosity of 4.02$\times$10$^{33}$ erg/s. Furthermore, via the correlation with a radio source near the galactic center, we get that the putative black hole should have a mass of $\left(2.76^{+32.00}_{-2.54}\right)\times10^6 M_{\odot}$ and be radiatively inefficient. This confirms a previous result obtained by using Chandra data alone.

Wavelength measurements in stellar spectra cannot readily be interpretedas true stellar motion on the sub-km s-1 accuracy level dueto the presence of many other effects, such as gravitational redshiftand stellar convection, which also produce line shifts. Following arecommendation by the IAU, the result of an accurate spectroscopicradial-velocity observation should therefore be given as the``barycentric radial-velocity measure'', i.e. the absolute spectralshift as measured by an observer at zero gravitational potential locatedat the solar-system barycentre. Standard procedures for reducingaccurate radial-velocity observations should be reviewed to take intoaccount this recommendation. We describe a procedure to determineaccurate barycentric radial-velocity measures of bright stars, based ondigital cross-correlation of spectra obtained with the ELODIEspectrometer (Observatoire de Haute-Provence) with a synthetic templateof Fe I lines. The absolute zero point of the radial-velocity measuresis linked to the wavelength scale of the Kurucz (1984) Solar Flux Atlasvia ELODIE observations of the Moon. Results are given for the Sun and42 stars, most of them members of the Hyades and Ursa Major clusters.The median internal standard error is 27 m s-1. The externalerror is estimated at around 120 m s-1, mainly reflecting theuncertainty in the wavelength scale of the Solar Flux Atlas. For the Sunwe find a radial-velocity measure of +257+/- 11 m s-1referring to the full-disk spectrum of the selected Fe I lines. Based onobservations made at Observatoire de Haute-Provence

The Teerikorpi cluster incompleteness bias for galaxy clusters is demonstrated using a simplified model of an artificial cluster. The distance indicator for this demonstration is the combination of the Hubble morphological type (T) and the van den Bergh luminosity class (L) introduced in Paper V. The model shows that the luminosity function must be sampled to ~3.5 mag fainter than the brightest cluster galaxy if a distance modulus that is accurate to ~0.1 mag is to be achieved using the T-L method. The bias properties of the artificial model are demonstrated using actual data from the complete catalogs of the Virgo and the Ursa Major Cluster galaxies. The derived bias-free distance moduli derived from the data are (m - M)0 = 31.95 ± 0.15 mag for the Virgo complex and (m - M)0 = 31.61 ± 0.13 for the Ursa Major Cluster. These are larger than the values of (m - M)0 = 30.80 mag for Virgo and 30.95 mag for Ursa Major derived by Pierce & Tully in 1988 from the Tully-Fisher method. The Virgo modulus here is also larger than the (m - M) = 30.81 mag adopted by the "Key Project" consortium in their work for the Hubble constant, but it is consistent with 31.7 derived earlier by many methods. This modulus, combined with other data, led to H0 = 58 ± 6 km s-1 Mpc-1 in earlier papers and derived most securely from the Cepheid calibration of the mean absolute magnitude of Type Ia supernovae (e.g., Saha et al.; Parodi et al.).

This study investigated the properties of the molecular gas content and star formation activity of 17 Virgo spirals, 21 Ursa Major (UMa) spirals, 13 Pisces spiral galaxies, and a comparison sample of 11 field spiral galaxies with a spatially resolved gas and stellar distribution. The H I-deficient galaxies with a defH I > 0.4 have a similar range of CO luminosity normalized by the K-band luminosity (L CO/L K) like the field spirals, although their CO content can be smaller by up to a factor of 2. The CO, H I, and stellar disk diameters are closely related to each other for both cluster and field galaxies, and the relative diameters of the CO and H I disks grow monotonically and smoothly as the H I-to-stellar disk diameter ratio decreases. Cluster galaxies have a molecular gas consumption time up to 10 times shorter than that of the field comparison sample, suggesting a significant change in the molecular gas content and star formation activity among all the cluster galaxies, even when they do not show any sign of H I stripping. The strongly H I-stripped Virgo cluster galaxies show only a modestly reduced total gas consumption time, indicating that the star formation activity and gas consumption are a highly local (rather than global) phenomenon. Our finding is that the depletion of cold gas by ram-pressure stripping and/or starvation caused by preprocessing in each cluster environment makes galaxies evolve passively.

