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Michael Blanton

Publications and source records attributed to Michael Blanton.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Data Release 9 Spectroscopic Galaxy Sample

We present measurements of galaxy clustering from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III). These use the Data Release 9 (DR9) CMASS sample, which contains 264,283 massive galaxies covering 3275 square degrees with an effective redshift z=0.57 and redshift range 0.43 < z < 0.7. Assuming a concordance Lambda-CDM cosmological model, this sample covers an effective volume of 2.2 Gpc^3, and represents the largest sample of the Universe ever surveyed at this density, n = 3 x 10^-4 h^-3 Mpc^3. We measure the angle-averaged galaxy correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of 5σin both the correlation function and power spectrum. Combining with the SDSS-II Luminous Red Galaxy Sample, the detection significance increases to 6.7σ. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance to z=0.57 relative to the sound horizon DV /rs = 13.67 +/- 0.22 at z=0.57. Assuming a fiducial sound horizon of 153.19 Mpc, which matches cosmic microwave background constraints, this corresponds to a distance DV(z=0.57) = 2094 +/- 34 Mpc. At 1.7 per cent, this is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. We place this result alongside previous BAO measurements in a cosmological distance ladder and find excellent agreement with the current supernova measurements. We use these distance measurements to constrain various cosmological models, finding continuing support for a flat Universe with a cosmological constant.

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Clustering of Sloan Digital Sky Survey III Photometric Luminous Galaxies: The Measurement, Systematics and Cosmological Implications

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) surveyed 14,555 square degrees, and delivered over a trillion pixels of imaging data. We present a study of galaxy clustering using 900,000 luminous galaxies with photometric redshifts, spanning between $z=0.45$ and $z=0.65$, constructed from the SDSS using methods described in Ross et al. (2011). This data-set spans 11,000 square degrees and probes a volume of $3h^{-3} \rm{Gpc}^3$, making it the largest volume ever used for galaxy clustering measurements. We present a novel treatment of the observational systematics and its applications to the clustering signals from the data set. In this paper, we measure the angular clustering using an optimal quadratic estimator at 4 redshift slices with an accuracy of ~15% with bin size of delta_l = 10 on scales of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) (at l~40-400). We derive cosmological constraints using the full-shape of the power-spectra. For a flat Lambda CDM model, when combined with Cosmic Microwave Background Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7 (WMAP7) and H_0 constraints from 600 Cepheids observed by HST, we find Ω_Λ= 0.73 +/- 0.019 and H_0 to be 70.5 +/- 1.6 km/s/Mpc. For an open Lambda CDM model, when combined with WMAP7 + HST, we find $Ω_K = 0.0035 +/- 0.0054, improved over WMAP7+HST alone by 40%. For a wCDM model, when combined with WMAP7+HST+SN, we find w = -1.071 +/- 0.078, and H_0 to be 71.3 +/- 1.7 km/s/Mpc, which is competitive with the latest large scale structure constraints from large spectroscopic surveys such as SDSS Data Release 7 (DR7) (Reid et al. 2010, Percival et al. 2010, Montesano et al. 2011) and WiggleZ (Blake et al. 2011). The SDSS-III Data Release 8 (SDSS-III DR8) Angular Clustering Data allows a wide range of investigations into the cosmological model, cosmic expansion (via BAO), Gaussianity of initial conditions and neutrino masses. (abridged)

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Investigation of the errors in SDSS proper-motion measurements using samples of quasars

We investigate in detail the probability distribution function (pdf) of the proper-motion measurement errors in the SDSS+USNO-B proper-motion catalog of \citet{mun04} using clean quasar samples. The pdf of the errors is well-represented by a Gaussian core with extended wings, plus a very small fraction ($<0.1%$) of "outliers". We find while formally the pdf could be well-fit by a five-parameter fitting function, for many purposes it is also adequately to represent the pdf with a one-parameter approximation to this function. We apply this pdf to the calculation of the confidence intervals on the true proper motion for a SDSS+USNO-B proper motion measurement, and discuss several scientific applications of the SDSS proper motion catalogue. Our results have various applications in studies of the galactic structure and stellar kinematics. Specifically, they are crucial for searching hyper-velocity stars in the Galaxy.

