52 research outputs found
Out with the old and in with the new? Investigating competition between Barred Owls (Strix varia) and Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) in northwestern California with a playback experiment
Department Head: Kenneth Ray Wilson.Includes bibliographical references (pages 125-131).The Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) is a controversial species in the Pacific Northwest that is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The Barred Owl (Strix varia), a species historically restricted to eastern North America, has recently expanded its range to completely overlap that of the Northern Spotted Owl. Recent evidence suggests that Barred Owls may displace Northern Spotted Owls from their territories. The focus of my study was to determine whether Barred Owls have the potential to competitively exclude Northern Spotted Owls from their territories. I used a playback experiment to observe and quantify aggressive vocal and physical behavior of Barred and Northern Spotted Owls during territorial defense. Trials consisted of displaying a Northern Spotted or Barred Owl taxidermy mount, and broadcasting recorded vocalizations of the corresponding species, in both Barred and Northern Spotted Owl territories. The frequency and intensity of residents' responses to playbacks were digitally recorded as was the acceleration experienced by the mount's head during physical attacks by the residents. When agonistic interspecific interactions occurred in this study I found that Barred Owls responded with higher levels of vocal and physical aggression than Northern Spotted Owls. However, the frequency of interspecific interactions was lower compared to intraspecific interactions among Northern Spotted Owls alone. This study suggests that Barred Owls are likely to assume the dominant role during interspecific interactions with Northern Spotted Owls and indicates that competitive exclusion is a plausible mechanism by which Barred Owls could contribute to the observed population declines of Northern Spotted Owls in areas of co-occurrence.2009 Mewaldt-King Student Research Award by the Cooper Ornithological Society
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Two-Season ACTPol Lensing Power Spectrum
We report a measurement of the power spectrum of cosmic microwave background
(CMB) lensing from two seasons of Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarimeter
(ACTPol) CMB data. The CMB lensing power spectrum is extracted from both
temperature and polarization data using quadratic estimators. We obtain results
that are consistent with the expectation from the best-fit Planck LCDM model
over a range of multipoles L=80-2100, with an amplitude of lensing A_lens =
1.06 +/- 0.15 (stat.) +/- 0.06 (sys.) relative to Planck. Our measurement of
the CMB lensing power spectrum gives sigma_8 Omega_m^0.25 = 0.643 +/- 0.054;
including baryon acoustic oscillation scale data, we constrain the amplitude of
density fluctuations to be sigma_8 = 0.831 +/- 0.053. We also update
constraints on the neutrino mass sum. We verify our lensing measurement with a
number of null tests and systematic checks, finding no evidence of significant
systematic errors. This measurement relies on a small fraction of the ACTPol
data already taken; more precise lensing results can therefore be expected from
the full ACTPol dataset.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, to be submitted to Physical Review
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Mitigating the impact of extragalactic foregrounds for the DR6 CMB lensing analysis
We investigate the impact and mitigation of extragalactic foregrounds for the
CMB lensing power spectrum analysis of Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) data
release 6 (DR6) data. Two independent microwave sky simulations are used to
test a range of mitigation strategies. We demonstrate that finding and then
subtracting point sources, finding and then subtracting models of clusters, and
using a profile bias-hardened lensing estimator, together reduce the fractional
biases to well below statistical uncertainties, with the inferred lensing
amplitude, , biased by less than . We also show
that another method where a model for the cosmic infrared background (CIB)
contribution is deprojected and high frequency data from Planck is included has
similar performance. Other frequency-cleaned options do not perform as well,
incurring either a large noise cost, or resulting in biased recovery of the
lensing spectrum. In addition to these simulation-based tests, we also present
null tests performed on the ACT DR6 data which test for sensitivity of our
lensing spectrum estimation to differences in foreground levels between the two
ACT frequencies used, while nulling the CMB lensing signal. These tests pass
whether the nulling is performed at the map or bandpower level. The
CIB-deprojected measurement performed on the DR6 data is consistent with our
baseline measurement, implying contamination from the CIB is unlikely to
significantly bias the DR6 lensing spectrum. This collection of tests gives
confidence that the ACT DR6 lensing measurements and cosmological constraints
presented in companion papers to this work are robust to extragalactic
foregrounds.Comment: Companion paper to Qu et al and Madhavacheril et a
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Modeling the Gas Thermodynamics in BOSS CMASS galaxies from Kinematic and Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Measurements
The thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects (tSZ, kSZ) probe the
thermodynamic properties of the circumgalactic and intracluster medium (CGM and
ICM) of galaxies, groups, and clusters, since they are proportional,
respectively, to the integrated electron pressure and momentum along the
line-of-sight. We present constraints on the gas thermodynamics of CMASS
galaxies in the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) using new
measurements of the kSZ and tSZ signals obtained in a companion paper.
