428 research outputs found
On the Evidence for Axion-like Particles from Active Galactic Nuclei
Burrage, Davis, and Shaw recently suggested exploiting the correlations
between high and low energy luminosities of astrophysical objects to probe
possible mixing between photons and axion-like particles (ALP) in magnetic
field regions. They also presented evidence for the existence of ALP's by
analyzing the optical/UV and X-ray monochromatic luminosities of AGNs. We
extend their work by using the monochromatic luminosities of 320 unobscured
Active Galactic Nuclei from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey/Xmm-Newton Quasar
Survey (Young et al., 2009), which allows the exploration of 18 different
combinations of optical/UV and X-ray monochromatic luminosities. However, we do
not find compelling evidence for the existence of ALPs. Moreover, it appears
that the signal reported by Burrage et al. is more likely due to X-ray
absorption rather than to photon-ALP oscillation.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures. Updated to reflect the minor changes introduced
in the published versio
Degeneracy measures for the algebraic classification of numerical spacetimes
We study the issue of algebraic classification of the Weyl curvature tensor,
with a particular focus on numerical relativity simulations. The spacetimes of
interest in this context, binary black hole mergers, and the ringdowns that
follow them, present subtleties in that they are generically, strictly
speaking, Type I, but in many regions approximately, in some sense, Type D. To
provide meaning to any claims of "approximate" Petrov class, one must define a
measure of degeneracy on the space of null rays at a point. We will investigate
such a measure, used recently to argue that certain binary black hole merger
simulations ring down to the Kerr geometry, after hanging up for some time in
Petrov Type II. In particular, we argue that this hangup in Petrov Type II is
an artefact of the particular measure being used, and that a geometrically
better-motivated measure shows a black hole merger produced by our group
settling directly to Petrov Type D.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures. Version 2 adds two references
Testing the Warm Dark Matter paradigm with large-scale structures
We explore the impact of a LWDM cosmological scenario on the clustering
properties of large-scale structure in the Universe. We do this by extending
the halo model. The new development is that we consider two components to the
mass density: one arising from mass in collapsed haloes, and the second from a
smooth component of uncollapsed mass. Assuming that the nonlinear clustering of
dark matter haloes can be understood, then from conservation arguments one can
precisely calculate the clustering properties of the smooth component and its
cross-correlation with haloes. We then explore how the three main ingredients
of the halo calculations, the mass function, bias and density profiles are
affected by WDM. We show that, relative to CDM: the mass function is suppressed
by ~50%, for masses ~100 times the free-streaming mass-scale; the bias of low
mass haloes can be boosted by up to 20%; core densities of haloes can be
suppressed. We also examine the impact of relic thermal velocities on the
density profiles, and find that these effects are constrained to scales r<1
kpc/h, and hence of little importance for dark matter tests, owing to
uncertainties in the baryonic physics. We use our modified halo model to
calculate the non-linear matter power spectrum, and find significant
small-scale power in the model. However, relative to the CDM case, the power is
suppressed. We then calculate the expected signal and noise that our set of
LWDM models would give for a future weak lensing mission. We show that the
models should in principle be separable at high significance. Finally, using
the Fisher matrix formalism we forecast the limit on the WDM particle mass for
a future full-sky weak lensing mission like Euclid or LSST. With Planck priors
and using multipoles l<5000, we find that a lower limit of 2.6 keV should be
easily achievable.Comment: Replaced with version accepted for publication in PRD. Inclusion of:
new figure showing dependence of predictions on cut-off mass; new discussion
of mass function; updated refs. 18 pages, 10 Figure
Using SN Ia Light Curve Shapes to Measure The Hubble Constant
We present an empirical method which uses visual band light curve shapes
(LCS) to estimate the luminosity of type Ia supernovae (SN Ia). This method is
first applied to a ``training set'' of 8 SN Ia light curves with independent
distance estimates to derive the correlation between the LCS and the
luminosity. We employ a linear estimation algorithm of the type developed by
Rybicki and Press (1992). The result is similar to that obtained by Hamuy et
al. (1995a) with the advantage that LCS produces quantitative error estimates
for the distance. We then examine the light curves for 13 SN Ia to determine
the LCS distances of these supernovae. The Hubble diagram constructed using
these LCS distances has a remarkably small dispersion of = 0.21 mag.
We use the light curve of SN 1972E and the Cepheid distance to NGC 5253 to
derive km s Mpc for the Hubble constant.Comment: 10 pages + 2 figures, Postscript file includes text and figures,
Submitted to Ap.J. (Letters), Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Preprint 499
Classical Disordered Ground States: Super-Ideal Gases, and Stealth and Equi-Luminous Materials
Using a collective coordinate numerical optimization procedure, we construct
ground-state configurations of interacting particle systems in various space
dimensions so that the scattering of radiation exactly matches a prescribed
pattern for a set of wave vectors. We show that the constructed ground states
are, counterintuitively, disordered (i.e., possess no long-range order) in the
infinite-volume limit. We focus on three classes of configurations with unique
radiation scattering characteristics: (i)``stealth'' materials, which are
transparent to incident radiation at certain wavelengths; (ii)``super-ideal''
gases, which scatter radiation identically to that of an ensemble of ideal gas
configurations for a selected set of wave vectors; and (iii)``equi-luminous''
materials, which scatter radiation equally intensely for a selected set of wave
vectors. We find that ground-state configurations have an increased tendency to
contain clusters of particles as one increases the prescribed luminosity.
