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NASA NTRS2016

A Unified Model for GRB Prompt Emission from Optical to Gamma-Rays; Exploring GRBs as Standard Candles

The origin of prompt emission from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) remains to be an open question. Correlated prompt optical and gamma-ray emission observed in a handful of GRBs strongly suggests a common emission region, but failure to adequately fit the broadband GRB spectrum prompted the hypothesis of different emission mechanisms for the low- and high-energy radiations. We demonstrate that our multi-component model for GRB -ray prompt emission provides an excellent fit to GRB 110205A from optical to gamma-ray energies. Our results show that the optical and highest gamma-ray emissions have the same spatial and spectral origin, which is different from the bulk of the X- and softest gamma-ray radiation. Finally, our accurate redshift estimate for GRB 110205A demonstrates promise for using GRBs as cosmological standard candles.

acceleration of particles – black hole physics â↗
NASA NTRS1985

Kantian epistemology as an alternative to heroic astronomy

Theoretical and observational methods in astronomy have advanced to a point where certain of their outcomes are difficult to comprehend with the traditional categories of human knowledge. The philosophical discipline of epistemology, the theory of knowledge, is used here to address four current problems in observational astronomy, exobiology, cosmology, and quantum mechanics. The problems are united by an epistemological content which, when unrecognized, has resulted in some heroic solutions of an ad hoc nature. Kant's critical philosophy is employed because his work is consistent with basic attitudes in present-day physics and biology.

Mclaughlin, W. I.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Gravitational-Wave Astronomy

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is our best classical description of gravity, and informs modern astronomy and astrophysics at all scales: stellar, galactic, and cosmological. Among its surprising predictions is the existence of gravitational waves -- ripples in space-time that carry energy and momentum away from strongly interacting gravitating sources. In my talk, I will give an overview of the properties of this radiation, recent breakthroughs in computational physics allowing us to calculate the waveforms from galactic mergers, and the prospect of direct observation with interferometric detectors such as LIGO and LISA.

Kelly, Bernard J.↗
NASA NTRS2003

The Ionization History of The Intergalactic Medium:

The funded project seeked a unified description of the ionization, physical structure, and evolution of the intergalactic medium (IGM) and quasar intervening absorption systems. We proposed to conduct theoretical studies of the IGM and QSO absorbers in the context of current theories of galaxy formation, developing and using numerical and analytical techniques aimed at a detailed modeling of cosmological radiative transfer, gas dynamics, and thermal and ionization evolution. The ionization history of the IGM has important implications for the metagalactic UV background, intergalactic helium absorption 21-cm tomography, metal absorption systems, fluctuations in the microwave background, and the cosmic rate of structure and star formation. All the original objectives of our program have been achieved, and the results widely used and quoted by the community. Indeed, they remain relevant as the level and complexity of research in this area has increased substantially since our proposal was submitted, due to new discoveries on galaxy formation and evolution, a flood of high-quality data on the distant universe, new theoretical ideas and direct numerical simulations of structure formation in hierarchical clustering theories.

