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Conceptual Design of the Drive Beam for a PWFA-LC (open access)

Conceptual Design of the Drive Beam for a PWFA-LC

Plasma Wake-Field Acceleration (PWFA) has demonstrated acceleration gradients above 50 GeV/m. Simulations have shown drive/witness bunch configurations that yield small energy spreads in the accelerated witness bunch and high energy transfer efficiency from the drive bunch to the witness bunch, ranging from 30% for a Gaussian drive bunch to 95% for bunch with triangular shaped longitudinal profile. These results open the opportunity for a linear collider that could be compact, efficient and more cost effective than the present microwave technologies. A concept of a PWFA-based Linear Collider (PWFA-LC) has been developed by the PWFA collaboration. Here we will describe the conceptual design and optimization of the drive beam, which includes the drive beam linac and distribution system. We apply experience of the CLIC drive beam design and demonstration in the CLIC Test Facility (CTF3) to this study. We discuss parameter optimization of the drive beam linac structure and evaluate the drive linac efficiency in terms of the drive beam distribution scheme and the klystron/modulator requirements.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Pei, S.; Hogan, M. J.; Raubenheimer, T. O.; Seryi, A.; Braun, H. H.; Corsini, R. et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Bottom-Up Approach to SUSY Analyses (open access)

A Bottom-Up Approach to SUSY Analyses

This paper proposes a new way to perform event generation and analysis in searches for new physics at the LHC. An abstract notation is used to describe the new particles on a level which better corresponds to detector resolution of LHC experiments. In this way the SUSY discovery space can be decomposed into a small number of eigenmodes each with only a few parameters, which allows to investigate the SUSY parameter space in a model-independent way. By focusing on the experimental observables for each process investigated the Bottom-Up Approach allows to systematically study the boarders of the experimental efficiencies and thus to extend the sensitivity for new physics.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Horn, Claus
System: The UNT Digital Library
Damping Effect Studies for X-band Normal Conducting High Gradient Standing Wave Structures (open access)

Damping Effect Studies for X-band Normal Conducting High Gradient Standing Wave Structures

The Multi-TeV colliders should have the capability to accelerate low emittance beam with high rf efficiency, X-band normal conducting high gradient accelerating structure is one of the promising candidate. However, the long range transverse wake field which can cause beam emittance dilution is one of the critical issues. We examined effectiveness of dipole mode damping in three kinds of X-band, {pi}-mode standing wave structures at 11.424GHz with no detuning considered. They represent three damping schemes: damping with cylindrical iris slot, damping with choke cavity and damping with waveguide coupler. We try to reduce external Q factor below 20 in the first two dipole bands, which usually have very high (R{sub T}/Q){sub T}. The effect of damping on the acceleration mode is also discussed.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Pei, S.; Li, Z.; Tantawi, S. G.; Dolgashev, V. A. & Wang, J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Observation and Polarization Measurement of B0 --> a1(1260) a1(1260)- Decay (open access)

Observation and Polarization Measurement of B0 --> a1(1260) a1(1260)- Decay

The authors present measurements of the branching fraction {Beta} and longitudinal polarization fraction f{sub L} for B{sup 0} {yields} a{sub 1}(1260){sup +} a{sub 1}(1260){sup -} decays, with a{sub 1}(1260){sup {+-}} {yields} {pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup {+-}}. The data sample, collected with the BABAR detector at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, represents 465 x 10{sup 6} produced B{bar B} pairs. They measure {Beta}(B{sup 0} {yields} a{sub 1}(1260){sup +} a{sub 1}(1260){sup -}) x [{Beta}(a{sub 1}(1260){sup +} {yields} {pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup +})]{sup 2} = (11.8 {+-} 2.6 {+-} 1.6) x 10{sup -6} and f{sub L} = 0.31 {+-} 0.22 {+-} 0.10, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The decay mode is measured with a significance of 5.0 standard deviations including systematic uncertainties.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Aubert, B.
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Thermodynamically-Consistent Non-Ideal Stochastic Hard-Sphere Fluid (open access)

