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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Astrophysics and Astronomy

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Astronomy Department Faculty Publication Series

1998

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Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Morphological Transformation From Galaxy Harassment, B Moore, G Lake, N Katz Jan 1998

Morphological Transformation From Galaxy Harassment, B Moore, G Lake, N Katz

Astronomy Department Faculty Publication Series

Galaxy morphologies in clusters have undergone a remarkable transition over the past several billion yr. Distant clusters at z ~ 0.4 are filled with small spiral galaxies, many of which are disturbed and show evidence of multiple bursts of star formation. This population is absent from nearby clusters, where spheroidals comprise the faint end of the luminosity function. Our numerical simulations follow the evolution of disk galaxies in a rich cluster resulting from encounters with brighter galaxies and the cluster's tidal field, or "galaxy harassment." After a bursting transient phase, they undergo a complete morphological transformation from "disks" to "spheroidals." …


Recovery Of The Power Spectrum Of Mass Fluctuations From Observations Of The Ly Alpha Forest, Rac Croft, Dh Weinberg, N Katz, L Hernquist Jan 1998

Recovery Of The Power Spectrum Of Mass Fluctuations From Observations Of The Ly Alpha Forest, Rac Croft, Dh Weinberg, N Katz, L Hernquist

Astronomy Department Faculty Publication Series

We present a method to recover the shape and amplitude of the power spectrum of mass fluctuations, P(k), from observations of the high-redshift Lyα forest. The method is motivated by the physical picture that has emerged from hydrodynamic cosmological simulations and related semianalytic models, in which typical Lyα forest lines arise in a diffuse, continuous, fluctuating intergalactic medium. The thermal state of this low-density gas (δρ/ρ 10) is governed by simple physical processes, which lead to a tight correlation between the Lyα optical depth and the underlying matter density. To recover the mass power spectrum, we (1) …