356 research outputs found
The Halo Distribution of 2dF Galaxies
We use the clustering results obtained by Madgwick et al. (2003) for a sample
of 96,791 2dF galaxies with redshift 0.01 \lt z \lt 0.15 to study the
distribution of late-type and early-type galaxies within dark matter haloes of
different mass. Within the framework of our models, galaxies of both classes
are found to be as spatially concentrated as the dark matter within haloes even
though, while the distribution of star-forming galaxies can also allow for some
steeper profiles, this is drastically ruled out in the case of early-type
galaxies. We also find evidence for morphological segregation, as late-type
galaxies appear to be distributed within haloes of mass scales corresponding to
groups and clusters up to about two virial radii, while passive objects show a
preference to reside closer to the halo centre. If we assume a broken power-law
of the form =(m/m_0)^{alpha_1} for m_{cut}\le m<m_0 and
=(m/m_0)^{alpha_2} at higher masses to describe the dependence of
the average number of galaxies within haloes on the halo mass, fits to the data
show that star-forming galaxies start appearing in haloes of masses
m_{cut}~10^{11}m_{sun}, much smaller than what is obtained for early-type
galaxies (m_{cut}~10^{12.6}m_{sun}). In the high-mass regime m\ge m_0,
$ increases with halo mass more slowly (alpha_2~0.7) in the case of
late-type galaxies than for passive objects which present alpha_2~1.1. We
stress that there is no degeneracy in the determination of the best functional
forms for rho(r) and , as they affect the behaviour of the
galaxy-galaxy correlation function on different scales.Comment: Revised version to appear in MNRAS, extended analysis, some new
result
Two Ways of Biasing Galaxy Formation
We calculate the galaxy bispectrum in both real and redshift space adopting
the most common prescriptions for local Eulerian biasing and Lagrangian
evolving-bias model. We show that the two biasing schemes make measurably
different predictions for these clustering statistics. The Eulerian
prescription implies that the galaxy distribution depends only on the
present-day local mass distribution, while its Lagrangian counterpart relates
the current galaxy distribution to the mass distribution at an earlier epoch
when galaxies first formed. Detailed measurement of the galaxy bispectrum (of
its reduced amplitude) can help establish whether galaxy positions are
determined by the current mass distribution or an earlier mass distribution.Comment: 6 pages, added one figure and revised; MNRAS Pink Pages (in press),
Latex file uses mn.st
The Evolution of the Number Density of Large Disk Galaxies in COSMOS
We study a sample of approximately 16,500 galaxies with I_(ACS,AB) ≤ 22.5 in the central 38% of the COSMOS field, which are extracted from a catalog constructed from the Cycle 12 ACS F814W COSMOS data set. Structural information on the galaxies is derived by fitting single Sérsic models to their two-dimensional surface brightness distributions. In this paper we focus on the disk galaxy population (as classified by the Zurich Estimator of Structural Types), and investigate the evolution of the number density of disk galaxies larger than approximately 5 kpc between redshift z ~ 1 and the present epoch. Specifically, we use the measurements of the half-light radii derived from the Sérsic fits to construct, as a function of redshift, the size function Φ(r_(1/2), z) of both the total disk galaxy population and of disk galaxies split in four bins of bulge-to-disk ratio. In each redshift bin, the size function specifies the number of galaxies per unit comoving volume and per unit half-light radius r_(1/2). Furthermore, we use a selected sample of roughly 1800 SDSS galaxies to calibrate our results with respect to the local universe. We find the following: (1) The number density of disk galaxies with intermediate sizes (r_(1/2) ~ 5-7 kpc) remains nearly constant from z ~ 1 to today. Unless the growth and destruction of such systems exactly balanced in the last eight billion years, they must have neither grown nor been destroyed over this period. (2) The number density of the largest disks (r_(1/2) > 7 kpc) decreases by a factor of about 2 out to z ~ 1. (3) There is a constancy—or even slight increase—in the number density of large bulgeless disks out to z ~ 1; the deficit of large disks at early epochs seems to arise from a smaller number of bulged disks. Our results indicate that the bulk of the large disk galaxy population has completed its growth by z ~ 1 and support the theory that secular evolution processes produce—or at least add stellar mass to—the bulge components of disk galaxies
Critical collapse and the primordial black hole initial mass function
It has normally been assumed that primordial black holes (PBHs) always form
with mass approximately equal to the mass contained within the horizon at that
time. Recent work studying the application of critical phenomena in
gravitational collapse to PBH formation has shown that in fact, at a fixed
time, PBHs with a range of masses are formed. When calculating the PBH initial
mass function it is usually assumed that all PBHs form at the same horizon