A Thermodynamically-Consistent Non-Ideal Stochastic Hard-Sphere Fluid

A grid-free variant of the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method is proposed, named the Isotropic DSMC (I-DSMC) method, that is suitable for simulating collision-dominated dense fluid flows. The I-DSMC algorithm eliminates all grid artifacts from the traditional DSMC algorithm and is Galilean invariant and microscopically isotropic. The stochastic collision rules in I-DSMC are modified to introduce a non-ideal structure factor that gives consistent compressibility, as first proposed in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101:075902 (2008)]. The resulting Stochastic Hard Sphere Dynamics (SHSD) fluid is empirically shown to be thermodynamically identical to a deterministic Hamiltonian system of penetrable spheres interacting with a linear core pair potential, well-described by the hypernetted chain (HNC) approximation. We develop a kinetic theory for the SHSD fluid to obtain estimates for the transport coefficients that are in excellent agreement with particle simulations over a wide range of densities and collision rates. The fluctuating hydrodynamic behavior of the SHSD fluid is verified by comparing its dynamic structure factor against theory based on the Landau-Lifshitz Navier-Stokes equations. We also study the Brownian motion of a nano-particle suspended in an SHSD fluid and find a long-time power-law tail in its velocity autocorrelation function consistent with hydrodynamic theory and molecular dynamics …
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Donev, A; Alder, B J & Garcia, A L
System: The UNT Digital Library
Recent Progress on the Design of a Rotatable Copper Collimator for the LHC Collimation Upgrade (open access)

Recent Progress on the Design of a Rotatable Copper Collimator for the LHC Collimation Upgrade

The Phase II upgrade to the LHC collimation system calls for complementing the 30 high robust Phase I graphite collimators with 30 high Z Phase II collimators. One option is to use metallic rotatable collimators and this design will be discussed here. The Phase II collimators must be robust in various operating conditions and accident scenarios. Design issues include: (1) Collimator jaw deflection due to heating and sagitta must be small when operated in the steady state condition, (2) Collimator jaws must withstand transitory periods of high beam impaction with no permanent damage, (3) Jaws must recover from accident scenario where up to 8 full intensity beam pulses impact on the jaw surface and (4) The beam impedance contribution due to the collimators must be small to minimize coherent beam instabilities. This paper reports on recent updates to the design and testing.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Smith, Jeffrey Claiborne; Keller, Lewis; Lundgren, Steven; Markiewicz, Thomas Walter & Lari, Luisella
System: The UNT Digital Library
Gas-Rich Mergers in LCDM: Disk Survivability and the Baryonic Assembly of Galaxies (open access)

Gas-Rich Mergers in LCDM: Disk Survivability and the Baryonic Assembly of Galaxies

We use N-body simulations and observationally-normalized relations between dark matter halo mass, stellar mass, and cold gas mass to derive robust expectations about the baryonic content of major mergers out to redshift z {approx} 2. First, we find that the majority of major mergers (m/M > 0.3) experienced by Milky Way size dark matter halos should have been gas-rich, and that gas-rich mergers are increasingly common at high redshift. Though the frequency of major mergers into galaxy halos in our simulations greatly exceeds the observed late-type galaxy fraction, the frequency of gas-poor major mergers is consistent with the observed fraction of bulge-dominated galaxies across the halo mass range M{sub DM} {approx} 10{sup 11} - 10{sup 13} M{sub {circle_dot}}. These results lend support to the conjecture that mergers with high baryonic gas fractions play an important role in building and/or preserving disk galaxies in the universe. Secondly, we find that there is a transition mass below which a galaxy's past major mergers were primarily gas-rich and above which they were gas poor. The associated stellar mass scale corresponds closely to that marking the observed bimodal division between blue, star-forming, disk-dominated systems and red, bulge-dominated systems with old populations. Finally, we find …
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Stewart, Kyle R.; Bullock, James S.; /UC, Irvine; Wechsler, Risa H.; /KIPAC, Menlo Park /SLAC; Maller, Ariyeh H. et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Interpreting the Clustering of Distant Red Galaxies (open access)

