Cosmic stellar explosions and galaxy cluster weak gravitational lensing
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Observations of supernova (SN) explosions and galaxy clusters have been essential to the construction of the standard $\Lambda$-CDM cosmological model. Type Ia SN are powerful probes of the cosmic expansion history and were the tools used to discover cosmic acceleration more than a decade ago. They are the thermonuclear explosions of white dwarf stars, and regular patterns in their light curves and luminosities enable distance measurements with a precision of ~10%. Core-collapse SN, which signal instead the deaths of young, massive stars, also have use as cosmological distance indicators and can be detected, when accompanied by a GRB, to very high redshift. A very different technique for constraining cosmological parameters is to measure the distribution of galaxy clusters as a function of mass and redshift within well-defined X-ray or optical surveys. For this method, the current limiting systematic uncertainty is the calibration of galaxy-cluster mass proxies such as total X-ray luminosity or cluster richness. In this thesis, I discuss the discovery that SNe Ia found in more massive host galaxies are ~10% brighter, after light curve corrections for stretch and color, than those in less massive galaxies. I also demonstrate the existence of strong patterns among the explosion environments of core-collapse SN which point to the effects of progenitor mass and metallicity on massive stellar evolution. Finally, I present a weak-lensing mass analysis of 51 X-ray--luminous galaxy clusters. The inclusion of these lensing mass estimates in current cosmological analyses will improve significantly the calibration of X-ray mass proxies and increase both the accuracy and precision of galaxy cluster cosmological constraints.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2012 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Kelly, Patrick Laughlin |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Physics |
| Primary advisor | Allen, Steven W. (Steven Ward) |
| Primary advisor | Burke, David |
| Thesis advisor | Allen, Steven W. (Steven Ward) |
| Thesis advisor | Burke, David |
| Thesis advisor | Kahn, Steven Michael |
| Thesis advisor | Romani, Roger W. (Roger William) |
| Advisor | Kahn, Steven Michael |
| Advisor | Romani, Roger W. (Roger William) |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Patrick Laughlin Kelly. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Physics. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2012. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2012 by Patrick Laughlin Kelly
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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