[Abridged] A large fraction of the baryons in the Universe are `missing' and believed to reside in the form of warm-hot gas in and around the dark matter haloes of massive galaxies and galaxy groups and clusters. The thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect offers a means of probing this component directly. The Planck collaboration recently performed a tSZ stacking analysis of a large sample of `locally brightest galaxies' (LBGs) selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7 and, surprisingly, inferred an approximately self-similar relation between the tSZ flux and halo mass from massive clusters down to individual galaxies. At face value, this implies that galaxies, groups and clusters have the same hot gas mass fractions, a result which is in apparent conflict with X-ray observations. Here, we test the robustness of the inferred trend using synthetic maps of the tSZ effect sky generated from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We analyse these maps using the same tools and assumptions applied in the Planck LBG study. We show that, while the detection of the tSZ signal itself appears to be reliable and the estimate of the `total' flux is reasonably robust, the inferred flux originating from within $r_{500}$ is highly sensitive to the assumed pressure distribution of the gas. Using as a guide our most realistic simulations that invoke AGN feedback and reproduce a wide variety of properties of groups and clusters, we estimate that the derived tSZ flux within $r_{500}$ is biased high by up to to an order of magnitude for haloes with masses $M_{500}\lesssim10^{13}$ M$_{\odot}$. Moreover, we show that the AGN simulations are fully consistent with the total tSZ flux-mass relation observed with Planck, whereas a self-similar model is ruled out. Finally, we present a new mass-dependent spatial template which can be used for deriving more accurate estimates of the tSZ flux within $r_{500}$.
In this work, we introduce two models of the hybrid metric-Palatini theory of gravitation. We explore their background evolution, showing explicitly that one recovers standard General Relativity with an effective Cosmological Constant at late times. This happens because the Palatini Ricci scalar evolves towards and asymptotically settles at the minimum of its effective potential during cosmological evolution. We then use a combination of cosmic microwave background, Supernovae and baryonic accoustic oscillations background data to constrain the models' free parameters. For one model in particular, we are able to constrain the deviation from the gravitational constant $G$ one can have at early times.
We provide a unified description of the hemispherical asymmetry in the cosmic microwave background generated by the mechanism proposed by Erickcek, Kamionkowski, and Carroll, using a delta N formalism that consistently accounts for the asymmetry-generating mode throughout. We derive a general form for the power spectrum which explicitly exhibits the broken translational invariance. This can be directly compared to cosmic microwave background observables, including the observed quadrupole and fNL values, automatically incorporating the Grishchuk--Zel'dovich effect. Our calculation unifies and extends previous calculations in the literature, in particular giving the full dependence of observables on the phase of our location in the super-horizon mode that generates the asymmetry. We demonstrate how the apparently different results obtained by previous authors arise as different limiting cases. We confirm the existence of non-linear contributions to the microwave background quadrupole from the super-horizon mode identified by Erickcek et al. and further explored by Kanno et al., and show that those contributions are always significant in parameter regimes capable of explaining the observed asymmetry. We indicate example parameter values capable of explaining the observed power asymmetry without violating other observational bounds.
QCD axions are a well-motivated candidate for cold dark matter. Cold axions are produced in the early universe by vacuum realignment, axion string decay and axion domain wall decay. We show that cold axions thermalize via their gravitational self-interactions, and form a Bose-Einstein condensate. As a result, axion dark matter behaves differently from the other proposed forms of dark matter. The differences are observable.
Stacking as a tool for studying objects that are not individually detected is becoming popular even for radio interferometric data, and will be widely used in the SKA era. Stacking is typically done using imaged data rather than directly using the visibilities (the uv-data). We have investigated and developed a novel algorithm to do stacking using the uv-data. We have performed exten- sive simulations comparing to image-stacking, and summarize the results of these simulations. Furthermore, we disuss the implications in light of the vast data volume produced by the SKA. Having access to the uv-stacked data provides a great advantage, as it allows the possibility to properly analyse the result with respect to calibration artifacts as well as source properties such as size. For SKA the main challenge lies in archiving the uv-data. For purposes of robust stacking analysis, it would be strongly desirable to either keep the calibrated uv-data at least in an aver- age form, or implement a stacking queue where stacking positions could be provided prior to the observations and the uv-stacking is done almost in real time.
We adapt the L-Galaxies semi-analytic model to follow the star-formation
histories (SFH) of galaxies -- by which we mean a record of the formation time
and metallicities of the stars that are present in each galaxy at a given time.
We use these to construct stellar spectra in post-processing, which offers
large efficiency savings and allows user-defined spectral bands and dust models
to be applied to data stored in the Millennium data repository.
We contrast model SFHs from the Millennium Simulation with observed ones from
the VESPA algorithm as applied to the SDSS-7 catalogue. The overall agreement
is good, with both simulated and SDSS galaxies showing a steeper SFH with
increased stellar mass. The SFHs of blue and red galaxies, however, show poor
agreement between data and simulations, which may indicate that the termination
of star formation is too abrupt in the models.
The mean star-formation rate (SFR) of model galaxies is well-defined and is
accurately modelled by a double power law at all redshifts: SFR proportional to
1/(x^{-1.39}+x^{1.33}), where x=(T-t)/3.0 Gyr, t is the age of the stars and T
is the loopback time to the onset of galaxy formation; above a redshift of
unity, this is well approximated by a gamma function: SFR proportional to
x^{1.5}e^{-x}, where x=(T-t)/2.0 Gyr. Individual galaxies, however, show a wide
dispersion about this mean. When split by mass, the SFR peaks earlier for
high-mass galaxies than for lower-mass ones, and we interpret this downsizing
as a mass-dependence in the evolution of the quenched fraction: the SFHs of
star-forming galaxies show only a weak mass dependence.
We examine the impact of dark matter particle resolution on the formation of a baryonic core in high resolution adaptive mesh refinement simulations. We test the effect that both particle smoothing and particle splitting have on the hydrodynamic properties of a collapsing halo at high redshift (z > 20). Furthermore, we vary the background field intensity, with energy below the Lyman limit (< 13.6 eV), as may be relevant for the case of metal-free star formation and super-massive black hole seed formation. We find that using particle splitting methods greatly increases our particle resolution without introducing any numerical noise and allows us to achieve converged results over a wide range of external background fields. Furthermore, we find that for lower values of the background field a lower dark matter particle mass is required. We use the characteristic Jeans length of the gas to define the core of a collapsing halo, $\rm{R_{core} \lesssim 1\ pc}$ for T $\lesssim 8000$ K, and number density, $\rm{n \sim 1 \times 10^6\ cm^{-3}}$. We find that in order to produce converged results which are not affected by dark matter particles requires that the relationship ${M_{\rm{core}} / M_{\rm{DM}}} > 100.0$ be satisfied, where ${M_{\rm{core}}}$ is the enclosed baryon mass within the core and $M_{\rm{DM}}$ is the minimum dark matter particle mass. This ratio should provide a very useful starting point for conducting convergence tests before any production run simulations. We find that dark matter particle smoothing is a useful adjunct to already highly resolved simulations.
We analyze the interplay between K\"ahler moduli stabilization and chaotic inflation in supergravity. While heavy moduli decouple from inflation in the supersymmetric limit, supersymmetry breaking generically introduces non-decoupling effects. These lead to inflation driven by a soft mass term, $m_\varphi^2 \sim m m_{3/2}$, where $m$ is a supersymmetric mass parameter. This scenario needs no stabilizer field, but the stability of moduli during inflation imposes a large supersymmetry breaking scale, $m_{3/2} \gg H$, and a careful choice of initial conditions. This is illustrated in three prominent examples of moduli stabilization: KKLT stabilization, K\"ahler Uplifting, and the Large Volume Scenario. Remarkably, all models have a universal effective inflaton potential which is flattened compared to quadratic inflation. Hence, they share universal predictions for the CMB observables, in particular a lower bound on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r \gtrsim 0.05$.
