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Astrophysics and Astronomy

Cosmology

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Direct Collapse To Supermassive Black Hole Seeds With Radiation Transfer: Cosmological Haloes, Kazem Ardaneh, Yang Luo, Isaac Shlosman, Kentaro Nagamine, John H. Wise, Michael C. Begelman Jun 2018

Direct Collapse To Supermassive Black Hole Seeds With Radiation Transfer: Cosmological Haloes, Kazem Ardaneh, Yang Luo, Isaac Shlosman, Kentaro Nagamine, John H. Wise, Michael C. Begelman

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We have modelled direct collapse of a primordial gas within dark matter haloes in the presence of radiative transfer, in high-resolution zoom-in simulations in a cosmological framework, down to the formation of the photosphere and the central object. Radiative transfer has been implemented in the flux-limited diffusion (FLD) approximation. Adiabatic models were run for comparison. We find that (a) the FLD flow forms an irregular central structure and does not exhibit fragmentation, contrary to adiabatic flow which forms a thick disc, driving a pair of spiral shocks, subject to Kelvin–Helmholtz shear instability forming fragments; (b) the …


Direct Collapse To Supermassive Black Hole Seeds With Radiative Transfer: Isolated Halos, Yang Luo, Kazem Ardaneh, Isaac Shlosman, Kentaro Nagamine, John H. Wise, Mitchell C. Begelman Feb 2018

Direct Collapse To Supermassive Black Hole Seeds With Radiative Transfer: Isolated Halos, Yang Luo, Kazem Ardaneh, Isaac Shlosman, Kentaro Nagamine, John H. Wise, Mitchell C. Begelman

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Direct collapse within dark matter haloes is a promising path to form supermassive black hole seeds at high redshifts. The outer part of this collapse remains optically thin. However, the innermost region of the collapse is expected to become optically thick and requires to follow the radiation field in order to understand its evolution. So far, the adiabatic approximation has been used exclusively for this purpose. We apply radiative transfer in the flux-limited diffusion (FLD) approximation to solve the evolution of coupled gas and radiation for isolated haloes. We find that (1) the photosphere forms at 10−6 pc and …


Testing Atomic Collision Theory With The Two-Photon Continuum Of Astrophysical Nebulae, Francisco Guzmán, N. R. Badnell, Marios Chatzikos, P. A. M. Van Hoof, R. J. R. Williams, Gary J. Ferland Feb 2017

Testing Atomic Collision Theory With The Two-Photon Continuum Of Astrophysical Nebulae, Francisco Guzmán, N. R. Badnell, Marios Chatzikos, P. A. M. Van Hoof, R. J. R. Williams, Gary J. Ferland

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Accurate rates for energy-degenerate l-changing collisions are needed to determine cosmological abundances and recombination. There are now several competing theories for the treatment of this process, and it is not possible to test these experimentally. We show that the H i two-photon continuum produced by astrophysical nebulae is strongly affected by l-changing collisions. We perform an analysis of the different underlying atomic processes and simulate the recombination and two-photon spectrum of a nebula containing H and He. We provide an extended set of effective recombination coefficients and updated l-changing 2s − 2p transition rates using …


Fluctuations In A Cosmology With A Spacelike Singularity And Their Gauge Theory Dual Description, Robert H. Brandenberger, Elisa G. M. Ferreira, Ian A. Morrison, Yi-Fu Cai, Sumit R. Das, Yi Wang Oct 2016

Fluctuations In A Cosmology With A Spacelike Singularity And Their Gauge Theory Dual Description, Robert H. Brandenberger, Elisa G. M. Ferreira, Ian A. Morrison, Yi-Fu Cai, Sumit R. Das, Yi Wang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We consider a time-dependent deformation of anti–de Sitter (AdS) space-time which contains a spacelike “singularity”—a spacelike region of high curvature. Making use of the AdS/CFT correspondence we can map the bulk dynamics onto the boundary. The boundary theory has a time dependent coupling constant which becomes small at times when the bulk space-time is highly curved. We investigate the propagation of small fluctuations of a test scalar field from early times before the bulk singularity to late times after the singularity. Under the assumption that the AdS/CFT correspondence extends to deformed AdS space-times, we can map the bulk evolution of …


The Baryon Cycle At High Redshifts: Effects Of Galactic Winds On Galaxy Evolution In Overdense And Average Regions, Raphael Sadoun, Isaac Shlosman, Jun-Hwan Choi, Emilio Romano-Díaz Sep 2016

The Baryon Cycle At High Redshifts: Effects Of Galactic Winds On Galaxy Evolution In Overdense And Average Regions, Raphael Sadoun, Isaac Shlosman, Jun-Hwan Choi, Emilio Romano-Díaz

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We employ high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations focusing on a high-sigma peak and an average cosmological field at z ~ 6–12 in order to investigate the influence of environment and baryonic feedback on galaxy evolution in the reionization epoch. Strong feedback, e.g., galactic winds, caused by elevated star formation rates (SFRs) is expected to play an important role in this evolution. We compare different outflow prescriptions: (i) constant wind velocity (CW), (ii) variable wind scaling with galaxy properties (VW), and (iii) no outflows (NW). The overdensity leads to accelerated evolution of dark matter and baryonic structures, absent from the "normal" region, …


