118941632
Search for periodic modulations of the solar neutrino flux in Super-Kamiokande-I
A search for periodic modulations of the solar neutrino flux was performed using the Super-Kamiokande-I data taken from May 31st, 1996 to July 15th, 2001. The detector's capability of measuring the exact time of events, combined with a relatively high yield of solar neutrino events, allows a search for short-time variations in the observed flux. We employed the Lomb test to look for periodic modulations of the observed solar neutrino flux. The obtained periodogram is consistent with statistical fluctuation and no significant periodicity was found.
18442902
Tracking Performance of the Scintillating Fiber Detector in the K2K Experiment
The K2K long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment uses a Scintillating Fiber Detector (SciFi) to reconstruct charged particles produced in neutrino interactions in the near detector. We describe the track reconstruction algorithm and the performance of the SciFi after 3 years of operation.
119269198
General Relativistic Description of the Observed Galaxy Power Spectrum: Do We Understand What We Measure?
We extend the general relativistic description of galaxy clustering developed in Yoo, Fitzpatrick, and Zaldarriaga (2009). For the first time we provide a fully general relativistic description of the observed matter power spectrum and the observed galaxy power spectrum with the linear bias ansatz. It is significantly different from the standard Newtonian description on large scales and especially its measurements on large scales can be misinterpreted as the detection of the primordial non-Gaussianity even in the absence thereof. The key difference in the observed galaxy power spectrum arises from the real-space matter fluctuation defined as the matter fluctuation at the hypersurface of the observed redshift. As opposed to the standard description, the shape of the observed galaxy power spectrum evolves in redshift, providing additional cosmological information. While the systematic errors in the standard Newtonian description are negligible in the current galaxy surveys at low redshift, correct general relativistic description is essential for understanding the galaxy power spectrum measurements on large scales in future surveys with redshift depth z ≥ 3. We discuss ways to improve the detection significance in the current galaxy surveys and comment on applications of our general relativistic formalism in future surveys.
16668358
EXTENDING RECOVERY OF THE PRIMORDIAL MATTER POWER SPECTRUM
The shape of the primordial matter power spectrum encodes critical information on cosmological parameters. At large scales, in the linear regime, the observable galaxy power spectrum P obs(k) is expected to follow the shape of the linear matter power spectrum P lin(k), but on smaller scales the effects of nonlinearity and galaxy bias make the ratio P obs(k)/P lin(k) scale dependent. We develop a method that can extend the dynamic range of the primordial matter power spectrum recovery, taking full advantage of precision measurements on quasi-linear scales, by incorporating additional constraints on the galaxy halo occupation distribution (HOD) from the projected galaxy correlation function wp (rp ). We devise an analytic model to calculate observable galaxy power spectrum P obs(k) in real space and redshift space, given P lin(k) and HOD parameters, and we demonstrate its accuracy at the few percent level with tests against a suite of populated N-body simulations. Once HOD parameters are determined by fitting wp (rp ) measurements for a given cosmological model, galaxy bias is completely specified, and our analytic model predicts both the shape and normalization of P obs(k). Applying our method to the main galaxy redshift samples from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we find that the real-space galaxy power spectrum follows the shape of the nonlinear matter power spectrum at the 1%-2% level up to k = 0.2 h Mpc–1 and that current observational uncertainties in HOD parameters leave only few percent uncertainties in our scale-dependent bias predictions up to k = 0.5 h Mpc–1. These uncertainties can be marginalized over in deriving cosmological parameter constraints, and they can be reduced by higher precision wp (rp ) measurements. When we apply our method to the SDSS luminous red galaxy (LRG) samples, we find that the linear bias approximation is accurate to 5% at k ≤ 0.08 h Mpc–1, but the strong scale dependence of LRG bias prevents the use of linear theory at k ≥ 0.08 h Mpc–1. Our HOD model prediction is in good agreement with the recent SDSS LRG power spectrum measurements at all measured scales (k ≤ 0.2 h Mpc–1), naturally explaining the observed shape of P obs(k) in the quasi-linear regime. The phenomenological "Q-model" prescription is a poor description of galaxy bias for the LRG samples, and it can lead to biased cosmological parameter estimates when measurements at k ≥ 0.1 h Mpc–1 are included in the analysis. We quantify the potential bias and constraints on cosmological parameters that arise from applying linear theory and Q-model fitting, and we demonstrate the utility of HOD modeling of high-precision measurements of P obs(k) on quasi-linear scales, which will be obtainable from the final SDSS data set.
73543566
Complete treatment of galaxy two-point statistics: Gravitational lensing effects and redshift-space distortions
We present a coherent theoretical framework for computing gravitational lensing effects and redshift-space distortions in an inhomogeneous universe and investigate their impacts on galaxy two-point statistics. Adopt- ing the linearized Friedmann-Lemaˆ itre-Robertson-Walker metric, we derive the gravitational lensing and the generalized Sachs-Wolfe effects that include the weak lensing distortion, magnification, and time delay effects, and the redshift-space distortion, Sachs-Wolfe, and integ rated Sachs-Wolfe effects, respectively. Based on this framework, we first compute their effects on observed source fluctuations, separating them as two physically distinct origins: the volume effect that involves the chang e of volume and is always present in galaxy two-point statistics, and the source effect that depends on the intrin sic properties of source populations. Then we identify several terms that are ignored in the standard method, and we compute the observed galaxy two-point statistics, an ensemble average of all the combinations of the intrinsic source fluctuations and the additional contributions from the gravitational lensing and the generalized Sachs-Wolfe effects. This unified treatment of galaxy two- point statistics clarifies the relation of the gravitationa l lensing and the generalized Sachs-Wolfe effects to the metric perturbations and the underlying matter fluctuation s. For near future dark energy surveys, we compute additional contributions to the observed galaxy two-point statistics and analyze their impact on the anisotropic structure. Thorough theoretical modeling of galaxy two-point statistics would be not only necessary to analyze precision measurements from upcoming dark energy surveys, but also provide further discriminatory power in understanding the underlying physical mechanisms.
14820775
THE END OF THE MACHO ERA: LIMITS ON HALO DARK MATTER FROM STELLAR HALO WIDE BINARIES
We simulate the evolution of halo wide binaries in the presence of the massive compact halo objects (MACHOs) and compare our results to the sample of wide binaries in a companion paper. The observed distribution is well fitted by a single power law for angular separations, 35 43 M☉ at the standard local halo density ρH. This all but removes the last permitted window for a full MACHO halo for masses M > 10-7.5 M☉.