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Biswajit Pandey

Publications and source records attributed to Biswajit Pandey.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Resolving inconsistencies in Relativistic Thermodynamics with four-entropy and four-heat current

We address long-standing inconsistencies in relativistic thermodynamics, particularly the ambiguities in temperature transformations and entropy evolution in moving or accelerating frames. Traditional approaches often lead to spurious entropy dissipation or generation in accelerating frames, contradicting the second law of thermodynamics. By introducing four-entropy and four-heat current, we resolve the problematic terms related to Lorentz factor dependence, eliminating unphysical entropy production. We also show that transformations like $T^{\prime}=\frac{T}γ$ and $T^{\prime}=T γ$ introduce an additional unphysical source of entropy dissipation or generation without real heat flow, driven by temperature gradients from relative motion. By adopting the covariant transformation $T^{\prime}=T$ and treating heat and entropy as four-vectors, we resolve these inconsistencies and offer a coherent framework for relativistic thermodynamics.

physics.gen-ph↗

Unveiling galaxy pair alignment in cosmic filaments: A 3D exploration using EAGLE simulation

We investigate how galaxy pairs are oriented in three dimensions within cosmic filaments using data from the EAGLE simulation. We identify filament spines using DisPerSE and isolate galaxies residing in filamentary environments. Employing a FoF algorithm, we delineate individual filaments and determine their axes by diagonalizing the moment of inertia tensor. The orientations of galaxy pairs relative to the axis of their host filament are analyzed. Our study covers diverse subsets of filaments identified through varying linking lengths, examining how galaxy pairs align with the filament axis across different spatial parameters such as pair separation and distance from the filament spine. We observe a nearly uniform probability distribution for the cosine of the orientation angle, which is nearly identical in each case. We also investigate the effects of redshift space distortions and confirm that the probability distributions remain uniform in both real space and redshift space. To validate our approach, we conduct Monte Carlo simulations using various theoretical probability distributions. Our analysis does not reveal any evidence of preferential alignment of galaxy pairs within cosmic filaments in hydrodynamical simulations.

astro-ph.CO↗

Probing the spatial and velocity anisotropies in stellar halos from the Aquarius simulations

We analyze the spatial anisotropy and the velocity anisotropy in a set of mock stellar halos from the Aquarius simulations. The spatial anisotropy in each mock stellar halo rises progressively with the increasing distance from the halo centre, eventually reaching a maximum near the periphery. Excluding the bound satellites leads to a significant reduction of the spatial anisotropy in each halo. We compare the measured anisotropy in the mock stellar halos with that from their sphericalized versions where all the shape and substructure induced anisotropies are erased. The growth of spatial anisotropy persists throughout the entire halo when the bound satellites are present but remains limited within the inner halo ($<60 \, h^{-1}\, {\rm kpc}$) after their exclusion. This indicates that the spatial anisotropy in the inner halo is induced by the diffuse substructures and the halo shape whereas the outer halo anisotropy is dominated by the bound satellites. We find that the outer parts of the stellar halo are kinematically colder than the inner regions. The stellar orbits are predominantly radial but they become rotationally dominated at certain radii that are marked by the prominent dips in the velocity anisotropy. Most of these dips disappear after the removal of the satellites. A few shallow dips arise occasionally due to the presence of diffuse streams and clouds. Our analysis suggests that a combined study of the spatial and velocity anisotropies can reveal the structure and the assembly history of the stellar halos.

astro-ph.GA↗

The roles of environment and interactions on the evolution of red and blue galaxies in the EAGLE simulation

We study the evolution of the red and blue galaxies from $z=3$ to $z=0$ using the EAGLE simulation. The galaxies in the blue cloud and the red sequence are separated at each redshift using a scheme based on Otsu's method. Our analysis shows that the two populations have small differences in the local density and the clustering strength until $z=2$, after which the red galaxies preferentially occupy the denser regions and exhibit a significantly stronger clustering than the blue galaxies. The significant disparities in cold gas mass and specific star formation rate (sSFR) observed before $z=2$ suggest that factors beyond environmental influences may also contribute to the observed dichotomy. Interacting galaxy pairs at a given separation exhibit a higher SFR at increasing redshifts, which may be linked to the rising gas fractions at higher redshift. As redshift decreases, the SFR decreases across all separations, suggesting a gradual depletion of the cold gas reservoir. At pair separations $<50$ kpc, an anomalous increase in the SFR among paired galaxies in isolation around $z \sim 2$ suggests that environmental effects begin to dominate at this redshift, thereby increasing the rate of galaxy interactions and the occurrence of starburst galaxies. We observe a substantial decrease in the blue fraction in paired galaxies starting from $z=1$ to the present. However, the decrease in the blue fraction in paired galaxies with their second nearest neighbour at a distance greater than 500 kpc continues until $z=0.5$, after which the blue fraction begins to increase.

