arXiv subjects

Simona Gallerani

Publications and source records attributed to Simona Gallerani.

59 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2012

Far infra-red emission lines in high redshift quasars

We present Plateau de Bure Interferometer observations of far infra-red emission lines in BRI 0952-0115, a lensed quasar at z=4.4 powered by a super-massive black hole (M_BH=2x10^9 M_sun). In this source, the resolved map of the [CII] emission at 158 micron allows us to reveal the presence of a companion galaxy, located at \sim 10 kpc from the quasar, undetected in optical observations. From the CO(5-4) emission line properties we infer a stellar mass M*<2.2x10^10 M_sun, which is significantly smaller than the one found in local galaxies hosting black holes with similar masses (M* \sim 10^12 M_sun). The detection of the [NII] emission at 205 micron suggests that the metallicity in BRI 0952-0115 is consistent with solar, implying that the chemical evolution has progressed very rapidly in this system. We also present PdBI observations of the [CII] emission line in SDSSJ1148+5251, one of the most distant quasar known, at z=6.4. We detect broad wings in the [CII] emission line, indicative of gas which is outflowing from the host galaxy. In particular, the extent of the wings, and the size of the [CII] emitting region associated to them, are indicative of a quasar-driven massive outflow with the highest outflow rate ever found (dM/dt>3500 M_sun/yr).

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Multiscale Inference of Matter Fields and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from the Ly-alpha Forest

We present a novel Bayesian method for the joint reconstruction of cosmological matter density fields, peculiar velocities and power-spectra in the quasi-nonlinear regime. We study its applicability to the Ly-alpha forest based on multiple quasar absorption spectra. Our approach to this problem includes a multiscale, nonlinear, two-step scheme since the statistics describing the matter distribution depends on scale, being strongly non-Gaussian on small scales (< 0.1 h^{-1} Mpc) and closely lognormal on scales >~10 h^{-1} Mpc. The first step consists on performing 1D highly resolved matter density reconstructions along the line-of-sight towards z~2-3 quasars based on an arbitrary non-Gaussian univariate model for matter statistics. The second step consists on Gibbs-sampling based on conditional PDFs. The matter density field is sampled in real space with Hamiltonian-sampling using the Poisson/Gamma-lognormal model, while redshift distortions are corrected with linear Lagrangian perturbation theory. The power-spectrum of the lognormal transformed variable which is Gaussian distributed (and thus close to the linear regime) can consistently be sampled with the inverse Gamma distribution function. We test our method through numerical N-body simulations with a computational volume large enough (> 1 h^{-3} Gpc^3) to show that the linear power-spectra are nicely recovered over scales larger than >~20 h^{-1} Mpc, i.e. the relevant range where features imprinted by the baryon-acoustics oscillations (BAOs) appear.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2011

Cosmic density field reconstruction from Ly-alpha forest data

We present a novel, fast method to recover the density field through the statistics of the transmitted flux in high redshift quasar absorption spectra. The proposed technique requires the computation of the probability distribution function of the transmitted flux (P_F) in the Ly-alpha forest region and, as a sole assumption, the knowledge of the probability distribution function of the matter density field (P_Delta). We show that the probability density conservation of the flux and matter density unveils a flux-density (F-Delta) relation which can be used to invert the Ly-alpha forest without any assumption on the physical properties of the intergalactic medium. We test our inversion method at z=3 through the following steps: [i] simulation of a sample of synthetic spectra for which P_Delta is known; [ii] computation of P_F; [iii] inversion of the Ly-alpha forest through the F-Delta relation. Our technique, when applied to only 10 observed spectra characterized by a signal-to noise ratio S/N >= 100 provides an exquisite (relative error epsilon_Delta <~ 12 % in >~ 50 % of the pixels) reconstruction of the density field in >~ 90 % of the line of sight. We finally discuss strengths and limitations of the method.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2010

A decline and fall in the future of Italian Astronomy?

On May 27th 2010, the Italian astronomical community learned with concern that the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) was going to be suppressed, and that its employees were going to be transferred to the National Research Council (CNR). It was not clear if this applied to all employees (i.e. also to researchers hired on short-term contracts), and how this was going to happen in practice. In this letter, we give a brief historical overview of INAF and present a short chronicle of the few eventful days that followed. Starting from this example, we then comment on the current situation and prospects of astronomical research in Italy.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2008

Signatures of reionization on Lyman alpha emitters

We use a semi-analytic model of Lyman alpha emitters (LAEs) to constrain the reionization history. By considering two physically motivated scenarios in which reionization ends either early (ERM, z_i ~ 7) or late (LRM, z_i ~ 6), we fix the global value of the IGM neutral fraction (e.g. chi_{HI}=3 times 10^{-4}, 0.15 at z=6.56 for the ERM and LRM, respectively) leaving only the star formation efficiency and the effective escape fraction of Lya photons as free parameters. The ERM fits the observed LAE luminosity function (LF) at z=5.7 and 6.56 requiring no redshift evolution or mass dependence of the star formation efficiency, and LAE star formation rates (SFR) of 3-103 solar masses/year, contributing approximately 8% of the cosmic SFR density at z=5.7. The LRM requires a physically uncomfortable drop of approximately 4.5 times in the SFR of the emitters from z=6.5 to 5.7. Thus, the data seem to imply that the Universe was already highly ionized at z=6.56. The mass-dependent Lya transmissivity is between 0.36-0.51 (ERM) and less than 0.26 (LRM) at z=6.56. The LF data at z=4.5 imply an extra Lya line damping factor of approximately 0.25 possibly due to dust; the presence of a (clumpy) dust component with E(B-V) ~ 0.28 is also required to reproduce the observed large Lya equivalent widths at the same redshift. Additional useful information can be extracted from the line profile (weighted) skewness, found to be S_W=10-17 Angstrom for the two reionization models, which shows an interesting L_alpha-chi_{HI} anti-correlation, holding under the model assumptions. The shortcomings of the model and strategies to overcome them are discussed.

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