2,623 research outputs found
Evidence for a new light spin-zero boson from cosmological gamma-ray propagation?
Recent findings by Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes indicate a large
transparency of the Universe to gamma rays, which can be hardly explained
within the current models of extragalactic background light. We show that the
observed transparency is naturally produced by an oscillation mechanism --
which can occur inside intergalactic magnetic fields -- whereby a photon can
become a new spin-zero boson with mass m << 10^(-10) eV. Because the latter
particle travels unimpeded throughout the Universe, photons can reach the
observer even if the distance from the source considerably exceeds their mean
free path. We compute the expected flux of gamma rays from blazar 3C279 at
different energies. Our predictions can be tested in the near future by the
gamma-ray telescopes H.E.S.S., MAGIC, CANGAROO and VERITAS. Moreover, our
result provides an important observational test for models of dark energy
wherein quintessence is coupled to the photon through an effective
dimension-five operator.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
SCML: A Structural Representation for Chinese Characters
Chinese characters are used daily by well over a billion people. They constitute the main writing system of China and Taiwan, form a major part of written Japanese, and are also used in South Korea. Anything more than a cursory glance at these characters will reveal a high degree of structure to them, but computing systems do not currently have a means to operate on this structure. Existing character databases and dictionaries treat them as numerical code points, and associate with them additional `hand-computed\u27 data, such as stroke count, stroke order, and other information to aid in specific searches. Searching by a character\u27s `shape\u27 is effectively impossible in these systems. I propose a new approach to representing these characters, through an XML-based language called SCML. This language, by encoding an abstract form of a character, allows the direct retrieval of important information such as stroke count and stroke order, and permits useful but previously impossible automated analysis of characters. In addition, the system allows the design of a view that takes abstract SCML representations as character models and outputs glyphs based on an aesthetic, facilitating the creation of `meta-fonts\u27 for Chinese characters. Finally, through the creation of a specialized database, SCML allows for efficient structural character queries to be performed against the body of inserted characters, thus allowing people to search by the most obvious of a character\u27s characteristics: its shape
Noninteracting dark matter
Since an acceptable dark matter candidate may interact only weakly with
ordinary matter and radiation, it is of interest to consider the limiting case
where the dark matter interacts only with gravity and itself, the matter
originating by the gravitational particle production at the end of inflation.
We use the bounds on the present dark mass density and the measured large-scale
fluctuations in the thermal cosmic background radiation to constrain the two
parameters in a self-interaction potential that is a sum of quadratic and
quartic terms in a single scalar dark matter field that is minimally coupled to
gravity. In quintessential inflation, where the temperature at the end of
inflation is relatively low, the field starts acting like cold dark matter
relatively late, shortly before the epoch of equal mass densities in matter and
radiation. This could have observable consequences for galaxy formation. We
respond to recent criticisms of the quintessential inflation scenario, since
these issues also apply to elements of the noninteracting dark matter picture.Comment: 37 pages, 3 figure
Nonlinear Evolution of Anisotropic Cosmological Power
There has been growing interest in the possibility of testing more precisely
the assumption of statistical isotropy of primordial density perturbations. If
it is to be tested with galaxy surveys at distance scales <~ 10 Mpc, then
nonlinear evolution of anisotropic power must be understood. To this end, we
calculate the angular dependence of the power spectrum to third order in
perturbation theory for a primordial power spectrum with a quadrupole
dependence on the wavevector direction. Our results suggest that primordial
power anisotropies will be suppressed by <~ 7% in the quasilinear regime. We
also show that the skewness in the statistically anisotropic theory differs by
no more than 1% from that in the isotropic theory.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Dynamics of a Dark Matter Field with a Quartic Self-Interaction Potential
It may prove useful in cosmology to understand the behavior of the energy
distribution in a scalar field that interacts only with gravity and with itself
by a pure quartic potential, because if such a field existed it would be