We consider an infrared truncated massless minimally coupled scalar field with a quartic self-interaction in the locally de Sitter background of an inflating universe. We compute the two-point correlation function of the scalar at one and two-loop order applying quantum field theory. The tree-order correlator at a fixed comoving separation (that is at increasing physical distance) freezes in to a nonzero value. At a fixed physical distance, it grows linearly with comoving time. The one-loop correlator, which is the dominant quantum correction, implies a negative temporal growth in the correlation function, at this order, at a fixed comoving separation and at a fixed physical distance. We also obtain quantitative results for variance in space and time of one and two-loop correlators and infer that the contrast between the vacuum expectation value and the variance becomes less pronounced when the loop corrections are included. Finally, we repeat the analysis of the model applying a stochastic field theory and reach the same conclusions.
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Halo-based models have been successful in predicting the clustering of matter. However, the validity of the postulate that the clustering is fully determined by matter inside haloes remains largely untested, and it is not clear a priori whether non-virialised matter might contribute significantly to the non-linear clustering signal. Here, we investigate the contribution of haloes to the matter power spectrum as a function of both scale and halo mass by combining a set of cosmological N-body simulations to calculate the contributions of different spherical overdensity regions, Friends-of-Friends (FoF) groups and matter outside haloes to the power spectrum. We find that matter inside spherical overdensity regions of size R200,mean cannot account for all power for 1<k<100 h/Mpc, regardless of the minimum halo mass. At most, it accounts for 95% of the power (k>20 h/Mpc). For 2<k<10 h/Mpc, haloes with mass M200,mean<10^11 Msun/h contribute negligibly to the power spectrum, and our results appear to be converged with decreasing halo mass. When haloes are taken to be regions of size R200,crit, the amount of power unaccounted for is larger on all scales. Accounting also for matter inside FoF groups but outside R200,mean increases the contribution of halo matter on most scales probed here by 5-15%. Matter inside FoF groups with M200,mean>10^9 Msun/h accounts for essentially all power for 3<k<100 h/Mpc. We therefore expect halo models that ignore the contribution of matter outside R200,mean to overestimate the contribution of haloes of any mass to the power on small scales (k>1 h/Mpc).
Dark energy (i.e., a cosmological constant) leads, in the Newtonian approximation, to a repulsive force which grows linearly with distance. We discuss possible astrophysical effects of this "dark" force. For example, the dark force overcomes the gravitational attraction from an object (e.g., dwarf galaxy) of mass $10^7 M_\odot$ at a distance of $~ 23$ kpc. It seems possible that observable velocities of bound satellites (rotation curves) could be significantly affected, and therefore used to measure the dark energy density.
A symmetry-breaking phase transition in the early universe could have led to the formation of cosmic defects. Because these defects dynamically excite not only scalar and tensor type cosmological perturbations but also vector type ones, they may serve as a source of primordial magnetic fields. In this study, we calculate the time evolution and the spectrum of magnetic fields that are generated by a type of cosmic defects, called global textures, using the non-linear sigma (NLSM) model. Based on the standard cosmological perturbation theory, we show, both analytically and numerically, that a vector-mode relative velocity between photon and baryon fluids is induced by textures, which inevitably leads to the generation of magnetic fields over a wide range of scales. We find that the amplitude of the magnetic fields is given by $B\sim{10^{-9}}{((1+z)/10^3)^{-2.5}}({v}/{m_{\rm pl}})^2({k}/{\rm Mpc^{-1}})^{3.5}/{\sqrt{N}}$ Gauss in the radiation dominated era for $k\lesssim 1$ Mpc$^{-1}$, with $v$ being the vacuum expectation value of the O(N) symmetric scalar fields. By extrapolating our numerical result toward smaller scales, we expect that $B\sim {10^{-17}}((1+z)/1000)^{-1/2}({v}/{m_{\rm pl}})^2({k}/{\rm Mpc^{-1}})^{1/2}/{\sqrt{N}}$ Gauss on scales of $k\gtrsim 1$ Mpc$^{-1}$ at redshift $z\gtrsim 1100$. This might be a seed of the magnetic fields observed on large scales today.
In low-energy effective string theory and modified gravity theories, the propagating speed $c_T$ of primordial gravitational waves may deviate from unity. We find that the step-like variation of $c_T$ during slow-roll inflation may result in an oscillating modulation to the B-mode polarization spectrum, which can hardly be imitated by adjusting other cosmological parameters, and the intensity of the modulation is determined by the dynamics of $c_T$. Thus provided that the foreground contribution is under control, high-precision CMB polarization observations will be able to put tight constraint on the variation of $c_T$, and so the corresponding theories.
Recently, few independent detections of a weak X-ray emission line at an energy of ~3.5 keV seen toward a number of astrophysical sites have been reported. If this signal will be confirmed to be the signature of decaying DM sterile neutrino with a mass of ~7.1 keV, then the cosmological observables should be consistent with its properties. In this paper we place constraints on the sterile neutrino resonant production parameters and asymmetry lepton number by using most of the present cosmological measurements. We compute the radiation and matter perturbations including the full resonance sweep solution for active - sterile neutrino flavor conversion and place constraints on the cosmological parameters and sterile neutrino properties. We find the sterile neutrino upper limits for mass and mixing angle of 7.86 keV (equivalent to 2.54 keV thermal mass) and 9.41 x 10^{-9} (at 95% CL) respectively, for a lepton number per flavor of 0.0042, that is significantly higher than that inferred in Abazajian 2014 from the linear large scale structure constraints. This reflects the sensitivity of the high precision CMB anisotropies to the helium abundance yield which in turn is set by the $\nu_e$ lepton number and non-thermal spectrum. Other cosmological parameters are in agreement with the predictions of the minimal extension of the base \LambdaCDM model except for the active neutrino total mass upper limit that is decreased to 0.21 eV (95% CL).
Possible violations of fundamental physical principles, e.g. the Einstein Equivalence Principle on which all metric theories of gravity are based, including General Relativity, would lead to a rotation of the plane of polarization for linearly polarized radiation traveling over cosmological distances, the so-called cosmic polarization rotation (CPR). We review here the astrophysical tests which have been carried out so far to check if CPR exists. These are using the radio and UV polarization of radio galaxies and the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (both E-mode and B-mode). These tests so far have been negative, leading to upper limits of the order of one degree on any CPR angle, thereby increasing our confidence in those physical principles, including General Relativity. We also discuss future prospects in detecting CPR or improving the constraints on it.
After numerical simulations by E. Praton, we interprete the cocoon-like structure observed for the distribution of galaxies around us as an effect of infall velocities onto clusters. In this view structures like the Cocoon (or even like the Great-Wall) could be interpreted as observationnal artefacts.
In this paper we present a data analysis regarding globular clusters as possible extragalactic distance indicators. For this purpose, we collected all velocity dispersion measurements published for galactic and M31 globular clusters. The slope and the zero-point of the Faber-Jackson relation were calibrated using Hipparcos distance measurements, and the relation was applied to extragalactic globular clusters in M31. A distance modulus of 24.12 \pm 0.45 mag was found. This is coherent with what is found by fitting the red giant branches of globular clusters (24.47 \pm 0.07, Holland 98), and is found from the peak of globular clusters luminosity function (24.03 \pm 0.23, Ostriker an d Gnedin 97), but shorter than the 24.7 \pm 0.2 mag (Lanoix et al. 98) and 24.77 \pm 0.11 mag (Feast and Catchpole 97), obtained by using Hipparcos data to calibrate the Cepheid period-luminosity. This calibrated Faber-Jackson relation can now be directly use for other Sc galaxies with resolved globular clusters, as soon as large amounts of spectra will become available, e.g., through the VLT.
This paper presents the first I-band photometric catalog of the brightest
galaxies extracted from the Deep Near Infrared Survey of the Southern Sky
(DENIS) An automatic galaxy recognition program has been developed to build
this provisional catalog. The method is based on a discriminating analysis. The
most discriminant parameter to separate galaxies from stars is proved to be the
peak intensity of an object divided by its array. Its efficiency is better than
99%. The nominal accuracy for galaxy coordinates calculated with the Guide Star
Catalog is about 6 arcseconds. The cross-identification with galaxies available
in the Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic DAtabase (LEDA) allows a calibraton of the
I-band photometry with the sample of Mathewson et Al. Thus, the catalog
contains total I-band magnitude, isophotal diameter, axis ratio, position angle
and a rough estimate of the morphological type code for 20260 galaxies. The
internal completeness of this catalog reaches magnitude $I_{lim}=14.5$, with a
photometric accuracy of $\sim 0.18m$. 25% of the Southern sky has been
processed in this study.
