From amr w astro.uni.torun.pl Tue Dec 2 10:12:30 2003 From: amr w astro.uni.torun.pl (Andrzej Marecki) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2003 10:12:30 +0100 (MET) Subject: Fine structure constant vs. quintessence Message-ID: <200312020912.KAA28360@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl> NEWSALERT: Thursday, November 27, 2003 @ 1442 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now [...] Light signals from quasars seem to indicate that the bond between electrons and protons was weaker in the early universe. Luis Anchordoqui and Haim Goldberg of the Department of Physics at Northeastern University in Boston, Mass., propose that the apparent change in the fine structure constant is coupled to "quintessence." The fine structure constant was measurably weaker ten billion years ago, but as quintessence assumed dominance about eight billion years ago, the force between electrons and protons became stronger and "more constant." http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0311/25nature/ ----- End of forwarded message from NewsAlert ----- -- Andrzej From amr w astro.uni.torun.pl Tue Dec 16 15:43:21 2003 From: amr w astro.uni.torun.pl (Andrzej Marecki) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 15:43:21 +0100 (MET) Subject: Grant In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200312161443.PAA15843@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl> > BTW(2) - Motyl proposes that we work on the grant proposal tomorrow > afternoon (Wed 17 Dec) @radio astronomy. Let's say at 13:00. Is that OK for everyone? A. From jarekr w ncac.torun.pl Tue Dec 16 16:30:36 2003 From: jarekr w ncac.torun.pl (Jarek Rzepecki) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 16:30:36 +0100 (CET) Subject: jarek - grant application? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Boud! I'm ill... so i will replay in more detail in few days... But in genereal - sure i would like to be in the grant but i'm not sure if i will do my PhD in Torun... Cheers, Jarek On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Boud Roukema wrote: > hi Jarek (Rzepecki), > Would you like to be included in our next grant application, on the > assumption that you are likely to start a PhD in cosmo at CAMK-Toruń > (or TCfA) next academic year? The SZ stuff can certainly be counted as > useful for topology in the sense that more precise SZ modelling can lead > to better values of the curvature parameters (via mass function evolution > a la Blanchard et al) and so constrain, e.g. the Poincare dodecahedral > model. > > You can see the discussion on our previous grant application here: > > http://www.astro.uni.torun.pl/sympa/cosmo-torun/2003-01/thrd1.html > http://www.astro.uni.torun.pl/sympa/cosmo-torun/2003-02/thrd1.html > > We're about to start discussing our next application this week, since > the deadline is (probably) the end of Jan 2004 and there's a lot of > paperwork to be filled out. > > Anyone else who would like to be included (or excluded) from the application? > > As i said in my previous email, IMHO this is astropolitics which does > not provide efficient positive/negative feedbacks (for example, > magister and PhD students cannot provide positive/negative feedback > despite their obvious scientific qualification, while senior > scientists who know less of the subject than students can provide > feedback based on intuition without having any public record of their > arguments or lack of arguments). But anyway, i think the consensus is > that it's better to apply for grants than not to. > > pozd > boud > From boud w astro.uni.torun.pl Wed Dec 17 16:15:45 2003 From: boud w astro.uni.torun.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 16:15:45 +0100 (CET) Subject: Grant In-Reply-To: <200312161443.PAA15843@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl> References: <200312161443.PAA15843@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl> Message-ID: witam, We just had a long discussion regarding possibilities for the next grant proposal. Here is what i remember and understood in the discussion. * We haven't yet got a reply from Sebastian. * It's not obvious how easy or wise it would be to include Jarek, given that: OCRA has its own funding, so including stuff relevant to OCRA might be used as an argument against the grant proposal; and Jarek is not yet a PhD student, and has not yet decided to do a PhD in Torun, or decided between TCfA and CAMK. * In both cases, there are still a few weeks for discussion (but not much more). * From