Browsing by Subject "cosmological parameters"
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Item Evidence For Type Ia Supernova Diversity From Ultraviolet Observations With The Hubble Space Telescope(2012-04) Wang, Xiaofeng; Wang, Lifan; Filippenko, Alexei V.; Baron, Eddie; Kromer, Markus; Jack, Dennis; Zhang, Tianmeng; Aldering, Greg; Antilogus, Pierre; Arnett, W. David; Baade, Dietrich; Barris, Brian J.; Benetti, Stefano; Bouchet, Patrice; Burrows, Adam S.; Canal, Ramon; Cappellaro, Enrico; Carlberg, Raymond G.; di Carlo, Elisa; Challis, Peter J.; Crotts, Arlin P. S.; Danziger, John I.; Della Valle, Massimo; Fink, Michael; Foley, Ryan J.; Fransson, Claes; Gal-Yam, Avishay; Garnavich, Peter M.; Gerardy, Chris L.; Goldhaber, Gerson; Hamuy, Mario; Hillebrandt, Wolfgang; Hoeflich, Peter; Holland, Stephen T.; Holz, Daniel E.; Hughes, John P.; Jeffery, David J.; Jha, Saurabh W.; Kasen, Dan; Khokhlov, Alexei M.; Kirshner, Robert P.; Knop, Robert A.; Kozma, Cecilia; Krisciunas, Kevin; Lee, Brian C.; Leibundgut, Bruno; Lentz, Eric J.; Leonard, Douglas C.; Lewin, Walter H. G.; Li, Weidong; Livio, Mario; Lundqvist, Peter; Maoz, Dan; Matheson, Thomas; Mazzali, Paolo A.; Meikle, Peter; Miknaitis, Gajus; Milne, Peter A.; Mochnacki, Stefan W.; Nomoto, Ken'ichi; Nugent, Peter E.; Oran, Elaine S.; Panagia, Nino; Perlmutter, Saul; Phillips, Mark M.; Pinto, Philip; Poznanski, Dovi; Pritchet, Christopher J.; Reinecke, Martin; Riess, Adam G.; Ruiz-Lapuente, Pilar; Scalzo, Richard A.; Schlegel, Eric M.; Schmidt, Brian P.; Siegrist, James; Soderberg, Alicia M.; Sollerman, Jesper; Sonneborn, George; Spadafora, Anthony; Spyromilio, Jason; Sramek, Richard A.; Starrfield, Sumner G.; Strolger, Louis G.; Suntzeff, Nicholas B.; Thomas, Rollin C.; Tonry, John L.; Tornambe, Amedeo; Truran, James W.; Turatto, Massimo; Turner, Michael; Van Dyk, Schuyler D.; Weiler, Kurt W.; Wheeler, J. Craig; Wood-Vasey, Michael; Woosley, Stanford E.; Yamaoka, Hitoshi; Wheeler, J. CraigWe present ultraviolet (UV) spectroscopy and photometry of four Type Ia supernovae (SNe 2004dt, 2004ef, 2005M, and 2005cf) obtained with the UV prism of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. This data set provides unique spectral time series down to 2000 angstrom. Significant diversity is seen in the near-maximum-light spectra (similar to 2000-3500 angstrom) for this small sample. The corresponding photometric data, together with archival data from Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope observations, provide further evidence of increased dispersion in the UV emission with respect to the optical. The peak luminositiesmeasured in the uvw1/F250W filter are found to correlate with the B-band light-curve shape parameter Delta m(15)(B), but with much larger scatter relative to the correlation in the broadband B band (e.g., similar to 0.4 mag versus similar to 0.2 mag for those with 0.8 mag < Delta m(15)(B) < 1.7 mag). SN 2004dt is found as an outlier of this correlation (at > 3 sigma), being brighter than normal SNe Ia such as SN 2005cf by similar to 0.9 mag and similar to 2.0 mag in the uvw1/F250W and uvm2/F220W filters, respectively. We show that different progenitor metallicity or line-expansion velocities alone cannot explain such a large discrepancy. Viewing-angle effects, such as due to an asymmetric explosion, may have a significant influence on the flux emitted in the UV region. Detailed modeling is needed to disentangle and quantify the above effects.Item Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Observations: Angular Power Spectra(2009-02) Nolta, M. R.; Dunkley, J.; Hill, R. S.; Hinshaw, G.; Komatsu, Eiichiro; Larson, D.; Page, L.; Spergel, D. N.; Bennett, C. L.; Gold, B.; Jarosik, N.; Odegard, N.; Weiland, J. L.; Wollack, E.; Halpern, M.; Kogut, A.; Limon, M.; Meyer, S. S.; Tucker, G. S.; Wright, E. L.; Komatsu, EiichiroWe present the temperature and polarization angular power spectra of the cosmic microwave background derived from the first five years of Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data. The five-year temperature spectrum is cosmic variance limited up to multipole l = 530, and individual l-modes have signal-to-noise ratio S/N > 1 for l < 920. The best-fitting six-parameter Lambda CDM model has a reduced chi(2) for l = 33-1000 of chi(2)/nu = 1.06, with a probability to exceed of 9.3%. There is now significantly improved data near the third