355 research outputs found
Evidence for Cosmic Acceleration is Robust to Observed Correlations Between Type Ia Supernova Luminosity and Stellar Age
Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) are powerful standardizable candles for
constraining cosmological models and provided the first evidence of the
accelerated expansion of the universe. Their precision derives from empirical
correlations, now measured from SNe Ia, between their luminosities,
light-curve shapes, colors and most recently with the stellar mass of their
host galaxy. As mass correlates with other galaxy properties, alternative
parameters have been investigated to improve SN Ia standardization though none
have been shown to significantly alter the determination of cosmological
parameters. We re-examine a recent claim, based on 34 SN Ia in nearby passive
host galaxies, of a 0.05 mag/Gyr dependence of standardized SN Ia luminosity on
host age which if extrapolated to higher redshifts, would be a bias up to 0.25
mag, challenging the inference of dark energy. We reanalyze this sample of
hosts using both the original method and a Bayesian hierarchical model and find
after a fuller accounting of the uncertainties the significance of a dependence
on age to be and after the removal of a single
poorly-sampled SN Ia. To test the claim that a trend seen in old stellar
populations can be applied to younger ages, we extend our analysis to a larger
sample which includes young hosts. We find the residual dependence of host age
(after all standardization typically employed for cosmological measurements) to
be consistent with zero for 254 SNe Ia from the Pantheon sample, ruling out the
large but low significance trend seen in passive hosts.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ
Doppler Effects from Bending of Light Rays in Curved Space-Times
We study Doppler effects in curved space-time, i.e. the frequency shifts
induced on electromagnetic signals propagating in the gravitational field. In
particular, we focus on the frequency shift due to the bending of light rays in
weak gravitational fields. We consider, using the PPN formalism, the
gravitational field of an axially symmetric distribution of mass. The zeroth
order, i.e. the sphere, is studied then passing to the contribution of the
quadrupole moment, and finally to the case of a rotating source. We give
numerical estimates for situations of physical interest, and by a very
preliminary analysis, we argue that analyzing the Doppler effect could lead, in
principle, in the foreseeable future, to the measurement of the quadrupole
moment of the giant planets of the Solar System.Comment: 16 pages, 2 EPS figures; to appear in the International Journal of
Modern Physics
Cosmic string parameter constraints and model analysis using small scale Cosmic Microwave Background data
We present a significant update of the constraints on the Abelian Higgs
cosmic string tension by cosmic microwave background (CMB) data, enabled both
by the use of new high-resolution CMB data from suborbital experiments as well
as the latest results of the WMAP satellite, and by improved predictions for
the impact of Abelian Higgs cosmic strings on the CMB power spectra. The new
cosmic string spectra (presented in a previous work) were improved especially
for small angular scales, through the use of larger Abelian Higgs string
simulations and careful extrapolation. If Abelian Higgs strings are present
then we find improved bounds on their contribution to the CMB anisotropies,
f10< 0.095, and on their tension, G\mu< 0.57 x 10^-6, both at 95% confidence
level using WMAP7 data; and f10 < 0.048 and G\mu < 0.42 x 10^-6 using all the
CMB data. We also find that using all the CMB data, a scale invariant initial
perturbation spectrum, ns=1, is now disfavoured at 2.4\sigma\ even if strings
are present. A Bayesian model selection analysis no longer indicates a
preference for strings.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; Minor corrections, matches published versio
High resolution CMB power spectrum from the complete ACBAR data set
In this paper, we present results from the complete set of cosmic microwave
background (CMB) radiation temperature anisotropy observations made with the
Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver (ACBAR) operating at 150 GHz. We
include new data from the final 2005 observing season, expanding the number of
detector-hours by 210% and the sky coverage by 490% over that used for the
previous ACBAR release. As a result, the band-power uncertainties have been
reduced by more than a factor of two on angular scales encompassing the third
to fifth acoustic peaks as well as the damping tail of the CMB power spectrum.
The calibration uncertainty has been reduced from 6% to 2.1% in temperature
through a direct comparison of the CMB anisotropy measured by ACBAR with that
of the dipole-calibrated WMAP5 experiment. The measured power spectrum is
consistent with a spatially flat, LambdaCDM cosmological model. We include the
effects of weak lensing in the power spectrum model computations and find that
this significantly improves the fits of the models to the combined ACBAR+WMAP5
power spectrum. The preferred strength of the lensing is consistent with
theoretical expectations. On fine angular scales, there is weak evidence (1.1
sigma) for excess power above the level expected from primary anisotropies. We
expect any excess power to be dominated by the combination of emission from
dusty protogalaxies and the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZE). However, the
excess observed by ACBAR is significantly smaller than the excess power at ell
> 2000 reported by the CBI experiment operating at 30 GHz. Therefore, while it
is unlikely that the CBI excess has a primordial origin; the combined ACBAR and
CBI results are consistent with the source of the CBI excess being either the
SZE or radio source contamination.Comment: Submitted to ApJ; Changed to apply a WMAP5-based calibration. The
cosmological parameter estimation has been updated to include WMAP
A Bayesian study of the primordial power spectrum from a novel closed universe model
We constrain the shape of the primordial power spectrum using recent
measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from the Wilkinson
Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) 7-year data and other high-resolution CMB
experiments. We also include observations of the matter power spectrum from the
luminous red galaxy (LRG) subset DR7 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We
consider two different models of the primordial power spectrum. The first is
the standard nearly scale-invariant spectrum in the form of a generalised
power-law parameterised in terms of the spectral amplitude , the
spectral index and (possibly) the running parameter .
The second spectrum is derived from the Lasenby and Doran (LD) model. The LD
model is based on the restriction of the total conformal time available in a
closed Universe and the predicted primordial power spectrum depends upon just
two parameters. An important feature of the LD spectrum is that it naturally
incorporates an exponential fall-off on large scales, which might provide a
possible explanation for the lower-than-expected power observed at low
multipoles in the CMB. In addition to parameter estimation, we compare both
models using Bayesian model selection. We find there is a significant
preference for the LD model over a simple power-law spectrum for a CMB-only
dataset, and over models with an equal number of parameters for all the
datasets considered.Comment: minor corrections to match accepted version to MNRA
Distance determination to 12 Type II-P Supernovae using the Expanding Photosphere Method
We use early-time photometry and spectroscopy of 12 Type II plateau
supernovae (SNe IIP) to derive their distances using the expanding photosphere
method (EPM). We perform this study using two sets of Type II supernova (SN II)
atmosphere models, three filter subsets (, , ), and
two methods for the host-galaxy extinction, which leads to 12 Hubble diagrams.
We find that systematic differences in the atmosphere models lead to 50%
differences in the EPM distances and to a value of between 52 and
101 . Using the filter subset we obtain the
lowest dispersion in the Hubble diagram, { mag}. We
also apply the EPM analysis to the well-observed SN IIP 1999em. With the
filter subset we derive a distance ranging from 9.3 0.5 Mpc to
13.9 1.4 Mpc depending on the atmosphere model employed.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa
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