1,123 research outputs found
Joint constraints on galaxy bias and through the N-pdf of the galaxy number density
We present a full description of the N-probability density function of the
galaxy number density fluctuations. This N-pdf is given in terms, on the one
hand, of the cold dark matter correlations and, on the other hand, of the
galaxy bias parameter. The method relies on the assumption commonly adopted
that the dark matter density fluctuations follow a local non-linear
transformation of the initial energy density perturbations. The N-pdf of the
galaxy number density fluctuations allows for an optimal estimation of the bias
parameter (e.g., via maximum-likelihood estimation, or Bayesian inference if
there exists any a priori information on the bias parameter), and of those
parameters defining the dark matter correlations, in particular its amplitude
(). It also provides the proper framework to perform model selection
between two competitive hypotheses. The parameters estimation capabilities of
the N-pdf are proved by SDSS-like simulations (both ideal log-normal
simulations and mocks obtained from Las Damas simulations), showing that our
estimator is unbiased. We apply our formalism to the 7th release of the SDSS
main sample (for a volume-limited subset with absolute magnitudes ). We obtain and , for galaxy number density fluctuations in cells of a size of
Mpc. Different model selection criteria show that galaxy biasing is
clearly favoured.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables. v2: Substantial revision, adding the
joint constraints with \sigma_8 and testing with Las Damas mocks. Matches
version accepted for publication in JCA
Shell-like structures in our cosmic neighbourhood
Signatures of the processes in the early Universe are imprinted in the cosmic
web. Some of them may define shell-like structures characterised by typical
scales. We search for shell-like structures in the distribution of nearby rich
clusters of galaxies drawn from the SDSS DR8. We calculate the distance
distributions between rich clusters of galaxies, and groups and clusters of
various richness, look for the maxima in the distance distributions, and select
candidates of shell-like structures. We analyse the space distribution of
groups and clusters forming shell walls. We find six possible candidates of
shell-like structures, in which galaxy clusters have maxima in the distance
distribution to other galaxy groups and clusters at the distance of about 120
Mpc/h. The rich galaxy cluster A1795, the central cluster of the Bootes
supercluster, has the highest maximum in the distance distribution of other
groups and clusters around them at the distance of about 120 Mpc/h among our
rich cluster sample, and another maximum at the distance of about 240 Mpc/h.
The structures of galaxy systems causing the maxima at 120 Mpc/h form an almost
complete shell of galaxy groups, clusters and superclusters. The richest
systems in the nearby universe, the Sloan Great Wall, the Corona Borealis
supercluster and the Ursa Major supercluster are among them. The probability
that we obtain maxima like this from random distributions is lower than 0.001.
Our results confirm that shell-like structures can be found in the distribution
of nearby galaxies and their systems. The radii of the possible shells are
larger than expected for a BAO shell (approximately 109 Mpc/h versus
approximately 120 Mpc/h), and they are determined by very rich galaxy clusters
and superclusters with high density contrast while BAO shells are barely seen
in the galaxy distribution. We discuss possible consequences of these
differences.Comment: Comments: 9 pages, 10 figures, Astronomy and Astrophysics, in pres
La vida en un laboratorio de alta seguridad biológica
El trabajo e investigación con ciertos microorganismos puede suponer un gran riesgo tanto para el personal que trabaja con ellos, como para los animales y el medio ambiente. Ello hace necesaria la existencia de laboratorios de alta seguridad biológica que permitan su estudio sin riesgo. En este tipo de laboratorios las medidas de bioseguridad son muy estrictas y ello puede afectar al personal que trabaja a diario en estos centros. Conocer cómo les afectan, en qué medida y por qué ha sido el objetivo principal de nuestro trabajo. Para ello se realizó y diseñó una encuesta que ha permitido recoger la opinión de los trabajadores de tres importantes centros de alta seguridad biológica dedicados a Sanidad Animal y Salud Pública. Tras el análisis de las respuestas se observó que la mayorÃa de encuestados encuentra factores limitantes para su trabajo en este tipo de centros, si bien estos varÃan de un centro a otro y no impiden valorar la necesidad de estas medidas.To work and research with some kind of microorganism could suppose a high risk for humans, animals and environment. This fact makes necessary the existence of biosafety laboratories. In this type of centres, high security conditions are very strict and that could affect people who work daily inside it. Knowing how it affects them is the main objective of our study. For that reason we have done a survey to know the impressions of people who work in laboratories of Biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) . After analyzing the results of this survey, we could say that working inside BSL-3 implies certain limitations for people who work inside them, but they respect and value the importance of this security conditions
Implanted muon spin spectroscopy on 2-O-adamantane: a model system that mimics the liquid
The transition taking place between two metastable phases in 2-O-adamantane, namely the [Formula: see text] cubic, rotator phase and the lower temperature P21/c, Z  =  4 substitutionally disordered crystal is studied by means of muon spin rotation and relaxation techniques. Measurements carried out under zero, weak transverse and longitudinal fields reveal a temperature dependence of the relaxation parameters strikingly similar to those exhibited by structural glass[Formula: see text]liquid transitions (Bermejo et al 2004 Phys. Rev. B 70 214202; Cabrillo et al 2003 Phys. Rev. B 67 184201). The observed behaviour manifests itself as a square root singularity in the relaxation rates pointing towards some critical temperature which for amorphous systems is located some tens of degrees above that shown as the characteristic transition temperature if studied by thermodynamic means. The implications of such findings in the context of current theoretical approaches concerning the canonical liquid-glass transition are discussed.Postprint (author's final draft