Madau, Piero↗
NASA NTRS2015

IYL Blog: Astronomers travel in time and space with light

As an astronomer, I use light to travel through the universe, and to look back in time to when the universe was young. So do you! All of us see things as they were when the light was emitted, not as they are now. The farthest thing you can easily see without a telescope is the Andromeda Nebula, which is a galaxy like the Milky Way, about 2.5 million light years away. You see it as it was 2.5 million years ago, and we really don't know what it looks like today; the disk will have rotated a bit, new stars will have been born, there could have been all kinds of exploding stars, and the black hole in the middle could be lighting up. People may be skeptical of the Big Bang theory, even though we have a TV show named for it, but we (I should say Penzias and Wilson) measured its heat radiation 51 years ago at Bell Telephone Labs in New Jersey. Their discovery marks the beginning of the era of cosmology as a measurement science rather than speculation. Penzias and Wilson received the Nobel Prize in 1978 for their finding, which had been predicted in 1948 by Alpher and Herman. By the way, heat radiation is just another form of light - we call it radiation because we can't see it, but it's exactly the same phenomenon of electromagnetic waves, and the only difference is the wavelength. In the old days of analog television, if you tuned your TV in between channels, about 1% of the snow that you could see came from the Big Bang. So when we look at the heat radiation of the early universe, we really are gazing right at what seems to us a cosmic fireball, which surrounds us completely. It's a bit of an illusion; if you can imagine what astronomers in other galaxies would see, they would also feel surrounded by the fireball, and they would also think they were in the middle. So from a mathematical version of imagination, we conclude that there is no observable center and no edge of our universe, and that the heat of the fireball fills the entire universe uniformly. Astronomers are also using light to find out whether we are alone in the universe. The Kepler observatory showed that thousands of stars blink a little when their orbiting planets pass between us and them, and other observatories use light to measure the wobble of stars as their planets pull on them. Eventually, we will find out whether planets like Earth have atmospheres like Earth's too - with water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, methane, and other gases that would be evidence of photosynthetic life. I think in a few decades we will have evidence that some planets do have life, and it will be done using light for remote chemical analysis. Also, astronomers at the SETI project are using light (long wavelength light we can pick up with radio telescopes) to look for signals from intelligent civilizations. That's a harder project because we don't know what to look for. But if we wanted to send signals all the way across the Milky Way, we could do it with laser beams, and if somebody over there knew what to look for, he or she could decode the message. On with the search! Dr. John C. Mather is a Senior Astrophysicist and is the Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. His research centers on infrared astronomy and cosmology. With the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) team, he showed that the cosmic microwave background radiation has a blackbody spectrum within 50 parts per million, confirming the expanding universe model (aka the Big Bang Theory) to extraordinary accuracy, and initiating the study of cosmology as a precision science. The COBE team also made the first map of the hot and cold spots in the background radiation. The COBE maps have been confirmed and improved by two succeeding space missions, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP, built by GSFC with Princeton University), and the Planck mission built by ESA. Based on these maps, astronomers have now developed a "standard model" of cosmology and have built detailed numerical simulations that begin to match Hubble observations, and require the existence of both "dark matter" and "dark energy", neither of which has been detected or deduced in laboratory experiments. Dr. Mather is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics (2006) with George Smoot, for the COBE work, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal (2007). He is a member of many professional societies including the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Mather is now working with teams and committees to develop plans for a future great telescope capable of observing signs of life on planets orbiting other stars.

telescopes↗
NASA NTRS1987

The role and behavior of spin in gravitational physics

A self-consistent method of introducing spin into any Lagrangian based theory of gravitation was developed. The metric variation of the Lagrangian in the theory leads to an improved energy-momentum tensor which represents the source term in the gravitational field equations. The goal of the research is the construction of a theory general enough to be used to investigate spin effects in astrophysical objects and cosmology, and also to serve as a basis for discussion of the theoretical ideas tested by the NASA Gyroscope Experiment (aboard Gravity Probe B). Specific accomplishments in the following areas are summarized: the inclusion of electromagnetism into the variational principle for spinning matter, formulation of a self-consistent theory for the case of a fluid in which particle production processes occur, and the derivation of the Raychaudhuri equation in the case of spinning matter.

Ray, John R.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Quasars and galaxy formation. I - The z greater than 4 objects

The physical properties of the known quasars with z greater than 4 are examined with particular reference to theories of cosmic structure formation. A 'standard' massive accreting black hole model for quasars is used to calculate the masses, radiative efficiencies, and accretion rates of the observed objects. The masses, densities, cosmological overdensities, and sizes of the accretion fuel reservoirs associated with the quasar black holes are considered, and several indirect arguments are used to connect these quantities to the masses and overdensities of the quasar host objects. Finally, constraints on the epoch of formation of the host objects are discussed. The general conclusion is that the observed quasars with z greater than 4 suggest that the cosmic structure formation was already well advanced at z = 5, when the universe was a small fraction of its present age.

Turner, Edwin L.↗
NASA NTRS2022

New Constraints on the Dark Matter Density Profiles of Dwarf Galaxies from Proper Motions of Globular Cluster Streams

