540 research outputs found
Mapping metals at high redshift with far-infrared lines
Cosmic metal enrichment is one of the key physical processes regulating
galaxy formation and the evolution of the intergalactic medium (IGM). However,
determining the metal content of the most distant galaxies has proven so far
almost impossible; also, absorption line experiments at become
increasingly difficult because of instrumental limitations and the paucity of
background quasars. With the advent of ALMA, far-infrared emission lines
provide a novel tool to study early metal enrichment. Among these, the [CII]
line at 157.74 m is the most luminous line emitted by the interstellar
medium of galaxies. It can also resonant scatter CMB photons inducing
characteristic intensity fluctuations () near the peak of the
CMB spectrum, thus allowing to probe the low-density IGM. We compute both [CII]
galaxy emission and metal-induced CMB fluctuations at by using
Adaptive Mesh Refinement cosmological hydrodynamical simulations and produce
mock observations to be directly compared with ALMA BAND6 data ( GHz). The [CII] line flux is correlated with as
. Such
relation is in very good agreement with recent ALMA observations (e.g. Maiolino
et al. 2015; Capak et al. 2015) of galaxies. We predict that a
() galaxy can be detected at in
(2000) hours, respectively. CMB resonant scattering can produce Jy/beam emission/absorptions features that are very challenging to be
detected with current facilities. The best strategy to detect these signals
consists in the stacking of deep ALMA observations pointing fields with known
galaxies. This would allow to simultaneously detect both
[CII] emission from galactic reionization sources and CMB fluctuations produced
by metals.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure
Fermion Virtual Effects in Cross Section
We analyse the contribution of new heavy virtual fermions to the cross section. We find that there exists a relevant
interplay between trilinear and bilinear oblique corrections. The result
strongly depends on the chiral or vector--like nature of the new fermions. As
for the chiral case we consider sequential fermions: one obtains substantial
deviation from the Standard model prediction, making the effect possibly
detectable at or GeV linear colliders. As an example for
the vector--like case we take a SUSY extension with heavy charginos and
neutralinos: due to cancellation, the final effect turns out to be negligible.Comment: uuencoded, gz-compressed, tar-ed file. 8 pages, 4 EPS figures, uses
EPSFIG.ST
Discrete Flavor Symmetries and Models of Neutrino Mixing
We review the application of non abelian discrete groups to the theory of
neutrino masses and mixing, which is strongly suggested by the agreement of the
Tri-Bimaximal mixing pattern with experiment. After summarizing the motivation
and the formalism, we discuss specific models, based on A4, S4 and other finite
groups, and their phenomenological implications, including lepton flavor
violating processes, leptogenesis and the extension to quarks. In alternative
to Tri-Bimaximal mixing the application of discrete flavor symmetries to
quark-lepton complementarity and Bimaximal Mixing is also considered.Comment: 54 pages, 3 figures, minor changes in the text and references adde
LFV and Dipole Moments in Models with A4 Flavour Symmetry
It is presented an analysis on lepton flavour violating transitions, leptonic
magnetic dipole moments and electric dipole moments in a class of models
characterized by the flavour symmetry A4 x Z3 x U(1)_FN, whose choice is
motivated by the approximate Tri-Bimaximal mixing observed in neutrino
oscillations. A low-energy effective Lagrangian is constructed, where these
effects are dominated by dimension six operators, suppressed by the scale M of
new physics. All the flavour breaking effects are universally described by the
vacuum expectation values of a set of spurions. Two separate cases, a
supersymmetric and a general one, are described. An upper limit on the reactor
angle of a few percent is concluded.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure. Adapted from a talk given at "DISCRETE'08:
Symposium on Prospects in the Physics of Discrete Symmetries", December 11-16
2008, Valencia, Spai
Outflows in the Gaseous Discs of Active Galaxies and their impact on Black Hole Scaling Relations
To tackle the still unsolved and fundamental problem of the role of Active
Galactic Nuclei (AGN) feedback in shaping galaxies, in this work we implement a
new physical treatment of AGN-driven winds into our semi-analytic model of
galaxy formation. To each galaxy in our model, we associate solutions for the
outflow expansion and the mass outflow rates in different directions, depending
on the AGN luminosity, on the circular velocity of the host halo, and on gas
content of the considered galaxy. To each galaxy we also assign an effective
radius derived from energy conservation during merger events, and a stellar
velocity dispersion self-consistently computed via Jeans modelling. We derive
all the main scaling relations between Black hole (BH) mass and total/bulge
stellar mass, velocity dispersion, host halo dark matter mass, and star
formation efficiency. We find that our improved AGN feedback mostly controls
