2,745 research outputs found
Forming Clusters of Galaxies as the Origin of Unidentified GeV Gamma-Ray Sources
Over half of GeV gamma-ray sources observed by the EGRET experiment have not
yet been identified as known astronomical objects. There is an isotropic
component of such unidentified sources, whose number is about 60 in the whole
sky. Here we calculate the expected number of dynamically forming clusters of
galaxies emitting gamma-rays by high energy electrons accelerated in the shock
wave when they form, in the framework of the standard theory of structure
formation. We find that a few tens of such forming clusters should be
detectable by EGRET and hence a considerable fraction of the isotropic
unidentified sources can be accounted for, if about 5% of the shock energy is
going into electron acceleration. We argue that these clusters are very
difficult to detect in x-ray or optical surveys compared with the conventional
clusters, because of their extended angular size of about 1 degree. Hence they
define a new population of ``gamma-ray clusters''. If this hypothesis is true,
the next generation gamma-ray telescopes such as GLAST will detect more than a
few thousands of gamma-ray clusters. It would provide a new tracer of
dynamically evolving structures in the universe, in contrast to the x-ray
clusters as a tracer of hydrodynamically stabilized systems. We also derive the
strength of magnetic field required for the extragalactic gamma-ray background
by structure formation to extend up to 100 GeV as observed, that is about
10^{-5} of the shock-heated baryon energy density.Comment: Accepted by ApJ after minor revisions. Received May 9, Accepted
August 3. 8 pages including 2 figure
Measuring the Cosmic Equation of State with Counts of Galaxies
The classical dN/dz test allows the determination of fundamental cosmological
parameters from the evolution of the cosmic volume element. This test is
applied by measuring the redshift distribution of a tracer whose evolution in
number density is known. In the past, ordinary galaxies have been used as such
a tracer; however, in the absence of a complete theory of galaxy formation,
that method is fraught with difficulties. In this paper, we propose studying
instead the evolution of the apparent abundance of dark matter halos as a
function of their circular velocity, observable via the linewidths or rotation
speeds of visible galaxies. Upcoming redshift surveys will allow the linewidth
distribution of galaxies to be determined at both z~1 and the present day. In
the course of studying this test, we have devised a rapid, improved
semi-analytic method for calculating the circular velocity distribution of dark
halos based upon the analytic mass function of Sheth et al. (1999) and the
formation time distribution of Lacey & Cole (1993). We find that if selection
effects are well-controlled and minimal external constraints are applied, the
planned DEEP Redshift Survey should allow the measurement of the cosmic
equation-of-state parameter w to 10% (as little as 3% if Omega_m has been
well-determined from other observations). This type of test has the potential
also to provide a constraint on any evolution of w such as that predicted by
``tracker'' models.Comment: 4 pages plus 3 embedded figures; version approved by Ap. J. Letters.
A greatly improved error analysis has been added, along with a figure showing
complementarity to other cosmological test
The Early Evolution of Primordial Pair-Instability Supernovae
The observational signatures of the first cosmic explosions and their
chemical imprint on second-generation stars both crucially depend on how heavy
elements mix within the star at the earliest stages of the blast. We present
numerical simulations of the early evolution of Population III pair-instability
supernovae with the new adaptive mesh refinement code CASTRO. In stark contrast
to 15 - 40 Msun core-collapse primordial supernovae, we find no mixing in most
150 - 250 Msun pair-instability supernovae out to times well after breakout
from the surface of the star. This may be the key to determining the mass of
the progenitor of a primeval supernova, because vigorous mixing will cause
emission lines from heavy metals such as Fe and Ni to appear much sooner in the
light curves of core-collapse supernovae than in those of pair-instability
explosions. Our results also imply that unlike low-mass Pop III supernovae,
whose collective metal yields can be directly compared to the chemical
abundances of extremely metal-poor stars, further detailed numerical
simulations will be required to determine the nucleosynthetic imprint of very
massive Pop III stars on their direct descendants.Comment: submitted to ApJ, comments welcom
Synthesis, Structure, and Ferromagnetism of a New Oxygen Defect Pyrochlore System Lu2V2O_{7-x} (x = 0.40-0.65)
A new fcc oxygen defect pyrochlore structure system Lu2V2O_{7-x} with x =
0.40 to 0.65 was synthesized from the known fcc ferromagnetic semiconductor
pyrochlore compound Lu2V2O7 which can be written as Lu2V2O6O' with two
inequivalent oxygen sites O and O'. Rietveld x-ray diffraction refinements
showed significant Lu-V antisite disorder for x >= 0.5. The lattice parameter
versus x (including x = 0) shows a distinct maximum at x ~ 0.4. We propose that
these observations can be explained if the oxygen defects are on the O'
sublattice of the structure. The magnetic susceptibility versus temperature
exhibits Curie-Weiss behavior above 150 K for all x, with a Curie constant C
that increases with x as expected in an ionic model. However, the magnetization
measurements also show that the (ferromagnetic) Weiss temperature theta and the
ferromagnetic ordering temperature T_C both strongly decrease with increasing x
instead of increasing as expected from C(x). The T_C decreases from 73 K for x
