Download or read book Gravitational Lensing in Standard and Non standard Frameworks as a Probe for Precision Cosmology written by Michael A. Troxel and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gravitational lensing has been identified as a critical cosmological tool in studying the evolution of large scale structure in the universe as well as the nature of dark matter and dark energy. One of the primary physical systematics of weak lensing due to large scale structure (cosmic shear) is the intrinsic alignment (IA) of galaxies, which poses a barrier to precision weak lensing measurements. Methods for identifying and removing its effects on cosmological information are key to the success of weak lensing survey science goals. We have expanded model-independent techniques to isolate and remove the IA contamination from the lensing signal. These self-calibration techniques take advantage of complementary survey information to self-calibrate the lensing signal, which along with unique lensing and IA geometry and separation dependencies, allow us to reconstruct the IA correlations at the level of the spectrum and bispectrum. We have demonstrated that the self-calibration approach can reduce the IA bias over most relevant scale and redshift ranges by up to a factor of 10 or more. This could reduce a potential 10-20% bias in some cosmological information down to the 1-2% level. The self-calibration techniques have the added benefit of preserving the IA signal, which itself provides additional information that can be used in studying the formation and evolution of large scale structure in the universe. We have also identified a new source of intrinsic alignment contamination in cross-correlations with cosmic microwave background lensing and proposed a method to calibrate it, and we explored the potential of future surveys to measure directly various 2- and 3-point intrinsic alignment correlations. Finally, we have investigated the use of exact anisotropic and inhomogeneous models in general relativity for large- and small-scale structures in the universe, developing the frameworks necessary to analyze gravitational lensing in such models, and have compared them to observations, identifying potential sources of bias. We have found, for example, that ignoring substructure level anisotropies in structures could bias the lensing convergence, shear, and kinematic mass estimates by up to 10% or more. We conclude by presenting a numerical code package for calculations in such exact anisotropic and inhomogeneous models.
Download or read book Gravitational Lensing written by Scott Dodelson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-08 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the basics of gravitational lensing, accessible to students and researchers with a wide range of backgrounds.
Download or read book Strong Gravitational Lensing as a Probe of Galaxy Evolution and Cosmology written by Kenneth Christopher Wong and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this thesis, I explore how the environments of both galaxy and cluster-scale strong gravitational lenses affect studies of cosmology and the properties of the earliest galaxies. Galaxy-scale lenses with measured time delays can be used to determine the Hubble constant, given an accurate lens model. However, perturbations from structures along the line of sight can introduce errors into the measurement. I use data from a survey towards known lenses in group environments to calculate the external shear in these systems, which is typically marginalized over in standard lens analyses. In three of six systems where I compare the independently-calculated environment shear to lens model shears, the quantities disagree at greater than 95% confidence. We explore possible sources of this disagreement. Using these data, I generate fiducial lines of sight and insert mock lenses with assumed input physical and cosmological parameters and find that those parameters can be recovered with {598} 5-10% scatter when uncertainties in my characterization of the environment are applied. The lenses in groups have larger bias and scatter. I predict how well new time delay lenses from LSST will constrain H0 and find that an ensemble of 500 quad lenses will recover H0 with {598} 2% bias with {598} 0.3% precision. On larger scales, galaxy cluster lenses can magnify the earliest galaxies into detectability. While past studies have focused on single massive clusters, I investigate the properties of lines of sight, or "beams", containing multiple cluster-scale halos in projection. Even for beams of similar total mass, those with multiple halos have higher lensing cross sections on average. The optimal configurations for maximizing the cross section are also those that maximize faint z {598} 10 detections. I present a new selection technique to identify beams in wide-area photometric surveys that contain high total masses and often multiple clusters in projection as traced by luminous red galaxies. I apply this technique to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and present the 200 most promising beams. Several are confirmed spectroscopically to be among the highest mass beams known with some containing multiple clusters. These are among the best fields to search for faint high-redshift galaxies.
Download or read book Precision Cosmology with Weak Gravitational Lensing and Galaxy Populations written by Jenna Freudenburg and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Precision Cosmology with Time Delay Lenses written by and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lens time delays are a powerful probe of cosmology, provided that the gravitational potential of the main deflector can be modeled with sufficient precision. Recent work has shown that this can be achieved by detailed modeling of the host galaxies of lensed quasars, which appear as È̀instein Rings'' in high resolution images. The distortion of these arcs and counter-arcs, as measured over a large number of pixels, provides tight constraints on the difference between the gravitational potential between the quasar image positions, and thus on cosmology in combination with the measured time delay. We carry out a systematic exploration of the high resolution imaging required to exploit the thousands of lensed quasars that will be discovered by current and upcoming surveys with the next decade. Specifically, we simulate realistic lens systems as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and ground based adaptive optics images taken with Keck or the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). We compare the performance of these pointed observations with that of images taken by the Euclid (VIS), Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) surveys. We use as our metric the precision with which the slope ?' of the total mass density profile ?tot∝ r–?' for the main deflector can be measured. Ideally, we require that the statistical error on ?' be less than 0.02, such that it is subdominant to other sources of random and systematic uncertainties. We find that survey data will likely have sufficient depth and resolution to meet the target only for the brighter gravitational lens systems, comparable to those discovered by the SDSS survey. For fainter systems, that will be discovered by current and future surveys, targeted follow-up will be required. Furthermore, the exposure time required with upcoming facilitites such as JWST, the Keck Next Generation Adaptive Optics System, and TMT, will only be of order a few minutes per system, thus making the follow-up of hundreds of systems a practical and efficient cosmological probe.
