76 research outputs found
Large scale distribution of total mass versus luminous matter from Baryon Acoustic Oscillations: First search in the SDSS-III BOSS Data Release 10
Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs) in the early Universe are predicted to
leave an as yet undetected signature on the relative clustering of total mass
versus luminous matter. A detection of this effect would provide an important
confirmation of the standard cosmological paradigm and constrain alternatives
to dark matter as well as non-standard fluctuations such as Compensated
Isocurvature Perturbations (CIPs). We conduct the first observational search
for this effect, by comparing the number-weighted and luminosity-weighted
correlation functions, using the SDSS-III BOSS Data Release 10 CMASS sample.
When including CIPs in our model, we formally obtain evidence at of
the relative clustering signature and a limit that matches the existing upper
limits on the amplitude of CIPs. However, various tests suggest that these
results are not yet robust, perhaps due to systematic biases in the data. The
method developed in this Letter, used with more accurate future data such as
that from DESI, is likely to confirm or disprove our preliminary evidence.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in PR
Scale Dependence of Halo Bispectrum from Non-Gaussian Initial Conditions in Cosmological N-body Simulations
We study the halo bispectrum from non-Gaussian initial conditions. Based on a
set of large -body simulations starting from initial density fields with
local type non-Gaussianity, we find that the halo bispectrum exhibits a strong
dependence on the shape and scale of Fourier space triangles near squeezed
configurations at large scales. The amplitude of the halo bispectrum roughly
scales as . The resultant scaling on the triangular shape is consistent
with that predicted by Jeong & Komatsu based on perturbation theory. We
systematically investigate this dependence with varying redshifts and halo mass
thresholds. It is shown that the dependence of the halo bispectrum is
stronger for more massive haloes at higher redshifts. This feature can be a
useful discriminator of inflation scenarios in future deep and wide galaxy
redshift surveys.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures; revised argument in section 6, added appendix
C, JCAP accepted versio
Statistical Determination of Bulk Flow Motions
We present here a new parameterization for the bulk motions of galaxies and
clusters (in the linear regime) that can be measured statistically from the
shape and amplitude of the two-dimensional two-point correlation function. We
further propose the one-dimensional velocity dispersion (v_p) of the bulk flow
as a complementary measure of redshift-space distortions, which is
model-independent and not dependent on the normalisation method. As a
demonstration, we have applied our new methodology to the C4 cluster catalogue
constructed from Data Release Three (DR3) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We
find v_p=270^{+433}km/s (also consistent with v_p=0) for this cluster sample
(at z=0.1), which is in agreement with that predicted for a WMAP5-normalised
LCDM model (i.e., v_p(LCDM=203km/s). This measurement does not lend support to
recent claims of excessive bulk motions (\simeq1000 km/s) which appear in
conflict with LCDM, although our large statistical error cannot rule them out.