This quick look analysis allows us to start a radio and spectrographic
follow-up long before the end of the survey.
We present in this paper an exhaustive compilation of all published data of extragalactic Cepheids. We have checked every light curve in order to characterize the different types of Cepheid and detect potential overtone pulsators, or to estimate the quality of the data. This compilation of about 3000 photometric measurements will constitute a very useful tool for astronomers involved for instance in the extragalactic distance scale.
In order to investigate the properties of large-scale structures of galaxies
in the universe, we present an analysis of their spatial distribution at
z$<$0.033. We used the LEDA extragalactic database containing over 1 million of
galaxies covering the all-sky and the SDSS data included in the public release
DR1, yielding to a sample of around 134,000 galaxies having a measured redshift
in two survey areas representing 690 sq. degrees. The results of the study are
2D, 3D maps and magnitude number counts of galaxies, drawn from B-band samples.
Movies and high resolution figures are available on
this http URL
We present predictions for the abundance of Ly-$\alpha$ emitters in hierarchical structure formation models. We use the {\tt GALFORM} semi-analytical model to explore the impact on the predicted counts of varying assumptions about the escape fraction of Ly-$\alpha$ photons, the redshift at which the universe reionised and the cosmological density parameter. A model with a fixed escape fraction gives a remarkably good match to the observed counts over a wide redshift interval. We present predictions for the expected counts in a typical observation with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer instrument proposed for the Very Large Telescope.
We present distance measurements to 71 high redshift type Ia supernovae discovered during the first year of the 5-year Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS). These events were detected and their multi-color light-curves measured using the MegaPrime/MegaCam instrument at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), by repeatedly imaging four one-square degree fields in four bands. Follow-up spectroscopy was performed at the VLT, Gemini and Keck telescopes to confirm the nature of the supernovae and to measure their redshift. With this data set, we have built a Hubble diagram extending to z=1, with all distance measurements involving at least two bands. Systematic uncertainties are evaluated making use of the multi-band photometry obtained at CFHT. Cosmological fits to this first year SNLS Hubble diagram give the following results : Omega_M = 0.263 +/- 0.042(stat) +/- 0.032(sys) for a flat LambdaCDM model; and w = -1.023 +/- 0.090(stat) +/- 0.054(sys) for a flat cosmology with constant equation of state w when combined with the constraint from the recent Sloan Digital Sky Survey measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations.
One way to access the aggregated power of a collection of heterogeneous
machines is to use a grid middleware, such as DIET, GridSolve or NINF. It
addresses the problem of monitoring the resources, of handling the submissions
of jobs and as an example the inherent transfer of input and output data, in
place of the user.
In this paper we present how to run cosmological simulations using the RAMSES
application along with the DIET middleware. We will describe how to write the
corresponding DIET client and server. The remainder of the paper is organized
as follows: Section 2 presents the DIET middleware. Section 3 describes the
RAMSES cosmological software and simulations, and how to interface it with
DIET. We show how to write a client and a server in Section 4. Finally, Section
5 presents the experiments realized on Grid'5000, the French Research Grid, and
we conclude in Section 6.
This paper presents MoLUSC, a new method for generating mock galaxy catalogs from a large scale ($\approx 1000^3$ Mpc$^3$) dark matter simulation, that requires only modest CPU time and memory allocation. The method uses a small-scale ($\approx 256^3$ Mpc$^3$) dark matter simulation on which the \galics semi-analytic code has been run in order to define the transformation from dark matter density to galaxy density transformation using a probabilistic treatment. MoLUSC is then applied to a large-scale dark matter simulation in order to produce a realistic distribution of galaxies and their associated spectra. This permits the fast generation of large-scale mock surveys using relatively low-resolution simulations. We describe various tests which have been conducted to validate the method, and demonstrate a first application to generate a mock Sloan Digital Sky Survey redshift survey.
The peculiar velocity of the Local Group of galaxies manifested in the Cosmic Microwave Background dipole is found to decompose into three dominant components. The three components are clearly separated because they arise on distinct spatial scales and are fortuitously almost orthogonal in their influences. The nearest, which is distinguished by a velocity discontinuity at ~7 Mpc, arises from the evacuation of the Local Void. We lie in the Local Sheet that bounds the void. Random motions within the Local Sheet are small. Our Galaxy participates in the bulk motion of the Local Sheet away from the Local Void. The component of our motion on an intermediate scale is attributed to the Virgo Cluster and its surroundings, 17 Mpc away. The third and largest component is an attraction on scales larger than 3000 km/s and centered near the direction of the Centaurus Cluster. The amplitudes of the three components are 259, 185, and 455 km/s, respectively, adding collectively to 631 km/s in the reference frame of the Local Sheet. Taking the nearby influences into account causes the residual attributed to large scales to align with observed concentrations of distant galaxies and reduces somewhat the amplitude of motion attributed to their pull. On small scales, in addition to the motion of our Local Sheet away from the Local Void, the nearest adjacent filament, the Leo Spur, is seen to be moving in a direction that will lead to convergence with our filament. Finally, a good distance to an isolated galaxy within the Local Void reveals that this dwarf system has a motion of at least 230 km/s away from the void center. Given the velocities expected from gravitational instability theory in the standard cosmological paradigm, the distance to the center of the Local Void must be at least 23 Mpc from our position. The Local Void is large!
Cosmic Flows is an international multi-element project with the goal to map motions of galaxies in the Local Universe. Kinematic information from observations in the radio HI line and photometry at optical or near-infrared bands are acquired to derive the large majority of distances that are obtained through the luminosity-linewidth or Tully-Fisher relation. This paper gathers additional observational radio data, frequently unpublished, retrieved from the archives of Green Bank, Parkes and Arecibo telescopes. Extracted HI profiles are consistently processed to produce linewidth measurements. Our current "All-Digital HI Catalog" contains a total of 20,343 HI spectra for 17,738 galaxies with 14,802 galaxies with accurate linewidth measurement useful for Tully-Fisher galaxy distances. This addition of 4,117 new measurements represents an augmentation of 34\% compared to our last release.
The Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G) is the largest available database of deep, homogeneous middle-infrared (mid-IR) images of galaxies of all types. The survey, which includes 2352 nearby galaxies, reveals galaxy morphology only minimally affected by interstellar extinction. This paper presents an atlas and classifications of S4G galaxies in the Comprehensive de Vaucouleurs revised Hubble-Sandage (CVRHS) system. The CVRHS system follows the precepts of classical de Vaucouleurs (1959) morphology, modified to include recognition of other features such as inner, outer, and nuclear lenses, nuclear rings, bars, and disks, spheroidal galaxies, X patterns and box/peanut structures, OLR subclass outer rings and pseudorings, bar ansae and barlenses, parallel sequence late-types, thick disks, and embedded disks in 3D early-type systems. We show that our CVRHS classifications are internally consistent, and that nearly half of the S4G sample consists of extreme late-type systems (mostly bulgeless, pure disk galaxies) in the range Scd-Im. The most common family classification for mid-IR types S0/a to Sc is SA while that for types Scd to Sm is SB. The bars in these two type domains are very different in mid-IR structure and morphology. This paper examines the bar, ring, and type classification fractions in the sample, and also includes several montages of images highlighting the various kinds of "stellar structures" seen in mid-IR galaxy morphology.
We introduce SoFiA, a flexible software application for the detection and parameterization of sources in 3D spectral-line datasets. SoFiA combines for the first time in a single piece of software a set of new source-finding and parameterization algorithms developed on the way to future HI surveys with ASKAP (WALLABY, DINGO) and APERTIF. It is designed to enable the general use of these new algorithms by the community on a broad range of datasets. The key advantages of SoFiA are the ability to: search for line emission on multiple scales to detect 3D sources in a complete and reliable way, taking into account noise level variations and the presence of artefacts in a data cube; estimate the reliability of individual detections; look for signal in arbitrarily large data cubes using a catalogue of 3D coordinates as a prior; provide a wide range of source parameters and output products which facilitate further analysis by the user. We highlight the modularity of SoFiA, which makes it a flexible package allowing users to select and apply only the algorithms useful for their data and science questions. This modularity makes it also possible to easily expand SoFiA in order to include additional methods as they become available. The full SoFiA distribution, including a dedicated graphical user interface, is publicly available for download.
