A&C Reference Library - Astronomy & Cosmology Resources

[Garth]

Some ideas for future tests of General Relativity.
I was intrigued and wanted to keep tabs on this short (4 page) paper:

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0610047
Testing General Relativity with Atom Interferometry
Authors: Savas Dimopoulos, Peter W. Graham, Jason M. Hogan, Mark A. Kasevich
4 pages, 1 figure

"The unprecedented precision of atom interferometry will soon lead to laboratory tests of general relativity to levels that will rival or exceed those reached by astrophysical observations. We propose such an experiment that will initially test the equivalence principle to 1 part in 10^15 (300 times better than the current limit), and 1 part in 10^17 in the future. It will also probe general relativistic effects--such as the non-linear three-graviton coupling, the gravity of an atom's kinetic energy, and the falling of light--to several decimals. Further, in contrast to astrophysical observations, laboratory tests can isolate these effects via their different functional dependence on experimental variables."

the authors are all at the Stanford physics department

I was interested in this paper too. A test of the EEP to one part in 10¹⁷ would be able to falsify the "Self Creation Cosmology" gravitational theory - but then hopefully GP-B (also Stanford University) will do that anyway before too long! (April 07?)

Garth

 

[Astronuc]

NASA's Astrophysics Science Division Colloquium Series

http://www.universe.nasa.gov/seminars/EUDcolloq/

 

[Astronuc]

This collection may be of interest -

Supernovae and Gamma Ray Bursts
June 21, 2004 - August 27, 2004
http://www.int.washington.edu/talks/WorkShops/int_04_2/

There are a lot more -

http://www.int.washington.edu/talk_list.html

http://www.int.washington.edu/PROGRAMS/programs_all.html

http://www.int.washington.edu/PROGRAMS/past_programs.html

Stellar Abundances & Nucleosynthesis Conference
http://www.int.washington.edu/talks/WorkShops/Stellar/

 

[marcus]

Siobhan Morgan's redshift calculator has a new URL

http://www.uni.edu/morgans/ajjar/Cosmology/cosmos.html

when you start with it, put in three standard parameters
matter density 0.27
Lambda density 0.73
Hubble parameter 71

then it is ready and you can put some redshift like 3 into the "z box"
and it will give you data on light coming to us with that redshift
like travel time
and recession speed when and where the light was emitted
and recession speed of the emitter object now, etc.

 

[Huashan]

This collection may be of interest -

Supernovae and Gamma Ray Bursts
June 21, 2004 - August 27, 2004
http://www.int.washington.edu/talks/WorkShops/int_04_2/

...

Wow ... great!... i suggest everybody to see this ..:!)

thanks ...

 

[marcus]

Good talk given by Roger Penrose at Cambridge on 7 November 2005

http://www.Newton.cam.ac.uk/webseminars/pg+ws/2005/gmr/gmrw04/1107/penrose/

topic was "Before the Big Bang"
and he said that only a couple of months earlier if someone had asked him he would have given the conventional answer that the question didn't make sense and there wasn't any "before"

if we can believe that, which could involve some striving for effect, then as recently as September 2005, Penrose would have said nothing before big bang, undefined.

but apparently now he has changed his mind----likes to talk about ideas of what was before the start of our universe expansion.
I heard him give the same talk in 2006, same slides, at MSRI Berkeley in 2006, and he also gave the talk at Perimeter in 2006.

great thing about this talk is his handdrawn pictures. good cartoonist. helps you understand both cosmology and thermodynamics in a more visual intuitive way
incredible what some people can do with just 3 or 4 different colors of felt-tip pen

 

[Astronuc]

Look for the complete series 'UA: Space University' beginning this Sunday, July 29, both online and in the print edition of the Arizona Daily Star.

http://regulus2.azstarnet.com/mediaskins/main.php?id=1823

Series Preview - UA: Space University
Observers at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory telescope on Mt. Lemmon search the sky for objects that could collide into Earth. First part is an interview with Stephen Larson.

