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Joe Silk

Publications and source records attributed to Joe Silk.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2024

The Future of Primordial Black Holes: Open Questions and Roadmap

We discuss some of the the open questions and the roadmap in the physics of primordial black holes. Black holes are the only dark matter candidate that is known to actually exit. Their conjectured primordial role is admittedly based on hypothesis rather than fact, most straightforwardly as a simple extension to the standard models of inflation, or even, in homage to quantum physics, more controversially via a slowing-down of Hawking evaporation. Regardless of one's stance on the theoretical basis for their existence, the possibility of primordial black holes playing a novel role in dark matter physics and gravitational wave astronomy opens up a rich astrophysical phenomenology that we lay out in this brief overview.

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arXiv2022

Off-centre supermassive black holes in bright central galaxies

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are believed to reside at the centre of massive galaxies such as brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). However, as BCGs experienced numerous galaxy mergers throughout their history, the central BH can be significantly kicked from the central region by these dynamical encounters. By combining the Illustris-TNG300 simulations and orbital integrations, we demonstrate that mergers with satellite galaxies on radial orbits are a main driver for such BH displacements in BCGs. BHs can get ejected to distances varying between a few parsecs to hundreds of kiloparsecs. Our results clearly establish that SMBH offsets are common in BCGs and more precisely a third of our BHs are off-centred at $z=0$. This orbital offset can be sustained for up to at least 6 Gyr between $z=2$ and $z=0$ in half of our BCGs. Since the dense gas reservoirs are located in the central region of galaxies, we argue that the consequences of off-center SMBHs in BCGs are to quench any BH growth and BH feedback.

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arXiv2018

Retainment of r-process material in dwarf galaxies

The synthesis of $r$-process elements is known to involve extremely energetic explosions. At the same time, recent observations find significant $r$-process enrichment even in extremely small ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxies. This raises the question of retainment of those elements within their hosts. We estimate the retainment fraction and find that it is large $\sim 0.9$, unless the $r$-process event is very energetic ($\gtrsim 10^{52}$erg) and / or the host has lost a large fraction of its gas prior to the event. We estimate the $r$-process mass per event and rate as implied by abundances in UFDs, taking into account imperfect retainment and different models of UFD evolution. The results are consistent with previous estimates (Beniamini et al. 2016) and with the constraints from the recently detected macronova accompanying a neutron star merger (GW170817). We also estimate the distribution of abundances predicted by these models. We find that $\sim 0.07$ of UFDs should have $r$-process enrichment. The results are consistent with both the mean values and the fluctuations of [Eu/Fe] in galactic metal poor stars, supporting the possibility that UFDs are the main 'building blocks' of the galactic halo population.

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arXiv2018

Cosmological evolution of the Nitrogen abundance

The abundance of nitrogen in the interstellar medium is a powerful probe of star for- mation processes over cosmological timescales. Since nitrogen can be produced both in massive and intermediate-mass stars with metallicity-dependent yields, its evolution is challenging to model, as evidenced by the differences between theoretical predictions and observations. In this work we attempt to identify the sources of these discrepancies using a cosmic evolution model. To further complicate matters, there is considerable dispersion in the abundances from observations of DLAs at redshift 2 - 3. We study the evolution of nitrogen with a detailed chemical evolution model and find good agreement with observations, including the relative abundances of N/O and N/Si ratios. We find that the principal contribution of nitrogen comes from intermediate mass stars, with the exception of systems with the lowest N/H, where nitrogen production might possibly be dominated by massive stars. This last result could be strengthened if stellar rotation which is important at low metallicity can produce significant amounts of nitrogen. Moreover, these systems likely reside in host galaxies with stellar masses below 10**8.5 solar mass. We also study the origin of the observed dispersion in nitrogen abundances using the cosmological hydrodynamical simulations Horizon-AGN. We conclude that this dispersion can originate from two effects: differ- ence in the masses of the DLA host galaxies, and difference in the their position inside the galaxy.

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arXiv2017

Discovery of a new extragalactic source population of energetic particles

We report the discovery of a statistically significant hardening in the Fermi-LAT $γ$-ray spectrum of Centaurus A's core, with the spectral index hardening from $Γ_{1}=2.73 \pm 0.02$ to $Γ_{1}=2.29 \pm 0.07$ at a break energy of ($2.6 \pm 0.3$) GeV. Using a likelihood analysis, we find no evidence for flux variability in Cen A's core lightcurve above or below the spectral break when considering the entire 8 year period. Interestingly, however, the first $\sim3.5$ years of the low energy lightcurve shows evidence of flux variability at the $\sim3.5 σ$ confidence level. To understand the origin of this spectral break, we assume that the low energy component below the break feature originates from leptons in Centaurus A's radio jet and we investigate the possibility that the high energy component above the spectral break is due to an additional source of very high energy particles near the core of Cen A. We show for the first time that the observed $γ$-ray spectrum of an Active Galactic Nucleus is compatible with either a very large localized enhancement (referred to as a spike) in the dark matter halo profile or a population of millisecond pulsars. Our work constitutes the first robust indication that new $γ$-ray production mechanisms can explain the emission from active galaxies and could provide tantalizing first evidence for the clustering of heavy dark matter particles around black holes.

