Assessment of Models of Galactic Thermal Dust Emission Using COBE/FIRAS and COBE/DIRBE Observations

Accurate modeling of the spectrum of thermal dust emission at millimeter wavelengths is important for improving the accuracy of foreground subtraction for CMB measurements, for improving the accuracy with which the contributions of different foreground emission components can be determined, and for improving our understanding of dust composition and dust physics. We fit four models of dust emission to high Galactic latitude COBE/FIRAS and COBE/DIRBE observations from 3 millimeters to 100 microns and compare the quality of the fits. We consider the two-level systems model because it provides a physically motivated explanation for the observed long wavelength flattening of the dust spectrum and the anticorrelation between emissivity index and dust temperature. We consider the model of Finkbeiner, Davis, and Schlegel because it has been widely used for CMB studies, and the generalized version of this model recently applied to Planck data by Meisner and Finkbeiner. For comparison we have also fit a phenomenological model consisting of the sum of two graybody components. We find that the two-graybody model gives the best fit and the FDS model gives a significantly poorer fit than the other models. The Meisner and Finkbeiner model and the two-level systems model remain viable for use in Galactic foreground subtraction, but the FIRAS data do not have sufficient signal-to-noise ratio to provide a strong test of the predicted spectrum at millimeter wavelengths.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Evidence for O(2) universality at the finite temperature transition for lattice QCD with 2 flavours of massless staggered quarks

We simulate lattice QCD with 2 flavours of massless quarks on lattices of temporal extent N_t=8, to study the finite temperature transition from hadronic matter to a quark-gluon plasma. A modified action which incorporates an irrelevant chiral 4-fermion interaction is used, which allows simulations at zero quark mass. We obtain excellent fits of the chiral condensates to the magnetizations of a 3-dimensional O(2) spin model on lattices small enough to model the finite size effects. This gives predictions for correlation lengths and chiral susceptibilities from the corresponding spin-model quantities. These are in good agreement with our measurements over the relevant range of parameters. Binder cumulants are measured, but the errors are too large to draw definite conclusions. From the properties of the O(2) spin model on the relatively small lattices with which we fit our `data', we can see why earlier attempts to fit staggered lattice data to leading-order infinite-volume scaling functions, as well as finite size scaling studies, failed and led to erroneous conclusions.Comment: 27 pages, Latex with 10 postscript figures. Some of the discussions have been expanded to satisfy a referee. Typographical errors were correcte

Fast Spherical Harmonic Analysis: a quick algorithm for generating and/or inverting full sky, high resolution CMB Anisotropy maps

We present a fast algorithm for generating full sky, high resolution ($\sim 5'$) simulations of the CMB anisotropy pattern. We also discuss the inverse problem, that of evaluating from such a map the full set of $a_{\ell m}$'s and the spectral coefficients $C_\ell$. We show that using an Equidistant Cylindrical Projection of the sky substantially speeds up the calculations. Thus, generating and/or inverting a full sky, high resolution map can be easily achieved with present day computer technology.Comment: 13 pages, LaTex, 5 PostScript figures included, 1 colour plate available (PostScript version, 1.6 Mb) at http://itovf2.roma2.infn.it/natoli

Lattice simulation of a center symmetric three-dimensional effective theory for SU(2) Yang-Mills

We perform simulations of an effective theory of SU(2) Wilson lines in three dimensions. Our action includes a kinetic term, the one-loop perturbative potential for the Wilson line, a non-perturbative "fuzzy-bag" contribution and spatial gauge fields. We determine the phase diagram of the theory and confirm that, at moderately weak coupling, the non-perturbative term leads to eigenvalue repulsion in a finite region above the deconfining phase transition.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of "Strong and Electroweak Matter", Amsterdam, the Netherlands, August 26-29, Nucl. Phys. A, in prin

Universality class for bootstrap percolation with m=3m=3 on the cubic lattice

We study the $m=3$ bootstrap percolation model on a cubic lattice, using Monte Carlo simulation and finite-size scaling techniques. In bootstrap percolation, sites on a lattice are considered occupied (present) or vacant (absent) with probability $p$ or $1-p$, respectively. Occupied sites with less than $m$ occupied first-neighbours are then rendered unoccupied; this culling process is repeated until a stable configuration is reached. We evaluate the percolation critical probability, $p_c$, and both scaling powers, $y_p$ and $y_h$, and, contrarily to previous calculations, our results indicate that the model belongs to the same universality class as usual percolation (i.e., $m=0$). The critical spanning probability, $R(p_c)$, is also numerically studied, for systems with linear sizes ranging from L=32 up to L=480: the value we found, $R(p_c)=0.270 \pm 0.005$, is the same as for usual percolation with free boundary conditions.Comment: 11 pages; 4 figures; to appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

Evidence for BCS Diquark Condensation in the 3+1d Lattice NJL Model

We present results of numerical simulations of the 3+1d Nambu - Jona-Lasinio model with a non-zero baryon chemical potential mu, with particular emphasis on the superfluid diquark condensate and associated susceptibilities. The results, when extrapolated to the zero diquark source limit, are consistent with the existence of a non-zero BCS condensate at high baryon density. The nature of the infinite volume and zero temperature limits are discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Field ordering and energy density in texture cosmology

We use numerical simulations of the time evolution of global textures to investigate the relationship between ordering dynamics and energy density in an expanding universe. Events in which individual textures become fully wound are rare. The energy density is dominated by the more numerous partially wound configurations, with median topological charge alpha ~ 0.44. This verifies the recent supposition (Borrill et al. 1994) that such partially wound configurations should dominate the cosmic microwave background

The Logarithmic Triviality of Compact QED Coupled to a Four Fermi Interaction

This is the completion of an exploratory study of Compact lattice Quantum Electrodynamics with a weak four-fermi interaction and four species of massless fermions. In this formulation of Quantum Electrodynamics massless fermions can be simulated directly and Finite Size Scaling analyses can be performed at the theory's chiral symmetry breaking critical point. High statistics simulations on lattices ranging from $8^4$ to $24^4$ yield the equation of state, critical indices, scaling functions and cumulants. The measurements are well fit with the orthodox hypothesis that the theory is logarithmically trivial and its continuum limit suffers from Landau's zero charge problem.Comment: 27 pages, 15 figues and 10 table

Constraints On The Topology Of The Universe From The WMAP First-Year Sky Maps

We compute the covariance expected between the spherical harmonic coefficients $a_{\ell m}$ of the cosmic microwave temperature anisotropy if the universe had a compact topology. For fundamental cell size smaller than the distance to the decoupling surface, off-diagonal components carry more information than the diagonal components (the power spectrum). We use a maximum likelihood analysis to compare the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe first-year data to models with a cubic topology. The data are compatible with finite flat topologies with fundamental domain $L > 1.2$ times the distance to the decoupling surface at 95% confidence. The WMAP data show reduced power at the quadrupole and octopole, but do not show the correlations expected for a compact topology and are indistinguishable from infinite models.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Phase structure of lattice QCD at finite temperature for 2+1 flavors of Kogut-Susskind quarks

We report on a study of the finite-temperature chiral transition on an $N_t=4$ lattice for 2+1 flavors of Kogut-Susskind quarks. We find the point of physical quark masses to lie in the region of crossover, in agreement with results of previous studies. Results of a detailed examination of the $m_{u,d}=m_s$ case indicate vanishing of the screening mass of $\sigma$ meson at the end point of the first-order transition.Comment: LATTICE98(hightemp), 3 pages, 4 figure