1,663 research outputs found
Impact of foregrounds on Cosmic Microwave Background maps
We discuss the possible impact of astrophysical foregrounds on three recent
exciting results of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) experiments: the WMAP
measurements of the temperature-polarization (TE) correlation power spectrum,
the detection of CMB polarization fluctuations on degree scales by the DASI
experiment, and the excess power on arcminute scales reported by the CBI and
BIMA groups. A big contribution from the Galactic synchrotron emission to the
TE power spectrum on large angular scales is indeed expected, in the lower
frequency WMAP channels, based on current, albeit very uncertain, models; at
higher frequencies the rapid decrease of the synchrotron signal may be, to some
extent, compensated by polarized dust emission. Recent measurements of
polarization properties of extragalactic radio sources at high radio frequency
indicate that their contamination of the CMB polarization on degree scales at
30 GHz is substantially below the expected CMB E-mode amplitude. Adding the
synchrotron contribution, we estimate that the overall foreground contamination
of the signal detected by DASI may be significant but not dominant. The excess
power on arc-min scales detected by the BIMA experiment may be due to
galactic-scale Sunyaev-Zeldovich effects, if the proto-galactic gas is heated
to its virial temperature and its cooling time is comparable to the Hubble time
at the epoch of galaxy formation. A substantial contamination by radio sources
of the signal reported by the CBI group on scales somewhat larger than BIMA's
cannot be easily ruled out.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, to appear in proc. int. conf. "Thinking,
Observing and Mining the Universe", Sorrento, Sept. 200
A dark matter interpretation for the ARCADE excess?
The ARCADE 2 Collaboration has recently measured an isotropic radio emission
which is significantly brighter than the expected contributions from known
extra-galactic sources. The simplest explanation of such excess involves a
"new" population of unresolved sources which become the most numerous at very
low (observationally unreached) brightness. We investigate this scenario in
terms of synchrotron radiation induced by WIMP annihilations or decays in
extragalactic halos. Intriguingly, for light-mass WIMPs with thermal
annihilation cross-section, and fairly conservative clustering assumptions, the
level of expected radio emission matches the ARCADE observations.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. v2: one benchmark model added, comments and
references expanded, to appear in PR
The Planck Surveyor mission: astrophysical prospects
Although the Planck Surveyor mission is optimized to map the cosmic microwave
background anisotropies, it will also provide extremely valuable information on
astrophysical phenomena. We review our present understanding of Galactic and
extragalactic foregrounds relevant to the mission and discuss on one side,
Planck's impact on the study of their properties and, on the other side, to
what extent foreground contamination may affect Planck's ability to accurately
determine cosmological parameters. Planck's multifrequency surveys will be
unique in their coverage of large areas of the sky (actually, of the full sky);
this will extend by two or more orders of magnitude the flux density interval
over which mm/sub-mm counts of extragalactic sources can be determined by
instruments already available (like SCUBA) or planned for the next decade (like
the LSA-MMA or the space mission FIRST), which go much deeper but over very
limited areas. Planck will thus provide essential complementary information on
the epoch-dependent luminosity functions. Bright radio sources will be studied
over a poorly explored frequency range where spectral signatures, essential to
understand the physical processes that are going on, show up. The
Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, with its extremely rich information content, will be
observed in the direction of a large number of rich clusters of Galaxies.