peak which leads to improved cosmological constraints. The temperature-polarization correlation is seen with high significance. After accounting for foreground emission, the low-l reionization feature in the EE power spectrum is preferred by Delta chi(2) = 19.6 for optical depth tau = 0.089 by the EE data alone, and is now largely cosmic variance limited for l = 2-6. There is no evidence for cosmic signal in the BB, TB, or EB spectra after accounting for foreground emission. We find that, when averaged over l = 2-6, l(l + 1)CBB(l)(BB)/(2 pi) < 0.15 mu K(2) (95% CL).Item Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: are there Cosmic Microwave Background Anomalies?(2011-02) Bennett, C. L.; Hill, R. S.; Hinshaw, G.; Larson, D.; Smith, K. M.; Dunkley, J.; Gold, B.; Halpern, M.; Jarosik, N.; Kogut, A.; Komatsu, Eiichiro; Limon, M.; Meyer, S. S.; Nolta, M. R.; Odegard, N.; Page, L.; Spergel, D. N.; Tucker, G. S.; Weiland, J. L.; Wollack, E.; Wright, E. L.; Komatsu, EiichiroA simple six-parameter Lambda CDM model provides a successful fit to WMAP data. This holds both when the WMAP data are analyzed alone or in combination with other cosmological data. Even so, it is appropriate to examine the data carefully to search for hints of deviations from the now standard model of cosmology, which includes inflation, dark energy, dark matter, baryons, and neutrinos. The cosmological community has subjected the WMAP data to extensive and varied analyses. While there is widespread agreement as to the overall success of the six-parameter Lambda CDM model, various "anomalies" have been reported relative to that model. In this paper we examine potential anomalies and present analyses and assessments of their significance. In most cases we find that claimed anomalies depend on posterior selection of some aspect or subset of the data. Compared with sky simulations based on the best-fit model, one can select for low probability features of the WMAP data. Low probability features are expected, but it is not usually straightforward to determine whether any particular low probability feature is the result of the a posteriori selection or non-standard cosmology. Hypothesis testing could, of course, always reveal an alternative model that is statistically favored, but there is currently no model that is more compelling. We find that two cold spots in the map are statistically consistent with random cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations. We also find that the amplitude of the quadrupole is well within the expected 95% confidence range and therefore is not anomalously low. We find no significant anomaly with a lack of large angular scale CMB power for the best-fit Lambda CDM model. We examine in detail the properties of the power spectrum data with respect to the Lambda CDM model and find no significant anomalies. The quadrupole and octupole components of the CMB sky are remarkably aligned, but we find that this is not due to any single map feature; it results from the statistical combination of the full-sky anisotropy fluctuations. It may be due, in part, to chance alignments between the primary and secondary anisotropy, but this only shifts the coincidence from within the last scattering surface to between it and the local matter density distribution. While this alignment appears to be remarkable, there was no model that predicted it, nor has there been a model that provides a compelling retrodiction. We examine claims of a hemispherical or dipole power asymmetry across the sky and find that the evidence for these claims is not statistically significant. We confirm the claim of a strong quadrupolar power asymmetry effect, but there is considerable evidence that the effect is not cosmological. The likely explanation is an insufficient handling of beam asymmetries. We conclude that there is no compelling evidence for deviations from the Lambda CDM model, which is generally an acceptable statistical fit to WMAP and other cosmological data.Item Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Power Spectra and WMAP-Derived Parameters(2011-02) Larson, D.; Dunkley, J.; Hinshaw, G.; Komatsu, Eiichiro; Nolta, M. R.; Bennett, C. L.; Gold, B.; Halpern, M.; Hill, R. S.; Jarosik, N.; Kogut, A.; Limon, M.; Meyer, S. S.; Odegard, N.; Page, L.; Smith, K. M.; Spergel, D. N.; Tucker, G. S.; Weiland, J. L.; Wollack, E.; Wright, E. L.; Komatsu, EiichiroThe WMAP mission