575 research outputs found
Formation of Galaxy Clusters
In this review, we describe our current understanding of cluster formation:
from the general picture of collapse from initial density fluctuations in an
expanding Universe to detailed simulations of cluster formation including the
effects of galaxy formation. We outline both the areas in which highly accurate
predictions of theoretical models can be obtained and areas where predictions
are uncertain due to uncertain physics of galaxy formation and feedback. The
former includes the description of the structural properties of the dark matter
halos hosting cluster, their mass function and clustering properties. Their
study provides a foundation for cosmological applications of clusters and for
testing the fundamental assumptions of the standard model of structure
formation. The latter includes the description of the total gas and stellar
fractions, the thermodynamical and non-thermal processes in the intracluster
plasma. Their study serves as a testing ground for galaxy formation models and
plasma physics. In this context, we identify a suitable radial range where the
observed thermal properties of the intra-cluster plasma exhibit the most
regular behavior and thus can be used to define robust observational proxies
for the total cluster mass. We put particular emphasis on examining assumptions
and limitations of the widely used self-similar model of clusters. Finally, we
discuss the formation of clusters in non-standard cosmological models, such as
non-Gaussian models for the initial density field and models with modified
gravity, along with prospects for testing these alternative scenarios with
large cluster surveys in the near future.Comment: 66 pages, 17 figures, review to be published in 2012 Annual Reviews
of Astronomy & Astrophysic
Thermodynamics of the Coma Cluster Outskirts
We present results from a large mosaic of Suzaku observations of the Coma
Cluster, the nearest and X-ray brightest hot, dynamically active, non-cool core
system, focusing on the thermodynamic properties of the ICM on large scales.
For azimuths not aligned with an infalling subcluster towards the southwest,
our measured temperature and X-ray brightness profiles exhibit broadly
consistent radial trends, with the temperature decreasing from about 8.5 keV at
the cluster center to about 2 keV at a radius of 2 Mpc, which is the edge of
our detection limit. The SW merger significantly boosts the surface brightness,
allowing us to detect X-ray emission out to ~2.2 Mpc along this direction.
Apart from the southwestern infalling subcluster, the surface brightness
profiles show multiple edges around radii of 30-40 arcmin. The azimuthally
averaged temperature profile, as well as the deprojected density and pressure
profiles, all show a sharp drop consistent with an outward propagating shock
front located at 40 arcmin, corresponding to the outermost edge of the giant
radio halo observed at 352 MHz with the WSRT. The shock front may be powering
this radio emission. A clear entropy excess inside of r_500 reflects the
violent merging events linked with these morphological features. Beyond r_500,
the entropy profiles of the Coma Cluster along the relatively relaxed
directions are consistent with the power-law behavior expected from simple
models of gravitational large-scale structure formation. The pressure is also
in agreement at these radii with the expected values measured from SZ data from
the Planck satellite. However, due to the large uncertainties associated with
the Coma Cluster measurements, we cannot yet exclude an entropy flattening in
this system consistent with that seen in more relaxed cool core clusters.Comment: submitted to ApJ; revised after first referee repor
Searching for dark matter-dark energy interactions: Going beyond the conformal case
We consider a generic cosmological model which allows for non-gravitational direct couplings between dark matter and dark energy. The distinguishing cosmological features of these couplings can be probed by current cosmological observations, thus enabling us to place constraints on this generic interaction which is composed of the conformal and disformal coupling functions. We perform a global analysis in order to independently constrain the conformal, disformal, and mixed interactions between dark matter and dark energy by combining current data from: Planck observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation anisotropies, a combination of measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations, a supernovae Type Ia sample, a compilation of Hubble parameter measurements estimated from the cosmic chronometers approach, direct measurements of the expansion rate of the Universe today, and a compilation of growth of structure measurements. We find that in these coupled dark energy models, the influence of the local value of the Hubble constant does not significantly alter the inferred constraints when we consider joint analyses that include all cosmological probes. Moreover, the parameter constraints are remarkably improved with the inclusion of the growth of structure data set measurements. We find no compelling evidence for an interaction within the dark sector of the Universe
Can we detect Hot or Cold spots in the CMB with Minkowski Functionals?