= 0 to 21 K for x = 0.65. Furthermore, the saturation moment at a field of 5.5
T at 5 K is nearly independent of x, with the value expected for a fixed spin
1/2 per V. The latter three observations suggest that Lu2V2O_{7-x} may contain
localized spin 1/2 vanadium moments in a metallic background that is induced by
oxygen defect doping, instead of being a semiconductor as suggested by the C(x)
dependence.Comment: 9 pages including 7 figures, 3 table
The Evolution of Diffuse Radio Sources in Galaxy Clusters
We investigate the evolution and number distribution of radio halos in galaxy
clusters. Without re-acceleration or regeneration, the relativistic electrons
responsible for the diffuse radio emission will lose their energy via
inverse-Compton and synchrotron losses in a rather short time, and radio halos
will have lifetimes 0.1 Gyr. Radio halos could last for Gyr if a
significant level of re-acceleration is involved. The lifetimes of radio halos
would be comparable with the cosmological time if the radio-emitting electrons
are mainly the secondary electrons generated by pion decay following
proton-proton collisions between cosmic-ray protons and the thermal
intra-cluster medium within the galaxy clusters. Adopting both observational
and theoretical constraints for the formation of radio halos, we calculate the
formation rates and the comoving number density of radio halos in the
hierarchical clustering scheme. Comparing with observations, we find that the
lifetimes of radio halos are Gyr. Our results indicate that a
significant level of re-acceleration is necessary for the observed radio halos
and the secondary electrons may not be a dominant origin for radio halos.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, ApJ, in press (v2:Corrected typos.
L_X-T Relation and Related Properties of Galaxy Clusters
An observational approach is presented to constrain the global structure and
evolution of the intracluster medium based on the ROSAT and ASCA distant
cluster sample. From statistical analysis of the gas density profile and the
connection to the LX-T relation under the beta-model, the scaled gas profile is
nearly universal for the outer region and the LX(>0.2r500) is tightly related
to the temperature through T^3 rather than T^2. On the other hand, a large
density scatter exists in the core region and there is clearly a deviation from
the self-similar scaling for clusters with a small core size. A direct link
between the core size and the radiative cooling timescale suggest that t_cool
is a parameter to control the gas structure and the appearance of small cores
in regular clusters may be much connected with the thermal evolution. We derive
the luminosity-ambient temperature (T') relation, assuming the universal
temperature profile to find the dispersion around the relation significantly
decreases: L_1keV is almost constant for a wide range of t_cool. We further
examined the LX-Tbeta and LX-T'beta relations and showed a trend that merging
clusters segregate from the regular clusters on the planes. A good correlation
between t_cool and the X-ray morphology on the L_1keV-t_cool/t_age plane leads
us to define three phases according to the different level of cooling, and draw
a phenomenological picture: after a cluster collapses and t_cool falls below
t_age, the core cools radiatively with quasi-hydrostatic balancing in the
gravitational potential, and the central density gradually becomes higher to
evolve from an outer-core-dominant cluster to inner-core-dominant cluster.Comment: 39 pages, 37 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Version with
high-quality color figures at
http://cosmic.riken.jp/ota/publications/index.htm
Nonlinear stochastic biasing from the formation epoch distribution of dark halos
We propose a physical model for nonlinear stochastic biasing of one-point
statistics resulting from the formation epoch distribution of dark halos. In
contrast to previous works on the basis of extensive numerical simulations, our
model provides for the first time an analytic expression for the joint
probability function. Specifically we derive the joint probability function of
halo and mass density contrasts from the extended Press-Schechter theory. Since
this function is derived in the framework of the standard gravitational
instability theory assuming the random-Gaussianity of the primordial density
field alone, we expect that the basic features of the nonlinear and stochastic
biasing predicted from our model are fairly generic. As representative
examples, we compute the various biasing parameters in cold dark matter models
as a function of a redshift and a smoothing length. Our major findings are (1)
the biasing of the variance evolves strongly as redshift while its
scale-dependence is generally weak and a simple linear biasing model provides a
reasonable approximation roughly at R\simgt 2(1+z)\himpc, and (2) the
stochasticity exhibits moderate scale-dependence especially on R\simlt
20\himpc, but is almost independent of . Comparison with the previous
numerical simulations shows good agreement with the above behavior, indicating
that the nonlinear and stochastic nature of the halo biasing is essentially
understood by taking account of the distribution of the halo mass and the
formation epoch.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures, ApJ (2000) in pres
Observing H2 Emission in Forming Galaxies
We study the H2 cooling emission of forming galaxies, and discuss their
observability using the future infrared facility SAFIR. Forming galaxies with
mass >10^11 Msun emit most of their gravitational energy liberated by
contraction in molecular hydrogen line radiation, although a large part of
thermal energy at virialization is radiated away by the H Ly alpha emission.
