‘Cosmic Lantern’ Could Help Us Understand the Fate of the Universe
The quest to determine the nature of both dark matter and dark energy has led scientists to adopt new tracers of the large-scale structure of the Universe, such as emission line galaxies. These galaxies present strong emission lines from the gas heated up by newly formed stars.
Lead author of the study, Dr Violeta Gonzalez-Perez from the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, said: “Galaxies are cosmic lanterns that show small patches of cosmic history, informing us of the changes in the space-time fabric of the Universe. The strong formation of new stars in galaxies leave a characteristic imprint in their spectra that allows for a precise determination of their distance.
“Moreover, as young stars are very bright, galaxies with a strong star formation can be visible further back in cosmic time. These are the two characteristics that make emission line galaxies excellent cosmological tracers for a long time span.”
However, current emission line galaxy samples are small and their characteristics are not well understood. Computational modelling is the only way to attempt to understand all the processes involved in the formation and evolution of these galaxies.
Astronomers from the University of Portsmouth’s world-leading Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (ICG) explored the characteristics of emission line galaxies through experiments on DiRAC’s (Distributed Research utilising Advanced Computing) national supercomputing facility at Durham University.
The computational experiments were concentrated around the time when the Universe went from being matter dominated to becoming dark energy dominated as it is now. They found that most emission line galaxies live at the centres of gravitational potential wells, with masses equivalent to eleven billion of our suns. Current numerical models of formation and evolution of galaxies also show that emission line galaxies trace the underlying gravitational potentials in a different way to galaxies selected by their stellar mass.
Dr Gonzalez-Perez said: “This comparison will improve our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution and allow scientists to benefit from a more realistic model for the mechanisms that produce emission line galaxies.”
The image shows nearby emission line galaxies NCG 4038 – 4039. The pink parts in this image are showing the light from the gas heated by newly formed stars.
Credit:NASA, ESA and The Hubble Heritage (STScl/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration.
The study, which is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (published by Oxford University Press), involved researchers from the Universities of Portsmouth and Durham (UK), the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (Germany), the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (Spain).
University of Portsmouth
Citation: The host dark matter haloes of [O II] emitters at 0.5 < z < 1.5 V Gonzalez-Perez J Comparat P Norberg C M Baugh S Contreras C Lacey N McCullagh A Orsi J Helly J Humphries Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 474, Issue 3, 1 March 2018, Pages 4024–4038, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx2807
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Whistler Blowers, Insiders
You seem to enjoy your physics like myself. Challenge…. What information has russia released since they announced the succesful deployment of thier artificial star four days before your backwards eclipse. Why is the sun now white? It used to be orange remember?
California firestarter. Every president is a mason of one sect or an enemies but theyre all masons. Yes theres also seperate masonic female and black temples. No temples… Houses of deciept