The central density profiles in dwarf galaxy halos depend strongly on the nature of dark matter (DM). Recently, in Malhan et al. we employed N-body simulations to show that the cuspy cold DM subhalos predicted by cosmological simulations can be differentiated from cored subhalos using the properties of accreted globular cluster (GC) streams since these GCs experience tidal stripping within their parent halos prior to accretion onto the Milky Way. We previously found that clusters that are accreted within cuspy subhalos produce streams with larger physical widths and higher dispersions in line-of-sight velocity and angular momentum than streams that are accreted within cored subhalos. Here, we use the same suite of simulations to demonstrate that the dispersion in the tangential velocities of streams (σ 𝜈 Tan) is also sensitive to the central DM density profiles of their parent dwarfs and GCs that they were accreted from; cuspy subhalos produce streams with larger σ 𝜈 Tan than those accreted inside cored subhalos. Using Gaia EDR3 observations of multiple GC streams we compare their (σ 𝜈 Tan) values with simulations. The measured (σ 𝜈 Tan) values are consistent with both an “in situ” origin and with accretion inside cored subhalos of M ∼ 10(8–9) Me (or very low-mass cuspy subhalos of mass ∼10(8) Mꙩ ). Despite the large current uncertainties in σ 𝜈 Tan, we find a low probability that any of the progenitor GCs were accreted from cuspy subhalos of M ≳ 10 (9) Mꙩ. The uncertainties on Gaia tangential velocity measurements are expected to decrease in future and will allow for stronger constraints on subhalo DM density profiles.

Khyati Malhan↗
NASA NTRS2022

X-Ray Morphology of Cluster-Mass Haloes in Self-Interacting Dark Matter

We perform cosmological zoom-in simulations of 19 relaxed cluster-mass haloes with the inclusion of adiabatic gas in the cold dark matter (CDM) and self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) models. These clusters are selected as dynamically relaxed clusters from a parent simulation with M200(1-3) × 10 15 M. Both the dark matter and the intracluster gas distributions in SIDM appear more spherical than their CDM counterparts. Mock X-ray images are generated based on the simulations and are compared to the real X-ray images of 84 relaxed clusters selected from the Chandra and ROSAT archives. We perform ellipse fitting for the isophotes of mock and real X-ray images and obtain the ellipticities at cluster-centric radii of r0.1–0.2R 200 .The X-ray isophotes in SIDM models with increasing cross-sections are rounder than their CDM counterparts, which manifests as asystematic shift in the distribution function of ellipticities. Unexpectedly, the X-ray morphology of the observed non-cool-coreclusters agrees better with SIDM model swith cross-section (σ/m)=0.5–1cm2g−1 than CDM and SIDM with (σ/m)=0.1cm2g−1. Our statistical analysis indicates that the latter two models are disfavoured at the 68 percent confidence level (as conservative estimates). This conclusion is not altered by shifting the radial range of measurements or applying a temperature selection criterion. However, the primary uncertainty originates from the lack of baryonic physics in the adiabatic model, such as cooling, star formation and feedback effects, which still have the potential to reconcile CDM simulations with observations.

dark matter – cosmology↗
NASA NTRS2004

Theoretical Astrophysics at Fermilab

The Theoretical Astrophysics Group works on a broad range of topics ranging from string theory to data analysis in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The group is motivated by the belief that a deep understanding of fundamental physics is necessary to explain a wide variety of phenomena in the universe. During the three years 2001-2003 of our previous NASA grant, over 120 papers were written; ten of our postdocs went on to faculty positions; and we hosted or organized many workshops and conferences. Kolb and collaborators focused on the early universe, in particular and models and ramifications of the theory of inflation. They also studied models with extra dimensions, new types of dark matter, and the second order effects of super-horizon perturbations. S tebbins, Frieman, Hui, and Dodelson worked on phenomenological cosmology, extracting cosmological constraints from surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. They also worked on theoretical topics such as weak lensing, reionization, and dark energy. This work has proved important to a number of experimental groups [including those at Fermilab] planning future observations. In general, the work of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group has served as a catalyst for experimental projects at Fennilab. An example of this is the Joint Dark Energy Mission. Fennilab is now a member of SNAP, and much of the work done here is by people formerly working on the accelerator. We have created an environment where many of these people made transition from physics to astronomy. We also worked on many other topics related to NASA s focus: cosmic rays, dark matter, the Sunyaev-Zel dovich effect, the galaxy distribution in the universe, and the Lyman alpha forest. The group organized and hosted a number of conferences and workshop over the years covered by the grant. Among them were:

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1977

Arguments and evidence concerning non-cosmological redshifts - A partial summary

Theories which imply an unconventional interpretation of the redshifts are examined, taking into account a new theory of cosmology reported by Segal, scenarios in which the redshifts do not arise from the expansion, and studies concerning a possible existence of systematic effects in the distribution of redshifts. Attention is given to rapidly varying QSOs and BL Lac objects, VLBI studies of a number of QSOs and related objects, and physical associations between objects with very different redshifts. It appears that observational evidence concerning these physical associations is the strongest evidence that objects with large noncosmological redshift components exist. On the other hand, there are a number of cases of QSOs close to galaxies at the same redshifts.

