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The luminosity calibration for the ATLAS detector at the LHC during pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV in 2010 and 2011 is presented. Evaluation of the luminosity scale is performed using several luminosity-sensitive detectors, and…
Numerical integration of the differential equations of light propagation in the Schwarzschild metric shows that in some extreme situations relevant for practical observations (e.g. for Gaia) the well-known standard post-Newtonian formula…
The two-point correlation function for the dust distribution in the unperturbed Einstein-de Sitter cosmological model is studied along the past light cone. It was found that this function seems unable to represent the theoretical…
The correlation of light from two sources leads to an interference pattern if they belong to a specific time interval known as the coherence time, denoted as $\Delta \tau$. The relationship governing this phenomenon is $\Delta \tau \Delta…
Nighttime monitoring of the aerosol content of the lower atmosphere is a challenging task, because appropriate reference natural light sources are lacking. Here we show that the anthropogenic night sky brightness due to city lights can be…
We derive the galaxy luminosity function in the $K_s$ band for galaxies in 24 clusters to provide a local reference for higher redshift studies and to analyse how and if the luminosity function varies according to environment and cluster…
Determining the expansion of the universe, i.e. the Hubble constant (H0) to better than 2% is required in order to understand the nature of dark energy. However, the two most accurate methods to do it, the cosmic microwave background and…
The Herschel Lensing Survey (HLS) takes advantage of gravitational lensing by massive galaxy clusters to sample a population of high-redshift galaxies which are too faint to be detected above the confusion limit of current…
The set of cosmological density parameters ($\Omega_{0m}h_{0}^{2}$, $\Omega_{0k}h_{0}^{2}$, $\Omega_{0\Lambda}h_{0}^{2}$) and Hubble constant ($\hat{h}_{0}$) are useful for fundamental understanding of the universe from many perspectives.…
We review the use of Cepheids as distance indicators with particular emphasis on the methods which have been applied to HST observations of Cepheids. The calibration of the period-luminosity relations is examined in detail and we identify…
We investigate whether the current Hubble parameter $H(z)$ measurements could help improve the constraints on dark energy on the basis of the mainstream cosmological probes including the type Ia supernovae (SN) observation, the cosmic…
We update constraints on cosmic opacity by combining recent SN Type Ia data compilation with the latest measurements of the Hubble expansion at redshifts between 0 and 2. The new constraint on the parameter $\epsilon$ parametrising…
We use a method recently introduced in Barcel\'o et al (2011 Phys. Rev. D 83 41501), to analyse Hawking radiation in a Schwarzschild black hole as perceived by different observers in the system. The method is based on the introduction of an…
Photons emitted by light sources in the neighbourhood of a black hole can wind several times around it before fleeing towards the observer. For spherically symmetric black holes, two infinite sequences of images are created for any given…
We try to solve the dark matter problem in the fit between theory and the Hubble diagram of supernovae by allowing for torsion via Einstein-Cartan's gravity and for anisotropy via the axial Bianchi I metric. Otherwise we are conservative…
We review the well-known matched filter method for the detection of point sources in astronomical images. This is shown to be optimal (that is, to saturate the Cramer--Rao bound) under stated conditions that are very strong: an isolated…
From the covariant bound on the entropy of partial light-sheets, we derive a version of Bekenstein's bound: S/M \leq pi x/hbar, where S, M, and x are the entropy, total mass, and width of any isolated, weakly gravitating system. Because x…
We note that Einstein's relativistic Doppler formula presents a strange aspect. For incident light received under a fixed non zero angle, the Doppler shift will change from blueshift to redshift (or vice-versa) for some critical relative…
(abriged) In this paper we establish a Lowest Luminosity Limit (LLL) for the use of synthesis codes. The limit is defined by the following statement: The total luminosity of the cluster modeled must be larger than the individual…
We examine recent evidence from the luminosity-redshift relation of Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) for the $\sim 3 \sigma$ detection of a ``Hubble bubble'' -- a departure of the local value of the Hubble constant from its globally averaged…