No Arabic abstract
The detection of a dipole anisotropy in the sky distribution of sources in large-scale radio surveys can be used to constrain the magnitude and direction of our local motion with respect to an isotropically distributed extragalactic radio source population. Such a population is predicted to be present at cosmological redshifts in an isotropically expanding universe. The extragalactic radio source population is observed to have a median redshift of z ~ 1, a much later epoch than the cosmic microwave background (z ~ 1100). I consider the detectability of a velocity dipole anisotropy in radio surveys having a finite number of source counts. The statistical significance of a velocity dipole detection from radio source counts is also discussed in detail. I find that existing large-scale radio survey catalogs do not have a sufficient number of sources to detect the expected velocity dipole with statistical significance, even if survey masking and flux calibration complications can be completely eliminated (i.e., if both the surveys and observing instruments are perfect). However, a dipole anisotropy should be easily detectable in future radio surveys planned with next-generation radio facilities, such as the Low Frequency Array and the Square Kilometer Array; tight constraints on the dipole magnitude and direction should be possible if flux calibration problems can be sufficiently minimized or corrected and contamination from local sources eliminated.
These lectures deal with our current knowledge of the matter distribution in the universe, focusing on how this is studied via the large-scale structure seen in galaxy surveys. We first assemble the necessary basics needed to understand the development of density fluctuations in an expanding universe, and discuss how galaxies are located within the dark-matter density field. Results from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey are presented and contrasted with theoretical models. We show that the combination of large-scale structure and data on microwave-background anisotropies can eliminate almost all degeneracies, and yield a completely specified cosmological model. This is the concordance universe: a geometrically flat combination of vacuum energy and cold dark matter. The study of cosmic structure is able to establish this in a manner independent of external information, such as the Hubble diagram; this extra information can however be used to limit non-standard alternatives, such as a variable equation of state for the vacuum.
Results are presented of a harmonic analysis of the large scale cosmic-ray anisotropy as observed by the Milagro observatory. We show a two-dimensional display of the sidereal anisotropy pro jections in right ascension generated by the fitting of three harmonics to 18 separate declination bands. The Milagro observatory is a water Cherenkov detector located in the Jemez mountains near Los Alamos, New Mexico. With a high duty cycle and large field-of-view, Milagro is an excellent instrument for measuring this anisotropy with high sensitivity at TeV energies. The analysis is conducted using a seven year data sample consisting of more than 95 billion events, the largest such data set in existence. We observe an anisotropy with a magnitude around 0.1% for cosmic rays with a median energy of 6 TeV. The dominant feature is a deficit region of depth (2.49 +/- 0.02 stat. +/- 0.09 sys.)x10^(-3) in the direction of the Galactic North Pole centered at 189 degrees right ascension. We observe a steady increase in the magnitude of the signal over seven years.
We simulate the anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) induced by cosmic strings. By numerically evolving a network of cosmic strings we generate full-sky CMB temperature anisotropy maps. Based on $192$ maps, we compute the anisotropy power spectrum for multipole moments $ell le 20$. By comparing with the observed temperature anisotropy, we set the normalization for the cosmic string mass-per-unit-length $mu$, obtaining $Gmu/c^2=1.05 {}^{+0.35}_{-0.20} times10^{-6}$, which is consistent with all other observational constraints on cosmic strings. We demonstrate that the anisotropy pattern is consistent with a Gaussian random field on large angular scales.
We study the prospects to measure the cosmic radio dipole by means of continuum surveys with the Square Kilometre Array. Such a measurement will allow a critical test of the cosmological principle. It will test whether the cosmic rest frame defined by the cosmic microwave background at photon decoupling agrees with the cosmic rest frame of matter at late times.
We develop a model anisotropy best-fitting to the two-dimensional sky-map of multi-TeV galactic cosmic ray (GCR) intensity observed with the Tibet III air shower (AS) array. By incorporating a pair of intensity excesses in the hydrogen deflection plane (HDP) suggested by Gurnett et al., together with the uni-directional and bi-directional flows for reproducing the observed global feature, this model successfully reproduces the observed sky-map including the skewed feature of the excess intensity from the heliotail direction, whose physical origin has long remained unknown. These additional excesses are modeled by a pair of the northern and southern Gaussian distributions, each placed ~50 degree away from the heliotail direction. The amplitude of the southern excess is as large as ~0.2 %, more than twice the amplitude of the northern excess. This implies that the Tibet AS experiment discovered for the first time a clear evidence of the significant modulation of GCR intensity in the heliotail and the asymmetric heliosphere.