astro-ph.GA↗

Tracing the green valley with entropic thresholding

The green valley represents the population of galaxies that are transitioning from the actively star-forming blue cloud to the passively evolving red sequence. Studying the properties of the green valley galaxies is crucial for our understanding of the exact mechanisms and processes that drive this transition. The green valley does not have a universally accepted definition. The boundaries of the green valley are often determined by empirical lines that are subjective and vary across studies. We present an unambiguous definition of the green valley in the colour-stellar mass plane using the entropic thresholding. We first divide the galaxy population into the blue cloud and the red sequence based on a colour threshold that minimizes the intra-class variance and maximizes the inter-class variance. Our method splits the region between the mean colours of the blue cloud and the red sequence into three parts by maximizing the total entropy of that region. We repeat our analysis in a number of independent stellar mass bins to define the boundaries of the green valley in the colour-mass diagram. Our method provides a robust and natural definition of the green valley.

astro-ph.GA↗

The correlations between galaxy properties in different environments of the cosmic web

We study the correlations between $(u-r)$ colour, stellar mass, specific star formation rate (sSFR) and metallicity of galaxies in different geometric environments of the cosmic web using a volume limited sample from the SDSS. The geometric environment at the location of each galaxy is determined using the eigenvalues of the tidal tensor in three dimensions. We use the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) and the normalized mutual information (NMI) to quantify the correlations between these galaxy properties in sheets, filaments and clusters after matching the stellar mass distributions of the galaxies in these environments. A two-tailed t-test assesses the statistical significance of the observed differences between these relations in different geometric environments. The null hypothesis can be rejected at $>99.99\%$ significance level in most of the cases, suggesting that the scaling relations between the observable galaxy properties are susceptible to the geometric environments of the cosmic web.

astro-ph.CO↗

Galaxy interactions in filaments and sheets: insights from EAGLE simulations

We study the colour and star formation rates of paired galaxies in filaments and sheets using the EAGLE simulations. We find that the major pairs with pair separation $<50$ kpc are bluer and more star forming in filamentary environments compared to those hosted in sheet-like environments. This trend reverses beyond a pair separation of $\sim 50$ kpc. The interacting pairs with larger separations ($>50$ kpc) in filaments are on average redder and low-star forming compared to those embedded in sheets. The galaxies in filaments and sheets may have different stellar mass and cold gas mass distributions. Using a KS test, we find that for paired galaxies with pair separation $<50$ kpc, there are no significant differences in these properties in sheets and filaments. The filaments transport gas towards the cluster of galaxies. Some earlier studies find preferential alignment of galaxy pairs with filament axis. Such alignment of galaxy pairs may lead to different gas accretion efficiency in galaxies residing in filaments and sheets. We propose that the enhancement of star formation rate at smaller pair separation in filaments is caused by the alignment of galaxy pairs. A recent study with the SDSS data (Das et al., 2023) reports the same findings. The confirmation of these results by the EAGLE simulations suggests that the hydrodynamical simulations are powerful theoretical tools for studying the galaxy formation and evolution in the cosmic web.

astro-ph.GA↗

Do minor interactions trigger star formation in galaxy pairs?

