159 research outputs found
Red Companions to a z=2.15 Radio Loud Quasar
We have conducted observations of the environment around the z=2.15 radio
loud quasar 1550-269 in search of distant galaxies associated either with it or
the z=2.09 CIV absorber along its line of sight. Such objects will be
distinguished by their red colours, R-K>4.5. We find five such objects in a 1.5
arcmin^2 field around the quasar, with typical K magnitudes of ~20.4 and no
detected R band emission. We also find a sixth object with K=19.6+/-0.3, and
undetected at R, just two arcseconds from the quasar. The nature of all these
objects is currently unclear, and will remain so until we have determined their
redshifts. We suggest that it is likely that they are associated with either
the quasar or the CIV absorber, in which case their properties might be similar
to those of the z=2.38 red Ly-alpha emitting galaxies discovered by Francis et
al. (1997). The small separation between the quasar and the brightest of our
objects suggests that it may be the galaxy responsible for the CIV metal line
absorption system. The closeness to the quasar and the red colour might have
precluded similar objects from being uncovered in previous searches for
emission from CIV and eg. damped absorbers.Comment: To appear in "Photometric Redshifts and High Redshift Galaxies", eds.
R. Weymann, L. Storrie-Lombardi, M. Sawicki & R. Brunne
On strongly chordal graphs that are not leaf powers
A common task in phylogenetics is to find an evolutionary tree representing
proximity relationships between species. This motivates the notion of leaf
powers: a graph G = (V, E) is a leaf power if there exist a tree T on leafset V
and a threshold k such that uv is an edge if and only if the distance between u
and v in T is at most k. Characterizing leaf powers is a challenging open
problem, along with determining the complexity of their recognition. This is in
part due to the fact that few graphs are known to not be leaf powers, as such
graphs are difficult to construct. Recently, Nevries and Rosenke asked if leaf
powers could be characterized by strong chordality and a finite set of
forbidden subgraphs.
In this paper, we provide a negative answer to this question, by exhibiting
an infinite family \G of (minimal) strongly chordal graphs that are not leaf
powers. During the process, we establish a connection between leaf powers,
alternating cycles and quartet compatibility. We also show that deciding if a
chordal graph is \G-free is NP-complete, which may provide insight on the
complexity of the leaf power recognition problem
X-ray nondetection of the Lyman-alpha Emitters at z ~ 4.5
The Lyman-alpha emitters found at z ~ 4.5 by the Large Area Lyman Alpha
(LALA) survey have high equivalent widths in the Lyman-alpha line, which can be
produced by either narrow-lined active galactic nuclei (AGNs) or by stellar
populations with a very high proportion of young, massive stars. To investigate
the AGN scenario, we obtained two deep Chandra exposures to study the X-ray
nature of the Lyman-alpha emitters. The 172 ks deep Chandra image on the LALA
Bootes field was presented in a previous paper (Malhotra et al. 2003), and in
this paper we present a new Chandra deep exposure (174 ks) on the LALA Cetus
field, which doubled our sample of X-ray imaged Lyman-alpha sources, and imaged
the brightest source among our Lyman-alpha emitters. None of the 101
Lyman-alpha sources covered by two Chandra exposures was detected individually
in X-ray, with a 3 sigma limiting X-ray flux of F_{0.5-10.0 keV} < 3.3 x
10^{-16} ergs/cm^2/s for on-axis targets. The sources remain undetectable in
the stacked image, implying a 3 sigma limit to the average luminosity of
L_{2-8keV} < 2.8 x 10^{42} ergs/s. The resulting X-ray to Lyman-alpha ratio is
> 21 times lower than the ratios for known high redshift type-II quasars.
Together with optical spectra obtained at Keck, we conclude that no evidence of
AGN activity was found among our Lyman-alpha emitters at z ~ 4.5.Comment: 12 pages, including 4 figures, ApJ letter accepte
Prospects in Constraining the Dark Energy Potential
We generalize to non-flat geometries the formalism of Simon et al. (2005) to
reconstruct the dark energy potential. This formalism makes use of quantities
similar to the Horizon-flow parameters in inflation, can, in principle, be made
non-parametric and is general enough to be applied outside the simple, single
scalar field quintessence. Since presently available and forthcoming data do
not allow a non-parametric and exact reconstruction of the potential, we
consider a general parametric description in term of Chebyshev polynomials. We
then consider present and future measurements of H(z), Baryon Acoustic
Oscillations surveys and Supernovae type 1A surveys, and investigate their
constraints on the dark energy potential. We find that, relaxing the flatness
assumption increases the errors on the reconstructed dark energy evolution but
does not open up significant degeneracies, provided that a modest prior on
geometry is imposed. Direct measurements of H(z), such as those provided by BAO
surveys, are crucially important to constrain the evolution of the dark energy
potential and the dark energy equation of state, especially for non-trivial
deviations from the standard LambdaCDM model.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures. 2 references correcte
Chandra Detection of a TypeII Quasar at z=3.288
We report on observations of a TypeII quasar at redshift z=3.288, identified
as a hard X-ray source in a 185 ks observation with the Chandra X-ray
Observatory and as a high-redshift photometric candidate from deep, multiband
optical imaging. CXOJ084837.9+445352 (hereinafter CXO52) shows an unusually
hard X-ray spectrum from which we infer an absorbing column density N(H) =
(4.8+/-2.1)e23 / cm2 (90% confidence) and an implied unabsorbed 2-10 keV
rest-frame luminosity of L(2-10) = 3.3e44 ergs/s, well within the quasar
regime. Hubble Space Telescope imaging shows CXO52 to be elongated with slight
morphological differences between the WFPC2 F814W and NICMOS F160W bands.
