108 research outputs found
Linguistics
Contains reports on four research projects.National Institute of Mental Health (Grant 1 PO1 MH-13390-04
An S-shaped arc in the galaxy cluster RXJ0054.0-2823
The center of the galaxy cluster RX J0054.0-2823 at z = 0.292 is a
dynamically active region which includes an interacting system of three
galaxies surrounded by a large halo of intra-cluster light. We report here the
discovery of an S-shaped feature of total length 11 arcsec in the central
region of this cluster and discuss its physical nature. We test the
gravitational lensing assumption by doing a mass modelling of the central part
of the galaxy cluster. We very naturally reproduce position and form of this
S-shape feature as a gravitationally lensed background object at redshift
between 0.5 and 1.0. We conclude that the lensing nature is the very probable
explanation for this S-shaped arc; the ultimate proof will be the spectroscopic
confirmation by measuring the high redshift of this elongated feature with
surface brightness V~24mag/arcsec2.Comment: 6 pages, accepted for publication in A&
Linguistics
Contains research objectives and reports on five research projects.National Institutes of Health (Grant 1 P01 MH-13390-02
Clustering properties of a type-selected volume-limited sample of galaxies in the CFHTLS
(abridged) We present an investigation of the clustering of i'AB<24.5
galaxies in the redshift interval 0.2<z<1.2. Using 100,000 precise photometric
redshifts in the four ultra-deep fields of the Canada-France Legacy Survey, we
construct a set of volume-limited galaxy catalogues. We study the dependence of
the amplitude and slope of the galaxy correlation function on absolute B-band
rest-frame luminosity, redshift and best-fitting spectral type. We find: 1. The
comoving correlation length for all galaxies decreases steadily from z~0.3 to
z~1. 2. At all redshifts and luminosities, galaxies with redder rest-frame
colours have clustering amplitudes between two and three times higher than
bluer ones. 3. For bright red and blue galaxies, the clustering amplitude is
invariant with redshift. 4. At z~0.5, less luminous galaxies have higher
clustering amplitudes of around 6 h-1 Mpc. 5. The relative bias between
galaxies with red and blue rest-frame colours increases gradually towards
fainter absolute magnitudes. One of the principal implications of these results
is that although the full galaxy population traces the underlying dark matter
distribution quite well (and is therefore quite weakly biased), redder, older
galaxies have clustering lengths which are almost invariant with redshift, and
by z~1 are quite strongly biased.Comment: 16 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Cross-Correlation of the Cosmic Microwave Background with the 2MASS Galaxy Survey: Signatures of Dark Energy, Hot Gas, and Point Sources
We cross-correlate the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature
anisotropies observed by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) with
the projected distribution of extended sources in the Two Micron All Sky Survey
(2MASS). By modelling the theoretical expectation for this signal, we extract
the signatures of dark energy (Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect;ISW), hot gas
(thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect;thermal SZ), and microwave point sources in
the cross-correlation. Our strongest signal is the thermal SZ, at the 3.1-3.7
\sigma level, which is consistent with the theoretical prediction based on
observations of X-ray clusters. We also see the ISW signal at the 2.5 \sigma
level, which is consistent with the expected value for the concordance LCDM
cosmology, and is an independent signature of the presence of dark energy in
the universe. Finally, we see the signature of microwave point sources at the
2.7 \sigma level.Comment: 35 pages (preprint format), 8 figures. In addition to minor revisions
based on referee's comments, after correcting for a bug in the code, the SZ
detection is consistent with the X-ray observations. Accepeted for
publication in Physical Review
Large Scale Pressure Fluctuations and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect
The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect associated with pressure fluctuations of
the large scale structure gas distribution will be probed with current and
upcoming wide-field small angular scale cosmic microwave background
experiments. We study the generation of pressure fluctuations by baryons which
are present in virialized dark matter halos and by baryons present in small
overdensities. For collapsed halos, assuming the gas distribution is in
hydrostatic equilibrium with matter density distribution, we predict the
pressure power spectrum and bispectrum associated with the large scale
structure gas distribution by extending the dark matter halo approach which
describes the density field in terms of correlations between and within halos.
The projected pressure power spectrum allows a determination of the resulting
SZ power spectrum due to virialized structures. The unshocked photoionized
baryons present in smaller overdensities trace the Jeans-scale smoothed dark
matter distribution. They provide a lower limit to the SZ effect due to large
scale structure in the absence of massive collapsed halos. We extend our
calculations to discuss higher order statistics, such as bispectrum and
skewness in SZ data. The SZ-weak lensing cross-correlation is suggested as a
probe of correlations between dark matter and baryon density fields, while the
probability distribution functions of peak statistics of SZ halos in wide field
CMB data can be used as a probe of cosmology and non-Gaussian evolution of
large scale structure pressure fluctuations.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures; Revised with expanded discussions. Phys. Rev. D.