mass. It is not clear, however, that it is consistent to consider the spread in
the mass of PBHs formed at a single horizon mass, whilst neglecting the range
of horizon masses at which PBHs can form. We use the excursion set formalism to
compute the PBH initial mass function, allowing for PBH formation at a range of
horizon masses, for two forms of the density perturbation spectrum. First we
examine power-law spectra with , where PBHs form on small scales. We find
that, in the limit where the number of PBHs formed is small enough to satisfy
the observational constraints on their initial abundance, the mass function
approaches that found by Niemeyer and Jedamzik under the assumption that all
PBHs form at a single horizon mass. Second, we consider a flat perturbation
spectrum with a spike at a scale corresponding to horizon mass , and compare the resulting PBH mass function with that of the MACHOs
(MAssive Compact Halo Objects) detected by microlensing observations. The
predicted mass spectrum appears significantly wider than the steeply-falling
spectrum found observationally.Comment: 8 pages RevTeX file with ten figures incorporated (uses RevTeX and
epsf). Minor changes to dicussion onl
Cardiac resynchronization therapy during rest and exercise: comparison of two optimization methods
Optimal exercise programming of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices is unknown. We aimed to: (i) investigate variations in optimal atrioventricular (AV) and interventricular (VV) delays from rest to exercise, assessed by both echocardiography and an automated intracardiac electrogram (IEGM) method; (ii) evaluate the acute haemodynamic impact of CRT optimization performed during exercise
COSMOS morphological classification with ZEST (the Zurich Estimator of Structural Types) and the evolution since z=1 of the Luminosity Function of early-, disk-, and irregular galaxies
(ABRIDGED) Motivated by the desire to reliably and automatically classify
structure of thousands of COSMOS galaxies, we present ZEST, the Zurich
Estimator of Structural Types. To classify galaxy structure, ZEST uses: (i)
Five non-parametric diagnostics: asymmetry, concentration, Gini coefficient,
2nd-order moment of the brightest 20% of galaxy pixels, and ellipticity; and
(ii) The exponent n of single--Sersic fits to the 2D surface brightness
distributions. To fully exploit the wealth of information while reducing the
redundancy present in these diagnostics, ZEST performs a principal component
(PC) Analysis. We use a sample of ~56,000 I<24 COSMOS galaxies to show that the
first three PCs fully describe the key aspects of the galaxy structure, i.e.,
to calibrate a three-dimensional classification grid of axis PC_1, PC_2, and
PC_3. We demonstrate the robustness of the ZEST grid on the z=0 sample of Frei
et al. (1996). The ZEST classification breaks most of the degeneracy between
different galaxy populations that affects morphological classifications based
on only some of the diagnostics included in ZEST. As a first application, we
present the evolution since z~1 of the Luminosity Functions of COSMOS galaxies
of early, disk and irregular galaxies and, for disk galaxies, of different
bulge-to-disk ratios. Overall, we find that the LF up to a redshift z=1 is
consistent with a pure-luminosity evolution (of about 0.95 magnitudes at z
\~0.7). We highlight however two trends, that are in general agreement with a
down-sizing scenario for galaxy formation: (1.) A deficit of a factor of about
two at z~0.7 of MB>-20.5 structurally--classified early--type galaxies; and
(2.) An excess of a factor of about three, at a similar redshift, of irregular
galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in the ApJ COSMOS special issue. A version
with high resolution figures is available at
http://www.exp-astro.phys.ethz.ch/scarlata/papers/ApJS_ZEST.pd
The Canada-France Deep Fields III: Photometric Redshift Distribution to I(AB) ~ 24
We compute accurate redshift distributions to I(AB) = 24 and R(AB) = 24.5
using photometric redshifts estimated from six-band UBVRIZ photometry in the
Canada-France Deep Fields-Photometric Redshift Survey (CFDF-PRS). Our
photometric redshift algorithm is calibrated using hundreds of CFRS
spectroscopic redshifts in the same fields. The dispersion in redshift is
\sigma/(1+z) \la 0.04 to the CFRS depth of I(AB) = 22.5, rising to \sigma/(1+z)
\la 0.06 at our nominal magnitude and redshift limits of I(AB) = 24 and z \le
1.3, respectively. We describe a new method to compute N(z) that incorporates
the full redshift likelihood functions in a Bayesian iterative analysis and we
demonstrate in extensive Monte Carlo simulations that it is superior to
distributions calculated using simple maximum likelihood redshifts. The
field-to-field differences in the redshift distributions, while not unexpected
theoretically, are substantial even on 30' scales. We provide I(AB) and R(AB)
redshift distributions, median redshifts, and parametrized fits of our results
in various magnitude ranges, accounting for both random and systematic errors
in the analysis.Comment: 19 Pages, 8 Tables, 13 Figures. Replaced to match published version.
