A massive high density effective theory

We derive an effective theory for dense, cold and massive quark matter. To this end, we employ a general effective action formalism where antiquarks and quarks far from the Fermi surface, as well as hard gluons, are integrated out explicitly. We show that the resulting effective action depends crucially on the projectors used to separate quarks from antiquarks. If one neglects the quark masses in these projectors, the Feynman rules of the effective theory involve quark mass insertions which connect quark with antiquark propagators. Including the quark masses into these projectors, mass insertions do not appear and the Feynman rules are identical to those found in the zero-mass limit.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

The Maximum Optical Depth Towards Bulge Stars From Axisymmetric Models of the Milky Way

It has been known that recent microlensing results towards the bulge imply mass densities that are surprisingly high given dynamical constraints on the Milky Way mass distribution. We derive the maximum optical depth towards the bulge that may be generated by axisymmetric structures in the Milky Way, and show that observations are close to surpassing these limits. This result argues in favor of a bar as a source of significantly enhanced microlensing. Several of the bar models in the literature are discussed.Comment: Latex, 6 pages, 4 figures, uses aas2pp4 and epsf style files. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Disc heating in NGC 2985

Various processes have been proposed to explain how galaxy discs acquire their thickness. A simple diagnostic for ascertaining this ``heating'' mechanism is provided by the ratio of the vertical to radial velocity dispersion components. In a previous paper we have developed a technique for measuring this ratio, and demonstrated its viability on the Sb system NGC 488. Here we present follow-up observations of the morphologically similar Sab galaxy NGC 2985, still only the second galaxy for which this ratio has been determined outside of the solar neighbourhood. The result is consistent with simple disc heating models which predict ratios of $\sigma_z / \sigma_R$ less than oneComment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

The shape of the velocity ellipsoid in NGC 488

Theories of stellar orbit diffusion in disk galaxies predict different rates of increase of the velocity dispersions parallel and perpendicular to the disk plane, and it is therefore of interest to measure the different velocity dispersion components in galactic disks of different types. We show that it is possible to extract the three components of the velocity ellipsoid in an intermediate-inclination disk galaxy from measured line-of-sight velocity dispersions on the major and minor axes. On applying the method to observations of the Sb galaxy NGC 488, we find evidence for a higher ratio of vertical to radial dispersion in NGC 488 than in the solar neighbourhood of the Milky Way (the only other place where this quantity has ever been measured). The difference is qualitatively consistent with the notion that spiral structure has been relatively less important in the dynamical evolution of the disk of NGC 488 than molecular clouds.Comment: 5 pages LaTex, including 2 figures, mn.sty, submitted to MNRA

Weak weak lensing:correcting weak shear measurements accurately for PSF anisotropy

We have developed a new technique for weak lensing analysis, specifically designed to correct accurately for the effect of the point spread function (PSF) on the shapes of small galaxy images. This method does not rely on weighted second moments of detected images, which we show can leave residuals at the level of a percent in the shear; rather, we directly fit observed galaxy images as PSF-convolved, sheared circular sources. We show by means of simulations that this technique is able to recover shears with systematic errors well below the percent level for representative PSF shapes, while its noise properties are similar to existing methods.</p