Crawling the Cosmic Network: Identifying and Quantifying Filamentary Structure

We present the Smoothed Hessian Major Axis Filament Finder (SHMAFF), an algorithm that uses the eigenvectors of the Hessian matrix of the smoothed galaxy distribution to identify individual filamentary structures. Filaments are traced along the Hessian eigenvector corresponding to the largest eigenvalue, and are stopped when the axis orientation changes more rapidly than a preset threshold. In both N-body simulations and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) main galaxy redshift survey data, the resulting filament length distributions are approximately exponential. In the SDSS galaxy distribution, using smoothing lengths of 10 h^{-1} Mpc and 15 h^{-1} Mpc, we find filament lengths per unit volume of 1.9x10^{-3} h^2 Mpc^{-2} and 7.6x10^{-4} h^2 Mpc^{-2}, respectively. The filament width distributions, which are much more sensitive to non-linear growth, are also consistent between the real and mock galaxy distributions using a standard cosmology. In SDSS, we find mean filament widths of 5.5 h^{-1} Mpc and 8.4 h^{-1} Mpc on 10 h^{-1} Mpc and 15 h^{-1} Mpc smoothing scales, with standard deviations of 1.1 h^{-1} Mpc and 1.4 h^{-1} Mpc, respectively. Finally, the spatial distribution of filamentary structure in simulations is very similar between z=3 and z=0 on smoothing scales as large as 15 h^{-1} Mpc, suggesting that the outline of filamentary structure is already in place at high redshift.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, accepted to MNRA

Biased Estimates of Omega from Comparing Smoothed Predicted Velocity Fields to Unsmoothed Peculiar Velocity Measurements

We show that a regression of unsmoothed peculiar velocity measurements against peculiar velocities predicted from a smoothed galaxy density field leads to a biased estimate of the cosmological density parameter Omega, even when galaxies trace the underlying mass distribution and galaxy positions and velocities are known perfectly. The bias arises because the errors in the predicted velocities are correlated with the predicted velocities themselves. We investigate this bias using cosmological N-body simulations and analytic arguments. In linear perturbation theory, for cold dark matter power spectra and Gaussian or top hat smoothing filters, the bias in Omega is always positive, and its magnitude increases with increasing smoothing scale. This linear calculation reproduces the N-body results for Gaussian smoothing radii R_s > 10 Mpc/h, while non-linear effects lower the bias on smaller smoothing scales, and for R_s < 3 Mpc/h Omega is underestimated rather than overestimated. The net bias in Omega for a given smoothing filter depends on the underlying cosmological model. The effect on current estimates of Omega from velocity-velocity comparisons is probably small relative to other uncertainties, but taking full advantage of the statistical precision of future peculiar velocity data sets will require either equal smoothing of the predicted and measured velocity fields or careful accounting for the biases discussed here.Comment: 11 pages including 2 eps figures. Submitted to Ap

Vey theorem in infinite dimensions and its application to KdV

We consider an integrable infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian system in a Hilbert space $H=\{u=(u_1^+,u_1^-; u_2^+,u_2^-;....)\}$ with integrals $I_1, I_2,...$ which can be written as $I_j={1/2}|F_j|^2$, where $F_j:H\to \R^2$, $F_j(0)=0$ for $j=1,2,...$ . We assume that the maps $F_j$ define a germ of an analytic diffeomorphism $F=(F_1,F_2,...):H\to H$, such that dF(0)=id$,$(F-id)$is a$\kappa$-smoothing map ($\kappa\geq 0$) and some other mild restrictions on$F$hold. Under these assumptions we show that the maps$F_j$may be modified to maps$F_j^\prime$such that$F_j-F_j^\prime=O(|u|^2)$and each$\frac12|F'_j|^2$still is an integral of motion. Moreover, these maps jointly define a germ of an analytic symplectomorphism$F^\prime: H\to H$, the germ$(F^\prime-id)$is$\kappa$-smoothing, and each$I_j$is an analytic function of the vector$(\frac12|F'_j|^2,j\ge1)$. Next we show that the theorem with$\kappa=1$ applies to the KdV equation. It implies that in the vicinity of the origin in a functional space KdV admits the Birkhoff normal form and the integrating transformation has the form `identity plus a 1-smoothing analytic map'

Analytical smoothing effect of solution for the boussinesq equations

In this paper, we study the analytical smoothing effect of Cauchy problem for the incompressible Boussinesq equations. Precisely, we use the Fourier method to prove that the Sobolev H 1-solution to the incompressible Boussinesq equations in periodic domain is analytic for any positive time. So the incompressible Boussinesq equation admet exactly same smoothing effect properties of incompressible Navier-Stokes equations

The Size and Shape of Local Voids

We study the size and shape of low density regions in the local universe which we identify in the smoothed density field of the PSCz flux limited IRAS galaxy catalogue. After quantifying the systematic biases that enter in the detection of voids using our data set and method, we identify, using a smoothing length of 5 $h^{-1}$ Mpc, 14 voids within 80 $h^{-1}$ Mpc and using a smoothing length of 10 $h^{-1}$ Mpc, 8 voids within 130 $h^{-1}$ Mpc. We study the void size distribution and morphologies and find that there is roughly an equal number of prolate and oblate-like spheroidal voids. We compare the measured PSCz void shape and size distributions with those expected in six different CDM models and find that only the size distribution can discriminate between models. The models preferred by the PSCz data are those with intermediate values of $\sigma_{8} (\simeq 0.83)$, independent of cosmology.Comment: final version, Accepted in MNRA