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Ping He

Publications and source records attributed to Ping He.

103 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

Distribution Function in Center of Dark Matter Halo

N-body simulations of dark matter halos show that the density profiles of halos behave as $ρ(r)\propto r^{-α(r)}$, where the density logarithmic slope $α\simeq 1\sim1.5$ in the center and $α\simeq 3\sim 4$ in the outer parts of halos. However, some observations are not in agreement with simulations in the very central region of halos. The simulations also show that velocity dispersion anisotropy parameter $β\approx 0$ in the inner part of the halo and the so called "pseudo phase-space density" $ρ/σ^3$ behaves as a power-law in radius $r$. With these results in mind, we study the distribution function and the pseudo phase-space density $ρ/σ^3$ of the center of dark matter halos and find that they are closely-related.

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X-ray Emission of Baryonic Gas in the Universe: Luminosity-Temperature Relationship and Soft-Band Background

We study the X-ray emission of baryon fluid in the universe using the WIGEON cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. It has been revealed that cosmic baryon fluid in the nonlinear regime behaves like Burgers turbulence, i.e. the fluid field consists of shocks. Like turbulence in incompressible fluid, the Burgers turbulence plays an important role in converting the kinetic energy of the fluid to thermal energy and heats the gas. We show that the simulation sample of the $Λ$CDM model without adding extra heating sources can fit well the observed distributions of X-ray luminosity versus temperature ($L_{\rm x}$ vs. $T$) of galaxy groups and is also consistent with the distributions of X-ray luminosity versus velocity dispersion ($L_{\rm x}$ vs. $σ$). Because the baryonic gas is multiphase, the $L_{\rm x}-T$ and $L_{\rm x}-σ$ distributions are significantly scattered. If we describe the relationships by power laws $L_{\rm x}\propto T^{α_{LT}}$ and $L_{\rm x}\propto σ^{α_{LV}}$, we find $α_{LT}>2.5$ and $α_{LV}>2.1$. The X-ray background in the soft $0.5-2$ keV band emitted by the baryonic gas in the temperature range $10^5 50\barρ_{\rm dm}$ is generally clustered and discretely distributed. Therefore, almost all of the soft X-ray background comes from clustered sources, and the contribution from truly diffuse gas is probably negligible. This point agrees with current X-ray observations.

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Low-Redshift Cosmic Baryon Fluid on Large Scales and She-Leveque Universal Scaling

We investigate the statistical properties of cosmic baryon fluid in the nonlinear regime, which is crucial for understanding the large-scale structure formation of the universe. With the hydrodynamic simulation sample of the Universe in the cold dark matter model with a cosmological constant, we show that the intermittency of the velocity field of cosmic baryon fluid at redshift z=0 in the scale range from the Jeans length to about 16 Mpc/h can be extremely well described by She-Leveque's universal scaling formula. The baryon fluid also possesses the following features: (1) for volume weight statistics, the dissipative structures are dominated by sheets, and (2) the relation between the intensities of fluctuations is hierarchical. These results imply that the evolution of highly evolved cosmic baryon fluid is similar to a fully developed turbulence.

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The velocity field of baryonic gas in the universe

The dynamic evolution of the baryonic intergalactic medium (IGM) caused by the underlying dark matter gravity is governed by the Navier-Stokes equations in which many cooling and heating processes are involved. However, it has long been recognized that the growth mode dynamics of cosmic matter clustering can be sketched by a random force driven Burgers' equation if cooling and heating are ignored. Just how well the dynamics of the IGM can be described as a Burgers fluid has not been fully investigated probably because cooling and heating are essential for a detailed understanding of the IGM. Using IGM samples produced by a cosmological hydrodynamic simulation in which heating and cooling processes are properly accounted for, we show that the IGM velocity field in the nonlinear regime shows the features of a Burgers fluid, that is, when the Reynolds number is high, the velocity field consists of an ensemble of shocks. Consequently, (1) the IGM velocity $v$ is generally smaller than that of dark matter; (2) for the smoothed field, the IGM velocity shows tight correlation with dark matter given by $v \simeq s v_{dm}$, with $s<1$, such that the lower the redshift, the smaller $s$; (3) the velocity PDFs are asymmetric between acceleration and deceleration events; (4) the PDF of velocity difference $Δv=v(x+r)-v(x)$ satisfies the scaling relation for a Burgers fluid, i.e., $P(Δv)=(1 r^y)F(Δv/r^y)$. We find the scaling function and parameters for the IGM which are applicable to the entire scale range of the samples (0.26 - 8 h$^{-1}$ Mpc). These properties show that the similarity mapping between the IGM and dark matter is violated on scales much larger than the Jeans length of the IGM.