Using SDSS-DR7 and NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database spectroscopic data, we identify 166 galaxies as members of the Ursa Major cluster with Mr < -13.5 mag. We morphological classify all galaxies by means of carefully inspecting g-, r-, i-band colour and monochromatic images. We show that the Ursa Major cluster is dominated by late-type galaxies, but also contains a significant number of early- type galaxies, particularly in the dwarf regime. We present further evidence for the existence of several subgroups in the cluster, consistent with previous findings. The early-type fraction is found to correlate with the mass of the subgroup. We also investigate environmental effects by comparing the properties of the Ursa Major early-type dwarf galaxies to those of the Virgo cluster. In contrast to the Virgo, the red sequence of the Ursa Major cluster is only sparsely populated in the optical and ultraviolet colour-magnitude relations. It also shows a statistically significant gap between -18 < Mr < -17 mag, i.e. the Ursa Major cluster lacks early-type dwarf galaxies at the bright end of their luminosity function. We discover that the majority of early-type dwarf galaxies in the Ursa Major cluster have blue cores with hints of recent or ongoing star formation. We suggest that gravitational tidal interactions can trigger central blue star forming regions in early-type dwarfs. After that, star formation would only fade completely when the galaxies experience ram pressure stripping or harassment, both of which are nearly absent in the Ursa Major cluster., 19 pages, 18 figures, 2 tables, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Stellar kinematic groups are kinematical coherent groups of stars which might share a common origin.These groups spread through the Galaxy over time due to tidal effects caused by Galactic rotation and disc heating.However, the chemical information survives these processes. The information provided by the analysis of chemical elements can reveal the origin of these kinematic groups. Here we investigate the origin of the stars that belong to the Ursa Major Moving Group. We present high-resolution spectroscopic observations obtained from three different spectrographs of kinematically selected FGK stars of the Ursa Major moving group. Stellar atmospheric parameters (Teff, log(g), xi, and [Fe/H]) were determined using our own automatic code (StePar) which makes use of the sensitivity of iron equivalent widths measured in the spectra. We critically compare the StePar results with other methods (Teff values derived using the infrared flux method and log(g) values based on Hipparcos parallaxes). We derived the chemical abundances of 20 elements, and their [X/Fe] ratios of all stars in the sample. We perform a differential abundance analysis with respect to a reference star of the UMa MG (HD115043). We have also carried out a systematic comparison of the abundance pattern of the Ursa Major MG and the Hyades SC with the thin disc stellar abundances. Our chemical tagging analysis indicates that the Ursa Major MG is less affected by field star contamination than other moving groups (such as the Hyades SC). We find a roughly solar iron composition for the finally selected stars, whereas the [X/Fe] ratios are roughly sub-solar except for super-solar Barium abundance.We conclude that 29 out of 44 (i.e. 66 %) candidate stars share a similar chemical composition. In addition, we find that the abundance pattern of the Ursa Major MG might be marginally different from that of the Hyades SC., A&A, in press. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1205.4879

