2,572 research outputs found
Ratcheting up ambition on climate policy
The historic Paris Agreement aims to constrain the peak increase in global mean temperature to 1.5 °C, or at least well below 2 °C. Every country has committed to device their own “nationally determined contributions” towards this target. These contributions are only proscribed for the coming 10-15 years with a regular reassessment of them against the global target. Here we use a global climate-economy model to explore consequences of differing levels of ambition during these reanalysis. We find that without substantially increased ambition the probability of avoiding 2 °C of warming is marginal. We present several plausible future trajectories that significantly increase the probability of avoiding 2 °C, but are unable to keep global temperatures below 1.5 °C. We advocate countries engage in the reassessment process soon and with high ambitions as catastrophic climate change can effectively be ruled out by such actions
What will anisotropies in the clustering pattern in redshifted 21 cm maps tell us?
The clustering pattern in high redshift HI maps is expected to be anisotropic
due to two distinct reasons, the
Alcock-Paczynski effect and the peculiar velocities, both of which are
sensitive to the cosmological parameters. The signal is also expected to be
sensitive to the details of the HI distribution at the epoch when the radiation
originated. We use simple models for the HI distribution at the epoch of
reionizaation and the post-reionization era to investigate exactly what we hope
to learn from future observations of the anisotropy pattern in HI maps. We find
that such observations will probably tell us more about the HI distribution
than about the background cosmological model. Assuming that reionization can be
described by spherical, ionized bubbles all of the same size with their centers
possibly being biased with respect to the dark matter, we find that the
anisotropy pattern at small angles is expected to have a bump at the
characteristic angular size of the individual bubbles whereas the large scale
anisotropy pattern will reflect the size and the bias of the bubbles. The
anisotropy also depends on the background cosmological parameters, but the
dependence is much weaker. Under the assumption that the HI in the
post-reionization era traces the dark matter with a possible bias, we find that
changing the bias and changing the background cosmology has similar effects on
the anisotropy pattern. Combining observations of the anisotropy with
independent estimates of the bias, possibly from the bi-spectrum, may allow
these observations to constrain cosmological parameters.Comment: Minor changes, Accepted to MNRA
Color Partition Identities Arising from Ramanujan's Theta-Functions
We establish several partition identities with distinct colors that arise from Ramanujan’s theta-function identities and formulas for multipliers in the theory of modular equations. Also, we deduce few partition congruences as a corollary of some partition identities
Evidence for Filamentarity in the Las Campanas Redshift Survey
We apply Shapefinders, statistical measures of `shape' constructed from two
dimensional partial Minkowski functionals, to study the degree of filamentarity
in the Las Campanas Redshift Survey (LCRS). In two dimensions, three Minkowski
functionals characterise the morphology of an object, they are: its perimeter
(L), area (S), and genus. Out of L and S a single dimensionless Shapefinder
Statistic, F can be constructed (0 <=F <=1). F acquires extreme values on a
circle (F = 0) and a filament (F = 1). Using F, we quantify the extent of
filamentarity in the LCRS by comparing our results with a Poisson distribution
with similar geometrical properties and having the same selection function as
the survey. Our results unambiguously demonstrate that the LCRS displays a high
degree of filamentarity both in the Northern and Southern galactic sections a
result that is in general agreement with the visual appearance of the
catalogue. It is well known that gravitational clustering from Gaussian initial
conditions gives rise to the development of non-Gaussianity reflected in the
formation of a network-like filamentary structure on supercluster scales.
Consequently the fact that the smoothed LCRS catalogue shows properties
consistent with those of a Gaussian random field (Colley 1997) whereas the
unsmoothed catalogue demonstrates the presence of filamentarity lends strong
support to the conjecture that the large scale clustering of galaxies is driven
by gravitational instability.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap
Polarised foreground removal at low radio frequencies using rotation measure synthesis: uncovering the signature of hydrogen reionisation
Measurement of redshifted 21-cm emission from neutral hydrogen promises to be
the most effective method for studying the reionisation history of hydrogen
and, indirectly, the first galaxies. These studies will be limited not by raw
sensitivity to the signal, but rather, by bright foreground radiation from
Galactic and extragalactic radio sources and the Galactic continuum. In
addition, leakage due to gain errors and non-ideal feeds conspire to further
contaminate low-frequency radio obsevations. This leakage leads to a portion of
the complex linear polarisation signal finding its way into Stokes I, and
inhibits the detection of the non-polarised cosmological signal from the epoch
of reionisation. In this work, we show that rotation measure synthesis can be
used to recover the signature of cosmic hydrogen reionisation in the presence
of contamination by polarised foregrounds. To achieve this, we apply the
rotation measure synthesis technique to the Stokes I component of a synthetic
data cube containing Galactic foreground emission, the effect of instrumental
polarisation leakage, and redshifted 21-cm emission by neutral hydrogen from
the epoch of reionisation. This produces an effective Stokes I Faraday
dispersion function for each line of sight, from which instrumental
polarisation leakage can be fitted and subtracted. Our results show that it is
possible to recover the signature of reionisation in its late stages (z ~ 7) by
way of the 21-cm power spectrum, as well as through tomographic imaging of
ionised cavities in the intergalactic medium.Comment: 22 pages including 11 figures. Minor revisions following referee's
report. MNRAS, in pres
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