365 research outputs found
Book Reviews
Reviews of the following books: The American Genealogist, 1932-1965. 33 volumes; The Western Abenakis of Vermont, 1600-1800: War, Migration, and the Survival of an Indian People by Colin Calloway; Islands of the Mid-Maine Coast, Volume II: Mount Desert to Machias Bay by Charles B. McLane with the collaboration of Carol Evarts McLane
WMAP constraint on the P-term inflationary model
In light of WMAP results, we examine the observational constraint on the
P-term inflation. With the tunable parameter , P-term inflation contains
richer physics than D-term and F-term inflationary models. We find the
logarithmic derivative spectral index with on large scales and on
small scales in agreement to observation. We obtained a reasonable range for
the choice of the gauge coupling constant in order to meet the requirements
of WMAP observation and the expected number of the e-foldings. Although tuning
and we can have larger values for the logarithmic derivative of the
spectral index, it is not possible to satisfy all observational requirements
for both, the spectral index and its logarithmic derivative at the same time.Comment: 6 pages, double column, 13 figures included. Version appearing in the
Physical Review
A Model for the Stray Light Contamination of the UVCS Instrument on SOHO
We present a detailed model of stray-light suppression in the spectrometer
channels of the Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer (UVCS) on the SOHO
spacecraft. The control of diffracted and scattered stray light from the bright
solar disk is one of the most important tasks of a coronagraph. We compute the
fractions of light that diffract past the UVCS external occulter and
non-specularly pass into the spectrometer slit. The diffracted component of the
stray light depends on the finite aperture of the primary mirror and on its
figure. The amount of non-specular scattering depends mainly on the
micro-roughness of the mirror. For reasonable choices of these quantities, the
modeled stray-light fraction agrees well with measurements of stray light made
both in the laboratory and during the UVCS mission. The models were constructed
for the bright H I Lyman alpha emission line, but they are applicable to other
spectral lines as well.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, Solar Physics, in pres
Large Scale Structure Formation with Global Topological Defects. A new Formalism and its implementation by numerical simulations
We investigate cosmological structure formation seeded by topological defects
which may form during a phase transition in the early universe. First we derive
a partially new, local and gauge invariant system of perturbation equations to
treat microwave background and dark matter fluctuations induced by topological
defects or any other type of seeds. We then show that this system is well
suited for numerical analysis of structure formation by applying it to seeds
induced by fluctuations of a global scalar field. Our numerical results are
complementary to previous investigations since we use substantially different
methods. The resulting microwave background fluctuations are compatible with
older simulations. We also obtain a scale invariant spectrum of fluctuations
with about the same amplitude. However, our dark matter results yield a smaller
bias parameter compatible with on a scale of in contrast to
previous work which yielded to large bias factors. Our conclusions are thus
more positive. According to the aspects analyzed in this work, global
topological defect induced fluctuations yield viable scenarios of structure
formation and do better than standard CDM on large scales.Comment: uuencoded, compressed tar-file containing the text in LaTeX and 12
Postscript Figures, 41 page
Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)Observations: Beam Maps and Window Functions
Cosmology and other scientific results from the WMAP mission require an accurate knowledge of the beam patterns in flight. While the degree of beam knowledge for the WMAP one-year and three-year results was unprecedented for a CMB experiment, we have significantly improved the beam determination as part of the five-year data release. Physical optics fits are done on both the A and the B sides for the first time. The cutoff scale of the fitted distortions on the primary mirror is reduced by a factor of approximately 2 from previous analyses. These changes enable an improvement in the hybridization of Jupiter data with beam models, which is optimized with respect to error in the main beam solid angle. An increase in main-beam solid angle of approximately 1% is found for the V2 and W1-W4 differencing assemblies. Although the five-year results are statistically consistent with previous ones, the errors in the five-year beam transfer functions are reduced by a factor of approximately 2 as compared to the three-year analysis. We present radiometry of the planet Jupiter as a test of the beam consistency and as a calibration standard; for an individual differencing assembly. errors in the measured disk temperature are approximately 0.5%
Can induced gravity isotropize Bianchi I, V, or IX Universes?