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A Parameter-free Statistical Measurement of Halos with Power Spectra

We show that, in the halo model of large-scale structure formation, the difference between the Fourier and the DWT (discrete wavelet transform) power spectra provides a statistical measurement of the halos. This statistical quantity is free from parameters related to the shape of the mass profile and the identification scheme of halos. That is, the statistical measurement is invariant in the sense that models with reasonably defined and selected parameters of the halo models should yield the same difference of the Fourier and DWT spectra. This feature is useful to extract ensemble averaged properties of halos, which cannot be obtained with the identification of individual halo. To demonstrate this point, we show with WIGEON hydrodynamical simulation samples that the spectrum difference provides a quantitative measurement of the discrepancy of the distribution of baryonic gas from that of the underlying dark matter field within halos. We also show that the mass density profile of halos in physical space can be reconstructed with this statistical measurement. This profile essentially is the average over an ensemble of halos, including well virialized halos as well as halos with significant internal substructures. Moreover, this reconstruction is sensitive to the tail of the mass density profile. We showed that the profile with $1/r^3$ tail gives very different result from that of $1/r^2$. Other possible applications of this method are discussed as well.

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Time changes of symmetric diffusions and Feller measures

We extend the classical Douglas integral, which expresses the Dirichlet integral of a harmonic function on the unit disk in terms of its value on boundary, to the case of conservative symmetric diffusion in terms of Feller measure, by using the approach of time change of Markov processes.

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Distributions of the Baryon Fraction on Large Scales in the Universe

(Abridged) The nonlinear evolution of a system consisting of baryons and dark matter is generally characterized by strong shocks and discontinuities. The baryons slow down significantly at postshock areas of gravitational strong shocks, which can occur in high overdense as well as low overdense regions. Consequently, the baryon fraction would be nonuniform on large scales. We studied these phenomena with simulation samples produced by the WENO hybrid cosmological hydrodynamic/N-body code. We find that the baryon fraction in high mass density regions is lower on average than the cosmic baryon fraction, and many baryons accumulate in the regions with moderate mass density to form a high baryon fraction phase (HBFP). In dense regions with rho>100, which are the possible hosts for galaxy clusters, the baryon fraction can be lower than the cosmic baryon fraction by about 10%--20% at z ~ 0. Our simulation samples show that about 3% of the cosmic baryon budget was hidden in the HBFP at redshift z=3, while this percentage increases to about 14% at the present day. The gas in the HBFP cannot be detected either by Ly-alpha forests of QSO absorption spectra or by soft X-ray background. That is, the HBFP would be missed in the baryon budget given by current observations.

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Statistical features of 21-cm emission from the epoch between reionization and Gunn-Peterson transparency

We investigate the 21 cm emission from the epoch between reionization z_r and Gunn-Peterson transparency z_{gp}. According to the lognormal model of the thermal history around reionization, hydrogen clouds in z_r > z > z_{gp} are hot and a predominant part of baryonic gas is ionized, but still opaque to Ly-alpha photons. Therefore, 21 cm emission is a distinctive characteristic of this epoch. We show that the 21 cm emission comes from both uncollapsed and collapsing hydrogen clouds. The spatial distribution of the brightness temperature excess $δT_b$ is highly non-Gaussian. It consists of spikes with high $δT_b$ and a low $δT_b$ area between the spikes. The field has the following statistical features: (1) the one-point distributions of $δT_b$ are described approximately by power-law tailed probability distribution functions; (2) the nth-order moment of $δT_b$ is increasing much faster with n than that of a Gaussian field, but slower than that of a lognormal field; (3) the scale-scale correlation of the $δT_b$ field is significant for all scales larger than the Jeans length of the gas. These features would be useful for distinguishing the 21 cm emission of the early clustering from the noise of foreground contamination.

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Temperature and Entropy Fields of Baryonic Gas in the Universe

(Abridged)The temperature (T) and entropy (S) fields of baryonic gas/IGM are analyzed using simulation samples by a cosmological hydro/N-body code. We show that in the nonlinear regime the dynamical similarity between the IGM and dark matter will be broken by strong shocks. The heating and entropy production by the shocks breaks the IGM into multiple phases. The mean entropy, or the cosmological entropy floor, is found to be more than 100 h^(-1/3) keV cm^2 in all regions when z < 1. At redshift z ~ 2 - 3, high-entropy gas (S > 50 h^(-1/3) keV cm^2) mostly resides in areas on scales larger than 1 h^(-1) Mpc and with density $ρ_{dm}>10^2$. Therefore, gravitational shocks are an effective preheating mechanism of the IGM, and probably enough to provide the entropy excess of clusters and groups if the epoch of the gas falling in cluster cores is not earlier than z ~ 2 - 3. On the other hand, at redshifts z < 4, there is always a more than 90% volume of the low dark matter mass density regions filled by the IGM with T < 10^4.5 K. Therefore, the multiphased character and non-Gaussianity of the IGM field would explain the high-temperature and high-entropy gas observed in groups and clusters.

