749 research outputs found
Tomographic Magnification of Lyman Break Galaxies in The Deep Lens Survey
Using about 450,000 galaxies in the Deep Lens Survey, we present a detection
of the gravitational magnification of z > 4 Lyman Break Galaxies by massive
foreground galaxies with 0.4 < z < 1.0, grouped by redshift. The magnification
signal is detected at S/N greater than 20, and rigorous checks confirm that it
is not contaminated by any galaxy sample overlap in redshift. The inferred
galaxy mass profiles are consistent with earlier lensing analyses at lower
redshift. We then explore the tomographic lens magnification signal by
splitting our foreground galaxy sample into 7 redshift bins. Combining
galaxy-magnification cross-correlations and galaxy angular auto-correlations,
we develop a bias-independent estimator of the tomographic signal. As a
diagnostic of magnification tomography, the measurement of this estimator
rejects a flat dark matter dominated Universe at > 7.5{\sigma} with a fixed
\sigma_8 and is found to be consistent with the expected redshift-dependence of
the WMAP7 {\Lambda}CDM cosmology.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, Accepted to MNRA
Weak Lensing Detection of Cl 1604+4304 at z = 0.90
We present a weak lensing analysis of the high-redshift cluster Cl 1604+4304.
At z=0.90, this is the highest-redshift cluster yet detected with weak lensing.
It is also one of a sample of high-redshift, optically-selected clusters whose
X-ray temperatures are lower than expected based on their velocity dispersions.
Both the gas temperature and galaxy velocity dispersion are proxies for its
mass, which can be determined more directly by a lensing analysis. Modeling the
cluster as a singular isothermal sphere, we find that the mass contained within
projected radius R is 3.69+-1.47 * (R/500 kpc) 10^14 M_odot. This corresponds
to an inferred velocity dispersion of 1004+-199 km/s, which agrees well with
the measured velocity dispersion of 989+98-76 km/s (Gal & Lubin 2004). These
numbers are higher than the 575+110-85 km/s inferred from Cl 1604+4304 X-ray
temperature, however all three velocity dispersion estimates are consistent
within ~ 1.9 sigma.Comment: Revised version accepted for publication in AJ (January 2005). 2
added figures (6 figures total
Imaging the Cosmic Matter Distribution using Gravitational Lensing of Pregalactic HI
21-cm emission from neutral hydrogen during and before the epoch of cosmic
reionisation is gravitationally lensed by material at all lower redshifts.
Low-frequency radio observations of this emission can be used to reconstruct
the projected mass distribution of foreground material, both light and dark. We
compare the potential imaging capabilities of such 21-cm lensing with those of
future galaxy lensing surveys. We use the Millennium Simulation to simulate
large-area maps of the lensing convergence with the noise, resolution and
redshift-weighting achievable with a variety of idealised observation
programmes. We find that the signal-to-noise of 21-cm lens maps can far exceed
that of any map made using galaxy lensing. If the irreducible noise limit can
be reached with a sufficiently large radio telescope, the projected convergence
map provides a high-fidelity image of the true matter distribution, allowing
the dark matter halos of individual galaxies to be viewed directly, and giving
a wealth of statistical and morphological information about the relative
distributions of mass and light. For instrumental designs like that planned for
the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), high-fidelity mass imaging may be possible
near the resolution limit of the core array of the telescope.Comment: version accepted for publication in MNRAS (reduced-resolution
figures
Preliminary Results from NEOWISE: An Enhancement to the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for Solar System Science
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has surveyed the entire sky at four infrared wavelengths with greatly improved sensitivity and spatial resolution compared to its predecessors, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite and the Cosmic Background Explorer. NASA's Planetary Science Division has funded an enhancement to the WISE data processing system called "NEOWISE" that allows detection and archiving of moving objects found in the WISE data. NEOWISE has mined the WISE images for a wide array of small bodies in our solar system, including near-Earth objects (NEOs), Main Belt asteroids, comets, Trojans, and Centaurs. By the end of survey operations in 2011 February, NEOWISE identified over 157,000 asteroids, including more than 500 NEOs and ~120 comets. The NEOWISE data set will enable a panoply of new scientific investigations
Exploring Dark Energy with Next-Generation Photometric Redshift Surveys
The coming decade will be an exciting period for dark energy research, during which astronomers will address the question of what drives the accelerated cosmic expansion as first revealed by type Ia supernova (SN) distances, and confirmed by later observations. The mystery of dark energy poses a challenge of such magnitude that, as stated by the Dark Energy Task Force (DETF), nothing short of a revolution in our understanding of fundamental physics will be required to achieve a full understanding of the cosmic acceleration. The lack of multiple complementary precision observations is a major obstacle in developing lines of attack for dark energy theory. This lack is precisely what next-generation surveys will address via the powerful techniques of weak lensing (WL) and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) -- galaxy correlations more generally -- in addition to SNe, cluster counts, and other probes of geometry and growth of structure. Because of their unprecedented statistical power, these surveys demand an accurate understanding of the observables and tight control of systematics. This white paper highlights the opportunities, approaches, prospects, and challenges relevant to dark energy studies with wide-deep multiwavelength photometric redshift surveys. Quantitative predictions are presented for a 20000 sq. deg. ground-based 6-band (ugrizy) survey with 5-sigma depth of r~27.5, i.e., a Stage 4 survey as defined by the DETF
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Strontium-90 Liquid Concentration Solubility Correlation in the Hanford Tank Waste Operations Simulator