the dispersion around the relations but plays a subdominant role in shaping
slopes and/or normalizations of the scaling relations. Including possible
limited-resolution selection biases in the model provides better agreement with
the available data. The model does not point to any more fundamental galactic
property linked to BH mass, with velocity dispersion playing a similar role
with respect to stellar mass, in tension with present data. In line with other
independent studies carried out on comprehensive semi-analytic and hydrodynamic
galaxy-BH evolution models, our current results signal either an inadequacy of
present cosmological models of galaxy formation in fully reproducing the local
scaling relations, in terms of both shape and residuals, and/or point to an
incompleteness issue affecting the local sample of dynamically-measured BHs.Comment: 21 pages, accepted for publications in Astronomy & Astrophysic
The multi-phase winds of Markarian 231: from the hot, nuclear, ultra-fast wind to the galaxy-scale, molecular outflow
We present the best sensitivity and angular resolution maps of the molecular
disk and outflow of Mrk 231, as traced by CO observations obtained with
IRAM/PdBI, and we analyze archival Chandra and NuSTAR observations. We
constrain the physical properties of both the molecular disk and outflow, the
presence of a highly-ionized ultra-fast nuclear wind, and their connection. The
molecular outflow has a size of ~1 kpc, and extends in all directions around
the nucleus, being more prominent along the south-west to north-east direction,
suggesting a wide-angle biconical geometry. The maximum projected velocity of
the outflow is nearly constant out to ~1 kpc, thus implying that the density of
the outflowing material decreases from the nucleus outwards as . This
suggests that either a large part of the gas leaves the flow during its
expansion or that the bulk of the outflow has not yet reached out to ~1 kpc,
thus implying a limit on its age of ~1 Myr. We find and erg s.
Remarkably, our analysis of the X-ray data reveals a nuclear ultra-fast outflow
(UFO) with velocity -20000 km s, , and momentum load .We find as predicted for outflows undergoing an energy
conserving expansion. This suggests that most of the UFO kinetic energy is
transferred to mechanical energy of the kpc-scale outflow, strongly supporting
that the energy released during accretion of matter onto super-massive black
holes is the ultimate driver of giant massive outflows. We estimate a momentum
boost . The ratios and agree
with the requirements of the most popular models of AGN feedback.Comment: 16 pages, 17 figures. Accepted for publication in A&
The fate of the leptophobic Z'
We review the main features of the leptophobic-Z' phenomenology, commenting on the prospects of these models after the recent experimental results on R_c, R_b and after the recent theoretical analyses of jet production at the Tevatron
Natural relations among physical observables in the neutrino mass matrix
We find all possible relations among physical observables arising from
neutrino mass matrices that describe in a natural way the currently observed
pattern (tan_23 and tan_12 large, dm^2_Sun/dm^2_Atm and tan_13 small) in terms
of a minimum number of parameters. Natural here means due only to the relative
smallness (vanishing) of some parameters in the relevant lagrangian, without
special relations or accidental cancellations among them.Comment: 14 pages, 1 eps figur
The Golden Ratio Prediction for the Solar Angle from a Natural Model with A5 Flavour Symmetry
We formulate a consistent model predicting, in the leading order
approximation, maximal atmospheric mixing angle, vanishing reactor angle and
tan {\theta}_12 = 1/{\phi} where {\phi} is the Golden Ratio. The model is based
on the flavour symmetry A5 \times Z5 \times Z3, spontaneously broken by a set
of flavon fields. By minimizing the scalar potential of the theory up to the
next-to-leading order in the symmetry breaking parameter, we demonstrate that
this mixing pattern is naturally achieved in a finite portion of the parameter
space, through the vacuum alignment of the flavon fields. The leading order
approximation is stable against higher-order corrections. We also compare our
construction to other models based on discrete symmetry groups.Comment: 28 pages, 2 figures. Minor changes, references added. Corrected typos
in Appendix A. Version appeared on JHE
The Double Cover of the Icosahedral Symmetry Group and Quark Mass Textures
We investigate the idea that the double cover of the rotational icosahedral
symmetry group is the family symmetry group in the quark sector. The
icosahedral (A5) group was previously proposed as a viable family symmetry
group for the leptons. To incorporate the quarks, it is highly advantageous to
extend the group to its double cover, as in the case of tetrahedral (A4)
symmetry. We provide the basic group theoretical tools for flavor
model-building based on the binary icosahedral group I' and construct a model
of the quark masses and mixings that yields many of the successful predictions
of the well-known U(2) quark texture models.Comment: 10 pages, references added, typos in up quark mass matrix correcte
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