47 research outputs found
Femtolens Imaging of a Quasar Central Engine Using a Dwarf Star Telescope
We show that it is possible to image the structure of a distant quasar on
scales of AU by constructing a telescope which uses a nearby dwarf
star as its ``primary lens'' together with a satellite-borne ``secondary''. The
image produced by the primary is magnified by in one direction but
is contracted by 0.5 in the other, and therefore contains highly degenerate
one-dimensional information about the two-dimensional source. We discuss
various methods for extracting information about the second dimension including
``femtolens interferometry'' where one measures the interference between
different parts of the one-dimensional image with each other. Assuming that the
satellite could be dispatched to a position along a star-quasar line of sight
at a distance from the Sun, the nearest available dwarf-star primary is
likely to be at \sim 15\,\pc\,(r/40\,\rm AU)^{-2}. The secondary should
consist of a one-dimensional array of mirrors extending m to
achieve 1 AU resolution, or m to achieve 4 AU resolution.Comment: 12 pages including 3 embedded figure
Statistics of Weak Gravitational Lensing in Cold Dark Matter Models; Magnification Bias on Quasar Luminosity Functions
We compute statistical properties of weak gravitational lensing by
large-scale structure in three Cold Dark Matter models. We use a PM
-body code to simulate the formation and evolution of large-scale structure
in the universe. We perform ray-tracing experiments for each
model using the multiple lens-plane algorithm. From the results of these
experiments, we calculate the probability distribution functions (PDF) of the
convergences, shears, and magnifications, and their root-mean-square (rms)
values. We find that the rms values of the convergence and shear agree with the
predictions of a nonlinear analytical model. We also find that the PDFs of the
magnifications have a peak at values slightly smaller than , and
are strongly skewed toward large magnifications. In particular, for the
high-density model, a power-law tail appears in the magnification distribution
at large magnifications for sources at redshifts . The rms values of the
magnifications essentially agree with the nonlinear analytical predictions for
sources at low redshift, but exceed these predictions for high redshift
sources, once the power-law tail appears.
We study the effect of magnification bias on the luminosity functions of
high-redshift quasars, using the calculated PDFs of the magnifications. We show
that the magnification bias is moderate in the absence of the power-law tail in
the magnification distribution, but depends strongly on the value of the
density parameter. In presence of the power-law tail, the bias becomes
considerable, especially at the bright end of the luminosity functions.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, LaTex using epsfig.sty. Submitted to the The
Astrophysical Journa
Testing a new analytic model for gravitational lensing probabilities
We study gravitational lensing with a multiple lens plane approach, proposing
a simple analytical model for the probability distribution function (PDF) of
the dark matter convergence, kappa, for the different lens planes in a given
cosmology as a function of redshift and smoothing angle, theta. The model is
fixed solely by the variance of kappa, which in turn is fixed by the amplitude
of the power spectrum, sigma_8. We test the PDF against a high resolution
Tree-Particle-Mesh simulation and find that it is far superior to the Gaussian
or the lognormal, especially for small values of theta << 1 arcmin and at large
values of kappa relevant to strong lensing. With this model, we predict the
probabilities of strong lensing by a single plane or by multiple planes. We
find that for theta ~ 10 arcsec, a single plane accounts for almost all (~ 98%)
of the strong lensing cases for source redshift unity. However, for a more
typical source redshift of 4, about 12% of the strong lensing cases will result
from the contribution of a secondary clump of matter along the line of sight,
introducing a systematic error in the determination of the surface density of
clusters, typically overestimating it by about 2-5%. We also find that matter
inhomogenieties introduce a dispersion in the value of the angular diameter
distance about its cosmological mean. The probable error relative to the mean
increases with redshift to a value of about 8% for z ~ 6 and theta ~ 10 arcsec.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 13 pages, 12 figures, revised
version, references added, section 6 expande
Warped Galaxies From Misaligned Angular Momenta
A galaxy disk embedded in a rotating halo experiences a dynamical friction
force which causes it to warp when the angular momentum axes of the disk and
halo are misaligned. Our fully self-consistent simulations of this process
induce long-lived warps in the disk which mimic Briggs's rules of warp
behavior. They also demonstrate that random motion within the disk adds
significantly to its stiffness. Moreover, warps generated in this way have no
winding problem and are more pronounced in the extended \h1 disk. As emphasized
by Binney and his co-workers, angular momentum misalignments, which are
expected in hierarchical models of galaxy formation, can account for the high
fraction of warped galaxies. Our simulations exemplify the role of misaligned
spins in warp formation even when the halo density is not significantly
flattened.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap.J.