Interpreting the Clustering of Distant Red Galaxies

We analyze the angular clustering of z {approx} 2.3 distant red galaxies (DRGs) measured by Quadri et al. (2008). We find that, with robust estimates of the measurement errors and realistic halo occupation distribution modeling, the measured clustering can be well fit within standard halo occupation models, in contrast to previous results. However, in order to fit the strong break in w({theta}) at {theta} = 10{double_prime}, nearly all satellite galaxies in the DRG luminosity range are required to be DRGs. Within this luminosity-threshold sample, the fraction of galaxies that are DRGs is {approx} 44%, implying that the formation of DRGs is more efficient for satellite galaxies than for central galaxies. Despite the evolved stellar populations contained within DRGs at z = 2.3, 90% of satellite galaxies in the DRG luminosity range have been accreted within 500 Myr. Thus, satellite DRGs must have known they would become satellites well before the time of their accretion. This implies that the formation of DRGs correlates with large-scale environment at fixed halo mass, although the large-scale bias of DRGs can be well fit without such assumptions. Further data are required to resolve this issue. Using the observational estimate that {approx} 30% of DRGs have …
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Tinker, Jeremy L.; Wechsler, Risa H. & Zheng, Zheng
System: The UNT Digital Library
Empirical Assessment of Shareholder Incentive Mechanisms Designs under Aggressive Savings Goals: Case Study of a Kansas"Super-Utility" (open access)

Empirical Assessment of Shareholder Incentive Mechanisms Designs under Aggressive Savings Goals: Case Study of a Kansas"Super-Utility"

Achieving significant reductions in retail electric sales is becoming a priority for policymakers in many states and is echoed at the federal level with the introduction of legislation to establish a national energy efficiency resource standard. Yet, as the National Action Plan on Energy Efficiency (NAPEE) pointed out, many utilities continue to shy away from seriously expanding their energy efficiency program offerings because they claim there is insufficient profit motivation, or even a financial disincentive, when compared to supply-side investments. In response to an information request from the Kansas Corporation Commission staff, we conducted a financial analysis to assess the utility business case in Kansas for pursuing more aggressive energy efficiency that complies with recent state legislation. Kansas' utilities are vertically integrated and don't face retail competition. With historically low retail rates and modest experience with energy efficiency, the achievement of rapid and substantial sales reductions from energy efficiency will require a viable utility business model. Using a conglomerate of the three largest utilities in Kansas, we quantitatively illustrate the tradeoff between ratepayer and shareholder interests when a 1percent reduction in incremental sales is achieved through energy efficiency both with and without the impact of future carbon regulation. We then …
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Cappers, Peter & Goldman, Charles
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Improved Cluster Richness Estimator (open access)

An Improved Cluster Richness Estimator

Minimizing the scatter between cluster mass and accessible observables is an important goal for cluster cosmology. In this work, we introduce a new matched filter richness estimator, and test its performance using the maxBCG cluster catalog. Our new estimator significantly reduces the variance in the L{sub X}-richness relation, from {sigma}{sub lnL{sub X}}{sup 2} = (0.86 {+-} 0.02){sup 2} to {sigma}{sub lnL{sub X}}{sup 2} = (0.69 {+-} 0.02){sup 2}. Relative to the maxBCG richness estimate, it also removes the strong redshift dependence of the richness scaling relations, and is significantly more robust to photometric and redshift errors. These improvements are largely due to our more sophisticated treatment of galaxy color data. We also demonstrate the scatter in the L{sub X}-richness relation depends on the aperture used to estimate cluster richness, and introduce a novel approach for optimizing said aperture which can be easily generalized to other mass tracers.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Rozo, Eduardo; Rykoff, Eli S.; Koester, Benjamin P.; McKay, Timothy; Hao, Jiangang; Evrard, August et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Processing and Breakdown Localization Rresults For an L-Band Standing-Wave Cavity (open access)