Burbidge, G.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Two-fluid simulations of galaxy formation

We investigate the formation of galaxies and larger structure with a simulation modeling two gravitationally coupled fluids representing dark matter and baryons. The baryon gas dynamics are calculated with a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method, and the physics modeled includes thermal pressure, shock heating, and radiative cooling. We simulate a 16 Mpc periodic cube with 64(exp 3) particles in each fluid and 10% baryon mass fraction. We confirm, for the first time experimentally, disk formation as a natural consequence of hierarchical clustering in a large-scale cosmological environment. The majority of isolated galaxies exhibit centrifugally supported disks. A power-law relation between cold baryonic mass and maximum rotation velocity is found, M varies as nu(sub rot)(exp alpha) with alpha = 2.5 after correcting for differential numerical resolution. Both the spatial and velocity distributions of the simulated galaxies are biased with respect to the dark matter. A counts-in-cells analysis indicates that an unphysical degree of merging in the central cluster is likely responsible for the antibias signal in the correlation function. A robust, scale-dependent velocity bias is measured. The ratio of galaxy to dark matter pairwise velocity dispersions on a scale of 1 Mpc is 0.7. The amplitude is only mildly dependent on redshift or mass cutoff and scales with separation as r(exp 0.2). The degree to which these results depend on numerical parameters is discussed. Mass resolution plays a key role in controlling the resulting fraction of cold, dense baryons. The mass fraction associated with galaxies decreases by a factor of approximately greater than 3 when the mass per particle is increased by a factor 8. Photoionization and energy input from supernova will have to be included to determine more carefully the fraction of highly dissipated material and the characteristics of the stellar component of galaxies.

Evrard, August E.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Galaxy pairs in deep HST images: Evidence for evolution in the galaxy merger rate

We use four deep serendipitous fields observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide-Field Camera to constrain the rate of galaxy merging between the current epoch and z approximately equals 0.7. Since most mergers occur between members of bound pairs, the merger rate is given to a good approximation by (half) the rate of disappearance of galaxies in pairs. An objective criterion for pair membership shows that 34% +/- 9% of our HST galaxies with I = 18-22 belong to pairs, compared to 7% locally. This means that about 13% of the galaxy population has disappeared due to merging in the cosmic epoch corresponding to this magnitude interval (or 0.1 approximately less than z approximately less than 0.7). Our pair fraction is a lower limit: correction for pair members falling below our detection threshold might raise the fraction to approximately 50%. Since we address only two-galaxy merging, these values do not include physical systems of higher multiplicity. Incorporating I-band field-galaxy redshift distributions, the pair fraction grows with redshift as alpha(1 + z)(exp 3.5 +/- 0.5) and the merger rate as (1 + z)(exp 2.5 +/- 0.5). This may have significant implications for the interpretation of galaxy counts (disappearance of faint blue galaxies), the cosmological evolution of faint radio sources and quasars (which evolve approximately as (1 + z)(exp 3), the similarity in the power law is necessary but not sufficient evidence for a causal relation), statistics of QSO companions, the galaxy content in distant clusters, and the merging history of a 'typical' galaxy.

Burkey, Jordan M.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Late-time cosmological phase transitions

It is shown that the potential galaxy formation and large scale structure problems of objects existing at high redshifts (Z approx. greater than 5), structures existing on scales of 100 M pc as well as velocity flows on such scales, and minimal microwave anisotropies ((Delta)T/T) (approx. less than 10(exp -5)) can be solved if the seeds needed to generate structure form in a vacuum phase transition after decoupling. It is argued that the basic physics of such a phase transition is no more exotic than that utilized in the more traditional GUT scale phase transitions, and that, just as in the GUT case, significant random Gaussian fluctuations and/or topological defects can form. Scale lengths of approx. 100 M pc for large scale structure as well as approx. 1 M pc for galaxy formation occur naturally. Possible support for new physics that might be associated with such a late-time transition comes from the preliminary results of the SAGE solar neutrino experiment, implying neutrino flavor mixing with values similar to those required for a late-time transition. It is also noted that a see-saw model for the neutrino masses might also imply a tau neutrino mass that is an ideal hot dark matter candidate. However, in general either hot or cold dark matter can be consistent with a late-time transition.