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Ameliorating Systematic Uncertainties in the Angular Clustering of Galaxies: A Study using SDSS-III

We investigate the effects of potential sources of systematic error on the angular and photometric redshift, z_phot, distributions of a sample of redshift 0.4 < z < 0.7 massive galaxies whose selection matches that of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) constant mass sample. Utilizing over 112,778 BOSS spectra as a training sample, we produce a photometric redshift catalog for the galaxies in the SDSS DR8 imaging area that, after masking, covers nearly one quarter of the sky (9,913 square degrees). We investigate fluctuations in the number density of objects in this sample as a function of Galactic extinction, seeing, stellar density, sky background, airmass, photometric offset, and North/South Galactic hemisphere. We find that the presence of stars of comparable magnitudes to our galaxies (which are not traditionally masked) effectively remove area. Failing to correct for such stars can produce systematic errors on the measured angular auto-correlation function, w, that are larger than its statistical uncertainty. We describe how one can effectively mask for the presence of the stars, without removing any galaxies from the sample, and minimize the systematic error. Additionally, we apply two separate methods that can be used to correct the systematic errors imparted by any parameter that can be turned into a map on the sky. We find that failing to properly account for varying sky background introduces a systematic error on w. We measure w, in four z_phot slices of width 0.05 between 0.45 < z_phot < 0.65 and find that the measurements, after correcting for the systematic effects of stars and sky background, are generally consistent with a generic LambdaCDM model, at scales up to 60 degrees. At scales greater than 3 degrees and z_phot > 0.5, the magnitude of the corrections we apply are greater than the statistical uncertainty in w.

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Cosmological Constraints from Galaxy Clustering and the Mass-to-Number Ratio of Galaxy Clusters

We place constraints on the average density (Omega_m) and clustering amplitude (sigma_8) of matter using a combination of two measurements from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: the galaxy two-point correlation function, w_p, and the mass-to-galaxy-number ratio within galaxy clusters, M/N, analogous to cluster M/L ratios. Our w_p measurements are obtained from DR7 while the sample of clusters is the maxBCG sample, with cluster masses derived from weak gravitational lensing. We construct non-linear galaxy bias models using the Halo Occupation Distribution (HOD) to fit both w_p and M/N for different cosmological parameters. HOD models that match the same two-point clustering predict different numbers of galaxies in massive halos when Omega_m or sigma_8 is varied, thereby breaking the degeneracy between cosmology and bias. We demonstrate that this technique yields constraints that are consistent and competitive with current results from cluster abundance studies, even though this technique does not use abundance information. Using w_p and M/N alone, we find Omega_m^0.5*sigma_8=0.465+/-0.026, with individual constraints of Omega_m=0.29+/-0.03 and sigma_8=0.85+/-0.06. Combined with current CMB data, these constraints are Omega_m=0.290+/-0.016 and sigma_8=0.826+/-0.020. All errors are 1-sigma. The systematic uncertainties that the M/N technique are most sensitive to are the amplitude of the bias function of dark matter halos and the possibility of redshift evolution between the SDSS Main sample and the maxBCG sample. Our derived constraints are insensitive to the current level of uncertainties in the halo mass function and in the mass-richness relation of clusters and its scatter, making the M/N technique complementary to cluster abundances as a method for constraining cosmology with future galaxy surveys.

