3,688 research outputs found
CMB Lensing Reconstruction on the Full Sky
Gravitational lensing of the microwave background by the intervening dark
matter mainly arises from large-angle fluctuations in the projected
gravitational potential and hence offers a unique opportunity to study the
physics of the dark sector at large scales. Studies with surveys that cover
greater than a percent of the sky will require techniques that incorporate the
curvature of the sky. We lay the groundwork for these studies by deriving the
full sky minimum variance quadratic estimators of the lensing potential from
the CMB temperature and polarization fields. We also present a general
technique for constructing these estimators, with harmonic space convolutions
replaced by real space products, that is appropriate for both the full sky
limit and the flat sky approximation. This also extends previous treatments to
include estimators involving the temperature-polarization cross-correlation and
should be useful for next generation experiments in which most of the
additional information from polarization comes from this channel due to
sensitivity limitations.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D; typos correcte
Spectral signatures of the BCS-BEC crossover in the excitonic insulator phase of the extended Falicov-Kimball model
We explore the spontaneous formation of an excitonic insulator state at the
semimetal-semiconductor transition of mixed-valence materials in the framework
of the spinless Falicov-Kimball model with direct - electron hopping.
Adapting the projector-based renormalization method, we obtain a set of
renormalization differential equations for the extended Falicov-Kimball model
parameters and finally derive analytical expressions for the order parameter,
as well as for the renormalized - and -electron dispersions, momentum
distributions, and wave-vector resolved single-particle spectral functions. Our
numerical results proved the valence transition picture, related to the
appearance of the excitonic insulator phase, in the case of overlapping and
bands. Thereby the photoemission spectra show significant differences
between the weak-to-intermediate and intermediate-to-strong Coulomb attraction
regimes, indicating a BCS-BEC transition of the excitonic condensate.Comment: final version, minor corrections in the text, references update
Power Spectrum Estimators For Large CMB Datasets
Forthcoming high-resolution observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background
(CMB) radiation will generate datasets many orders of magnitude larger than
have been obtained to date. The size and complexity of such datasets presents a
very serious challenge to analysing them with existing or anticipated
computers. Here we present an investigation of the currently favored algorithm
for obtaining the power spectrum from a sky-temperature map --- the quadratic
estimator. We show that, whilst improving on direct evaluation of the
likelihood function, current implementations still inherently scale as the
equivalent of the cube of the number of pixels or worse, and demonstrate the
critical importance of choosing the right implementation for a particular
dataset.Comment: 8 pages LATEX, no figures, corrected misaligned columns in table
Exploring Large-scale Structure with Billions of Galaxies
We consider cosmological applications of galaxy number density correlations
to be inferred from future deep and wide multi-band optical surveys. We mostly
focus on very large scales as a probe of possible features in the primordial
power spectrum. We find the proposed survey of the Large Synoptic Survey
Telescope may be competitive with future all-sky CMB experiments over a broad
range of scales. On very large scales the inferred power spectrum is robust to
photometric redshift errors, and, given a sufficient number density of
galaxies, to angular variations in dust extinction and photometric calibration
errors. We also consider other applications, such as constraining dark energy
with the two CMB-calibrated standard rulers in the matter power spectrum, and
controlling the effect of photometric redshift errors to facilitate the
interpretation of cosmic shear data. We find that deep photometric surveys over
wide area can provide constraints that are competitive with spectroscopic
surveys in small volumes.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, ApJ accepted, references added, expanded
discussion in Sec. 3.
Hubble Space Telescope Observations of UV Oscillations in WZ Sagittae During the Decline from Outburst
We present a time series analysis of Hubble Space Telescope observations of
WZ Sge obtained in 2001 September, October, November and December as WZ Sge
declined from its 2001 July superoutburst. Previous analysis of these data
showed the temperature of the white dwarf decreased from ~29,000 K to ~18,000
K. In this study we binned the spectra over wavelength to yield ultraviolet
light curves at each epoch that were then analyzed for the presence of the
well-known 27.87 s and 28.96 s oscillations. We detect the 29 s periodicity at
all four epochs, but the 28 s periodicity is absent. The origin of these
oscillations has been debated since their discovery in the 1970s and competing
hypotheses are based on either white dwarf non-radial g-mode pulsations or
magnetically-channelled accretion onto a rotating white dwarf. By analogy with
the ZZ Ceti stars, we argue that the non-radial g-mode pulsation model demands
a strong dependence of pulse period on the white dwarf's temperature. However,
these observations show the 29 s oscillation is independent of the white
dwarf's temperature. Thus we reject the white dwarf non-radial g-mode pulsation
hypothesis as the sole origin of the oscillations. It remains unclear if
magnetically-funnelled accretion onto a rapidly rotating white dwarf (or belt
on the white dwarf) is responsible for producing the oscillations. We also
report the detection of a QPO with period ~18 s in the September light curve.
The amplitudes of the 29 s oscillation and the QPO vary erratically on short
timescales and are not correlated with the mean system brightness nor with each
other.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in Ap
Measuring CMB polarisation with the Planck mission
In this paper, we discuss why and how the Planck mission, originally designed
and proposed for mapping CMB intensity fluctuations, has been revised for
polarisation measurement capability as well
Weak Lensing of the CMB: Sampling Errors on B-Modes
The B modes generated by the lensing of CMB polarization are a primary target
for the upcoming generation of experiments and can potentially constrain
quantities such as the neutrino mass and dark energy equation of state. The net
sample variance on the small scale B modes out to l=2000 exceeds Gaussian
expectations by a factor of 10 reflecting the variance of the larger scale
lenses that generate them. It manifests itself as highly correlated band powers
with correlation coefficients approaching 70% for wide bands of Delta l/l
\~0.25. It will double the total variance for experiments that achieve a
sensitivity of approximately 4 uK-arcmin and a beam of several arcminutes or
better. This non-Gaussianity must be taken into account in the analysis of
experiments that go beyond first detection.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PRD; small problem with detector
noise calc fixed (5uK'->4uK') main conclusions unchange
Low-lying continuum structures in B8 and Li8 in a microscopic model
We search for low-lying resonances in the B8 and Li8 nuclei using a
microscopic cluster model and a variational scattering method, which is
analytically continued to complex energies. After fine-tuning the
nucleon-nucleon interaction to get the known 1+ state of B8 at the right
energy, we reproduce the known spectra of the studied nuclei. In addition, our
model predicts a 1+ state at 1.3 MeV in B8, relative to the Be7+p threshold,
whose corresponding pair is situated right at the Li7+n threshold in Li8.
Lacking any experimental evidence for the existence of such states, it is
presently uncertain whether these structures really exist or they are spurious
resonances in our model. We demonstrate that the predicted state in B8, if it
exists, would have important consequences for the understanding of the
astrophysically important Be7(p,gamma)B8 reaction.Comment: 6 pages with 1 figure. The postscript file and more information are
available at http://nova.elte.hu/~csot
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