27,638 research outputs found
Joint Strong and Weak Lensing Analysis of the Massive Cluster Field J0850+3604
We present a combined strong and weak lensing analysis of the
J085007.6+360428 (J0850) field, which was selected by its high projected
concentration of luminous red galaxies and contains the massive cluster Zwicky
1953. Using Subaru/Suprime-Cam imaging and
MMT/Hectospec spectroscopy, we first perform a weak lensing shear analysis to
constrain the mass distribution in this field, including the cluster at and a smaller foreground halo at . We then add a strong
lensing constraint from a multiply-imaged galaxy in the imaging data with a
photometric redshift of . Unlike previous cluster-scale lens
analyses, our technique accounts for the full three-dimensional mass structure
in the beam, including galaxies along the line of sight. In contrast with past
cluster analyses that use only lensed image positions as constraints, we use
the full surface brightness distribution of the images. This method predicts
that the source galaxy crosses a lensing caustic such that one image is a
highly-magnified "fold arc", which could be used to probe the source galaxy's
structure at ultra-high spatial resolution ( pc). We calculate the mass
of the primary cluster to be with a concentration of , consistent with the mass-concentration relation of
massive clusters at a similar redshift. The large mass of this cluster makes
J0850 an excellent field for leveraging lensing magnification to search for
high-redshift galaxies, competitive with and complementary to that of
well-studied clusters such as the HST Frontier Fields.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal; 14 pages, 13
figures, 3 table
The Hubble Constant determined through an inverse distance ladder including quasar time delays and Type Ia supernovae
Context. The precise determination of the present-day expansion rate of the
Universe, expressed through the Hubble constant , is one of the most
pressing challenges in modern cosmology. Assuming flat CDM,
inference at high redshift using cosmic-microwave-background data from Planck
disagrees at the 4.4 level with measurements based on the local
distance ladder made up of parallaxes, Cepheids and Type Ia supernovae (SNe
Ia), often referred to as "Hubble tension". Independent,
cosmological-model-insensitive ways to infer are of critical importance.
Aims. We apply an inverse-distance-ladder approach, combining strong-lensing
time-delay-distance measurements with SN Ia data. By themselves, SNe Ia are
merely good relative distance indicators, but by anchoring them to strong
gravitational lenses one can obtain an measurement that is relatively
insensitive to other cosmological parameters. Methods. A cosmological parameter
estimate is performed for different cosmological background models, both for
strong-lensing data alone and for the combined lensing + SNe Ia data sets.
Results. The cosmological-model dependence of strong-lensing measurements
is significantly mitigated through the inverse distance ladder. In combination
with SN Ia data, the inferred consistently lies around 73-74 km s
Mpc, regardless of the assumed cosmological background model. Our
results agree nicely with those from the local distance ladder, but there is a
>2 tension with Planck results, and a ~1.5 discrepancy with
results from an inverse distance ladder including Planck, Baryon Acoustic
Oscillations and SNe Ia. Future strong-lensing distance measurements will
reduce the uncertainties in from our inverse distance ladder.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, A&A letters accepted versio
A Spectroscopic Survey of the Fields of 28 Strong Gravitational Lenses: Implications for
Strong gravitational lensing provides an independent measurement of the
Hubble parameter (). One remaining systematic is a bias from the
additional mass due to a galaxy group at the lens redshift or along the
sightline. We quantify this bias for more than 20 strong lenses that have
well-sampled sightline mass distributions, focusing on the convergence
and shear . In 23% of these fields, a lens group contributes a 1%
convergence bias; in 57%, there is a similarly significant line-of-sight group.
For the nine time delay lens systems, is overestimated by 11%
on average when groups are ignored. In 67% of fields with total
0.01, line-of-sight groups contribute more convergence than
do lens groups, indicating that the lens group is not the only important mass.
