Christopher M. Hirata

Sterile neutrino dark matter: Weak interactions in the strong coupling epoch

We perform a detailed study of the weak interactions of standard model neutrinos with the primordial plasma and their effect on the resonant production of sterile neutrino dark matter. Motivated by issues in cosmological structure formation on small scales, and reported X-ray signals that could be due to sterile neutrino decay, we consider 7 keV-scale sterile neutrinos. Oscillation-driven production of such sterile neutrinos occurs at temperatures T ≳ 100 MeV, where we study two significant effects of weakly charged species in the primordial plasma: (1) the redistribution of an input lepton asymmetry; (2) the opacity for active neutrinos. We calculate the redistribution analytically above and below the quark-hadron transition, and match with lattice QCD calculations through the transition. We estimate opacities due to tree level processes involving leptons and quarks above the quark-hadron transition, and the most important mesons below the transition. We report final sterile neutrino dark matter phase space densities that are significantly influenced by these effects, and yet relatively robust to remaining uncertainties in the nature of the quark-hadron transition. We also provide transfer functions for cosmological density fluctuations with cutoffs at k ≃ 10 h Mpc^(−1), that are relevant to galactic structure formation.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey III photometric quasar clustering: Probing the initial conditions of the Universe

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has surveyed 14,555 square degrees of the sky, and delivered over a trillion pixels of imaging data. We present the large-scale clustering of 1.6 million quasars between z = 0.5 and z = 2.5 that have been classified from this imaging, representing the highest density of quasars ever studied for clustering measurements. This data set spans ~11,000 square degrees and probes a volume of 80(Gpc/h)^3. In principle, such a large volume and medium density of tracers should facilitate high-precision cosmological constraints. We measure the angular clustering of photometrically classified quasars using an optimal quadratic estimator in four redshift slices with an accuracy of ~25% over a bin width of l ~10 - 15 on scales corresponding to matter-radiation equality and larger (l ~ 2 - 30). Observational systematics can strongly bias clustering measurements on large scales, which can mimic cosmologically relevant signals such as deviations from Gaussianity in the spectrum of primordial perturbations. We account for systematics by employing a new method recently proposed by Agarwal et al. (2014) to the clustering of photometrically classified quasars. We carefully apply our methodology to mitigate known observational systematics and further remove angular bins that are contaminated by unknown systematics. Combining quasar data with the photometric luminous red galaxy (LRG) sample of Ross et al. (2011) and Ho et al. (2012), and marginalizing over all bias and shot noise-like parameters, we obtain a constraint on local primordial non-Gaussianity of fNL = -113+/-154 (1\sigma error). [Abridged]

The foreground wedge and 21 cm BAO surveys

Redshifted H I 21 cm emission from unresolved low-redshift large scale structure is a promising window for ground-based Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) observations. A major challenge for this method is separating the cosmic signal from the foregrounds of Galactic and extra-Galactic origins that are stronger by many orders of magnitude than the former. The smooth frequency spectrum expected for the foregrounds would nominally contaminate only very small kk modes; however the chromatic response of the telescope antenna pattern at this wavelength to the foreground introduces non-smooth structure, pervasively contaminating the cosmic signal over the physical scales of our interest. Such contamination defines a wedged volume in Fourier space around the transverse modes that is inaccessible for the cosmic signal. In this paper, we test the effect of this contaminated wedge on the future 21 cm BAO surveys using Fisher information matrix calculation. We include the signal improvement due to the BAO reconstruction technique that has been used for galaxy surveys and test the effect of this wedge on the BAO reconstruction as a function of signal to noises and incorporate the results in the Fisher matrix calculation. We find that the wedge effect expected at z = 1 2 is very detrimental to the angular diameter distances: the errors on angular diameter distances increased by 3-4.4 times, while the errors on H(z) increased by a factor of 1.5-1.6. We conclude that calibration techniques that clean out the foreground “wedge” would be extremely valuable for constraining angular diameter distances from intensity-mapping 21 cm surveys.