Thanks again to its all sky coverage, Planck will provide unique information on
the structure and on the emission properties of the interstellar medium in the
Galaxy. At the same time, the foregrounds are unlikely to substantially limit
Planck's ability to measure the cosmological signals. Even measurements of
polarization of the primordial Cosmic Microwave background fluctuations appear
to be feasible.Comment: 20 pages, Latex (use aipproc2.sty, aipproc2.cls, epsfig.sty), 10
PostScript figures; invited review talk, Proc. of the Conference: "3 K
Cosmology", Roma, Italy, 5-10 October 1998, AIP Conference Proc, in press
Note: Figures 6 and 7 have been replaced by new and correct version
Black hole and galaxy coevolution from continuity equation and abundance matching
We investigate the coevolution of galaxies and hosted supermassive black holes (BHs) throughout the history of the universe by a statistical approach based on the continuity equation and the abundance matching technique. Specifically, we present analytical solutions of the continuity equation without source terms to reconstruct the supermassive BH mass function from the active galactic nucleus (AGN) luminosity functions. Such an approach includes physically motivated AGN light curves tested on independent data sets, which describe the evolution of the Eddington ratio and radiative efficiency from slim- to thin-disk conditions. We nicely reproduce the local estimates of the BH mass function, the AGN duty cycle as a function of mass and redshift, along with the Eddington ratio function and the fraction of galaxies with given stellar mass hosting an AGN with given Eddington ratio. We exploit the same approach to reconstruct the observed stellar mass function at different redshift from the ultraviolet and far-IR luminosity functions associated with star formation in galaxies. These results imply that the build-up of stars and BHs in galaxies occurs via in situ processes, with dry mergers playing a âmarginal role at least for stellar masses †3 Ă 1011 Mâ and BH masses 109 M where the statistical data are more secure and less biased by systematic errors. In addition, we develop an improved abundance matching technique to link the stellar and BH content of galaxies to the gravitationally dominant dark matter (DM) component. The resulting relationships constitute a testbed for galaxy evolution models, highlighting the complementary role of stellar and AGN feedback in the star formation process. In addition, they may be operationally implemented in numerical simulations to populate DM halos or to gauge subgrid physics. Moreover, they may be exploited to investigate the galaxy/AGN clustering as a function of redshift, mass, and/or luminosity. In fact, the clustering properties of BHs and galaxies are found to be in full agreement with current observations, thus further validating our results from the continuity equation. Finally, our analysis highlights that (i) the fraction of AGNs observed in the slim-disk regime, where most of the BH mass is accreted, increases with redshift; and (ii) already at z\gtrsim 6$ a substantial amount of dust must have formed over timescales 108 yr in strongly star-forming galaxies, making these sources well within the reach of ALMA surveys in (sub)millimeter bands
Dynamical and photometric imprints of feedback processes on the early evolution of E/S0 galaxies
We show that the observed Velocity Dispersion Function of E/S0 galaxies
matches strikingly well the distribution function of virial velocities of
massive halos virializing at z > 1.5, as predicted by the standard hierarchical
clustering scenario in a \LambdaCDM cosmology, for a constant ratio sigma/V_vir
= 0.55 \pm 0.05, close to the value expected at virialization if it typically
occurred at z > 3. This strongly suggests that dissipative processes and later
merging events had little impact on the matter density profile. Adopting the
above sigma/V_vir ratio, the observed relationships between photometric and
dynamical properties which define the fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies,
such as the luminosity-sigma (Faber-Jackson) and the luminosity-effective
radius relations, as well as the M_BH-sigma relation, are nicely reproduced.
Their shapes turn out to be determined by the mutual feedback of star-formation
(and supernova explosions)and nuclear activity, along the lines discussed by
Granato et al. (2004). To our knowledge, this is the first semi-analytic model
for which simultaneous fits of the fundamental plane relations and of the
epoch-dependent luminosity function of spheroidal galaxies have been presented.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Ap
Observability of the virialization phase of spheroidal galaxies with radio arrays
In the standard galaxy formation scenario plasma clouds with a high thermal energy content must exist at high redshifts since the protogalactic gas is shock heated to the virial temperature, and extensive cooling, leading to efficient star formation, must await the collapse of massive haloes (as indicated by the massive body of evidence, referred to as downsizing). Massive plasma clouds are potentially observable through the thermal and kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects and their free-free emission. We find that the detection of substantial numbers of galaxy-scale thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich signals is achievable by blind surveys with next generation radio telescope arrays such as EVLA, ALMA and SKA. This population is even detectable with the 10 per cent SKA, and wide field of view options at high frequency on any of these arrays would greatly increase survey speed. An analysis of confusion effects and of the contamination by radio and dust emissions shows that the optimal frequencies are those in the range 10-35 GHz. Predictions for the redshift distributions of detected sources are also worked out
A 20 GHz bright sample for {\delta} > +72{\deg}: I. Catalogue
During 2010-2011, the Medicina 32-m dish hosted the 7-feed 18-26.5 GHz
receiver built for the Sardinia Radio Telescope, with the goal to perform its
commissioning. This opportunity was exploited to carry out a pilot survey at 20
GHz over the area for {\delta} > + 72.3{\deg}. This paper describes all the
phases of the observations, as they were performed using new hardware and
software facilities. The map-making and source extraction procedures are
illustrated. A customised data reduction tool was used during the follow-up
phase, which produced a list of 73 confirmed sources down to a flux density of
115 mJy. The resulting catalogue, here presented, is complete above 200 mJy.
