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Sohrab Rahvar

Publications and source records attributed to Sohrab Rahvar.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
arXiv2015

Gravitational Microlensing I: A Unique Astrophysical Tool

In this article we review the astrophysical application of gravitational microlensing. After introducing the history of gravitational lensing, we present the key equations and concept of microlensing. The most frequent microlensing events are single-lens events and historically it has been used for searching dark matter in the form of compact astrophysical halo objects in the Galactic halo. We discuss about the degeneracy problem in the parameters of lens and perturbation effects that can partially break the degeneracy between the lens parameters. The rest of paper is about the astrophysical applications of microlensing. One of the important applications is in the stellar physics by probing the surface of source stars in the high magnification microlensing events. The astrometric and polarimetric observations will be complimentary for probing the atmosphere and stellar spots on the surface of source stars. Finally we discuss about the future projects as space based telescopes for parallax and astrometry observations of microlensing events. With this project, we would expect to produce a complete stellar and remnant mass function and study the structure of Galaxy in term of distribution of stars along our line of sight towards the centre of galaxy.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2014

Photometric, Astrometric and Polarimetric observations of gravitational microlensing events

The gravitational microlensing as a unique astrophysical tool can be used for studying the atmosphere of stars thousands of parsec far from us. This capability results from the bending of light rays in the gravitational field of a lens which can magnify the light of a background source star during the lensing. Moreover, one of properties of this light bending is that the circular symmetry of the source is broken by producing distorted images at either side of the lens position. This property makes the possibility of the observation of the polarization and the light centroid shift of images. Assigning vectors for these two parameters, they are perpendicular to each other in the simple and binary microlensing events, except in the fold singularities. In this work, we investigate the advantages of polarimetric and astrometric observations during microlensing events for (i) studying the surface of the source star and spots on it and (ii) determining the trajectory of source stars with respect to the lens. Finally we analyze the largest sample of microlensing events from the OGLE catalog and show that for almost ~ 4.3 per cent of events in the direction of the Galactic bulge, the polarization signals with large telescopes would be observable.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2013

Transient Weak-Lensing by Cosmological Dark Matter Microhaloes

We study the time variation of the apparent flux of cosmological point sources due to the transient weak lensing by dark matter microhaloes. Assuming a transverse motion of microhaloes with respect to our line of sight, we derive the correspondence between the temporal power spectrum of the weak lensing magnification, and the spatial power spectrum of density on small scales. Considering different approximations for the small scale structure of dark matter, we predict the apparent magnitude of cosmological point sources to vary by as much as $10^{-4}-10^{-3}$, due to this effect, within a period of a few months. This red photometric noise has an almost perfect gaussian statistics, to one part in $\sim 10^4$. We also compare the transient weak lensing power spectrum with the background effects such as the stellar microlensing on cosmological scales. A quasar lensed by a galaxy or cluster like SDSSJ1004+4112 strong lensing system, with multiple images, is a suitable system for this study as: (i) using the time-delay method between different images, we can remove the intrinsic variations of the quasar, and (ii) strong lensing enhances signals from the transient weak lensing. We also require the images to form at large angular separations from the center of the lensing structure, in order to minimize contamination by the stellar microlensing. With long-term monitoring of quasar strong lensing systems with a 10-meter class telescope, we can examine the existence of dark microhaloes as the building blocks of dark matter structures. Failure to detect this signal may either be caused by a breakdown of cold dark matter (CDM) hierarchy on small scales, or rather interpreted as evidence against CDM paradigm, e.g. in favor of modified gravity models.

