Search

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 441 (2), ISSN:0035-8711, ISSN:1365-2966, ISSN:1365-8711

Despite a history that dates back at least a quarter of a century studies of voids in the large--scale structure of the Universe are bedevilled by a major problem: there exist a large number of quite different void--finding algorithms, a fact that has so far got in the way of groups comparing their results without worrying about whether such a comparison in fact makes sense. Because of the recent increased interest in voids, both in very large galaxy surveys and in detailed simulations of cosmic structure formation, this situation is very unfortunate. We here present the first systematic comparison study of thirteen different void finders constructed using particles, haloes, and semi--analytical model galaxies extracted from a subvolume of the Millennium simulation. The study includes many groups that have studied voids over the past decade. We show their results and discuss their differences and agreements. As it turns out, the basic results of the various methods agree very well with each other in that they all locate a major void near the centre of our volume. Voids have very underdense centres, reaching below 10 percent of the mean cosmic density. In addition, those void finders that allow for void galaxies show that those galaxies follow similar trends. For example, the overdensity of void galaxies brighter than $m_B = -20 $ is found to be smaller than about -0.8 by all our void finding algorithms., Comment: 14 pages, version accepted by MNRAS

We propose a new formalism to handle asymmetric beams in the data analysis of cosmic microwave background anisotropy experiments. For any beam shape, the formalism finds the optimal circularly symmetric equivalent and is thus easily adaptable to existing data analysis methods. We demonstrate certain key points by using a simulated highly elliptic beam, and the beams and data of the MAXIMA-1 experiment, where the asymmetry is mild. In particular, we show that in both cases the formalism does not bias the angular power spectrum estimates. We analyze the limitations of the formalism and find that it is well suited for most practical situations., 41 pages, 13 figures; ApJS in press

In the pre-reionization Universe, the regions of the inter-galactic medium (IGM) which are far from luminous sources are the last to undergo reionization. Until then, they should be scarcely affected by stellar radiation; instead, the X-ray emission from an early black hole (BH) population can have much larger influence. We investigate the effects of such emission, looking at a number of BH model populations (differing for the cosmological density evolution of BHs, the BH properties, and the spectral energy distribution of the BH emission). We find that BH radiation can easily heat the IGM to 10^3-10^4 K, while achieving partial ionization. The most interesting consequence of this heating is that BHs are expected to induce a 21-cm signal (delta T_b ~ 20-30 mK at z, Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures; accepted for publication on MNRAS

We investigate the shapes and mutual alignment of voids in the large scale matter distribution of a LCDM cosmology simulation. The voids are identified using the novel WVF void finder technique. The identified voids are quite nonspherical and slightly prolate, with axis ratios in the order of c:b:a approx. 0.5:0.7:1. Their orientations are strongly correlated with significant alignments spanning scales >30 Mpc/h. We also find an intimate link between the cosmic tidal field and the void orientations. Over a very wide range of scales we find a coherent and strong alignment of the voids with the tidal field computed from the smoothed density distribution. This orientation-tide alignment remains significant on scales exceeding twice the typical void size, which shows that the long range external field is responsible for the alignment of the voids. This confirms the view that the large scale tidal force field is the main agent for the large scale spatial organization of the Cosmic Web., 10 pages, 4 figures, submitted to MNRAS, for high resolution version, see http://www.astro.rug.nl/~weygaert/tim1publication/voidshape.pdf

Many present-day galaxies are known to harbor supermassive, >10^6 Mo, black holes. These central black holes must have grown through accretion from less massive seeds in the early universe. The molecules CO and H2 can be used to trace this young population of accreting massive black holes through the X-ray irradiation of ambient gas. The X-rays drive a low-metallicity ion-molecule chemistry that leads to the formation and excitation of CO and H2 in 10015 and H2 S(0) & S(1) emission is found that allows one to constrain ambient conditions. Comparable line strengths cannot be produced by FUV or cosmic ray irradiation. Weak, but perhaps detectable, H3+ (2,2) - (1,1) emission is found and discussed. The models predict that black hole masses larger than 10^5 Mo can be detected with ALMA, over a redshift range of 5-20, provided that the black holes radiate close to Eddington., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, ApJL accepted; minor typographical changes

A one dimensional radiative transfer code is developed to track the ionization and heating pattern around the first miniquasars and Population III stars. The code follows the evolution of the ionization of the species of hydrogen and helium and the intergalactic medium temperature profiles as a function of redshift. The radiative transfer calculations show that the ionization signature of the first miniquasars and stars is very similar yet the heating pattern around the two is very different. Furthermore, the first massive miniquasars (~>10^5 M_{sun}) do produce large ionized bubbles around them, which can potentially be imaged directly using future radio telescopes. It is also shown that the ionized bubbles not only stay ionized for considerable time after the switching off of the source, but continue to expand for a short while due to secondary collisions prompted by the X-ray part of their spectra. Varying spectral shapes also produced sizable variations in ionized fraction and temperature profile. We also compare the radiative transfer results with the analytical approximation usually adopted for heating by miniquasars and find that, because of the inadequate treatment of the He species, the analytical approach leads to an underestimation of the temperature in the outer radii by a factor ~5. Population III stars - with masses in the range of 10 - 1000 M_{sun} and modelled as blackbodies at a temperature of 50000 K - are found to be efficient in ionizing their surroundings. Observational effects on the 21 cm brightness temperature, the thermal and kinetic Sunyaev-Ze'ldovich effects, are also studied in the context of the upcoming radio and microwave telescopes like LOFAR and SPT., 19 pages, 24 figures, accepted to be published in MNRAS Typos in formula 1,2 and 21 fixed. Figure 11 caption and Figure 13 changed

