215 research outputs found
A Systematic Search for High Surface Brightness Giant Arcs in a Sloan Digital Sky Survey Cluster Sample
We present the results of a search for gravitationally-lensed giant arcs
conducted on a sample of 825 SDSS galaxy clusters. Both a visual inspection of
the images and an automated search were performed and no arcs were found. This
result is used to set an upper limit on the arc probability per cluster. We
present selection functions for our survey, in the form of arc detection
efficiency curves plotted as functions of arc parameters, both for the visual
inspection and the automated search. The selection function is such that we are
sensitive only to long, high surface brightness arcs with g-band surface
brightness mu_g 10. Our upper limits on
the arc probability are compatible with previous arc searches. Lastly, we
report on a serendipitous discovery of a giant arc in the SDSS data, known
inside the SDSS Collaboration as Hall's arc.Comment: 34 pages,8 Fig. Accepted ApJ:Jan-200
Expected constraints on the generalized Chaplygin equation of state from future supernova experiments and gravitational lensing statistics
This paper aims to study the use of future SNAP data together with the result
of searches for strong gravitational lenses in future large quasar surveys to
constrain the Generalized Chaplygin Gas (GCG) model. The GCG is considered as a
possible unification scheme for dark matter-dark energy. It is found that both
experiments should be able to place important constraints on the model,
especially when both tests are used together.Comment: Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal, 33 pages, 8 Figures, uses
aastex.cls. Changed for publication. Sections where the GCG is used as a dark
energy candidate have been eliminated, plus minor change
Large scale structure and the generalised Chaplygin gas as dark energy
The growth of large scale structure is studied in a universe containing both
cold dark matter (CDM) and generalized Chaplygin gas (GCg). GCg is assumed to
contribute only to the background evolution of the universe while the CDM
component collapses and forms structures. We present some new analytical as
well as numerical results for linear and non-linear growth in such model. The
model passes the standard cosmological distance test without the need of a
cosmological constant (LCDM). But we find that the scenario is severely
constrained by current observations of large scale structure. Any small
deviations of the GCg parameters away from the standard Lambda dominated
cosmology (LCDM) produces substantial suppression for the growth of structures.Comment: 6 pages, matches version accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.D (in
press
Spintronic transport and Kondo effect in quantum dots
We investigate the spin-dependent transport properties of quantum-dot based
structures where Kondo correlations dominate the electronic dynamics. The
coupling to ferromagnetic leads with parallel magnetizations is known to give
rise to nontrivial effects in the local density of states of a single quantum
dot. We show that this influence strongly depends on whether charge
fluctuations are present or absent in the dot. This result is confirmed with
numerical renormalization group calculations and perturbation theory in the
on-site interaction. In the Fermi-liquid fixed point, we determine the
correlations of the electric current at zero temperature (shot noise) and
demonstrate that the Fano factor is suppressed below the Poissonian limit for
the symmetric point of the Anderson Hamiltonian even for nonzero lead
magnetizations. We discuss possible avenues of future research in this field:
coupling to the low energy excitations of the ferromagnets (magnons), extension
to double quantum dot systems with interdot antiferromagnetic interaction and
effect of spin-polarized currents on higher symmetry Kondo states such as
SU(4).Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. Proceedings of the 3rd Intl. Conf. on Physics
and Applications of Spin-Related Phenomena in Semiconductors, Santa Barbara,
200
Observational constraint on generalized Chaplygin gas model
We investigate observational constraints on the generalized Chaplygin gas
(GCG) model as the unification of dark matter and dark energy from the latest
observational data: the Union SNe Ia data, the observational Hubble data, the
SDSS baryon acoustic peak and the five-year WMAP shift parameter. It is
obtained that the best fit values of the GCG model parameters with their
confidence level are ()
, ()
. Furthermore in this model, we can see that the
evolution of equation of state (EOS) for dark energy is similar to quiessence,
and its current best-fit value is with the confidence
level .Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure
Tightening weak lensing constraints on the ellipticity of galaxy-scale dark matter haloes