For more massive objects, the degree of heating due to dissipation of kinetic
energy is so great that the temperature does not drop below 10^4 K and the
gravitational energy is emitted mainly by the Ly alpha emission. Therefore, the
total H2 luminosity attains the peak value of about 10^42 ergs/s for forming
galaxies whose total mass 10^11 Msun. If these sources are situated at redshift
z=8, they can be detected by rotational lines of 0-0S(3) at 9.7 micron and
0-0S(1) at 17 micron by SAFIR. An efficient way to find such H2 emitters is to
look at the Ly alpha emitters, since the brightest H2 emitters are also
luminous in the Ly alpha emission.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, ApJ accepte
The Impact of Small-Scale Structure on Cosmological Ionization Fronts and Reionization
The propagation of cosmological ionization fronts during the reionization of
the universe is strongly influenced by small-scale gas inhomogeneities due to
structure formation. These inhomogeneities include both collapsed minihalos,
which are generally self-shielding, and lower-density structures, which are
not. The minihalos are dense and sufficiently optically-thick to trap
intergalactic ionization fronts, blocking their path and robbing them of
ionizing photons until the minihalo gas is expelled as an evaporative wind. The
lower-density structures do not trap these fronts, but they can slow them down
by increasing the overall recombination rate in the intergalactic medium. In
this paper we study the effects of both types of inhomogeneities, including
nonlinear clustering effects, and we find that both IGM clumping and collapsed
minihalos have significant yet qualitatively different impacts on reionization.
While the number density of minihalos on average increases strongly with time,
the density of minihalos inside H II regions around ionizing sources is largely
constant. Thus the impact of minihalos is essentially to decrease the number of
ionizing photons available to the IGM at all epochs, which is equivalent to a
reduction in the luminosity of each source. On the other hand, the effect of
IGM clumping increases strongly with time, slowing down reionization and
extending it. Thus while the impact of minihalos is largely degenerate with the
unknown source efficiency, IGM clumping can help significantly in reconciling
the recent observations of cosmic microwave background polarization with quasar
absorption spectra at z~6, which together point to an early but extended
reionization epoch.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, minor revisions to respond to referee comments,
accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
Constraints on Primordial Nongaussiantiy from the High-Redshift Cluster MS1054--03
The implications of the massive, X-ray selected cluster of galaxies
MS1054--03 at are discussed in light of the hypothesis that the
primordial density fluctuations may be nongaussian. We generalize the
Press-Schechter (PS) formalism to the nongaussian case, and calculate the
likelihood that a cluster as massive as MS1054 would appear in the EMSS. The
probability of finding an MS1054-like cluster depends only on \omegam and the
extent of primordial nongaussianity. We quantify the latter by adopting a
specific functional form for the PDF, denoted which tends to
Gaussianity for and show how is related to the more
familiar statistic the probability of fluctuations for a
given PDF relative to a Gaussian. We find that Gaussian initial density
fluctuations are consistent with the data on MS1054 only if \omegam\simlt
0.2. For \omegam\ge 0.25 a significant degree of nongaussianity is required,
unless the mass of MS1054 has been substantially overestimated by X-ray and
weak lensing data. The required amount of nongaussianity is a rapidly
increasing function of \omegam for 0.25 \le \omegam \le 0.45, with (T \simgt 7) at the upper end of this range. For a fiducial
\omegam=0.3, \omegal=0.7 universe, favored by several lines of evidence we
obtain an upper limit corresponding to a This
finding is consistent with the conclusions of Koyama, Soda, & Taruya (1999),
who applied the generalized PS formalism to low (z\simlt 0.1) and
intermediate (z\simlt 0.6) redshift cluster data sets.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, submitted to the Astrophysical Journal, uses
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