Dynamics of quadruple systems composed of two binaries: stars, white dwarfs, and implications for Ia supernovae

[Abridged]We investigate the long-term secular dynamics and Lidov-Kozai(LK) eccentricity oscillations of quadruple systems composed of two binaries at quadrupole and octupole order in the perturbing Hamiltonian. We show that the fraction of systems reaching high eccentricities is enhanced relative to triple systems, over a broader range of parameter space. We show that this fraction grows with time, unlike triple systems evolved at quadrupole order. This is fundamentally because with their additional degrees of freedom, quadruple systems do not have a maximal set of commuting constants of the motion, even in secular theory at quadrupole order. We discuss these results in the context of star-star and white dwarf-white dwarf(WD) binaries, with emphasis on WD-WD mergers and collisions relevant to the Type Ia supernova problem. For star-star systems, we find that more than 30% of systems reach high eccentricity within a Hubble time, potentially forming triple systems via stellar mergers or close binaries. For WD-WD systems, taking into account general relativistic and tidal precession and dissipation, we show that the merger rate is enhanced in quadruple systems relative to triple systems by a factor of 3.5-10, and that the long-term evolution of quadruple systems leads to a delay-time distribution ~1/t for mergers and collisions. In GW-driven mergers of compact objects, we classify the mergers by their evolutionary patterns in phase space and identify a regime in ~8% of orbital shrinking mergers, where eccentricity oscillations occur on the general relativistic precession timescale, rather than the much longer LK timescale. Finally, we generalize previous treatments of oscillations in the inner binary eccentricity to eccentric mutual orbits. We assess the merger rate in quadruple and triple systems and the implications for their viability as progenitors of stellar mergers and SNe Ia.

Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) for the Subaru telescope: overview, recent progress, and future perspectives

PFS (Prime Focus Spectrograph), a next generation facility instrument on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope, is a very wide-field, massively multiplexed, optical and near-infrared spectrograph. Exploiting the Subaru prime focus, 2394 reconfigurable fibers will be distributed over the 1.3 deg field of view. The spectrograph has been designed with 3 arms of blue, red, and near-infrared cameras to simultaneously observe spectra from 380nm to 1260nm in one exposure at a resolution of ~1.6 - 2.7Å. An international collaboration is developing this instrument under the initiative of Kavli IPMU. The project is now going into the construction phase aiming at undertaking system integration in 2017-2018 and subsequently carrying out engineering operations in 2018-2019. This article gives an overview of the instrument, current project status and future paths forward.

RAMAN SCATTERING BY MOLECULAR HYDROGEN AND NITROGEN IN EXOPLANETARY ATMOSPHERES

An important source of opacity in exoplanet atmospheres at short visible and near-UV wavelengths is Rayleigh scattering of light on molecules. It is accompanied by a related, albeit weaker process -- Raman scattering. We analyze the signatures of Raman scattering imprinted in the reflected light and the geometric albedo of exoplanets, which could provide information about atmospheric properties. Raman scattering affects the geometric albedo spectra of planets in following ways. Firstly, it causes filling-in of strong absorption lines in the incident radiation, thus producing sharp peaks in the albedo. Secondly, it shifts the wavelengths of spectral features in the reflected light causing the so-called Raman ghost lines. Raman scattering can also cause a broadband reduction of the albedo due to wavelength shifting of a stellar spectrum with red spectral index. Observing the Raman peaks in the albedo could be used to measure the column density of gas, thus providing constrains on the presence of clouds in the atmosphere. Observing the Raman ghost lines could be used to spectroscopically identify the main scatterer in the atmosphere, even molecules like H

Effects of Rayleigh scattering on the CMB and cosmic structure

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A PRACTICAL THEOREM ON USING INTERFEROMETRY TO MEASURE THE GLOBAL 21 cm SIGNAL

or N

A New Window into Escaping Exoplanet Atmospheres: 10830 Å Line of Helium

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A radial measurement of the galaxy tidal alignment magnitude with BOSS data

that do not have prominent spectral signatures in the optical wavelength range. If detected, ghost lines could also provide information about the temperature of the atmosphere. In this paper we investigate the effects of Raman scattering in hydrogen- and nitrogen-dominated atmospheres. We analyze the feasibility of detecting the signatures of Raman scattering with the existing and future observational facilities, and of using these signatures as probes of exoplanetary atmospheres.