has produced sky maps from seven years of observations at L2. We present the angular power spectra derived from the seven-year maps and discuss the cosmological conclusions that can be inferred from WMAP data alone. With the seven-year data, the temperature (TT) spectrum measurement has a signal-to-noise ratio per multipole that exceeds unity for l < 919; and in band powers of width Delta l = 10, the signal-to-noise ratio exceeds unity up to l = 1060. The third acoustic peak in the TT spectrum is now well measured by WMAP. In the context of a flat Lambda CDM model, this improvement allows us to place tighter constraints on the matter density from WMAP data alone, Omega(m)h(2) = 0.1334(-0.0055)(+0.0056), and on the epoch of matter-radiation equality, z(eq) = 3196(-133)(+134). The temperature-polarization (TE) spectrum is detected in the seven-year data with a significance of 20 sigma, compared to 13 sigma with the five-year data. We now detect the second dip in the TE spectrum near l similar to 450 with high confidence. The TB and EB spectra remain consistent with zero, thus demonstrating low systematic errors and foreground residuals in the data. The low-l EE spectrum, a measure of the optical depth due to reionization, is detected at 5.5 sigma significance when averaged over l = 2-7: l(l+ 1)C-l(EE)/(2 pi) = 0.074(-0.025)(+0.034) mu K-2 (68% CL). We now detect the high-l, 24 <= l <= 800, EE spectrum at over 8 sigma. The BB spectrum, an important probe of gravitational waves from inflation, remains consistent with zero; when averaged over l = 2-7, l(l + 1)C-l(BB)/(2 pi) < 0.055 mu K-2 (95% CL). The upper limit on tensor modes from polarization data alone is a factor of two lower with the seven-year data than it was using the five-year data. The data remain consistent with the simple Lambda CDM model: the best-fit TT spectrum has an effective chi(2) of 1227 for 1170 degrees of freedom, with a probability to exceed of 9.6%. The allowable volume in the six-dimensional space of Lambda CDM parameters has been reduced by a factor of 1.5 relative to the five-year volume, while the Lambda CDM model that allows for tensor modes and a running scalar spectral index has a factor of three lower volume when fit to the seven-year data. We test the parameter recovery process for bias and find that the scalar spectral index, n(s), is biased high, but only by 0.09 sigma, while the remaining parameters are biased by <0.15 sigma. The improvement in the third peak measurement leads to tighter lower limits from WMAP on the number of relativistic degrees of freedom (e.g., neutrinos) in the early universe: N-eff > 2.7 (95% CL). Also, using WMAP data alone, the primordial helium mass fraction is found to be Y-He = 0.28(-0.15)(+0.14), and with data from higher-resolution cosmic microwave background experiments included, we now establish the existence of pre-stellar helium at >3 sigma. These new WMAP measurements provide important tests of big bang cosmology.Item Simple Foreground Cleaning Algorithm For Detecting Primordial B-Mode Polarization Of The Cosmic Microwave Background(2011-08) Katayama, Nobuhiko; Komatsu, Eiichiro; Komatsu, EiichiroWe reconsider the pixel-based, "template" polarized foreground removal method within the context of a next-generation, low-noise, low-resolution (0 degrees.5 FWHM) space-borne experiment measuring the cosmological B-mode polarization signal in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This method was first applied to polarized data by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) team and further studied by Efstathiou et al. We need at least three frequency channels: one is used for extracting the CMB signal, whereas the other two are used to estimate the spatial distribution of the polarized dust and synchrotron emission. No extra data from non-CMB experiments or models are used. We extract the tensor-to-scalar ratio (r) from simulated sky maps outside the standard polarization mask (P06) of WMAP consisting of CMB, noise (2 mu K arcmin), and a foreground model, and find that, even for the simplest three-frequency configuration with 60, 100, and 240 GHz, the residual bias in r is as small as Delta r approximate to 0.002. This bias is dominated by the residual synchrotron emission due to spatial variations of the synchrotron spectral index. With an extended mask with f(sky) = 0.5, the bias is reduced further down to <0.001.