657 research outputs found
Cultural Awareness Activities for Teachers
We live and grow in an increasingly diverse society, and it is as important for school age students to understand people who are different, as it is for them to understand math or science. The purpose ofthis project was to develop a variety of cultural awareness activities for use by K-12 teachers in the Bethel School District in the State of Washington. All activities were aligned with the tools and concepts of Bethel\u27s employee cultural awareness model and presented in the form of a handbook. The intent of the handbook was to provide a format for teachers which could be used as a supplementary guide for teaching cultural awareness concepts
Testing the reliability of weak lensing cluster detections
We study the reliability of dark-matter halo detections with three different
linear filters applied to weak-lensing data. We use ray-tracing in the multiple
lens-plane approximation through a large cosmological simulation to construct
realizations of cosmic lensing by large-scale structures between redshifts zero
and two. We apply the filters mentioned above to detect peaks in the
weak-lensing signal and compare them with the true population of dark matter
halos present in the simulation. We confirm the stability and performance of a
filter optimized for suppressing the contamination by large-scale structure. It
allows the reliable detection of dark-matter halos with masses above a few
times 1e13 M_sun/h with a fraction of spurious detections below ~10%. For
sources at redshift two, 50% of the halos more massive than ~7e13 M_sun/h are
detected, and completeness is reached at ~2e14 M_sun/h.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, accepted on A&
The dark clump near Abell 1942: dark matter halo or statistical fluke?
Weak lensing surveys provide the possibility of identifying dark matter halos
based on their total matter content rather than just the luminous matter
content. On the basis of two sets of observations carried out with the CFHT,
Erben et al. (2000) presented the first candidate dark clump, i.e. a dark
matter concentration identified by its significant weak lensing signal without
a corresponding galaxy overdensity or X-ray emission.
We present a set of HST mosaic observations which confirms the presence of an
alignment signal at the dark clump position. The signal strength, however, is
weaker than in the ground-based data. It is therefore still unclear whether the
signal is caused by a lensing mass or is just a chance alignment. We also
present Chandra observations of the dark clump, which fail to reveal any
significant extended emission.
A comparison of the ellipticity measurements from the space-based HST data
and the ground-based CFHT data shows a remarkable agreement on average,
demonstrating that weak lensing studies from high-quality ground-based
observations yield reliable results.Comment: 33 pages, 34 figures, submitted to A&A. Version with full resolution
figures available at http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~anja/aaclump.pd
War and dissociation : the case of futurist aesthetics
Thanks to their deliberate engagement in state propaganda Italian Futurists deserved a prominent spot in the history of military aesthetics in the 20th century. However, under what looked like an unequivocal expression of support for war, lied a deep philosophical disagreement concerning its existential and epistemological value. The bone of contention concerned the effects of warfare on perception and, consequently, the means of its depiction. The author analyses this intellectual disagreement within the group and focuses, in particular, on its philosophical implications
Cosmology with Weak Lensing Surveys
Weak gravitational lensing surveys measure the distortion of the image of
distant sources due to the deflections of light rays by the fluctuations of the
gravitational potential along the line of sight. Since they probe the
non-linear matter power spectrum itself at medium redshift such surveys are
complimentary to both galaxy surveys (which follow stellar light) and cosmic
microwave background observations (which probe the linear regime at high
redshift). Ongoing CMB experiments such as WMAP and the future Planck satellite
mission will measure the standard cosmological parameters with unprecedented
accuracy. The focus of attention will then shift to understanding the nature of
dark matter and vacuum energy: several recent studies suggest that lensing is
the best method for constraining the dark energy equation of state. During the
next 5 year period ongoing and future weak lensing surveys such as the Joint
Dark Energy Mission (JDEM, e.g. SNAP) or the Large-aperture Synoptic Survey
Telescope (LSST) will play a major role in advancing our understanding of the
universe in this direction. In this review article we describe various aspects
of weak lensing surveys and how they can help us in understanding our universe.Comment: 15 pages, review article to appear in 2005 Triennial Issue of Phil.
Trans.