A new correlation was developed to estimate the concentration of strontium-90 in a waste solution based on total organic carbon. This correlation replaces the strontium-90 wash factors, and when applied in the Hanford Tank Waste Operations Simulator, significantly reduced the estimated quantity of strontium-90 in the delivered low-activity waste feed. This is thought to be a more realistic estimate of strontium-90 than using the wash-factor method
Measuring the Reduced Shear
Neglecting the second order corrections in weak lensing measurements can lead
to a few percent uncertainties on cosmic shears, and becomes more important for
cluster lensing mass reconstructions. Existing methods which claim to measure
the reduced shears are not necessarily accurate to the second order when a
point spread function (PSF) is present. We show that the method of Zhang (2008)
exactly measures the reduced shears at the second order level in the presence
of PSF. A simple theorem is provided for further confirming our calculation,
and for judging the accuracy of any shear measurement method at the second
order based on its properties at the first order. The method of Zhang (2008) is
well defined mathematically. It does not require assumptions on the
morphologies of galaxies and the PSF. To reach a sub-percent level accuracy,
the CCD pixel size is required to be not larger than 1/3 of the Full Width at
Half Maximum (FWHM) of the PSF. Using a large ensemble (> 10^7) of mock
galaxies of unrestricted morphologies, we find that contaminations to the shear
signals from the noise of background photons can be removed in a well defined
way because they are not correlated with the source shapes. The residual shear
measurement errors due to background noise are consistent with zero at the
sub-percent level even when the amplitude of such noise reaches about 1/10 of
the source flux within the half-light radius of the source. This limit can in
principle be extended further with a larger galaxy ensemble in our simulations.
On the other hand, the source Poisson noise remains to be a cause of systematic
errors. For a sub-percent level accuracy, our method requires the amplitude of
the source Poisson noise to be less than 1/80 ~ 1/100 of the source flux within
the half-light radius of the source, corresponding to collecting roughly 10^4
source photons.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, 4 tables, minor changes from the previous
versio
Spontaneous symmetry breaking of (1+1)-dimensional theory in light-front field theory (III)
We investigate (1+1)-dimensional field theory in the symmetric and
broken phases using discrete light-front quantization. We calculate the
perturbative solution of the zero-mode constraint equation for both the
symmetric and broken phases and show that standard renormalization of the
theory yields finite results. We study the perturbative zero-mode contribution
to two diagrams and show that the light-front formulation gives the same result
as the equal-time formulation. In the broken phase of the theory, we obtain the
nonperturbative solutions of the constraint equation and confirm our previous
speculation that the critical coupling is logarithmically divergent. We discuss
the renormalization of this divergence but are not able to find a satisfactory
nonperturbative technique. Finally we investigate properties that are
insensitive to this divergence, calculate the critical exponent of the theory,
and find agreement with mean field theory as expected.Comment: 21 pages; OHSTPY-HEP-TH-94-014 and DOE/ER/01545-6
Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking of phi4(1+1) in Light Front Field Theory
We study spontaneous symmetry breaking in phi^4_(1+1) using the light-front
formulation of the field theory. Since the physical vacuum is always the same
as the perturbative vacuum in light-front field theory the fields must develop
a vacuum expectation value through the zero-mode components of the field. We
solve the nonlinear operator equation for the zero-mode in the one-mode
approximation. We find that spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs at
lambda_critical = 4 pi(3+sqrt 3), which is consistent with the value
lambda_critical = 54.27 obtained in the equal time theory. We calculate the
value of the vacuum expectation value as a function of the coupling constant in
the broken phase both numerically and analytically using the delta expansion.
We find two equivalent broken phases. Finally we show that the energy levels of
the system have the expected behavior within the broken phase.Comment: 17 pages, OHSTPY-HEP-TH-92-02
Dark Matter Structures in the Universe: Prospects for Optical Astronomy in the Next Decade
The Cold Dark Matter theory of gravitationally-driven hierarchical structure
formation has earned its status as a paradigm by explaining the distribution of
matter over large spans of cosmic distance and time. However, its central
tenet, that most of the matter in the universe is dark and exotic, is still
unproven; the dark matter hypothesis is sufficiently audacious as to continue
to warrant a diverse battery of tests. While local searches for dark matter
particles or their annihilation signals could prove the existence of the
substance itself, studies of cosmological dark matter in situ are vital to
fully understand its role in structure formation and evolution. We argue that
gravitational lensing provides the cleanest and farthest-reaching probe of dark
matter in the universe, which can be combined with other observational
techniques to answer the most challenging and exciting questions that will
drive the subject in the next decade: What is the distribution of mass on
sub-galactic scales? How do galaxy disks form and bulges grow in dark matter
halos? How accurate are CDM predictions of halo structure? Can we distinguish
between a need for a new substance (dark matter) and a need for new physics
(departures from General Relativity)? What is the dark matter made of anyway?
We propose that the central tool in this program should be a wide-field optical
imaging survey, whose true value is realized with support in the form of
high-resolution, cadenced optical/infra-red imaging, and massive-throughput
optical spectroscopy.Comment: White paper submitted to the 2010 Astronomy & Astrophysics Decadal
Surve
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