our previous proposal: http://www.astro.uni.torun.pl/sympa/cosmo-torun/2003-01/thrd1.html http://www.astro.uni.torun.pl/sympa/cosmo-torun/2003-02/thrd1.html we had one referee very positive, two quite negative. One of the negatively commenting referees failed to understand how AGNs can be used to test topology, but the other simply felt that AGNs and topology are separate fields and should not be combined. * The AGN evolution observations of motyl + magda + andrzej together make a very tight knit project and would be self-sufficient for a grant proposal alone. * It is important to maximise the chances of the grant proposal being accepted in order to get the money. * There was consensus that (1) We should have AGN observations as the main focus of the proposal (not topology). (2) That given (1), andrzej should be PI since he is much, much, much more experienced in AGN observations than boud. (3) We still have some time (e.g. till 7 Jan) to decide further basic questions before getting heavily into the paperwork, printing, signing, etc. * The two most likely scenarios are: (4) (4a) andrzej + magda + motyl -> theme = AGN observations - birth/death/HYMORs AND [(4b) boud + bartek either (4b.1) make an independent grant proposal on another theme at the same time OR (4b.2) wait till the following grant period (Jul 2004) to avoid the chance of the grant committee creating bad feeling by giving a grant to one "group" (or neither) and not the other. ] OR (5) andrzej + magda + motyl + boud + bartek -> theme = AGN observations - birth/death/HYMORs - plus theoretical tools to use these to test AGN evolution hypotheses in terms of a cosmologically realistic galaxy evolution model, including sensitivity to different hypotheses on how the non-baryonic dark matter particles behave: general discussion (please modify, correct, add links): http://adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Cosmo/GalaxyAGNFormation ArFus GPL software package: http://adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Cosmo/ArFus i personally think the idea of us "competing" against each other for basic research funding is ridiculous. The history of science constantly shows that it's only a long term point of view (50 years or so) which can seriously judge which science is best or most relevant, and even this generally oversimplifies the fact that most of science is integrated and that both the independent cross-checking by many scientists, not just by "superior" scientists, and also the high profile, "breakthroughs", are just as important for science as a whole to progress. In any case, competition became impractical with special relativity and the atom bomb. See also: http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma However, for the moment the Polish astro community, and the Polish research community in general, is not well enough organised (nor would have a common point of view) to shift the grant system to something more intelligent and cooperative. So we need to make a decision by early/mid January. My feeling is that we have a good chance of coming to a decision by "formal consensus" on the above proposals (4) and (5) (or modified versions of them) at another meeting during early/mid January. This means something like: - we are clear on what the different proposals are (see above) - any of us (whether mgr or dr or nearly-hab ;) can *block* any of the proposals, but can only do so on the basis of what she/he thinks is a fundamental reason (e.g. science and/or money), not based on (e.g.) seniority or some unstated intuition ("formal" doesn't mean bureaucratic, it means that we are clear about what we are saying and how we decide) i personally don't have objections to any of the options, except that i might block (4b.1) unless people think that there would be a good chance of two "competing" proposals being simultaneously accepted. pozd boud PS: please corrrect, comment, whatever. On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, Andrzej Marecki wrote: > > BTW(2) - Motyl proposes that we work on the grant proposal tomorrow > > afternoon (Wed 17 Dec) @radio astronomy. > > Let's say at 13:00. Is that OK for everyone? > > A. > From amr w astro.uni.torun.pl Thu Dec 18 13:35:45 2003 From: amr w astro.uni.torun.pl (Andrzej Marecki) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 13:35:45 +0100 (MET) Subject: Grav. lensing caused by a very massive object Message-ID: <200312181235.NAA04734@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl> Paper: astro-ph/0312427 From: Masamune Oguri