The Investigation of Flowering Control in Late/Rare Flowering Lolium Perenne
Flowering in Lolium perenne (perennial ryegrass) results in reduced digestibility and its inhibition would enhance forage quality. Flowering regulation has been well studied in Arabidopsis thaliana (Simpson and Dean, 2002) and orthologs of Arabidopsis flowering genes underlying heading date Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) have been identified in rice (Yano, M et al., 2000). However it is not clear yet how universally applicable such studies are to Lolium. The project goals are to characterise the gene expression profiles of late/rare flowering L. perenne plants to determine factors affecting flowering and to map the genes involved in the flowering process. Initial studies, reported here, have focussed on the ability of 6 plant lines from the Oak Park breeding programme, previously identified as rare or non-flowering under natural day length conditions, to flower in controlled environments
Direct Sparse Odometry with Rolling Shutter
Neglecting the effects of rolling-shutter cameras for visual odometry (VO)
severely degrades accuracy and robustness. In this paper, we propose a novel
direct monocular VO method that incorporates a rolling-shutter model. Our
approach extends direct sparse odometry which performs direct bundle adjustment
of a set of recent keyframe poses and the depths of a sparse set of image
points. We estimate the velocity at each keyframe and impose a
constant-velocity prior for the optimization. In this way, we obtain a near
real-time, accurate direct VO method. Our approach achieves improved results on
challenging rolling-shutter sequences over state-of-the-art global-shutter VO
The evolution of Balmer jump selected galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey
We present a new color-selection technique, based on the Bruzual & Charlot
models convolved with the bands of the ALHAMBRA survey, and the redshifted
position of the Balmer jump to select star-forming galaxies in the redshift
range 0.5 < z < 1.5. These galaxies are dubbed Balmer jump Galaxies BJGs. We
apply the iSEDfit Bayesian approach to fit each detailed SED and determine
star-formation rate (SFR), stellar mass, age and absolute magnitudes. The mass
of the haloes where these samples reside are found via a clustering analysis.
Five volume-limited BJG sub-samples with different mean redshifts are found to
reside in haloes of median masses slightly
increasing toward z=0.5. This increment is similar to numerical simulations
results which suggests that we are tracing the evolution of an evolving
population of haloes as they grow to reach a mass of at z=0.5. The likely progenitors of our samples at z3 are Lyman
Break Galaxies, which at z2 would evolve into star-forming BzK galaxies,
and their descendants in the local Universe are elliptical galaxies.Hence, this
allows us to follow the putative evolution of the SFR, stellar mass and age of
these galaxies. From z1.0 to z0.5, the stellar mass of the volume
limited BJG samples nearly does not change with redshift, suggesting that major
mergers play a minor role on the evolution of these galaxies. The SFR evolution
accounts for the small variations of stellar mass, suggesting that star
formation and possible minor mergers are the main channels of mass assembly.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures. Submitted to A&A. It includes first referee's
comments. Abstract abridged due to arXiv requirement
Detecting Baryon Acoustic Oscillations
Baryon Acoustic Oscillations are a feature imprinted in the galaxy
distribution by acoustic waves traveling in the plasma of the early universe.
Their detection at the expected scale in large-scale structures strongly
supports current cosmological models with a nearly linear evolution from
redshift approximately 1000, and the existence of dark energy. Besides, BAOs
provide a standard ruler for studying cosmic expansion. In this paper we focus
on methods for BAO detection using the correlation function measurement. For
each method, we want to understand the tested hypothesis (the hypothesis H0 to
be rejected) and the underlying assumptions. We first present wavelet methods
which are mildly model-dependent and mostly sensitive to the BAO feature. Then
we turn to fully model-dependent methods. We present the most often used method
based on the chi^2 statistic, but we find it has limitations. In general the
assumptions of the chi^2 method are not verified, and it only gives a rough
estimate of the significance. The estimate can become very wrong when
considering more realistic hypotheses, where the covariance matrix of the
measurement depends on cosmological parameters. Instead we propose to use a new
method based on two modifications: we modify the procedure for computing the
significance and make it rigorous, and we modify the statistic to obtain better
results in the case of varying covariance matrix. We verify with simulations
that correct significances are different from the ones obtained using the
classical chi^2 procedure. We also test a simple example of varying covariance
matrix. In this case we find that our modified statistic outperforms the
classical chi^2 statistic when both significances are correctly computed.
Finally we find that taking into account variations of the covariance matrix
can change both BAO detection levels and cosmological parameter constraints
Scaling of Dirac Fermions and the WKB approximation
We discuss a new method for obtaining the WKB approximation to the Dirac
equation with a scalar potential and a time-like vector potential. We use the
WKB solutions to investigate the scaling behavior of a confining model for
quark-hadron duality. In this model, a light quark is bound to a heavy di-quark
by a linear scalar potential. Absorption of virtual photons promotes the quark
to bound states. The analog of the parton model for this case is for a virtual
photon to eject the bound, ground-state quark directly into free continuum
states. We compare the scaling limits of the response functions for these two
transitions
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