Combining kSZ and tSZ measurements, we measure within our model the amplitude
of energy injection , where is the stellar
mass, to be , and the amplitude of the
non-thermal pressure profile to be (2),
indicating that less than 20% of the total pressure within the virial radius is
due to a non-thermal component. We estimate the effects of including baryons in
the modeling of weak-lensing galaxy cross-correlation measurements using the
best fit density profile from the kSZ measurement. Our estimate reduces the
difference between the original theoretical model and the weak-lensing galaxy
cross-correlation measurements in arXiv:1611.08606 by half, but does not fully
reconcile it. Comparing the kSZ and tSZ measurements to cosmological
simulations, we find that they under predict the CGM pressure and to a lesser
extent the CGM density at larger radii. This suggests that the energy injected
via feedback models in the simulations that we compared against does not
sufficiently heat the gas at these radii. We do not find significant
disagreement at smaller radii. These measurements provide novel tests of
current and future simulations. This work demonstrates the power of joint, high
signal-to-noise kSZ and tSZ observations, upon which future cross-correlation
studies will improve.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review D. Editors' Suggestion.
New Fig. 1-2, Tab.
Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Weighing Distant Clusters with the Most Ancient Light
We use gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to measure the mass of the most distant blindly selected sample of galaxy clusters on which a lensing measurement has been performed to date. In CMB data from the the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the Planck satellite, we detect the stacked lensing effect from 677 near-infrared-selected galaxy clusters from the Massive and Distant Clusters of WISE Survey (MaDCoWS), which have a mean redshift of ⟨z⟩ = 1.08. There are currently no representative optical weak lensing measurements of clusters that match the distance and average mass of this sample. We detect the lensing signal with a significance of 4.2σ. We model the signal with a halo model framework to find the mean mass of the population from which these clusters are drawn. Assuming that the clusters follow Navarro–Frenk–White (NFW) density profiles, we infer a mean mass of ⟨M_(500c)⟩ = (1.7±0.4)×10¹⁴M⊙. We consider systematic uncertainties from cluster redshift errors, centering errors, and the shape of the NFW profile. These are all smaller than 30% of our reported uncertainty. This work highlights the potential of CMB lensing to enable cosmological constraints from the abundance of distant clusters populating ever larger volumes of the observable universe, beyond the capabilities of optical weak lensing measurements
The Simons Observatory microwave SQUID multiplexing detector module design
Advances in cosmic microwave background (CMB) science depend on increasing
the number of sensitive detectors observing the sky. New instruments deploy
large arrays of superconducting transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers tiled
densely into ever larger focal planes. High multiplexing factors reduce the
thermal loading on the cryogenic receivers and simplify their design. We
present the design of focal-plane modules with an order of magnitude higher
multiplexing factor than has previously been achieved with TES bolometers. We
focus on the novel cold readout component, which employs microwave SQUID
multiplexing (mux). Simons Observatory will use 49 modules containing
60,000 bolometers to make exquisitely sensitive measurements of the CMB. We
validate the focal-plane module design, presenting measurements of the readout
component with and without a prototype detector array of 1728
polarization-sensitive bolometers coupled to feedhorns. The readout component
achieves a yield and a 910 multiplexing factor. The median white noise
of each readout channel is 65 . This impacts the
projected SO mapping speed by , which is less than is assumed in the
sensitivity projections. The results validate the full functionality of the
module. We discuss the measured performance in the context of SO science
requirements, which are exceeded.Comment: Accepted to The Astrophysical Journa
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: A Measurement of the DR6 CMB Lensing Power Spectrum and its Implications for Structure Growth
We present new measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing over
sq. deg. of the sky. These lensing measurements are derived from the
Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 6 (DR6) CMB dataset, which
consists of five seasons of ACT CMB temperature and polarization observations.