Processing and Breakdown Localization Rresults For an L-Band Standing-Wave Cavity

An L-band (1.3 GHz), normal-conducting, 5-cell, standing-wave cavity that was built as a prototype capture accelerator for the ILC is being high-power processed at SLAC. The goal is to demonstrate stable operation at 15 MV/m with 1 msec, 5 Hz pulses and the cavity immersed in a 0.5 Telsa solenoidal magnetic field. This paper summarizes the performance that was ultimately achieved and describes a novel analysis of the modal content of the stored energy in the cavity after a breakdown to determine on which iris it occurred.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Wang, Faya & Adolphsen, Chris
System: The UNT Digital Library
Reggeon Non_Factorizability and Fixed Pole in DVCS (open access)

Reggeon Non_Factorizability and Fixed Pole in DVCS

We argue that deeply virtual Compton scattering will display Regge behavior {nu}{sub R}{sup {alpha}}(t) at high energy at fixed-t, even at high photon virtuality, not necessarily conventional scaling. A way to see this is to track the Reggeon contributions to quark-nucleon scattering and notice that the resulting Generalized Parton Distributions would have divergent behavior at the break-points. In addition, we show that the direct two-photon to quark coupling will be accessible at large t where it dominates the DVCS amplitude for large energies. This contribution, the J = 0 fixed-pole, should be part of the future DVCS experimental programs at Jlab or LHeC.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Brodsky, Stanley J.; Llanes-Estrada, Felipe J.; Londergan, J.Timothy & Szczepaniak, Adam P.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Assembly and Characterization of a Prototype Laser-Optical Firing System (open access)

Assembly and Characterization of a Prototype Laser-Optical Firing System

The design, assembly and characterization of the latest generation of a small, ruggedized laser-optical firing system will be discussed. This work builds upon earlier results in an effort to continue the development of robust fiber-coupled laseroptical firing systems.[1][2] This newest prototype strives to improve on earlier designs, while continuing to utilize many of the environmentally proven opto-mechanical sub-assemblies.[2][3] One area of improvement involves the implementation of a second optical safing and arming component. Several additional design improvements were also incorporated to address shortcomings uncovered during environmental testing.[4][5] These tests and the subsequent failure analysis were performed at the laser sub-system level. Four identical prototypes were assembled and characterized. The performance of the units were evaluated by comparing a number of parameters including laser output energy, slope efficiency, beam divergence, spatial intensity profile, fiber injection and splitter-coupler transmission efficiency. Other factors evaluated were the ease of alignment, repeatability of the alignment process and the fabrication of the fiberoptical cables. The experimentally obtained results will be compared and contrasted to the performance of earlier prototypes.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Morelli, Gregg L
System: The UNT Digital Library
Localization of RF Breakdowns in a Standing Wave Cavity (open access)

Localization of RF Breakdowns in a Standing Wave Cavity

At SLAC, a 5-cell, normal-conducting, L-band (1.3 GHz), standing-wave (SW) cavity was built as a prototype positron capture accelerator for the ILC. The structure met the ILC gradient goal but required extensive rf processing. When rf breakdowns occurred, a large variation was observed in the decay rate of the stored energy in the cavity after the input power was shut off. It appeared that the breakdowns were isolating sections of the cavity, and that the trapped energy in those sections was then partitioned among its natural modes, producing a distinct beating pattern during the decay. To explore this phenomenon further, an equivalent circuit model of cavity was created that reproduces well its normal operating characteristics. The model was then used to compute the spectra of trapped energy for different numbers of isolated cells. The resulting modal patterns agree well with those of the breakdown data, and thus such a comparison appears to provide a means of identifying the irises on which the breakdowns occurred.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Wang, Faya & Adolphsen, Chris
System: The UNT Digital Library
Mapping the Dark Matter From UV Light at High Redshift: An Empirical Approach to Understand Galaxy Statistics (open access)