Ray Tracing Simulations of Weak Lensing by Large-Scale Structure
We investigate weak lensing by large-scale structure using ray tracing
through N-body simulations. Photon trajectories are followed through high
resolution simulations of structure formation to make simulated maps of shear
and convergence on the sky. Tests with varying numerical parameters are used to
calibrate the accuracy of computed lensing statistics on angular scales from
about 1 arcminute to a few degrees. Various aspects of the weak lensing
approximation are also tested. For fields a few degrees on a side the shear
power spectrum is almost entirely in the nonlinear regime and agrees well with
nonlinear analytical predictions. Sampling fluctuations in power spectrum
estimates are investigated by comparing several ray tracing realizations of a
given model. For survey areas smaller than a degree on a side the main source
of scatter is nonlinear coupling to modes larger than the survey. We develop a
method which uses this effect to estimate the mass density parameter Omega from
the scatter in power spectrum estimates for subregions of a larger survey. We
show that the power spectrum can be measured accurately from realistically
noisy data on scales corresponding to 1-10 Mpc/h. Non-Gaussian features in the
one point distribution function of the weak lensing convergence (reconstructed
from the shear) are also sensitive to Omega. We suggest several techniques for
estimating Omega in the presence of noise and compare their statistical power,
robustness and simplicity. With realistic noise Omega can be determined to
within 0.1-0.2 from a deep survey of several square degrees.Comment: 59 pages, 22 figures included. Matches version accepted for Ap
A Comparison of Simple Mass Estimators for Galaxy Clusters
High-resolution N-body simulations are used to investigate systematic trends
in the mass profiles and total masses of clusters as derived from 3 simple
estimators: (1) the weak gravitational lensing shear field under the assumption
of an isothermal cluster potential, (2) the dynamical mass obtained from the
measured velocity dispersion under the assumption of an isothermal cluster
potential, and (3) the classical virial estimator. The clusters consist of
order 2.5e+05 particles of mass m_p \simeq 10^{10} \Msun, have triaxial mass
distributions, and significant substructure exists within their virial radii.
Not surprisingly, the level of agreement between the mass profiles obtained
from the various estimators and the actual mass profiles is found to be
scale-dependent.
The virial estimator yields a good measurement of the total cluster mass,
though it is systematically underestimated by of order 10%. This result
suggests that, at least in the limit of ideal data, the virial estimator is
quite robust to deviations from pure spherical symmetry and the presence of
substructure. The dynamical mass estimate based upon a measurement of the
cluster velocity dispersion and an assumption of an isothermal potential yields
a poor measurement of the total mass. The weak lensing estimate yields a very
good measurement of the total mass, provided the mean shear used to determine
the equivalent cluster velocity dispersion is computed from an average of the
lensing signal over the entire cluster (i.e. the mean shear is computed
interior to the virial radius). [abridged]Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Complete
paper, including 3 large colour figures can also be obtained from
http://bu-ast.bu.edu/~brainerd/preprints
Linear frictional forces cause orbits to neither circularize nor precess
For the undamped Kepler potential the lack of precession has historically
been understood in terms of the Runge-Lenz symmetry. For the damped Kepler
problem this result may be understood in terms of the generalization of Poisson
structure to damped systems suggested recently by Tarasov[1]. In this
generalized algebraic structure the orbit-averaged Runge-Lenz vector remains a
constant in the linearly damped Kepler problem to leading order in the damping
coeComment: 16 pages. 1 figure, Rewrite for resubmissio
Measuring Omega/b with weak lensing
A correlation between the surface density of foreground galaxies tracing the
Large Scale Structure and the position of distant galaxies and quasars is
expected from the magnification bias effect (Canizares 1981). We show that this
foreground--background correlation function w_{fb} can be used as a
straightforward and almost model-free method to measure the cosmological ratio
Omega/b. For samples with appropriate redshift distributions, w_{fb} is
proportional to Omega, where delta and g are respectively the
foreground dark matter and galaxy surface density fluctuations. Therefore,
Omega/b is proportional to the ratio w_{fb}/w, where w is equivalent to ,
the foreground galaxy angular two-point correlation function, b is the biasing
factor, and the proportionality factor is independent of the dark matter power
spectrum. Simple estimations show that the application of this method to the
galaxy and quasar samples generated by the upcoming Sloan Sky Digital Survey
will achieve a highly accurate and well resolved measurement of the ratio
Omega/b.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, uses macro emulateapj.sty. To appear in
ApJLetter