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2013

Studying wave optics in the light curve of exoplanet microlensing

We study the wave optics features of gravitational microlensing by a binary lens composed of a planet and a parent star. In this system, the source star near the caustic line produces a pair of images in which they can play the role of secondary sources for the observer. This optical system is similar to the Young double-slit experiment. The coherent wave fronts from a source on the lens plane can form diffraction pattern on the observer plane. This diffraction pattern has two modes from the close- and wide-pair images. From the observational point of view, we study the possibility of detecting this effect through the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project in the resonance and high magnification channels of binary lensing. While the red giant sources do not seem satisfy the spatial coherency condition, during the caustic crossing, a small part of source traversing the caustic line can produce coherent pair images. Observations of wave optics effect in the longer wavelengths accompanied by optical observations of a microlensing event provide extra information from the parameter space of the planet. These observations can provide a new basis for study of exoplanets.

astro-ph.EP↗
arXiv2013

Simulation of optical interstellar scintillation

Stars twinkle because their light propagates through the atmosphere. The same phenomenon is expected on a longer time scale when the light of remote stars crosses an interstellar turbulent molecular cloud, but it has never been observed at optical wavelengths. The aim of the study described in this paper is to fully simulate the scintillation process, starting from the molecular cloud description as a fractal object, ending with the simulations of fluctuating stellar light curves. Fast Fourier transforms are first used to simulate fractal clouds. Then, the illumination pattern resulting from the crossing of background star light through these refractive clouds is calculated from a Fresnel integral that also uses fast Fourier transform techniques. Regularisation procedure and computing limitations are discussed, along with the effect of spatial and temporal coherency (source size and wavelength passband). We quantify the expected modulation index of stellar light curves as a function of the turbulence strength --characterised by the diffraction radius $R_{diff}$-- and the projected source size, introduce the timing aspects, and establish connections between the light curve observables and the refractive cloud. We extend our discussion to clouds with different structure functions from Kolmogorov-type turbulence. Our study confirms that current telescopes of ~4m with fast-readout, wide-field detectors have the capability of discovering the first interstellar optical scintillation effects. We also show that this effect should be unambiguously distinguished from any other type of variability through the observation of desynchronised light curves, simultaneously measured by two distant telescopes.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2011

Simulation of a strategy for the pixel lensing of M87 using the Hubble Space Telescope

In this work, we propose a new strategy for the pixel-lensing observation of M87 in the Virgo cluster using the {\it Hubble Space Telescope} (HST). In contrast to the previous observational strategy by Baltz et al., we show that a few days intensive observation with the duration of $\sim 90 $min in each HST orbit will increase the observational efficiency of the high-magnification events by more than one order of magnitude. We perform a Monte-Carlo simulation for this strategy and we show that the number of high magnification microlensing events will increase at the rate of 4.2 event per day with a typical transit time scale of 16 h. We also examine the possibility of observing mini-halo dark matter structures using pixel lensing.

astro-ph.GA↗
arXiv2011

Long range correlation in cosmic microwave background radiation

We investigate the statistical anisotropy and Gaussianity of temperature fluctuations of Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) data from {\it Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe} survey, using the multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis, rescaled range and scaled windowed variance methods. The multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis shows that CMB fluctuations has a long range correlation function with a multifractal behavior. By comparing the shuffled and surrogate series of CMB data, we conclude that the multifractality nature of temperature fluctuation of CMB is mainly due to the long-range correlations and the map is consistent with a Gaussian distribution.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2010

Structure formation in $f(R)$ gravity: A distinguishing probe between the dark energy and modified gravity

In this work, we study the large scale structure formation in the modified gravity in the framework of Palatini formalism and compare the results with the equivalent smooth dark energy models as a tool to distinguish between these models. Through the inverse method, we reconstruct the dynamics of universe, modified gravity action and the structure formation indicators like the screened mass function and gravitational slip parameter. Consequently, we extract the matter density power spectrum for these two models in the linear regime and show that the modified gravity and dark energy models predictions are slightly different from each other at large scales. It is also shown that the growth index in the modified gravity unlike to the dark energy models is a scale dependent parameter. We also compare the results with those from the modified gravity in the metric formalism. The modification on the structure formation can also change the CMB spectrum at large scales however due to the cosmic variance it is hard to detect this signature. We show that a large number of SNIa data in the order of 2000 will enable us to reconstruct the modified gravity action with a suitable confidence level and test the cosmic acceleration models by the structure formation.