Title: A Gravitationally Lensed Quasar with Quadruple Images Separated by 14.62 Arcseconds Journal-ref: Nature 426 (2003) 810-812 [...] Here we report the discovery of a lensed quasar, SDSS J1004+14112, which has a maximum separation between the components of 14.62 arcsec. Such a large separation means that the lensing object must be dominated by dark matter. Our results are fully consistent with theoretical expectations based on the cold-dark-matter model. \\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0312427 , 364kb) ----- End of forwarded message from send mail ONLY to astro-ph ----- -- Andrzej From boud w astro.uni.torun.pl Wed Dec 3 17:14:30 2003 From: boud w astro.uni.torun.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 17:14:30 +0100 (CET) Subject: IV Torunski Festiwal N .i Sz. (fwd) Message-ID: Witam, Andrzej Kus już proponował że zrobimy debat panelowy na tym Festiwał. Widocznie, ktoś w Administracji był bardzo zadowolony z artykuł w Rzeczpospolicie... Niezależny od mediów, zgadzam się że byłoby fajny pomysł zrobić jakiś prezentacja rozmaity punkt widzenia - dla inflacji, dla możliwość mierzyć topologia Wszechświat. Dokładnie format możemy dyskutować kilka dni przed Festiwał, ale chyba potrzebujemy: - tytuł - abstrakt - nazywa kto będzi mówić (ale oczywiści, moźemy zmienić na ostatniu minut, tylko nie będzi Twoja nazywa drukowana na reklama etc.) Tu propozycja: http://adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Cosmo/FestiwalNauki2004 Staszek mówił że potrzeba być propozycja do jutrze czw 4 grudnia (jest trochę absurdalny, dać tylko jeden dzień dla decydować, ale nie ma sprawy), więc będę dać jej do Andrzeja Strobela jutro (czw 4 grud) w popołudniu. Oczywiście, ja nie mogę kontrolować co będzie na reklamów ofycjalny, ale chyba w praktyce możesz myśleć w czasie następne kilka miesięce... Proszę poprawiuj ten stron! http://adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Cosmo/FestiwalNauki2004 pozd boud > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 09:50:36 +0100 (CET) > From: Stanislaw Krawczyk > To: staff at astri.uni.torun.pl > Subject: IV Torunski Festiwal N .i Sz. > > Zgodnie z ustaleniami na ostatniej Radzie Centrum bardzo prosze o > skladanie propozycji uczestnictwa w Festiwalu ( tematy prelekcji lub > innych imprez) na ręce pana prof. A. Strobla do dnia 4 grudnia 2003. > Na wyklady zarezerwowana jest wstepnie sala wykladowa w Instytucie Chemii > na Bielanach w kazdym dniu Festiwalu (22-25 kwietnia 2004) w godz. 18-20. > Formularze zgłoszeniowe jak i więcej informacji o przyszłorocznym > festiwalu mozna znalzc na stronie www.festiwal.torun.pl badz w biurze > Centrum Promocji i Informacji UMK (tel. 611 46 57, 611 48 74) > Podobnie jak w roku ubieglym organizowac bedziemy zwiedzanie Centrum i > pokazy nieba przez teleskop i w miare odpowiednich warunkow projekcje > filmow astronomicznych w "letnim kinie". Prosze takze o deklaracje > uczestnictwa w tym rutynowym przedsiewzieciu bezposrednio do mnie > badz do prof. A.Strobla. > Z gory dziekuje za pomoc w promocji naszego Centrum na Festiwalu. > S. Krawczyk > From amr w astro.uni.torun.pl Thu Dec 4 11:04:37 2003 From: amr w astro.uni.torun.pl (Andrzej Marecki) Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 11:04:37 +0100 (MET) Subject: IV Torunski Festiwal N .i Sz. (fwd) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200312041004.LAA27972@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl> Boud napisał: > Andrzej Kus już proponował, że zrobimy debatę panelową [...] > propozycja: > http://adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Cosmo/FestiwalNauki2004 Popieram! I na dowód tego "podszlifowałem" tę stronę. ;-) AM From boud w astro.uni.torun.pl Thu Dec 4 23:25:03 2003 From: boud w astro.uni.torun.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 23:25:03 +0100 (CET) Subject: information request In-Reply-To: <3FCCB75A.60804@sciences-et-avenir.com> References: <3FCCB75A.60804@sciences-et-avenir.com> Message-ID: [pl] Witam - kolegy interesowane na tym dyskusji, proszę do http://www.astro.uni.torun.pl/sympa/cosmo-media/ Chciałbym że dyskusja jest publiczna, ale nie chcę spamować w po francusku... ;) [fr] Cher David, (Tu peux m'appeler Boud - mes travaux sont valables ou erronés indépendamment de mes titres officiels. Et j'en ai marre du vousvoyage, c'est pire encore en polonais avec "Monsieur pense-t-il ?"