arXiv subjects

Joseph Silk

Publications and source records attributed to Joseph Silk.

481 records · Page 27Linked to original sources

arXiv1995

The Wiener-Filtered COBE DMR Data and Predictions for the Tenerife Experiment

We apply a Wiener filter to the two-year COBE DMR data. The resulting sky map has significantly reduced noise levels compared to the raw data: the most prominent hot and cold spots are significant at the 4-sigma level. Furthermore, the entire covariance matrix of the errors in the filtered sky map is known, and it is therefore possible to make constrained realizations of the microwave sky with the correct a posteriori probability distribution. The filtered DMR sky map is used to make predictions for the Tenerife experiment. Two prominent features are predicted in a region of the sky not yet analyzed by the Tenerife group. The presence of these features is a robust prediction of the standard cosmological paradigm; if these features are not observed, some of our fundamental assumptions must be incorrect.

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arXiv1995

The first generation of stars: first steps towards chemical evolution of galaxies

We argue that extreme metal-poor stars show a high dispersion in metallicity, because their abundances are the outcome of very few supernova events. Abundance anomalies should appear because of the discrete range of progenitor masses. There is a natural metallicity threshold of $Z/Z_\odot\sim 10^{-4}$ below which one would expect to find very few, if any, halo stars. Similar reasoning is applied to lower mass systems, such as metal-poor compact blue galaxies and Lyman alpha absorption line clouds seen towards high redshift quasars, where a somewhat higher threshold is inferred.

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arXiv1995

The Physics of Microwave Background Anisotropies

Cosmic microwave background anisotropies provide a vast amount of information on both structure formation in the universe and the background dynamics and geometry. The full physical content and detailed structure of anisotropies can be understood in a simple and intuitive fashion through a systematic investigation of the individual mechanisms for anisotropy formation, based on elementary gravitational and fluid dynamics.

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arXiv1994

Baryonic Dark Matter

In the first two of these lectures, I present the evidence for baryonic dark matter and describe possible forms that it may take. The final lecture discusses formation of baryonic dark matter, and sets the cosmological context.

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arXiv1994

Dynamical and Observable Constraints on RAMBOs: Robust Associations of Massive Baryonic Objects

If the halo dark matter consists of faint baryonic stars, then these objects probably formed at an early epoch within large associations with similar dynamical properties to globular or open clusters. We use the luminosity function of globular clusters as a function of galactocentric distance to provide a very strong constraint on the properties of RAMBOs. We show that at the solar radius, dynamical constraints confine such clusters to a bounded and narrow parameter space with effective radii between 1 pc and 15 pc, corresponding to masses between $ \sim 10 -10^4 M_\odot$ and $\sim 10^4-10^6M_\odot$, respectively. Compact and massive clusters are excluded by these constraints, and therefore cannot provide a heating source capable of explaining the observed correlation between age and velocity dispersion for disk stars. Less than 1\% of the halo could be within RAMBOs of mass $10^7M_\odot$;an order magnitude lower than required in the model proposed by Wasserman \& Salpeter. Neither the IRAS or ISO infrared satellites have the capability to detect clusters of brown dwarfs within the dynamically allowed parameter space. Clusters of white dwarfs that formed a Hubble time ago have a surface brightness several magnitudes below the sky level; even clusters of low mass stars at the edge of the main sequence would remain invisible to the deepest K band surveys to date. We conclude that gravitational microlensing is the only method capable of constraining the abundance of dark matter in the form of clusters of stars. Recovering the dynamical properties of RAMBOs will be very difficult due to their large covering factor and low internal velocity dispersion.

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arXiv1994

The Imprint of $Ω$ on the Cosmic Microwave Background

We investigate the dependence of large angular scale cosmic microwave background anisotropies on various initial conditions, including both adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations and the initial power law index $n$, in a variety of low-$Ω$ cosmological models. Cosmological constant- dominated flat models and inflationary open adiabatic models, with $n_{\rm eff}<1$, and open isocurvature models, with $n_{\rm eff} \simeq 2$, are significantly constrained by the present observations.

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arXiv1994

Imprints of Galaxy Clsutering Evolution on Delta T / T

The nonlinear evolution of matter clustering induces temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. The fluctuations in temperature are produced at a relatively low redshift, $z\simlt 10$, and consequently are not affected by the uncertain reionization proccesses that occurred at earlier epochs. The amplitude of the effect depends on the evolution model assumed for galaxy clustering. For plausible parameter choices, the temperature fluctuations are in the range $10^{-6}\simlt ΔT/T \simlt 10^{-5}.$ Observed limits on $ΔT/T $ would be violated if nonlinear clustering on present cluster scales commenced prior to $z\sim 10.$

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arXiv1994

Reionization and the Cosmic Microwave Background

If the COBE detection of CMB fluctuations is used to normalize the power spectrum of primordial density fluctuations in a cold dark matter--dominated universe, early reionization is likely to result in a substantial diminution of primordial temperature fluctuations on degree scales. I argue that the reionization may be non--Gaussian because of feedback effects. Secondary fluctuations on arc--minute scales provide an important probe of the efficiency of rescattering.