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2010

Illuminating Hot Jupiters in caustic crossing

In recent years a large number of Hot Jupiters orbiting in a very close orbit around the parent stars have been explored with the transit and doppler effect methods. Here in this work we study the gravitational microlensing effect of a binary lens on a parent star with a Hot Jupiter revolving around it. Caustic crossing of the planet makes enhancements on the light curve of the parent star in which the signature of the planet can be detected by high precision photometric observations. We use the inverse ray shooting method with tree code algorithm to generate the combined light curve of the parent star and the planet. In order to investigate the probability of observing the planet signal, we do a Monte-Carlo simulation and obtain the observational optical depth of $τ\sim 10^{-8}$. We show that about ten years observations of Galactic Bulge with a network of telescopes will enable us detecting about ten Hot Jupiter with this method. Finally we show that the observation of the microlensing event in infra-red band will increase the probability for detection of the exo-planets.

astro-ph.EP↗
arXiv2010

Observational Constraints on the Modified Gravity Model (MOG) Proposed by Moffat: Using the Magellanic System

A simple model for the dynamics of the Magellanic Stream (MS), in the framework of modified gravity models is investigated. We assume that the galaxy is made up of baryonic matter out of context of dark matter scenario. The model we used here is named Modified Gravity (MOG) proposed by Moffat (2005). In order to examine the compatibility of the overall properties of the MS under the MOG theory, the observational radial velocity profile of the MS is compared with the numerical results using the $χ^2$ fit method. In order to obtain the best model parameters, a maximum likelihood analysis is performed. We also compare the results of this model with the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) halo model and the other alternative gravity model that proposed by Bekenstein (2004), so called TeVeS. We show that by selecting the appropriate values for the free parameters, the MOG theory seems to be plausible to explain the dynamics of the MS as well as the CDM and the TeVeS models.

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2009

Inverse problem: Reconstruction of modified gravity action in Palatini formalism by Supernova Type Ia data

We introduce in $f(R)$ gravity--Palatini formalism the method of inverse problem to extract the action from the expansion history of the universe. First, we use an ansatz for the scale factor and apply the inverse method to derive an appropriate action for the gravity. In the second step we use the Supernova Type Ia data set from the Union sample and obtain a smoothed function for the Hubble parameter up to the redshift~1.7. We apply the smoothed Hubble parameter in the inverse approach and reconstruct the corresponding action in $f(R)$ gravity. In the next step we investigate the viability of reconstruction method, doing a Monte-Carlo simulation we generate synthetic SNIa data with the quality of union sample and show that roughly more than 1500 SNIa data is essential to reconstruct correct action. Finally with the enough SNIa data, we propose two diagnosis in order to distinguish between the $Λ$CDM model and an alternative theory for the acceleration of the universe.

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2009

Observational tests of a two parameter power-law class modified gravity in Palatini formalism

{\bf{CONTEXT}}: In this work we propose a modified gravity action $f(R)=(R^n-R^n_{0})^{1/n}$ with two free parameters of $n$ and $R_{0}$ and derive the dynamics of a universe for this action in the Palatini formalism. {\bf {AIM}}: We do a cosmological comparison of this model with observed data to find the best parameters of a model in a flat universe. {\bf{METHOD}}: To constrain the free parameters of model we use SNIa type Ia data in two sets of gold and union samples, CMB-shift parameter, baryon acoustic oscillation, gas mass fraction in cluster of galaxies, and large-scale structure data. {\bf {RESULT}}: The best fit from the observational data results in the parameters of model in the range of $n=0.98^{+0.08}_{-0.08}$ and $Ω_M = 0.25_{+0.1}^{-0.1}$ with one sigma level of confidence where a standard $Λ$CDM universe resides in this range of solution. PACS numbers: 04.50.+h, 95.36.+x, 98.80.-k