...) On Tue, 2 Dec 2003, dlarousserie wrote: > I am a french journalist working in a scientific magazine called > Sciences et Avenir (about 250 000 ex. monthly). I am writing a > paper on the shape of the universe ; Because of the recent paper Génial ! :))) > from Luminet et al. in Nature (9 ocotber 2003). I know that you > were, but perhaps are still, involved in this field. Then I have a > few questions. Je m'y intéresse toujours :)). Il y a maintenant une équipe de cosmologie à Toruń (Pologne) en train de se former, et la topologie cosmique est une de nos priorités. > In 1997, you have annouced that three galaxy cluster were in fact the same. Pas tout à fait. Alastair Edge et moi avons annoncé que trois amas de galaxies se trouvaient localisés dans l'espace d'une façon qui donnent à penser qu'ils soient trois images topologiques d'un seul amas. En traitant cette idée comme *hypothèse de travail*, Alastair Edge, Stanisław Bajtlik et moi avons essayé de la réfuter, vu qu'une quelconque hypothèse de topologie cosmique (comme celle de Luminet et al. dans Nature) devrait être solidement testée empiriquement avant qu'elle puisse être prise comme élément clé de la cosmologie moderne. * http://fr.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9706166 - Roukema, Edge - premier article sur l'hypothèse spécifique * http://fr.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9903038 - Roukema, Bajtlik - analyse photométrique des cartes de ciel - une tentative d'identifier des galaxies individuelles lentillées entre les deux images de l'amas à grand redshift, et ainsi d'en déduire leurs vitesses dans le plan du ciel, donne un résultat raisonnable (nous espérions trouver une incohérence et ainsi réfuter l'hypothèse) * http://fr.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9910272 - Roukema - analyse du rayonnement de fond cosmologique (COBE) - hypothèse réfutée à une confiance de 94% (ce qui n'est pas très fort), à condition d'ignorer l'effet d'une constante cosmologique non-nulle. Or, aujourd'hui, quasiment tous les observateurs (sauf l'équiipe d'Alain Blanchard à Toulouse ;), et les partisans du modèle steady state comme Jayant Narlikar, Jean-Claude Pecker, ...) sont convaincus que la constante cosmologique est non-nulle. > Is it right ? Did you received confirmation ? La réponse courte est : « Je ne sais pas. » Je préfère distinguer mon intuition des calculs clairs et nets. Mon *intuition* est que cette hypothèse est probablement incohérente avec les observations du fond diffus cosmologique du satellite WMAP, et je travaille en priorité sur d'autres hypothèses. Or, mon intuition n'est pas une preuve qui enterre définitivement l'hypothèse. Lors de ma visite chez nous, à l'Obs de P-Meudon, Dominique Proust (maintenant dans le département « GePi » de l'Obs P-M) nous a aidé dans la préparation de demandes de temps aux télescopes au Chili et à l'Hawaï pour tester l'hypothèse. Or, nous n'avons jamais reçu de réponse positive des comités d'allocation de temps... :( Ce qui ne dit pas que notre hypothèse soit la bonne, elle dit plutôt qu'elle n'entre pas dans la pensée de productivisme à court terme. > What was the name of the three clusters ? Les trois amas sont: * l'amas de Coma * RX J1347-1145 * CL 09104+4109 Vous pourriez profiter des articles publiés librement (voir le fr.arXiv.org ci-dessus). > Do yo know if someone has observed the same similarity in galaxy > clusters or another objects ? Le travail le plus proche que je connais est celui de G.I. Gomero, mais je ne trouve plus de version publique de ces articles. En tous les cas, les résumés sont toujours publiques: * http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2003CQGra..20.4775G * http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2002IJMPA..17.4281G > What is your opinion on the work from Luminet et al. ? Voir http://adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Cosmo/CommuniqueDePresseDodecaedre pour le point de vue de notre équipe. Je n'ai pas de monopole sur la sagesse, mieux regarder nos points de vue intégrées (en autres mots, mes propres points de vue corrigés par les critiques de mes collègues). > Do you have your own "shape" of the universe ? I mean, how do you > see our Universe ? Tout simplement je ne sais pas quelle est la forme de l'Univers. Je voudrais bien la savoir, et c'est pour cette raison que j'y travaille avec mes collègues... > When I speak about this subject, people ask me what is the interest >of such a research. What can I answer ? Why is it interesting to know >the shape of the universe ? Du point de vue des Lumières, l'intérêt principal est culturel : (quasiment) tout le monde a envie de comprendre et de savoir. Savoir quel