237 research outputs found
Effects of Noise on Galaxy Isophotes
The study of shapes of the images of objects is an important issue not only
because it reveals its dynamical state but also it helps to understand the
object's evolutionary history. We discuss a new technique in cosmological image
analysis which is based on a set of non-parametric shape descriptors known as
the Minkowski Functionals (MFs). These functionals are extremely versatile and
under some conditions give a complete description of the geometrical properties
of objects. We believe that MFs could be a useful tool to extract information
about the shapes of galaxies, clusters of galaxies and superclusters. The
information revealed by MFs can be utilized along with the knowledge obtained
from currently popular methods and thus could improve our understanding of the
true shapes of cosmological objects.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure, to appear in "The IGM/Galaxy Connection - The
Distribution of Baryons at z=0" Conference Proceeding
Topology and Geometry of the CfA2 Redshift Survey
We analyse the redshift space topology and geometry of the nearby Universe by
computing the Minkowski functionals of the Updated Zwicky Catalogue (UZC). The
UZC contains the redshifts of almost 20,000 galaxies, is 96% complete to the
limiting magnitude m_Zw=15.5 and includes the Center for Astrophysics (CfA)
Redshift Survey (CfA2). From the UZC we can extract volume limited samples
reaching a depth of 70 hMpc before sparse sampling dominates. We quantify the
shape of the large-scale galaxy distribution by deriving measures of planarity
and filamentarity from the Minkowski functionals. The nearby Universe shows a
large degree of planarity and a small degree of filamentarity. This quantifies
the sheet-like structure of the Great Wall which dominates the northern region
(CfA2N) of the UZC. We compare these results with redshift space mock
catalogues constructed from high resolution N-body simulations of two Cold Dark
Matter models with either a decaying massive neutrino (tauCDM) or a non-zero
cosmological constant (LambdaCDM). We use semi-analytic modelling to form and
evolve galaxies in these dark matter-only simulations. We are thus able, for
the first time, to compile redshift space mock catalogues which contain
galaxies, along with their observable properties, rather than dark matter
particles alone. In both models the large scale galaxy distribution is less
coherent than the observed distribution, especially with regard to the large
degree of planarity of the real survey. However, given the small volume of the
region studied, this disagreement can still be a result of cosmic variance.Comment: 14 pages including 10 figures. Accepted for publication in Monthly
Notice
Minkowski functionals in cosmology
Minkowski functionals provide a novel tool to characterize the large-scale galaxy distribution in the Universe. Here we give a brief tutorial on the basic features of these morphological measures and indicate their practical application for simulation data and galaxy redshift catalogues as examples
Minkowski Functionals of Abell/ACO Clusters
We determine the Minkowski functionals for a sample of Abell/ACO clusters,
401 with measured and 16 with estimated redshifts. The four Minkowski
functionals (including the void probability function and the mean genus)
deliver a global description of the spatial distribution of clusters on scales
from to 60\hMpc with a clear geometric interpretation. Comparisons with
mock catalogues of N--body simulations using different variants of the CDM
model demonstrate the discriminative power of the description. The standard CDM
model and the model with tilted perturbation spectrum cannot generate the
Minkowski functionals of the cluster data, while a model with a cosmological
constant and a model with breaking of the scale invariance of perturbations
(BSI) yield compatible results.Comment: 10 pages, 13 Postscript figures, uses epsf.sty and mn.sty (included),
submitted to MNRA
Minkowski Functionals of SDSS galaxies I : Analysis of Excursion Sets
We present a first morphometric investigation of a preliminary sample from
the SDSS of 154287 galaxies with apparent magnitude 14.5<m_r<17.5 and redshift
0.001<z<0.4. We measure the Minkowski Functionals, which are a complete set of
morphological descriptors. To account for the complicated wedge--like geometry
of the present survey data, we construct isodensity contour surfaces from the
galaxy positions in redshift space and employ two complementary methods of
computing the Minkowski Functionals. We find that the observed Minkowski
Functionals for SDSS galaxies are consistent with the prediction of a
Lambda--dominated spatially--flat Cold Dark Matter model with random--Gaussian
initial conditions, within the cosmic variance estimated from the corresponding
mock catalogue. We expect that future releases of the SDSS survey will allow us
to distinguish morphological differences in the galaxy distribution with regard
to different morphological type and luminosity ranges.Comment: 35 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in PASJ. For preprint
with higher-resolution PS files, see
http://www.a.phys.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~hikage/MFs/mf_sdss.ps.g
Morphological fluctuations of large-scale structure: the PSCz survey
In a follow-up study to a previous analysis of the IRAS 1.2Jy catalogue, we quantify the morphological fluctuations in the PSCz survey. We use a variety of measures, among them the family of scalar Minkowski functionals. We confirm the existence of significant fluctuations that are discernible in volume-limited samples out to 200Mpc/h. In contrast to earlier findings, comparisons with cosmological N-body simulations reveal that the observed fluctuations roughly agree with the cosmic variance found in corresponding mock samples. While two-point measures, e.g. the variance of count-in-cells, fluctuate only mildly, the fluctuations in the morphology on large scales indicate the presence of coherent structures that are at least as large as the sample
Searching for Signatures of Cosmic String Wakes in 21cm Redshift Surveys using Minkowski Functionals
Minkowski Functionals are a powerful tool for analyzing large scale
structure, in particular if the distribution of matter is highly non-Gaussian,
as it is in models in which cosmic strings contribute to structure formation.
Here we apply Minkowski functionals to 21cm maps which arise if structure is
seeded by a scaling distribution of cosmic strings embeddded in background
fluctuations, and then test for the statistical significance of the cosmic
string signals using the Fisher combined probability test. We find that this
method allows for detection of cosmic strings with ,
which would be improvement over current limits by a factor of about 3.Comment: Matches published versio
Disentangling the Cosmic Web I: Morphology of Isodensity Contours
We apply Minkowski functionals and various derived measures to decipher the
morphological properties of large-scale structure seen in simulations of
gravitational evolution. Minkowski functionals of isodensity contours serve as
tools to test global properties of the density field. Furthermore, we identify
coherent objects at various threshold levels and calculate their partial
Minkowski functionals. We propose a set of two derived dimensionless
quantities, planarity and filamentarity, which reduce the morphological
information in a simple and intuitive way. Several simulations of the
gravitational evolution of initial power-law spectra provide a framework for
systematic tests of our method.Comment: 26 pages including 12 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
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