We analyze the galaxy pairs in a set of volume limited samples from the SDSS to study the effects of minor interactions on the star formation rate (SFR) and colour of galaxies. We carefully design control samples of the isolated galaxies by matching the stellar mass and redshift of the minor pairs. The SFR distributions and colour distributions in the minor pairs differ from their controls at $>99\%$ significance level. We also simultaneously match the control galaxies in stellar mass, redshift and local density to assess the role of the environment. The null hypothesis can be rejected at $>99\%$ confidence level even after matching the environment. Our analysis shows a quenching in the minor pairs where the degree of quenching decreases with the increasing pair separation and plateaus beyond 50 kpc. We also prepare a sample of minor pairs with $H_α$ line information. We calculate the SFR of these galaxies using the $H_α$ line and repeat our analysis. We observe a quenching in the $H_α$ sample too. We find that the majority of the minor pairs are quiescent systems that could be quenched due to minor interactions. Combining data from the Galaxy Zoo and Galaxy Zoo2, we find that only $\sim 1\%$ galaxies have a dominant bulge, $4\%-7\%$ galaxies host a bar, and $5\%-10\%$ galaxies show the AGN activity in minor pairs. This indicates that the presence of bulge, bar and AGN activity plays an insignificant role in quenching the galaxies in minor pairs. The more massive companion satisfies the criteria for mass quenching in most of the minor pairs. We propose that the stripping and starvation likely caused the quenching in the less massive companion at a later stage of evolution.

astro-ph.GA↗

Time evolution of the mutual information between disjoint regions in the Universe

We study the time evolution of the mutual information between the mass distributions in spatially separated but casually connected regions in an expanding universe. The evolution of the mutual information is primarily determined by the configuration entropy rate which depends on the dynamics of the expansion and the growth of the density perturbations. The joint entropy between the distributions from the two regions plays a negligible role in such evolution. The mutual information decreases with time in a matter dominated Universe whereas it stays constant in a $Λ$-dominated Universe. The $Λ$CDM model and some other models of dark energy predict a minimum in the mutual information beyond which the dark energy dominates the dynamics of the Universe. The mutual information may have deeper connections to the dark energy and the accelerated expansion of the universe.

astro-ph.CO↗

Separating the blue cloud and the red sequence using Otsu's method for image segmentation

The observed colour bimodality allows a classification of the galaxies into two distinct classes: the `blue cloud' and the `red sequence'. Such classification is often carried out using empirical cuts in colour and other galaxy properties that lack solid mathematical justifications. We propose a method for separating the galaxies in the `blue cloud' and the `red sequence' using Otsu's thresholding technique for image segmentation. We show that this technique is insensitive to the choice of binning. It provides a robust and parameter-free method for the classification of the red and blue galaxies based on the minimization of the intra-class variance and maximization of the inter-class variance. We also apply an iterative triclass thresholding technique based on Otsu's method to improve the classification. The galaxy colour is known to depend on the stellar mass and the luminosity of galaxies. We obtain the dividing lines between the two populations in the colour-stellar mass plane and the colour-absolute magnitude plane by employing these methods in a number of independent stellar mass bins and absolute magnitude bins.

astro-ph.GA↗

A study of holographic dark energy models using configuration entropy

The holographic dark energy models provide an alternative description of the dark energy. These models are motivated by the possible application of holographic principle to the dark energy problem. We study the one parameter Li holographic dark energy and the two parameter Barrow holographic dark energy models using configuration entropy of the matter distribution in the Universe. The configuration entropy rate exhibits a distinct minimum at a specific scale factor that corresponds to the epoch, beyond which the dark energy takes a driving role in the accelerated expansion of the Universe. We find that the location of the minimum and magnitude of the entropy rate at the minimum are sensitive to the parameters of the models. We find the best fit relations between these quantities and the parameters of each model. We propose that these relations can be used to constrain the parameters of the holographic dark energy models from the future measurements of the configuration entropy at multiple redshifts. Further, the Barrow holographic dark energy model is based on Barrow entropy which modifies the standard Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, to capture the deformation of the black-hole surface due to quantum gravitational effects. We find that the location and amplitude of the minimum of the configuration entropy rate is strongly sensitive to the deformation exponent $Δ$ in the Barrow model. Our study suggests that signatures of the quantum gravitational effects on the future event horizon may be detected from the study of the configuration entropy of the matter distribution on large-scales.

astro-ph.CO↗

Galaxy interactions in filaments and sheets: effects of the large-scale structures versus the local density

