1,409 research outputs found
The Asiago-ESO/RASS QSO Survey II. The Southern Sample
This is the second paper of a series describing the Asiago-ESO/RASS QSO
survey, a project aimed at the construction of an all-sky statistically
well-defined sample of very bright QSOs (B_J < 15). Such a survey is required
to remove the present uncertainties about the properties of the local QSO
population and constitutes an homogeneous database for detailed evolutionary
studies of AGN. We present here the complete Southern Sample, which comprises
243 bright (12.60 < B_J < 15.13) QSO candidates at high galactic latitudes
(|b_{gal}| > 30^{\circ}). The area covered by the survey is 5660 sq. deg.
Spectroscopy for the 137 still unidentified objects has been obtained. The
total number of AGN turns out to be 111, 63 of which are new identifications.
The properties of the selection are discussed. The completeness and the success
rate for this survey at the final stage are 63% and 46%, respectively.Comment: 36 pages Latex, with 15 PostScript figures. Accepted for publication
in Astronomical Journa
The dusty environment of Quasars. Far-IR properties of Optical Quasars
We present the ISO far-IR photometry of a complete sub-sample of optically
selected bright quasars belonging to two complete surveys selected through
multicolour (U,B,V,R,I) techniques. The ISOPHOT camera on board of the ISO
Satellite was used to target these quasars at wavelengths of 7.3, 11.5, 60, 100
and 160 micron. Almost two thirds of the objects were detected at least in one
ISOPHOT band. The detection rate is independent of the source redshift, very
likely due to the negative K-correction of the far-IR thermal emission. More
than a half of the optically selected QSOs show significant emission between 4
and 100 micron in the quasar rest-frame. These fluxes have a very likely
thermal origin, although in a few objects an additional contribution from a
non-thermal component is plausible in the long wavelength bands. In a
colour-colour diagram these objects span a wide range of properties from
AGN-dominated to ULIRG-like. The far-IR composite spectrum of the quasar
population presents a broad far-IR bump between 10 and 30 micron and a sharp
drop at wavelengths greater than 100 micron in the quasar restframe. The amount
of energy emitted in the far-IR, is on average a few times larger than that
emitted in the blue and the ratio L(FIR)/L(B) increases with the bolometric
luminosity. Objects with fainter blue magnitudes have larger ratios between the
far-IR (wavelengths > 60 micron) fluxes and the blue band flux, which is
attributed to extinction by dust around the central source. No relation between
the blue absolute magnitude and the dust colour temperature is seen, suggesting
that the dominant source of FIR energy could be linked to a concurrent
starburst rather than to gravitational energy produced by the central engine.Comment: Astronomical Journal, in pres
High resolution spectroscopy of the three dimensional cosmic web with close QSO groups
We study the three-dimensional distribution of matter at z~2 using high
resolution spectra of QSO pairs and simulated spectra drawn from cosmological
hydro-dynamical simulations. We present a sample of 15 QSOs, corresponding to
21 baselines of angular separations evenly distributed between ~1 and 14
arcmin, observed with the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) at
the European Southern Observatory-Very Large Telescope (ESO-VLT). The observed
correlation functions of the transmitted flux in the HI Lya forest transverse
to and along the line of sight are in agreement, implying that the distortions
in redshift space due to peculiar velocities are relatively small and - within
the relatively large error bars - not significant. The clustering signal is
significant up to velocity separations of ~300 km/s, corresponding to about 5
h^{-1} comoving Mpc. Compatibility at the 2 sigma level has been found both for
the Auto- and Cross-correlation functions and for the set of the Cross
correlation coefficients. The analysis focuses in particular on two QSO groups
of the sample. Searching for alignments in the redshift space between Lya
absorption lines belonging to different lines of sight, it has been possible to
discover the presence of a wide HI structures extending over about ten Mpc in
comoving space, and give constraints on the sizes of two cosmic under-dense
regions in the intergalactic medium.Comment: Accepted by MNRAS, version matching the published on
Nonlinear effects for Bose Einstein condensates in optical lattices
We present our experimental investigations on the subject of dynamical
nonlinearity-induced instabilities and of nonlinear Landau-Zener tunneling
