3,566 research outputs found
Bars and Cold Dark Matter Halos
The central part of a dark matter halo reacts to the presence and evolution
of a bar. Not only does the halo absorb angular momentum from the disk, it can
also be compressed and have its shape modified. We study these issues in a
series of cosmologically motivated, highly resolved N-body simulations of
barred galaxies run under different initial conditions. In all models we find
that the inner halo's central density increases. We model this density increase
using the standard adiabatic approximation and the modified formula by Gnedin
et al. and find that halo mass profiles are better reproduced by this latter.
In models with a strong bar, the dark matter in the central region forms a
bar-like structure (``dark matter bar''), which rotates together with the
normal bar formed by the stellar component (``stellar bar''). The
minor-to-major axial ratio of a halo bar changes with radius with a typical
value 0.7 in the central disk region. DM bar amplitude is mostly a function of
the stellar bar strength. Models in which the bar amplitude increases or stays
roughly constant with time, initially large (40%-60%) misalignment between the
halo and disk bars quickly decreases with time as the bar grows. The halo bar
is nearly aligned with the stellar bar (~10 degrees lag for the halo) after ~2
Gyr. The torque, which the halo bar exerts on the stellar bar, can serve as a
mechanism to regulate the angular momentum transfer from the disk to the halo.Comment: Modified version after referee's suggestions. 17 pages, 12 figures,
accepted by Ap
On the renormalization group flow of f(R)-gravity
We use the functional renormalization group equation for quantum gravity to
construct a non-perturbative flow equation for modified gravity theories of the
form . Based on this equation we show that certain
gravitational interactions monomials can be consistently decoupled from the
renormalization group (RG) flow and reproduce recent results on the asymptotic
safety conjecture. The non-perturbative RG flow of non-local extensions of the
Einstein-Hilbert truncation including and interactions is investigated in detail. The inclusion of
such interactions resolves the infrared singularities plaguing the RG
trajectories with positive cosmological constant in previous truncations. In
particular, in some -truncations all physical trajectories emanate from
a Non-Gaussian (UV) fixed point and are well-defined on all RG scales. The RG
flow of the -truncation contains an infrared attractor which drives a
positive cosmological constant to zero dynamically.Comment: 55 pages, 7 figures, typos corrected, references added, version to
appear in Phys. Rev.
The effects of Non-Gaussian initial conditions on the structure and substructure of Cold Dark Matter halos
We study the structure and substructure of halos obtained in N-body
simulations for a Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) cosmology with non-Gaussian
initial conditions (NGICs). The initial statistics are lognormal in the
gravitational potential field with positive (LNp) and negative (LNn) skewness;
the sign of the skewness is conserved by the density field, and the power
spectrum is the same for all the simulations. Our aim is not to test a given
non-Gaussian statistics, but to explore the generic effect of positive- and
negative-skew statistics on halo properties. From our low-resolution
simulations, we find that LNp (LNn) halos are systematically more (less)
concentrated than their Gaussian counterparts. This result is confirmed by our
Milky Way- and cluster-sized halos resimulated with high-resolution. In
addition, they show inner density profiles that depend on the statistics: the
innermost slopes of LNp (LNn) halos are steeper (shallower) than those obtained
from the corresponding Gaussian halos. A subhalo population embedded in LNp
halos is more susceptible to destruction than its counterpart inside Gaussian
halos. On the other hand, subhalos in LNn halos tend to survive longer than
subhalos in Gaussian halos. The spin parameter probability distribution of LNp
(LNn) halos is skewed to smaller (larger) values with respect to the Gaussian
case. Our results show how the statistics of the primordial density field can
influence some halo properties, opening this the possibility to constrain,
although indirectly, the primordial statistics at small scale.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures. Slight corrections after referee report. To
appear in ApJ, v598, November 20, 200
Chirally symmetric quark description of low energy \pi-\pi scattering
Weinberg's theorem for \pi-\pi scattering, including the Adler zero at
threshold in the chiral limit, is analytically proved for microscopic quark
models that preserve chiral symmetry. Implementing Ward-Takahashi identities,
the isospin 0 and 2 scattering lengths are derived in exact agreement with
Weinberg's low energy results. Our proof applies to alternative quark
formulations including the Hamiltonian and Euclidean space Dyson-Schwinger
approaches. Finally, the threshold \pi-\pi scattering amplitudes are calculated
using the Dyson-Schwinger equations in the rainbow-ladder truncation,
confirming the formal derivation.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, Revtex
A dark energy multiverse
We present cosmic solutions corresponding to universes filled with dark and
phantom energy, all having a negative cosmological constant. All such solutions
contain infinite singularities, successively and equally distributed along
time, which can be either big bang/crunchs or big rips singularities.
Classicaly these solutions can be regarded as associated with multiverse
scenarios, being those corresponding to phantom energy that may describe the
current accelerating universe
Perturbation evolution in cosmologies with a decaying cosmological constant
Structure formation models with a cosmological constant are successful in
explaining large-scale structure data, but are threatened by the
magnitude-redshift relation for Type Ia supernovae. This has led to discussion
of models where the cosmological `constant' decays with time, which might
anyway be better motivated in a particle physics context. The simplest such
models are based on scalar fields, and general covariance demands that a
time-evolving scalar field also supports spatial perturbations. We consider the
effect of such perturbations on the growth of adiabatic energy density
perturbations in a cold dark matter component. We study two types of model, one
based on an exponential potential for the scalar field and the other on a
pseudo-Nambu Goldstone boson. For each potential, we study two different
scenarios, one where the scalar field presently behaves as a decaying
cosmological constant and one where it behaves as dust. The initial scalar
field perturbations are fixed by the adiabatic condition, as expected from the
inflationary cosmology, though in fact we show that the choice of initial
condition is of little importance. Calculations are carried out in both the
zero-shear (conformal newtonian) and uniform-curvature gauges. We find that
both potentials allow models which can provide a successful alternative to
cosmological constant models.Comment: 14 pages RevTeX file with three figures incorporated (uses RevTeX and
epsf). Also available by e-mailing ARL, or by WWW at
http://star-www.maps.susx.ac.uk/papers/lsstru_papers.html Revised version
corrects an error in Eq10; results unchange
Combined search for the quarks of a sequential fourth generation
Results are presented from a search for a fourth generation of quarks
produced singly or in pairs in a data set corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of 5 inverse femtobarns recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC in
2011. A novel strategy has been developed for a combined search for quarks of
the up and down type in decay channels with at least one isolated muon or
electron. Limits on the mass of the fourth-generation quarks and the relevant
Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements are derived in the context of a
simple extension of the standard model with a sequential fourth generation of
fermions. The existence of mass-degenerate fourth-generation quarks with masses
below 685 GeV is excluded at 95% confidence level for minimal off-diagonal
mixing between the third- and the fourth-generation quarks. With a mass
difference of 25 GeV between the quark masses, the obtained limit on the masses
of the fourth-generation quarks shifts by about +/- 20 GeV. These results
significantly reduce the allowed parameter space for a fourth generation of
fermions.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO
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