We generate mock galaxy catalogues for a grid of different cosmologies, using rescaled N-body simulations in tandem with a semi-analytic model run using consistent parameters. Because we predict the galaxy bias, rather than fitting it as a nuisance parameter, we obtain an almost pure constraint on sigma(8) by comparing the projected two-point correlation function we obtain to that from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). A systematic error arises because different semi-analytic modelling assumptions allow us to fit the r-band luminosity function equally well. Combining our estimate of the error from this source with the statistical error, we find sigma(8) = 0.97 +/- 0.06. We obtain consistent results if we use galaxy samples with a different magnitude threshold, or if we select galaxies by b(J)-band rather than r-band luminosity and compare to data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS). Our estimate for sigma(8) is higher than that obtained for other analyses of galaxy data alone, and we attempt to find the source of this difference. We note that in any case, galaxy clustering data provide a very stringent constraint on galaxy formation models.

On megaparsec scales the Universe is permeated by an intricate filigree of clusters, filaments, sheets and voids, the Cosmic Web. For the understanding of its dynamical and hierarchical history it is crucial to identify objectively its complex morphological components. One of the most characteristic aspects is that of the dominant underdense Voids, the product of a hierarchical process driven by the collapse of minor voids in addition to the merging of large ones. In this study we present an objective void finder technique which involves a minimum of assumptions about the scale, structure and shape of voids. Our void finding method, the Watershed Void Finder (WVF), is based upon the Watershed Transform, a well-known technique for the segmentation of images. Importantly, the technique has the potential to trace the existing manifestations of a void hierarchy. The basic watershed transform is augmented by a variety of correction procedures to remove spurious structure resulting from sampling noise. This study contains a detailed description of the WVF. We demonstrate how it is able to trace and identify, relatively parameter free, voids and their surrounding (filamentary and planar) boundaries. We test the technique on a set of Kinematic Voronoi models, heuristic spatial models for a cellular distribution of matter. Comparison of the WVF segmentations of low noise and high noise Voronoi models with the quantitatively known spatial characteristics of the intrinsic Voronoi tessellation shows that the size and shape of the voids are succesfully retrieved. WVF manages to even reproduce the full void size distribution function., Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures, MNRAS accepted, for full resolution, see http://www.astro.rug.nl/~weygaert/tim1publication/watershed.pdf

We estimate the two-point correlation function in redshift space of the recently compiled HIPASS neutral hydrogen (HI) sources catalogue, which if modeled as a power law, $\xi(r)=(r_{0}/r)^{\gamma}$, the best-fitting parameters for the HI selected galaxies are found to be $r_{0}=3.3 \pm 0.3 h^{-1}$ Mpc with $\gamma=1.38 \pm 0.24$. Fixing the slope to its universal value $\gamma=1.8$, we obtain $r_{0}= 3.2\pm 0.2 h^{-1}$ Mpc. Comparing the measured two point correlation function with the predictions of the concordance cosmological model, we find that at the present epoch the HI selected galaxies are anti-biased with respect to the underlying matter fluctuation field with their bias value being $b_{0}\simeq 0.68$. Furthermore, dividing the HI galaxies into two richness subsamples we find that the low mass HI galaxies have a very low present bias factor ($b_{0}\simeq 0.48$), while the high mass HI galaxies trace the underlying matter distribution as the optical galaxies ($b_{0}\simeq 1$). Using our derived present-day HI galaxy bias we estimate their redshift space distortion parameter, and correct accordingly the correlation function for peculiar motions. The resulting real-space correlation length is $r^{\rm re}_{0}=1.8 \pm 0.2 h^{-1}$Mpc and $r^{\rm re}_{0}=3.9 \pm 0.6 h^{-1}$Mpc for the low and high mass HI galaxies, respectively. The low-mass HI galaxies appear to have the lowest correlation length among all extragalactic populations studied to-date. Also, we have correlated the IRAS-PSCz reconstructed density field, smoothed over scales of 5$h^{-1}$ Mpc, with the positions of the HI galaxies, to find that indeed the HI galaxies are typically found in negative overdensity regions ($\delta\rho/\rho_{\rm PSCz} \mincir 0$)., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, MNRAS in press

We derive the effects of dark matter (DM) decays and annihilations on structure formation. We consider moderately massive DM particles ( sterile neutrinos and light DM), as they are expected to give the maximum contribution to heating and reionization. The energy injection from DM decays and annihilations produces both an enhancement in the abundance of coolants (H-2 and HD) and an increase of gas temperature. We find that for all the considered DM models the critical halo mass for collapse, m(crit), is generally higher than in the unperturbed case. However, the variation of mcrit is small. In the most extreme cases, that is, considering light DM annihilations (decays) and haloes virializing at redshift z(vir) > 30 (z(vir) similar to 10), m(crit) increases by a factor of similar to 4 (similar to 2). In the case of annihilations the variations of mcrit are also sensitive to the assumed profile of the DM halo. Furthermore, we note that the fraction of gas which is retained inside the halo can be substantially reduced ( to approximate to 40 per cent of the cosmic value), especially in the smallest haloes, as a consequence of the energy injection by DM decays and annihilations.