Download or read book Gravitational Lensing written by and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Solar Stellar and Galactic Connections between Particle Physics and Astrophysics written by Alberto Carramiñana and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-03-23 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book collects extended and specialized reviews on topics linking astrophysics and particle physics at a level between a graduate student and a young researcher. The book also includes three reviews on observational techniques used in forefront astrophysics and short articles on research performed in Latin America. The reviews, updated and written by specialized researchers, describe the state of the art in the related research topics.
Download or read book Outskirts of Galaxies written by Johan H. Knapen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-07-09 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book consists of invited reviews written by world-renowned experts on the subject of the outskirts of galaxies, an upcoming field which has been understudied so far. These regions are faint and hard to observe, yet hide a tremendous amount of information on the origin and early evolution of galaxies. They thus allow astronomers to address some of the most topical problems, such as gaseous and satellite accretion, radial migration, and merging. The book is published in conjunction with the celebration of the end of the four-year DAGAL project, an EU-funded initial training network, and with a major international conference on the topic held in March 2016 in Toledo. It thus reflects not only the views of the experts, but also the scientific discussions and progress achieved during the project and the meeting. The reviews in the book describe the most modern observations of the outer regions of our own Galaxy, and of galaxies in the local and high-redshift Universe. They tackle disks, haloes, streams, and accretion as observed through deep imaging and spectroscopy, and guide the reader through the various formation and evolution scenarios for galaxies. The reviews focus on the major open questions in the field, and explore how they can be tackled in the future. This book provides a unique entry point into the field for graduate students and non-specialists, and serves as a reference work for researchers in this exciting new field.
Download or read book Cosmological Physics written by J. A. Peacock and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 700 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive and authoritative introduction to contemporary cosmology for advanced undergraduate and graduate students.
Download or read book Neutrino Cosmology written by Julien Lesgourgues and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-21 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A self-contained guide to the role played by neutrinos in the Universe and how their properties influence cosmological and astrophysical observations.
Download or read book The Post Recombination Universe written by N. Kaiser and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume consists of invited talks and contributed papers presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute "The Post Recombination Universe" which was held in Cambridge in the summer of 1987. There have, in recent years, been numerous meetings devoted to problems in observational cosmology. The attention given reflects the exciting rate of de velopment of the subject, and a survey of the proceedings from these symposia reveals that a great deal of emphasis has been given to consideration of the very early universe on the one hand, and to large scale structure in the universe at the present epoch on the other. The theme of this meeting was chosen to comple ment these efforts by focussing on the state of the universe at quite early times, but at those epochs which are still accessible to direct observations. The meet ing provided a broad coverage of the post recombination universe by drawing on experts from a wide variety of fields covering theory, background radiation fields and discrete sources at high redshift. Events in the moderately early universe will have left their mark in a great range of wavebands, from X-rays to the microwave region, and the evolution of the universe can be revealed by studies of the inter galactic medium, gravitational lensing and the abundance and clustering of high redshift sources. All of these subjects received much attention at the meeting, and the papers demonstrate the rich interplay between these areas in the rapidly expanding world of observational cosmology.
Download or read book Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2003-03-12 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advances made by physicists in understanding matter, space, and time and by astronomers in understanding the universe as a whole have closely intertwined the question being asked about the universe at its two extremesâ€"the very large and the very small. This report identifies 11 key questions that have a good chance to be answered in the next decade. It urges that a new research strategy be created that brings to bear the techniques of both astronomy and sub-atomic physics in a cross-disciplinary way to address these questions. The report presents seven recommendations to facilitate the necessary research and development coordination. These recommendations identify key priorities for future scientific projects critical for realizing these scientific opportunities.
