17,608 research outputs found
The Apparent Fractal Conjecture
This short communication advances the hypothesis that the observed fractal
structure of large-scale distribution of galaxies is due to a geometrical
effect, which arises when observational quantities relevant for the
characterization of a cosmological fractal structure are calculated along the
past light cone. If this hypothesis proves, even partially, correct, most, if
not all, objections raised against fractals in cosmology may be solved. For
instance, under this view the standard cosmology has zero average density, as
predicted by an infinite fractal structure, with, at the same time, the
cosmological principle remaining valid. The theoretical results which suggest
this conjecture are reviewed, as well as possible ways of checking its
validity.Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX. Text unchanged. Two references corrected. Contributed
paper presented at the "South Africa Relativistic Cosmology Conference in
Honour of George F. R. Ellis 60th Birthday"; University of Cape Town,
February 1-5, 199
Spatial and observational homogeneities of the galaxy distribution in standard cosmologies
This work discusses the possible empirical verification of the geometrical
concept of homogeneity of the standard relativistic cosmology considering its
various definitions of distance. We study the physical consequences of the
distinction between the usual concept of spatial homogeneity (SH), as defined
by the Cosmological Principle, and the concept of observational homogeneity
(OH), arguing that OH is in principle falsifiable by means of astronomical
observations, whereas verifying SH is only possible indirectly. Simulated
counts of cosmological sources are produced by means of a generalized
number-distance expression that can be specialized to produce either the counts
of the Einstein-de Sitter (EdS) cosmology, which has SH by construction, or
other types of counts, which do, or do not, have OH by construction.
Expressions for observational volumes and differential densities are derived
with the various cosmological distance definitions in the EdS model. Simulated
counts that have OH by construction do not always exhibit SH features. The
reverse situation is also true. Besides, simulated counts with no OH features
at low redshift start showing OH characteristics at high redshift. The comoving
distance seems to be the only distance definition where both SH and OH appear
simultaneously. The results show that observations indicating possible lack of
OH do not necessarily falsify the standard Friedmannian cosmology, meaning that
this cosmology will not necessarily always produce observable homogeneous
densities. The general conclusion is that the use of different cosmological
distances in the characterization of the galaxy distribution lead to
significant ambiguities in reaching conclusions about the behavior of the
large-scale galaxy distribution in the Universe.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, LaTeX. Matches the final version sent to the
journal. Accepted for publication in "Astronomy and Astrophysics
NoSOCS in SDSS. VI. The Environmental Dependence of AGN in Clusters and Field in the Local Universe
We investigated the variation in the fraction of optical active galactic
nuclei (AGN) hosts with stellar mass, as well as their local and global
environments. Our sample is composed of cluster members and field galaxies at
and we consider only strong AGN. We find a strong variation in the
AGN fraction () with stellar mass. The field population comprises a
higher AGN fraction compared to the global cluster population, especially for
objects with log . Hence, we restricted our analysis to more
massive objects. We detected a smooth variation in the with local
stellar mass density for cluster objects, reaching a plateau in the field
environment. As a function of clustercentric distance we verify that
is roughly constant for R R, but show a steep decline inwards. We
have also verified the dependence of the AGN population on cluster velocity
dispersion, finding a constant behavior for low mass systems ( km s). However, there is a strong decline in
for higher mass clusters ( 700 km s). When comparing the in
clusters with or without substructure we only find different results for
objects at large radii (R R), in the sense that clusters with
substructure present some excess in the AGN fraction. Finally, we have found
that the phase-space distribution of AGN cluster members is significantly
different than other populations. Due to the environmental dependence of
and their phase-space distribution we interpret AGN to be the result
of galaxy interactions, favored in environments where the relative velocities
are low, typical of the field, low mass groups or cluster outskirts.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, Accepted to MNRA
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