Related papers: A numerical twist on the observational spin parame…
We propose a state estimation scheme for spins, using a modified setup of the Stern-Gerlach experiment, in which a beam of neutral spin-1/2 point particles interacts with a quadrupolar magnetic field. The proposed linear inversion…
By using a very simple and general model to describe the dynamics of disk galaxies, we estimate the $\lambda$ spin parameter for a sample of observed galaxies and present a study in which we show that several important physical properties…
I present a discussion of fundamental stellar parameters and their observational determination in the context of interferometric measurements with current and future optical/infrared interferometric facilities. Stellar parameters and the…
Weak lensing by large-scale structure is an invaluable cosmological tool given that most of the energy density of the concordance cosmology is invisible. Several large ground-based imaging surveys will attempt to measure this effect over…
Observing the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect during a planetary transit allows the determination of the angle $\lambda$ between the sky projections of the star's spin axis and the planet's orbital axis. Such observations have revealed a large…
Tremaine and Weinberg (TW) proposed a conceptually simple procedure relying on long-slit spectroscopy to measure the pattern speeds of bars ($\Omega_{\rm p}$) in disk galaxies. Using a simulated galaxy, we investigate the potential biases…
Context. Large spectroscopic surveys open the way to explore our Galaxy. In order to use the data from these surveys to understand the Galactic stellar population, we need to be sure that stars contained in a survey are a representative…
Extreme mass-ratio inspirals~(EMRIs) detectable by the Laser Inteferometric Space Antenna~(LISA) are unique probes of astrophysics and fundamental physics. Parameter estimation for these sources is challenging, especially because the…
The most direct way to confront observed galaxies with those formed in numerical simulations is to forward-model simulated galaxies into synthetic observations. Provided that synthetic galaxy observations include similar constraints and…
Accurate specification of a likelihood function is becoming increasingly difficult in many inference problems in astronomy. As sample sizes resulting from astronomical surveys continue to grow, deficiencies in the likelihood function lead…
Precision weak gravitational lensing experiments require measurements of galaxy shapes accurate to <1 part in 1000. We investigate measurement biases, noted by Voigt and Bridle (2009) and Melchior et al. (2009), that are common to shape…
The existence of a kinematic morphology-density relation remains uncertain, and instead stellar mass appears the more dominant driver of galaxy kinematics. We investigate the dependence of the stellar spin parameter proxy $\lambda_{R_e}$ on…
We analyse the environmental properties of 370 local early-type galaxies (ETGs) in the MASSIVE and ATLAS3D surveys, two complementary volume-limited integral-field spectroscopic (IFS) galaxy surveys spanning absolute $K$-band magnitude…
Large scale correlations in the orientations of galaxies can result from alignments in their angular momentum vectors. These alignments arise from the tidal torques exerted on neighboring proto-galaxies by the smoothly varying shear field.…
Knowledge of the scatter in the mass-observable relation is a key ingredient for a cosmological analysis based on galaxy clusters in a photometric survey. In this paper we aim to quantify the capability of the correlation function of galaxy…
Given a galaxy image, one cannot simply measure its flexion. An image's spin one and three shape properties, typically associated with F- and G-flexion, are actually complicated functions of the galaxy's intrinsic shape and the telescope's…
Millisecond pulsars (MSPs) are spun up during their accretion phase in a binary system. The exchange of angular momentum between the accretion disk and the star tends to align the spin and orbital angular momenta on a very short time scale…
In a novel approach employing implicit likelihood inference (ILI), also known as likelihood-free inference, we calibrate the parameters of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations against observations, which has previously been unfeasible due…
Assuming General Relativity is correct on large-scales, Redshift-Space Distortions (RSDs) and the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect (ISW) are both sensitive to the time derivative of the linear growth function. We investigate the extent to…
We present new techniques to perform adaptive spatial binning of Integral-Field Spectroscopic (IFS) data to reach a chosen constant signal-to-noise ratio per bin. These methods are required for the proper analysis of IFS observations, but…