Download or read book Modified Gravity and Cosmology written by Emmanuel N. Saridakis and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-12-10 with total page 631 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a focus on modified gravity this book presents a review of the recent developments in the fields of gravity and cosmology, presenting the state of the art, high-lighting the open problems, and outlining the directions of future research. General Relativity and the ΛCDM framework are currently the standard lore and constitute the concordance paradigm of cosmology. Nevertheless, long-standing open theoretical issues, as well as possible new observational ones arising from the explosive development of cosmology in the last two decades, offer the motivation and lead a large amount of research to be devoted in constructing various extensions and modifications. In this review all extended theories and scenarios are first examined under the light of theoretical consistency, and are then applied in various geometrical backgrounds, such as the cosmological and the spherical symmetric ones. Their predictions at both the background and perturbation levels, and concerning cosmology at early, intermediate and late times, are then confronted with the huge amount of observational data that astrophysics and cosmology has been able to offer in the last two decades. Theories, scenarios and models that successfully and efficiently pass the above steps are classified as viable and are candidates for the description of Nature, allowing readers to get a clear overview of the state of the art and where the field of modified gravity is likely to go. This work was performed in the framework of the COST European Action “Cosmology and Astrophysics Network for Theoretical Advances and Training Actions” - CANTATA.
Download or read book An Introduction to Modern Cosmology written by Andrew Liddle and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-03-09 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Introduction to Modern Cosmology Third Edition is an accessible account of modern cosmological ideas. The Big Bang Cosmology is explored, looking at its observational successes in explaining the expansion of the Universe, the existence and properties of the cosmic microwave background, and the origin of light elements in the universe. Properties of the very early Universe are also covered, including the motivation for a rapid period of expansion known as cosmological inflation. The third edition brings this established undergraduate textbook up-to-date with the rapidly evolving observational situation. This fully revised edition of a bestseller takes an approach which is grounded in physics with a logical flow of chapters leading the reader from basic ideas of the expansion described by the Friedman equations to some of the more advanced ideas about the early universe. It also incorporates up-to-date results from the Planck mission, which imaged the anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation over the whole sky. The Advanced Topic sections present subjects with more detailed mathematical approaches to give greater depth to discussions. Student problems with hints for solving them and numerical answers are embedded in the chapters to facilitate the reader’s understanding and learning. Cosmology is now part of the core in many degree programs. This current, clear and concise introductory text is relevant to a wide range of astronomy programs worldwide and is essential reading for undergraduates and Masters students, as well as anyone starting research in cosmology. The accompanying website for this text, http://booksupport.wiley.com, provides additional material designed to enhance your learning, as well as errata within the text.
Download or read book Gravitational Lensing Strong Weak and Micro written by Peter Schneider and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-12-30 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The observation, in 1919 by A.S. Eddington and collaborators, of the gra- tational de?ection of light by the Sun proved one of the many predictions of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity: The Sun was the ?rst example of a gravitational lens. In 1936, Albert Einstein published an article in which he suggested - ing stars as gravitational lenses. A year later, Fritz Zwicky pointed out that galaxies would act as lenses much more likely than stars, and also gave a list of possible applications, as a means to determine the dark matter content of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. It was only in 1979 that the ?rst example of an extragalactic gravitational lens was provided by the observation of the distant quasar QSO 0957+0561, by D. Walsh, R.F. Carswell, and R.J. Weymann. A few years later, the ?rst lens showing images in the form of arcs was detected. The theory, observations, and applications of gravitational lensing cons- tute one of the most rapidly growing branches of astrophysics. The gravi- tional de?ection of light generated by mass concentrations along a light path producesmagni?cation,multiplicity,anddistortionofimages,anddelaysp- ton propagation from one line of sight relative to another. The huge amount of scienti?c work produced over the last decade on gravitational lensing has clearly revealed its already substantial and wide impact, and its potential for future astrophysical applications.
Download or read book Introduction to Particle Cosmology written by Cosimo Bambi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-08-14 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces the basic concepts of particle cosmology and covers all the main aspects of the Big Bang Model (expansion of the Universe, Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, Cosmic Microwave Background, large scale structures) and the search for new physics (inflation, baryogenesis, dark matter, dark energy). It also includes the majority of recent discoveries, such as the precise determination of cosmological parameters using experiments like WMAP and Planck, the discovery of the Higgs boson at LHC, the non-discovery to date of supersymmetric particles, and the search for the imprint of gravitational waves on the CMB polarization by Planck and BICEP. This textbook is based on the authors’ courses on Cosmology, and aims at introducing Particle Cosmology to senior undergraduate and graduate students. It has been especially written to be accessible even for those students who do not have a strong background in General Relativity and quantum field theory. The content of this book is organized in an easy-to-use style and students will find it a helpful research guide.
Download or read book Clusters and Superclusters of Galaxies written by A.C. Fabian and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clusters and superclusters of galaxies are the largest objects in the Universe. They have been the subject of intense observational studies at a variety of wavelengths, from radio to X-ray which has provoked much theoretical debate and advanced our understanding of the recent evolution of the large-scale structure of the Universe. The current status of the subject is reviewed in this volume by active researchers who lectured at a NATO Advanced Study Institute held in Cambridge, England in July 1991. Much of the material is presented in a pedagogical manner and will appeal to scientists, astronomers and graduate students interested in extragalactic astronomy.