A simple analytical model is used to calculate the X-ray heating of the intergalactic medium (IGM) for a range of black hole masses. This process is efficient enough to decouple the spin temperature of the IGM from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and produce a differential brightness temperature of the order of similar to 5-20 mK out to distances as large as a few comoving Mpc, depending on the redshift, black hole mass and lifetime. We explore the influence of two types of black holes, those with and without ionizing ultraviolet radiation. The results of the simple analytical model are compared to those of a full spherically symmetric radiative transfer code. Two simple scenarios are proposed for the formation and evolution of black hole mass density in the Universe. The first considers an intermediate mass black hole that form as an end-product of pop III stars, whereas the second considers supermassive black holes that form directly through the collapse of massive haloes with low spin parameter. These scenarios are shown not to violate any of the observational constraints, yet produce enough X-ray photons to decouple the spin temperature from that of the CMB. This is an important issue for future high-redshift 21-cm observations.

The polytropic equation of state of an atomic hydrogen gas is examined for primordial halos with baryonic masses of M-h similar to 10(7)-10(9) M-circle dot. For roughly isothermal collapse around 10(4) K, we find that line trapping of Ly alpha (H I and He II) photons causes the polytropic exponent to stiffen to values significantly above unity. Under the assumptions of zero H-2 abundance and very modest pollution by metals ( 10(4) K, that are attained when Ly alpha photons are trapped in the dense and massive halos that we consider. An H-2-dissociating UV background is needed if positive feedback effects on H-2 formation from X-rays occur. The black hole-to-baryon mass fraction is suggestively close to what is required for these intermediate-mass black holes, of mass M-BH similar to 10(4)-10(6) M-circle dot, to act as seeds for forming the supermassive black holes of mass similar to 0.001M(spheroid) found in galaxies today.

We present Monte Carlo calculations of Ly alpha radiative transfer through optically thick, spherically symmetric, collapsing gas clouds. These represent simplified models of protogalaxies in the process of their assembly. Such galaxies produce Ly alpha flux over an extended solid angle, either from a spatially extended Ly alpha emissivity, or from scattering effects, or both. We present a detailed study of the effect of the gas distribution and kinematics and of the Ly alpha emissivity profile on the emergent spectrum and surface brightness distribution. The emergent Ly alpha spectrum is typically double peaked and asymmetric. In practice, however, we find energy transfer from the infalling gas to the Ly alpha photons to significantly enhance the blue peak and to render the red peak, in most cases, undetectable. The resulting effective blueshift, combined with scattering in the intergalactic medium, renders extended Ly alpha emission from collapsing protogalaxies difficult to detect beyond redshift z greater than or similar to 4. We find a strong wavelength dependence of the slope of the surface brightness distribution (with preferential flattening at the red side of the line) to be a robust indication that Ly alpha photons are being generated (rather than just scattered) in a spatially extended, collapsing region around the galaxy. For self-ionized clouds whose effective Ly alpha optical depth is less than or similar to 10(3), infall and outflow models can produce nearly identical spectra and surface brightness distributions and are practically indistinguishable. The presence of cosmic abundance of deuterium may produce a detectable dip in the spectra of systems with moderate hydrogen column densities, N(H) = 10(18)-10(20) cm(-2). Finally, we present a new analytic solution for the emerging Ly alpha spectrum in the limiting case of a static uniform sphere, extending previous solutions for slabs.

We model the spectra and surface brightness distributions for the Ly alpha radiation expected from protogalaxies that are caught in the early stages of their assembly. We use the results of a companion paper to characterize the radiation emerging from spherically collapsing gas clouds. We then modify these spectra to incorporate the effect of subsequent resonant scattering in the IGM. Using these models, we interpret a number of recent observations of extended Ly alpha blobs (LABs) at high redshift. We suggest, based on the angular size, energetics, relatively shallow surface brightness profiles, and double-peaked spectra, that several of these LABs may be associated with collapsing protogalaxies. We suggest two follow-up observations to diagnose the presence of gas infall. High-S/N spectra of LABs should reveal a preferential flattening of the surface brightness profile at the red side of the line. Complementary imaging of the blobs at redshifted H alpha wavelengths should reveal the intrinsic Ly alpha emissivity and allow its separation from radiative transfer effects. We show that Ly alpha scattering by infalling gas can reproduce the observed spectrum of the Steidel et al. LAB2 as accurately as a recently proposed outflow model. Finally, we find similar evidence for infall in the spectra of pointlike Ly alpha emitters. The presence of scattering by the infalling gas implies that the intrinsic Ly alpha luminosities and derived quantities, such as the star formation rate, in these objects may have been underestimated by about an order of magnitude.

We measure the matter power spectrum from 31 Ly alpha spectra spanning the redshift range of 1.6-3.6. The optical depth, tau, for Ly alpha absorption of the intergalactic medium is obtained from the flux using the inversion method of Nusser & Haehnelt. The optical depth is converted to density by using a simple power-law relation, tau proportional to (1 + delta)(alpha). The non-linear 1D power spectrum of the gas density is then inferred with a method that makes simultaneous use of the one- and two-point statistics of the flux and compared against theoretical models with a likelihood analysis. A cold dark matter model with standard cosmological parameters fits the data well. The power-spectrum amplitude is measured to be (assuming a flat Universe), sigma(8) = (0.92 +/- 0.09) x (Omega(m)/0.3)(-0.3), with alpha varying in the range of 1.56-1.8 with redshift. Enforcing the same cosmological parameters in all four redshift bins, the likelihood analysis suggests some evolution in the temperature-density relation and the thermal smoothing length of the gas. The inferred evolution is consistent with that expected if reionization of He-II occurred at z similar to 3.2. A joint analysis with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe results together with a prior on the Hubble constant as suggested by the Hubble Space Telescope key project data, yields values of Omega(m) and sigma(8) that are consistent with the cosmological concordance model. We also perform a further inversion to obtain the linear 3D power spectrum of the matter density fluctuations.

