1,683 research outputs found
The Low Redshift survey at Calar Alto (LoRCA)
The Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) feature in the power spectrum of
galaxies provides a standard ruler to measure the accelerated expansion of the
Universe. To extract all available information about dark energy, it is
necessary to measure a standard ruler in the local, z<0.2, universe where dark
energy dominates most the energy density of the Universe. Though the volume
available in the local universe is limited, it is just big enough to measure
accurately the long 100 Mpc/h wave-mode of the BAO. Using cosmological N-body
simulations and approximate methods based on Lagrangian perturbation theory, we
construct a suite of a thousand light-cones to evaluate the precision at which
one can measure the BAO standard ruler in the local universe. We find that
using the most massive galaxies on the full sky (34,000 sq. deg.), i.e. a
K(2MASS)<14 magnitude-limited sample, one can measure the BAO scale up to a
precision of 4\% and 1.2\% using reconstruction). We also find that such a
survey would help to detect the dynamics of dark energy.Therefore, we propose a
3-year long observational project, named the Low Redshift survey at Calar Alto
(LoRCA), to observe spectroscopically about 200,000 galaxies in the northern
sky to contribute to the construction of aforementioned galaxy sample. The
suite of light-cones is made available to the public.Comment: 15 pages. Accepted in MNRAS. Please visit our website:
http://lorca-survey.ft.uam.es
The Skewness of the Aperture Mass Statistic
We present simple formulae for calculating the skewness and kurtosis of the
aperture mass statistic for weak lensing surveys which is insensitive to
masking effects of survey geometry or variable survey depth. The calculation is
the higher order analog of the formula given by Schneider et al (2002) which
has been used to compute the variance of the aperture mass from several lensing
surveys. As our formula requires the three-point shear correlation function, we
also present an efficient tree-based algorithm for measuring it. We show how
our algorithm would scale in computing time and memory usage for future lensing
surveys. Finally, we apply the procedure to our CTIO survey data, originally
described in Jarvis et al (2003). We find that the skewness is positive
(inconsistent with zero) at the 2 sigma level. However, the signal is too noisy
from this data to usefully constrain cosmology.Comment: 16 pages, accepted by MNRAS. Minor revisions; this replacement
matches the accepted versio
Direct Signature of Evolving Gravitational Potential from Cosmic Microwave Background
We show that time dependent gravitational potential can be directly detected
from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. The signature can be
measured by cross-correlating the CMB with the projected density field
reconstructed from the weak lensing distortions of the CMB itself. The
cross-correlation gives a signal whenever there is a time dependent
gravitational potential. This method traces dark matter directly and has a well
defined redshift distribution of the window projecting over the density
perturbations, thereby avoiding the problems plaguing other proposed
cross-correlations. We show that both MAP and Planck will be able to probe this
effect for observationally relevant curvature and cosmological constant models,
which will provide additional constraints on the cosmological parameters.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to PR
Interpolating Masked Weak Lensing Signal with Karhunen-Loeve Analysis
We explore the utility of Karhunen Loeve (KL) analysis in solving practical
problems in the analysis of gravitational shear surveys. Shear catalogs from
large-field weak lensing surveys will be subject to many systematic
limitations, notably incomplete coverage and pixel-level masking due to
foreground sources. We develop a method to use two dimensional KL eigenmodes of
shear to interpolate noisy shear measurements across masked regions. We explore
the results of this method with simulated shear catalogs, using statistics of
high-convergence regions in the resulting map. We find that the KL procedure
not only minimizes the bias due to masked regions in the field, it also reduces
spurious peak counts from shape noise by a factor of ~ 3 in the cosmologically
sensitive regime. This indicates that KL reconstructions of masked shear are
not only useful for creating robust convergence maps from masked shear
catalogs, but also offer promise of improved parameter constraints within
studies of shear peak statistics.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures; submitted to Ap
Interference in Exclusive Vector Meson Production in Heavy Ion Collisions
Photons emitted from the electromagnetic fields of relativistic heavy ions
can fluctuate into quark anti-quark pairs and scatter from a target nucleus,
emerging as vector mesons. These coherent interactions are identifiable by
final states consisting of the two nuclei and a vector meson with a small
transverse momentum. The emitters and targets can switch roles, and the two
possibilities are indistinguishable, so interference may occur. Vector mesons
are negative parity so the amplitudes have opposite signs. When the meson
transverse wavelength is larger than the impact parameter, the interference is
large and destructive.
