49,713 research outputs found
DGSAT: Dwarf Galaxy Survey with Amateur Telescopes II. A catalogue of isolated nearby edge-on disk galaxies and the discovery of new low surface brightness systems
The connection between the bulge mass or bulge luminosity in disk galaxies
and the number, spatial and phase space distribution of associated dwarf
galaxies is a discriminator between cosmological simulations related to galaxy
formation in cold dark matter and generalized gravity models. Here, a nearby
sample of isolated Milky Way class edge-on galaxies is introduced, to
facilitate observational campaigns to detect the associated families of dwarf
galaxies at low surface brightness. Three galaxy pairs with at least one of the
targets being edge-on are also introduced. About 60% of the catalogued isolated
galaxies contain bulges of different size, while the remaining objects appear
to be bulge-less. Deep images of NGC 3669 (small bulge, with NGC 3625 at the
edge of the image) and NGC 7814 (prominent bulge), obtained with a 0.4-m
aperture, are also presented, resulting in the discovery of two new dwarf
galaxy candidates, NGC3669-DGSAT-3 and NGC7814-DGSAT-7. Eleven additional low
surface brightness galaxies are identified, previously notified with low
quality measurement flags in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Integrated
magnitudes, surface brightnesses, effective radii, Sersic indices, axis ratios,
and projected distances to their putative major hosts are displayed. At least
one of the galaxies, NGC3625-DGSAT-4, belongs with a surface brightness of
approximately 26 mag per arcsec^2 and effective radius >1.5 kpc to the class of
ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs). NGC3669-DGSAT-3, the galaxy with lowest surface
brightness in our sample, may also be an UDG.Comment: 12 pages including 6 figures, 4 tables, a brief appendix, accepted
for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A). Paper slightly modified
after A&A language editing, updating very few references and correcting a
small typo at the start of the Appendi
A linear filter to reconstruct the ISW effect from CMB and LSS observations
The extraction of a signal from some observational data sets that contain
different contaminant emissions, often at a greater level than the signal
itself, is a common problem in Astrophysics and Cosmology. The signal can be
recovered, for instance, using a simple Wiener filter. However, in certain
cases, additional information may also be available, such as a second
observation which correlates to a certain level with the sought signal. In
order to improve the quality of the reconstruction, it would be useful to
include as well this additional information. Under these circumstances, we have
constructed a linear filter, the linear covariance-based filter, that extracts
the signal from the data but takes also into account the correlation with the
second observation. To illustrate the performance of the method, we present a
simple application to reconstruct the so-called Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect
from simulated observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background and of
catalogues of galaxies.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in the IEEE Journal of
Selected Topics in Signal Processin
Non-Gaussianity analysis on local morphological measures of WMAP data
The decomposition of a signal on the sphere with the steerable wavelet
constructed from the second Gaussian derivative gives access to the
orientation, signed-intensity, and elongation of the signal's local features.
In the present work, the non-Gaussianity of the WMAP temperature data of the
cosmic microwave background (CMB) is analyzed in terms of the first four
moments of the statistically isotropic random fields associated with these
local morphological measures, at wavelet scales corresponding to angular sizes
between 27.5 arcminutes and 30 degrees on the celestial sphere. While no
detection is made neither in the orientation analysis nor in the elongation
analysis, a strong detection is made in the excess kurtosis of the
signed-intensity of the WMAP data. The non-Gaussianity is observed with a
significance level below 0.5% at a wavelet scale corresponding to an angular
size around 10 degrees, and confirmed at neighbour scales. This supports a
previous detection of an excess of kurtosis in the wavelet coefficient of the
WMAP data with the axisymmetric Mexican hat wavelet (Vielva et al. 2004).
Instrumental noise and foreground emissions are not likely to be at the origin
of the excess of kurtosis. Large-scale modulations of the CMB related to some
unknown systematics are rejected as possible origins of the detection. The
observed non-Gaussianity may therefore probably be imputed to the CMB itself,
thereby questioning the basic inflationary scenario upon which the present
concordance cosmological model relies. Taking the CMB temperature angular power
spectrum of the concordance cosmological model at face value, further analysis
also suggests that this non-Gaussianity is not confined to the directions on
the celestial sphere with an anomalous signed-intensity.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures. Version 2 includes minor changes to match
version accepted for publication in MNRA
Integrated Sachs-Wolfe map recovery from NVSS and WMAP 7yr data
We present a map of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies
induced by the late Integrated Sachs Wolfe effect. The map is constructed by
combining the information of the WMAP 7-yr CMB data and the NRAO VLA Sky Survey
(NVSS) through a linear filter. This combination improves the quality of the
map that would be obtained using information only from the Large Scale
Structure data. In order to apply the filter, a given cosmological model needs
to be assumed. In particular, we consider the standard LCDM model. As a test of
consistency, we show that the reconstructed map is in agreemet with the assumed
model, which is also favoured against a scenario where no correlation between
the CMB and NVSS catalogue is considered.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Minor revision, accepted for publication in MNRA
Coarse-grained microscopic model of glass formers
We introduce a coarse-grained model for atomic glass formers. Its elements
are physically motivated local microscopic dynamical rules parameterized by
observables. Results of the model are established and used to interpret the
measured behaviors of supercooled fluids approaching glass transitions. The
model predicts the presence of a crossover from hierarchical super-Arrhenius
dynamics at short length scales to diffusive Arrhenius dynamics at large length
scales. This prediction distinguishes our model from other theories of glass
formers and can be tested by experiment.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Repumping and spectroscopy of laser-cooled Sr atoms using the (5s5p)3P2 - (5s4d)3D2 transition
We describe repumping and spectroscopy of laser-cooled strontium (Sr) atoms
using the (5s5p)3P2 - (5s4d)3D2 transition. Atom number in a magneto-optical
trap is enhanced by driving this transition because Sr atoms that have decayed
into the (5s5p)3P2 dark state are repumped back into the (5s2)1S0 ground state.
Spectroscopy of 84Sr, 86Sr, 87Sr, and 88Sr improves the value of the (5s5p)3P2
- (5s4d)3D2 transition frequency for 88Sr and determines the isotope shifts for
the transition.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Bose-Einstein Condensation of Sr Through Sympathetic Cooling with Sr
We report Bose-Einstein condensation of Sr, which has a small,
negative s-wave scattering length (\,). We overcome the poor
evaporative cooling characteristics of this isotope by sympathetic cooling with
Sr atoms. Sr is effective in this role in spite of the fact that
it is a fermion because of the large ground state degeneracy arising from a
nuclear spin of , which reduces the impact of Pauli blocking of
collisions. We observe a limited number of atoms in the condensate
() that is consistent with the value of and the
optical dipole trap parameters.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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