We constrain the minimum variability timescales for 938 GRBs observed by the Fermi/GBM instrument prior to July 11, 2012. The tightest constraints on progenitor radii derived from these timescales are obtained from light curves in the hardest energy channel. In the softer bands -- or from measurements of the same GRBs in the hard X-rays from Swift -- we show that variability timescales tend to be a factor 2--3 longer. Applying a survival analysis to account for detections and upper limits, we find median minimum timescale in the rest frame for long-duration and short-duration GRBs of 45 ms and 10 ms, respectively. Fewer than 10% of GRBs show evidence for variability on timescales below 2 ms. These shortest timescales require Lorentz factors $\gtrsim 400$ and imply typical emission radii $R \approx 1 {\times} 10^{14}$ cm for long-duration GRBs and $R \approx 3 {\times} 10^{13}$ cm for short-duration GRBs. We discuss implications for the GRB fireball model and investigate whether GRB minimum timescales evolve with cosmic time.
The direct collapse model for the formation of massive seed black holes in the early Universe attempts to explain the observed number density of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at $z \sim 6$ by assuming that they grow from seeds with masses M > 10000 solar masses that form by the direct collapse of metal-free gas in atomic cooling halos in which H2 cooling is suppressed by a strong extragalactic radiation field. The viability of this model depends on the strength of the radiation field required to suppress H2 cooling, $J_{\rm crit}$: if this is too large, then too few seeds will form to explain the observed number density of SMBHs. In order to determine $J_{\rm crit}$ reliably, we need to be able to accurately model the formation and destruction of H2 in gas illuminated by an extremely strong radiation field. In this paper, we use a reaction-based reduction technique to analyze the chemistry of H2 in these conditions, allowing us to identify the key chemical reactions that are responsible for determining the value of $J_{\rm crit}$. We construct a reduced network of 26 reactions that allows us to determine $J_{\rm crit}$ accurately, and compare it with previous treatments in the literature. We show that previous studies have often omitted one or more important chemical reactions, and that these omissions introduce an uncertainty of up to a factor of three into previous determinations of $J_{\rm crit}$.
In a Dark left-right gauge model, the neutral component of right-handed lepton doublet is odd under generalized R-parity and thus the lightest one serves as the dark matter (DM) candidate. The DM in this model dominantly annihilates into leptonic final states and thus satisfy the correct relic abundance. We explain AMS-02 positron excess by the annihilation of 800 GeV dark matter into $\mu^+\mu^-\gamma$, through a t-channel exchange of an additional charged triplet Higgs boson. The DM is leptophilic which is useful for explaining the non-observation of any antiproton excess which would generically be expected from DM annihilation. The large cross-section needed to explain AMS-02 also requires an astrophysical boost. In addition, we show that the muon $g-2$ receives required contribution from singly and doubly charged triplet Higgs in the loops.
We present a new approach to build models of quintessence interacting with dark or baryonic matter. We use a variational approach for relativistic fluids to realize an effective description of matter fields at the Lagrangian level. The coupling is introduced directly in the action by considering a single function mixing the dynamical degrees of freedom of the theory. The resulting gravitational field equations are derived by variations with respect to the independent variables. New interesting phenomenology can be obtained at both small scales, where new screening mechanisms for scalar fields can be realized, and large scales, where one finds an original and rich class of interacting quintessence models. The background cosmology of two of these models is studied in detail using dynamical system techniques. We find a variety of interesting results: for instance, these models contain dark energy dominated late time attractors and scaling solutions, both with early time matter dominated epochs and a possible inflationary origin. In general this new approach provides the starting point for future in depth studies on new interacting quintessence models.
Motivated by the coincidence between the Hubble scale during inflation and the typical see-saw neutrino mass scale, we present a supergravity model where the inflaton is identified with a linear combination of right-handed sneutrino fields. The model accommodates an inflaton potential that is flatter than quadratic chaotic inflation, resulting in a measurable but not yet ruled out tensor-to-scalar ratio. Small CP-violation in the neutrino mass matrix and supersymmetry breaking yield an evolution in the complex plane for the sneutrino fields. This induces a net lepton charge that, via the Affleck-Dine mechanism, can be the origin of the observed baryon asymmetry of the universe.
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We introduce 21CMMC: a parallelized, Monte Carlo Markov Chain analysis tool, incorporating the epoch of reionization (EoR) semi-numerical simulation 21CMFAST. 21CMMC estimates astrophysical parameter constraints from 21cm EoR experiments, accommodating a variety of EoR models, as well as priors on model parameters and the reionization history. To illustrate its utility, we consider two different EoR scenarios, one with a single population of galaxies (with a mass-independent ionizing efficiency) and a second, more general model with two different, feedback-regulated populations (each with mass-dependent ionizing efficiencies). As an example, combining three observations (z=8, 9 and 10) of the 21cm power spectrum with a conservative noise estimate and uniform model priors, we find that LOFAR/HERA/SKA can constrain common reionization parameters: the ionizing efficiency (or similarly the escape fraction), the mean free path of ionizing photons, and the log of the minimum virial temperature of star-forming halos to within 45.3/22.0/16.7, 33.5/18.4/17.8 and 6.3/3.3/2.4 per cent, ~$1\sigma$ fractional uncertainty, respectively. Similarly, the fractional uncertainty on the average neutral fraction can be constrained to within $\lesssim$10 per cent for HERA and SKA. By studying the resulting impact on astrophysical constraints, 21CMMC can be used to optimize: (i) interferometer designs; (ii) foreground cleaning algorithms; (iii) observing strategies; (iv) alternative statistics characterizing the 21cm signal; and (v) synergies with other observational programs.
We present analyses of data augmentation for machine learning redshift
estimation. Data augmentation makes a training sample more closely resemble a
test sample, if the two base samples differ, in order to improve measured
statistics of the test sample. We perform two sets of analyses by selecting
800k (1.7M) SDSS DR8 (DR10) galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts. We construct
a base training set by imposing an artificial r band apparent magnitude cut to
select only bright galaxies and then augment this base training set by using
simulations and by applying the K-correct package to artificially place
training set galaxies at a higher redshift.
We obtain redshift estimates for the remaining faint galaxy sample, which are
not used during training. We find that data augmentation reduces the error on
the recovered redshifts by 40% in both sets of analyses, when compared to the
difference in error between the ideal case and the non augmented case. The
outlier fraction is also reduced by at least 10% and up to 80% using data
augmentation.
We finally quantify how the recovered redshifts degrade as one probes to
deeper magnitudes past the artificial magnitude limit of the bright training
sample. We find that at all apparent magnitudes explored, the use of data
augmentation with tree based methods provide a estimate of the galaxy redshift
with a negligible bias, although the error on the recovered values increases as
we probe to deeper magnitudes. These results have applications for surveys
which have a spectroscopic training set which forms a biased sample of all
photometric galaxies, for example if the spectroscopic detection magnitude
limit is shallower than the photometric limit.
Accurate and precise photometric redshifts (photo-z's) of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) can enable the use of SNe Ia, measured only with photometry, to probe cosmology. This dramatically increases the science return of supernova surveys planned for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). In this paper we describe a significantly improved version of the simple analytic photo-z estimator proposed by Wang (2007) and further developed by Wang, Narayan, and Wood-Vasey (2007). We apply it to 55,422 simulated SNe Ia generated using the SNANA package with the LSST filters. We find that the estimated errors on the photo-z's, \sigma(z_{phot})/(1+z_{phot}), can be used as filters to produce a set of photo-z's that have high precision, accuracy, and purity. Using SN Ia colors as well as SN Ia peak magnitude in the $i$ band, we obtain a set of photo-z's with 2 percent accuracy (with \sigma(z_{phot}-z_{spec})/(1+z_{spec}) = 0.02), a bias in z_{phot} (the mean of z_{phot}-z_{spec}) of -9 X 10^{-5}, and an outlier fraction (with |(z_{phot}-z_{spec})/(1+z_{spec})|>0.1) of 0.23 percent, with the requirement that \sigma(z_{phot})/(1+z_{phot})<0.01. Using the SN Ia colors only, we obtain a set of photo-z's with similar quality by requiring that \sigma(z_{phot})/(1+z_{phot})<0.007; this leads to a set of photo-z's with 2 percent accuracy, a bias in z_{phot} of 5.9 X 10^{-4}, and an outlier fraction of 0.32 percent.
