Analytic Photometric Redshift Estimator for Type Ia Supernovae From the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

Accurate and precise photometric redshifts (photo-z's) of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) can enable the use of SNe Ia, measured only with photometry, to probe cosmology. This dramatically increases the science return of supernova surveys planned for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). In this paper we describe a significantly improved version of the simple analytic photo-z estimator proposed by Wang (2007) and further developed by Wang, Narayan, and Wood-Vasey (2007). We apply it to 55,422 simulated SNe Ia generated using the SNANA package with the LSST filters. We find that the estimated errors on the photo-z's, \sigma_{z_{phot}}/(1+z_{phot}), can be used as filters to produce a set of photo-z's that have high precision, accuracy, and purity. Using SN Ia colors as well as SN Ia peak magnitude in the i band, we obtain a set of photo-z's with 2 percent accuracy (with \sigma(z_{phot}-z_{spec})/(1+z_{spec}) = 0.02), a bias in z_{phot} (the mean of z_{phot}-z_{spec}) of -9 X 10^{-5}, and an outlier fraction (with |(z_{phot}-z_{spec})/(1+z_{spec})|>0.1) of 0.23 percent, with the requirement that \sigma_{z_{phot}}/(1+z_{phot})<0.01. Using the SN Ia colors only, we obtain a set of photo-z's with similar quality by requiring that \sigma_{z_{phot}}/(1+z_{phot})<0.007; this leads to a set of photo-z's with 2 percent accuracy, a bias in z_{phot} of 5.9 X 10^{-4}, and an outlier fraction of 0.32 percent.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Revised version, accepted by MNRA

Observational Bounds on Modified Gravity Models

Modified gravity provides a possible explanation for the currently observed cosmic accelaration. In this paper, we study general classes of modified gravity models. The Einstein-Hilbert action is modified by using general functions of the Ricci and the Gauss-Bonnet scalars, both in the metric and in the Palatini formalisms. We do not use an explicit form for the functions, but a general form with a valid Taylor expansion up to second order about redshift zero in the Riemann-scalars. The coefficients of this expansion are then reconstructed via the cosmic expansion history measured using current cosmological observations. These are the quantities of interest for theoretical considerations relating to ghosts and instabilities. We find that current data provide interesting constraints on the coefficients. The next-generation dark energy surveys should shrink the allowed parameter space for modifed gravity models quite dramatically.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures, uses RevTe

Uncorrelated Measurements of the Cosmic Expansion History and Dark Energy from Supernovae

We present a method for measuring the cosmic expansion history H(z) in uncorrelated redshift bins, and apply it to current and simulated type Ia supernova data assuming spatial flatness. If the matter density parameter Omega_m can be accurately measured from other data, then the dark energy density history X(z)=rho_X(z)/rho_X(0) can trivially be derived from this expansion history H(z). In contrast to customary ``black box'' parameter fitting, our method is transparent and easy to interpret: the measurement of H(z)^{-1} in a redshift bin is simply a linear combination of the measured comoving distances for supernovae in that bin, making it obvious how systematic errors propagate from input to output. We find the Riess et al. (2004) ``gold'' sample to be consistent with the ``vanilla'' concordance model where the dark energy is a cosmological constant. We compare two mission concepts for the NASA/DOE Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), the Joint Efficient Dark-energy Investigation (JEDI), and the Supernova Accelaration Probe (SNAP), using simulated data including the effect of weak lensing (based on numerical simulations) and a systematic bias from K-corrections. Estimating H(z) in seven uncorrelated redshift bins, we find that both provide dramatic improvements over current data: JEDI can measure H(z) to about 10% accuracy and SNAP to 30-40% accuracy.Comment: 7 pages, 4 color figures. Expanded and revised version; PRD in pres

Quark mass density- and temperature- dependent model for strange quark matter

It is found that the radius of a stable strangelet decreases as the temperature increases in a quark mass density-dependent model. To overcome this difficulty, we extend this model to a quark mass density- and temperature- dependent model in which the vacuum energy density at zero baryon density limit B depends on temperature. An ansatz is introduced and the regions for the best choice of the parameters are studied.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Object Contour and Edge Detection with RefineContourNet

A ResNet-based multi-path refinement CNN is used for object contour detection. For this task, we prioritise the effective utilization of the high-level abstraction capability of a ResNet, which leads to state-of-the-art results for edge detection. Keeping our focus in mind, we fuse the high, mid and low-level features in that specific order, which differs from many other approaches. It uses the tensor with the highest-levelled features as the starting point to combine it layer-by-layer with features of a lower abstraction level until it reaches the lowest level. We train this network on a modified PASCAL VOC 2012 dataset for object contour detection and evaluate on a refined PASCAL-val dataset reaching an excellent performance and an Optimal Dataset Scale (ODS) of 0.752. Furthermore, by fine-training on the BSDS500 dataset we reach state-of-the-art results for edge-detection with an ODS of 0.824.Comment: Keywords: Object Contour Detection, Edge Detection, Multi-Path Refinement CN

A CO emission line from the optical and near-IR undetected submillimeter galaxy GN10

We report the detection of a CO emission line from the submillimiter galaxy (SMG) GN10 in the GOODS-N field. GN10 lacks any counterpart in extremely deep optical and near-IR imaging obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based facilities. This is a prototypical case of a source that is extremely obscured by dust, for which it is practically impossible to derive a spectroscopic redshift in the optical/near-IR. Under the hypothesis that GN10 is part of a proto-cluster structure previously identified at z~4.05 in the same field, we searched for CO[4-3] at 91.4 GHz with the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer, and successfully detected a line. We find that the most likely redshift identification is z=4.0424+-0.0013, based on: 1) the very low chance that the CO line is actually serendipitous from a different redshift; 2) a radio-IR photometric redshift analysis; 3) the identical radio-IR SED, within a scaling factor, of two other SMGs at the same redshift. The faintness at optical/near-IR wavelengths requires an attenuation of A_V~5-7.5 mag. This result supports the case that a substantial population of very high-z SMGs exists that had been missed by previous spectroscopic surveys. This is the first time that a CO emission line has been detected for a galaxy that is invisible in the optical and near-IR. Our work demonstrates the power of existing and planned facilities for completing the census of star formation and stellar mass in the distant Universe by measuring redshifts of the most obscured galaxies through millimeter spectroscopy.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. ApJ Letters in pres