We present the first cosmic shear measurements obtained from the T0001 release of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey. The data set covers three uncorrelated patches (D1, D3 and D4) of one square degree each observed in u*, g', r', i' and z' bands, out to i'=25.5. The depth and the multicolored observations done in deep fields enable several data quality controls. The lensing signal is detected in both r' and i' bands and shows similar amplitude and slope in both filters. B-modes are found to be statistically zero at all scales. Using multi-color information, we derived a photometric redshift for each galaxy and separate the sample into medium and high-z galaxies. A stronger shear signal is detected from the high-z subsample than from the low-z subsample, as expected from weak lensing tomography. While further work is needed to model the effects of errors in the photometric redshifts, this results suggests that it will be possible to obtain constraints on the growth of dark matter fluctuations with lensing wide field surveys. The various quality tests and analysis discussed in this work demonstrate that MegaPrime/Megacam instrument produces excellent quality data. The combined Deep and Wide surveys give sigma_8= 0.89 pm 0.06 assuming the Peacock & Dodds non-linear scheme and sigma_8=0.86 pm 0.05 for the halo fitting model and Omega_m=0.3. We assumed a Cold Dark Matter model with flat geometry. Systematics, Hubble constant and redshift uncertainties have been marginalized over. Using only data from the Deep survey, the 1 sigma upper bound for w_0, the constant equation of state parameter is w_0 < -0.8., 14 pages, 16 figures, accepted A&A

In this paper, we study the supercluster-cluster morphological properties using one of the largest (2 x 512(3)) smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH)+N-body simulations of large-scale structure formation in a Lambda cold dark matter (Lambda CDM) model, based on the publicly available code GADGET. We find that filamentary (prolate-like) shapes are the dominant supercluster and cluster dark matter halo morphological feature, in agreement with previous studies. However, the baryonic gas component of the clusters is predominantly spherical. We investigate the alignment between cluster haloes (using either their dark matter or their baryonic components) and their parent supercluster major-axis orientation, finding that clusters show such a preferential alignment. Combining the shape and the alignment statistics, we also find that the amplitude of supercluster-cluster alignment increases, although weakly, with supercluster filamentariness.

I describe a tensor-vector-scalar theory that reconciles the galaxy scale success of modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) with the cosmological scale evidence for CDM. The theory provides a cosmological basis for MOND in the sense that the predicted phenomenology only arises in a cosmological background. The theory contains an evolving effective potential, and scalar field oscillations in this potential comprise the cold dark matter; the de Broglie wavelength of these soft bosons, however, is sufficiently large that they cannot accumulate in galaxies. The theory predicts, inevitably, a constant anomalous acceleration in the outer solar system which, depending upon the choice of parameters, can be consistent with that detected by the Pioneer spacecrafts., minor corrections, numerical error corrected in eq. 37 and subsequent equations, accepted MNRAS

The polytropic equation of state (EOS) of primordial gas clouds with modest enrichment is computed, motivated by the recent observations of very Fe-deficient stars, [Fe/H] similar to 10(-3.5) to 10(-5), such as HE 0107 -5240 and CS 29498-043. These stars are overabundant, relative to Fe, in C and O. We assume that the observed abundances of species like C, O, Si, and Fe are representative of the gas from which the currently observed metal-deficient stars formed. Under this assumption, we find that this primordial metal abundance pattern has profound consequences for the thermal balance and chemical composition of the gas and hence for the EOS of the parental cloud. The polytropic EOS is soft for low, [O/H]

The early reionisation of the Universe inferred from the WMAP polarisation results, if confirmed, poses a problem for the hypothesis that scale-invariant adiabatic density fluctuations account for large-scale structure and galaxy formation. One can only generate the required amount of early star formation if extreme assumptions are made about the efficiency and nature of early reionisation. We develop an alternative hypothesis that invokes an additional component of a non-scale-free isocurvature power spectrum together with the scale-free adiabatic power spectrum for inflation-motivated primordial density fluctuations. Such a component is constrained by the Lyman alpha forest observations, can account for the small-scale power required by spectroscopic gravitational lensing, and yields a source of early star formation that can reionise the universe at z~20 yet becomes an inefficient source of ionizing photons by z~10, thereby allowing the conventional adiabatic fluctuation component to reproduce the late thermal history of the intergalactic medium., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to MNRAS

thly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 346 (1), ISSN:0035-8711, ISSN:1365-2966

We have performed hydrodynamical simulations to investigate the effects of galactic winds on the high-redshift (z=3) universe. Strong winds suppress the formation of low-mass galaxies significantly, and the metals carried by them produce C IV absorption lines with properties in reasonable agreement with observations. The winds have little effect on the statistics of the H I absorption lines, because the hot gas bubbles blown by the winds fill only a small fraction of the volume and because they tend to escape into the voids, thereby leaving the filaments that produce these lines intact., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, typos corrected, refs updated, matches published version

We discuss strong gravitational lensing by multiple objects along any line of sight. The probability for strong gravitational lensing by more than one lens is small, but a number of strong lens systems in which more than one separate lens contribute significantly to the lensing potential will be detected in the large sample of lens systems compiled with new instruments. Using multi-lens ray-tracing, we estimate the likelihood for gravitational lensing by two lenses at different redshifts and investigate typical image geometries and magnification cross sections. We find that, for a cosmology with Omega_M=0.3 and Omega_Lambda=0.7, about one in twenty lens systems consist of two lenses with merging caustics. Multiple lens systems differ from single lenses. They have a larger multiple imaging cross section and significantly differ in the image configuration. The external shear induced by a nearby galaxy, group or cluster can affect image positions even for more widely separated lens pairs. Both of these effects must be accounted for in lens modelling. We also show how the presence of aligned discs in the pair of lensing galaxies can lead to very large high-magnification cross sections. Multiple lens systems will be important in future, both for constraining lens models of individual systems and for statistical lensing., Comment: 9 pages, 12 figures. MNRAS, submitted. Changed format of figures to jpg. A ps file of the paper including all figures can be obtained from http://www.astro.rug.nl/~ole/papers/double/paper.ps.gz