We present mass-richness relations found in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82 co-add. These relations were found using stacked weak lensing shear observed in a large sample of galaxy clusters. These mass-richness relations are presented for four redshift bins, $0.1 < z \leq 0.4$, $0.4 < z \leq 0.7$, $0.7 < z \leq 1.0$ and $0.1 < z \leq 1.0$. We describe the sample of galaxy clusters and explain how these clusters were found using a Voronoi Tessellation cluster finder. We fit an NFW profile to the stacked weak lensing shear signal in redshift and richness bins in order to measure virial mass $(M_{200})$. We describe several effects that can bias weak lensing measurements, including photometric redshift bias, the effect of the central BCG, halo miscentering, photometric redshift uncertainty and foreground galaxy contamination. We present mass-richness relations using richness measure $N_{VT}$ with each of these effects considered separately as well as considered altogether. We present values for the mass coefficient ($M_{200|20}$) and the power law slope ($\alpha$) for power law fits to the mass and richness values in each of the redshift bins. We find values of the mass coefficient of $8.30 \pm 0.682$, $13.8 \pm 1.94$, $27.3 \pm 14.7$ and $8.61 \pm 0.719 \times 10^{13} \; h^{-1} M_{sun}$ for each of the four redshift bins respectively. We find values of the power law slope of $0.988 \pm 0.0716$, $0.962 \pm 0.130$, $1.52 \pm 0.483$ and $1.01 \pm 0.0803$ respectively. Finally, we examine redshift evolution of the mass-richness relation.
The spectrum of primordial perturbations obtained by calculating the quantum gravitational corrections to the dynamics of scalar perturbations is compared with Planck and BICEP2 public data. The quantum gravitational effects are calculated in the context of a Wheeler-De Witt approach and have quite distinctive features. We constrain the free parameters of the theory by comparison with observations.
We present 1D non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) time-dependent radiative-transfer simulations of a Chandrasekhar-mass delayed-detonation model which synthesizes 0.51 Msun of 56Ni, and confront our results to the Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) 2002bo over the first 100 days of its evolution. Assuming only homologous expansion, this same model reproduces the bolometric and multi-band light curves, the secondary near-infrared (NIR) maxima, and the optical and NIR spectra. The chemical stratification of our model qualitatively agrees with previous inferences by Stehle et al., but reveals significant quantitative differences for both iron-group and intermediate-mass elements. We show that +/-0.1 Msun (i.e., +/-20 per cent) variations in 56Ni mass have a modest impact on the bolometric and colour evolution of our model. One notable exception is the U-band, where a larger abundance of iron-group elements results in less opaque ejecta through ionization effects, our model with more 56Ni displaying a higher near-UV flux level. In the NIR range, such variations in 56Ni mass affect the timing of the secondary maxima but not their magnitude, in agreement with observational results. Moreover, the variation in the I, J, and K_s magnitudes is less than 0.1 mag within ~10 days from bolometric maximum, confirming the potential of NIR photometry of SNe Ia for cosmology. Overall, the delayed-detonation mechanism in single Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf progenitors seems well suited for SN 2002bo and similar SNe Ia displaying a broad Si II 6355 A line. Whatever multidimensional processes are at play during the explosion leading to these events, they must conspire to produce an ejecta comparable to our spherically-symmetric model.
We investigate the realization of two bouncing paradigms, namely of the superbounce and the loop quantum cosmological ekpyrosis, in the framework of various modified gravities. In particular, we focus on the $F(R)$, $F(G)$ and $F(T)$ gravities, and we reconstruct their specific subclasses which lead to such universe evolutions. These subclasses constitute from power laws, polynomials, or hypergeometric ansatzes, which can be approximated by power laws. The qualitative similarity of different effective gravities which realize the above two bouncing cosmologies, indicates to some universality lying behind such a bounce. Finally, performing a linear perturbation analysis, we show that the obtained solutions are conditionally or fully stable.
Motivated by the string landscape, inflation may happen on a high dimensional complicated potential. We propose a new way to construct some high dimensional random potentials, and study inflation on top of that, for up to 50-dimensions in field space. Especially, random bifurcations of classical inflationary trajectory are studied. It is shown that the bifurcation probability increases as a function of number of dimensions. Those random bifurcations are not consistent with observations, and dramatically limit the parameter space of inflation on a complicated landscape. For example, in 10 dimensions, only $10^{-3} \sim 10^{-6}$ of the parameter space volume leads to unique classical trajectories. The rest is ruled out by random bifurcations.
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We study the velocities of the accretion along streams from the cosmic web into massive galaxies at high redshift with the help of three different suites of AMR hydrodynamical cosmological simulations. The results are compared to free-fall velocities and to the sound speeds of the hot ambient medium. The sound speed of the hot ambient medium is calculated using two different methods to determine the medium's temperature. We find that the simulated cold stream velocities are in violent disagreement with the corresponding free-fall profiles. The sound speed is a better albeit not always correct description of the cold flows' velocity. Using these calculations as a first order approximation for the gas inflow velocities $v_{\rm inflow} = 0.9 \ v_{\rm vir}$ is given. We conclude from the hydrodynamical simulations as our main result that the velocity profiles for the cold streams are constant with radius. These constant inflow velocities have in units of the virial velocity a "parabola-like" dependency on the host halo mass that peaks at $M_{\rm vir} = 10^{12} \ M_\odot$ and they follow a square root power law relation with respect to the redshift: $v_{\rm inflow} \propto \sqrt{z + 1} \ v_{\rm vir}$.
Aims: We explore the cosmological consequences of interacting dark energy
(IDE) models using the Supernova Legacy Survey three-year (SNLS3) data sets. In
particular, we focus on the impacts of different SNLS3 light-curve fitters
(LCF) (corresponding to the "SALT2", the "SiFTO", and the "Combined" supernova
sample).
Methods: Firstly, making use of the three SNLS3 data sets, as well as the
observational data from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the galaxy
clustering (GC) and the direct measurement of Hubble constant $H_0$, we
constrain the parameter spaces of three IDE models. Then, we plot the cosmic
evolutions of Hubble diagram $H(z)$, deceleration diagram $q(z)$ and
statefinder hierarchy $\{S^{(1)}_3, S^{(1)}_4\}$, and check whether or not
these dark energy (DE) diagnosis can distinguish the differences among the
results of different LCF. At last, we perform high-redshift cosmic age test
using three old high redshift objects (OHRO), and explore the fate of the
Universe.
Results: For all the IDE models, we find that the impacts of different LCF
are rather small and can not be distinguished by using the $H(z)$ diagram, the
$q(z)$ diagram, and the age data of OHRO; in contrast, the statefinder
hierarchy $\{S^{(1)}_3, S^{(1)}_4\}$ is a powerful tool that has the ability to
distinguish the effects of different LCF. In addition, we infer, from the
current observational data, how far we are from a cosmic doomsday in the worst
case, and find that the "Combined" sample always gives a larger 2$\sigma$ lower
limit of the time interval between a "big rip" and today. Our method can be
used to distinguish the differences among various cosmological observations.