Mapping the Dark Matter From UV Light at High Redshift: An Empirical Approach to Understand Galaxy Statistics

We present a simple formalism to interpret the observations of two galaxy statistics, the UV luminosity function (LF) and two-point correlation functions for star-forming galaxies at z {approx} 4, 5 and 6 in the context of {Lambda}CDM cosmology. Both statistics are the result of how star formation takes place in dark matter halos, and thus are used to constrain how UV light depends on halo properties, in particular halo mass. The two physical quantities we explore are the star formation duty cycle, and the range of UV luminosity that a halo of mass M can have (mean and variance). The former directly addresses the typical duration of star formation activity in halos while the latter addresses the averaged star formation history and regularity of gas inflow into these systems. In the context of this formalism, we explore various physical models consistent with all the available observational data, and find the following: (1) the typical duration of star formation observed in the data is {approx}< 0.4 Gyr (1{sigma}), (2) the inferred scaling law between the observed L{sub UV} and halo mass M from the observed faint-end slope of the luminosity functions is roughly linear out to M {approx} 10{sup 11.5} - …
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Lee, Kyoung-Soo; Giavalisco, Mauro; Conroy, Charlie; Wechsler, Risa H.; Ferguson, Henry C.; Somerville, Rachel S. et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Connecting Reionization to the Local Universe (open access)

Connecting Reionization to the Local Universe

We present results of combined N-body and three-dimensional reionization calculations to determine the relationship between reionization history and local environment in a volume 1 Gpc h{sup -1} across and a resolution of about 1 Mpc. We resolve the formation of about 2 x 10{sup 6} halos of mass greater than {approx} 10{sup 12} M{sub {circle_dot}} at z = 0, allowing us to determine the relationship between halo mass and reionization epoch for galaxies and clusters. For our fiducial reionization model, in which reionization begins at z {approx} 15 and ends by z {approx} 6, we find a strong bias for cluster-size halos to be in the regions which reionized first, at redshifts 10 < z < 15. Consequently, material in clusters was reionized within relatively small regions, on the order of a few Mpc, implying that all clusters in our calculation were reionized by their own progenitors. Milky Way mass halos were on average reionized later and by larger regions, with a distribution most similar to the global one, indicating that low mass halos are nearly uncorrelated with reionization when only their mass is taken as a prior. On average, we find that most halos with mass less than 10{sup …
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Alvarez, Marcelo A.; Busha, Michael; Abel, Tom; Wechsler, Risa H. & /KIPAC, Menlo Park
System: The UNT Digital Library
What is Science? (open access)

What is Science?

Helen Quinn is a theoretical particle physicist at SLAC. Throughout her career, she has been passionately involved in science education and public understanding of science. In talking about science, whether to the public or to students, we scientists often assume that they share with us a common idea of science. In my experience that is often not the case. To oversimplify, scientists think of science both as a process for discovering properties of nature, and as the resulting body of knowledge, whereas most people seem to think of science, or perhaps scientists, as an authority that provides some information--just one more story among the many that they use to help make sense of their world. Can we close that gap in understanding? Middle school teachers typically spend a day or so teaching something called the scientific method, but the process by which scientific ideas are developed and tested is messier and much more interesting than that typical capsule description. Some remarkable features of the process are seldom stressed in teaching science, nor are they addressed in explaining any one piece of science to the public. My goal in this column is to provide some ideas for closing that gap in …
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Quinn, H
System: The UNT Digital Library
Ab initio no core calculations of light nuclei and preludes to Hamiltonian quantum field theory (open access)

Ab initio no core calculations of light nuclei and preludes to Hamiltonian quantum field theory