 

[Astronuc]

This might be of interest to students

ASTC22 Galactic and Extragalactic Astrophysics
http://planets.utsc.utoronto.ca/~pawel/ASTC22/

 

[Astronuc]

Structure and dynamics of the solar chromosphere
Johannes Mattheus Krijger

http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2003-0321-121547/inhoud.htm

 

[Astronuc]

The Carnegie-Irvine Nearby Galaxies Survey

Also referenced in some older papers as Carnegie Nearby Galaxy Survey

from http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0508/0508338v1.pdf
[10] Mathewson D. S., Ford V. L., Buchhorn M., 1992, ApJS, 81, 413
[11] Persic M., Salucci P., 1995, ApJS, 99, 501

http://www.ociw.edu/%7Elho/projects/CINGS/CINGS.html

http://www.ociw.edu/~lho/projects/CINGS/Survey/index.html

http://www.ociw.edu/~lho/projects/CINGS/Survey/survey.html

Doesn't seem to have been updated in the last 2 years.

But it has photometric properties -
http://www.ociw.edu/~lho/projects/CINGS/Survey/leda2.html

 

[Astronuc]

Ohio State University Bright Spiral Galaxy Survey

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~survey/

The goal of the Ohio State Bright Spiral Galaxy Survey is to create a database of deep, photometrically calibrated images of a complete magnitude limited sample of nearly 200 bright, nearby, well-resolved spirals.

Near-IR and Optical Morphology of Spiral Galaxies
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0206320/

Galaxies from the OSU Spiral Galaxy Survey Master List for which
BVRJHK observations have been completed.
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~frogel/OSUgalsurvey/GalaxiesDone.html

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~survey/EDR/Data/

 

[Astronuc]

Untwisting the Tornado: X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy of G357.7-0.1

report on the detection of X-ray emission from the unusual Galactic radio source G357.7-0.1 (the "Tornado"). Observations made with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory demonstrate the presence of up to three sources of X-ray emission from the Tornado:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/journal/issues/ApJL/v594n1/17398/17398.html?erFrom=-2587168887994415514Guest

 

[Astronuc]

VLTI - Very Large Telescopic Interferometer

This might be of interest to those involved or seeking opportunities in visual/optical astronomy.

http://www.vlti.org/home.php

http://www.vlti.org/project.php?cid=2

Project Overview
ONTHEFRINGE is a series of four schools designed to train young astronomers in optical interferometry. Optical interferometry is a new technology enabling observations with angular resolution an order of magnitude larger than the largest single telescopes available at visible and infrared wavelengths. Optical interferometry is the only technology allowing the systematic direct detection and characterization of Earthlike planets orbiting other stars. Therefore it plays a key role in ESAs long-range plan through the Darwin mission, and in NASA's Origins program via TPF-I. On the ground Europe has achieved leadership with the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). Interferometry from the ground will play a central role in:

• understanding the lifecycles of stars in the Milky Way,
• the discovery and characterization of planets orbiting stars in the solar neighborhood, and
• the understanding of the energy conversion mechanisms in Active Galactic Nuclei.

 

[marcus]

Wallace found this link to the 2005 Lineweaver Davis article in the SciAm called
Misconceptions about the Big Bang.
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~aes/AST105/Readings/misconceptionsBigBang.pdf

The article used to be available at the SciAm website but I've noticed that what they have there has been dwindling----some very educational graphics have been eliminated---maybe because storage is scarce.

It is a really good article, very helpful. Classic example of general audience hype-free science writing----cool clearheaded no gee-whiz---by a top expert. Much needed because of persistent misunderstanding of the standard world model

The collection that the link came from is worth knowing about
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~aes/AST105/syllabus.notes.html

this gives the readings for a Princeton general astronomy course (for nonscience majors) no calculus needed.
the course was taught in 2005 by Ostriker and Shapley.
it is a good kind of course that can teach a lot about how we understand and measure the universe just using pictures, high school mathematics like simple algebra and trig, and intuitive verbal description

there are a lot of links to readings here that could be useful to us at PF, as long as they stay live.
information page for the course (Astro 105) is
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~aes/AST105/course.information.html
which has a link to the homepage at the bottom, if you want