We present the results of reconstruction analysis of the galaxy distribution in a spherical region of radius 50 h(-1) Mpc centered on the Local Group, as mapped by the IRAS Point Source Catalog Redshift Survey (PSCz). We reconstruct this galaxy distribution using 15 different models for structure formation in the universe, each model consisting of a set of,assumptions regarding the value of the cosmological mass-density parameter Omega (m) and the amplitude and nature of the biasing between IRAS galaxies and the underlying mass. For every model, we also reconstruct 10 mock PSCz catalogs derived from the outputs of numerical simulations that have the appropriate values of Omega (m) and bias. We quantify the accuracy of a reconstruction using a variety of statistics and compare the accuracy of each reconstruction of the PSCz catalog with the accuracy expected based on the mock-catalog reconstructions of the corresponding model. We find that gravitational instability of Gaussian primordial mass-density fluctuations can account for the galaxy distribution in the PSCz catalog, at least for some plausible assumptions about the value of Omega (m) and the biasing between IRAS galaxies and mass. However, unbiased models in which IRAS galaxies trace mass fail to reconstruct the PSCz catalog accurately, both for Omega (m) = 0.4 and for Omega (m) = 1. Low-Omega (m) models in which IRAS galaxies are antibiased with respect to the mass distribution are the most successful in reconstructing the PSCz catalog. In particular, a model with Omega (m) = 0.4 and IRAS galaxies related to the mass distribution according to the predictions of a semianalytic galaxy formation model is very successful in reproducing the properties of the PSCz galaxy distribution.

We have studied a mass model for spiral galaxies in which the dark matter surface density is a scaled version of the observed HI surface density. Applying this mass model to a sample of 24 spiral galaxies with reliable rotation curves one obtains good fits for most galaxies. The scaling factors cluster around 7, after correction for the presence of primordial helium. But for several cases different, often larger, values are found. For galaxies that can not be fitted well the discrepancy occurs at large radii and results from a fairly rapid decline of the HI surface density in the outermost regions. Because of such imperfections and in view of possible selection effects it is not possible to conclude here that there is a real coupling between HI and dark matter in spiral galaxies., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 8 pages, 3 figures

Prompted by the recent MAXIMA-1 and BOOMERANG-98 measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy power spectrum, and motivated by the results from the observation of high-redshift Type Ia supernovae, we investigate CMB anisotropies in quintessence models in order to characterize the nature of the dark energy today. We perform a Bayesian likelihood analysis, using the MAXIMA-1 and BOOMERANG-98 published bandpowers, in combination with COBE/DMR, to explore the space of quintessence parameters: the quintessence energy density \Omega_\phi and equation of state w_\phi. We restrict our analysis to flat, scale-invariant, inflationary adiabatic models. We find that this simple class of inflationary models, with a quintessence component \Omega_\phi < ~0.7, -1 < = w_\phi < ~-0.5, is in good agreement with the data. Within the assumptions of our analysis, pure quintessence models seem to be slightly favored, although the simple cosmological constant scenario is consistent with the data., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Reflects version accepted for publication by ApJ Letters

We present constraints on the cosmological constant lambda(0) and the density parameter Omega(0) from joint constraints from the analyses of gravitational lensing statistics of the Jo- drell Bank-VLA Astrometric Survey (JVAS), optical gravitational lens surveys from the literature and CMB anisotropies. This is the first time that quantitative joint constraints involving lensing statistics and CMB anisotropies have been presented. Within the assumptions made, we achieve very tight constraints on both lambda(0) and Omega(0). These assumptions are cold dark matter models, no tensor components, no reionisation, CMB temperature T-CMB = 2.728 K, number of neutrinos n(nu) = 3, helium abundance Y-HE = 0.246, spectral index n(s) = 1.0, Hubble constant H-0 = 68 km s(-1) Mpc(-1), baryonic density Omega(b) = 0.05. All models were normalised to the COBE data and no closed models (k = +1) were computed. Using the CMB data alone, the best-fit model has lambda(0) = 0.60 and lambda(0) = 0.34 and at 99% confidence the lower limit on lambda(0) + Omega(0) is 0.8. Including constraints from gravitational lensing statistics doesn't change this significantly, although it does change the allowed region of parameter space. A universe with lambda(0) = 0 is ruled out for any value of Omega(0) at better than 99% confidence using the CMB alone. Combined with constraints from lensing statistics, lambda(0) = 0 is also ruled out at better than 99% confidence.As the region of parameter space allowed by the CMB is, within our assumptions, much smaller than that allowed by lensing statistics, the main result of combining, a the two is to change the range of parameter space allowed by the CMB along its axis of degeneracy.

