9,878 research outputs found
Corrections for gravitational lensing of supernovae: better than average?
We investigate the possibility of correcting for the magnification due to
gravitational lensing of standard candle sources, such as Type Ia supernovae.
Our method uses the observed properties of the foreground galaxies along the
lines-of-sight to each source and the accuracy of the lensing correction
depends on the quality and depth of these observations as well as the
uncertainties in translating the observed luminosities to the matter
distribution in the lensing galaxies. The current work is limited to cases
where the matter density is dominated by the individual galaxy halos. However,
it is straightforward to generalize the method to include also gravitational
lensing from cluster scale halos. We show that the dispersion due to lensing
for a standard candle source at z=1.5 can be reduced from about 7% to ~< 3%,
i.e. the magnification correction is useful in reducing the scatter in the Type
Ia Hubble diagram, especially at high redshifts where the required long
exposure times makes it hard to reach large statistics and the dispersion due
to lensing becomes comparable to the intrinsic Type Ia scatter.Comment: Matches accepted version, includes clarifications and additional
issues. 28 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
A streamwise-constant model of turbulent pipe flow
A streamwise-constant model is presented to investigate the basic mechanisms
responsible for the change in mean flow occuring during pipe flow transition.
Using a single forced momentum balance equation, we show that the shape of the
velocity profile is robust to changes in the forcing profile and that both
linear non-normal and nonlinear effects are required to capture the change in
mean flow associated with transition to turbulence. The particularly simple
form of the model allows for the study of the momentum transfer directly by
inspection of the equations. The distribution of the high- and low-speed
streaks over the cross-section of the pipe produced by our model is remarkably
similar to one observed in the velocity field near the trailing edge of the
puff structures present in pipe flow transition. Under stochastic forcing, the
model exhibits a quasi-periodic self-sustaining cycle characterized by the
creation and subsequent decay of "streamwise-constant puffs", so-called due to
the good agreement between the temporal evolution of their velocity field and
the projection of the velocity field associated with three-dimensional puffs in
a frame of reference moving at the bulk velocity. We establish that the flow
dynamics are relatively insensitive to the regeneration mechanisms invoked to
produce near-wall streamwise vortices and that using small, unstructured
background disturbances to regenerate the streamwise vortices is sufficient to
capture the formation of the high- and low-speed streaks and their segregation
leading to the blunting of the velocity profile characteristic of turbulent
pipe flow
Non-equilibrium dynamics in an interacting nanoparticle system
Non-equilibrium dynamics in an interacting Fe-C nanoparticle sample,
exhibiting a low temperature spin glass like phase, has been studied by low
frequency ac-susceptibility and magnetic relaxation experiments. The
non-equilibrium behavior shows characteristic spin glass features, but some
qualitative differences exist. The nature of these differences is discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figure
A nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation for water waves on finite depth with constant vorticity
A nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation for the envelope of two dimensional
surface water waves on finite depth with non zero constant vorticity is
derived, and the influence of this constant vorticity on the well known
stability properties of weakly nonlinear wave packets is studied. It is
demonstrated that vorticity modifies significantly the modulational instability
properties of weakly nonlinear plane waves, namely the growth rate and
bandwidth. At third order we have shown the importance of the coupling between
the mean flow induced by the modulation and the vorticity. Furthermore, it is
shown that these plane wave solutions may be linearly stable to modulational
instability for an opposite shear current independently of the dimensionless
parameter kh, where k and h are the carrier wavenumber and depth respectively
Extrinsic Curvature Embedding Diagrams
Embedding diagrams have been used extensively to visualize the properties of
curved space in Relativity. We introduce a new kind of embedding diagram based
on the {\it extrinsic} curvature (instead of the intrinsic curvature). Such an
extrinsic curvature embedding diagram, when used together with the usual kind
of intrinsic curvature embedding diagram, carries the information of how a
surface is {\it embedded} in the higher dimensional curved space. Simple
examples are given to illustrate the idea.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figure
Lensing magnification of supernovae in the GOODS-fields
Gravitational lensing of high-redshift supernovae is potentially an important
source of uncertainty when deriving cosmological parameters from the measured
brightness of Type Ia supernovae, especially in deep surveys with scarce
statistics. Photometric and spectroscopic measurements of foreground galaxies
along the lines-of-sight of 33 supernovae discovered with the Hubble Space
Telescope, both core-collapse and Type Ia, are used to model the magnification
probability distributions of the sources. Modelling galaxy halos with SIS or
NFW-profiles and using M/L scaling laws provided by the Faber-Jackson and
Tully-Fisher relations, we find clear evidence for supernovae with lensing
(de)magnification. However, the magnification distribution of the Type Ia
supernovae used to determine cosmological distances matches very well the
expectations for an unbiased sample, i.e.their mean magnification factor is
consistent with unity. Our results show that the lensing distortions of the
supernova brightness can be well understood for the GOODS sample and that
correcting for this effect has a negligible impact on the derived cosmological
parameters.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication by Ap
Wearable face recognition aid
The feasibility of realising a low cost wearable face recognition aid based on a robust correlation algorithm is investigated. The aim of the study is to determine the limiting spatial and grey level resolution of the probe and gallery images that would support successful prompting of the identity of input face images. Low spatial and grey level resolution images are obtained from good quality image data algorithmically. The tests carried out on the XM2VTS database demonstrate that robust correlation is very resilient to degradations of spatial and grey level image resolution. Correct prompts have been generated in 98% cases even for severely degraded images
Submillimetre galaxies in a hierarchical universe: number counts, redshift distribution and implications for the IMF
High-redshift submillimetre galaxies (SMGs) are some of the most rapidly star-forming galaxies in the Universe. Historically, galaxy formation models have had difficulty explaining the observed number counts of SMGs. We combine a semi-empirical model with 3D hydrodynamical simulations and 3D dust radiative transfer to predict the number counts of unlensed SMGs. Because the stellar mass functions, gas and dust masses, and sizes of our galaxies are constrained to match observations, we can isolate uncertainties related to the dynamical evolution of galaxy mergers and the dust radiative transfer. The number counts and redshift distributions predicted by our model agree well with observations. Isolated disc galaxies dominate the faint (S_(1.1) ≲ 1 or S_(850) ≲ 2 mJy) population. The brighter sources are a mix of merger-induced starbursts and galaxy-pair SMGs; the latter subpopulation accounts for ∼30–50 per cent of all SMGs at all S_(1.1) ≳ 0.5 mJy (S_(850) ≳ 1 mJy). The mean redshifts are ∼3.0–3.5, depending on the flux cut, and the brightest sources tend to be at higher redshifts. Because the galaxy-pair SMGs will be resolved into multiple fainter sources by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the bright ALMA counts should be as much as two times less than those observed using single-dish telescopes. The agreement between our model, which uses a Kroupa initial mass function (IMF), and observations suggests that the IMF in high-redshift starbursts need not be top heavy; if the IMF were top heavy, our model would overpredict the number counts. We conclude that the difficulty some models have reproducing the observed SMG counts is likely indicative of more general problems – such as an underprediction of the abundance of massive galaxies or a star formation rate and stellar mass relation normalization lower than that observed – rather than a problem specific to the SMG population
The spectral dimension of generic trees
We define generic ensembles of infinite trees. These are limits as
of ensembles of finite trees of fixed size , defined in terms
of a set of branching weights. Among these ensembles are those supported on
trees with vertices of a uniformly bounded order. The associated probability
measures are supported on trees with a single spine and Hausdorff dimension
. Our main result is that their spectral dimension is , and
that the critical exponent of the mass, defined as the exponential decay rate
of the two-point function along the spine, is 1/3
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