 

[marcus]

To have this handy to refer to,
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0603449
Page 50 Figure 17
==quote==
Fig. 17.— Constraints on a non-flat universe with quintessence-like dark energy
with constant w (ModelM10 in Table 3). The contours show the 2-d marginalized
contours for w and Omega_k based on the the CMB+2dFGRS+SDSS+supernova data
sets. This figure shows that with the full combination of data sets, there are
already strong limits on w without the need to assume a flat universe prior.
The marginalized best fit values for the equation of state and curvature are
w = −1.08 ± 0.12 and
Omega_k = −0.026+0.016/−0.015 at the 68% confidence level.
==endquote==

The confidence interval for Omega_k is [-0.041, -0.010]

That means that the confidence interval for Omega_total, or simply Omega, is
[1.010, 1.041]

 

[marcus]

Updating some basic cosmology links and getting a bunch of them together:

Ned Wright's cosmology tutorial
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm

Ned Wright's cosmology FAQ
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html

Ned Wright's most basic cosmology calculator
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CosmoCalc.html
(he has links to some more advanced or specialized calculators)

Morgan's calculator
http://www.uni.edu/morgans/ajjar/Cosmology/cosmos.html

Murphy's coordinate conversion tool
http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/support/tools/eqtogal.html

Lineweaver and Davis' Scientific American article Misconceptions about the big bang March 2005.
AS LONG AS THIS PRINCETON LINK WORKS IT IS BETTER THAN THE OTHERS

http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~aes/AST105/Readings/misconceptionsBigBang.pdf

Here are the links to the same article at the SciAm website. But these links have been going dead or else the GRAPHICS that you used to get have been disappearing. So these SciAm links may not be as good as the Princeton one

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=0009F0CA-C523-1213-852383414B7F0147

The Lineweaver Davis article had some very useful SIDEBARS giving pictorial diagrams with a question together with right and wrong answers explained. For easier access, here are links to individual sidebars.

http://www.sciam.com/media/inline/0009F0CA-C523-1213-852383414B7F0147_p39.gif
What kind of explosion was the big bang?

http://www.sciam.com/media/inline/0009F0CA-C523-1213-852383414B7F0147_p40.gif
Can galaxies recede faster than light?

http://www.sciam.com/media/inline/0009F0CA-C523-1213-852383414B7F0147_p42.gif
Can we see galaxies receding faster than light?

http://www.sciam.com/media/inline/0009F0CA-C523-1213-852383414B7F0147_p43.gif
Why is there a cosmic redshift?

http://www.sciam.com/media/inline/0009F0CA-C523-1213-852383414B7F0147_p44.gif
How large is the observable universe?

http://www.sciam.com/media/inline/0009F0CA-C523-1213-852383414B7F0147_p45.gif
Do objects inside the universe expand, too?

 

[Astronuc]

marcus has posted some links to relativity.livingreviews.com, and I stumbled on a set of articles about solarphysics.

http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/index.html

 

[Astronuc]

I found a nice little pocket handbook/guide for visual astronomers. I was discounted to $5 (normally $15) at Barnes & Noble.

Neil Bone (Illustrated by Wil Tirion), Deep Sky Observer's Guide, Firefly Books.

 

[Astronuc]

Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos:
Eleven Science Questions for the New Century

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10079

Advances made by physicists in understanding matter, space, and time and by astronomers in understanding the universe as a whole have closely intertwined the question being asked about the universe at its two extremes the very large and the very small. This report identifies 11 key questions that have a good chance to be answered in the next decade. It urges that a new research strategy be created that brings to bear the techniques of both astronomy and sub-atomic physics in a cross-disciplinary way to address these questions. The report presents seven recommendations to facilitate the necessary research and development coordination. These recommendations identify key priorities for future scientific projects critical for realizing these scientific opportunities.

 

[marcus]

Fascinating article mentioned by Xantox:
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1995ApJ...446...63H&data_type=PDF_HIGH&whole_paper=YES&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf
Edward R. Harrison
Mining Energy in an Expanding Universe
This seems not to be available at the arxiv, but is from Harvard.

