2,015 research outputs found
An X-ray WHIM metal absorber from a Mpc-scale empty region of space
We report a detection of an absorption line at ~44.8 {\AA} in a > 500 ks
Chandra HRC-S/LETG X-ray grating spectrum of the blazar H 2356-309. This line
can be identified as intervening CV-K{\alpha} absorption, at z\approx0.112,
produced by a warm (log T = 5.1 K) intergalactic absorber. The feature is
significant at a 2.9{\sigma} level (accounting for the number of independent
redshift trials). We estimate an equivalent hydrogen column density of log
N_H=19.05 (Z/Zsun)^-1 cm^-2. Unlike other previously reported FUV/X-ray metal
detections of warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM), this CV absorber lies in a
region with locally low galaxy density, at ~2.2 Mpc from the closest galaxy at
that redshift, and therefore is unlikely to be associated with an extended
galactic halo. We instead tentatively identify this absorber with an
intervening Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium filament possibly permeating a
large-scale, 30 Mpc extended, structure of galaxies whose redshift centroid,
within a cylinder of 7.5 Mpc radius centered on the line of sight to H
2356-309, is marginally consistent (at a 1.8{\sigma} level) with the redshift
of the absorber.Comment: ApJ accepted, 6 pages, 3 figure
On the Cluster Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect and Hubble Constant
This study shows one important effect of preexistent cosmic microwave
background temperature fluctuations on the determination of the Hubble constant
through Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect of clusters of galaxies, especially when
coupled with the gravitational lensing effect by the same clusters. The effect
results in a broad distribution of the apparent Hubble constant. The
combination of this effect with other systematic effects such as the
Loeb-Refregier Effect seems to provide an explanation for the observationally
derived values of the Hubble constant currently available based on the
Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, if the true value of the Hubble constant is 60-80
km/s/Mpc. It thus becomes possible that the values of the Hubble constant
measured by other techniques which generally give a value around 60-80 km/s/Mpc
be reconciled with the SZ effect determined values of the Hubble constant,
where are systematically lower than others and have a broad distribution.Comment: ApJ Lett in pres
Where Are the Baryons? II: Feedback Effects
Numerical simulations of the intergalactic medium have shown that at the
present epoch a significant fraction (40-50%) of the baryonic component should
be found in the (T~10^6K) Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM) - with several
recent observational lines of evidence indicating the validity of the
prediction. We here recompute the evolution of the WHIM with the following
major improvements: (1) galactic superwind feedback processes from galaxy/star
formation are explicitly included; (2) major metal species (O V to O IX) are
computed explicitly in a non-equilibrium way; (3) mass and spatial dynamic
ranges are larger by a factor of 8 and 2, respectively, than in our previous
simulations. Here are the major findings: (1) galactic superwinds have dramatic
effects, increasing the WHIM mass fraction by about 20%, primarily through
heating up warm gas near galaxies with density 10^{1.5}-10^4 times the mean
density. (2) the fraction of baryons in WHIM is increased modestly from the
earlier work but is ~40-50%. (3) the gas density of the WHIM is broadly peaked
at a density 10-20 times the mean density, ranging from underdense regions to
regions that are overdense by 10^3-10^4. (4) the median metallicity of the WHIM
is 0.18 Zsun for oxygen with 50% and 90% intervals being (0.040,0.38) and
(0.0017,0.83).Comment: 44 pages, 17 figures, high res version at
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~cen/baryonII.ps.g
Recovery of multiple parameters in subdiffusion from one lateral boundary measurement
This work is concerned with numerically recovering multiple parameters simultaneously in the subdiffusion model from one single lateral measurement on a part of the boundary, while in an incompletely known medium. We prove that the boundary measurement corresponding to a fairly general boundary excitation uniquely determines the order of the fractional derivative and the polygonal support of the diffusion coefficient, without knowing either the initial condition or the source. The uniqueness analysis further inspires the development of a robust numerical algorithm for recovering the fractional order and diffusion coefficient. The proposed algorithm combines small-time asymptotic expansion, analytic continuation of the solution and the level set method. We present extensive numerical experiments to illustrate the feasibility of the simultaneous recovery. In addition, we discuss the uniqueness of recovering general diffusion and potential coefficients from one single partial boundary measurement, when the boundary excitation is more specialized
Matrix Estimation for Individual Fairness
In recent years, multiple notions of algorithmic fairness have arisen. One
such notion is individual fairness (IF), which requires that individuals who
are similar receive similar treatment. In parallel, matrix estimation (ME) has
emerged as a natural paradigm for handling noisy data with missing values. In
this work, we connect the two concepts. We show that pre-processing data using
ME can improve an algorithm's IF without sacrificing performance. Specifically,
we show that using a popular ME method known as singular value thresholding
(SVT) to pre-process the data provides a strong IF guarantee under appropriate
conditions. We then show that, under analogous conditions, SVT pre-processing
also yields estimates that are consistent and approximately minimax optimal. As
such, the ME pre-processing step does not, under the stated conditions,
increase the prediction error of the base algorithm, i.e., does not impose a
fairness-performance trade-off. We verify these results on synthetic and real
data.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures, ICML 202
Studying the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium in Emission
We assess the possibility to detect the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM)
in emission and to characterize its physical conditions and spatial
distribution through spatially resolved X-ray spectroscopy, in the framework of
the recently proposed DIOS, EDGE, Xenia, and ORIGIN missions, all of which are
equipped with microcalorimeter-based detectors. For this purpose we analyze a
large set of mock emission spectra, extracted from a cosmological
hydrodynamical simulation. These mock X-ray spectra are searched for emission
features showing both the OVII K alpha triplet and OVIII Ly alpha line, which
constitute a typical signature of the warm hot gas. Our analysis shows that 1
Ms long exposures and energy resolution of 2.5 eV will allow us to detect about
400 such features per deg^2 with a significance >5 sigma and reveals that these
emission systems are typically associated with density ~100 above the mean. The
temperature can be estimated from the line ratio with a precision of ~20%. The
combined effect of contamination from other lines, variation in the level of
the continuum, and degradation of the energy resolution reduces these
estimates. Yet, with an energy resolution of 7 eV and all these effects taken
into account, one still expects about 160 detections per deg^2. These line
systems are sufficient to trace the spatial distribution of the line-emitting
gas, which constitute an additional information, independent from line
statistics, to constrain the poorly known cosmic chemical enrichment history
and the stellar feedback processes.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, ApJ in press; revised version according to
revie
What Powers Lyman alpha Blobs?