The radial velocities of the galaxies in the vicinity of a massive cluster shows deviation from the pure Hubble flow due to their gravitational interaction with the cluster. According to a recent study of Falco et al. with a high-resolution N-body simulation based on General Relativity (GR), the radial velocity profile of the galaxies located at distances larger than three times the virial radius of a neighbour cluster has a universal shape and could be reconstructed from direct observables provided that the galaxies are distributed along one dimensional filament. Analyzing the narrow filamentary structure identified by Kim et al. in the vicinity of the Virgo cluster from the NASA-Sloan-Atlas catalog, we reconstruct the radial velocity profile of the Virgo filament galaxies and compare it with the universal formula derived by Falco et al. It is found that unless the virial mass of the Virgo cluster exceeds $10^{15}\,h^{-1}M_{\odot}$ the universal formula fails to describe the reconstructed radial velocity profile whose peculiar velocity term turns out to decrease much less rapidly. Speculating that the disagreement between the GR prediction and the observed radial velocity profile of the Virgo filament galaxies may be due to the presence of unscreened fifth force, we suggest the radial velocity profile of the filament galaxies around the clusters as a powerful test of gravity on the cosmological scale.
In paper I of this series, we examined triaxial collapse in terms of the dynamics of eigenvalues of three important tensors: the Hessian of the gravitational potential, the tensor of velocity derivatives and the deformation tensor. The first paper focussed on the joint gravity-velocity dynamics and here we focus on the deformation tensor, which is directly related to the axes' evolution. We examine the evolution of the minor to major and intermediate to major axes ratios ($s$ and $q$) and the triaxiality parameter $T$ as function of mass scale and redshift. We find that the ellipticity and prolateness increase with decreasing mass scale and decreasing redshift. These trends, while in agreement with previous analytic studies, contradict numerical simulations. Nevertheless, we find that a suitable transformation of $s$, motivated by the scaling used in recent analysis of the Millennium XXL simulations by Bonamigo {\it et al} (2014), has a universal log-normal distribution function that matches their numerical results. Similarly, the transformation ${\tilde q} = (q-s)/(1-s)$ also has a universal beta distribution that is valid over a decade in mass range and over a wide range of redshift scales, indicating that the variable ${\tilde q}$ can be thought of as an invariant of the phase space dynamics.
It has been argued that the small perturbations in the energy density to the homogeneous and isotropic configurations of a canonical scalar field in an expanding universe do not grow. We show that this is not true in general, and clarify the root of the misunderstanding. We revisit a simple model in which the linear perturbations grow like those in the standard cold dark matter scenario, but with the Jeans length at the scale of the Compton wavelength of the scalar particle.
We investigate radiative corrections to the inflaton potential from heavy fields undergoing a fast-roll phase transition. We find that a logarithmic one-loop correction to the inflaton potential involving this field can induce a temporary running of the spectral index. The induced running can be a short burst of strong running, which may be related to the observed anomalies on large scales in the cosmic microwave spectrum, or extend over many e-folds, sustaining an effectively constant running to be searched for in the future. We implement this in a general class of models, where effects are mediated through a heavy messenger field sitting in its minimum. Interestingly, within the present framework it is a generic outcome that a large running implies a small field model with a vanishing tensor-to-scalar ratio, circumventing the normal expectation that small field models typically lead to an unobservable small running of the spectral index. An observable level of tensor modes can also be accommodated, but, surprisingly, this requires running to be induced by a curvaton. If upcoming observations are consistent with a small tensor-to-scalar ratio as predicted by small field models of inflation, then the present study serves as an explicit example contrary to the general expectation that the running will be unobservable.
The intra-cluster medium of several galaxy clusters hosts large-scale regions of diffuse synchrotron radio emission, known as radio halos and relics, which demonstrate the presence of magnetic fields and relativistic electrons in clusters. These relativistic electrons should also emit X-rays through inverse-Compton scattering off of cosmic microwave background photons. The detection of such a non-thermal X-ray component, together with the radio measurement, would permit to clearly separate the magnetic field from the relativistic electron distribution as the inverse-Compton emission is independent from the magnetic field in the cluster. However, non-thermal X-rays have not been conclusively detected from any cluster of galaxies so far. In this paper, for the first time, we model the synchrotron and inverse-Compton emission of all clusters hosting radio halos and relics for which the spectral index can be determined. We provide constraints on the volume-average magnetic field by comparing with current X-ray measurements. We then estimate the maximum volume-average magnetic field that will allow the detection of inverse-Compton hard X-rays by the ASTRO-H satellite. We found that several clusters are good targets for ASTRO-H to detect their inverse-Compton emission, in particular that corresponding to radio relics, and propose a list of promising targets for which ASTRO-H can test $\ge1$~$\mu$G magnetic fields. We conclude that future hard X-ray observations by the already-operating NuSTAR and the soon-to-be-launched ASTRO-H definitely have the potential to shed light on the long-sought non-thermal hard-X-ray emission in clusters of galaxies.
We find a method to rewrite the equations of motion of scalar fields, DBI field and quintessence, in the autonomous form for\emph{arbitrary} scalar potentials. With the aid of this method, we explore the cosmic evolution of DBI field and quintessence with the potential of multiple vacua. Then we find that the scalars are always frozen in the false or true vacuum in the end. Compared to the evolution of quintessence, the DBI field has more times of oscillations around the vacuum of the potential. The reason for this point is that, with the increasing of speed $\dot{\phi}$, the friction term of DBI field is greatly decreased. Thus the DBI field acquires more times of oscillations.
During the inflationary epoch,geometry of the universe may be described by quasi-de Sitter space. On the other hand,maximally extended de Sitter metric in the comoving coordinates accords with a special FLRW model with positive spatial curvature,so in this article we focus on the positively curved inflationary paradigm.For this purpose,first we derive the power spectra of comoving curvature perturbation and primordial gravitational waves in a positively curved FLRW universe according to the slowly rolling inflationary senario. It can be shown that the curvature spectral index in this model automatically has a small negative running parameter which is compatible with observational measurements.Then,by taking into account the curvature factor,we investigate the relative amplitude of the scalar and tensor perturbations.It would be clarified that the tensor-scalar ratio for this model against the spatially flat one,depends on the waelength of the perturbative models directly.
High resolution 2D hydrodynamical simulations describing the evolution of the hot ISM in state-of-the-art axisymmetric two-component models of early-type galaxies well reproduced the observed trends of the X-ray luminosity ($L_\mathrm{x}$) and temperature ($T_\mathrm{x}$) with galaxy shape and rotation, however they also revealed the formation of an exceedingly massive cooled gas disc in rotating systems. In a follow-up of this study, here we investigate the effects of starformation in the disc, including the consequent injection of mass, momentum and energy in the pre-existing interstellar medium. It is found that subsequent generations of stars originate one after the other in the equatorial region; the mean age of the new stars is $> 5$ Gyr, and the adopted recipe for starformation can reproduce the empirical Kennicutt-Schmidt law. The results of the previous investigation without starformation, concerning $L_\mathrm{x}$ and $T_\mathrm{x}$ of the hot gas, and their trends with galactic shape and rotation, are confirmed. At the same time, the consumption of most of the cold gas disc into new stars leads to more realistic final systems, whose cold gas mass and starformation rate agree well with those observed in the local universe. In particular, our models could explain the observation of kinematically aligned gas in massive, fast-rotating early-type galaxies.
Chlorine and molecular hydrogen are known to be tightly linked together in the cold phase of the local interstellar medium through rapid chemical reactions. We present here the first systematic study of this relation at high redshifts using H$_2$-bearing damped Ly$\alpha$ systems (DLAs) detected along quasar lines of sight. Using high-resolution spectroscopic data from VLT/UVES and Keck/HIRES, we report the detection of Cl$\,$I in 9 DLAs (including 5 new detections) out of 18 high-$z$ DLAs with $N($H$_2) \ge 10^{17.3}\,$cm$^{-2}$ (including a new H$_2$ detection at $z=3.09145$ towards J$\,$2100$-$0641) and present upper limits for the remaining 9 systems. We find a $\sim$5$\,\sigma$ correlation between $N$(Cl$\,$I) and $N$(H$_2$) with only $\sim$0.2$\,$dex dispersion over the range 18.1$\,<\,$log$\,N$(H$_2$)$\,<\,$20.1, thus probing column densities 10 times lower those seen towards nearby stars, roughly following the relation $N$(Cl$\,$I$) \approx 1.5\times10^{-6} \times N($H$_2)$. This relation between column densities is surprisingly the same at low and high redshift suggesting that the physical and chemical conditions are similar for a given H$_2$ (or Cl$\,$I) column density. In turn, the $N({Cl$\,$I})/N({\rm H_2})$ ratio is found to be uncorrelated with the overall metallicity in the DLA. Our results confirm that neutral chlorine is an excellent tracer of molecule-rich gas and show that the molecular fraction or/and metallicity in the H$_2$-bearing component of DLA could possibly be much higher than the line-of-sight average values usually measured in DLAs.