This is the first paper of a series aimed at studying the properties of late-type stars members of young stellar kinematic groups. We concentrate our study on classical young moving groups as: Local Association (Pleiades moving group, 20 - 150 Myr), IC 2391 supercluster (35 Myr), Ursa Major group (Sirius supercluster, 300 Myr), and Hyades supercluster (600 Myr); as well as on recently identified groups as: Castor moving group (200 Myr). In this paper we have compiled a preliminary list of single late-type stars possible members of some of these young stellar kinematic groups. Stars have been selected from previously established members of stellar kinematic groups based on photometric and kinematic properties as well as from candidates based on other criteria as their level of chromospheric activity, rotation rate, lithium abundance. Precise measurements of proper motions and parallaxes taken from Hipparcos Catalogue, as well as from Tycho-2 Catalogue, and published radial velocity measurements are used to calculate the Galactic space motions (U, V, W) and to apply the Eggen's kinematic criteria in order to determine the membership of the selected stars to the different groups. Additional criteria using age-dating methods for late-type stars will be applied in forthcoming papers of this series. A further study of the list of stars compiled here could lead to a better understanding of the chromospheric activity and their age evolution as well as of the star formation history in the solar neighbourhood. In addition, these stars are also potential search targets for direct imaging detection of sub-stellar companions., Latex file with 10 pages, 3 figures tar'ed gzip'ed. Full postscript (text and figures) available at http://www.ucm.es/info/Astrof/MB88.ps.gz Tables and catalogue of stars available at http://www.ucm.es/info/Astrof/skg/skg_catalogue.html Accepted for publication in: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS)

Results are presented of a deep optical survey of the Ursa Major Cluster, a spiral-rich cluster of galaxies at a distance of 18.6 Mpc which contains about 30% of the light but only 5% of the mass of the nearby Virgo Cluster. Fields around known cluster members and a pattern of blind fields along the major and minor axes of the cluster were studied with mosaic CCD cameras on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. The dynamical crossing time for the Ursa Major Cluster is only slightly less than a Hubble time. Most galaxies in the local Universe exist in similar moderate density environments. The Ursa Major Cluster is therefore a good place to study the statistical properties of dwarf galaxies since this structure is at an evolutionary stage representative of typical environments yet has enough galaxies that reasonable counting statistics can be accumulated. The main observational results of our survey are: (i) The galaxy luminosity function is flat, with a logarithmic slope alpha = -1.1 for -17 < M_R < -11, from a power-law fit. The error in alpha is likely to be less than 0.2 and is dominated by systematic errors, primarily associatedd with uncertainties in assigning membership to specific galaxies. This faint end slope is quite different to what was seen in the Virgo Cluster where alpha=-2.26. (ii) Dwarf galaxies are as frequently found to be blue dwarf irregulars as red dwarf spheroidals in the blind cluster fields. The density of red dwarfs is significantly higher in the fields around luminous members than in the blind fields. The most important result is the failure to detect many dwarfs. If the steep luminosity function claimed for the Virgo Cluster were valid for Ursa Major then in our blind fields we should have found about 1000 galaxies with -17 < M_R

Kormendy’s relation (μe-logR e) is used to investigate the structure of the compact Ursa Major supercluster of galaxies (11h30m+55°, cz=18 000 km s−1); this relation allows the distances of early-type galaxies to be estimated. The relative distances of 13 clusters in the supercluster and their peculiar velocities are determined with a mean statistical accuracy of 6%. In general, the supercluster obeys the Hubble relation between radial velocity and distance. However, there is reason to suggest that the supercluster consists of two subsystems with mean radial velocities of 16 200 and 19 700 km s−1. For a velocity dispersion in the subsystems of ∼1100 km s−1, the fact that each of them is gravitationally bound is not ruled out.

The structure of the central part of the UMa stellar kinematic group was considered according to the data from Hipparcos, Tycho and ACT catalogues. We have shown that in the space occupied by the nucleus there are several populations of stars. The first includes ten stars which are very compactly located in the proper motion diagram and have a normal proper motion distribution. The second group includes six stars with large kinematic difference and there are six field stars placed here too. The question about their coexistence in a common region of space remains open. The well-known stars Mizar and Alcor appear to belong to the different subsystems and do not belong to a unique stellar system. The published radial velocities, as a rule, are determined with insufficient accuracy compared to the errors of the currently available proper motions. A high precision in the radial velocities measurements is necessary for a thorough study of the kinematics of stars inside UMa star system.

