Detecting Pair-Instability Supernovae at z<5 with the James Webb Space Telescope

Pair-instability supernovae (PISNe) are the ultimate cosmic lighthouses, capable of being observed at z<25 and revealing the properties of primordial stars at cosmic dawn. But it is now understood that the spectra and light curves of these events evolved with redshift as the universe became polluted with heavy elements because chemically enriched stars in this mass range typically lose most of their hydrogen envelopes and explode as bare helium cores. The light curves of such transients can be considerably dimmer in the near infrared (NIR) today than those of primordial PISNe of equal energy and progenitor mass. Here, we calculate detection rates for PISNe whose progenitors lost their outer layers to either line-driven winds or rotation at z<10, their detection limit in redshift for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). We find that JWST may be able to detect only Pop II (metal-poor) PISNe over the redshift range of z<4, but not their Pop III (metal-free) counterparts.Comment: Accepted for ApJ, in pres

Structure Formation with Cold + Hot Dark Matter

We report results from high-resolution particle-mesh (PM) N-body simulations of structure formation in an $\Omega=1$ cosmological model with a mixture of Cold plus Hot Dark Matter (C+HDM) having $\Omega_{\rm cold}=0.6$, $\Omega_\nu=0.3$, and $\Omega_{\rm baryon}=0.1$. We present analytic fits to the C+HDM power spectra for both cold and hot ($\nu$) components, which provide initial conditions for our nonlinear simulations. In order to sample the neutrino velocities adequately, these simulations included six times as many neutrino particles as cold particles. Our simulation boxes were 14, 50, and 200~Mpc cubes (with $H_0=50$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$); we also did comparison simulations for Cold Dark Matter (CDM) in a 50~Mpc box. C+HDM with linear bias factor $b=1.5$ is consistent both with the COBE data and with the galaxy correlations we calculate. We find the number of halos as a function of mass and redshift in our simulations; our results for both CDM and C+HDM are well fit by a Press-Schechter model. The number density of galaxy-mass halos is smaller than for CDM, especially at redshift $z>2$, but the numbers of cluster-mass halos are comparable. We also find that on galaxy scales the neutrino velocities and flatter power spectrum in C+HDM result in galaxy pairwise velocities that are in good agreement with the data, and about 30\% smaller than in CDM with the same biasing factor. On scales of several tens of Mpc, the C+HDM streaming velocities are considerably larger than CDM. Thus C+HDM looks promising as a model of structure formation.Comment: 33pp., 16+ figures not included (available by mail), SCIPP-92/5

Casimir effect: running Newton constant or cosmological term

We argue that the instability of Euclidean Einstein gravity is an indication that the vacuum is non perturbative and contains a condensate of the metric tensor in a manner reminiscent of Yang-Mills theories. As a simple step toward the characterization of such a vacuum the value of the one-loop effective action is computed for Euclidean de Sitter spaces as a function of the curvature when the unstable conformal modes are held fixed. Two phases are found, one where the curvature is large and gravitons should be confined and another one which appears to be weakly coupled and tends to be flat. The induced cosmological constant is positive or negative in the strongly or weakly curved phase, respectively. The relevance of the Casimir effect in understanding the UV sensitivity of gravity is pointed out.Comment: Final, slightly extended version, to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit

How far can we trust type Ia supernovae as standard candles?

We review the various possibilities that have been proposed as progenitors of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) from the point of view of binary evolution and population synthesis. Depending on the nature of the progenitor, there may be systematic effects that cannot be calibrated by local observations that could undermine their use as standard candles

Theia: Faint objects in motion or the new astrometry frontier

In the context of the ESA M5 (medium mission) call we proposed a new satellite mission, Theia, based on relative astrometry and extreme precision to study the motion of very faint objects in the Universe. Theia is primarily designed to study the local dark matter properties, the existence of Earth-like exoplanets in our nearest star systems and the physics of compact objects. Furthermore, about 15 % of the mission time was dedicated to an open observatory for the wider community to propose complementary science cases. With its unique metrology system and "point and stare" strategy, Theia's precision would have reached the sub micro-arcsecond level. This is about 1000 times better than ESA/Gaia's accuracy for the brightest objects and represents a factor 10-30 improvement for the faintest stars (depending on the exact observational program). In the version submitted to ESA, we proposed an optical (350-1000nm) on-axis TMA telescope. Due to ESA Technology readiness level, the camera's focal plane would have been made of CCD detectors but we anticipated an upgrade with CMOS detectors. Photometric measurements would have been performed during slew time and stabilisation phases needed for reaching the required astrometric precision

Theia: Faint objects in motion or the new astrometry frontier

In the context of the ESA M5 (medium mission) call we proposed a new satellite mission, Theia, based on relative astrometry and extreme precision to study the motion of very faint objects in the Universe. Theia is primarily designed to study the local dark matter properties, the existence of Earth-like exoplanets in our nearest star systems and the physics of compact objects. Furthermore, about 15 $\%$ of the mission time was dedicated to an open observatory for the wider community to propose complementary science cases. With its unique metrology system and "point and stare" strategy, Theia's precision would have reached the sub micro-arcsecond level. This is about 1000 times better than ESA/Gaia's accuracy for the brightest objects and represents a factor 10-30 improvement for the faintest stars (depending on the exact observational program). In the version submitted to ESA, we proposed an optical (350-1000nm) on-axis TMA telescope. Due to ESA Technology readiness level, the camera's focal plane would have been made of CCD detectors but we anticipated an upgrade with CMOS detectors. Photometric measurements would have been performed during slew time and stabilisation phases needed for reaching the required astrometric precision