The major interactions are known to trigger star formation in galaxies and alter their colour. We study the major interactions in filaments and sheets using the SDSS data to understand the influence of large-scale environments on the galaxy interactions. We identify the galaxies in filaments and sheets using the local dimension and also find the major pairs residing in these environments. The star formation rate and colour of the interacting galaxies as a function of pair separation are separately analyzed in filaments and sheets. The analysis is repeated for three volume limited samples covering different magnitude ranges. The major pairs residing in the filaments show a significantly higher star formation rate (SFR) and bluer colour than those residing in the sheets up to the projected pair separation of $\sim 50$ kpc. We observe a complete reversal of this behaviour for both the SFR and colour of the galaxy pairs having a projected separation larger than 50 kpc. Some earlier studies report that the galaxy pairs align with the filament axis. Such alignment inside filaments indicates anisotropic accretion that may cause these differences. We do not observe these trends in the brighter galaxy samples. The pairs in filaments and sheets from the brighter galaxy samples trace relatively denser regions in these environments. The absence of these trends in the brighter samples may be explained by the dominant effect of the local density over the effects of the large-scale environment.

astro-ph.GA↗

The maximum extent of the filaments and sheets in the cosmic web: an analysis of the SDSS DR17

Filaments and sheets are striking visual patterns in cosmic web. The maximum extent of these large-scale structures are difficult to determine due to their structural variety and complexity. We construct a volume-limited sample of galaxies in a cubic region from the SDSS, divide it into smaller subcubes and shuffle them around. We quantify the average filamentarity and planarity in the three-dimensional galaxy distribution as a function of the density threshold and compare them with those from the shuffled realizations of the original data. The analysis is repeated for different shuffling lengths by varying the size of the subcubes. The average filamentarity and planarity in the shuffled data show a significant reduction when the shuffling scales are smaller than the maximum size of the genuine filaments and sheets. We observe a statistically significant reduction in these statistical measures even at a shuffling scale of $\sim 130 \,$Mpc, indicating that the filaments and sheets in three dimensions can extend up to this length scale. They may extend to somewhat larger length scales that are missed by our analysis due to the limited size of the SDSS data cube. We expect to determine these length scales by applying this method to deeper and larger surveys in future.

astro-ph.CO↗

Tomography of stellar halos: what does anisotropy in a stellar halo tell us?

The stellar halo of the Milky Way is known to have a highly lumpy structure due to the presence of tidal debris and streams accreted from the satellite galaxies. The abundance and distribution of these substructures can provide a wealth of information on the assembly history of the Milky Way. We use some information-theoretic measures to study the anisotropy in a set of Milky Way-sized stellar halos from the Bullock & Johnston suite of simulations that uses a hybrid approach coupling semi-analytic and N-body techniques. Our analysis shows that the whole-sky anisotropy in each stellar halo increases with the distance from its centre and eventually plateaus out beyond a certain radius. All the stellar halos have a very smooth structure within a radius of $\sim 50$ kpc and a highly anisotropic structure in the outskirts. At a given radius, the anisotropies at a fixed polar or azimuthal angle have two distinct components: (i) an approximately isotropic component and (ii) a component with large density fluctuations on small spatial scales. We remove the contributions of the substructures and any non-spherical shape of the halo by randomizing the polar and azimuthal coordinates of the stellar particles while keeping their radial distances fixed. We observe that the fluctuating part of the anisotropy is completely eliminated, and the approximately uniform component of the anisotropy is significantly reduced after the sphericalization. A comparison between the original halos and their sphericalized versions reveals that the approximately uniform part of the anisotropy originates from the discreteness noise and the non-spherical shape of the halo whereas the substructures contribute to the fluctuating part. We show that such distinction between the anisotropies has the potential to constrain the shape of the stellar halo and its substructures.

astro-ph.GA↗

On the origin of red spirals: Does assembly bias play a role?

The formation of the red spirals is a puzzling issue in the standard picture of galaxy formation and evolution. Most studies attribute the colour of the red spirals to different environmental effects. We analyze a volume limited sample from the SDSS to study the roles of small-scale and large-scale environments on the colour of spiral galaxies. We compare the star formation rate, stellar age and stellar mass distributions of the red and blue spirals and find statistically significant differences between them at $99.9\%$ confidence level. The red spirals inhabit significantly denser regions than the blue spirals, explaining some of the observed differences in their physical properties. However, the differences persist in all types of environments, indicating that the local density alone is not sufficient to explain the origin of the red spirals. Using an information theoretic framework, we find a small but non-zero mutual information between the colour of spiral galaxies and their large-scale environment that are statistically significant ($99.9\%$ confidence level) throughout the entire length scale probed. Such correlations between the colour and the large-scale environment of spiral galaxies may result from the assembly bias. Thus both the local environment and the assembly bias may play essential roles in forming the red spirals. The spiral galaxies may have different assembly history across all types of environments. We propose a picture where the differences in the assembly history may produce spiral galaxies with different cold gas content. Such a difference would make some spirals more susceptible to quenching. In all environments, the spirals with high cold gas content could delay the quenching and maintain a blue colour, whereas the spirals with low cold gas fractions would be easily quenched and become red.

