224 research outputs found
Environmental Influences in SGRs and AXPs
Soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) and anomalous x-ray pulsars (AXPs) are young
(<100 kyr), radio-quiet, x-ray pulsars which have been rapidly spun-down to
slow spin periods clustered at 5-12 s. Nearly all of these unusual pulsars also
appear to be associated with supernova shell remnants (SNRs) with typical ages
<20 kyr. If the unusual properties of SGRs and AXPs were due to an innate
feature, such as a superstrong magnetic field, then the pre-supernova
environments of SGRs and AXPs should be typical of neutron star progenitors.
This is not the case, however, as we demonstrate that the interstellar media
which surrounded the SGR and AXP progenitors and their SNRs were unusually
dense compared to the environments around most young radio pulsars and SNRs.
Thus, if these SNR associations are real, the SGRs and AXPs can not be
``magnetars'', and we suggest instead that the environments surrounding SGRs
and AXPs play a controlling role in their development.Comment: 5 pages with 2 figures. To appear in the proceedings of the 5th
Huntsville GRB Symposium (Huntsville, AL, Oct. 1999
Calibration of Computational Models with Categorical Parameters and Correlated Outputs via Bayesian Smoothing Spline ANOVA
It has become commonplace to use complex computer models to predict outcomes
in regions where data does not exist. Typically these models need to be
calibrated and validated using some experimental data, which often consists of
multiple correlated outcomes. In addition, some of the model parameters may be
categorical in nature, such as a pointer variable to alternate models (or
submodels) for some of the physics of the system. Here we present a general
approach for calibration in such situations where an emulator of the
computationally demanding models and a discrepancy term from the model to
reality are represented within a Bayesian Smoothing Spline (BSS) ANOVA
framework. The BSS-ANOVA framework has several advantages over the traditional
Gaussian Process, including ease of handling categorical inputs and correlated
outputs, and improved computational efficiency. Finally this framework is then
applied to the problem that motivated its design; a calibration of a
computational fluid dynamics model of a bubbling fluidized which is used as an
absorber in a CO2 capture system
The Coyote Universe III: Simulation Suite and Precision Emulator for the Nonlinear Matter Power Spectrum
Many of the most exciting questions in astrophysics and cosmology, including
the majority of observational probes of dark energy, rely on an understanding
of the nonlinear regime of structure formation. In order to fully exploit the
information available from this regime and to extract cosmological constraints,
accurate theoretical predictions are needed. Currently such predictions can
only be obtained from costly, precision numerical simulations. This paper is
the third in a series aimed at constructing an accurate calibration of the
nonlinear mass power spectrum on Mpc scales for a wide range of currently
viable cosmological models, including dark energy. The first two papers
addressed the numerical challenges, and the scheme by which an interpolator was
built from a carefully chosen set of cosmological models. In this paper we
introduce the "Coyote Univers"' simulation suite which comprises nearly 1,000
N-body simulations at different force and mass resolutions, spanning 38 wCDM
cosmologies. This large simulation suite enables us to construct a prediction
scheme, or emulator, for the nonlinear matter power spectrum accurate at the
percent level out to k~1 h/Mpc. We describe the construction of the emulator,
explain the tests performed to ensure its accuracy, and discuss how the central
ideas may be extended to a wider range of cosmological models and applications.
A power spectrum emulator code is released publicly as part of this paper.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, minor changes to address referee report,
version v1.1 of the power spectrum emulator code can be downloaded at
http://www.hep.anl.gov/cosmology/CosmicEmu/emu.html, includes now fortran
wrapper and choice of any redshift between z=0 and z=1 (note: webpage now
maintained at Argonne National Laboratory
Nonparametric Dark Energy Reconstruction from Supernova Data
Understanding the origin of the accelerated expansion of the Universe poses
one of the greatest challenges in physics today. Lacking a compelling
fundamental theory to test, observational efforts are targeted at a better
characterization of the underlying cause. If a new form of mass-energy, dark
energy, is driving the acceleration, the redshift evolution of the equation of
state parameter w(z) will hold essential clues as to its origin. To best
exploit data from observations it is necessary to develop a robust and accurate
reconstruction approach, with controlled errors, for w(z). We introduce a new,
nonparametric method for solving the associated statistical inverse problem
based on Gaussian Process modeling and Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling.
Applying this method to recent supernova measurements, we reconstruct the
continuous history of w out to redshift z=1.5.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Simulations and cosmological inference: A statistical model for power spectra means and covariances
We describe an approximate statistical model for the sample variance
distribution of the non-linear matter power spectrum that can be calibrated
from limited numbers of simulations. Our model retains the common assumption of
a multivariate Normal distribution for the power spectrum band powers, but
takes full account of the (parameter dependent) power spectrum covariance. The
model is calibrated using an extension of the framework in Habib et al. (2007)
to train Gaussian processes for the power spectrum mean and covariance given a
set of simulation runs over a hypercube in parameter space. We demonstrate the
performance of this machinery by estimating the parameters of a power-law model
for the power spectrum. Within this framework, our calibrated sample variance
distribution is robust to errors in the estimated covariance and shows rapid
convergence of the posterior parameter constraints with the number of training
simulations.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, matches final version published in PR
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