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arXiv2017

A Model For Halo Formation With Axion Mixed Dark Matter

There are several issues to do with dwarf galaxy predictions in the standard $Λ$CDM cosmology that have suscitated much recent debate about the possible modification of the nature of dark matter as providing a solution. We explore a novel solution involving ultra-light axions that can potentially resolve the missing satellites problem, the cusp-core problem, and the `too big to fail' problem. We discuss approximations to non-linear structure formation in dark matter models containing a component of ultra-light axions across four orders of magnitude in mass, $10^{-24}\text{ eV}\lesssim m_a \lesssim 10^{-20}\text{ eV}$, a range too heavy to be well constrained by linear cosmological probes such as the CMB and matter power spectrum, and too light/non-interacting for other astrophysical or terrestrial axion searches. We find that an axion of mass $m_a\approx 10^{-21}\text{ eV}$ contributing approximately $85\%$ of the total dark matter can introduce a significant kpc scale core in a typical Milky Way satellite galaxy in sharp contrast to a thermal relic with a transfer function cut off at the same scale, while still allowing such galaxies to form in significant number. Therefore ultra-light axions do not suffer from the \emph{Catch 22} that applies to using a warm dark matter as a solution to the small scale problems of cold dark matter. Our model simultaneously allows formation of enough high redshift galaxies to allow reconciliation with observational constraints, and also reduces the maximum circular velocities of massive dwarfs so that baryonic feedback may more plausibly resolve the predicted overproduction of massive MWG dwarf satellites.

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arXiv2013

Topology and Dark Energy: Testing Gravity in Voids

Modified gravity has garnered interest as a backstop against dark matter and dark energy (DE). As one possible modification, the graviton can become massive, which introduces a new scalar field - here with a Galileon-type symmetry. The field can lead to a nontrivial equation of state (EOS) of DE which is density-and-scale-dependent. Tension between Type Ia supernovae and Planck could be reduced. In voids the scalar field dramatically alters the EOS of DE, induces a soon-observable gravitational slip between the two metric potentials, and develops a topological defect (domain wall) due to a nontrivial vacuum structure for the field.

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arXiv2012

Evolution of the baryon fraction in the Local Group: accretion versus feedback at low and high z

Using hydrodynamical zoom simulations in the standard LCDM cosmology, we investigate the evolution of the distribution of baryons (gas and stars) in a local group-type universe. First, with standard star formation and supernova feedback prescriptions, we find that the mean baryonic fraction value estimated at the virial radius of the two main central objects (i.e. the Milky Way and Andromeda) is decreasing over time, and is 10-15% lower than the universal value, 0.166, at z=0. This decrease is mainly due to the fact that the amount of accretion of dissipative gas onto the halo, especially at low redshift, is in general much lower than that of the dissipationless dark matter. Indeed, a significant part of the baryons does not collapse onto the haloes and remains in their outskirts, mainly in the form of warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM). Moreover, during the formation of each object, some dark matter and baryons are also expelled through merger events via tidal disruption. In contrast to baryons, expelled dark matter can be more efficiently re-accreted onto the halo, enhancing both the reduction of fb inside Rv, and the increase of the mass of WHIM outside Rv. Varying the efficiency of supernovae feedback at low redshift does not seem to significantly affect these trends. Alternatively, when a significant fraction of the initial gas in the main objects is released at high redshifts by more powerful sources of feedback, such as AGN from intermediate mass black holes in lower mass galaxies, the baryonic fraction at the virial radius can have a lower value (fb~0.12) at low redshift. Hence physical mechanisms able to drive the gas out of the virial radius at high redshifts will have a stronger impact on the deficit of baryons in the mass budget of Milky Way type-galaxies at present times than those that expel the gas in the longer, late phases of galaxy formation.

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arXiv2012

The Current Status of Galaxy Formation

Understanding galaxy formation is one of the most pressing issues in cosmology. We review the current status of galaxy formation from both an observational and a theoretical perspective, and summarise the prospects for future advances.