est la forme de l'objet dans lequel nous vivons est fondamental. Du point de vue mercantile (genre Matra-Hachette-Lagardère, Messier, Bouygues, etc) et des politiques (genre Osama bin Laden, Jacques Chirac, Tony Blair, Saddam Hussein, Nicolas Sarkozy, George Bush), du point de vue de chacun-pour-soi, l'intérêt est que la recherche fondamentale motivée par la curiosité, sans aucune justification « productiviste » a régulièrement sorti des surprises qui plus tôt ou plus tard sont utilisées pour les buts technologiques. Voilà donc du fric et du pouvoir. Les ordinateurs avec lesquels nous communiquons sont en grande partie le fruit de réflexions sur la nature de la logique même. Mais pensez aussi à la radioactivité, à la relativité restreinte (« la théorie de Poincaré et d'Einstein), à la mécanique quantique, aux lasers, ... Evidemment, comme toute découverte scientifique peut être utilisée dans son application technologique tant pour violer les droits humains ainsi que pour les soutenir (en règle générale), la conséquence des découvertes cosmoloqiues pourraient, éventuellement, être de loin plus dévastateurs que les découvertes de la radioactivité et de la relativité restreinte, plus catastrophiques que les découvertes empiriques dans la psychologie et leur application dans les méthodes de propagande modernes et malheureusement légales et meurtrières, et plus répressives que les méthodes de torture dans les camps de la Guantanamo Bay qui pulvérisent le contenu humain du cerveau tout en gardant le corps en bon état. > What is your own motivation ? Tout simplement, j'ai envie de comprendre l'Univers :). Et les risques que je viens d'énoncer, alors ? J'en les assume. Je suis conscient des risques que je vient d'énoncer, et si les résultats soient catastrophiques, j'aurai ma part de blâme (bien qu'il n'y aurait peut-être pas ni moi ni aucun autre humain pour en parler...). Or, les arguments énergétiques et les mécanismes décisionnels qui permettent quelques éléments de démocratie dans notre société globale suggèrent que le plus grand risque actuel vient de l'Empéreur Bush et son Régent Dick Cheney plutôt que de la communauté des physiciens. Néanmoins, pour que *toutes les sciences et technologies* soient plus gérables par les cityon-ne-s, je suis aussi motivé dans le développement de plus de participation dans la recherche scientifique, les miennes incluses. J'essais de promouvoir la science ouverte, non au sens de mots vides, mais dans le sens de l'usage des technologies de l'internet pour non seulement permettre une participation du genre « les croyants peuvent lire ce que disent les sages » mais pour raccourcir les distances entre les fans et les experts. En jetant un coup d'oeil sur nos pages http://adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl/cosmo tu verrais que je commence en encourageant la transparence de relations entre étudiants (1ère, 2ème et 3ème cycles universitaires) et chercheurs, et j'espère pouvoir développer des logiciels qui peuvent être utilisés au sein s'un système ouvert comme GNU/linux afin que l'utilisateur moyen avec un savoir scientifique de base (niveau bac) puisse en profiter. Certaines parties des travaux astronomiques/cosmologiques sont très ouvertes, d'autres sont à moitié fermés comme certains logiciels « open source » qui non sont pas « libres » au sens du GNU GPL/LPG GNU (http://www.april.org), et encore il y a toujours des données empiriques ou logiciels complêtement fermés. Nous avons encore une longue distance entre nos pratiques actuelles et celles de la communauté GNU/Linux... > Do you think we could answer to this question ? When ? Is the Planck > observer the last hope ? Les prévisions du futur sont très peu fiables dans ce genre de domaine. Mieux regarder dans http://www.bdl.fr pour voir quelles seront les dates d'éclipse en 2007 ou 2008 ou 2010 plutôt que prédire le résultat d'une recherche scientifique de fond. :) > According to you who are the leader in this field ? Je ne crois pas trop au mythe des « stars » dans la recherche. Néanmoins, vu que les chercheurs actifs dans ce domaine qui reçoivent le moins de publicité sont ceux de l'Amérique du Sud et du Japon, pour des raisons nombriliques traditionnelles aux USA et en France, il faut que je vous les disent leurs noms: Helio FAGUNDES, Germán GOMERO (german à ift.unesp.br), M.J. REBOUCAS, et Kaiki Taro INOUE (ex http://fr.