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Astrometry.net: Blind astrometric calibration of arbitrary astronomical images

We have built a reliable and robust system that takes as input an astronomical image, and returns as output the pointing, scale, and orientation of that image (the astrometric calibration or WCS information). The system requires no first guess, and works with the information in the image pixels alone; that is, the problem is a generalization of the "lost in space" problem in which nothing--not even the image scale--is known. After robust source detection is performed in the input image, asterisms (sets of four or five stars) are geometrically hashed and compared to pre-indexed hashes to generate hypotheses about the astrometric calibration. A hypothesis is only accepted as true if it passes a Bayesian decision theory test against a background hypothesis. With indices built from the USNO-B Catalog and designed for uniformity of coverage and redundancy, the success rate is 99.9% for contemporary near-ultraviolet and visual imaging survey data, with no false positives. The failure rate is consistent with the incompleteness of the USNO-B Catalog; augmentation with indices built from the 2MASS Catalog brings the completeness to 100% with no false positives. We are using this system to generate consistent and standards-compliant meta-data for digital and digitized imaging from plate repositories, automated observatories, individual scientific investigators, and hobbyists. This is the first step in a program of making it possible to trust calibration meta-data for astronomical data of arbitrary provenance.

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SDSS Galaxy Clustering: Luminosity & Colour Dependence and Stochasticity

Differences in clustering properties between galaxy subpopulations complicate the cosmological interpretation of the galaxy power spectrum, but can also provide insights about the physics underlying galaxy formation. To study the nature of this relative clustering, we perform a counts-in-cells analysis of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in which we measure the relative bias between pairs of galaxy subsamples of different luminosities and colours. We use a generalized chi-squared test to determine if the relative bias between each pair of subsamples is consistent with the simplest deterministic linear bias model, and we also use a maximum likelihood technique to further understand the nature of the relative bias between each pair. We find that the simple, deterministic model is a good fit for the luminosity-dependent bias on scales above ~2 Mpc/h, which is good news for using magnitude-limited surveys for cosmology. However, the colour-dependent bias shows evidence for stochasticity and/or non-linearity which increases in strength toward smaller scales, in agreement with previous studies of stochastic bias. Also, confirming hints seen in earlier work, the luminosity-dependent bias for red galaxies is significantly different from that of blue galaxies: both luminous and dim red galaxies have higher bias than moderately bright red galaxies, whereas the biasing of blue galaxies is not strongly luminosity-dependent. These results can be used to constrain galaxy formation models and also to quantify how the colour and luminosity selection of a galaxy survey can impact measurements of the cosmological matter power spectrum.

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Intrinsic Properties of Low-z SDSS Galaxies

Galaxies are seen from different viewing angles and their observed properties change as a function of viewing angle. In many circumstances we would rather know the intrinsic properties of galaxies - those properties that do not depend on viewing angle. For a large sample of galaxies it is possible to recover the intrinsic properties of galaxies, statistically, by looking for correlations with galaxy inclination, and then applying a correction to remove those dependencies. Studying the intrinsic properties of galaxies can give a different impression of the galaxy population and help avoid the mistake of connecting observed properties to quantities that don't depend on inclination like halo mass.

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The Tully-Fisher Relation and Its Residuals for a Broadly Selected Sample of Galaxies

We measure the relation between galaxy luminosity and disk circular velocity (the Tully-Fisher [TF] relation), in the g, r, i, and z-bands, for a broadly selected sample of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, with the goal of providing well defined observational constraints for theoretical models of galaxy formation. The input sample of 234 galaxies has a roughly flat distribution of absolute magnitudes in the range -18.5 > Mr > -22, and our only morphological selection is an axis-ratio cut b/a < 0.6 to allow accurate inclination corrections. Long-slit spectroscopy yields usable H-alpha rotation curves for 162 galaxies. Observational errors, including distance errors due to peculiar velocities, are small compared to the intrinsic scatter of the TF relation. The slope of the forward TF relation steepens from -5.5 +/- 0.2 mag/log(km/s) in the g-band to -6.6 +/- 0.2 mag/log(km/s) in the z-band. The intrinsic scatter is approximately 0.4 mag in all bands. The scatter is not dominated by rare outliers or by any particular class of galaxies, though it drops slightly, to 0.36 mag, if we restrict the sample to nearly bulgeless systems. Correlations of TF residuals with other galaxy properties are weak: bluer galaxies are significantly brighter than average in the g-band but only marginally brighter in the i-band; more concentrated galaxies are slightly fainter than average; and the TF residual is virtually independent of half-light radius, contrary to the trend expected for gravitationally dominant disks. The observed residual correlations do not account for most of the intrinsic scatter, implying that this scatter is instead driven largely by variations in the ratio of dark to luminous matter within the disk galaxy population.