Recent advances in ab initio quantum many-body methods and growth in computer power now enable highly precise calculations of nuclear structure. The precision has attained a level sufficient to make clear statements on the nature of 3-body forces in nuclear physics. Total binding energies, spin-dependent structure effects, and electroweak properties of light nuclei play major roles in pinpointing properties of the underlying strong interaction. Eventually,we anticipate a theory bridge with immense predictive power from QCD through nuclear forces to nuclear structure and nuclear reactions. Light front Hamiltonian quantum field theory offers an attractive pathway and we outline key elements.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Vary, J. P.; Maris, P.; Shirokov, A. M.; Honkanen, H.; li, J.; Brodsky, S. J. et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library
FLASH Beam-off RF Measurements and Analyses (open access)

FLASH Beam-off RF Measurements and Analyses

None
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Pei, S.; Adolphsen, C.; Carwardine, J. & Walker, N. J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Prospects for Integrating a Hollow Electron Lens into the LHC Collimation System (open access)

Prospects for Integrating a Hollow Electron Lens into the LHC Collimation System

It has been proposed to use a hollow electron lens with the LHC beam collimation system [1]. The hollow electron beam would be used as a beam scraper and positioned at a closer sigma than the primary collimators to increase the halo particle diffusion rate striking the primaries. In this paper we use multi-turn beam tracking simulations to analyze the effectiveness of such a lens when integrated into the LHC collimation system.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Smith, Jeffrey Claiborne; Assmann, Ralph; Previtali, Valentina; Shiltsev, Vladimir & Valishev, Alexander
System: The UNT Digital Library
Galaxy Mergers and Dark Matter Halo Mergers in LCDM: Mass, Redshift, and Mass-Ratio Dependence (open access)

Galaxy Mergers and Dark Matter Halo Mergers in LCDM: Mass, Redshift, and Mass-Ratio Dependence

We employ a high-resolution LCDM N-body simulation to present merger rate predictions for dark matter halos and investigate how common merger-related observables for galaxies - such as close pair counts, starburst counts, and the morphologically disturbed fraction - likely scale with luminosity, stellar mass, merger mass ratio, and redshift from z = 0 to z = 4. We provide a simple 'universal' fitting formula that describes our derived merger rates for dark matter halos a function of dark halo mass, merger mass ratio, and redshift, and go on to predict galaxy merger rates using number density-matching to associate halos with galaxies. For example, we find that the instantaneous merger rate of m/M > 0.3 mass ratio events into typical L {approx}> fL{sub *} galaxies follows the simple relation dN/dt {approx_equal} 0.03(1+f)Gyr{sup -1} (1+z){sup 2.1}. Despite the rapid increase in merger rate with redshift, only a small fraction of > 0.4L{sub *} high-redshift galaxies ({approx} 3% at z = 2) should have experienced a major merger (m/M > 0.3) in the very recent past (t < 100 Myr). This suggests that short-lived, merger-induced bursts of star formation should not contribute significantly to the global star formation rate at early times, in …
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Stewart, Kyle R.; Bullock, James S.; Barton, Elizabeth J.; /UC, Irvine; Wechsler, Risa H. & /KIPAC, Menlo Park /SLAC
System: The UNT Digital Library
Constraining the Scatter in the Mass-Richness Relation of maxBCG Clusters With Weak Lensing and X-ray Data (open access)

Constraining the Scatter in the Mass-Richness Relation of maxBCG Clusters With Weak Lensing and X-ray Data