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0103158, tinoue à yukawa.kyoto-u.ac.jp) > That's all for this time... N'hésite pas à répondre sur mailto:cosmo-media à astro.uni.torun.pl > Best regards, > > Larousserie David > 00 33 1 55 35 56 27 Bien à vous :) Que le savoir avance ! boud From boud w astro.uni.torun.pl Mon Dec 15 13:28:41 2003 From: boud w astro.uni.torun.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 13:28:41 +0100 (CET) Subject: grant proposal??? Message-ID: Hi Sebastian, It's getting time for the cosmo/extragalactic group to prepare our next grant application. Some of the others feel that your interests are probably more in the polarisation project (where i think you are part of the grant) rather than in AGN death/rebirth studies, hybrid morphology studies, and using AGNs and the CMB for cosmic topology. At least so far your collaboration with the rest of us has not been that active. Would you feel it is reasonable for you *not* to be included in our next grant proposal? i'm sure you're doing some interesting stuff with Peter Wilkinson, but at the moment it would seem a bit artificial to include you in our grant proposal. i personally think that grant proposals are an *ineffective* way of providing negative and positive feedback to the quality of scientific research, and contribute more to astropolitics than to science. The money would be better distributed evenly (to stipends and salaries) and feedback mechanisms such as wiki pages on research projects would provide faster and much more open and constructive methods of both negative feedback (criticising "bad science" or scientific errors) and positive feedback (encouraging "good science"). However, for the moment we still have to live with grants and the related politics. :( So please tell us what you think. pozdrawiam boud From boud w astro.uni.torun.pl Mon Dec 15 13:43:05 2003 From: boud w astro.uni.torun.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 13:43:05 +0100 (CET) Subject: jarek - grant application? Message-ID: hi Jarek (Rzepecki), Would you like to be included in our next grant application, on the assumption that you are likely to start a PhD in cosmo at CAMK-Toruń (or TCfA) next academic year? The SZ stuff can certainly be counted as useful for topology in the sense that more precise SZ modelling can lead to better values of the curvature parameters (via mass function evolution a la Blanchard et al) and so constrain, e.g. the Poincare dodecahedral model. You can see the discussion on our previous grant application here: http://www.astro.uni.torun.pl/sympa/cosmo-torun/2003-01/thrd1.html http://www.astro.uni.torun.pl/sympa/cosmo-torun/2003-02/thrd1.html We're about to start discussing our next application this week, since the deadline is (probably) the end of Jan 2004 and there's a lot of paperwork to be filled out. Anyone else who would like to be included (or excluded) from the application? As i said in my previous email, IMHO this is astropolitics which does not provide efficient positive/negative feedbacks (for example, magister and PhD students cannot provide positive/negative feedback despite their obvious scientific qualification, while senior scientists who know less of the subject than students can provide feedback based on intuition without having any public record of their arguments or lack of arguments). But anyway, i think the consensus is that it's better to apply for grants than not to. pozd boud From amr w astro.uni.torun.pl Tue Dec 16 14:51:29 2003 From: amr w astro.uni.torun.pl (Andrzej Marecki) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 14:51:29 +0100 (MET) Subject: Doubt cast over dark energy? Message-ID: <200312161351.OAA14918@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl> NEWSALERT: Saturday, December 13, 2003 @ 2327 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now HAS XMM-NEWTON CAST DOUBT OVER DARK ENERGY? ------------------------------------------- In a survey of distant clusters of galaxies, European Space Agency's XMM-Newton observatory has found puzzling differences between today's clusters of galaxies and those present in the Universe around seven thousand million years ago. Alain Blanchard of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees and his team use the results to calculate how the abundance of galaxy clusters changes with time. Blanchard, knowing that this conclusion will be highly controversial, said: "To account for these results you have to have a lot of matter in the Universe and that leaves little room for dark energy." http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0312/12darkenergy/ [...] ----- End of forwarded message from NewsAlert ----- -- Andrzej From boud w astro.uni.torun.pl Tue Dec 16 15:20:53 2003 From: boud w astro.uni.torun.