5,193 research outputs found
The Virgo Cluster
In the era of precision cosmology the Virgo cluster takes on a new role in
the cosmic distance scale. Its traditional role of testing the consistency of
secondary distance indicators is replaced by an ensemble of distance
measurements within the Local Supercluster united by a velocity field model
obtained from redshift survey based reconstruction. WMAP leads us to see the
Hubble Constant as one of six parameters in a standard model of cosmology with
considerable covariance between parameters. Independent experiments, such as
WMAP and the HST Key Project (and their successors) constrain these parameters.Comment: to appear in IAU Symposium 28
100 million years after the Big Bang
Dark Energy Camera on the Blanco 4 meter telescope not only has the focal
plane size the 4 meters were built for, but also has excellent near infrared
response. A DECam Deep Fields program is outlined, which can reach M* galaxies
at redshift 6 at a wavelength of one micron. What reionized the Universe, when
did globular clusters form, were there very massive stars and how did they end,
and how did supermassive black holes emerge a few hundred million years after
the Big Bang ? These are some of the questions wide field high z surveys in the
infrared will open to observational study.Comment: Presented at the 50th anniversary of Cerro Tololo Interamerican
Observator
A Foundation Theory of Quantum Mechanics
The nRules are empirical regularities that were discovered in macroscopic
situations where the outcome is known. When they are projected theoretically
into the microscopic domain they predict a novel ontology including the
frequent collapse of an atomic wave function, thereby defining an nRule based
foundation theory. Future experiments can potentially discriminate between this
and other foundation theories of (non-relativistic) quantum mechanics.
Important features of the nRules are: (1) they introduce probability through
probability current rather than the Born rule, (2) they are valid independent
of size (micro or macroscopic), (3) they apply to individual trials, not just
to ensembles of trials. (4) they allow all observers to be continuously
included in the system without ambiguity, (5) they account for the collapse of
the wave function without introducing new or using old physical constants, and
(6) in dense environments they provide a high frequency of stochastic
localizations of quantum mechanical objects. Key words: measurement, stochastic
choice, state reduction.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures,Trieste/Losinj Conference, 5-9 Sept. 200
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