I present constraints on cosmological parameters in the lambda(0)-Omega(0) plane from a joint analysis of gravitational lensing statistics (Helbig et al. 1999b) and the magnitude-redshift relation for Type Ia supernovae (Perlmutter et al. 1999; Riess et al. 1998). I discuss reasons why this particular combination of tests is important and how the constraints can be improved in the future. The lensing statistics and supernova results are not inconsistent, thus it is meaningful to determine joint constraints on lambda(0) and Omega(0) by combining the results from both tests. The quantity measured by the lens statistics and the m-z relation for type Ia supernovae discussed here is approximately lambda(0) - Omega(0). At 95% confidence, the upper limit on lambda(0) - Omega(0) from lensing statistics alone is 0.45 and from supernovae alone is in the range 0.65-0.81 (depending on the data set). For joint constraints, the upper limit on lambda(0) - Omega(0) is in the range .55-0.60 (again depending on the data set). For a flat universe with lambda(0) + Omega(2) = 1, this corresponds to upper limits on lambda(0), taking the top of the range from different data sets, of 0.72, 0.90 and 0.80 for lensing statistics alone, supernovae alone and the joint analysis, respectively. This is perfectly consistent with the current 'standard cosmological model' with lambda(0) approximate to 0.7 and Omega(0) approximate to 0.3 and is consistent with a flat universe but, neglecting other cosmological tests, does riot require it.

We present constraints on the cosmological constant $\lambda_{0}$ from gravitational lensing statistics of the Jodrell Bank-VLA Astrometric Survey (JVAS). Although this is the largest gravitational lens survey which has been analysed, cosmological constraints are only comparable to those from optical surveys. This is due to the fact that the median source redshifts of JVAS are lower, which leads to both relatively fewer lenses in the survey and a weaker dependence on the cosmological parameters. Although more approximations have to be made than is the case for optical surveys, the consistency of the results with those from optical gravitational lens surveys and other cosmological tests indicate that this is not a major source of uncertainty in the results. However, joint constraints from a combination of radio and optical data are much tighter. Thus, a similar analysis of the much larger Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey should provide even tighter constraints on the cosmological constant, especially when combined with data from optical lens surveys. At 95% confidence, our lower and upper limits on $\lambda_{0}-\Omega_{0}$, using the JVAS lensing statistics information alone, are respectively -2.69 and 0.68. For a flat universe, these correspond to lower and upper limits on \lambda_{0} of respectively -0.85 and 0.84. Using the combination of JVAS lensing statistics and lensing statistics from the literature as discussed in Quast & Helbig (Paper I) the corresponding $\lambda_{0}-\Omega_{0}$ values are -1.78 and 0.27. For a flat universe, these correspond to lower and upper limits on $\lambda_{0}$ of respectively -0.39 and 0.64., Comment: LaTeX, 9 pages, 18 PostScript files in 6 figures. Paper version available on request. Data available from http://gladia.astro.rug.nl:8000/ceres/data_from_papers/papers.html

It is well known that the application of Newtonian dynamics to an expanding spherical region leads to the correct relativistic expression (the Friedmann equation) for the evolution of the cosmic scalefactor. Here, the cosmological implications of Milgrom's modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) are considered by means of a similar procedure. Earlier work by Felten demonstrated that in a region dominated by modified dynamics the expansion cannot be uniform (separations cannot be expressed in terms of a scalefactor) and that any such region will eventually recollapse regardless of the initial expansion velocity and mean density. Here I show that, because of the acceleration threshold for the MOND phenomenology, a region dominated by MOND will have a finite size which, in the earlier Universe (z>3), is smaller than the horizon scale. Therefore, uniform expansion and homogeneity on the horizon scale are consistent with MOND-dominated non-uniform expansion and the development of inhomogeneities on smaller scales. In the radiation-dominated era, the amplitude of MOND-induced inhomogeneities is much smaller than that implied by observations of the cosmic background radiation, and the thermal and dynamical history of the Universe is identical to that of the standard big bang model. In particular, the standard results for primordial nucleosynthesis are retained. When matter first dominates the energy density of the Universe, the cosmology diverges from that of the standard model. Objects of galaxy mass are the first virialized objects to form (by z = 10), and larger structure develops rapidly. At present, the Universe would be inhomogeneous out to a substantial fraction of the Hubble radius.

We use our Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) cosmological particle-mesh N-body code to investigate the feasibility of structure formation in a framework involving MOND and light sterile neutrinos in the mass range 11-300 eV: always assuming that ??s=0.225 for H0 = 72?km?s?1?Mpc?1. We run a suite of simulations with variants on the expansion history, cosmological variation of the MOND acceleration constant, different normalizations of the power spectrum of the initial perturbations and interpolating functions. Using various box sizes, but typically with ones of length 256 Mpc?h?1, we compare our simulated halo mass functions with observed cluster mass functions and show that (i) the sterile neutrino mass must be larger than 30 eV to account for the low-mass (M200 1015.1?M?) clusters of galaxies: there is always a considerable over production. This means that the ansatz of considering the weak-field limit of MOND together with a component of light sterile neutrinos to form structure from z ? 200 fails. If MOND is the correct description of weak-field gravitational dynamics, it could mean that subtle effects of the additional fields in covariant theories of MOND render the ansatz inaccurate, or that the gravity generated by light sterile neutrinos (or by similar hot dark matter particles) is different from that generated by the baryons.

