11,185 research outputs found
Far-UV Emission from Elliptical Galaxies at z=0.55
The restframe UV-to-optical flux ratio, characterizing the ``UV upturn''
phenomenon, is potentially the most sensitive tracer of age in elliptical
galaxies; models predict that it may change by orders of magnitude over the
course of a few Gyr. In order to trace the evolution of the UV upturn as a
function of redshift, we have used the far-UV camera on the Space Telescope
Imaging Spectrograph to image the galaxy cluster CL0016+16 at z=0.55. Our
25''x25'' field includes four bright elliptical galaxies, spectroscopically
confirmed to be passively evolving cluster members. The weak UV emission from
the galaxies in our image demonstrates that the UV upturn is weaker at a
lookback time 5.6 Gyr earlier than our own, as compared to measurements of the
UV upturn in cluster E and S0 galaxies at z=0 and z=0.375. These images are the
first with sufficient depth to demonstrate the fading of the UV upturn expected
at moderate redshifts. We discuss these observations and the implications for
the formation history of galaxies.Comment: 4 pages, Latex. 2 figures. Uses corrected version of emulateapj.sty
and apjfonts.sty (included). Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
From source to sink in central Gondwana: Exhumation of the Precambrian basement rocks of Tanzania and sediment accumulation in the adjacent Congo basin
Apatite fission track (AFT) and (U-Th)/He (AHe) thermochronometry data are reported and used to unravel the exhumation history of crystalline basement rocks from the elevated (>1000 m above sea level) but low-relief Tanzanian Craton. Coeval episodes of sedimentation documented within adjacent Paleozoic to Mesozoic basins of southern Tanzania and the Congo basin of the Democratic Republic of Congo indicate that most of the cooling in the basement rocks in Tanzania was linked to erosion. Basement samples were from an exploration borehole located within the craton and up to 2200 m below surface. Surface samples were also analyzed. AFT dates range between 317 ± 33 Ma and 188 ± 44 Ma. Alpha (Ft)-corrected AHe dates are between 433 ± 24 Ma and 154 ± 20 Ma. Modeling of the data reveals two important periods of cooling within the craton: one during the Carboniferous-Triassic (340–220 Ma) and a later, less well constrained episode, during the late Cretaceous. The later exhumation is well detected proximal to the East African Rift (70 Ma). Thermal histories combined with the estimated geothermal gradient of 9°C/km constrained by the AFT and AHe data from the craton and a mean surface temperature of 20°C indicate removal of up to 9 ± 2 km of overburden since the end of Paleozoic. The correlation of erosion of the craton and sedimentation and subsidence within the Congo basin in the Paleozoic may indicate regional flexural geodynamics of the lithosphere due to lithosphere buckling induced by far-field compressional tectonic processes and thereafter through deep mantle upwelling and epeirogeny tectonic processes
Recapture Heterogeneity in Cliff Swallows: Increased Exposure to Mist Nets Leads to Net Avoidance
Ecologists often use mark-recapture to estimate demographic variables such as abundance, growth rate, or survival for samples of wild animal populations. A common assumption underlying mark-recapture is that all animals have an equal probability of detection, and failure to meet or correct for this assumption–as when certain members of the population are either easier or more difficult to capture than other animals–can lead to biased and inaccurate demographic estimates. We built within-year and among-years Cormack-Jolly-Seber recaptures-only models to identify causes of capture heterogeneity for a population of colonially nesting cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) caught using mist-netting as a part of a 20- year mark-recapture study in southwestern Nebraska, U.S.A. Daily detection of cliff swallows caught in stationary mist nets at their colony sites declined as the birds got older and as the frequency of netting at a site within a season increased. Experienced birds’ avoidance of the net could be countered by sudden disturbances that startled them into a net, such as when we dropped a net over the side of a bridge or flushed nesting cliff swallows into a stationary net positioned at a colony entrance. Our results support the widely held, but seldom tested, belief that birds learn to avoid stationary mist nets over time, but also show that modifications of traditional field methods can reduce this source of recapture heterogeneity
Mesoscopic Effects in Quantum Phases of Ultracold Quantum Gases in Optical Lattices
We present a wide array of quantum measures on numerical solutions of 1D
Bose- and Fermi-Hubbard Hamiltonians for finite-size systems with open boundary
conditions. Finite size effects are highly relevant to ultracold quantum gases
in optical lattices, where an external trap creates smaller effective regions
in the form of the celebrated "wedding cake" structure and the local density
approximation is often not applicable. Specifically, for the Bose-Hubbard
Hamiltonian we calculate number, quantum depletion, local von-Neumann entropy,
generalized entanglement or Q-measure, fidelity, and fidelity susceptibility;
for the Fermi-Hubbard Hamiltonian we also calculate the pairing correlations,
magnetization, charge-density correlations, and antiferromagnetic structure
factor. Our numerical method is imaginary time propagation via time-evolving
block decimation. As part of our study we provide a careful comparison of
canonical vs. grand canonical ensembles and Gutzwiller vs. entangled
simulations. The most striking effect of finite size occurs for bosons: we
observe a strong blurring of the tips of the Mott lobes accompanied by higher
depletion, and show how the location of the first Mott lobe tip approaches the
thermodynamic value as a function of system size.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure
Far-Ultraviolet Emission from Elliptical Galaxies at z=0.33
We present far-ultraviolet (far-UV) images of the rich galaxy cluster
ZwCl1358.1+6245, taken with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on board
the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). When combined with archival HST observations,
our data provide a measurement of the UV-to-optical flux ratio in 8 early-type
galaxies at z=0.33. Because the UV flux originates in a population of evolved,
hot, horizontal branch (HB) stars, this ratio is potentially one of the most
sensitive tracers of age in old populations -- it is expected to fade rapidly
with lookback time. We find that the UV emission in these galaxies, at a
lookback time of 3.9 Gyr, is significantly weaker than it is in the current
epoch, yet similar to that in galaxies at a lookback time of 5.6 Gyr. Taken at
face value, these measurements imply different formation epochs for the massive
ellipticals in these clusters, but an alternative explanation is a "floor" in
the UV emission due to a dispersion in the parameters that govern HB
morphology.Comment: 4 pages, Latex. 2 figures. Uses corrected version of emulateapj.sty
and apjfonts.sty (included). Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
Simulations and cosmological inference: A statistical model for power spectra means and covariances
We describe an approximate statistical model for the sample variance
distribution of the non-linear matter power spectrum that can be calibrated
from limited numbers of simulations. Our model retains the common assumption of
a multivariate Normal distribution for the power spectrum band powers, but
takes full account of the (parameter dependent) power spectrum covariance. The
model is calibrated using an extension of the framework in Habib et al. (2007)
to train Gaussian processes for the power spectrum mean and covariance given a
set of simulation runs over a hypercube in parameter space. We demonstrate the
performance of this machinery by estimating the parameters of a power-law model
for the power spectrum. Within this framework, our calibrated sample variance
distribution is robust to errors in the estimated covariance and shows rapid
convergence of the posterior parameter constraints with the number of training
simulations.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, matches final version published in PR
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