Source counts are in agreement with those provided by the AT20G survey. This
pilot activity paves the way to a larger project, the K-band Northern Wide
Survey (KNoWS), whose final aim is to survey the whole Northern Hemisphere down
to a flux limit of 50 mJy (5{\sigma}).Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures. Accepted by MNRA
High-frequency radio observations of the Kuehr sample and the epoch-dependent luminosity function of the flat-spectrum quasars
We discuss our ATCA 18.5 and 22 GHz flux density measurements of the Southern
extragalactic sources in the complete 5-GHz sample of Kuehr et al. (1981). The
high-frequency (5-18.5 GHz) spectral indices of steep-spectrum sources for
which we have 18.5-GHz data (66% of the complete sample) are systematically
steeper than the low-frequency (2.7-5 GHz) ones, and there is evidence of an
anti-correlation of high-frequency spectral index with luminosity. The
completeness of the 18.5-GHz data is much higher (89%) for flat-spectrum
sources (mostly quasars), which also exhibit a spectral steepening. Taking
advantage of the almost complete redshift information on flat-spectrum quasars,
we have estimated their 5-GHz luminosity function in several redshift bins. The
results confirm that their radio luminosity density peaks at z_peak \simeq 2.5
but do not provide evidence for deviations from pure luminosity evolution as
hinted at by other data sets. A comparison of our 22-GHz flux density with WMAP
K-band data for flat-spectrum sources suggests that WMAP flux densities may be
low by a median factor of \simeq 1.2. The extrapolations of 5-GHz counts and
luminosity functions of flat-spectrum radio quasars using the observed
distribution of the 5-18.5 GHz spectral indices match those derived directly
from WMAP data, indicating that the high-frequency WMAP survey does not detect
any large population of FSRQs with anomalous spectra.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, accepted on A&
High-frequency polarization properties of southern Kuhr sources
We have carried out observations at 18.5 GHz with the Australia Telescope
Compact Array (ATCA) of 250 out of the 258 Southern extragalactic sources in
the complete 5 GHz 1 Jy sample by K\"uhr et al. (1981). In this paper we focus
on the polarization properties of this sample, while other properties will be
addressed in a future paper. In our analysis we subdivide the sample into flat
and steep spectrum sources following Stickel et al. (1994) classification,
where spectral indices were measured between 2.7 and 5 GHz. The polarized flux
has been measured with a S/N > 5 for 170 sources (114 flat-spectrum and 56
steep-spectrum) and upper limits have been set for additional 27 sources (12
flat-spectrum and 15 steep-spectrum). The median polarization degree at 18.5
GHz for the flat-spectrum sub-sample is \Pi_{18.5}\simeq 2.7%, about a factor
of 2 higher than at 1.4 GHz (\Pi_{1.4}\simeq 1.4%, based on NVSS data). For
flat-spectrum sources we find a weak correlation between \Pi_{18.5} and the
high frequency (5--18.5 GHz) spectral index. No evidences of significant
correlations of the polarization degree with other source properties are found.
The median value of \Pi_{18.5} for the steep spectrum sources is \simeq 4.8%,
but our sample might be biased against extended sources. We find indications of
a correlation between \Pi_{18.5} and both the low frequency (1.4--5 GHz) and
the high frequency (5--18.5 GHz) spectral indices. An important application of
this work is the possibility to estimate the contamination of CMB polarization
maps by extragalactic radio sources. Our results indicate that such
contamination is within the range of estimates given by Mesa et al. (2002).Comment: 11 pages, 8 Postscripts figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication
on A&A, minor typos correcte
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