Catalogs of bright galaxies in the central regions of 11 clusters in the Ursa Major supercluster are presented. Absolute and relative coordinates and total B and R magnitudes are given for each galaxy. Plates taken with the 2-m Tautenburg Observatory telescope and CCD images obtained with the 6-m and 1-m SAO telescopes are used. The luminosity functions (LFs) for galaxies in the cluster nuclei (3 Mpc×3 Mpc) and the composite LF for the supercluster are constructed. The composite LF is well fitted by a Schechter function with $$M_B^ * = - 20\mathop .\limits^m 91$$ , α=−1.02 and with $$M_R^ * = - 22\mathop .\limits^m 39$$ , α=−1.06. A comparison with the LFs of field galaxies and of various samples of clusters and superclusters shows that the Ursa Major supercluster have LF parameters characteristic of the field and, thus, differ from those of the Corona Borealis supercluster, which is apparently at a later stage of dynamical evolution.

We surveyed the northern Galactic hemisphere (NGH) at b ≥ 30° in the CO (1-0) emission line to determine the surface filling factor of molecular gas at high Galactic latitudes and to search for heretofore unknown molecular clouds. The NGH was sampled on a locally Cartesian grid with 1° (true-angle) spacing in Galactic longitude and latitude. Of the 11,478 points in our grid, we observed all 10,562 positions that rise to an elevation above 30° in Cambridge, MA, the site of the 1.2 m millimeter-wave telescope that was used for the survey. Only 26 lines of sight showed CO emission. Monte Carlo simulations based on our sampling grid and with cloud sizes, in a uniform distribution, ranging from 0 to 2 deg2 suggest that the survey is ~70% complete. Power-law distributions yield fractional completenesses that are typically a factor of 2 lower. The surface filling factor, corrected for the incompleteness of our sampling grid, is 0.004-0.008, depending on which cloud size distribution is used. These values are substantially lower than what is found in the southern Galactic hemisphere at b ≤ -30°. Adopting as the CO to H2 conversion ratio NH2/WCO = 2.5 × 1020 cm-2 (K km s-1)-1, the mass surface density of molecular gas in the north ranges from 0.015 ± 0.009 to 0.035 ± 0.020 M☉ pc-2. With the exception of four fairly significant aggregations of clouds (the complexes associated with the Polaris flare, Ursa Major, Draco, and L134), and a handful of isolated cloudlets, the northern Galactic hemisphere at b ≥ 30° is found to be largely free of molecular gas.

We report the results of a rocket-borne observation of [C II] 158\micron line and far-infrared continuum emission at 152.5\micron toward the high latitude molecular clouds in Ursa Major. We also present the results of a follow-up observation of the millimeter ^{12}CO J=1-0 line over a selected region observed by the rocket-borne experiment. We have discovered three small CO cloudlets from the follow-up ^{12}CO observations. We show that these molecular cloudlets, as well as the MBM clouds(MBM 27/28/29/30), are not gravitationally bound. Magnetic pressure and turbulent pressure dominate the dynamic balance of the clouds. After removing the HI-correlated and background contributions, we find that the [C II] emission peak is displaced from the 152.5\micron and CO peaks, while the 152.5\micron continuum emission is spatially correlated with the CO emission. We interpret this behavior by attributing the origin of [C II] emission to the photodissociation regions around the molecular clouds illuminated by the local UV radiation field. We also find that the ratio of the molecular hydrogen column density to velocity-integrated CO intensity is 1.19+-0.29x10^{20} cm^{-2} (K kms^{-1})^{-1} from the FIR continuum and the CO data. The average [C II] /FIR intensity ratio over the MBM clouds is 0.0071, which is close to the all sky average of 0.0082 reported by the FIRAS on the COBE satellite. The average [C II]/CO ratio over the same regions is 420, which is significantly lower than that of molecular clouds in the Galactic plane., Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX (aaspp4.sty) + 2 tables(apjpt4.sty) + 6 postscript figures; accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal; Astrophys. J. in press (Vol. 490, December 1, 1997 issue)