Cosmological simulations predict that galaxies are embedded into triaxial dark matter haloes, which appear approximately elliptical in projection. Weak gravitational lensing allows us to constrain these halo shapes and thereby test the nature of dark matter. Weak lensing has already provided robust detections of the signature of halo flattening at the mass scales of groups and clusters, whereas results for galaxies have been somewhat inconclusive. Here we combine data from five weak lensing surveys (NGVSLenS, KiDS/KV450, CFHTLenS, CS82, and RCSLenS, listed in order of most to least constraining) in order to tighten observational constraints on galaxy-scale halo ellipticity for photometrically selected lens samples. We constrain fh, the average ratio between the aligned component of the halo ellipticity and the ellipticity of the light distribution, finding fh = 0.303-0.079+0.080 for red lens galaxies and fh = 0.217-0.159+0.160 for blue lens galaxies when assuming elliptical Navarro-Frenk-White density profiles and a linear scaling between halo ellipticity and galaxy ellipticity. Our constraints for red galaxies constitute the currently most significant (3.8σ) systematics-corrected detection of the signature of halo flattening at the mass scale of galaxies. Our results are in good agreement with expectations from the Millennium Simulation that apply the same analysis scheme and incorporate models for galaxy-halo misalignment. Assuming these misalignment models and the analysis assumptions stated above are correct, our measurements imply an average dark matter halo ellipticity for the studied red galaxy samples of |e h| = 0.174 ± 0.046, where |e h| = (1 - q)/(1 + q) relates to the ratio q = b/a of the minor and major axes of the projected mass distribution. Similar measurements based on larger upcoming weak lensing data sets can help to calibrate models for intrinsic galaxy alignments, which constitute an important source of systematic uncertainty in cosmological weak lensing studies
VICS82 : the VISTA-CFHT Stripe 82 near-infrared survey
Data at http://stri-cluster.herts.ac.uk/vics82We present the VISTA-CFHT Stripe 82 (VICS82) survey: a near-infrared (J+Ks) survey covering 150 square degrees of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) equatorial Stripe 82 to an average depth of J=21.9 AB mag and Ks=21.4 AB mag (80% completeness limits; 5-sigma point source depths are approximately 0.5 mag brighter). VICS82 contributes to the growing legacy of multi-wavelength data in the Stripe 82 footprint. The addition of near-infrared photometry to the existing SDSS Stripe 82 coadd ugriz photometry reduces the scatter in stellar mass estimates to delta log(M_stellar)~0.3 dex for galaxies with M_stellar>10^9M_sun at z~0.5, and offers improvement compared to optical-only estimates out to z~1, with stellar masses constrained within a factor of approximately 2.5. When combined with other multi-wavelength imaging of the Stripe, including moderate-to-deep ultraviolet (GALEX), optical and mid-infrared (Spitzer IRAC) coverage, as well as tens of thousands of spectroscopic redshifts, VICS82 gives access to approximately 0.5 Gpc^3 of comoving volume. Some of the main science drivers of VICS82 include (a) measuring the stellar mass function of L^star galaxies out to z~1; (b) detecting intermediate redshift quasars at 2zPeer reviewe
Observational Constraints on Chaplygin Quartessence: Background Results
We derive the constraints set by several experiments on the quartessence
Chaplygin model (QCM). In this scenario, a single fluid component drives the
Universe from a nonrelativistic matter-dominated phase to an accelerated
expansion phase behaving, first, like dark matter and in a more recent epoch
like dark energy. We consider current data from SNIa experiments, statistics of
gravitational lensing, FR IIb radio galaxies, and x-ray gas mass fraction in
galaxy clusters. We investigate the constraints from this data set on flat
Chaplygin quartessence cosmologies. The observables considered here are
dependent essentially on the background geometry, and not on the specific form
of the QCM fluctuations. We obtain the confidence region on the two parameters
of the model from a combined analysis of all the above tests. We find that the
best-fit occurs close to the CDM limit (). The standard
Chaplygin quartessence () is also allowed by the data, but only at
the level.Comment: Replaced to match the published version, references update
Revisiting Generalized Chaplygin Gas as a Unified Dark Matter and Dark Energy Model
In this paper, we revisit generalized Chaplygin gas (GCG) model as a unified
dark matter and dark energy model. The energy density of GCG model is given as
,
where and are two model parameters which will be constrained by
type Ia supernova as standard candles, baryon acoustic oscillation as standard
rulers and the seventh year full WMAP data points. In this paper, we will not
separate GCG into dark matter and dark energy parts any more as adopted in the
literatures. By using Markov Chain Monte Carlo method, we find the result:
and .Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
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