Optical and near-infrared spectroscopy of CXO52 show high-ionization emission
lines with velocity widths ~1000 km/s and flux ratios similar to a Seyfert2
galaxy or radio galaxy. The latter are the only class of high-redshift TypeII
luminous AGN which have been extensively studied to date. Unlike radio
galaxies, however, CXO52 is radio quiet, remaining undetected at radio
wavelengths to fairly deep limits, f(4.8GHz) < 40 microJy. High-redshift TypeII
quasars, expected from unification models of active galaxies and long-thought
necessary to explain the X-ray background, are poorly constrained
observationally with few such systems known. We discuss recent observations of
similar TypeII quasars and detail search techniques for such systems: namely
(1) X-ray selection, (2) radio selection, (3) multi-color imaging selection,
and (4) narrow-band imaging selection. Such studies are likely to begin
identifying luminous, high-redshift TypeII systems in large numbers. We discuss
the prospects for these studies and their implications to our understanding of
the X-ray background.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures; to appear in The Astrophysical Journa
Observational Constraints to Ricci Dark Energy Model by Using: SN, BAO, OHD, fgas Data Sets
In this paper, we perform a global constraint on the Ricci dark energy model
with both the flat case and the non-flat case, using the Markov Chain Monte
Carlo (MCMC) method and the combined observational data from the cluster X-ray
gas mass fraction, Supernovae of type Ia (397), baryon acoustic oscillations,
current Cosmic Microwave Background, and the observational Hubble function. In
the flat model, we obtain the best fit values of the parameters in regions: ,
, , . In the non-flat
model, the best fit parameters are found in
regions:,
, , ,
. Compared to the constraint results in
the model by using the same datasets, it is shown that
the current combined datasets prefer the model to the
Ricci dark energy model.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure
Combined constraints on modified Chaplygin gas model from cosmological observed data: Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach
We use the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to investigate a global
constraints on the modified Chaplygin gas (MCG) model as the unification of
dark matter and dark energy from the latest observational data: the Union2
dataset of type supernovae Ia (SNIa), the observational Hubble data (OHD), the
cluster X-ray gas mass fraction, the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO), and the
cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. In a flat universe, the constraint
results for MCG model are,
()
,
()
,
()
,
()
, and ()
.Comment: 12 pages, 1figur
Optical Spectroscopy of Supernova 1993J During Its First 2500 Days
We present 42 low-resolution spectra of Supernova (SN) 1993J, our complete
collection from the Lick and Keck Observatories, from day 3 after explosion to
day 2454, as well as one Keck high-dispersion spectrum from day 383. SN 1993J
began as an apparent SN II, albeit an unusual one. After a few weeks, a
dramatic transition took place, as prominent helium lines emerged in the
spectrum. SN 1993J had metamorphosed from a SN II to a SN IIb. Nebular spectra
of SN 1993J closely resemble those of SNe Ib and Ic, but with a persistent
H_alpha line. At very late times, the H_alpha emission line dominated the
spectrum, but with an unusual, box-like profile. This is interpreted as an
indication of circumstellar interaction.Comment: 19 pages plus 13 figures, AASTeX V5.0. One external table in AASTeX
V4.0, in landscape format. Accepted for publication in A
Coupled dark matter-dark energy in light of near Universe observations
Cosmological analysis based on currently available observations are unable to
rule out a sizeable coupling among the dark energy and dark matter fluids. We
explore a variety of coupled dark matter-dark energy models, which satisfy
cosmic microwave background constraints, in light of low redshift and near
universe observations. We illustrate the phenomenology of different classes of
dark coupling models, paying particular attention in distinguishing between
effects that appear only on the expansion history and those that appear in the
growth of structure. We find that while a broad class of dark coupling models
are effectively models where general relativity (GR) is modified --and thus can
be probed by a combination of tests for the expansion history and the growth of
structure--, there is a class of dark coupling models where gravity is still
GR, but the growth of perturbations is, in principle modified. While this
effect is small in the specific models we have considered, one should bear in
mind that an inconsistency between reconstructed expansion history and growth
may not uniquely indicate deviations from GR. Our low redshift constraints
arise from cosmic velocities, redshift space distortions and dark matter
abundance in galaxy voids. We find that current data constrain the
dimensionless coupling to be |xi|<0.2, but prospects from forthcoming data are
for a significant improvement. Future, precise measurements of the Hubble
constant, combined with high-precision constraints on the growth of structure,
could provide the key to rule out dark coupling models which survive other
tests. We shall exploit as well weak equivalence principle violation arguments,
which have the potential to highly disfavour a broad family of coupled models.Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures; changes to match published versio
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