between two energy bands in a Rubidium Bose-Einstein condensate in an
accelerated periodic potential. These two effects may be considered two
different regimes (for small and large acceleration) of the same physical
system and studied with the same experimental protocol. Nonlinearity introduces
an asymmetry in Landau-Zener tunneling; as a result, tunneling from the ground
state to the excited state is enhanced whereas in the opposite direction it is
suppressed. When the acceleration is lowered, the condensate exhibits an
unstable behaviour due to nonlinearity. We also carried out a full numerical
simulation of both regimes integrating the full Gross-Pitaevskii equation; for
the Landau-Zener effect we also used a simple two-level model. In both cases we
found good agreement with the experimental results.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to Laser Physic
Testing Cosmological Models With A \lya Forest Statistic: The High End Of The Optical Depth Distribution
We pay particular attention to the high end of the \lya optical depth
distribution of a quasar spectrum. Based on the flux distribution
(Miralda-Escud\'e et al 1996), a simple yet seemingly cosmological model
-differentiating statistic, -- the cumulative probability of
a quasar spectrum with \lya optical depth greater than a high value
-- is emphasized. It is shown that two different models -- the cold dark matter
model with a cosmological constant and the mixed hot and cold dark matter
model, both normalized to COBE and local galaxy cluster abundance -- yield
quite different values of : 0.13 of the former versus 0.058 of
the latter for at . Moreover, it is argued that
may be fairly robust to compute theoretically because it does
not seem to depend sensitively on small variations of simulations parameters
such as radiation field, cooling, feedback process, radiative transfer,
resolution and simulation volume within the plausible ranges of the concerned
quantities. Furthermore, it is illustrated that can be
obtained sufficiently accurately from currently available observed quasar
spectra for , when observational noise is properly taken
into account. We anticipate that analyses of observations of quasar \lya
absorption spectra over a range of redshift may be able to constrain the
redshift evolution of the amplitude of the density fluctuations on
small-to-intermediate scales, therefore providing an independent constraint on
, and .Comment: ApJ Letters, in press, substantial changes have been made from the
last versio
The power spectrum of the flux distribution in the Lyman-alpha forest of a Large sample of UVES QSO Absorption Spectra (LUQAS)
The flux power spectra of the Lyman-alpha forest from a sample of 27 QSOs
taken with the high resolution echelle spectrograph UVES on VLT are presented.
We find a similar fluctuation amplitude at the peak of the ``3D'' flux power
spectrum at k ~ 0.03 (km/sec)^(-1) as the study by Croft et al. (2002), in the
same redshift range. The amplitude of the flux power spectrum increases with
decreasing redshift if corrected for the increase in the mean flux level as
expected if the evolution of the flux power spectrum is sensitive to the
gravitational growth of matter density fluctuations. This is in agreement with
the findings of McDonald et al. (2000) at larger redshift. The logarithmic
slope of the "3D" flux power spectrum, P_F(k), at large scales k < 0.03
(km/sec)^(-1), is 1.4 +- 0.3, i.e. 0.3 shallower than that found by Croft et
al. (2002) but consistent within the errors.Comment: 18 pages, 9 PS figures, 6 tables. Note that the k-values of the 1D
flux power spectrum had been erroneously shifted by half a bin size (in log
k) in the previous version. All the other results are unaffected. New tables
can be found at http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~rtnigm/luqas.ht
Dynamics and phase evolution of Bose-Einstein condensates in one-dimensional optical lattices
We report experimental results on the dynamics and phase evolution of
Bose-Einstein condensates in 1D optical lattices. The dynamical behaviour is
studied by adiabatically loading the condensate into the lattice and
subsequently switching off the magnetic trap. In this case, the condensate is
free to expand inside the periodic structure of the optical lattice. The phase
evolution of the condensate, on the other hand, can be studied by
non-adiabatically switching on the periodic potential. We observe decays and
revivals of the interference pattern after a time-of-flight.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures; submitted to the Proceedings of the 11th Laser
Physics Workshop, Bratislava 200
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