11,387 research outputs found
Reconstruction of cosmological initial conditions from galaxy redshift catalogues
We present and test a new method for the reconstruction of cosmological
initial conditions from a full-sky galaxy catalogue. This method, called
ZTRACE, is based on a self-consistent solution of the growing mode of
gravitational instabilities according to the Zel'dovich approximation and
higher order in Lagrangian perturbation theory. Given the evolved
redshift-space density field, smoothed on some scale, ZTRACE finds via an
iterative procedure, an approximation to the initial density field for any
given set of cosmological parameters; real-space densities and peculiar
velocities are also reconstructed. The method is tested by applying it to
N-body simulations of an Einstein-de Sitter and an open cold dark matter
universe. It is shown that errors in the estimate of the density contrast
dominate the noise of the reconstruction. As a consequence, the reconstruction
of real space density and peculiar velocity fields using non-linear algorithms
is little improved over those based on linear theory. The use of a
mass-preserving adaptive smoothing, equivalent to a smoothing in Lagrangian
space, allows an unbiased (although noisy) reconstruction of initial
conditions, as long as the (linearly extrapolated) density contrast does not
exceed unity. The probability distribution function of the initial conditions
is recovered to high precision, even for Gaussian smoothing scales of ~ 5
Mpc/h, except for the tail at delta >~ 1. This result is insensitive to the
assumptions of the background cosmology.Comment: 19 pages, MN style, 12 figures included, revised version. MNRAS, in
pres
Globular Cluster Abundances and What They Can Tell Us About Galaxy Formation
We review the properties of globular clusters which make them useful for
studying the Galactic halo, Galactic chemical evolution, and the early stages
of the formation of the Milky Way. We review the evidence that GCs have a
chemical inventory similar to those of halo field stars. We discuss the
abundance ratios for dSph galaxies and show that it is possible to have formed
at least part the Galactic halo field stellar population by dissolving globular
clusters and/or accreting dSph galaxies but only if this occurred at an early
stage in the formation of the Galaxy. We review the constraints on halo
formation timescales deduced from the low Mg isotopic ratios in metal-poor halo
field dwarfs which indicate that AGB stars did not have time to contribute
significantly, while M71 contains two populations, one without and also one
with a substantial AGB contribution. We review the limited evidence for GCs
with a second population showing additional contributions from SNII, currently
confined to Omega Cen, M54, and M22, all of which may have been the nuclei or
central regions of accreted galaxies. We check our own data for additional such
GCs, and find preliminary indications that NGC 2419, a massive GC far in the
outer Galactic halo, may also belong to this group.Comment: Invited Talk: IAU Symp. 266, Star Clusters - Basic Building Blocks
Throughout Time and Space, proceedings to be published by Cambridge
University Pres
Molecular dynamics simulation study of the high frequency sound waves in the fragile glass former ortho-terphenyl
Using a realistic flexible molecule model of the fragile glass former
orthoterphenyl, we calculate via molecular dynamics simulation the collective
dynamic structure factor, recently measured in this system by Inelastic X-ray
Scattering. The comparison of the simulated and measured dynamic structure
factor, and the study of its properties in an extended momentum, frequency and
temperature range allows: i) to conclude that the utilized molecular model
gives rise to a dynamic structure factor in agreement with the experimental
data, for those thermodynamic states and momentum values where the latter are
available; ii) to confirm the existence of a slope discontinuity on the
T-dependence of the sound velocity that, at finite Q, takes place at a
temperature T_x higher than the calorimetric glass transition temperature T_g;
iii) to find that the values of T_x is Q-dependent and that its vanishing Q
limit is consistent with T_g. The latter finding is interpreted within the
framework of the current description of the dynamics of supercooled liquids in
terms of exploration of the potential energy landscape.Comment: RevTex, 9 pages, 10 eps figure
Glass-specific behavior in the damping of acoustic-like vibrations
High frequency sound is observed in lithium diborate glass,
LiO--2BO, using Brillouin scattering of light and x-rays. The sound
attenuation exhibits a non-trivial dependence on the wavevector, with a
remarkably rapid increase towards a Ioffe-Regel crossover as the frequency
approaches the boson peak from below. An analysis of literature results reveals
the near coincidence of the boson-peak frequency with a Ioffe-Regel limit for
sound in {\em all} sufficiently strong glasses. We conjecture that this
behavior, specific to glassy materials, must be quite universal among them.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, revised versio
An Analytical Approach to Inhomogeneous Structure Formation
We develop an analytical formalism that is suitable for studying
inhomogeneous structure formation, by studying the joint statistics of dark
matter halos forming at two points. Extending the Bond et al. (1991) derivation
of the mass function of virialized halos, based on excursion sets, we derive an
approximate analytical expression for the ``bivariate'' mass function of halos
forming at two redshifts and separated by a fixed comoving Lagrangian distance.
