1,648 research outputs found
Lensing-induced morphology changes in CMB temperature maps in modified gravity theories
Lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) changes the morphology of pattern of temperature fluctuations, so topological descriptors such as Minkowski Functionals can probe the gravity model responsible for the lensing. We show how the recently introduced two-to-two and three-to-one kurt-spectra (and their associated correlation functions), which depend on the power spectrum of the lensing potential, can be used to probe modified gravity theories such as f(R) theories of gravity and quintessence models. We also investigate models based on effective field theory, which include the constant-Ω model, and low-energy Hořava theories. Estimates of the cumulative signal-to-noise for detection of lensing-induced morphology changes, reaches Script O(103) for the future planned CMB polarization mission COrE+. Assuming foreground removal is possible to ℓmax=3000, we show that many modified gravity theories can be rejected with a high level of significance, making this technique comparable in power to galaxy weak lensing or redshift surveys. These topological estimators are also useful in distinguishing lensing from other scattering secondaries at the level of the four-point function or trispectrum. Examples include the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect which shares, with lensing, a lack of spectral distortion. We also discuss the complication of foreground contamination from unsubtracted point sources
Gravitational instability in the strongly nonlinear regime: A study of various approximations
We study the development of gravitational instability in the strongly
non-linear regime. For this purpose we use a number of statistical indicators
such as filamentary statistics, spectrum of overdense/underdense regions and
the void probability function, each of which probes a particular aspect of
gravitational clustering. We use these statistical indicators to discriminate
between different approximations to gravitational instability which we test
against N-body simulations. The approximations which we test are, the truncated
Zel'dovich approximation (TZ), the adhesion model (AM), and the frozen flow
(FF) and linear potential (LP) approximations. Of these we find that FF and LP
break down relatively early, soon after the non-linear length scale exceeds
-- the mean distance between peaks of the gravitational potential. The
reason for this break down is easy to understand, particles in FF are
constrained to follow the streamlines of the initial velocity field. Shell
crossing is absent in this case and structure gradually freezes as particles
begin to collect near minima of the gravitational potential. In LP particles
follow the lines of force of the primordial potential, oscillating about its
minima at late times when the non-linear length scale . Unlike FF and LP the adhesion model (and to some extent TZ) continues to
give accurate results even at late times when . This
is because both AM and TZ useComment: mn.sty (Latex), 20 pages + 11 figures (not included: hardcopy
available on request from [email protected]), Submitted to MNRAS,
IUCAA-24/9
Skewness in the Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy from Inflationary Gravity Wave Background
In the context of inflationary scenarios, the observed large angle anisotropy
of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature is believed to probe the
primordial metric perturbations from inflation. Although the perturbations from
inflation are expected to be gaussian random fields, there remains the
possibility that nonlinear processes at later epochs induce ``secondary''
non-gaussian features in the corresponding CMB anisotropy maps. The
non-gaussianity induced by nonlinear gravitational instability of scalar
(density) perturbations has been investigated in existing literature. In this
paper, we highlight another source of non-gaussianity arising out of higher
order scattering of CMB photons off the metric perturbations. We provide a
simple and elegant formalism for deriving the CMB temperature fluctuations
arising due to the Sachs-Wolfe effect beyond the linear order. In particular,
we derive the expression for the second order CMB temperature fluctuations. The
multiple scattering effect pointed out in this paper leads to the possibility
that tensor metric perturbation, i.e., gravity waves (GW) which do not exhibit
gravitational instability can still contribute to the skewness in the CMB
anisotropy maps. We find that in a flat universe, the skewness in
CMB contributed by gravity waves via multiple scattering effect is comparable
to that from the gravitational instability of scalar perturbations for equal
contribution of the gravity waves and scalar perturbations to the total rms CMB
anisotropy. The secondary skewness is found to be smaller than the cosmic
variance leading to the conclusion that inflationary scenarios do predict that
the observed CMB anisotropy should be statistically consistent with a gaussian
random distribution.Comment: 10 pages, Latex (uses revtex), 1 postscript figure included. Accepted
for publication in Physical Review
Cosmic shear requirements on the wavelength-dependence of telescope point spread functions
Cosmic shear requires high precision measurement of galaxy shapes in the
presence of the observational Point Spread Function (PSF) that smears out the
image. The PSF must therefore be known for each galaxy to a high accuracy.
However, for several reasons, the PSF is usually wavelength dependent,
therefore the differences between the spectral energy distribution of the
observed objects introduces further complexity. In this paper we investigate
the effect of the wavelength-dependence of the PSF, focusing on instruments in
which the PSF size is dominated by the diffraction-limit of the telescope and
which use broad-band filters for shape measurement.