We investigate the properties of one--dimensional flux ``voids'' (connected regions in the flux distribution above the mean flux level) by comparing hydrodynamical simulations of large cosmological volumes with a set of observed high--resolution spectra at z ~ 2. After addressing the effects of box size and resolution, we study how the void distribution changes when the most significant cosmological and astrophysical parameters are varied. We find that the void distribution in the flux is in excellent agreement with predictions of the standard LCDM cosmology, which also fits other flux statistics remarkably well. We then model the relation between flux voids and the corresponding one--dimensional gas density field along the line--of--sight and make a preliminary attempt to connect the one--dimensional properties of the gas density field to the three--dimensional dark matter distribution at the same redshift. This provides a framework that allows statistical interpretations of the void population at high redshift using observed quasar spectra, and eventually it will enable linking the void properties of the high--redshift universe with those at lower redshifts, which are better known., Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Minor revisions. 11 pages and 10 figures. High resolution version available at http://adlibitum.oat.ts.astro.it/viel/VOIDS/voids.ps

Future high redshift 21-cm experiments will suffer from a high degree of contamination, due both to astrophysical foregrounds and to non-astrophysical and instrumental effects. In order to reliably extract the cosmological signal from the observed data, it is essential to understand very well all data components and their influence on the extracted signal. Here we present simulated astrophysical foregrounds datacubes and discuss their possible statistical effects on the data. The foreground maps are produced assuming 5 deg x 5 deg windows that match those expected to be observed by the LOFAR Epoch-of-Reionization (EoR) key science project. We show that with the expected LOFAR-EoR sky and receiver noise levels, which amount to ~52 mK at 150 MHz after 300 hours of total observing time, a simple polynomial fit allows a statistical reconstruction of the signal. We also show that the polynomial fitting will work for maps with realistic yet idealised instrument response, i.e., a response that includes only a uniform uv coverage as a function of frequency and ignores many other uncertainties. Polarized galactic synchrotron maps that include internal polarization and a number of Faraday screens along the line of sight are also simulated. The importance of these stems from the fact that the LOFAR instrument, in common with all current interferometric EoR experiments has an instrumentally polarized response., Comment: 18 figures, 3 tables, accepted to be published in MNRAS

Several recent studies suggest a correlation between dark matter halo mass and the shape of the density profile. We re-analyze simulations from Ricotti (2003) in which such a correlation was proposed. We use a standard analysis of the halo density profiles and compare the old simulations to new ones performed with Gadget2, including higher resolution runs. We confirm Ricotti's result that, at virialization, the central log slopes alpha, at 5%-10% of the virial radius are correlated with the halo mass and that the halo concentration is a universal constant. Our results do not contradict the majority of published papers: when using a split power law to fit the density profiles, due to the alpha-concentration degeneracy, the fits are consistent with halos having a universal shape with alpha=1 or 1.5 and concentrations that depend on the mass, in agreement with results published elsewhere. Recently, several groups have found no evidence for convergence of the inner halo profile to a constant power law. The choice of a split power law parameterization used in this letter is motivated by the need to compare our results to previous ones and is formally valid because we are not able to resolve regions where the slope of the fitting function reaches its asymptotic constant value. Using a non-parameterized technique, we also show that the density profiles of dwarf galaxies at z ~ 10 have a log slope shallower than 0.5 within 5% of the virial radius., Accepted for Publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letter

We derive the effects of DM decays and annihilations on structure formation. We consider moderately massive DM particles (sterile neutrinos and light DM), as they are expected to give the maximum contribution to heating and reionization. The energy injection from DM decays and annihilations produces both an enhancement in the abundance of coolants (H2 and HD) and an increase of gas temperature. We find that for all the considered DM models the critical halo mass for collapse, m_crit, is generally higher than in the unperturbed case. However, the variation of m_crit is small. In the most extreme case, i.e. considering light DM annihilations (decays) and halos virializing at redshift z_vir>10 (z_vir~10), m_crit increases by a factor ~4 (~2). In the case of annihilations the variations of m_crit are also sensitive to the assumed profile of the DM halo. Furthermore, we note that the fraction of gas which is retained inside the halo is substantially reduced (to ~40 per cent of the cosmic value), especially in the smallest halos, as a consequence of the energy injection by DM decays and annihilations., 11 pages, 8 figures; revised version accepted for publication in MNRAS

The role of HD cooling in the formation of primordial objects is examined by means of a great number of 1-D models of the collapse of halos, exploring a wide range of masses and virialization redshifts. We find that HD has very little effect upon the critical mass separating the objects which are likely to form stars from those which are not. We also find that, once the proto-stellar collapse has started, HD effects are quite negligible. Instead, HD effects can be important during the intermediate stage of gas fragmentation: objects below a certain mass scale (~3x10^5 Msun at z_vir=20 in our ``fiducial'' case) can be cooled by HD down to T~50-100 K, whereas H2 cooling never takes the gas below T~200 K. The lower temperature implies a reduction of a factor ~10 in the Jeans mass of the fragmenting gas, and stars forming in such low-mass halos are probably less massive than their counterparts in larger halos. We estimate the importance of this mode of star formation through a variation of the Press-Schechter formalism, and find that it never exceeds the contribution of halos which are cooled by H2 only. Halos where HD is important account at best for a fraction ~0.25 of the total primordial star formation. However, HD cooling might provide a channel through which long-lived low mass stars could be formed in primordial conditions., 11 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication on MNRAS

We show that the cosmological constant favours significantly the growth of voids in the universe. This dynamical effect is investigated within a newtonian approach with an extension to Friedmann-Lema\^{\i}tre model., Comment: to appear