We measure the logarithmic scatter in mass at fixed richness for clusters in the maxBCG cluster catalog, an optically selected cluster sample drawn from SDSS imaging data. Our measurement is achieved by demanding consistency between available weak lensing and X-ray measurements of the maxBCG clusters, and the X-ray luminosity-mass relation inferred from the 400d X-ray cluster survey, a flux limited X-ray cluster survey. We find {sigma}{sub lnM|N{sub 200}} = 0.45{sub -0.18}{sup +0.20} (95%CL) at N{sub 200} {approx} 40, where N{sub 200} is the number of red sequence galaxies in a cluster. As a byproduct of our analysis, we also obtain a constraint on the correlation coefficient between lnL{sub X} and lnM at fixed richness, which is best expressed as a lower limit, r{sub L,M|N} {ge} 0.85 (95% CL). This is the first observational constraint placed on a correlation coefficient involving two different cluster mass tracers. We use our results to produce a state of the art estimate of the halo mass function at z = 0.23 - the median redshift of the maxBCG cluster sample - and find that it is consistent with the WMAP5 cosmology. Both the mass function data and its covariance matrix are presented.
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Rozo, Eduardo; U., /Ohio State; Rykoff, Eli S.; /UC, Santa Barbara; Evrard, August; U., /Michigan et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Impact of Inhomogeneous Reionization on the Satellite Galaxy Population of the Milky Way (open access)

The Impact of Inhomogeneous Reionization on the Satellite Galaxy Population of the Milky Way

We use the publicly available subhalo catalogs from the via Lactea simulation along with a Gpc-scale N-body simulation to understand the impact of inhomogeneous reionization on the satellite galaxy population of the Milky Way. The large-volume simulation is combined with a model for reionization that allows us to predict the distribution of reionization times for Milky Way mass halos. Motivated by this distribution, we identify candidate satellite galaxies in the simulation by requiring that any subhalo must grow above a specified mass threshold before it is reionized; after this time the photoionizing background will suppress both the formation of stars and the accretion of gas. We show that varying the reionization time over the range expected for Milky Way mass halos can change the number of satellite galaxies by roughly two orders of magnitude. This conclusion is in contradiction with a number of studies in the literature, and we conclude that this is a result of inconsistent application of the results of Gnedin (2000); subtle changes in the assumptions about how reionization affects star formation in small galaxies can lead to large changes in the effect of changing the reionization time on the number of satellites. We compare our satellite …
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Busha, Michael T.; Alvarez, Marcelo A.; Wechsler, Risa H.; Abel, Tom; Strigari, Louis E. & /KIPAC, Menlo Park
System: The UNT Digital Library
Modeling The GRB Host Galaxy Mass Distribution: Are GRBs Unbiased Tracers of Star Formation? (open access)

Modeling The GRB Host Galaxy Mass Distribution: Are GRBs Unbiased Tracers of Star Formation?

We model the mass distribution of long gamma-ray burst (GRB) host galaxies given recent results suggesting that GRBs occur in low metallicity environments. By utilizing measurements of the redshift evolution of the mass-metallicity (M-Z) relationship for galaxies, along with a sharp host metallicity cut-off suggested by Modjaz and collaborators, we estimate an upper limit on the stellar mass of a galaxy that can efficiently produce a GRB as a function of redshift. By employing consistent abundance indicators, we find that sub-solar metallicity cut-offs effectively limit GRBs to low stellar mass spirals and dwarf galaxies at low redshift. At higher redshifts, as the average metallicity of galaxies in the Universe falls, the mass range of galaxies capable of hosting a GRB broadens, with an upper bound approaching the mass of even the largest spiral galaxies. We compare these predicted limits to the growing number of published GRB host masses and find that extremely low metallicity cut-offs of 0.1 to 0.5 Z{sub {circle_dot}} are effectively ruled out by a large number of intermediate mass galaxies at low redshift. A mass function that includes a smooth decrease in the efficiency of producing GRBs in galaxies of metallicity above 12+log(O/H){sub KK04} = 8.7 can, …
Date: August 3, 2009
Creator: Kocevski, Daniel; /KIPAC, Menlo Park; West, Andrew A.; /UC, Berkeley, Astron. Dept. /MIT, MKI; Modjaz, Maryam & /UC, Berkeley, Astron. Dept.
System: The UNT Digital Library