 

[marcus]

Some Einstein quotes:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=1386960#post1386960

“Dadurch verlieren Zeit & Raum den letzter Rest von physikalischer Realität. ..."

“Thereby time and space lose the last vestige of physical reality”.

(Possible paraphrase: space does not have physical existence, but is more like a bunch of relationships between events)

In case anyone wants an online source, see page 43 of this pdf at a University of Minnesota website
www.tc.umn.edu/~janss011/pdf%20files/Besso-memo.pdf[/URL]

==quote from the source material==
...In the introduction of the paper on the perihelion motion presented on 18 November 1915, Einstein wrote about the assumption of general covariance “[b]by which time and space are robbed of the last trace of objective reality[/b]” (“durch welche Zeit und Raum der letzten Spur objektiver Realität beraubt werden,[/color]” Einstein 1915b, 831). In a letter to Schlick, he again wrote about general covariance that
“[b]thereby time and space lose the last vestige of physical reality[/b]” (“Dadurch verlieren Zeit & Raum den letzter Rest von physikalischer Realität.[/color]” Einstein to Moritz Schlick, 14 December 1915 [CPAE 8, Doc. 165]).
==endquote==

Both quotes are from Nov-Dec 1915, one being from a paper on perihelion motion. and the other from a letter to Moritz Schlick a few weeks later.

 

[marcus]

Thanks to George Jones for this link:
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0508052
"In an expanding universe, what doesn't expand?"
May be helpful in addressing a questions that often comes up in cosmo forum.

 

[marcus]

R. Brent Tully (of the Tully Fisher relation) has some fine outreach material,
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~tully/outreach/vv1a_9-25.mpg
See this animation of a trip up out of Milky's disk and then to the Virgo Cluster, eyeballing lots of stuff along the way and ending up in a giant elliptical.

See also this, which I had trouble streaming and couldn't evaluate but which might be interesting
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~tully/pecv_12min_sound_qt.mov

I should alert readers to the fact that I have just become aware of Tully's website and outreach material. Although I am impressed by by the quality and by his reputation, I cannot say anything overall. He may have some unorthodox views. From my point of view this is how science happens. Individuals should have some individualistic views and not just follow the consensus. So this would be OK. But proceed with caution. I'm just now watching the sound movie and finding it very interesting although the streaming is spasmodic.

 

[marcus]

Nobelist George Smoot talking about the CMB and what things it tells us.
Very skillful presentation with animated graphs, shows what bumps in the power spectrum mean, and why. Part of the "Honeywell Nobel" lecture series.

http://www.revver.com/video/827006/the-history-and-fate-of-the-universe-part-1-of-9/

http://www.revver.com/video/827106/the-history-and-fate-of-the-universe-part-2-of-9/

http://www.revver.com/video/827171/the-history-and-fate-of-the-universe-part-3-of-9/

http://www.revver.com/video/832550/the-history-and-fate-of-the-universe-part-4-of-9/

http://www.revver.com/video/832599/the-history-and-fate-of-the-universe-part-5-of-9/

http://www.revver.com/video/832643/the-history-and-fate-of-the-universe-part-6-of-9/

http://www.revver.com/video/832679/the-history-and-fate-of-the-universe-part-7-of-9/

http://www.revver.com/video/832724/the-history-and-fate-of-the-universe-part-8-of-9/

http://www.revver.com/video/832788/the-history-and-fate-of-the-universe-part-9-of-9/

 

[marcus]

Primer on black holes.
For nonspecialist general audience by the president of the Royal Astronomical Society.
How we observe the black holes at the center of normal galaxies and quasar galaxies.
How they generate different kinds of radiation. Models. Inference.