We discuss a numerical model for black hole growth and its associated feedback processes that for the first time allows cosmological simulations of structure formation to self-consistently follow the build up of the cosmic population of galaxies and active galactic nuclei. Our model assumes that seed black holes are present at early cosmic epochs at the centres of forming halos. We then track their growth from gas accretion and mergers with other black holes in the course of cosmic time. For black holes that are active, we distinguish between two distinct modes of feedback, depending on the black hole accretion rate itself. Black holes that accrete at high rates are assumed to be in a `quasar regime', where we model their feedback by thermally coupling a small fraction of their bolometric luminosity to the surrounding gas. For black holes with low accretion rates, we conjecture that most of their feedback occurs in mechanical form, where AGN-driven bubbles are injected into a gaseous environment. Using our new model, we carry out TreeSPH cosmological simulations on the scales of individual galaxies to those of massive galaxy clusters, both for isolated systems and for cosmological boxes. We demonstrate that our model produces results for the black hole and stellar mass densities in broad agreement with observational constraints. We find that the black holes significantly influence the evolution of their host galaxies, changing their star formation history, their amount of cold gas, and their colours. Also, the properties of intracluster gas are affected strongly by the presence of massive black holes in the cores of galaxy clusters, leading to shallower metallicity and entropy profiles, and to a suppression of strong cooling flows. [Abridged], Comment: 27 pages, 17 figures, minor revisions, MNRAS accepted. High resolution version of the paper is available at http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~deboras/paper/agn_unified.pdf

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 381 (1), ISSN:0035-8711, ISSN:1365-2966, ISSN:1365-8711

Beyond reionization epoch cosmic hydrogen is neutral and can be directly observed through its 21-cm line signal. If dark matter (DM) decays or annihilates, the corresponding energy input affects the hydrogen kinetic temperature and ionized fraction, and contributes to the Ly alpha background. The changes induced by these processes on the 21-cm signal can then be used to constrain the proposed DM candidates, among which we select the three most popular ones: (i) 25-keV decaying sterile neutrinos, (ii) 10-MeV decaying light dark matter (LDM) and (iii) 10-MeV annihilating LDM. Although we find that the DM effects are considerably smaller than found by previous studies (due to a more physical description of the energy transfer from DM to the gas), we conclude that combined observations of the 21-cm background and of its gradient should be able to put constrains at least on LDM candidates. In fact, LDM decays (annihilations) induce differential brightness temperature variations with respect to the non-decaying/annihilating DM case up to Delta delta T(b) = 8 (22) mK at about 50 (15) MHz. In principle, this signal could be detected both by current single-dish radio telescopes and future facilities as Low Frequency Array; however, this assumes that ionospheric, interference and foreground issues can be properly taken care of.

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 378 (1), ISSN:0035-8711, ISSN:1365-2966, ISSN:1365-8711

We present here a new method, MMF, for automatically segmenting cosmic structure into its basic components: clusters, filaments, and walls. Importantly, the segmentation is scale independent, so all structures are identified without prejudice as to their size or shape. The method is ideally suited for extracting catalogues of clusters, walls, and filaments from samples of galaxies in redshift surveys or from particles in cosmological N-body simulations: it makes no prior assumptions about the scale or shape of the structures.}, Comment: Replacement with higher resolution figures. 28 pages, 17 figures. For Full Resolution Version see: http://www.astro.rug.nl/~weygaert/tim1publication/miguelmmf.pdf

I revisit the question of the adiabaticity of initial conditions for cosmological perturbations in view of the 3-year WMAP data. I focus on the simplest alternative to pure adiabatic conditions, namely a superposition of the adiabatic mode and one of the 3 possible isocurvature modes, with the same spectral index as the adiabatic component. I discuss findings in terms of posterior bounds on the isocurvature fraction and Bayesian model selection. The Bayes factor (models likelihood ratio) and the effective Bayesian complexity are computed for several prior ranges for the isocurvature content. I find that the CDM isocurvature fraction is now constrained to be less than about 10%, while the fraction in either the neutrino entropy or velocity mode is below about 20%. Model comparison strongly disfavours mixed models that allow for isocurvature fractions larger than unity, while current data do not allow to distinguish between a purely adiabatic model and models with a moderate (ie, below about 10%) isocurvature contribution. The conclusion is that purely adiabatic conditions are strongly favoured from a model selection perspective. This is expected to apply in even stronger terms to more complicated superpositions of isocurvature contributions., Comment: Expanded discussion of degeneracies, updated references, no change to conclusions. Matches published version

We present Monte Carlo calculations of Ly alpha radiative transfer through optically thick, spherically symmetric, collapsing gas clouds. These represent simplified models of protogalaxies in the process of their assembly. Such galaxies produce Ly alpha flux over an extended solid angle, either from a spatially extended Ly alpha emissivity, or from scattering effects, or both. We present a detailed study of the effect of the gas distribution and kinematics and of the Ly alpha emissivity profile on the emergent spectrum and surface brightness distribution. The emergent Ly alpha spectrum is typically double peaked and asymmetric. In practice, however, we find energy transfer from the infalling gas to the Ly alpha photons to significantly enhance the blue peak and to render the red peak, in most cases, undetectable. The resulting effective blueshift, combined with scattering in the intergalactic medium, renders extended Ly alpha emission from collapsing protogalaxies difficult to detect beyond redshift z greater than or similar to 4. We find a strong wavelength dependence of the slope of the surface brightness distribution (with preferential flattening at the red side of the line) to be a robust indication that Ly alpha photons are being generated (rather than just scattered) in a spatially extended, collapsing region around the galaxy. For self-ionized clouds whose effective Ly alpha optical depth is less than or similar to 10(3), infall and outflow models can produce nearly identical spectra and surface brightness distributions and are practically indistinguishable. The presence of cosmic abundance of deuterium may produce a detectable dip in the spectra of systems with moderate hydrogen column densities, N(H) = 10(18)-10(20) cm(-2). Finally, we present a new analytic solution for the emerging Ly alpha spectrum in the limiting case of a static uniform sphere, extending previous solutions for slabs.