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Density profiles of galaxy groups and clusters from SDSS galaxy-galaxy weak lensing

We present results of a measurement of the shape of the density profile of galaxy groups and clusters traced by 43 335 Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) with spectroscopic redshifts from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The galaxies are selected such that they are the brightest within a cylindrical aperture, split into two luminosity samples, and modeled as the sum of stellar and dark matter components. We present a detailed investigation of many possible systematic effects that could contaminate our signal and develop methods to remove them, including a detected intrinsic alignment for galaxies within 100 kpc/h of LRGs which we remove using photometric redshift information. The resulting lensing signal is consistent with NFW profile dark matter halos; the SIS profile is ruled out at the 96 (conservatively) and 99.96 per cent confidence level (CL) for the fainter and brighter lens samples (respectively) when we fit using lensing data between 40 kpc/h and 2 Mpc/h with total signal-to-noise of 19 and 25 for the two lens samples. The lensing signal amplitude suggests that the faint and bright sample galaxies typically reside in haloes of mass (2.9+/-0.4)x10^{13} M_{sun}/h and (6.7+/-0.8)x10^{13} M_{sun}/h respectively, in good agreement with predictions based on halo spatial density with normalization lower than the 'concordance' sigma_8=0.9. When fitting for the concentration parameter in the NFW profile, we find c = 5.0+/-0.6 (stat) +/-1 (sys), and c = 5.6+/-0.6 (stat) +/-1 (sys) for the faint and bright samples, consistent with Lambda-CDM simulations. We also split the bright sample further to determine masses and concentrations for cluster-mass halos, finding mass (1.3+/-0.2)x10^{14} M_{sun}/h for the sample of LRGs brighter than -22.6 in r. (Abridged)

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Willman 1 - A Galactic Satellite at 40 kpc With Multiple Stellar Tails

SDSSJ1049+5103, commonly known as Willman 1, is an extremely low-luminosity Milky Way companion whose properties are intermediate between those of globular clusters and dwarf spheroidals. In this paper, we use deep photometry to show that this object is old and moderately metal-poor, has a distance of 38 +/- 7 kpc, has an M_V of -2.5 mag, and has a half-light radius of 21 +/- 7 pc, consistent with previous estimates. The spatial distribution of Willman 1's main sequence stars shows 1) its total spatial extent exceeds its tidal radius for a range of assumptions about its total mass and its orbit and 2) the presence of prominent multi-directional stellar tails. The tidal interactions causing these tail features may explain the large physical size of Willman 1 relative to low-luminosity globular clusters. It is the most distant Galactic object yet known to display prominent tails, and is the only distant satellite to display multi-directional tails. Although we cannot at present determine the cause of this unusual morphology, preliminary comparisons between the morphology of Willman 1 and published simulations suggest that it may be near the apocenter of its orbit, or that it may have interacted with another halo object. We find a significant difference between the luminosity functions of stars in the center and in the tails of Willman 1, strongly suggesting mass segregation much like that seen in Palomar 5. Although Willman 1 has more pronounced tidal tails than most confirmed Milky Way dwarf galaxies, because of its very low stellar mass we cannot at present rule out the possibility that it has a dark matter halo. (Abridged)

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The Small-scale Clustering of Luminous Red Galaxies via Cross-Correlation Techniques

