Mass Distribution in the Central Few Parsecs of Our Galaxy

We estimate the enclosed mass profile in the central 10 pc of the Milky Way by analyzing the infrared photometry and the velocity observations of dynamically relaxed stellar population in the Galactic center. HST/NICMOS and Gemini Adaptive Optics images in the archive are used to obtain the number density profile, and proper motion and radial velocity data were compiled from the literature to find the velocity dispersion profile assuming a spherical symmetry and velocity isotropy. From these data, we calculate the enclosed mass and density profiles in the central 10 pc of the Galaxy using the Jeans equation. Our improved estimates can better describe the exact evolution of the molecular clouds and star clusters falling down to the Galactic center, and constrain the star formation history of the inner part of the Galaxy.Comment: To appear in the Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society, vol. 42, p. 17 (2009

Aristotle on Economics and Ethics

Over the last several decades, we have witnessed seismic changes in corporate America: the increasingly myopic perspective of American managers, the relentless pursuit of short-term paper profit, reckless disregard for the interests of the non-shareholder community, a rise in hedge fund activism, and an ever-increasing use of incentive compensation, which arguably motivates managers to take on riskier investments. By revisiting Aristotle’s properties of ethics and economics, and considering their implications for accounting and finance, we try to learn guiding principles of economics, and by extension accounting and finance, from a great philosopher. We then discuss whether we have made progress, stood still, or even retreated from the philosopher’s propositions of more than two millenniums ago

Economic Impact of Small Scale Event to the Local Economy: Case of Canfield Fair

This study examines the economic contribution of the Canfield Fair on the local community. The fair accounted for $13,419,332 in new money generated in the local economy and total expenditures of$16,874,927. Out of this total, $9,578,936 was generated from out-of-town visitors, versus$7,295,991 from local attendees. The initial amount of $9,578,936 spent by visitors created direct, indirect, and induced impacts within the local economy. The direct effect of this spending as estimated by an IMPLAN input/output model was$8,166,956, with $2,880,940 and$2,371,436 as indirect and induced impacts respectively, for a total aggregate effect on local earnings of $13,419,332

A Second-order bias model for the Logarithmic Halo Mass Density

We present an analytic model for the local bias of dark matter halos in a LCDM universe. The model uses the halo mass density instead of the halo number density and is searched for various halo mass cuts, smoothing lengths, and redshift epoches. We find that, when the logarithmic density is used, the second-order polynomial can fit the numerical relation between the halo mass distribution and the underlying matter distribution extremely well. In this model the logarithm of the dark matter density is expanded in terms of log halo mass density to the second order. The model remains excellent for all halo mass cuts (from M_{cut}=3\times10^{11}$to$3\times10^{12}h^{-1}M_{\odot}$), smoothing scales (from$R=5h^{-1}$Mpc to$50h^{-1}$Mpc), and redshift ranges (from z=0 to 1.0) considered in this study. The stochastic term in the relation is found not entirely random, but a part of the term can be determined by the magnitude of the shear tensor.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication on Ap

Reddening Behaviors of Galaxies in the SDSS Photometric System

We analyze the behaviors of reddening vectors in the SDSS photometric system for galaxies of different morphologies, ages, and redshifts. As seen in other photometric systems, the dependence of reddening on the spectral energy distribution (SED) and the nonlinearity of reddening are likewise non-negligible for the SDSS system if extinction is significant (~> 1 mag). These behaviors are most significant for the g filter, which has the largest bandwidth-to-central wavelength ratio among SDSS filters. The SDSS colors involving adjacent filters show greater SED-dependence and nonlinearity. A procedure for calculating the correct amount of extinction from an observed color excess is provided. The relative extinctions between (i.e., the extinction law for) SDSS filters given by Schlegel et al., which were calculated with an older version of filter response functions, would underestimate the amount of extinction in most cases by ~5 to 10 % (maximum ~20 %). We recommend A/A_{5500} values of 1.574, 1.191, 0.876, 0.671 & 0.486 for the u, g, r, i, & z filters, respectively, as a representative extinction law for the SDSS galaxies with a small extinction (i.e., for cases where the nonlinearity and SED-dependence of the reddening is not important). The dependence of reddening on redshift at low extinction is the largest for colors involving the g filter as well, which is due to the Balmer break.Comment: Published in PASP, 119, 1449 (Dec. 2007

Topology of Luminous Red Galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We present measurements of the genus topology of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 catalog, with unprecedented statistical significance. To estimate the uncertainties in the measured genus, we construct 81 mock SDSS LRG surveys along the past light cone from the Horizon Run 3, one of the largest N-body simulations to date that evolved 7210^3 particles in a 10815 Mpc/h size box. After carefully modeling and removing all known systematic effects due to finite pixel size, survey boundary, radial and angular selection functions, shot noise and galaxy biasing, we find the observed genus amplitude to reach 272 at 22 Mpc/h smoothing scale with an uncertainty of 4.2%; the estimated error fully incorporates cosmic variance. This is the most accurate constraint of the genus amplitude to date, which significantly improves on our previous results. In particular, the shape of the genus curve agrees very well with the mean topology of the SDSS LRG mock surveys in the LCDM universe. However, comparison with simulations also shows small deviations of the observed genus curve from the theoretical expectation for Gaussian initial conditions. While these discrepancies are mainly driven by known systematic effects such as those of shot noise and redshift-space distortions, they do contain important cosmological information on the physical effects connected with galaxy formation, gravitational evolution and primordial non-Gaussianity. We address here the key role played by systematics on the genus curve, and show how to accurately correct for their effects to recover the topology of the underlying matter. In a forthcoming paper, we provide an interpretation of those deviations in the context of the local model of non-Gaussianity.Comment: 23 pages, 18 figures. APJ Supplement Series 201