The short-lived vector mesons decay before amplitudes from the two sources
can overlap, and so cannot interfere directly. However, the decay products are
emitted in an entangled state, and the interference depends on observing the
complete final state. The non-local wave function is an example of the
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox.Comment: 13 pages with 3 figures; submitted to Physical Review Letter
Reconstructing Projected Matter Density from Cosmic Microwave Background
Gravitational lensing distorts the cosmic microwave background (CMB)
anisotropies and imprints a characteristic pattern onto it. The distortions
depend on the projected matter density between today and redshift . In this paper we develop a method for a direct reconstruction of the
projected matter density from the CMB anisotropies. This reconstruction is
obtained by averaging over quadratic combinations of the derivatives of CMB
field. We test the method using simulations and show that it can successfully
recover projected density profile of a cluster of galaxies if there are
measurable anisotropies on scales smaller than the characteristic cluster size.
In the absence of sufficient small scale power the reconstructed maps have low
signal to noise on individual structures, but can give a positive detection of
the power spectrum or when cross correlated with other maps of large scale
structure. We develop an analytic method to reconstruct the power spectrum
including the effects of noise and beam smoothing. Tests with Monte Carlo
simulations show that we can recover the input power spectrum both on large and
small scales, provided that we use maps with sufficiently low noise and high
angular resolution.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, submitted to PR
Non-Gaussian bubbles in the sky
We point out a possible generation mechanism of non-Gaussian bubbles in the
sky due to bubble nucleation in the early universe. We consider a curvaton
scenario for inflation and assume that the curvaton field phi, whose energy
density is subdominant during inflation but which is responsible for the
curvature perturbation of the universe, is coupled to another field sigma which
undergoes false vacuum decay through quantum tunneling. For this model, we
compute the skewness of the curvaton fluctuations due to its interaction with
sigma during tunneling, that is, on the background of an instanton solution
that describes false vacuum decay. We find that the resulting skewness of the
curvaton can become large in the spacetime region inside the bubble. We then
compute the corresponding skewness in the statistical distribution of the
cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature fluctuations. We find a
non-vanishing skewness in a bubble-shaped region in the sky. It can be large
enough to be detected in the near future, and if detected it will bring us
invaluable information about the physics in the early universe.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
CMB Anisotropy Induced by Cosmic Strings on Angular Scales
We have computed an estimate of the angular power spectrum of the Cosmic
Microwave Background (CMB) induced by cosmic strings on angular scales , using a numerical simulation of a cosmic string network; and decomposed
this pattern into scalar, vector, and tensor parts. We find no evidence for
strong acoustic oscillations in the scalar anisotropy but rather a broad peak.
The anisotropies from vector modes dominate except on very small angular scales
while the tensor anisotropies are sub-dominant on all angular scales. The
anisotropies generated after recombination are even more important than in
adiabatic models. We expect that these qualitative features are robust to the
varying of cosmological parameters, a study which has not yet been done.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Delensing Gravitational Wave Standard Sirens with Shear and Flexion Maps
Supermassive black hole binary systems (SMBHB) are standard sirens -- the
gravitational wave analogue of standard candles -- and if discovered by
gravitational wave detectors, they could be used as precise distance
indicators. Unfortunately, gravitational lensing will randomly magnify SMBHB
signals, seriously degrading any distance measurements. Using a weak lensing
map of the SMBHB line of sight, we can estimate its magnification and thereby
remove some uncertainty in its distance, a procedure we call "delensing." We
find that delensing is significantly improved when galaxy shears are combined
with flexion measurements, which reduce small-scale noise in reconstructed
magnification maps. Under a Gaussian approximation, we estimate that delensing
with a 2D mosaic image from an Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) could reduce
distance errors by about 30-40% for a SMBHB at z=2. Including an additional
wide shear map from a space survey telescope could reduce distance errors by
50%. Such improvement would make SMBHBs considerably more valuable as
cosmological distance probes or as a fully independent check on existing
probes.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, submitted to MNRA
Facilitation of IL-22 production from innate lymphoid cells by prostaglandin E2 prevents experimental lung neutrophilic inflammation
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