H-, He-Like Recombination Spectra ‒ Ii. L-Changing Collisions For He Rydberg States, Francisco Guzmán, N. R. Badnell, R. J. R. Williams, P. A. M. Van Hoof, Marios Chatzikos, Gary J. Ferland Sep 2016

H-, He-Like Recombination Spectra ‒ Ii. L-Changing Collisions For He Rydberg States, Francisco Guzmán, N. R. Badnell, R. J. R. Williams, P. A. M. Van Hoof, Marios Chatzikos, Gary J. Ferland

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Cosmological models can be constrained by determining primordial abundances. Accurate predictions of the He i spectrum are needed to determine the primordial helium abundance to a precision of < 1 per cent in order to constrain big bang nucleosynthesis models. Theoretical line emissivities at least this accurate are needed if this precision is to be achieved. In the first paper of this series, which focused on H ι, we showed that differences in l-changing collisional rate coefficients predicted by three different theories can translate into 10 per cent changes in predictions for H ι spectra. Here, we consider the more complicated case of He atoms, where low-l subshells are not energy degenerate. A criterion for deciding when the energy separation between l subshells is small enough to apply energy-degenerate collisional theories is given. Moreover, for certain conditions, the Bethe approximation originally proposed by …


H, He-Like Recombination Spectra – I. L-Changing Collisions For Hydrogen, Francisco Guzmán, N. R. Badnell, R. J. R. Williams, P. A. M. Van Hoof, Marios Chatzikos, Gary J. Ferland Apr 2016

H, He-Like Recombination Spectra – I. L-Changing Collisions For Hydrogen, Francisco Guzmán, N. R. Badnell, R. J. R. Williams, P. A. M. Van Hoof, Marios Chatzikos, Gary J. Ferland

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Hydrogen and helium emission lines in nebulae form by radiative recombination. This is a simple process which, in principle, can be described to very high precision. Ratios of He I and H I emission lines can be used to measure the He+/H+ abundance ratio to the same precision as the recombination rate coefficients. This paper investigates the controversy over the correct theory to describe dipole l-changing collisions (nlnl′ = l ± 1) between energy-degenerate states within an n-shell. The work of Pengelly & Seaton has, for half-a-century, been considered the definitive …


Direct Collapse To Supermassive Black Hole Seeds: Comparing The Amr And Sph Approaches, Yang Luo, Kentaro Nagamine, Isaac Shlosman Mar 2016

Direct Collapse To Supermassive Black Hole Seeds: Comparing The Amr And Sph Approaches, Yang Luo, Kentaro Nagamine, Isaac Shlosman

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We provide detailed comparison between the adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) code ENZO-2.4 and the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH)/N-body code GADGET-3 in the context of isolated or cosmological direct baryonic collapse within dark matter (DM) haloes to form supermassive black holes. Gas flow is examined by following evolution of basic parameters of accretion flows. Both codes show an overall agreement in the general features of the collapse; however, many subtle differences exist. For isolated models, the codes increase their spatial and mass resolutions at different pace, which leads to substantially earlier collapse in SPH than in AMR cases due …


Supermassive Black Hole Seed Formation At High Redshifts: Long-Term Evolution Of The Direct Collapse, Isaac Shlosman, Jun-Hwan Choi, Mitchell C. Begelman, Kentaro Nagamine Dec 2015

Supermassive Black Hole Seed Formation At High Redshifts: Long-Term Evolution Of The Direct Collapse, Isaac Shlosman, Jun-Hwan Choi, Mitchell C. Begelman, Kentaro Nagamine

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We use cosmological adaptive mesh refinement code enzo zoom-in simulations to study the long-term evolution of the collapsing gas within dark matter haloes at z. This direct collapse process is a leading candidate for rapid formation of supermassive black hole (SMBH) seeds. To circumvent the Courant condition at small radii, we apply the sink particle method, focusing on evolution on scales ∼0.01–10 pc. The collapse proceeds in two stages, with the secondary runaway happening within the central 10 pc. The sink particles form when the collapsing gas requires additional refinement of the grid size at the highest refinement level. …


Candels Visual Classifications: Scheme, Data Release, And First Results, Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe, Mark Mozena, Dale D. Kocevski, Daniel H. Mcintosh, Jennifer Lotz, Eric F. Bell, Sandra M. Faber, Harry C. Ferguson, David C. Koo, Robert Bassett, Maksym Bernyk, Kirsten Blancato, Frederic Bournaud, Paolo Cassata, M. Castellano, Edmond Cheung, Christopher J. Conselice, D. Croton, Tomas Dahlen, Duilia F. De Mello, Laura Degroot, Jennifer Donley, Javiera Guedes, Norman A. Grogin, Nimish Hathi, Matt Hilton, Brett Hollon, Anton M. Koekemoer, Nick Liu, Ray A. Lucas Nov 2015