We present the small-scale (0.2h^{-1} to 7h^{-1} Mpc) cross-correlations between 32,000 luminous early-type galaxies and a reference sample of 16 million normal galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Our method allows us to construct the spherically averaged, real-space cross-correlation function between the spectroscopic LRG sample and galaxies from the SDSS imaging. We report the cross-correlation as a function of scale, luminosity, and redshift. We find very strong luminosity dependences in the clustering amplitudes, up to a factor of 4 over a factor of 4 in luminosity, and measure this dependence with high signal-to-noise ratio. The luminosity dependence of bias is found to depend on scale, with more variation on smaller scales. The clustering as a function of scale is not a power law, but instead has a dip at 1h^{-1} Mpc and an excess on small scales. The fraction of red galaxies within the L* sample surrounding LRGs is a strong function of scale, as expected. However, the fraction of red galaxies evolves in redshift similarly on small and large scales, suggesting that cluster and field populations are changing in the same manner. The results highlight the advantage on small scales of using cross-correlation methods as a means of avoiding shot noise in samples of rare galaxies.

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The Rest-Frame Optical Luminosity Density, Color, and Stellar Mass Density of the Universe from z=0 to z=3

We present the evolution of the rest-frame optical luminosity density, of the integrated rest-frame optical color, and of the stellar mass density for a sample of Ks-band selected galaxies in the HDF-S. We derived the luminosity density in the rest-frame U, B, and V-bands and found that the luminosity density increases by a factor of 1.9+-0.4, 2.9+-0.6, and 4.9+-1.0 in the V, B, and U rest-frame bands respectively between a redshift of 0.1 and 3.2. We derived the luminosity weighted mean cosmic (U-B)_rest and (B-V)_rest colors as a function of redshift. The colors bluen almost monotonically with increasing redshift; at z=0.1, the (U-B)_rest and (B-V)_rest colors are 0.16 and 0.75 respectively, while at z=2.8 they are -0.39 and 0.29 respectively. We derived the luminosity weighted mean M/LV using the correlation between (U-V)_rest and log_{10} M/LV which exists for a range in smooth SFHs and moderate extinctions. We have shown that the mean of individual M/LV estimates can overpredict the true value by ~70% while our method overpredicts the true values by only ~35%. We find that the universe at z~3 had ~10 times lower stellar mass density than it does today in galaxies with LV>1.4 \times 10^{10} h_{70}^-2 Lsol. 50% of the stellar mass of the universe was formed by $z~1-1.5. The rate of increase in the stellar mass density with decreasing redshift is similar to but above that for independent estimates from the HDF-N, but is slightly less than that predicted by the integral of the SFR(z) curve.

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Stellar Masses and Star Formation Histories for 10^5 Galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We develop a new method to constrain the star formation histories, dust attenuation and stellar masses of galaxies. It is based on two stellar absorption line indices, the 4000 Angstrom break strength and the Balmer absorption line index Hdelta_A. Together, these indices allow us to constrain the mean stellar ages of galaxies and the fractional stellar mass formed in bursts over the past few Gyr. A comparison with broad band photometry then yields estimates of dust attenuation and of stellar mass. We generate a large library of Monte Carlo realizations of different star formation histories, including starbursts of varying strength and a range of metallicities. We use this library to generate median likelihood estimates of burst mass fractions, dust attenuation strengths, stellar masses and stellar mass-to-light ratios for a sample of 122,208 galaxies drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The typical 95% confidence range in our estimated stellar masses is +-40%. We study how the stellar mass-to-light ratios of galaxies vary as a function of absolute magnitude, concentration index and photometric pass-band and how dust attenuation varies as a function of absolute magnitude and 4000 Angstrom break strength. We also calculate how the total stellar mass of the present Universe is distributed over galaxies as a function of their mass, size, concentration, colour, burst mass fraction and surface mass density. We find that most of the stellar mass in the local Universe resides in galaxies that have stellar masses \~5\times 10^10 M_sol, half light radii ~3 kpc, and half- light surface mass densities ~10^9 M_sol/kpc^2. The distribution of D(4000) is strongly bimodal, showing a clear division between galaxies dominated by old stellar populations and galaxies with more recent star formation.