Photons emitted during the epochs of Hydrogen ($500 \lesssim z \lesssim 1600$) and Helium recombination ($1600 \lesssim z \lesssim 3500$ for HeII $\rightarrow$ HeI, $5000 \lesssim z \lesssim 8000$ for HeIII $\rightarrow$ HeII) are predicted to appear as broad, weak spectral distortions of the Cosmic Microwave Background. We present a feasibility study for a ground-based experimental detection of these recombination lines, which would provide an observational constraint on the thermal ionization history of the Universe, uniquely probing astrophysical cosmology beyond the last scattering surface. We find that an octave band in the 2--6 GHz window is optimal for such an experiment, both maximizing signal-to-noise ratio and including sufficient line spectral structure. At these frequencies the predicted signal appears as an additive quasi-sinusoidal component with amplitude about $8$ nK that is embedded in a sky spectrum some nine orders of magnitude brighter. We discuss an algorithm to detect these tiny spectral fluctuations in the sky spectrum by foreground modeling. We introduce a \textit{Maximally Smooth} function capable of describing the foreground spectrum and distinguishing the signal of interest. With Bayesian statistical tests and mock data we estimate that a detection of the predicted distortions is possible with 90\% confidence by observing for 255 days with an array of 128 radiometers using cryogenically cooled state-of-the-art receivers. We conclude that detection is in principle feasible in realistic observing times; we propose APSERa---Array of Precision Spectrometers for the Epoch of Recombination---a dedicated radio telescope to detect these recombination lines.
We present an analysis of the molecular hydrogen absorption system at z$_{\rm abs}$ = 2.811 in the spectrum of the blazar Q0528-250. We demonstrate that the molecular cloud does not cover the background source completely. The partial coverage reveals itself as a residual flux in the bottom of saturated H_2 absorption lines. This amounts to about (2.22$\pm$0.54)% of the continuum and does not depend on the wavelength. This value is small and it explains why this effect has not been detected in previous studies of this quasar spectrum. However, it is robustly detected and significantly higher than the zero flux level in the bottom of saturated lines of the Ly-alpha forest, (-0.21$\pm$0.22)%. The presence of the residual flux could be caused by unresolved quasar multicomponents, by light scattered by dust, and/or by jet-cloud interaction. The H$_2$ absorption system is very well described by a two-component model without inclusion of additional components when we take partial coverage into account. The derived total column densities in the H$_2$ absorption components A and B are logN(H$_2$)[cm$^{-2}$] = 18.10$\pm$0.02 and 17.82$\pm$0.02, respectively. HD molecules are present only in component B. Given the column density, logN(HD)= 13.33$\pm$0.02, we find N(HD)/2N(H$_2$)=(1.48$\pm$0.10)x10$^{-5}$, significantly lower than previous estimations. We argue that it is crucial to take into account partial coverage effects for any analysis of H$_2$ bearing absorption systems, in particular when studying the physical state of high-redshift interstellar medium.
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Perturbation theory for dark matter clustering has received a lot of attention in recent years, but its convergence properties remain poorly justified and there is no successful model that works both for correlation function and for power spectrum. Here we present Halo Zeldovich approach combined with perturbation theory (HZPT), in which we use standard perturbation theory at one loop order (SPT) at very low $k$, and connect it to a version of the halo model, for which we adopt the Zeldovich approximation plus a Pade expansion of a compensated one halo term. This low $k$ matching allows us to determine the one halo term amplitude and redshift evolution, both of which are in an excellent agreement with simulations, and approximately agree with the expected value from the halo model. Our Pade expansion approach of the one halo term added to Zeldovich approximation identifies two typical halo scales averaged over the halo mass function, the halo radius scale of order of 1Mpc/h, and the halo mass compensation scale of order 26Mpc/h. The model gives better than one percent accurate predictions for the correlation function above 5Mpc/h at all redshifts, without any free parameters. With three fitted Pade expansion coefficients the agreement in power spectrum is good to a percent up to $k \sim 1$h/Mpc, which can be improved to arbitrary $k$ by adding higher order terms in Pade expansion.
We present ALMA observations of two moderate luminosity quasars at redshift 6. These quasars from the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey (CFHQS) have black hole masses of ~10^8 M_solar. Both quasars are detected in the [CII] line and dust continuum. Combining these data with our previous study of two similar CFHQS quasars we investigate the population properties. We show that z>6 quasars have a significantly lower far-infrared luminosity than bolometric-luminosity-matched samples at lower redshift, inferring a lower star formation rate, possibly correlated with the lower black hole masses at z=6. The ratios of [CII] to far-infrared luminosities in the CFHQS quasars are comparable with those of starbursts of similar star formation rate in the local universe. We determine values of velocity dispersion and dynamical mass for the quasar host galaxies based on the [CII] data. We find that there is no significant offset from the relations defined by nearby galaxies with similar black hole masses. There is however a marked increase in the scatter at z=6, beyond the large observational uncertainties.
In this paper we present a new scenario where massive Primordial Black Holes (PBH) are produced from the collapse of large curvature perturbations generated during a mild waterfall phase of hybrid inflation. We determine the values of the inflaton potential parameters leading to a PBH mass spectrum peaking on planetary-like masses at matter-radiation equality and producing abundances comparable to those of Dark Matter today, while the matter power spectrum on scales probed by CMB anisotropies agrees with Planck data. These PBH could have acquired large stellar masses today, via merging, and the model passes both the constraints from CMB distortions and micro-lensing. This scenario is supported by Chandra observations of numerous BH candidates in the central region of Andromeda. Moreover, the tail of the PBH mass distribution could be responsible for the seeds of supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies, as well as for ultra-luminous X-rays sources. We find that our effective hybrid potential can originate e.g. from D-term inflation with a Fayet-Iliopoulos term of the order of the Planck scale but sub-planckian values of the inflaton field. Finally, we discuss the implications of quantum diffusion at the instability point of the potential, able to generate a swiss-cheese like structure of the Universe, eventually leading to apparent accelerated cosmic expansion.
We introduce a new parameterization for the dark energy which is led by the same idea to the linear expansion of the equation of state both in scale factor $a$ and in redshift $z$, diverges neither in the past nor future and yields the same number of free parameters with the former ones. We present constraints of the cosmological parameters using a combination of baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements with cosmic microwave background (CMB) data and a recent reanalysis of Type Ia supernova (SN), and found a slightly improvement to the data compared to previous models. This new parametrization allowed us to carry out successive observational analyses by decreasing its degrees of freedom systematically until ending up with a dynamical dark energy model having no additional parameters, compared to $\Lambda$CDM, which fits slightly better to data.
Many dark matter models involving weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) feature new, relatively light pseudoscalars that mediate dark matter pair annihilation into Standard Model fermions. In particular, simple models of this type can explain the gamma ray excess originating in the Galactic Center as observed by the Fermi Large Area Telescope. In many cases the pseudoscalar's branching ratio into WIMPs is suppressed, making these states challenging to detect at colliders through standard dark matter searches. Here, we study the prospects for observing these light mediator states at the LHC without exploiting missing energy techniques. While existing searches effectively probe pseudoscalars with masses between 5 - 14 GeV and above 90 GeV, the LHC reach can be extended to cover much of the interesting parameter space in the intermediate 20 - 80 GeV mass range in which the mediator can have appreciable Yukawa-like couplings to Standard Model fermions but would have escaped detection by LEP and other experiments. Models explaining the Galactic Center excess via a light pseudoscalar mediator can give rise to a promising signal in this regime through the associated production of the mediator with bottom quarks while satisfying all other existing constraints. We perform an analysis of the backgrounds and trigger efficiencies, detailing the cuts that can be used to extract the signal. A significant portion of the otherwise unconstrained parameter space of these models can be conclusively tested at the 13 TeV LHC with 100 fb$^{-1}$, and we encourage the ATLAS and CMS collaborations to extend their existing searches to this mass range.