In this paper, we investigate the utility of Minkowski Functionals as a probe
of cold/hot disk-like structures in the CMB. In order to construct an accurate
estimator, we resolve a long-standing issue with the use of Minkowski
Functionals as probes of the CMB sky -- namely that of systematic differences
("residuals") when numerical and analytical MF are compared. We show that such
residuals are in fact by-products of binning, and not caused by pixelation or
masking as originally thought. We then derive a map-independent estimator that
encodes the effects of binning, applicable to beyond our present work. Using
this residual-free estimator, we show that small disk-like effects (as claimed
by Vielva et al.) can be detected only when a large sample of such maps are
averaged over. In other words, our estimator is noise-dominated for small disk
sizes at WMAP resolution. To confirm our suspicion, we apply our estimator to
the WMAP7 data to obtain a null result.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figure
Large-scale Motions in the Perseus Galaxy Cluster
By combining large-scale mosaics of ROSAT PSPC, XMM-Newton, and Suzaku X-ray
observations, we present evidence for large-scale motions in the intracluster
medium of the nearby, X-ray bright Perseus Cluster. These motions are suggested
by several alternating and interleaved X-ray bright, low-temperature,
low-entropy arcs located along the east-west axis, at radii ranging from ~10
kpc to over a Mpc. Thermodynamic features qualitatively similar to these have
previously been observed in the centers of cool core clusters, and were
successfully modeled as a consequence of the gas sloshing/swirling motions
induced by minor mergers. Our observations indicate that such sloshing/swirling
can extend out to larger radii than previously thought, on scales approaching
the virial radius.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Avoiding selection bias in gravitational wave astronomy
When searching for gravitational waves in the data from ground-based
gravitational wave detectors it is common to use a detection threshold to
reduce the number of background events which are unlikely to be the signals of
interest. However, imposing such a threshold will also discard some real
signals with low amplitude, which can potentially bias any inferences drawn
from the population of detected signals. We show how this selection bias is
naturally avoided by using the full information from the search, considering
both the selected data and our ignorance of the data that are thrown away, and
considering all relevant signal and noise models. This approach produces
unbiased estimates of parameters even in the presence of false alarms and
incomplete data. This can be seen as an extension of previous methods into the
high false rate regime where we are able to show that the quality of parameter
inference can be optimised by lowering thresholds and increasing the false
alarm rate.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure
Low-Temperature Mobility of Surface Electrons and Ripplon-Phonon Interaction in Liquid Helium
The low-temperature dc mobility of the two-dimensional electron system
localized above the surface of superfluid helium is determined by the slowest
stage of the longitudinal momentum transfer to the bulk liquid, namely, by the
interaction of surface and volume excitations of liquid helium, which rapidly
decreases with temperature. Thus, the temperature dependence of the
low-frequency mobility is \mu_{dc} = 8.4x10^{-11}n_e T^{-20/3} cm^4 K^{20/3}/(V
s), where n_e is the surface electron density. The relation
T^{20/3}E_\perp^{-3} << 2x10^{-7} between the pressing electric field (in
kV/cm) and temperature (in K) and the value \omega < 10^8 T^5 K^{-5}s^{-1} of
the driving-field frequency have been obtained, at which the above effect can
be observed. In particular, E_\perp = 1 kV/cm corresponds to T < 70 mK and
\omega/2\pi < 30 Hz.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
High redshift X-ray cooling-core cluster associated with the luminous radio loud quasar 3C186
We present the first results from a new, deep (200ks) Chandra observation of
the X-ray luminous galaxy cluster surrounding the powerful (L ~10^47 erg/s),
high-redshift (z=1.067), compact-steep-spectrum radio-loud quasar 3C186. The
diffuse X-ray emission from the cluster has a roughly ellipsoidal shape and
extends out to radii of at least ~60 arcsec (~500 kpc). The centroid of the
diffuse X-ray emission is offset by 0.68(+/-0.11) arcsec (5.5+/-0.9 kpc) from
the position of the quasar. We measure a cluster mass within the radius at
which the mean enclosed density is 2500 times the critical density,
r_2500=283(+18/-13)kpc, of 1.02 (+0.21/-0.14)x10^14 M_sun. The gas mass
fraction within this radius is f_gas=0.129(+0.015/-0.016). This value is
consistent with measurements at lower redshifts and implies minimal evolution
in the f_gas(z) relation for hot, massive clusters at 0<z<1.1. The measured
metal abundance of 0.42(+0.08/-0.07) Solar is consistent with the abundance
observed in other massive, high redshift clusters. The spatially-resolved
temperature profile for the cluster shows a drop in temperature, from kT~8 keV
to kT~3 keV, in its central regions that is characteristic of cooling core
clusters. This is the first spectroscopic identification of a cooling core
cluster at z>1. We measure cooling times for the X-ray emitting gas at radii of
50 kpc and 25 kpc of 1.7(+/-0.2)x10^9 years and 7.5(+/-2.6)x 10^8 years, as
well as a nominal cooling rate (in the absence of heating) of
400(+/-190)M_sun/year within the central 100 kpc. In principle, the cooling gas
can supply enough fuel to support the growth of the supermassive black hole and
to power the luminous quasar. The radiative power of the quasar exceeds by a
factor of 10 the kinematic power of the central radio source, suggesting that
radiative heating may be important at intermittent intervals in cluster cores.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, ApJ in pres
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