Lyman alpha blobs (LABs) are spatially extended lyman alpha nebulae seen at
high redshift. The origin of Lyman alpha emission in the LABs is still unclear
and under debate. To study their heating mechanism(s), we present Australia
Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) observations of the 20 cm radio emission and
Herschel PACS and SPIRE measurements of the far-infrared (FIR) emission towards
the four LABs in the protocluster J2143-4423 at z=2.38. Among the four LABs, B6
and B7 are detected in the radio with fluxes of 67+/-17 microJy and 77+/-16
microJy, respectively, and B5 is marginally detected at 3 sigma (51+/-16
microJy). For all detected sources, their radio positions are consistent with
the central positions of the LABs. B6 and B7 are obviously also detected in the
FIR. By fitting the data with different templates, we obtained redshifts of
2.20 for B6 and 2.20 for B7 which are
consistent with the redshift of the lyman alpha emission within uncertainties,
indicating that both FIR sources are likely associated with the LABs. The
associated FIR emission in B6 and B7 and high star formation rates strongly
favor star formation in galaxies as an important powering source for the lyman
alpha emission in both LABs. However, the other two, B1 and B5, are
predominantly driven by the active galactic nuclei or other sources of energy
still to be specified, but not mainly by star formation. In general, the LABs
are powered by quite diverse sources of energy.Comment: 7 pages and 3 figurs, accepted by A&
A new topological aspect of the arbitrary dimensional topological defects
We present a new generalized topological current in terms of the order
parameter field to describe the arbitrary dimensional topological
defects. By virtue of the -mapping method, we show that the topological
defects are generated from the zero points of the order parameter field , and the topological charges of these topological defects are topological
quantized in terms of the Hopf indices and Brouwer degrees of -mapping
under the condition that the Jacobian . When , it is shown that there exist the crucial case of branch process.
Based on the implicit function theorem and the Taylor expansion, we detail the
bifurcation of generalized topological current and find different directions of
the bifurcation. The arbitrary dimensional topological defects are found
splitting or merging at the degenerate point of field function but
the total charge of the topological defects is still unchanged.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, Revte
Dual-Frequency Observations of 140 Compact, Flat-Spectrum Active Galactic Nuclei for Scintillation-Induced Variability
The 4.9 GHz Micro-Arcsecond Scintillation-Induced Variability (MASIV) Survey
detected a drop in Interstellar Scintillation (ISS) for sources at redshifts z
> 2, indicating an apparent increase in angular diameter or a decrease in flux
density of the most compact components of these sources, relative to their
extended emission. This can result from intrinsic source size effects or
scatter broadening in the Intergalactic Medium (IGM), in excess of the expected
(1+z)^0.5 angular diameter scaling of brightness temperature limited sources
due to cosmological expansion. We report here 4.9 GHz and 8.4 GHz observations
and data analysis for a sample of 140 compact, flat-spectrum sources which may
allow us to determine the origin of this angular diameter-redshift relation by
exploiting their different wavelength dependences. In addition to using ISS as
a cosmological probe, the observations provide additional insight into source
morphologies and the characteristics of ISS. As in the MASIV Survey, the
variability of the sources is found to be significantly correlated with
line-of-sight H-alpha intensities, confirming its link with ISS. For 25
sources, time delays of about 0.15 to 3 days are observed between the
scintillation patterns at both frequencies, interpreted as being caused by a
shift in core positions when probed at different optical depths. Significant
correlation is found between ISS amplitudes and source spectral index; in
particular, a large drop in ISS amplitudes is observed at spectral indices of <
-0.4 confirming that steep spectrum sources scintillate less. We detect a
weakened redshift dependence of ISS at 8.4 GHz over that at 4.9 GHz, with the
mean variance at 4-day timescales reduced by a factor of 1.8 in the z > 2
sources relative to the z < 2 sources, as opposed to the factor of 3 decrease
observed at 4.9 GHz. This suggests scatter broadening in the IGM.Comment: 30 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in the Astronomical
Journa
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