42,787 research outputs found
The Contribution of the First Stars to the Cosmic Infrared Background
We calculate the contribution to the cosmic infrared background from very
massive metal-free stars at high redshift. We explore two plausible
star-formation models and two limiting cases for the reprocessing of the
ionizing stellar emission. We find that Population III stars may contribute
significantly to the cosmic near-infrared background if the following
conditions are met: (i) The first stars were massive, with M > ~100 M_sun. (ii)
Molecular hydrogen can cool baryons in low-mass haloes. (iii) Pop III star
formation is ongoing, and not shut off through negative feedback effects. (iv)
Virialized haloes form stars at about 40 per cent efficiency up to the redshift
of reionization, z~7. (v) The escape fraction of the ionizing radiation into
the intergalactic medium is small. (vi) Nearly all of the stars end up in
massive black holes without contributing to the metal enrichment of the
Universe.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, expanded discussion, added mid-IR to Fig 6,
MNRAS in pres
Phenotypic integration in style dimorphic daffodils (Narcissus, Amaryllidaceae) with different pollinators
Is CDM an effective CCDM cosmology?
We show that a cosmology driven by gravitationally induced particle
production of all non-relativistic species existing in the present Universe
mimics exactly the observed flat accelerating CDM cosmology with just
one dynamical free parameter. This kind of scenario includes the creation cold
dark matter (CCDM) model [Lima, Jesus & Oliveira, JCAP 011(2010)027] as a
particular case and also provides a natural reduction of the dark sector since
the vacuum component is not needed to accelerate the Universe. The new cosmic
scenario is equivalent to CDM both at the background and perturbative
levels and the associated creation process is also in agreement with the
universality of the gravitational interaction and equivalence principle.
Implicitly, it also suggests that the present day astronomical observations
cannot be considered the ultimate proof of cosmic vacuum effects in the evolved
Universe because CDM may be only an effective cosmology.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, changes in the abstract, introduction, new
references and typo correction
Studying light propagation in a locally homogeneous universe through an extended Dyer-Roeder approach
Light is affected by local inhomogeneities in its propagation, which may
alter distances and so cosmological parameter estimation. In the era of
precision cosmology, the presence of inhomogeneities may induce systematic
errors if not properly accounted. In this vein, a new interpretation of the
conventional Dyer-Roeder (DR) approach by allowing light received from distant
sources to travel in regions denser than average is proposed. It is argued that
the existence of a distribution of small and moderate cosmic voids (or "black
regions") implies that its matter content was redistributed to the homogeneous
and clustered matter components with the former becoming denser than the cosmic
average in the absence of voids. Phenomenologically, this means that the DR
smoothness parameter (denoted here by ) can be greater than unity,
and, therefore, all previous analyses constraining it should be rediscussed
with a free upper limit. Accordingly, by performing a statistical analysis
involving 557 type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) from Union2 compilation data in a
flat CDM model we obtain for the extended parameter,
(). The effects of are also
analyzed for generic CDM models and flat XCDM cosmologies. For both
models, we find that a value of greater than unity is able to
harmonize SNe Ia and cosmic microwave background observations thereby
alleviating the well-known tension between low and high redshift data. Finally,
a simple toy model based on the existence of cosmic voids is proposed in order
to justify why can be greater than unity as required by supernovae
data.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Title modified, results unchanged. It matches
version published as a Brief Report in Phys. Rev.
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