1,506 research outputs found
Strong Clustering of Lyman Break Galaxies around Luminous Quasars at z~4
In the standard picture of structure formation, the first massive galaxies
are expected to form at the highest peaks of the density field, which
constitute the cores of massive proto-clusters. Luminous quasars (QSOs) at z~4
are the most strongly clustered population known, and should thus reside in
massive dark matter halos surrounded by large overdensities of galaxies,
implying a strong QSO-galaxy cross-correlation function. We observed six z~4
QSO fields with VLT/FORS exploiting a novel set of narrow band filters custom
designed to select Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) in a thin redshift slice of
Delta_z~0.3, mitigating the projection effects that have limited the
sensitivity of previous searches for galaxies around z>~4 QSOs. We find that
LBGs are strongly clustered around QSOs, and present the first measurement of
the QSO-LBG cross-correlation function at z~4, on scales of 0.1<~R<~9 Mpc/h
(comoving). Assuming a power law form for the cross-correlation function
xi=(r/r0_QG)^gamma, we measure r0_QG=8.83^{+1.39}_{-1.51} Mpc/h for a fixed
slope of gamma=2.0. This result is in agreement with the expected
cross-correlation length deduced from measurements of the QSO and LBG
auto-correlation function, and assuming a linear bias model. We also measure a
strong auto-correlation of LBGs in our QSO fields finding
r0_GG=21.59^{+1.72}_{-1.69} Mpc/h for a fixed slope of gamma=1.5, which is ~4
times larger than the LBG auto-correlation length in random fields, providing
further evidence that QSOs reside in overdensities of LBGs. Our results
qualitatively support a picture where luminous QSOs inhabit exceptionally
massive (M_halo>10^12 M_sun) dark matter halos at z~4.Comment: 25 pages, 22 figures, submitted to the Ap
Clustering of Lyman-alpha Emitters Around Quasars at
The strong observed clustering of quasars indicates they are hosted
by massive () dark matter
halos. Assuming quasars and galaxies trace the same large-scale structures,
this should also manifest as strong clustering of galaxies around quasars.
Previous work on high-redshift quasar environments, mostly focused at ,
have failed to find convincing evidence for these overdensities. Here we
conduct a survey for Lyman alpha emitters (LAEs) in the environs of 17 quasars
at probing scales of . We measure an
average LAE overdensity around quasars of 1.4 for our full sample, which we
quantify by fitting the quasar-LAE cross-correlation function. We find
consistency with a power-law shape with correlation length of
for a fixed slope of
. We also measure the LAE auto-correlation length and find
\,cMpc (), which is
times higher than the value measured in blank fields. Taken together our
results clearly indicate that LAEs are significantly clustered around
quasars. We compare the observed clustering with the expectation from a
deterministic bias model, whereby LAEs and quasars probe the same underlying
dark matter overdensities, and find that our measurements fall short of the
predicted overdensities by a factor of 2.1. We discuss possible explanations
for this discrepancy including large-scale quenching or the presence of excess
dust in galaxies near quasars. Finally, the large cosmic variance from
field-to-field observed in our sample (10/17 fields are actually underdense)
cautions one from over-interpreting studies of quasar environments
based on a single or handful of quasar fields.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, submitted to the Ap
Squark Loop Correction to W^{+-} H^{-+} Associated Hadroproduction
We study the squark loop correction to W^{+-} H^{-+} associated
hadroproduction via gluon-gluon fusion within the minimal supersymmetric
extension of the standard model. We list full analytic results and
quantitatively analyze the resulting shift in the cross section at the CERN
Large Hadron Collider assuming a supergravity-inspired scenario.Comment: 13 pages (Latex), 5 figures (Postscript
The MSSM prediction for W+/- H-/+ production by gluon fusion
We discuss the associated W+/- H-/+ production in p p collision for the Large
Hadron Collider. A complete one-loop calculation of the loop-induced subprocess
g g -> W+/- H-/+ is presented in the framework of the Minimal Supersymmetric
Standard Model (MSSM), and the possible enhancement of the hadronic cross
section is investigated under the constraint from the squark direct-search
results and the low-energy precision data. Because of the large destructive
interplay in the quark-loop contributions between triangle-type and box-type
diagrams, the squark-loop contributions turn out to be comparable with the
quark-loop ones. In particular, the hadronic cross section via gluon fusion can
be extensively enhanced by squark-pair threshold effects in the box-type
diagrams, so that it can be as large as the hadronic cross section via the b
b-bar -> W+/- H-/+ subprocess which appears at tree level.Comment: 35 pages, 7 figures, version to appear in Physical Review
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