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arXiv2012

The Chemical Signature of a Relic Star Cluster in the Sextans Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy - Implications for Near-Field Cosmology

We present tentative evidence for the existence of a dissolved star cluster at [Fe/H]=-2.7 in the Sextans dwarf spheroidal galaxy. We use the technique of chemical tagging to identify stars that are highly clustered in a multi-dimensional chemical abundance space (C-space). In a sample of six stars, three, possibly four stars are identified as potential cluster stars. The initial stellar mass of the parent cluster is estimated from two independent observations to M*,init=1.9^{+1.5}_{-0.9} (1.6^{+1.2}_{-0.8}) x 10^5 M_sol, assuming a Salpeter (Kroupa) initial mass function (IMF). If corroborated by follow-up spectroscopy, this star cluster is the most metal-poor system identified to date. Chemical signatures of remnant clusters in dwarf galaxies like Sextans provide us with a very powerful probe to the high-redshift Universe. From available observational data, we argue that the average star cluster mass in the majority of the newly discovered ultra-faint dwarf galaxies was notably lower than it is in the Galaxy today and possibly lower than in the more luminous, classical dwarf spheroidal galaxies. Furthermore, the mean cumulative metallicity function of the dwarf spheroidals falls below that of the ultra-faints, which increases with increasing metallicity as predicted from our stochastic chemical evolution model. These two findings, together with a possible difference in the <[Mg/Fe]> ratio suggest that the ultra-faint dwarf galaxy population, or a significant fraction thereof, and the dwarf spheroidal population, were formed in different environments and would thus be distinct in origin.

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arXiv2011

Enhancements to velocity-dependent dark matter interactions from tidal streams and shells in the Andromeda galaxy

Dark matter substructure around nearby galaxies provides an interesting opportunity for confusion-free indirect detection of dark matter. We calculate the boost over a smooth background distribution of dark matter for gamma-ray emission from dark matter self-annihilations in tidal structure in M31, assuming a cross-section inversely proportional to the relative velocities of the dark matter particles as proposed by the Sommerfeld effect. The low velocity of the material in the structure results in a significant increase in gamma-ray emission compared to both the background halo and the predicted emission for a velocity-independent cross section. We also calculate the expected signal for Fermi, for reasonable choices of the dark matter parameters. We find that for a cross section proportional to the inverse-square of the relative velocity, the enhancement to the annihilation rate is sufficient to test the velocity dependence of the cross section by spatial correlation with the stellar component of the stream, given sufficient detector sensitivity.

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arXiv2011

Most massive halos with Gumbel Statistics

We present an analytical calculation of the extreme value statistics for dark matter halos - that is, the probability distribution of the most massive halo within some region of the universe of specified shape and size. Our calculation makes use of the counts-in-cells formalism for the correlation functions, and the halo bias derived from the Sheth-Tormen mass function. We demonstrate the power of the method on spherical regions, comparing the results to measurements in a large cosmological dark matter simulation and achieving good agreement. Particularly good fits are obtained for the most likely value of the maximum mass and for the high-mass tail of the distribution, relevant in constraining cosmologies by observations of most massive clusters.

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arXiv2010

The massive black hole-velocity dispersion relation and the halo baryon fraction: a case for positive AGN feedback

Force balance considerations put a limit on the rate of AGN radiation momentum output, $L/c$, capable of driving galactic superwinds and reproducing the observed $\mbh -σ$ relation between black hole mass and spheroid velocity dispersion. We show that black holes cannot supply enough momentum in radiation to drive the gas out by pressure alone. Energy-driven winds give a $\mbh -σ$ scaling favoured by a recent analysis but also fall short energetically once cooling is incorporated. We propose that outflow-triggering of star formation by enhancing the intercloud medium turbulent pressure and squeezing clouds can supply the necessary boost, and suggest possible tests of this hypothesis. Our hypothesis simultaneously can account for the observed halo baryon fraction.

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arXiv2010

Chemical signatures of the first star clusters

The chemical abundance patterns of the oldest stars in the Galaxy are expected to contain residual signatures of the first stars in the early universe. Numerous studies attempt to explain the intrinsic abundance scatter observed in some metal-poor populations in terms of chemical inhomogeneities dispersed throughout the early Galactic medium due to discrete enrichment events. Just how the complex data and models are to be interpreted with respect to "progenitor yields" remains an open question. Here we show that stochastic chemical evolution models to date have overlooked a crucial fact. Essentially all stars today are born in highly homogeneous star clusters and it is likely that this was also true at early times. When this ingredient is included, the overall scatter in the abundance plane [Fe/H] vs. [X/Fe] (C-space), where X is a nucleosynthetic element, can be much less than derived from earlier models. Moreover, for moderately flat cluster mass functions (gamma < 2), and/or for mass functions with a high mass cut-off (M_max > 10^5 M_sun), stars exhibit a high degree of clumping in C-space that can be identified even in relatively small data samples. Since stellar abundances can be modified by mass transfer in close binaries, clustered signatures are essential for deriving the yields of the first supernovae. We present a statistical test to determine whether a given set of observations exhibit such behaviour. Our initial work focusses on two dimensions in C-space, but we show that the clustering signal can be greatly enhanced by additional abundance axes. The proposed experiment will be challenging on existing 8-10m telescopes, but relatively straightforward for a multi-object echelle spectrograph mounted on a 25-40m telescope.

