4,042 research outputs found
Evolution and Earth's Entropy
Entropy decreases on the Earth due to day/night temperature differences. This
decrease exceeds the decrease in entropy on the Earth related to evolution by
many orders of magnitude. Claims by creationists that science is somehow
inconsistent with regard to evolution are thus show to be baseless.Comment: 2 page
The COBE Normalization for Standard CDM
The COBE detection of CMB anisotropies provides the best way of fixing the
amplitude of fluctuations on the largest scales. This normalization is usually
given for an n=1 spectrum, including only the anisotropy caused by the Sachs-
Wolfe effect. This is certainly not a good approximation for a model containing
any reasonable amount of baryonic matter. In fact, even tilted S-W spectra are
not a good fit to models like CDM. Here we normalize standard CDM (sCDM) to the
2-year COBE data, and quote the best amplitude in terms of the conventionally
used measures of power. We also give normalizations for some specific variants
of this standard model, and we indicate how the normalization depends on the
assumed values of n, Omega_B and H_0. For sCDM we find =19.9\pm1.5uK,
corresponding to sigma_8=1.34\pm0.10, with the normalization at large scales
being B=(8.16\pm1.04)\times10^5 (Mpc/h)^4, and other numbers given in the
Table. The measured rms temperature fluctuation smoothed on 10deg is a little
low relative to this normalization. This is mainly due to the low quadrupole in
the data: when the quadrupole is removed, the measured value of sigma(10) is
quite consistent with the best-fitting . The use of should be preferred
over sigma(10), when its value can be determined for a particular theory, since
it makes full use of the data.Comment: 4 pages compressed uuencoded postscript. We have corrected an error
in our analysi
Observational tests of one-bubble open inflationary cosmological models
Motivated by recent studies of the one-bubble inflationary scenario, simple open cold dark matter models are tested for consistency with cosmological observations. The initial perturbation spectrum is derived by solving for the evolution of fluctuations in an open inflationary stage. A likelihood analysis is performed for the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies using the two-year COBE DMR data and considering models based on both the Bunch-Davies and conformal vacua. Having normalized the perturbation spectrum to fit the COBE data, we reconsider the validity of the open model from the view point of cosmic structure formation. Open models may be severely constrained by the COBE likelihood analysis. In particular, small values of \Omega_0 are ruled out in the Bunch-Davies case: we find that \Omega_0\ge 0.34 at 95\% confidence for this model
Bandwidth in bolometric interferometry
Bolometric Interferometry is a technology currently under development that
will be first dedicated to the detection of B-mode polarization fluctuations in
the Cosmic Microwave Background. A bolometric interferometer will have to take
advantage of the wide spectral detection band of its bolometers in order to be
competitive with imaging experiments. A crucial concern is that interferometers
are presumed to be importantly affected by a spoiling effect known as bandwidth
smearing. In this paper, we investigate how the bandwidth modifies the work
principle of a bolometric interferometer and how it affects its sensitivity to
the CMB angular power spectra. We obtain analytical expressions for the
broadband visibilities measured by broadband heterodyne and bolometric
interferometers. We investigate how the visibilities must be reconstructed in a
broadband bolometric interferometer and show that this critically depends on
hardware properties of the modulation phase shifters. Using an angular power
spectrum estimator accounting for the bandwidth, we finally calculate the
sensitivity of a broadband bolometric interferometer. A numerical simulation
has been performed and confirms the analytical results. We conclude (i) that
broadband bolometric interferometers allow broadband visibilities to be
reconstructed whatever the kind of phase shifters used and (ii) that for
dedicated B-mode bolometric interferometers, the sensitivity loss due to
bandwidth smearing is quite acceptable, even for wideband instruments (a factor
2 loss for a typical 20% bandwidth experiment).Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures, submitted to A&
Mapping the 3-D Dark Matter potential with weak shear
We investigate the practical implementation of Taylor's (2002) 3-dimensional
gravitational potential reconstruction method using weak gravitational lensing,
together with the requisite reconstruction of the lensing potential. This
methodology calculates the 3-D gravitational potential given a knowledge of
shear estimates and redshifts for a set of galaxies. We analytically estimate
the noise expected in the reconstructed gravitational field, taking into
account the uncertainties associated with a finite survey, photometric redshift
uncertainty, redshift-space distortions, and multiple scattering events. In
order to implement this approach for future data analysis, we simulate the
lensing distortion fields due to various mass distributions. We create
catalogues of galaxies sampling this distortion in three dimensions, with
realistic spatial distribution and intrinsic ellipticity for both ground-based
and space-based surveys. Using the resulting catalogues of galaxy position and
shear, we demonstrate that it is possible to reconstruct the lensing and
gravitational potentials with our method. For example, we demonstrate that a
typical ground-based shear survey with redshift limit z=1 and photometric
redshifts with error Delta z=0.05 is directly able to measure the 3-D
gravitational potential for mass concentrations >10^14 M_\odot between
0.1<z<0.5, and can statistically measure the potential at much lower mass
limits. The intrinsic ellipticity of objects is found to be a serious source of
noise for the gravitational potential, which can be overcome by Wiener
filtering or examining the potential statistically over many fields. We examine
the use of the 3-D lensing potential to measure mass and position of clusters
in 3-D, and to detect clusters behind clusters.Comment: 21 pages, including 24 figures, submitted to MNRA
Chaotic Inflation with Time-Variable Space Dimensions
Assuming the space dimension is not constant but decreases during the
expansion of the Universe, we study chaotic inflation with the potential
. Our investigations are based on a model Universe with variable
space dimensions. We write down field equations in the slow-roll approximation,
and define slow-roll parameters by assuming the number of space dimensions
decreases continuously as the Universe expands. The dynamical character of the
space dimension shifts the initial and final value of the inflaton field to
larger values. We obtain an upper limit for the space dimension at the Planck
length. This result is in agreement with previous works for the effective time
variation of the Newtonian gravitational constant in a model Universe with
variable space dimensions.Comment: 19 pages, To be published in Int.J.Mod.Phys.D. Minor changes to match
accepted versio
Signal-to-Noise Eigenmode Analysis of the Two-Year COBE Maps
To test a theory of cosmic microwave background fluctuations, it is natural
to expand an anisotropy map in an uncorrelated basis of linear combinations of
pixel amplitudes --- statistically-independent for both the noise and the
signal. These -eigenmodes are indispensible for rapid Bayesian analyses of
anisotropy experiments, applied here to the recently-released two-year COBE
{\it dmr} maps and the {\it firs} map. A 2-parameter model with an overall
band-power and a spectral tilt describes well inflation-based
theories. The band-powers for {\it all} the {\it dmr} + GHz
and {\it firs} 170 GHz maps agree, , and
are largely independent of tilt and degree of (sharp) -filtering. Further,
after optimal -filtering, the {\it dmr} maps reveal the same
tilt-independent large scale features and correlation function. The unfiltered
{\it dmr} + index is ; increasing the
-filtering gives a broad region at (1.0--1.2)0.5, a jump to
(1.4--1.6)0.5, then a drop to 0.8, the higher values clearly seen to be
driven by -power spectrum data points that do not fit single-tilt models.
These indices are nicely compatible with inflation values (0.8--1.2), but
not overwhelmingly so.Comment: submitted to Phys.Rev.Letters, 4 pages, uuencoded compressed
PostScript; also bdmr2.ps.Z, via anonymous ftp to ftp.cita.utoronto.ca, cd to
/pub/dick/yukawa; CITA-94-2
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