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2009

Magellanic Stream: A Possible Tool for Studying Dark Halo Model

We model the dynamics of Magellanic Stream with the ram-pressure scenario in the logarithmic and power-law galactic halo models and construct numerically the past orbital history of Magellanic clouds and Magellanic Stream. The parameters of models include the asymptotic rotation velocity of spiral arms, halo flattening, core radius and rising or falling parameter of rotation curve. We obtain the best fit parameters of galactic models through the maximum likelihood analysis, comparing the high resolution radial velocity data of HI in Magellanic Stream with that of theoretical models. The initial condition of the Magellanic Clouds is taken from the six different values reported in the literature. We find that oblate and nearly spherical shape halos provide a better fit to the observation than the prolate halos. This conclusion is almost independent of choosing the initial conditions and is valid for both logarithmic and power-law models.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2009

Observational Constraints with Recent Data on the DGP Modified Gravity

We study one of the simplest covariant modified-gravity models based on the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (DGP) brane cosmology, a self-accelerating universe. In this model gravitational leakage into extra dimensions is responsible of late-time acceleration. We mainly focus on the effects of the model parameters on the geometry and the age of universe. Also we investigate the evolution of matter density perturbations in the modified gravity model, and obtain an analytical expression for the growth index, $f$. We show that increasing $Ω_{r_c}$ leads to less growth of the density contrast $δ$, and also decreases the growth index. We give a fitting formula for the growth index at the present time and indicate that dominant term in this expression verifies the well-known approximation relation $f\simeq Ω_m^γ$. As the observational test, the new Supernova Type Ia (SNIa) Gold sample and Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS) data, size of baryonic acoustic peak from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the position of the acoustic peak from the CMB observations and the Cluster Baryon Gas Mass Fraction (gas) are used to constrain the parameters of the DGP model. We also combine previous results with large scale structure formation (LSS) from the 2dFGRS survey. Finally to check the consistency of the DGP model, we compare the age of old cosmological objects with age of universe in this model.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

f(R) Gravity: From the Pioneer Anomaly to the Cosmic Acceleration

We use metric formalism in $f(R)$ modified gravity to study the dynamics of various systems from the solar system to the cosmological scale. we assume an ansatz for the derivative of action as a function of distance and describe the Pioneer anomaly and the flat rotation curve of the spiral galaxies. Having the asymptotic behavior of action, we propose the action of $f(R) = (R + Λ)(1 + \ln(R/R_c)/(R/R_0 + 2/α))$ where in galactic and solar system scales it can recover our desired form. The vacuum solution of this action also results in a positive late time acceleration for the universe. We fix the parameters of this model, comparing with the Pioneer anomaly, rotation curve of spiral galaxies and Supernova Type Ia gold sample data.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2007

An Inverse $f(R)$ Gravitation for Cosmic Speed up, and Dark Energy Equivalent

To explain the cosmic speed up, brought to light by the recent SNIa and CMB observations, we propose the following: a) In a spacetime endowed with a FRW metric, we choose an empirical scale factor that best explains the observations. b) We assume a modified gravity, generated by an unspecified field lagrangian, $f(R)$. c) We use the adopted empirical scale factor to work back retroactively to obtain $f(R)$, hence the term `Inverse $f(R)$'. d) Next we consider the classic GR and a conventional FRW universe that, in addition to its known baryonic content, possesses a hypothetical `Dark Energy' component. We compare the two scenarios, and find the density, the pressure, and the equation of the state of the Dark Energy required to make up for the differences between the conventional and the modified GR models.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2007

Consistency of $f(R)=\sqrt{R^{2}-R_{0}^2}$ Gravity with the Cosmological Observations in Palatini Formalism

In this work we study the dynamics of universe in $f(R)=\sqrt{R^2-R_{0}^2}$ modified gravity with Palatini formalism. We use data from recent observations as Supernova Type Ia (SNIa) Gold sample and Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS) data, size of baryonic acoustic peak from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the position of the acoustic peak from the CMB observations and large scale structure formation (LSS) from the 2dFGRS survey to put constraint on the parameters of the model. To check the consistency of this action, we compare the age of old cosmological objects with the age of universe. In the combined analysis with the all the observations, we find the parameters of model as $R_0=6.192_{-0.177}^{+0.167}\times H_0^2$ and $Ω_m=0.278_{-0.278}^{+0.273}$.

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