astro-ph.GA↗

Galaxy interactions in different environments: An analysis of galaxy pairs from the SDSS

We analyze the galaxy pairs in a volume limited sample ($M_r \leq -21$) from the SDSS to study the effects of galaxy interactions on the star formation rate and colour of galaxies in different environments. We study the star formation rate and colour of the paired galaxies as a function of projected separation and compare the results with their control samples matched in stellar mass, redshift and local density. We find that the major interactions significantly enhance the star formation rate in paired galaxies and turn them bluer with decreasing pair separation within $30$ kpc. The impact of tidal interactions on star formation rate and colour are more significant in the heavier members of the major pairs. The star formation enhancement in major pairs is significantly higher at the low-density environments, where the influence can extend up to $\sim 100$ kpc. Contrarily, the major pairs at high-density environments show suppression in their star formation. Depending on the embedding environments, the major interactions in the intrinsically brighter galaxy pairs can thus enhance or quench star formation. We find that the minor pairs at both low-density and high-density environments are significantly less star-forming and redder than their control galaxies. It indicates that the minor interactions in intrinsically brighter galaxy pairs always suppress the star formation irrespective of their environment. The lighter members in these minor pairs show a greater susceptibility to suppressed star formation. Our results imply that both the major and minor interactions can contribute to the observed bimodality. We conclude that the galaxy evolution is determined by a complex interplay between the galaxy properties, galaxy interactions, and environment.

astro-ph.GA↗

Testing homogeneity of the galaxy distribution in the SDSS using Renyi entropy

We analyze a set of volume limited sample of galaxies from the SDSS to study the issue of cosmic homogeneity. We use the Renyi entropy of different order to probe the inhomogeneties present in the galaxy distributions. We also calculate the Renyi diveregence to quantify the deviations of the galaxy distribution from a homogeneous Poisson distribution on different length scales. We separately carry out the analysis using the overlapping spheres and the independent voxels. Our analysis suggests that the scale of homogeneity is underestimated in the smaller galaxy samples due to the suppression of inhomogeneities by the overlapping of the measuring speheres. We find that an analysis with the independent voxels and/or use of a significantly larger galaxy sample can help to circumvent or mitigate this problem. Combining the results from these analyses, we find that the galaxy distribution in the SDSS becomes homogeneous on a length scale beyond $140 \, h^{-1}\, {\rm Mpc}$.

astro-ph.CO↗

Green valley galaxies in the cosmic web: internal versus environmental quenching

We analyze the SDSS data to classify the galaxies based on their colour using a fuzzy set-theoretic method and quantify their environments using the local dimension. We find that the fraction of the green galaxies does not depend on the environment and $10\%-20\%$ of the galaxies at each environment are in the green valley depending on the stellar mass range chosen. Approximately $10\%$ of the green galaxies at each environment host an AGN. Combining data from the Galaxy Zoo, we find that $\sim 95\%$ of the green galaxies are spirals and $\sim 5\%$ are ellipticals at each environment. Only $\sim 8\%$ of green galaxies exhibit signs of interactions and mergers, $\sim 1\%$ have dominant bulge, and $\sim 6\%$ host a bar. We show that the stellar mass distributions for the red and green galaxies are quite similar at each environment. Our analysis suggests that the majority of the green galaxies must curtail their star formation using physical mechanism(s) other than interactions, mergers, and those driven by bulge, bar and AGN activity. We speculate that these are the massive galaxies that have grown only via smooth accretion and suppressed the star formation primarily through mass driven quenching. Using a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, we do not find any statistically significant difference between the properties of green galaxies in different environments. We conclude that the environmental factors play a minor role and the internal processes play the dominant role in quenching star formation in the green valley galaxies.

astro-ph.GA↗