Our approach also leads to a self-consistent expression for the nonlinear
biasing and correlation function of halos, generalizing a number of previous
results including those by Kaiser (1984) and Mo & White (1996). We compare our
approximate solutions to exact numerical results within the excursion-set
framework and find them to be consistent to within 2% over a wide range of
parameters. Our formalism can be used to study various feedback effects during
galaxy formation analytically, as well as to simply construct observable
quantities dependent on the spatial distribution of objects. A code that
implements our method is publicly available at
http://www.arcetri.astro.it/~evan/GeminiComment: 41 Pages, 11 figures, published in ApJ, 571, 585. Reference added,
Figure 2 axis relabele
The Local Galaxy Density and the Arm Class of Spiral Galaxies
We have examined the effect of the environmental density on the arm
classification of an extensive sample of spiral galaxies included in the Nearby
Galaxy Catalog (Tully, 1988a). We have also explored the dependence of the arm
class of a galaxy on other factors, such as its blue absolute magnitude and its
disk-to-total mass ratio, inferred in the literature either from the gradient
of a good galaxy rotation curve or from a photometric mass decomposition
method. We have found that the arm class is strongly related to the absolute
magnitude in the mid-type spirals (in the sense that grand design galaxies are,
on average, more luminous than flocculent objects), whilst this relation is
considerably weaker in the early and late types. In general the influence of
the local density on the arm structure appears to be much weaker than that of
the absolute magnitude. The local density acts essentially in strengthening the
arm class--absolute magnitude relation for the mid types, whereas no
environmental density effects are observed in the early and late types. Using
the most recent estimates of the disk-to-total mass ratio, we do not confirm
this ratio to be a significant factor which affects the arm class;
nevertheless, owing to poor statistics and large uncertanties, the issue
remains open. Neither a local density effect nor an unambiguous bar effect on
the disk-to-total mass ratio is detectable; the latter finding may challenge
some theoretical viewpoints on the formation of bar structures.Comment: 15 pages, Latex, SISSA 102/93/A openbib.sty and 4 POSTSCRIPT figures
appende
Compressed correlation functions and fast aging dynamics in metallic glasses
We present x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy measurements of the atomic
dynamics in a Zr67Ni33 metallic glass, well below its glass transition
temperature. We find that the decay of the density fluctuations can be well
described by compressed, thus faster than exponential, correlation functions
which can be modeled by the well-known Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts function with
a shape exponent {\beta} larger than one. This parameter is furthermore found
to be independent of both waiting time and wave-vector, leading to the
possibility to rescale all the correlation functions to a single master curve.
The dynamics in the glassy state is additionally characterized by different
aging regimes which persist in the deep glassy state. These features seem to be
universal in metallic glasses and suggest a non diffusive nature of the
dynamics. This universality is supported by the possibility of describing the
fast increase of the structural relaxation time with waiting time using a
unique model function, independently of the microscopic details of the system.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. To be published in J. Chem. Phy
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