gravitationally produced, as a squeezed state, during inflation. It is known
that the mean energy density in such a field after inflation varies with the
expansion of the universe in the same way as radiation. I show that if the
field initially is close to homogeneous, with small energy density contrast
delta rho /rho and coherence length L, the energy density fluctuations behave
like acoustic oscillations in an ideal relativistic fluid for a time on the
order of L/|delta rho /rho|. This ends with the appearance of features that
resemble shock waves, but interact in a close to elastic way that reversibly
disturbs the energy distribution.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys Rev
Issues for the Next Generation of Galaxy Surveys
I argue that the weight of the available evidence favours the conclusions
that galaxies are unbiased tracers of mass, the mean mass density (excluding a
cosmological constant or its equivalent) is less than the critical Einstein-de
Sitter value, and an isocurvature model for structure formation offers a viable
and arguably attractive model for the early assembly of galaxies. If valid
these conclusions complicate our work of adding structure formation to the
standard model for cosmology, but it seems sensible to pay attention to
evidence.Comment: 14 pages, 3 postscript figures, uses rspublic.st
A Possible Late Time CDM-like Background Cosmology in Relativistic MOND Theory
In the framework of Relativistic MOND theory (TeVeS), we show that a late
time background CDM cosmology can be attained by choosing a specific
that also meets the requirement for the existence of Newtonian and
MOND limits. We investigate the dynamics of the scalar field under our
chosen and show that the "slow roll" regime of corresponds to a
dynamical attractor, where the whole system reduces to CDM cosmology.Comment: Major revisions made; Matching the version to be published in IJMP
Primordial fractal density perturbations and structure formation in the Universe: 1-Dimensional collisionless sheet model
Two-point correlation function of galaxy distribution shows that the
structure in the present Universe is scale-free up to a certain scale (at least
several tens Mpc), which suggests that a fractal structure may exist. If small
primordial density fluctuations have a fractal structure, the present
fractal-like nonlinear structure below the horizon scale could be naturally
explained. We analyze the time evolution of fractal density perturbations in
Einstein-de Sitter universe, and study how the perturbation evolves and what
kind of nonlinear structure will come out. We assume a one-dimensional
collisionless sheet model with initial Cantor-type fractal perturbations. The
nonlinear structure seems to approach some attractor with a unique fractal
dimension, which is independent of the fractal dimensions of initial
perturbations. A discrete self-similarity in the phase space is also found when
the universal nonlinear fractal structure is reached.Comment: 17 pages, 19 jpeg figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Figures
are also available from
http://www.phys.waseda.ac.jp/gravity/~tatekawa/0003124/figs.tar.g
Cosmological Origin of the Stellar Velocity Dispersions in Massive Early-Type Galaxies
We show that the observed upper bound on the line-of-sight velocity
dispersion of the stars in an early-type galaxy, sigma<400km/s, may have a
simple dynamical origin within the LCDM cosmological model, under two main
hypotheses. The first is that most of the stars now in the luminous parts of a
giant elliptical formed at redshift z>6. Subsequently, the stars behaved
dynamically just as an additional component of the dark matter. The second
hypothesis is that the mass distribution characteristic of a newly formed dark
matter halo forgets such details of the initial conditions as the stellar
"collisionless matter" that was added to the dense parts of earlier generations
of halos. We also assume that the stellar velocity dispersion does not evolve
much at z<6, because a massive host halo grows mainly by the addition of
material at large radii well away from the stellar core of the galaxy. These
assumptions lead to a predicted number density of ellipticals as a function of
stellar velocity dispersion that is in promising agreement with the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey data.Comment: ApJ, in press (2003); matches published versio
Constraints on the neutrino mass and the primordial magnetic field from the matter density fluctuation parameter
We have made an analysis of limits on the neutrino mass based upon the
formation of large-scale structure in the presence of a primordial magnetic
field. We find that a new upper bound on the neutrino mass is possible based
upon fits to the cosmic microwave background and matter power spectrum when the
existing independent constraints on the matter density fluctuation parameter
and the primordial magnetic field are taken into account.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, final version to appear in Phys. Rev. D, to match
proof
- …