From the measured coherent evolution of v_p, we develop a technique to
re-construct the perturbed potential, as well as estimating the unbiased matter
density fluctuations and scale--independent bias.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
Delivery of costimulatory blockade to lymph nodes promotes transplant acceptance in mice
The lymph node (LN) is the primary site of alloimmunity activation and regulation during transplantation. Here, we investigated how fibroblastic reticular cells (FRCs) facilitate the tolerance induced by anti-CD40L in a murine model of heart transplantation. We found that both the absence of LNs and FRC depletion abrogated the effect of anti-CD40L in prolonging murine heart allograft survival. Depletion of FRCs impaired homing of T cells across the high endothelial venules (HEVs) and promoted formation of alloreactive T cells in the LNs in heart-transplanted mice treated with anti-CD40L. Single-cell RNA sequencing of the LNs showed that anti-CD40L promotes a Madcam1+ FRC subset. FRCs also promoted the formation of regulatory T cells (Tregs) in vitro. Nanoparticles (NPs) containing anti-CD40L were selectively delivered to the LNs by coating them with MECA-79, which binds to peripheral node addressin (PNAd) glycoproteins expressed exclusively by HEVs. Treatment with these MECA-79-anti-CD40L-NPs markedly delayed the onset of heart allograft rejection and increased the presence of Tregs. Finally, combined MECA-79-anti-CD40L-NPs and rapamycin treatment resulted in markedly longer allograft survival than soluble anti-CD40L and rapamycin. These data demonstrate that FRCs are critical to facilitating costimulatory blockade. LN-targeted nanodelivery of anti-CD40L could effectively promote heart allograft acceptance
The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey : baryon acoustic oscillations in the Data Releases 10 and 11 Galaxy samples
We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 (DR11) sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = (1264 ± 25 Mpc)(rd/rd,fid) at z = 0.32 and DV = (2056 ± 20 Mpc)(rd/rd,fid) at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = (1421 ± 20 Mpc)(rd/rd,fid) and H = (96.8 ± 3.4 km s−1 Mpc−1)(rd,fid/rd). Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
Friends-of-Friends Groups and Clusters in the 2SLAQ Catalogue
We present a catalogue of galaxy groups and clusters selected using a
friends-of-friends algorithm with a dynamic linking length from the 2dF-SDSS
and QSO (2SLAQ) luminous red galaxy survey. The linking parameters for the code
are chosen through an analysis of simulated 2SLAQ haloes. The resulting
catalogue includes 313 clusters containing 1,152 galaxies. The galaxy groups
and clusters have an average velocity dispersion of sigma_v = 467.97 km/s and
an average size of R_clt = 0.78 Mpc/h. Galaxies from regions of one square
degree and centred on the galaxy clusters were downloaded from the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6 (SDSS DR6). Investigating the photometric
redshifts and cluster red-sequence of these galaxies shows that the galaxy
clusters detected with the FoF algorithm are reliable out to z~0.6. We estimate
masses for the clusters using their velocity dispersions. These mass estimates
are shown to be consistent with 2SLAQ mock halo masses. Further analysis of the
simulation haloes shows that clipping out low richness groups with large radii
improves the purity of catalogue from 52% to 88%, while retaining a
completeness of 94%. Finally, we test the two-point correlation function of our
cluster catalogue. We find a best-fitting power law model with parameters r0 =
24\pm4 Mpc/h and gamma = -2.1\pm 0.2, which are in agreement with other low
redshift cluster samples and consistent with a {\Lambda}CDM universe.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figure
Star/galaxy separation at faint magnitudes: application to a simulated Dark Energy Survey
We address the problem of separating stars from galaxies in future large photometric surveys. We focus our analysis on simulations of the Dark Energy Survey (DES). In the first part of the paper, we derive the science requirements on star/galaxy separation, for measurement of the cosmological parameters with the gravitational weak lensing and large-scale structure probes. These requirements are dictated by the need to control both the statistical and systematic errors on the cosmological parameters, and by point spread function calibration. We formulate the requirements in terms of the completeness and purity provided by a given star/galaxy classifier. In order to achieve these requirements at faint magnitudes, we propose a new method for star/galaxy separation in the second part of the paper. We first use principal component analysis to outline the correlations between the objects parameters and extract from it the most relevant information. We then use the reduced set of parameters as input to an Artificial Neural Network. This multiparameter approach improves upon purely morphometric classifiers (such as the classifier implemented in SExtractor), especially at faint magnitudes: it increases the purity by up to 20 per cent for stars and by up to 12 per cent for galaxies, at i-magnitude fainter than 2
Measurements of the Cherenkov effect in direct detection of charged particles with SiPMs
In this paper, different Silicon PhotoMultiplier (SiPM) sensors have been
tested with charged particles to characterize the Cherenkov light produced in
the sensor protection layer. A careful position scan of the SiPM response has
been performed with different prototypes, confirming the large number of firing
cells and proving almost full efficiency, with the SiPM filling factor
essentially negligible. This study also allowed us to study the time resolution
of such devices as a function of the number of firing cells, reaching values
below 20 ps. These measurements provide significant insight into the
capabilities of SiPM sensors in direct detection of charged particles and their
potential for several applications
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