We present a Semi-Analytical Line Transfer model, SALT, to study the absorption and re-emission line profiles from expanding galactic envelopes. The envelopes are described as a superposition of shells with density and velocity varying with the distance from the center. We adopt the Sobolev approximation to describe the interaction between the photons escaping from each shell and the remaining of the envelope. We include the effect of multiple scatterings within each shell, properly accounting for the atomic structure of the scattering ions. We also account for the effect of a finite circular aperture on actual observations. For equal geometries and density distributions, our models reproduce the main features of the profiles generated with more complicated transfer codes. Also, our SALT line profiles nicely reproduce the typical asymmetric resonant absorption line profiles observed in star-forming/starburst galaxies whereas these absorption profiles cannot be reproduced with thin shells moving at a fixed outflow velocity. We show that scattered resonant emission fills in the resonant absorption profiles, with a strength that is different for each transition. Observationally, the effect of resonant filling depends on both the outflow geometry and the size of the outflow relative to the spectroscopic aperture. Neglecting these effects will lead to incorrect values of gas covering fraction and column density. When a fluorescent channel is available, the resonant profiles alone cannot be used to infer the presence of scattered re-emission. Conversely, the presence of emission lines of fluorescent transitions reveals that emission filling cannot be neglected.
We consider General Relativity with matter, radiation and a minimally coupled dark energy defined by an equation of state w. Using dynamical system method, we find the equilibrium points of such a theory assuming an expanding Universe and a positive dark energy density. Two of these points correspond to classical radiation and matter dominated epochs for the Universe. For the other points, dark energy mimics matter, radiation or accelerates Universe expansion. We then look for possible sequences of epochs describing a Universe starting with some radiation dominated epoch(s) (mimicked or not by dark energy), then matter dominated epoch(s) (mimicked or not by dark energy) and ending with an accelerated expansion. We find ten sequences able to follow this Universe history without singular behaviour of w at some saddle points. Most of them are new in dark energy literature. To get more than these ten sequences, w has to be singular at some specific saddle equilibrium points. This is an unusual mathematical property of the equation of state in dark energy literature, whose physical consequences tend to be discarded by observations. This thus distinguishes the ten above sequences from an infinity of ways to describe Universe expansion.
The basic principle of astronomical interferometry is to derive the angular distribution of radiation in the sky from the Fourier transform of the electric field on the ground. What is so special about the Fourier transform? Nothing, it turns out. I consider the possibility of performing other transforms on the electric field with digital technology. The Fractional Fourier Transform (FrFT) is useful for interpreting observations of sources that are close to the interferometer (in the atmosphere for radio interferometers). Essentially, applying the FrFT focuses the array somewhere nearer than infinity. Combined with the other Linear Canonical Transforms, any homogeneous linear optical system with thin elements can be instantiated. The time variation of the electric field can also be decomposed into other bases besides the Fourier modes, which is especially useful for dispersed transients or quick pulses. I discuss why the Fourier basis is so commonly used, and suggest it is partly because most astrophysical sources vary slowly in time.
In 2012 Markarian 421 underwent the largest flare ever observed in this blazar at radio frequencies. In the present study, we start exploring this unique event and compare it to a less extreme event in 2013. We use 15 GHz radio data obtained with the Owens Valley Radio Observatory 40-m telescope, 95 GHz millimeter data from the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-Wave Astronomy, and GeV gamma-ray data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The radio light curves during the flaring periods in 2012 and 2013 have very different appearances, both in shape and peak flux density. Assuming that the radio and gamma-ray flares are physically connected, we attempt to model the most prominent sub-flares of the 2012 and 2013 activity periods by using the simplest possible theoretical framework. We first fit a one-zone synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model to the less extreme 2013 flare and estimate parameters describing the emission region. We then model the major gamma-ray and radio flares of 2012 using the same framework. The 2012 gamma-ray flare shows two distinct spikes of similar amplitude, so we examine scenarios associating the radio flare with each spike in turn. In the first scenario, we cannot explain the sharp radio flare with a simple SSC model, but we can accommodate this by adding plausible time variations to the Doppler beaming factor. In the second scenario, a varying Doppler factor is not needed, but the SSC model parameters require fine tuning. Both alternatives indicate that the sharp radio flare, if physically connected to the preceding gamma-ray flares, can be reproduced only for a very specific choice of parameters.
We introduce a Green's function method for handling radiative effects on false vacuum decay. In addition to the usual thin-wall approximation, we achieve further simplification by treating the bubble wall in the planar limit. As an application, we take the $\lambda\phi^4$ theory, extended with $N$ additional heavier scalars, wherein we calculate analytically both the functional determinant of the quadratic fluctuations about the classical soliton configuration as well as the first correction to the soliton configuration itself.
An excess of gamma rays at GeV energies has been detected in the Fermi-LAT data. This signal comes from a narrow region around the Galactic Center and has been interpreted as possible evidence for light (30 GeV) dark matter particles. Focussing on the prompt gamma-ray emission, previous works found that the best fit to the data corresponds to annihilations proceeding into b quarks, with a dark matter profile going as r^{-1.2}. We show that this is not the only possible annihilation set-up. More specifically, we show how including the contributions to the gamma-ray spectrum from inverse Compton scattering and bremsstrahlung from electrons produced in dark matter annihilations, and undergoing diffusion through the Galactic magnetic field, significantly affects the spectrum for leptonic final states. This drastically changes the interpretation of the excess in terms of dark matter.
We analyze the optical, UV, and X-ray microlensing variability of the lensed quasar SDSS J0924+0219 using six epochs of Chandra data in two energy bands (spanning 0.4-8.0 keV, or 1-20 keV in the quasar rest frame), 10 epochs of F275W (rest-frame 1089A) Hubble Space Telescope data, and high-cadence R-band (rest-frame 2770A) monitoring spanning eleven years. Our joint analysis provides robust constraints on the extent of the X-ray continuum emission region and the projected area of the accretion disk. The best-fit half-light radius of the soft X-ray continuum emission region is between 5x10^13 and 10^15 cm, and we find an upper limit of 10^15 cm for the hard X-rays. The best-fit soft-band size is about 13 times smaller than the optical size, and roughly 7 GM_BH/c^2 for a 2.8x10^8 M_sol black hole, similar to the results for other systems. We find that the UV emitting region falls in between the optical and X-ray emitting regions at 10^14 cm < r_1/2,UV < 3x10^15 cm. Finally, the optical size is significantly larger, by 1.5*sigma, than the theoretical thin-disk estimate based on the observed, magnification-corrected I-band flux, suggesting a shallower temperature profile than expected for a standard disk.
Impulsive radio bursts that are detectable across cosmological distances
constitute extremely powerful probes of the ionized Inter-Galactic Medium
(IGM), intergalactic magnetic fields, and the properties of space-time itself.
Their dispersion measures (DMs) will enable us to detect the "missing" baryons
in the low-redshift Universe and make the first measurements of the mean galaxy
halo profile, a key parameter in models of galaxy formation and feedback.
Impulsive bursts can be used as cosmic rulers at redshifts exceeding 2, and
constrain the dark energy equation-of-state parameter, $w(z)$ at redshifts
beyond those readily accessible by Type Ia SNe. Both of these goals are
realisable with a sample of $\sim 10^4$ fast radio bursts (FRBs) whose
positions are localized to within one arcsecond, sufficient to obtain host
galaxy redshifts via optical follow-up. It is also hypothesised that
gravitational wave events may emit coherent emission at frequencies probed by
SKA1-LOW, and the localization of such events at cosmological distances would
enable their use as cosmological standard sirens.
To perform this science, such bursts must be localized to their specific host
galaxies so that their redshifts may be obtained and compared against their
dispersion measures, rotation measures, and scattering properties. The SKA can
achieve this with a design that has a wide field-of-view, a substantial
fraction of its collecting area in a compact configuration (80\% within a 3\,km
radius), and a capacity to attach high-time-resolution instrumentation to its
signal path.
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