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arXiv1994

Wiener Filtering of the COBE DMR Data

We derive an optimal linear filter to suppress the noise from the COBE DMR sky maps for a given power spectrum. We then apply the filter to the first-year DMR data, after removing pixels within $20^\circ$ of the Galactic plane from the data. The filtered data have uncertainties 12 times smaller than the noise level of the raw data. We use the formalism of constrained realizations of Gaussian random fields to assess the uncertainty in the filtered sky maps. In addition to improving the signal-to-noise ratio of the map as a whole, these techniques allow us to recover some information about the CMB anisotropy in the missing Galactic plane region. From these maps we are able to determine which hot and cold spots in the data are statistically significant, and which may have been produced by noise. In addition, the filtered maps can be used for comparison with other experiments on similar angular scales.

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arXiv1994

Power Spectrum Constraints from Spectral Distortions in the Cosmic Microwave Background

%The content of this replacement paper is identical to the original. %We have attempted to fix the postscript so that it will print out on %a larger number of printers. Using recent experimental limits on $μ$ distortions from COBE FIRAS, and the large lever-arm spanning the damping of sub-Jeans scale fluctuations to the scale of the COBE DMR fluctuations, we set a constraint on the slope of the primordial power spectrum $n$. It is possible to analytically calculate the contribution over the full range of scales and redshifts, correctly taking into account fluctuation growth and damping as well as thermalization processes. We find that the 95\% upper limit is weakly dependent on cosmological parameters, e.g. $n<1.54 (h=0.5)$ and $n<1.56 (h=1.0)$ for $Ω_0=1$ with marginally weaker constraints for $Ω_0<1$ in a flat $Ω_0 +Ω_Λ=1$ universe.

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arXiv1993

Reionization and Cosmic Microwave Anisotropies

The effects of reionization, occurring after standard recombination in cold dark matter-dominated models, on CMB anisotropies are investigated. Late-time reionization reduces the CMB anisotropies, in particular, on degree scales. It is found that constraints on cold dark matter-dominated models from the highest frequency channel of the 9-point South Pole data are significantly relaxed for models which are consistent with Big Bang nucleosynthesis if reionization is assumed to have occurred by redshift $\sim 20.$

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arXiv1993

Cosmic Variance in CMB Anisotropies: From $1^{\circ}$ to COBE

Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies that result from quantum fluctuations during inflation are explored and the impact of their ``cosmic variance'' on the ability to use existing data to probe inflationary models is studied. We calculate the rms temperature fluctuation, and its cosmic variance, for a number of experiments and for models with primordial power spectra which range from $n={1\over 2}$ to $1$. We find: (1) cosmic variance obscures the information which can be extracted, so a comparison of the rms temperature fluctuation on small scales with the COBE result can fix $n$ to only $\approx\pm 0.2$ at best; (2) measurements of the rms fluctuation on $1^{\circ}$ scales may not allow one to unambiguously infer the tensor contribution to the COBE anisotropy; (3) comparison of this contribution with the predictions of inflation are ambiguous if the quadrupole anisotropy alone is utilized. We discuss means for minimizing the uncertainty due to cosmic variance in comparisons between experiments.

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arXiv1993

Reionization and cosmic microwave background distortions: a complete treatment of second order Compton scattering

The ionization history of the universe provides a major source of ambiguity in constraining cosmological models using small angular scale microwave background anisotropies. To clarify these issues, we consider a complete treatment of Compton scattering to second order, an approach which may be applicable to other astrophysical situations. We find that only the ${\cal O} (v)$ Doppler effect, and the ${\cal O} (vδ)$ Vishniac effect are important for recent last scattering epochs; the ${\cal O} (v^2)$ Doppler effect is not significant on any angular scale, and other higher-order effects are completely negligible. However the ${\cal O}(v^2)$ effect does lead to \Cy\ distortions, which although generally below current constraints, set an unavoidable minimum level in reionization models. We consider the small-angle approximation for the Vishniac effect in detail, and show several improvements over previous treatments, particularly for low $Ω_0$. For standard cold dark matter models, the effect of reionization is to redistribute the anisotropies to arcminute scales; late reionization leads to partially erased primary fluctuations and a secondary contribution of comparable magnitude. Using recent anisotropy limits from the ATCA experiment, we set new constraints on baryonic dark matter models. Stronger constraints are imposed (in second order) upon models with higher Hubble constant, steeper $n$, and higher density. These limits depend on the specific ionization history assumed, but the factor gained by lowering the ionization fraction is generally small, and may be tested by currently-planned

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