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Two-Dimensional Topology of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We present the topology of a volume-limited sample of 11,884 galaxies, selected from an apparent-magnitude limited sample of over 100,000 galaxies observed as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The data currently cover three main regions on the sky: one in the Galactic north and one in the south, both at zero degrees declination, and one area in the north at higher declination. Each of these areas covers a wide range of survey longitude but a narrow range of survey latitude, allowing the two dimensional genus to be measured. The genus curves of the SDSS sub-samples are similar, after appropriately normalizing these measurements for the different areas. We sum the genus curves from the three areas to obtain the total genus curve of the SDSS. The total curve has a shape similar to the genus curve derived from mock catalogs drawn from the Hubble Volume Lambda CDM simulation and is similar to that of a Gaussian random field. Likewise, comparison with the genus of the 2dFGRS, after normalization for the difference in area, reveals remarkable similarity in the topology of these samples. We test for the effects of galaxy type segregation by splitting the SDSS data into thirds, based on the u^*- r^* colors of the galaxies, and measure the genus of the reddest and bluest sub-samples. This red/blue split in u^*- r^* is essentially a split by morphology (Strateva et al. 2001). We find that the genus curve for the reddest galaxies exhibits a ``meatball'' shift of the topology -- reflecting the concentration of red galaxies in high density regions -- compared to the bluest galaxies and the full sample, in agreement with predictions from simulations.

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The luminosity density of red galaxies

A complete sample of $7.7\times 10^4$ galaxies with five-band imaging and spectroscopic redshifts from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is used to determine the fraction of the optical luminosity density of the Local Universe (redshifts $0.02<z<0.22$) emitted by red galaxies. The distribution in the space of rest-frame color, central surface brightness, and concentration is shown to be highly clustered and bimodal; galaxies fall primarily into one of two distinct classes. One class is red, concentrated and high in surface brightness; the other is bluer, less concentrated, and lower in central surface brightness. Elliptical and bulge-dominated galaxies preferentially belong to the red class. Even with a very restrictive definition of the red class that includes limits on color, surface brightness and concentration, the class comprises roughly one fifth of the number density of galaxies more luminous than $0.05 \Lstar$ and produces two fifths of the total cosmic galaxy luminosity density at $0.7 \mathrm{μm}$. The natural interpretation is that a large fraction of the stellar mass density of the Local Universe is in very old stellar populations.

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The GZK Feature in our Neighborhood of the Universe

We calculate numerically the spectrum of ultra-high energy cosmic rays on Earth assuming that their sources are distributed in space like the observed galaxies. We use the CfA2 and the PSCz galaxy redshift surveys to model the local galaxy distribution, properly taking into account the galaxy selection functions for each survey. When the survey selection effects are included, we find that the local overdensity is only a factor of two, an order of magnitude less than used in some earlier studies. An overdensity of two is not enough to bridge the gap between the predicted number of events above $10^{20}$ eV and the measured flux at these highest energies. This conclusion is particularly strong for soft injection spectra ($\propto E^{-3}$) where the observed number of events is 6 $σ$ higher than the expected one. However, if the injection spectrum is hard ($\propto E^{-2}$), the small local overdensity helps bring the present data within 2$σ$ of the low number of events predicted above $10^{20}$ eV. In this case, the Greisen-Zatzepin-Kuzmin cutoff is not a {\it cutoff} but rather a {\it feature} in the cosmic ray spectrum.

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The Distribution of [OII] Equivalent Widths of LCRS Galaxies

We present a simple functional form for the joint distribution of R-band luminosity and [OII] 3727 emission-line equivalent widths of galaxies, and show that this form is a good fit to the galaxies in the Las Campanas Redshift Survey. We find a relationship between [OII] equivalent width W and R-band luminosity L_R of the approximate form: \approx (10 Å) (L_R/L_{R,*})^{-1/2}, where L_{R,*} is the characteristic luminosity in the Schechter function. Because this joint distribution yields information about the relationship between stellar mass in a galaxy and its recent star-formation rate, it can be useful for testing theories of galaxy formation. Furthermore, understanding this joint distribution locally will make it easier to interpret the evolution of [OII] emission-line widths to higher redshifts.

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