We analyze if Bianchi I, V, and IX models in the Induced Gravity (IG) theory
can evolve to a Friedmann--Roberson--Walker (FRW) expansion due to the
non--minimal coupling of gravity and the scalar field. The analytical results
that we found for the Brans-Dicke (BD) theory are now applied to the IG theory
which has ( being the square ratio of the Higgs to
Planck mass) in a cosmological era in which the IG--potential is not
significant. We find that the isotropization mechanism crucially depends on the
value of . Its smallness also permits inflationary solutions. For the
Bianch V model inflation due to the Higgs potential takes place afterwads, and
subsequently the spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) ends with an effective FRW
evolution. The ordinary tests of successful cosmology are well satisfied.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. D1
Dark Matter, Light Stops and Electroweak Baryogenesis
We examine the neutralino relic density in the presence of a light top
squark, such as the one required for the realization of the electroweak
baryogenesis mechanism, within the minimal supersymmetric standard model. We
show that there are three clearly distinguishable regions of parameter space,
where the relic density is consistent with WMAP and other cosmological data.
These regions are characterized by annihilation cross sections mediated by
either light Higgs bosons, Z bosons, or by the co-annihilation with the
lightest stop. Tevatron collider experiments can test the presence of the light
stop in most of the parameter space. In the co-annihilation region, however,
the mass difference between the light stop and the lightest neutralino varies
between 15 and 30 GeV, presenting an interesting challenge for stop searches at
hadron colliders. We present the prospects for direct detection of dark matter,
which provides a complementary way of testing this scenario. We also derive the
required structure of the high energy soft supersymmetry breaking mass
parameters where the neutralino is a dark matter candidate and the stop
spectrum is consistent with electroweak baryogenesis and the present bounds on
the lightest Higgs mass.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures; version published in Phys.Rev.
Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Likelihoods and Parameters from the WMAP Data
The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), launched in 2001, has mapped out the Cosmic Microwave Background with unprecedented accuracy over the whole sky. Its observations have led to the establishment of a simple concordance cosmological model for the contents and evolution of the universe, consistent with virtually all other astronomical measurements. The WMAP first-year and three-year data have allowed us to place strong constraints on the parameters describing the ACDM model. a flat universe filled with baryons, cold dark matter, neutrinos. and a cosmological constant. with initial fluctuations described by nearly scale-invariant power law fluctuations, as well as placing limits on extensions to this simple model (Spergel et al. 2003. 2007). With all-sky measurements of the polarization anisotropy (Kogut et al. 2003; Page et al. 2007), two orders of magnitude smaller than the intensity fluctuations. WMAP has not only given us an additional picture of the universe as it transitioned from ionized to neutral at redshift z approx.1100. but also an observation of the later reionization of the universe by the first stars. In this paper we present cosmological constraints from WMAP alone. for both the ACDM model and a set of possible extensions. We also consider tlle consistency of WMAP constraints with other recent astronomical observations. This is one of seven five-year WMAP papers. Hinshaw et al. (2008) describe the data processing and basic results. Hill et al. (2008) present new beam models arid window functions, Gold et al. (2008) describe the emission from Galactic foregrounds, and Wright et al. (2008) the emission from extra-Galactic point sources. The angular power spectra are described in Nolta et al. (2008), and Komatsu et al. (2008) present and interpret cosmological constraints based on combining WMAP with other data. WMAP observations are used to produce full-sky maps of the CMB in five frequency bands centered at 23, 33, 41, 61, and 94 GHz (Hinshaw et al. 2008). With five years of data, we are now able to place better limits on the ACDM model. as well as to move beyond it to test the composition of the universe. details of reionization. sub-dominant components, characteristics of inflation, and primordial fluctuations. We have more than doubled the amount of polarized data used for cosmological analysis. allowing a better measure of the large-scale E-mode signal (Nolta et al. 2008). To this end we describe an alternative way to remove Galactic foregrounds from low resolution polarization maps in which Galactic emission is marginalized over, providing a cross-check of our results. With longer integration we also better probe the second and third acoustic peaks in the temperature angular power spectrum, and have many more year-to-year difference maps available for cross-checking systematic effects (Hinshaw et al. 2008)
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