Symmetries in two-dimensional dilaton gravity with matter

The symmetries of generic 2D dilaton models of gravity with (and without) matter are studied in some detail. It is shown that $\delta_2$, one of the symmetries of the matterless models, can be generalized to the case where matter fields of any kind are present. The general (classical) solution for some of these models, in particular those coupled to chiral matter, which generalizes the Vaidya solution of Einstein Gravity, is also given.Comment: Minor changes have been made; the references have been updated and some added; 11 pages. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Supermassive Black Holes and Galaxy Formation

The formation of supermassive black holes (SMBH) is intimately related to galaxy formation, although precisely how remains a mystery. I speculate that formation of, and feedback from, SMBH may alleviate problems that have arisen in our understanding of the cores of dark halos of galaxies.Comment: Talk at conference on Matter in the Universe, March 2001, ISSI Ber

Coherence of the posterior predictive p-value based on the posterior odds.

^aIt is well-known that classical p-values sometimes behave incoherently for testing hypotheses in the sense that, when $\Theta_{0} \subset \Theta_{0}{'}$, the support given to $\Theta_{0}$ is greater than or equal to the support given to $\Theta_{0}^{'}$ . This problem is also found for posterior predictive p-values (a Bayesian-motivated alternative to classical p-values). In this paper, it is proved that, under some conditions, the posterior predictive p-value based on the posterior odds is coherent, showing that the choice of a suitable discrepancy variable is crucial

Iron and molybdenum valences in double-perovskite (Sr,Nd)2FeMoO6: electron-doping effect

Double perovskite, (Sr1-xNdx)2FeMoO6, was doped with electrons through partial substitution of divalent Sr by trivalent Nd (0 < x < 0.2). The Fe valence and the degree of B-site order were probed by 57Fe Mossbauer spectroscopy. Replacing Sr by Nd increased the fraction of Fe and Mo atoms occupying wrong sites, i.e. antisite disorder. It had very little effect on the Fe valence: a small but visible increase in the isomer shift was seen for the mixed-valent FeII/III atoms occupying the right site indicating a slight movement towards divalency of these atoms, which was more than counterbalanced by the increase in the fraction of antisite Fe atoms with III valence state. It is therefore argued that the bulk of the electron doping is received by antisite Mo atoms, which - being surrounded by six MoV/VI atoms - prefer the lower IV/V valence state. Thus under Nd substitution, the charge-neutrality requirement inflicts a lattice disorder such that low-valent MoIV/V can exist.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Solid State Commu

Unconventional cosmology on the (thick) brane

We consider the cosmology of a thick codimension 1 brane. We obtain the matching conditions leading to the cosmological evolution equations and show that when one includes matter with a pressure component along the extra dimension in the brane energy-momentum tensor, the cosmology is of non-standard type. In particular one can get acceleration when a dust of non-relativistic matter particles is the only source for the (modified) Friedman equation. Our equations would seem to violate the conservation of energy-momentum from a 4D perspective, but in 5D the energy-momentum is conserved. One could write down an effective conserved 4D energy-momentum tensor attaching a ``dark energy'' component to the energy-momentum tensor of matter that has pressure along the extra dimension. This extra component could, on a cosmological scale, be interpreted as matter-coupled quintessence. We comment on the effective 4D description of this effect in terms of the time evolution of a scalar field (the 5D radion) coupled to this kind of matter.Comment: 9 pages, v2. eq.(17) corrected, comments on effective theory change

Self-similar collapse and the structure of dark matter halos: A fluid approach

We explore the dynamical restrictions on the structure of dark matter halos through a study of cosmological self-similar gravitational collapse solutions. A fluid approach to the collisionless dynamics of dark matter is developed and the resulting closed set of moment equations are solved numerically including the effect of halo velocity dispersions (both radial and tangential), for a range of spherically averaged initial density profiles. Our results highlight the importance of tangential velocity dispersions to obtain density profiles shallower than $1/r^2$ in the core regions, and for retaining a memory of the initial density profile, in self-similar collapse. For an isotropic core velocity dispersion only a partial memory of the initial density profile is retained. If tangential velocity dispersions in the core are constrained to be less than the radial dispersion, a cuspy core density profile shallower than $1/r$ cannot obtain, in self-similar collapse.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Ap

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

On The Reduced Canonical Quantization Of The Induced 2D-Gravity

The quantization of the induced 2d-gravity on a compact spatial section is carried out in three different ways. In the three approaches the supermomentum constraint is solved at the classical level but they differ in the way the hamiltonian constraint is imposed. We compare these approaches establishing an isomorphism between the resulting Hilbert spaces.Comment: 17 pages, plain LaTeX. FTUV/93-15, IFIC/93-10, Imperial-TP/93-94/1

On the origin of the Tully-Fisher relation

We discuss the origin of the Tully-Fisher (TF) relation using the $N$-body/SPH method, which includes cooling, star formation and stellar feedback of energy, mass and metals. We consider initially rotating overdense spheres, and trace formation processes of disk galaxies from $z=25$ to $z=0$ in the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) cosmology. To clarify the origin of the TF relation, we simulate formation of 14 galaxies with different masses and spin parameters, and compute observable values, such as the total magnitude and the line-width. We find that the simulated galaxies reproduce the slope and scatter of the TF relation: the slope is originated in the difference of total galactic masses, and the scatter is produced by the difference of initial spin parameters. As well as the TF relation, observed features of spiral galaxies, such as the exponential light-profile and the flat rotation curve, are reproduced in our simulations, which were assumed {\it a priori} in past semi-analytical approaches.Comment: 11 pages, including 6 figures, submitted to Ap

Heating of the IGM

Using the cosmic virial theorem, Press-Schechter analysis and numerical simulations, we compute the expected X-ray background (XRB) from the diffuse IGM with the clumping factor expected from gravitational shock heating. The predicted fluxes and temperatures are excluded from the observed XRB. The predicted clumping can be reduced by entropy injection. The required energy is computed from the two-point correlation function, as well as from Press-Schechter formalisms. The minimal energy injection of 1 keV/nucleon excludes radiative or gravitational heating as a primary energy source. We argue that the intergalactic medium (IGM) must have been heated through violent processes such as massive supernova bursts. If the heating proceeded through supernova explosions, it likely proceeded in bursts which may be observable in high redshift supernova searches. Within our model we reproduce the observed cluster luminosity-temperature relation with energy injection of 1 keV/nucleon if this injection is assumed to be uncorrelated with the local density. These parameters predict that the diffuse IGM soft XRB has a temperature of ~1 keV with a flux near 10 keV/cm^2 s str keV, which may be detectable in the near future.Comment: to appear in ApJ Lett., 11 pages incl 1 figur