Main results unchange
A universal angular momentum profile for galactic halos
[Abridged] We study the angular-momentum profiles of a statistical sample of
halos drawn from a high-resolution N-body simulation of the LCDM cosmology. We
find that the cumulative mass distribution of specific angular momentum, j, in
a halo of mass Mv is well fit by a universal function, M(<j) = Mv \mu
j/(j_0+j). This profile is defined by one shape parameter (\mu or j_0) in
addition to the global spin parameter \lambda. It follows a power-law over most
of the mass, and flattens at large j, with the flattening more pronounced for
small values of \mu. Compared to a uniform sphere in solid-body rotation, most
halos have a higher fraction of their mass in the low- and high-j tails of the
distribution. The spatial distribution of angular momentum in halos tends to be
cylindrical and is well-aligned within each halo for ~80% of the halos. We
investigate two ideas for the origin of this profile. The first is based on a
revised version of linear tidal-torque theory combined with extended
Press-Schechter mass accretion, and the second focuses on j transport in minor
mergers. Finally, we briefly explore implications of the M(<j) profile on the
formation of galactic disks assuming that j is conserved during an adiabatic
baryonic infall. The implied gas density profile deviates from an exponential
disk, with a higher density at small radii and a tail extending to large radii.
The steep central density profiles may imply disk scale lengths that are
smaller than observed. This is reminiscent of the "angular-momentum problem"
seen in hydrodynamic simulations, even though we have assumed perfect j
conservation. A possible solution is to associate the central excesses with
bulge components and the outer regions with extended gaseous disks.Comment: 19 pages LaTeX, uses emulateapj5, 22 embedded figures, 1 separate
figure, Submitted to ApJ, version with higher quality figures available at
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~james/PAPER/parts.htm
Right ventricular function in AL amyloidosis: characteristics and prognostic implication
AIM: The importance of right ventricle (RV) dysfunction in AL amyloidosis has been underestimated. This study was designed to comprehensively evaluate RV function and its prognostic role in patients with AL amyloidosis with and without echocardiographic evidence of cardiac involvement. METHOD AND RESULTS: Fifty-two biopsy-proven AL amyloidosis patients underwent a thorough echocardiographic evaluation. Twenty-seven patients (CA) met the international echocardiographic criteria for cardiac involvement [left ventricular (LV) wall thickness >/= 12 mm] and 25 patients had no cardiac amyloidosis features (NCA). Patients were compared with a sex- age-matched control group. Patients and controls underwent traditional, tissue Doppler (TDI), speckle-tracking left and RV echocardiographic evaluation. No difference was observed between groups in RV diastolic diameter, whereas CA patients showed increased RV free wall thickness (P< 0.0001). Compared with controls and NCA patients, traditional echocardiography, TDI, and speckle-tracking evaluation detected significantly (P< 0.0001) depressed RV longitudinal systolic function in CA patients. No difference was observed between groups at Doppler diastolic evaluation, whereas at tricuspidal annulus TDI analysis, CA subject showed significantly lower E' and A' values with increased E/E' ratio (P< 0.0001). Over a 19 months median follow-up period, 18 patients died. Cox multivariate analysis showed that N-terminal pro-Brain natriuretic peptide and RV longitudinal strain were the strongest death predictor. CONCLUSION: Our data show that in patients with AL amyloidosis, RV involvement develops later than LV amyloid deposition but when it occurs, prognosis dramatically worsens. Moreover RV longitudinal strain was the only echocardiographic predictor of prognosis. We suggest that RV function analysis should be performed routinely as a part of echocardiographic evaluation in these patients
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