Color illustrated magazine article somewhat on the level of SciAm, maybe a bit more math, but still fairly accessible.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.2119
Black Holes at Work
Andrew Fabian
published in Astronomy and Geophysics

 

[marcus]

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0912.2809v1
Black Holes in an Expanding Universe
Gary W. Gibbons, Kei-ichi Maeda
4 pages, 1 table, 2 figures
(Submitted on 15 Dec 2009)
"An exact solution representing black holes in an expanding universe is found. The black holes are maximally charged and the universe is expanding with arbitrary equation of state. It is an exact solution of the Einstein-scalar-Maxwell system, in which we have two Maxwell-type U(1) fields coupled to the scalar field. The potential of the scalar field is an exponential. We find a regular horizon, which depends on one parameter (the ratio of the energy density of U(1) fields to that of the scalar field). The horizon is static because of the balance on the horizon between gravitational attractive force and U(1) repulsive force acting on the scalar field. We also calculate the black hole temperature."

This short article could be useful as a review with references to a number of earlier papers on models of black hole in expanding universe.

 

[marcus]

Meteor posted this back in April 2004, almost 6 years ago. Time flies!

This paper seems interesting:
"Distance measures in cosmology"
David W. Hogg
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/?9905116

It must be good given that I really enjoyed the pdf course of special relativity of D. Hogg

Thanks to meteor for adding this to our A&C reference library. Hogg's tutorial is an excellent clear layout of the different distance measures. I recall finding it a real help at one time.
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9905116

Of course Ned Wright's tutorial, and his cosmo calculator, should be mentioned as well.

If you don't know about this already, several different distance measures are used in astronomy. It's good to be reminded of this and of these resources. Thanks to Sylas for doing so most recently!

 

[marcus]

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0909.3983
Latest estimates about the Cosmic Event Horizon (CEH) by Egan Lineweaver.
Current distance to it ~15.7 Gly (proper i.e. freezeframe distance)
what that is converging to ~16.4 Gly (likewise proper, or freezeframe distance).

Note the CEH is not the same as the Hubble distance ~13.7 Gly.

You can picture the proper distance (at a given moment) as what you would measure if you could freezde the expansion process at that moment and use conventional radar ranging or timing of lightsignals to measure in the usual way. The Hubble law v = Hd is based on this concept of distance.

The CEH is basically the distance to a galaxy which, if you left here today and traveled at the speed of light, you could never quite get to. Something closer than CEH you could, in principle, reach. It's definition depends on the standard cosmo model.

 

[Astronuc]

Closer to home.

Nearest Star: The Surprising Science of Our Sun
Leon Golub, Jay M. Pasachoff

Leon Golub is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and is the head of one of the teams working with NASA's Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) spacecraft .

Jay M. Pasachoff is Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy at Williams College and, having viewed 31 solar eclipses, is Chair of the Working Group on Eclipses of the International Astronomical Union.

Abstract: Unlike the myriad points of light we gaze at in the night sky, our nearest star allows us to study the wonders of stellar workings at blindingly close range--from a mere 93 million miles away. And what do we see? In this book, two of the world's leading solar scientists unfold all that history and science--from the first cursory observations to the measurements obtained by the latest state-of-the-art instruments on the ground and in space--have revealed about the Sun. Following the path of science from the very center of this 380,000,000,000,000,000,000-megawatt furnace to its explosive surface, Nearest Star invites readers into an open-ended narrative of discovery about what we know about the Sun and how we have learned it.

How did the Sun evolve, and what will it become? What is the origin of its light and heat? How does solar activity affect the atmospheric conditions that make life on Earth possible? These are the questions at the heart of solar physics, and at the center of this book. Having made optical solar observations with many solar telescopes and in the rockets and satellites, the authors bring their extensive personal experience to this story of how astronomers study the Sun, and what they have discovered about phenomena from eclipses to neutrinos, space weather, and global warming. Richly illustrated with an assortment of pictures from the latest solar missions and the newest telescopes, this book is a very readable, up-to-date account of science's encounter with our nearest star.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/GOLNEA.html (on sale ~$18)

Nearest Star

 

[Astronuc]

OPPORTUNITIES IN NUCLEAR ASTROPHYSICS
Conclusions of a Town Meeting held at the University of Notre Dame
7-8 June 1999
http://www.nscl.msu.edu/~austin/nuclear-astrophysics.pdf

It would be interesting to do an update of this program.

Also - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Institute_for_Nuclear_Astrophysics
http://www.jinaweb.org/