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arXiv2010

The Luminosity, Mass, and Age Distributions of Compact Star Clusters in M83 Based on HST/WFC3 Observations

The newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on the Hubble Space Telescope has been used to obtain multi-band images of the nearby spiral galaxy M83. These new observations are the deepest and highest resolution images ever taken of a grand-design spiral, particularly in the near ultraviolet, and allow us to better differentiate compact star clusters from individual stars and to measure the luminosities of even faint clusters in the U band. We find that the luminosity function for clusters outside of the very crowded starburst nucleus can be approximated by a power law, dN/dL \propto L^{alpha}, with alpha = -2.04 +/- 0.08, down to M_V ~ -5.5. We test the sensitivity of the luminosity function to different selection techniques, filters, binning, and aperture correction determinations, and find that none of these contribute significantly to uncertainties in alpha. We estimate ages and masses for the clusters by comparing their measured UBVI,Halpha colors with predictions from single stellar population models. The age distribution of the clusters can be approximated by a power-law, dN/dt propto t^{gamma}, with gamma=-0.9 +/- 0.2, for M > few x 10^3 Msun and t < 4x10^8 yr. This indicates that clusters are disrupted quickly, with ~80-90% disrupted each decade in age over this time. The mass function of clusters over the same M-t range is a power law, dN/dM propto M^{beta}, with beta=-1.94 +/- 0.16, and does not have bends or show curvature at either high or low masses. Therefore, we do not find evidence for a physical upper mass limit, M_C, or for the earlier disruption of lower mass clusters when compared with higher mass clusters, i.e. mass-dependent disruption. We briefly discuss these implications for the formation and disruption of the clusters.

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arXiv2010

A 43-GHz Survey in the ELAIS N2 Area

We describe a survey in the ELAIS N2 region with the VLA at 43.4 GHz, carried out with 1627 independent snapshot observations in D-configuration and covering about 0.5 square degrees. One certain source is detected, a previously-catalogued flat-spectrum QSO at z=2.2. A few (<5) other sources may be present at about the 3sigma level, as determined from positions of source-like deflections coinciding with blue stellar objects, or with sources from lower-frequency surveys. Independently we show how all the source-like detections identified in the data can be used with a maximum-likelihood technique to constrain the 43-GHz source counts at a level of ~7 mJy. Previous estimates of the counts at 43 GHz, based on lower-frequency counts and spectral measurements, are consistent with these constraints, although the present results are suggestive of somewhat higher surface densities at the 7 mJy level. They do not provide direct evidence of intrusion of a previously unknown source population, although the several candidate sources need examination before such a population can be ruled out.

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arXiv2010

Supernova Remnants and the Interstellar Medium of M83: Imaging & Photometry with WFC3 on HST

We present Wide Field Camera 3 images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope within a single field in the southern grand design star-forming galaxy M83. Based on their size, morphology and photometry in continuum-subtracted H$α$, [\SII], H$β$, [\OIII] and [\OII] filters, we have identified 60 supernova remnant candidates, as well as a handful of young ejecta-dominated candidates. A catalog of these remnants, their sizes and, where possible their H$α$ fluxes are given. Radiative ages and pre-shock densities are derived from those SNR which have good photometry. The ages lie in the range $2.62 < log(τ_{\rm rad}/{\rm yr}) < 5.0$, and the pre-shock densities at the blast wave range over $0.56 < n_0/{\rm cm^{-3}} < 1680$. Two populations of SNR have been discovered. These divide into a nuclear and spiral arm group and an inter-arm population. We infer an arm to inter-arm density contrast of 4. The surface flux in diffuse X-rays is correlated with the inferred pre-shock density, indicating that the warm interstellar medium is pressurised by the hot X-ray plasma. We also find that the interstellar medium in the nuclear region of M83 is characterized by a very high porosity and pressure and infer a SNR rate of one per 70-150 yr for the nuclear ($R<300 $pc) region. On the basis of the number of SNR detected and their radiative ages, we infer that the lower mass of Type II SNe in M83 is $M_{\rm min} = 16^{+7}_ {-5}$ M$_{\odot}$. Finally we give evidence for the likely detection of the remnant of the historical supernova, SN1968L.

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