Power filtration of CMB observational data

We propose a power filter Gp for linear reconstruction of the CMB signal from observational maps. This Gp filter preserves the power spectrum of the CMB signal in contrast to the Wiener filter which diminishes the power spectrum of the reconstructed CMB signal. We demonstrate how peak statistics and a cluster analysis can be used to estimate the probability of the presence of a CMB signal in observational records. The efficiency of the Gp filter is demonstrated on a toy model of an observational record consisting of a CMB signal and noise in the form of foreground point sources.Comment: 17 pages; 4 figures; submitted to International Journal of Modern Physic

The Star Blended with the MOA-2008-BLG-310 Source Is Not the Exoplanet Host Star

High resolution Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image analysis of the MOA-2008-BLG-310 microlens system indicates that the excess flux at the location of the source found in the discovery paper cannot primarily be due to the lens star because it does not match the lens-source relative proper motion, $\mu_{\rm rel}$, predicted by the microlens models. This excess flux is most likely to be due to an unrelated star that happens to be located in close proximity to the source star. Two epochs of HST observations indicate proper motion for this blend star that is typical of a random bulge star, but is not consistent with a companion to the source or lens stars if the flux is dominated by only one star, aside from the lens. We consider models in which the excess flux is due to a combination of an unrelated star and the lens star, and this yields 95\% confidence level upper limit on the lens star brightness of $I_L > 22.44$ and $V_L >23.62$. A Bayesian analysis using a standard Galactic model and these magnitude limits yields a host star mass $M_h = 0.21 ^{+0.21}_{-0.09}~ M_\odot$, a planet mass of $m_p = 23.4 ^{+23.9}_{-9.9}~M_\oplus$ at a projected separation of $a_\perp = 1.12^{+0.16}_{-0.17},$AU. This result illustrates excess flux in a high resolution image of a microlens-source system need not be due to the lens. It is important to check that the lens-source relative proper motion is consistent with the microlensing prediction. The high resolution image analysis techniques developed in this paper can be used to verify the WFIRST exoplanet microlensing survey mass measurements.Comment: Submitted to AJ on March 18, 201

A Search for Stellar Obscuration Events due to Dark Clouds

The recent detections of a large population of faint submillimetre sources, an excess halo gamma-ray background, and the extreme scattering events observed for extragalactic radio sources have been explained as being due to baryonic dark matter in the form of small, dark, gas clouds. In this paper we present the results of a search for the transient stellar obscurations such clouds are expected to cause. We examine the Macho project light curves of 48 x 10^6 stars toward the Galactic bulge, LMC and SMC for the presence of dark cloud extinction events. We find no evidence for the existence of a population of dark gas clouds with Av > 0.2 and masses between ~ 10^-4 and 10^-2 M_solar in the Galactic disk or halo. However, it is possible that such dark cloud populations could exist if they are clustered in regions away from the observed lines of sight.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Ap

Computing CMB Anisotropy in Compact Hyperbolic Spaces

The measurements of CMB anisotropy have opened up a window for probing the global topology of the universe on length scales comparable to and beyond the Hubble radius. For compact topologies, the two main effects on the CMB are: (1) the breaking of statistical isotropy in characteristic patterns determined by the photon geodesic structure of the manifold and (2) an infrared cutoff in the power spectrum of perturbations imposed by the finite spatial extent. We present a completely general scheme using the regularized method of images for calculating CMB anisotropy in models with nontrivial topology, and apply it to the computationally challenging compact hyperbolic topologies. This new technique eliminates the need for the difficult task of spatial eigenmode decomposition on these spaces. We estimate a Bayesian probability for a selection of models by confronting the theoretical pixel-pixel temperature correlation function with the COBE-DMR data. Our results demonstrate that strong constraints on compactness arise: if the universe is small compared to the `horizon' size, correlations appear in the maps that are irreconcilable with the observations. If the universe is of comparable size, the likelihood function is very dependent upon orientation of the manifold wrt the sky. While most orientations may be strongly ruled out, it sometimes happens that for a specific orientation the predicted correlation patterns are preferred over the conventional infinite models.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX (IOP style included), 3 color figures (GIF) in separate files. Minor revision to match the version accepted in Class. Quantum Grav.: Proc. of Topology and Cosmology, Cleveland, 1997. The paper can be also downloaded from http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~pogosyan/cwru_proc.ps.g

The long-period Galactic Cepheid RS Puppis - III. A geometric distance from HST polarimetric imaging of its light echoes

As one of the most luminous Cepheids in the Milky Way, the 41.5-day RS Puppis is an analog of the long-period Cepheids used to measure extragalactic distances. An accurate distance to this star would therefore help anchor the zero-point of the bright end of the period-luminosity relation. But, at a distance of about 2 kpc, RS Pup is too far away for measuring a direct trigonometric parallax with a precision of a few percent with existing instrumentation. RS Pup is unique in being surrounded by a reflection nebula, whose brightness varies as pulses of light from the Cepheid propagate outwards. We present new polarimetric imaging of the nebula obtained with HST/ACS. The derived map of the degree of linear polarization pL allows us to reconstruct the three-dimensional structure of the dust distribution. To retrieve the scattering angle from the pL value, we consider two different polarization models, one based on a Milky Way dust mixture and one assuming Rayleigh scattering. Considering the derived dust distribution in the nebula, we adjust a model of the phase lag of the photometric variations over selected nebular features to retrieve the distance of RS Pup. We obtain a distance of 1910 +/- 80 pc (4.2%), corresponding to a parallax of 0.524 +/- 0.022 mas. The agreement between the two polarization models we considered is good, but the final uncertainty is dominated by systematics in the adopted model parameters. The distance we obtain is consistent with existing measurements from the literature, but light echoes provide a distance estimate that is not subject to the same systematic uncertainties as other estimators (e.g. the Baade-Wesselink technique). RS Pup therefore provides an important fiducial for the calibration of systematic uncertainties of the long-period Cepheid distance scale.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Planetary Microlensing at High Magnification

Simulations of planetary microlensing at high magnification that were carried out on a cluster computer are presented. It was found that the perturbations due to two-thirds of all planets occur in the time interval [-0.5t_FWHM, 0.5t_ FWHM] with respect to the peak of the microlensing light curve, where t_FWHM is typically about 14 hours. This implies that only this restricted portion of the light curve need be intensively monitored for planets, a very significant practical advantage. Nearly all planetary detections in high magnification events will not involve caustic crossings. We discuss the issues involved in determining the planetary parameters in high magnification microlensing events. Earth mass planets may be detected with 1-m class telescopes if their projected orbital radii lie within about 1.5 - 2.5 AU. Giant planets are detectable over a much larger region. For multi-planet systems the perturbations due to individual planets can be separated under certain conditions. The size of the source star needs to be determined independently, but the presence of spots on the source star is likely to be negligible, as is the effect of planetary motion during an event.Comment: 12 pages, 13 embedded figures, accepted for publication by MNRA

Are Small Hyperbolic Universes Observationally Detectable?

Using recent observational constraints on cosmological density parameters, together with recent mathematical results concerning small volume hyperbolic manifolds, we argue that, by employing pattern repetitions, the topology of nearly flat small hyperbolic universes can be observationally undetectable. This is important in view of the facts that quantum cosmology may favour hyperbolic universes with small volumes, and from the expectation coming from inflationary scenarios, that $\Omega_0$ is likely to be very close to one.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX2e. A reference and two footnotes added. To appear in Class. Quantum Grav. 18 (2001) in the present for