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 15:20:53 +0100 (CET) Subject: Doubt cast over dark energy? In-Reply-To: <200312161351.OAA14918@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl> References: <200312161351.OAA14918@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl> Message-ID: witam, So Burbidge/Hoyle/Narlikar "Reloaded" have got some media coverage. Fine. "Omega_matter = 1 (was Re: gas question)" http://www.astro.uni.torun.pl/sympa/shape-univ/2003-11/msg00005.html The article by Blanchard et al: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0311381 Look carefully at the figures. The triple-dotted-dashed line is the model for an (Om_m=0.3, Om_Lambda=0.7). It's hard to find, but once you find it, you'll see it matches the observations very, very nicely. According to the authors, this triple-dotted-dashed line is for eq.~(6), which replaces eq.~(2). The difference between the dtwo eqns is a factor of (1+z). The authors' derivation of eq.~(2), in other papers, obtains this (1+z) factor from the density of the Universe at the time that the cluster virialises. So unless you throw out rho = rho_0 (1+z)^3 , it's hard to change the derivation. However, if you just look at another derivation of the equivalent of eq.~(2), i.e. a T-M relation, and look at the z evolution of, e.g. equation (73) of Niayesh Afshordi, Renyue Cen http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0105020 then the (1+z) factor becomes essentially (1+ not much) over the relevant redshift range. In other words, Blanchard et al's figures, with Afshordi & Cen's version of the T-M relation, give the concordance model. Again in simpler words, Blanchard et al think that clusters form in one way, Afshordi & Cen think they form in a somewhat different way, leading to moderately different T-M relations and hence totally different local curvature parameter inferences. It's good to have dissidents around :). Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. pozd boud On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, Andrzej Marecki wrote: > NEWSALERT: Saturday, December 13, 2003 @ 2327 GMT > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now > > > HAS XMM-NEWTON CAST DOUBT OVER DARK ENERGY? > ------------------------------------------- > In a survey of distant clusters of galaxies, European Space Agency's > XMM-Newton observatory has found puzzling differences between today's > clusters of galaxies and those present in the Universe around seven > thousand million years ago. > > Alain Blanchard of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire > Midi-Pyrenees and his team use the results to calculate how the abundance > of galaxy clusters changes with time. Blanchard, knowing that this > conclusion will be highly controversial, said: "To account for these > results you have to have a lot of matter in the Universe and that leaves > little room for dark energy." > > http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0312/12darkenergy/ > > [...] > > ----- End of forwarded message from NewsAlert ----- > > -- > Andrzej > From boud w astro.uni.torun.pl Tue Dec 16 15:44:03 2003 From: boud w astro.uni.torun.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 15:44:03 +0100 (CET) Subject: Doubt cast over dark energy? In-Reply-To: References: <200312161351.OAA14918@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl> Message-ID: BTW, this stuff is highly important for OCRA analyses - whichever way it works out. We'll (hopefully) have lots of clusters and maybe we'll use cosmology to understand cluster physics rather than the other way around, but either way, getting all the bits of the puzzle to be consistent is the challenge. BTW(2) - Motyl proposes that we work on the grant proposal tomorrow afternoon (Wed 17 Dec) @radio astronomy. pozd boud On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, Boud Roukema wrote: > Niayesh Afshordi, Renyue Cen > http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0105020 > > then the (1+z) factor becomes essentially (1+ not much) over the > relevant redshift range. > > In other words, Blanchard et al's figures, with Afshordi & Cen's > version of the T-M relation, give the concordance model. > > Again in simpler words, Blanchard et al think that clusters form > in one way, Afshordi & Cen think they form in a somewhat different way, > leading to moderately different T-M relations and hence totally different > local curvature parameter inferences.