The expansion of the Universe may be an illusion created by Compton scattering of free electrons

The high-precision measurements of the Hubble parameter make the theory of cosmic expansion more and more confusing, which bolster the idea that new physics may be needed to explain the mismatch. The cosmological redshift may not only be related to distance but also to other factors. The expansion of the Universe may be just an illusion. The Compton effect of free electrons and low energy photons has been observed in the laboratory. This article proposes a theory: Free electron Compton scattering (FEC) produce the illusion of the Universe exponential expansion: FEC causes photons to redshift (FEC redshift), and the photon beam expands along the propagation direction, that is, the redshift factor is (1 + z); the beam length stretch factor (time dilation of the supernova curve) is (1 + z); the expansion factor of the beam volume is (1 + z)3, and FEC will not be blurred Distant galaxy. The reason for rejecting the “tired light” does not hold in FEC.

The XXL Survey

Context. Distant galaxy clusters provide an effective laboratory in which to study galaxy evolution in dense environments and at early cosmic times. Aims. We aim to identify distant galaxy clusters as extended X-ray sources that are coincident with overdensities of characteristically bright galaxies. Methods. We used optical and near-infrared data from the Hyper Suprime-Cam and VISTA Deep Extragalactic Observations (VIDEO) surveys to identify distant galaxy clusters as overdensities of bright, zphot ≥ 0.8 galaxies associated with extended X-ray sources detected in the ultimate XMM extragalactic survey (XXL). Results. We identify a sample of 35 candidate clusters at 0.80 ≤ z ≤ 1.93 from an approximately 4.5 deg2 sky area. This sample includes 15 newly discovered candidate clusters, ten previously detected but unconfirmed clusters, and ten spectroscopically confirmed clusters. Although these clusters host galaxy populations that display a wide variety of quenching levels, they exhibit well-defined relations between quenching, cluster-centric distance, and galaxy luminosity. The brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) within our sample display colours that are consistent with a bimodal population composed of an old and red sub-sample together with a bluer, more diverse sub-sample. Conclusions The relation between galaxy masses and quenching seem to already be in place at z ∼ 1, although there is no significant variation in the quenching fraction with the cluster-centric radius. The BCG bimodality might be explained by the presence of a younger stellar component in some BCGs, but additional data are needed to confirm this scenario.

MusE GAs FLOw and Wind (MEGAFLOW) IV. A two sightline tomography of a galactic wind

ABSTRACT Galactic outflows are thought to eject baryons back out to the circumgalactic medium. Studies based on metal absorption lines (Mg ii in particular) in the spectra of background quasars indicate that the gas is ejected anisotropically, with galactic winds likely leaving the host in a bi-conical flow perpendicular to the galaxy disc. In this paper, we present a detailed analysis of an outflow from a z = 0.7 ‘green-valley’ galaxy [log (M*/M⊙) = 9.8; $\mbox{SFR}=0.5\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }\, \mathrm{yr}^{-1}$] probed by two background sources from the MusE GAs FLOw and Wind (MEGAFLOW) survey. Thanks to a fortuitous configuration with a background quasar (SDSSJ1358 + 1145) and a bright background galaxy at z = 1.4, both at impact parameters of $\approx\! 15\, \hbox{kpc}$, we can – for the first time – probe both the receding and approaching components of a putative galactic outflow around a distant galaxy. We measure a significant velocity shift between the Mg ii absorption from the two sightlines ($84\pm 17\, \hbox{km~s$^{-1}$}$), which is consistent with the expectation from our simple fiducial wind model, possibly combined with an extended disc contribution.

Slicing the cool circumgalactic medium along the major axis of a star-forming galaxy at z = 0.7

ABSTRACT We present spatially resolved Echelle spectroscopy of an intervening Mg ii–Fe ii–Mg i absorption-line system detected at zabs = 0.73379 towards the giant gravitational arc PSZ1 G311.65–18.48. The absorbing gas is associated with an inclined disc-like star-forming galaxy, whose major axis is aligned with the two arc-segments reported here. We probe in absorption the galaxy’s extended disc continuously, at ≈3 kpc sampling, from its inner region out to 15× the optical radius. We detect strong ($W_0^{2796}\gt 0.3$Å) coherent absorption along 13 independent positions at impact parameters D = 0–29 kpc on one side of the galaxy, and no absorption at D = 28–57 kpc on the opposite side (all de-lensed distances at zabs). We show that (1) the gas distribution is anisotropic; (2) $W_0^{2796}$, $W_0^{2600}$, $W_0^{2852}$, and the ratio $W_0^{2600}\!/W_0^{2796}$, all anticorrelate with D; (3) the $W_0^{2796}$–D relation is not cuspy and exhibits significantly less scatter than the quasar-absorber statistics; (4) the absorbing gas is co-rotating with the galaxy out to D ≲ 20 kpc, resembling a ‘flat’ rotation curve, but at D ≳ 20 kpc velocities decline below the expectations from a 3D disc-model extrapolated from the nebular [O ii] emission. These signatures constitute unambiguous evidence for rotating extra-planar diffuse gas, possibly also undergoing enriched accretion at its edge. Arguably, we are witnessing some of the long-sought processes of the baryon cycle in a single distant galaxy expected to be representative of such phenomena.

The New Astronomy: Observing Our Universe With Light and Gravity

On a summer day in 2017, astronomers around the world received a message about an exciting collision of two stars far, far away. The message was sent by a team of astronomers from the LIGO and Virgo observatories. These new observatories are very different from the telescopes we have used to study our Universe up until now. LIGO and Virgo are gravitational wave observatories, listening for quiet ripples in spacetime created by the collisions of distant black holes and neutron stars. On August 17, 2017 LIGO and Virgo detected a signal that astronomers named GW170817, from the collision of two neutron stars. Less than two seconds later, NASA's Fermi satellite caught a signal, known as a gamma-ray burst, and within minutes, telescopes around the world began searching the sky. Telescopes in South America found the location of the collision in a distant galaxy known as NGC 4993. For the weeks and months that followed, astronomers watched the galaxy and the fading light from the collision. This is a new kind of multi-messenger astronomy where, for the first time, the same event was observed by both gravitational waves and light.

Atomic and Molecular Structure

This chapter assesses some applications drawn from atomic and molecular structure. It deals with the structures of the lighter atoms and the simplest molecule, molecular hydrogen. The main approximation method used here is the energy variational principle, which is a powerful technique for computing the low-lying energies of a system such as an atom or molecule. The chapter then introduces the Pauli exclusion principle, which governs the symmetry of the state vector for a system of identical particles such as electrons. Two general features of the exclusion principle are worth noting. First, although the spins make only a very weak contribution to the Hamiltonians for helium, the lowest energy state with spin one is above the spin zero ground state, which is a considerable difference. Second, an electron arriving as a cosmic ray particle from a distant galaxy has to have a wave function antisymmetric with respect to the local electrons, even though the new electron has been away from us for a long time.