Archive for Cosmic strings

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics

Posted in OJAp Papers, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on October 9, 2023 by telescoper

Time to announce yet another new paper at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. This one was actually published on Friday (6th October 2023), but for one reason and another I’ve only just got around to announcing it here.

The latest paper is the 38th  so far in Volume 6 (2023) and the 103rd in all. The authors are: Matthew Price, Matthijs Mars, Matthew Docherty, Alessio Spurio Mancini, Augustin Marignier and Jason McEwen – all affiliated with University College London, UK.

The primary classification for this paper is Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics and its title is “Fast emulation of anisotropies induced in the cosmic microwave background by cosmic strings”. It describes a  generative technique for producing generating cosmic microwave background temperature maps using wavelet phase harmonics. For an explanation of what a cosmic string is, see here. If you don’t know the difference between “emulation” and “simulation”, I refer you to the text!

Here is a screen grab of the overlay of the published version which includes the  abstract:

You can click on the image of the overlay to make it larger should you wish to do so. You can find the officially accepted version of the paper on the arXiv here.

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R.I.P. Tom Kibble (1932-2016)

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on June 2, 2016 by telescoper

Yet again, I find myself having to use this blog pass on some very sad news. Distinguished theoretical physicist Tom Kibble (below) passed away today, at the age of 83.

Kibble

Sir Thomas Walter Bannerman Kibble FRS (to give his full name) worked on  quantum field theory, especially the interface between high-energy particle physics and cosmology. He has worked on mechanisms ofsymmetry breaking, phase transitions and the topological defects (monopoles, cosmic strings or domain walls) that can be formed in some theories of the early Universe;  he is  probably most famous for introducing the idea of cosmic strings to modern cosmology in a paper with Mark Hindmarsh. Although there isn’t yet any observational support for this idea, it has generated a great deal of very interesting research.

Tom was indeed an extremely distinguished scientist, but what most people will remember best is that he was an absolutely lovely human being. Gently spoken and impeccably courteous, he was always receptive to new ideas and gave enormous support to younger researchers. He will be very sadly missed by friends and colleagues across the physics world.

Rest in peace, Tom Kibble (1932-2016).

 

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