The Dark Matter Telescope
Weak gravitational lensing enables direct reconstruction of dark matter maps
over cosmologically significant volumes. This research is currently
telescope-limited. The Dark Matter Telescope (DMT) is a proposed 8.4 m
telescope with a 3 degree field of view, with an etendue of 260 , ten times greater than any other current or planned telescope. With
its large etendue and dedicated observational mode, the DMT fills a nearly
unexplored region of parameter space and enables projects that would take
decades on current facilities. The DMT will be able to reach 10-sigma limiting
magnitudes of 27-28 magnitude in the wavelength range .3 - 1 um over a 7 square
degree field in 3 nights of dark time. Here we review its unique weak lensing
cosmology capabilities and the design that enables those capabilities.Comment: in-press version with additions; to appear in proceedings of the Dark
Matter 2000 conference (Santa Monica, February 2000) to be published by
Springe
Mapping the 3-D Dark Matter potential with weak shear
We investigate the practical implementation of Taylor's (2002) 3-dimensional
gravitational potential reconstruction method using weak gravitational lensing,
together with the requisite reconstruction of the lensing potential. This
methodology calculates the 3-D gravitational potential given a knowledge of
shear estimates and redshifts for a set of galaxies. We analytically estimate
the noise expected in the reconstructed gravitational field, taking into
account the uncertainties associated with a finite survey, photometric redshift
uncertainty, redshift-space distortions, and multiple scattering events. In
order to implement this approach for future data analysis, we simulate the
lensing distortion fields due to various mass distributions. We create
catalogues of galaxies sampling this distortion in three dimensions, with
realistic spatial distribution and intrinsic ellipticity for both ground-based
and space-based surveys. Using the resulting catalogues of galaxy position and
shear, we demonstrate that it is possible to reconstruct the lensing and
gravitational potentials with our method. For example, we demonstrate that a
typical ground-based shear survey with redshift limit z=1 and photometric
redshifts with error Delta z=0.05 is directly able to measure the 3-D
gravitational potential for mass concentrations >10^14 M_\odot between
0.1<z<0.5, and can statistically measure the potential at much lower mass
limits. The intrinsic ellipticity of objects is found to be a serious source of
noise for the gravitational potential, which can be overcome by Wiener
filtering or examining the potential statistically over many fields. We examine
the use of the 3-D lensing potential to measure mass and position of clusters
in 3-D, and to detect clusters behind clusters.Comment: 21 pages, including 24 figures, submitted to MNRA
GaBoDS: The Garching-Bonn Deep Survey -- I. Anatomy of galaxy clusters in the background of NGC 300
The Garching-Bonn Deep Survey (GaBoDS) is a virtual 12 square degree cosmic
shear and cluster lensing survey, conducted with the [email protected] MPG/ESO telescope
at La Silla. It consists of shallow, medium and deep random fields taken in
R-band in subarcsecond seeing conditions at high galactic latitude. A
substantial amount of the data was taken from the ESO archive, by means of a
dedicated ASTROVIRTEL program.
In the present work we describe the main characteristics and scientific goals
of GaBoDS. Our strategy for mining the ESO data archive is introduced, and we
comment on the Wide Field Imager data reduction as well. In the second half of
the paper we report on clusters of galaxies found in the background of NGC 300,
a random archival field. We use weak gravitational lensing and the red cluster
sequence method for the selection of these objects. Two of the clusters found
were previously known and already confirmed by spectroscopy. Based on the
available data we show that there is significant evidence for substructure in
one of the clusters, and an increasing fraction of blue galaxies towards larger
cluster radii. Two other mass peaks detected by our weak lensing technique
coincide with red clumps of galaxies. We estimate their redshifts and masses.Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures, gzipped. An online postscript version with
higher quality figures (3.3 MBytes) can be downloaded from
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~mischa/ngc300/ngc300.ps.gz . Submitted to A&
On the absence of radio halos in clusters with double relics
Pairs of radio relics are believed to form during cluster mergers, and are
best observed when the merger occurs in the plane of the sky. Mergers can also
produce radio halos, through complex processes likely linked to turbulent
re-acceleration of cosmic-ray electrons. However, only some clusters with
double relics also show a radio halo. Here, we present a novel method to derive
upper limits on the radio halo emission, and analyse archival X-ray Chandra
data, as well as galaxy velocity dispersions and lensing data, in order to
understand the key parameter that switches on radio halo emission. We place
upper limits on the halo power below the
correlation for some clusters, confirming that clusters with double relics have
different radio properties. Computing X-ray morphological indicators, we find
that clusters with double relics are associated with the most disturbed
clusters. We also investigate the role of different mass-ratios and
time-since-merger. Data do not indicate that the merger mass ratio has an
impact on the presence or absence of radio halos (the null hypothesis that the
clusters belong to the same group cannot be rejected). However, the data
suggests that the absence of radio halos could be associated with early and
late mergers, but the sample is too small to perform a statistical test. Our
study is limited by the small number of clusters with double relics. Future
surveys with LOFAR, ASKAP, MeerKat and SKA will provide larger samples to
better address this issue.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, MNRAS accepte
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