We determine the amplitude of the CMB lensing power spectrum at
precision ( significance) using a novel pipeline that minimizes
sensitivity to foregrounds and to noise properties. To ensure our results are
robust, we analyze an extensive set of null tests, consistency tests, and
systematic error estimates and employ a blinded analysis framework. The
baseline spectrum is well fit by a lensing amplitude of
relative to the Planck 2018 CMB power spectra
best-fit CDM model and relative to
the best-fit model. From our lensing power
spectrum measurement, we derive constraints on the parameter combination
of
from ACT DR6 CMB lensing alone and
when combining ACT DR6 and Planck NPIPE
CMB lensing power spectra. These results are in excellent agreement with
CDM model constraints from Planck or
CMB power spectrum measurements. Our lensing measurements from redshifts
-- are thus fully consistent with CDM structure growth
predictions based on CMB anisotropies probing primarily . We find no
evidence for a suppression of the amplitude of cosmic structure at low
redshiftsComment: 45+21 pages, 50 figures. Prepared for submission to ApJ. Also see
companion papers Madhavacheril et al and MacCrann et a
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: High-resolution component-separated maps across one-third of the sky
Observations of the millimeter sky contain valuable information on a number
of signals, including the blackbody cosmic microwave background (CMB), Galactic
emissions, and the Compton- distortion due to the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich
(tSZ) effect. Extracting new insight into cosmological and astrophysical
questions often requires combining multi-wavelength observations to spectrally
isolate one component. In this work, we present a new arcminute-resolution
Compton- map, which traces out the line-of-sight-integrated electron
pressure, as well as maps of the CMB in intensity and E-mode polarization,
across a third of the sky (around 13,000 sq.~deg.). We produce these through a
joint analysis of data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release
4 and 6 at frequencies of roughly 93, 148, and 225 GHz, together with data from
the \textit{Planck} satellite at frequencies between 30 GHz and 545 GHz. We
present detailed verification of an internal linear combination pipeline
implemented in a needlet frame that allows us to efficiently suppress Galactic
contamination and account for spatial variations in the ACT instrument noise.
These maps provide a significant advance, in noise levels and resolution, over
the existing \textit{Planck} component-separated maps and will enable a host of
science goals including studies of cluster and galaxy astrophysics, inferences
of the cosmic velocity field, primordial non-Gaussianity searches, and
gravitational lensing reconstruction of the CMB.Comment: The Compton-y map and associated products will be made publicly
available upon publication of the paper. The CMB T and E mode maps will be
made available when the DR6 maps are made publi
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: DR6 Gravitational Lensing Map and Cosmological Parameters
We present cosmological constraints from a gravitational lensing mass map
covering 9400 sq. deg. reconstructed from CMB measurements made by the Atacama
Cosmology Telescope (ACT) from 2017 to 2021. In combination with BAO
measurements (from SDSS and 6dF), we obtain the amplitude of matter
fluctuations at 1.8% precision,
and the Hubble
constant at
1.6% precision. A joint constraint with CMB lensing measured by the Planck
satellite yields even more precise values: ,
and . These measurements agree
well with CDM-model extrapolations from the CMB anisotropies measured
by Planck. To compare these constraints to those from the KiDS, DES, and HSC
galaxy surveys, we revisit those data sets with a uniform set of assumptions,
and find from all three surveys are lower than that from ACT+Planck
lensing by varying levels ranging from 1.7-2.1. These results motivate
further measurements and comparison, not just between the CMB anisotropies and
galaxy lensing, but also between CMB lensing probing on
mostly-linear scales and galaxy lensing at on smaller scales. We
combine our CMB lensing measurements with CMB anisotropies to constrain
extensions of CDM, limiting the sum of the neutrino masses to eV (95% c.l.), for example. Our results provide independent
confirmation that the universe is spatially flat, conforms with general
relativity, and is described remarkably well by the CDM model, while
paving a promising path for neutrino physics with gravitational lensing from
upcoming ground-based CMB surveys.Comment: 30 pages, 16 figures, prepared for submission to ApJ. Cosmological
likelihood data is here:
https://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/act/actadv_prod_table.html ; likelihood
software is here: https://github.com/ACTCollaboration/act_dr6_lenslike . Also
see companion papers Qu et al and MacCrann et al. Mass maps will be released
when papers are publishe
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