(in press
The importance of language for language development: Linguistic determinism in the 1980s
The semantic and syntactic functions of verbs are the major aspects of linguistic complexity that contribute to the cognitive requirements for learning language between two and three years of age. Several contrastive categories of verbs emerged from our studies with action/state as the largest and most general. Contrastive subcategories of action verbs were locative/nonlocative action, durative/nondurative action, and completive/noncompletive action. The subcategories of state verbs were volitional/epistemic/notice/communication states. The psychological and linguistic validity of these semantic categories rests on their being coextensive with major grammatical developments and/or their sequential development
Fifty Years of IMF Variation: The Intermediate-Mass Stars
I track the history of star count estimates of the Milky Way field star and
open cluster IMFs, concentrating on the neglected mass range from 1 to 15
M. The prevalent belief in a universal IMF appears to be without
basis for this mass range. Two recent estimates of the field star IMF using
different methods and samples give values of the average logarithmic slope
between -1.7 and -2.1 in the mass range 1.1 to 4 M. Two
older estimates between 2 and 15 M disagree severely; the field IMF
in this range is essentially unknown from star counts. Variations in
among open cluster IMFs in this mass range have not decreased despite numerous
detailed studies, even for studies using homogeneous data and reduction
procedures and including only clusters with a significant mass range. These
cluster variations \textit{might} be due to the combined effects of sampling,
systematic errors, stellar evolution uncertainties, dynamical evolution, and
unresolved binaries. If so, then the cluster data are consistent with a
universal IMF, but are also consistent with sizeable variations. The cluster
data do not allow an estimate of an average IMF or because the average
depends on the choice of weighting procedure and other effects. If the spread
in cluster IMFs is in excess of the effects listed above, real IMF variations
must occur that do not depend much on physical conditions explored so far. The
complexity of the star formation process seen in observations and simulations
suggests that large realization-to-realization differences might be expected,
in which case an individual cluster IMF would be in part the product of
evolutionary contingency in star formation, and the function of interest is the
probability distribution of IMF parameters.Comment: 18 pages, including 4 figures: invited talk presented at the
conference on "IMF@50: The Stellar Initial Mass Function Fifty Years Later"
held at Abbazia di Spineto, Siena, Italy, May 2004; to be published by Kluwer
Academic Publishers, edited by E. Corbelli, F. Palla, and H. Zinnecke
Radio Emission from Ultra-Cool Dwarfs
The 2001 discovery of radio emission from ultra-cool dwarfs (UCDs), the very
low-mass stars and brown dwarfs with spectral types of ~M7 and later, revealed
that these objects can generate and dissipate powerful magnetic fields. Radio
observations provide unparalleled insight into UCD magnetism: detections extend
to brown dwarfs with temperatures <1000 K, where no other observational probes
are effective. The data reveal that UCDs can generate strong (kG) fields,
sometimes with a stable dipolar structure; that they can produce and retain
nonthermal plasmas with electron acceleration extending to MeV energies; and
that they can drive auroral current systems resulting in significant
atmospheric energy deposition and powerful, coherent radio bursts. Still to be
understood are the underlying dynamo processes, the precise means by which
particles are accelerated around these objects, the observed diversity of
magnetic phenomenologies, and how all of these factors change as the mass of
the central object approaches that of Jupiter. The answers to these questions
are doubly important because UCDs are both potential exoplanet hosts, as in the
TRAPPIST-1 system, and analogues of extrasolar giant planets themselves.Comment: 19 pages; submitted chapter to the Handbook of Exoplanets, eds. Hans
J. Deeg and Juan Antonio Belmonte (Springer-Verlag
Fossil Groups Origins: I. RX J105453.3+552102 a very massive and relaxed system at z~0.5
The most accepted scenario for the origin of fossil groups (FGs) is that they
are galaxy associations in which the merging rate was fast and efficient. These
systems have assembled half of their mass at early epoch of the Universe,
subsequently growing by minor mergers. They could contain a fossil record of
the galaxy structure formation. We have started a project in order to
characterize a large sample of FGs. In this paper we present the analysis of
the fossil system RX J105453.3+552102. Optical deep images were used for
studying the properties of the brightest group galaxy and for computing the
photometric luminosity function of the group. We have also performed a detail
dynamical analysis of the system based on redshift data for 116 galaxies. This
galaxy system is located at z=0.47, and shows a quite large line-of-sight
velocity dispersion \sigma_{v}~1000 km/s. Assuming the dynamical equilibrium,
we estimated a virial mass of M ~ 10^{15} h_{70} M_{\odot}. No evidence of
substructure was found within 1.4 Mpc radius. We found a statistically
significant departure from Gaussianity of the group members velocities in the
most external regions of the group. This could indicate the presence of
galaxies in radial orbits in the external region of the group. We also found
that the photometrical luminosity function is bimodal, showing a lack of M_{r}
~ -19.5 galaxies. The brightest group galaxy shows low Sersic parameter (n~2)
and a small peculiar velocity. Indeed, our accurate photometry shows that the
difference between the brightest and the second brightest galaxies is 1.9 mag
in the r-band, while the classical definition of FGs is based on a magnitude
gap of 2. We conclude that this fossil system does not follow the empirical
definition of FGs. Nevertheless, it is a massive, old and undisturbed galaxy
system with little infall of L^{*} galaxies since its initial collapse.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication at A&
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