We first calculate biases on cosmological parameter estimation from cosmic
shear when the stellar PSF is used uncorrected. Using realistic galaxy and star
spectral energy distributions and populations and a simple three-component
circular PSF we find that the colour-dependence must be taken into account for
the next generation of telescopes. We then consider two different methods for
removing the effect (i) the use of stars of the same colour as the galaxies and
(ii) estimation of the galaxy spectral energy distribution using multiple
colours and using a telescope model for the PSF. We find that both of these
methods correct the effect to levels below the tolerances required for per-cent
level measurements of dark energy parameters. Comparison of the two methods
favours the template-fitting method because its efficiency is less dependent on
galaxy redshift than the broad-band colour method and takes full advantage of
deeper photometry.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, version accepted for publication in MNRA
Wakes in the quark-gluon plasma
Using the high temperature approximation we study, within the linear response
theory, the wake in the quark-gluon plasma by a fast parton owing to dynamical
screening in the space like region. When the parton moves with a speed less
than the average speed of the plasmon, we find that the wake structure
corresponds to a screening charge cloud traveling with the parton with one sign
flip in the induced charge density resulting in a Lennard-Jones type potential
in the outward flow with a short range repulsive and a long range attractive
part. On the other hand if the parton moves with a speed higher than that of
plasmon, the wake structure in the induced charge density is found to have
alternate sign flips and the wake potential in the outward flow oscillates
analogous to Cerenkov like wave generation with a Mach cone structure trailing
the moving parton. The potential normal to the motion of the parton indicates a
transverse flow in the system. We also calculate the potential due to a color
dipole and discuss consequences of possible new bound states and
suppression in the quark-gluon plasma.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures (high resolution figures available with
authors); version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
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Telomerase inhibition by siRNA causes senescence and apoptosis in Barrett's adenocarcinoma cells: mechanism and therapeutic potential
BACKGROUND: In cancer cells, telomerase induction helps maintain telomere length and thereby bypasses senescence and provides enhanced replicative potential. Chemical inhibitors of telomerase have been shown to reactivate telomere shortening and cause replicative senescence and apoptotic cell death of tumor cells while having little or no effect on normal diploid cells. RESULTS: We designed siRNAs against two different regions of telomerase gene and evaluated their effect on telomere length, proliferative potential, and gene expression in Barrett's adenocarcinoma SEG-1 cells. The mixture of siRNAs in nanomolar concentrations caused a loss of telomerase activity that appeared as early as day 1 and was essentially complete at day 3. Inhibition of telomerase activity was associated with marked reduction in median telomere length and complete loss of detectable telomeres in more than 50% of the treated cells. Telomere loss caused senescence in 40% and apoptosis in 86% of the treated cells. These responses appeared to be associated with activation of DNA sensor HR23B and subsequent activation of p53 homolog p73 and p63 and E2F1. Changes in these gene regulators were probably the source of observed up-regulation of cell cycle inhibitors, p16 and GADD45. Elevated transcript levels of FasL, Fas and caspase 8 that activate death receptors and CARD 9 that interacts with Bcl10 and NFKB to enhance mitochondrial translocation and activation of caspase 9 were also observed. CONCLUSION: These studies show that telomerase siRNAs can cause effective suppression of telomerase and telomere shortening leading to both cell cycle arrest and apoptosis via mechanisms that include up-regulation of several genes involved in cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Telomerase siRNAs may therefore be strong candidates for highly selective therapy for chemoprevention and treatment of Barrett's adenocarcinoma
Forecasts of non-Gaussian parameter spaces using Box-Cox transformations
Forecasts of statistical constraints on model parameters using the Fisher
matrix abound in many fields of astrophysics. The Fisher matrix formalism
involves the assumption of Gaussianity in parameter space and hence fails to
predict complex features of posterior probability distributions. Combining the
standard Fisher matrix with Box-Cox transformations, we propose a novel method
that accurately predicts arbitrary posterior shapes. The Box-Cox
transformations are applied to parameter space to render it approximately
multivariate Gaussian, performing the Fisher matrix calculation on the
transformed parameters. We demonstrate that, after the Box-Cox parameters have
been determined from an initial likelihood evaluation, the method correctly
predicts changes in the posterior when varying various parameters of the
experimental setup and the data analysis, with marginally higher computational
cost than a standard Fisher matrix calculation. We apply the Box-Cox-Fisher
formalism to forecast cosmological parameter constraints by future weak
gravitational lensing surveys. The characteristic non-linear degeneracy between
matter density parameter and normalisation of matter density fluctuations is
reproduced for several cases, and the capabilities of breaking this degeneracy
by weak lensing three-point statistics is investigated. Possible applications
of Box-Cox transformations of posterior distributions are discussed, including
the prospects for performing statistical data analysis steps in the transformed
Gaussianised parameter space.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures; minor changes to match version published in
MNRA
Distinguishing among Scalar Field Models of Dark Energy
We show that various scalar field models of dark energy predict degenerate
luminosity distance history of the Universe and thus cannot be distinguished by
supernovae measurements alone. In particular, models with a vanishing
cosmological constant (the value of the potential at its minimum) are
degenerate with models with a positive or negative cosmological constant whose
magnitude can be as large as the critical density. Adding information from CMB
anisotropy measurements does reduce the degeneracy somewhat but not
significantly. Our results indicate that a theoretical prior on the preferred
form of the potential and the field's initial conditions may allow to
quantitatively estimate model parameters from data. Without such a theoretical
prior only limited qualitative information on the form and parameters of the
potential can be extracted even from very accurate data.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure
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