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Constraints on primordial black holes and primeval density perturbations from the epoch of reionization

We investigate the constraint on the abundance of primordial black holes (PBHs) and the spectral index $n$ of primeval density perturbations given by the ionizing photon background at the epoch of reionization. Within the standard inflationary cosmogony, we show that the spectral index $n$ of the power-law power spectrum of primeval density perturbations should be $n<$1.27. Since the universe is still optical thick at the reionization redshift $z\sim 6$ - 8, this constraint is independent of the unknown parameter of reheating temperature of the inflation. The ionizing photon background from the PBHs can be well approximated by a power law spectrum $J(ν)\proptoν^3$, which is greatly different from those given by models of massive stars and quasars.

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Faint field galaxies: an explanation of the faint blue excess using number evolution models

Pure luminosity evolution models for galaxies provide an unacceptable fit to the redshifts and colors of faint galaxies. In this paper we demonstrate, using HST morphological number counts derived both from the $I_{814}$-band of WFPC2 in the Medium Deep Survey (MDS) and the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) and from the $H_{1.6}$-band of NICMOS, and ground-based spectroscopic data of the Hawaii Deep Field and the Canada-France Redshift Survey, that number evolution is necessary for galaxies, regardless of whether the cosmic geometry is flat, open, or $Λ$-dominated. Furthermore, we show that the number evolution is small at redshifts of z<1, but large at z>1, and that this conclusion is valid for all the three cosmological models under consideration. If the universe is open or $Λ$-dominated, the models, which are subject to the constraint of the conservation of the comoving mass density of galaxies, naturally predict a population of star-forming galaxies with the redshift distribution peaking at $z=2\sim3$, which seems to be consistent with the recent findings from Lyman-break photometric selection techniques. If the cosmological model is flat, however, the conservation of the comoving mass density is invalid. Hence, in order to account for the steep slope of B-band number counts at faint magnitudes in the flat universe, such a star-forming galaxy population has to be introduced ad hoc into the modelling alongside the merger assumption.

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Questions on pure luminosity evolution for ellipticals

The explanation for the existence of an excess population of faint blue galaxies (FBGs) has been a mystery for nearly two decades, and remains one of the grand astronomical issues to date. Existing models cannot explain all of the observational data such as galaxy number counts in the optical and infrared passbands and the redshift distributions of galaxies. Here, by modelling the morphological number counts derived from the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as the number counts in optical and infrared passbands, and the redshift and color distributions of galaxies obtained from ground-based observations, we show that the `FBG problem' cannot be resolved if elliptical galaxies are assumed to have formed in an instantaneous burst of star formation at high redshift with no subsequent star formation events, which is just the conventional scenario for formation and evolution of ellipticals. There exist great discrepancies between the observed $B-K$ color distribution and the predicted distribution for ellipticals by such a pure luminosity evolution (PLE) model in the context of the conventional scenario. Neither can the mild evolution (i.e., the star formation events have lasted for a longer time than those of the instantaneous burst and passive evolution since the formation of galaxies) for ellipticals be accepted in the context of PLE assumption. The introduction of dust extinction also cannot save the PLE models. This conclusion holds for each of the three cosmological models under consideration: flat, open and $Λ$-dominated. Hence, our investigation suggests that PLE assumption for elliptical galaxies is questionable, and number evolution may be essential for ellipticals.

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Modelling the number counts of early-type galaxies by pure luminosity evolution

In this paper, we explore the plausible luminosity evolution of early-type galaxies in different cosmological models by constructing a set of pure luminosity evolution (PLE) models via the choices of the star formation rate (SFR) parameters and formation redshift $z_f$ of galaxies, with the observational constraints derived from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) morphological number counts for elliptical and S0 galaxies of the Medium Deep Survey (MDS) and the Hubble Deep Field (HDF). We find that the number counts of early-type galaxies can be explained by the pure luminosity evolution models, without invoking exotic scenarios such as merging or introducing an additional population. But the evolution should be nearly passive, with a high $z_f$ assumed. The conclusion is valid in all of the three cosmological models we adopted in this paper. We also present the redshift distributions for three bins of observed magnitudes in F814w pass-band, to show at which redshift are the objects that dominate the counts at a given magnitude. The predictions of the redshift distribution of $22.5<b_j<24.0$ are also presented for comparison with future data.

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