Limitations and consequences of this procedure are detailed.Comment: 44 pages, 16 figures, revtek
Symmetrization and enhancement of the continuous Morlet transform
The forward and inverse wavelet transform using the continuous Morlet basis
may be symmetrized by using an appropriate normalization factor. The loss of
response due to wavelet truncation is addressed through a renormalization of
the wavelet based on power. The spectral density has physical units which may
be related to the squared amplitude of the signal, as do its margins the mean
wavelet power and the integrated instant power, giving a quantitative estimate
of the power density with temporal resolution. Deconvolution with the wavelet
response matrix reduces the spectral leakage and produces an enhanced wavelet
spectrum providing maximum resolution of the harmonic content of a signal.
Applications to data analysis are discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, minor revision, final versio
Untwisting of a Strained Cholesteric Elastomer by Disclination Loop Nucleation
The application of a sufficiently strong strain perpendicular to the pitch
axis of a monodomain cholesteric elastomer unwinds the cholesteric helix.
Previous theoretical analyses of this transition ignored the effects of Frank
elasticity which we include here. We find that the strain needed to unwind the
helix is reduced because of the Frank penalty and the cholesteric state becomes
metastable above the transition. We consider in detail a previously proposed
mechanism by which the topologically stable helical texture is removed in the
metastable state, namely by the nucleation of twist disclination loops in the
plane perpendicular to the pitch axis. We present an approximate calculation of
the barrier energy for this nucleation process which neglects possible spatial
variation of the strain fields in the elastomer, as well as a more accurate
calculation based on a finite element modeling of the elastomer.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure
Minimizing the stochasticity of halos in large-scale structure surveys
In recent work (Seljak, Hamaus and Desjacques 2009) it was found that
weighting central halo galaxies by halo mass can significantly suppress their
stochasticity relative to the dark matter, well below the Poisson model
expectation. In this paper we extend this study with the goal of finding the
optimal mass-dependent halo weighting and use -body simulations to perform a
general analysis of halo stochasticity and its dependence on halo mass. We
investigate the stochasticity matrix, defined as , where is the dark matter
overdensity in Fourier space, the halo overdensity of the -th
halo mass bin and the halo bias. In contrast to the Poisson model
predictions we detect nonvanishing correlations between different mass bins. We
also find the diagonal terms to be sub-Poissonian for the highest-mass halos.
The diagonalization of this matrix results in one large and one low eigenvalue,
with the remaining eigenvalues close to the Poisson prediction ,
where is the mean halo number density. The eigenmode with the lowest
eigenvalue contains most of the information and the corresponding eigenvector
provides an optimal weighting function to minimize the stochasticity between
halos and dark matter. We find this optimal weighting function to match linear
mass weighting at high masses, while at the low-mass end the weights approach a
constant whose value depends on the low-mass cut in the halo mass function.
Finally, we employ the halo model to derive the stochasticity matrix and the
scale-dependent bias from an analytical perspective. It is remarkably
successful in reproducing our numerical results and predicts that the
stochasticity between halos and the dark matter can be reduced further when
going to halo masses lower than we can resolve in current simulations.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, matched the published version in Phys. Rev. D
including one new figur
The Effects of Gravitational Back-Reaction on Cosmological Perturbations
Because of the non-linearity of the Einstein equations, the cosmological
fluctuations which are generated during inflation on a wide range of
wavelengths do not evolve independently. In particular, to second order in
perturbation theory, the first order fluctuations back-react both on the
background geometry and on the perturbations themselves. I this paper, the
gravitational back-reaction of long wavelength (super-Hubble) scalar metric
fluctuations on the perturbations themselves is investigated for a large class
of inflationary models. Specifically, the equations describing the evolution of
long wavelength cosmological metric and matter perturbations in an inflationary
universe are solved to second order in both the amplitude of the perturbations
and in the slow roll expansion parameter. Assuming that the linear fluctuations
have random phases, we show that the fractional correction to the power
spectrum due to the leading infrared back-reaction terms does not change the
shape of the spectrum. The amplitude of the effect is suppressed by the product
of the inflationary slow-roll parameter and the amplitude of the linear power
spectrum. The non-gaussianity of the spectrum induced by back-reaction is
commented upon.Comment: 9 page
Brownian Thermal Noise in Multilayer Coated Mirrors
We analyze the Brownian thermal noise of a multi-layer dielectric coating,
used in high-precision optical measurements including interferometric
gravitational-wave detectors. We assume the coating material to be isotropic,
and therefore study thermal noises arising from shear and bulk losses of the
coating materials. We show that coating noise arises not only from layer
thickness fluctuations, but also from fluctuations of the interface between the
coating and substrate, driven by internal fluctuating stresses of the coating.
In addition, the non-zero photoeleastic coefficients of the thin films modifies
the influence of the thermal noise on the laser field. The thickness
fluctuations of different layers are statistically independent, however, there
exists a finite coherence between layers and the substrate-coating interface.
Taking into account uncertainties in material parameters, we show that
significant uncertainties still exist in estimating coating Brownian noise.Comment: 26 pages, 18 figure
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