4,628 research outputs found
Fossil evidence for spin alignment of SDSS galaxies in filaments
We search for and find fossil evidence that the distribution of the spin axes
of galaxies in cosmic web filaments relative to their host filaments are not
randomly distributed. This would indicate that the action of large scale tidal
torques effected the alignments of galaxies located in cosmic filaments. To
this end, we constructed a catalogue of clean filaments containing edge-on
galaxies. We started by applying the Multiscale Morphology Filter (MMF)
technique to the galaxies in a redshift-distortion corrected version of the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR5. From that sample we extracted those 426 filaments
that contained edge-on galaxies (b/a < 0.2). These filaments were then visually
classified relative to a variety of quality criteria. Statistical analysis
using "feature measures" indicates that the distribution of orientations of
these edge-on galaxies relative to their parent filament deviate significantly
from what would be expected on the basis of a random distribution of
orientations. The interpretation of this result may not be immediately
apparent, but it is easy to identify a population of 14 objects whose spin axes
are aligned perpendicular to the spine of the parent filament (\cos \theta <
0.2). The candidate objects are found in relatively less dense filaments. This
might be expected since galaxies in such locations suffer less interaction with
surrounding galaxies, and consequently better preserve their tidally induced
orientations relative to the parent filament. The technique of searching for
fossil evidence of alignment yields relatively few candidate objects, but it
does not suffer from the dilution effects inherent in correlation analysis of
large samples.Comment: 20 pages, 19 figures, slightly revised and upgraded version, accepted
for publication by MNRAS. For high-res version see
http://www.astro.rug.nl/~weygaert/SpinAlignJones.rev.pd
The late merging phase of a galaxy cluster : XMM EPIC Observations of A3266
We present a mosaic of five XMM-Newton observations of the nearby
() merging galaxy cluster Abell 3266. We use the spectro-imaging
capabilities of \xmm to build precise (projected) temperature, entropy,
pressure and Fe abundance maps. The temperature map exhibits a curved,
large-scale hot region, associated with elevated entropy levels, very similar
to that foreseen in numerical simulations. The pressure distribution is
disturbed in the central region but is remarkably regular on large scales. The
Fe abundance map indicates that metals are inhomogeneously distributed across
the cluster. Using simple physical calculations and comparison with numerical
simulations, we discuss in detail merging scenarios that can reconcile the
observed gas density, temperature and entropy structure, and the galaxy density
distribution
Unveiling hidden structures in the Coma cluster
We have assembled a large data-set of 613 galaxy redshifts in the Coma
cluster, the largest presently available for a cluster of galaxies. We have
defined a sample of cluster members complete to b, using a
membership criterion based on the galaxy velocity, when available, or on the
galaxy magnitude and colour, otherwise. Such a data set allows us to define
nearly complete samples within a region of 1~\Mpc\ radius, with a sufficient
number of galaxies per sample to make statistical analyses possible. Using this
sample and the {\em ROSAT} PSPC X--ray image of the cluster, we have
re-analyzed the structure and kinematics of Coma, by applying the wavelet and
adaptive kernel techniques. A striking coincidence of features is found in the
distributions of galaxies and hot intracluster gas. The two central dominant
galaxies, NGC4874 and NGC4889, are surrounded by two galaxy groups, mostly
populated with galaxies brighter than b and well separated in
velocity space. On the contrary, the fainter galaxies tend to form a single
smooth structure with a central peak coinciding in position with a secondary
peak detected in X--rays, and located between the two dominant galaxies; we
suggest to identify this structure with the main body of the Coma cluster. A
continuous velocity gradient is found in the central distribution of these
faint galaxies, a probable signature of tidal interactions rather than
rotation. There is evidence for a bound population of bright galaxies around
other brightest cluster members. Altogether, the Coma cluster structure seems
to be better traced by the faint galaxy population, the bright galaxies being
located in subclusters. We discuss this evidence in terms of an ongoing
accretion of groups onto the cluster.Comment: to appear in A&A, 19 pages, uuencoded gzipped postscript fil
Grid Analysis of Radiological Data
IGI-Global Medical Information Science Discoveries Research Award 2009International audienceGrid technologies and infrastructures can contribute to harnessing the full power of computer-aided image analysis into clinical research and practice. Given the volume of data, the sensitivity of medical information, and the joint complexity of medical datasets and computations expected in clinical practice, the challenge is to fill the gap between the grid middleware and the requirements of clinical applications. This chapter reports on the goals, achievements and lessons learned from the AGIR (Grid Analysis of Radiological Data) project. AGIR addresses this challenge through a combined approach. On one hand, leveraging the grid middleware through core grid medical services (data management, responsiveness, compression, and workflows) targets the requirements of medical data processing applications. On the other hand, grid-enabling a panel of applications ranging from algorithmic research to clinical use cases both exploits and drives the development of the services
Wide Field Imaging. I. Applications of Neural Networks to object detection and star/galaxy classification
[Abriged] Astronomical Wide Field Imaging performed with new large format CCD
detectors poses data reduction problems of unprecedented scale which are
difficult to deal with traditional interactive tools. We present here NExt
(Neural Extractor): a new Neural Network (NN) based package capable to detect
objects and to perform both deblending and star/galaxy classification in an
automatic way. Traditionally, in astronomical images, objects are first
discriminated from the noisy background by searching for sets of connected
pixels having brightnesses above a given threshold and then they are classified
as stars or as galaxies through diagnostic diagrams having variables choosen
accordingly to the astronomer's taste and experience. In the extraction step,
assuming that images are well sampled, NExt requires only the simplest a priori
definition of "what an object is" (id est, it keeps all structures composed by
more than one pixels) and performs the detection via an unsupervised NN
approaching detection as a clustering problem which has been thoroughly studied
in the artificial intelligence literature. In order to obtain an objective and
reliable classification, instead of using an arbitrarily defined set of
features, we use a NN to select the most significant features among the large
number of measured ones, and then we use their selected features to perform the
classification task. In order to optimise the performances of the system we
implemented and tested several different models of NN. The comparison of the
NExt performances with those of the best detection and classification package
known to the authors (SExtractor) shows that NExt is at least as effective as
the best traditional packages.Comment: MNRAS, in press. Paper with higher resolution images is available at
http://www.na.astro.it/~andreon/listapub.htm
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