Schramm, David N.↗
NASA NTRS2026

The Thermal and Kinematic Sunyaev–Zeldovich Effect in Galaxy Clusters and Filaments Using Multifrequency Temperature Maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background A399–A401 Cluster Pair Case Study

We present a multifrequency and multi-instrument methodology to study the physical properties of galaxy clusters and cosmic filaments using cosmic microwave background observations. Our approach enables simultaneous measurement of both the thermal (tSZ) and kinematic Sunyaev–Zeldovich (kSZ) effects, incorporates relativistic corrections, and models astrophysical foregrounds such as thermal dust emission. We do this by jointly fitting a single physical model across multiple maps from multiple instruments at different frequencies, rather than fitting a model to a single Compton-y map. We demonstrate the success of this method by fitting the A399–A401 galaxy cluster pair and filament system using archival data from the Planck satellite and new, targeted deep data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, covering 11 different frequencies over 14 maps from 30 GHz to 545 GHz. Our tSZ results are consistent with previous work using Compton-y maps. We measure the line-of-sight peculiar velocities of the cluster–filament system using the kSZ effect and find statistical uncertainties on individual cluster peculiar velocities of ≲600 km s −1 , which are competitive with current state-of-the-art measurements. Additionally, we measure the optical depth of the filament component with a signal-to-noise of 8.5σ and reveal hints of its morphology. This modular approach is well-suited for application to future instruments across a wide range of millimeter and submillimeter wavebands.

Ajay S Gill↗
NASA NTRS2007

An Astrosocial Observation: The Nobel Connection to the Space Program

The 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics was heralded by some in the press as the 'First Nobel Prize for Space Exploration.' Indeed the Nobel Foundation's announcement specifically cited the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite launched by NASA in 1989 as the prime-enabling instrument It elaborated further, 'The COBE results provided increased support for the Big Bang scenario for the origin of the Universe... These measurements also marked the inception of cosmology as a precise science.' NASA also seized this unique moment of fame to honor its favorite son, the first Nobel scientist of the agency, John Mather, of the Goddard Space Flight Center, who shared the honor with Professor G. Smoot of the University of California, the Principal Investigator of the COBE measurement. It is without any dispute that the Nobel Prize is the highest scientific honor and best-known award of admiration and inspiration to the public and educational sectors. Unfortunately in the American culture, youths are mostly exposed to success icons in the sports, entertainment, and business domains. Science icons (of either gender) are largely unknown to them. We sincerely hope that success stories of Nobel scientists will become part of the learning curriculum in the K-16 educational experience. In this paper, we examine the pedigree of a number of Nobel Prizes over the years, and discuss their interactions with, and connections to, the space program. It is advantageous for the context of educational and public outreach to see such connections, because in a number of public surveys, one important customer expectation for the space program is the search for new knowledge, to which the Nobel Prize is a prominent benchmark.

science icons↗
NASA NTRS1992

A tilted cold dark matter cosmological scenario

A new cosmological scenario based on CDM but with a power spectrum index of about 0.7-0.8 is suggested. This model is predicted by various inflationary models with no fine tuning. This tilted CDM model, if normalized to COBE, alleviates many problems of the standard CDM model related to both small-scale and large-scale power. A physical bias of galaxies over dark matter of about two is required to fit spatial observations.

Cen, Renyue↗
NASA NTRS2008

Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)Observations: Beam Maps and Window Functions

Cosmology and other scientific results from the WMAP mission require an accurate knowledge of the beam patterns in flight. While the degree of beam knowledge for the WMAP one-year and three-year results was unprecedented for a CMB experiment, we have significantly improved the beam determination as part of the five-year data release. Physical optics fits are done on both the A and the B sides for the first time. The cutoff scale of the fitted distortions on the primary mirror is reduced by a factor of approximately 2 from previous analyses. These changes enable an improvement in the hybridization of Jupiter data with beam models, which is optimized with respect to error in the main beam solid angle. An increase in main-beam solid angle of approximately 1% is found for the V2 and W1-W4 differencing assemblies. Although the five-year results are statistically consistent with previous ones, the errors in the five-year beam transfer functions are reduced by a factor of approximately 2 as compared to the three-year analysis. We present radiometry of the planet Jupiter as a test of the beam consistency and as a calibration standard; for an individual differencing assembly. errors in the measured disk temperature are approximately 0.5%.

Hill, R.S.↗