Candels Visual Classifications: Scheme, Data Release, And First Results, Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe, Mark Mozena, Dale D. Kocevski, Daniel H. Mcintosh, Jennifer Lotz, Eric F. Bell, Sandra M. Faber, Harry C. Ferguson, David C. Koo, Robert Bassett, Maksym Bernyk, Kirsten Blancato, Frederic Bournaud, Paolo Cassata, M. Castellano, Edmond Cheung, Christopher J. Conselice, D. Croton, Tomas Dahlen, Duilia F. De Mello, Laura Degroot, Jennifer Donley, Javiera Guedes, Norman A. Grogin, Nimish Hathi, Matt Hilton, Brett Hollon, Anton M. Koekemoer, Nick Liu, Ray A. Lucas

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We have undertaken an ambitious program to visually classify all galaxies in the five CANDELS fields down to H < 24.5 involving the dedicated efforts of over 65 individual classifiers. Once completed, we expect to have detailed morphological classifications for over 50,000 galaxies spanning 0 < z < 4 over all the fields, with classifications from 3 to 5 independent classifiers for each galaxy. Here, we present our detailed visual classification scheme, which was designed to cover a wide range of CANDELS science goals. This scheme includes the basic Hubble sequence types, but also includes a detailed look at mergers and interactions, the clumpiness of galaxies, k-corrections, and a variety of other structural properties. In this paper, we focus on the first field to be completed—GOODS-S, which has been classified at various depths. The wide area coverage spanning the full field (wide+deep+ERS) includes 7634 galaxies that have been classified by at least three different people. In the deep area of the field, 2534 galaxies have been classified by at least five different people at three different depths. With this paper, we release to the public …


Constraining The Redshift Evolution Of The Cosmic Microwave Background Blackbody Temperature With Plank Data, I. De Martino, R. Génova-Santos, F. Atrio-Barandela, H. Ebeling, A. Kashlinsky, Dale D. Kocevski, C. J. A. P. Martins Jul 2015

Constraining The Redshift Evolution Of The Cosmic Microwave Background Blackbody Temperature With Plank Data, I. De Martino, R. Génova-Santos, F. Atrio-Barandela, H. Ebeling, A. Kashlinsky, Dale D. Kocevski, C. J. A. P. Martins

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We constrain the deviation of adiabatic evolution of the universe using the data on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies measured by the Planck satellite and a sample of 481 X-ray selected clusters with spectroscopically measured redshifts. To avoid antenna beam effects, we bring all of the maps to the same resolution. We use a CMB template to subtract the cosmological signal while preserving the Thermal Sunyaev–Zeldovich (TSZ) anisotropies; next, we remove galactic foreground emissions around each cluster and we mask out all known point sources. If the CMB blackbody temperature scales with redshift as T(z) …


Supermassive Black Hole Formation At High Redshifts Via Direct Collapse In A Cosmological Context, Jun-Hwan Choi, Isaac Shlosman, Mitchell C. Begelman Jul 2015

Supermassive Black Hole Formation At High Redshifts Via Direct Collapse In A Cosmological Context, Jun-Hwan Choi, Isaac Shlosman, Mitchell C. Begelman

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We study the early stage of the formation of seed supermassive black holes via direct collapse in dark matter (DM) haloes, in the cosmological context. We perform high-resolution zoom-in simulations of such collapse at high z. Using the adaptive mesh refinement code enzo, we resolve the formation and growth of a DM halo, until its virial temperature reaches ∼104 K, atomic cooling turns on, and collapse ensues. We demonstrate that direct collapse proceeds in two stages, although they are not well separated. The first stage is triggered by the onset of atomic cooling, and leads to rapidly increasing …


A Desktop Universe For The Introductory Astronomy Laboratory, Laurence A. Marschall, Glenn A. Snyder, Paul Richard Cooper Dec 2000

A Desktop Universe For The Introductory Astronomy Laboratory, Laurence A. Marschall, Glenn A. Snyder, Paul Richard Cooper

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

What is a well-intentioned astronomy instructor to do? There is no argument that experience with the real world is desirable in any astronomy course, especially the introductory classes that fulfill the science distribution requirements at many colleges and universities. Though it is a simple matter to take students out of doors, show them the motions of the Sun, Moon, and stars, and have them squint for a few seconds at Saturn's rings through a telescope, these activities represent only a small portion of the subject matter of modern astronomy. It is simply not possible, given the constraints of time, weather, …


The Origin Of N Iii Λ990 And C Iii Λ977 Emission In Agn Narrow-Line Region Gas, Jason W. Ferguson, Gary J. Ferland, A. K. Pradham Jan 1995

The Origin Of N Iii Λ990 And C Iii Λ977 Emission In Agn Narrow-Line Region Gas, Jason W. Ferguson, Gary J. Ferland, A. K. Pradham

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We discuss implications of Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT) detections of C III λ977 and N III λ990 emission from the narrow-line region of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 1068. In their discovery paper Kriss et al. showed that the unexpectedly great strength of these lines implies that the emitting gas must be shock-heated if the lines are collisionally excited. Here we investigate other processes which excite these lines in photoionization equilibrium. Recombination, mainly dielectronic, and continuum fluorescence are strong contributors to the line. The resulting intensities are sensitive to the velocity field of the emitting gas and require …