Lens environment affects the ratio of four (quad) to two (double) image
systems; all seven quads have lens groups while only three of 10 doubles do,
and the highest convergences due to lens groups are in quads. We calibrate the
- relation: with a rms scatter of 0.34 dex.
Shear, which, unlike convergence, can be measured directly from lensed images,
can be a poor predictor of ; for 19% of our fields, is
. Thus, accurate cosmology using strong gravitational lenses
requires precise measurement and correction for all significant structures in
each lens field.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
A Unique Seasonal Pattern in Phytoplankton Biomass in Low-Latitude Waters in the South China Sea
A distinctive seasonal pattern in phytoplankton biomass was observed at the South East Asian Time series Study (SEATS) station (18°N, 116°E) in the northern South China Sea (SCS). Surface chlorophyll-a, depth integrated chlorophyll-a and primary production were elevated to 0.3 mg/m3, ~35 mg/m2 and 300 mg-C/m2/d, respectively, in the winter but stayed low, at 0.1 mg/m3, ~15 mg/m2 and 110 mg-C/m2/d as commonly found in other low latitude waters, in the rest of the year. Concomitantly, soluble reactive phosphate and nitrate+nitrite in the mixed layer also became readily detectable in the winter. The elevation of phytoplankton biomass coincided approximately with the lowest sea surface temperature and the highest wind speed in the year. Only the combined effect of convective overturn by surface cooling and wind-induced mixing could have enhanced vertical mixing sufficiently to make the nutrients in the upper nutricline available for photosynthetic activities and accounted for the higher biomass in the winter
Phase preparation by atom counting of Bose-Einstein condensates in mixed states
We study the build up of quantum coherence between two Bose-Einstein
condensates which are initially in mixed states. We consider in detail the two
cases where each condensate is initially in a thermal or a Poisson distribution
of atom number. Although initially there is no relative phase between the
condensates, a sequence of spatial atom detections produces an interference
pattern with arbitrary but fixed relative phase. The visibility of this
interference pattern is close to one for the Poisson distribution of two
condensates with equal counting rates but it becomes a stochastic variable in
the thermal case, where the visibility will vary from run to run around an
average visibility of In both cases, the variance of the phase
distribution is inversely proportional to the number of atom detections in the
regime where this number is large compared to one but small compared with the
total number of atoms in the condensates.Comment: 9 pages, 6 PostScript figure, submitted to PR
A factorization of a super-conformal map
A super-conformal map and a minimal surface are factored into a product of
two maps by modeling the Euclidean four-space and the complex Euclidean plane
on the set of all quaternions. One of these two maps is a holomorphic map or a
meromorphic map. These conformal maps adopt properties of a holomorphic
function or a meromorphic function. Analogs of the Liouville theorem, the
Schwarz lemma, the Schwarz-Pick theorem, the Weierstrass factorization theorem,
the Abel-Jacobi theorem, and a relation between zeros of a minimal surface and
branch points of a super-conformal map are obtained.Comment: 21 page
Chaos and localization in the wavefunctions of complex atoms NdI, PmI and SmI
Wavefunctions of complex lanthanide atoms NdI, PmI and SmI, obtained via
multi-configuration Dirac-Fock method, are analyzed for density of states in
terms of partial densities, strength functions (), number of principal
components () and occupancies (\lan n_\alpha \ran^E) of single
particle orbits using embedded Gaussian orthogonal ensemble of one plus
two-body random matrix ensembles [EGOE(1+2)]. It is seen that density of states
are in general multi-modal, 's exhibit variations as function of the
basis states energy and 's show structures arising from localized
states. The sources of these departures from EGOE(1+2) are investigated by
examining the partial densities, correlations between , and
\lan n_\alpha \ran^E and also by studying the structure of the Hamiltonian
matrices. These studies point out the operation of EGOE(1+2) but at the same
time suggest that weak admixing between well separated configurations should be
incorporated into EGOE(1+2) for more quantitative description of chaos and
localization in NdI, PmI and SmI.Comment: There are 9 figure
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