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At least 901 records · Page 50
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DOE OSTI2016

Statistical mentoring at early training and career stages

At Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), statistical scientists develop solutions for a variety of national security challenges through scientific excellence, typically as members of interdisciplinary teams. At LANL, mentoring is actively encouraged and practiced to develop statistical skills and positive career-building behaviors. Mentoring activities targeted at different career phases from student to junior staff are an important catalyst for both short and long term career development. This article discusses mentoring strategies for undergraduate and graduate students through internships as well as for postdoctoral research associates and junior staff. Topics addressed include project selection, progress, and outcome; intellectual and social activities that complement the student internship experience; key skills/knowledge not typically obtained in academic training; and the impact of such internships on students’ careers. Experiences and strategies from a number of successful mentorships are presented. Feedback from former mentees obtained via a questionnaire is incorporated. As a result, these responses address some of the benefits the respondents received from mentoring, helpful contributions and advice from their mentors, key skills learned, and how mentoring impacted their later careers.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Information and Statistics in Nuclear Experiment and Theory (ISNET)

As with all empirical sciences, nuclear physics operates in the virtuous cycle of the scientific method: observations inspire theoretical models; models lead to new predictions; predictions are tested in experiments; experiments lead to new observations; and so on. Evaluating what we are inferring, and how certain we are of it, is key to this process. These requirements, and a general interest in applying novel statistical, mathematical, and computational techniques, led to the formation of a dedicated research community entitled “Information and Statistics in Nuclear Experiment and Theory (ISNET)” (https://isnet-series.github.io/), which now includes more than 300 members. While the community’s interests lean toward nuclear theory, the unifying theme for this group is the inference of knowledge from data.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

MAPPING THE LOCAL HALO: STATISTICAL PARALLAX ANALYSIS OF SDSS LOW-MASS SUBDWARFS

We present a statistical parallax study of nearly 2000 M subdwarfs with photometry and spectroscopy from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Statistical parallax analysis yields the mean absolute magnitudes, mean velocities, and velocity ellipsoids for homogenous samples of stars. We selected homogeneous groups of subdwarfs based on their photometric colors and spectral appearance. We examined the color-magnitude relations of low-mass subdwarfs and quantified their dependence on the newly refined metallicity parameter, {zeta}. We also developed a photometric metallicity parameter, {delta}{sub (g-r)}, based on the g - r and r - z colors of low-mass stars and used it to select stars with similar metallicities. The kinematics of low-mass subdwarfs as a function of color and metallicity were also examined and compared to main-sequence M dwarfs. We find that the SDSS subdwarfs share similar kinematics to the inner halo and thick disk. The color-magnitude relations derived in this analysis will be a powerful tool for identifying and characterizing low-mass metal-poor subdwarfs in future surveys such as Gaia and LSST, making them important and plentiful tracers of the stellar halo.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2010

A NEW STATISTIC FOR ANALYZING BARYON ACOUSTIC OSCILLATIONS

We introduce a new statistic {omega}{sub l}(r{sub s}) for measuring and analyzing large-scale structure and particularly the baryon acoustic oscillations. {omega}{sub l}(r{sub s}) is a band-filtered, configuration space statistic that is easily implemented and has advantages over the traditional power spectrum and correlation function estimators. Unlike these estimators, {omega}{sub l}(r{sub s}) can localize most of the acoustic information into a single dip at the acoustic scale while avoiding sensitivity to the poorly constrained large-scale power (i.e., the integral constraint) through the use of a localized and compensated filter. It is also sensitive to anisotropic clustering through pair counting and does not require any binning of data. We measure the shift in the acoustic peak due to nonlinear effects using the monopole {omega}{sub 0}(r{sub s}) derived from subsampled dark matter (DM) catalogs as well as from mock galaxy catalogs created via halo occupation distribution modeling. All of these are drawn from 44 realizations of 1024{sup 3} particle DM simulations in a 1 h {sup -1} Gpc box at z = 1. We compare these shifts with those obtained from the power spectrum and conclude that the results agree. We therefore expect that distance measurements obtained from {omega}{sub 0}(r{sub s}) and P(k) will be consistent with each other. We also show that it is possible to extract the same amount of acoustic information by fitting over a finite range using either {omega}{sub 0}(r{sub s}) or P(k) derived from equal volume surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2010

MAGNETIC FIELD PROPERTIES IN HIGH-MASS STAR FORMATION FROM LARGE TO SMALL SCALES: A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS FROM POLARIZATION DATA

Polarization data from high-mass star formation regions (W51 e2/e8, Orion BN/KL) are used to derive statistical properties of the plane of sky projected magnetic field. Structure function and auto-correlation function are calculated for observations with various resolutions from the BIMA and SMA interferometers, covering a range in physical scales from {approx}70 mpc to {approx}2.1 mpc. Results for the magnetic field turbulent dispersion, its turbulent-to-mean field strength ratio, and the large-scale polarization angle correlation length are presented as a function of the physical scale at the star formation sites. Power-law scaling relations emerge for some of these physical quantities. The turbulent-to-mean field strength ratio is found to be close to constant over the sampled observing range, with a hint of a decrease toward smaller scales, indicating that the role of the magnetic field and turbulence is evolving with the physical scale. A statistical method is proposed to separate large- and small-scale correlations from an initial ensemble of polarization segments. This also leads to a definition of a turbulent polarization angle correlation length.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2010

STATISTICAL MECHANICS OF COLLISIONLESS ORBITS. I. ORIGIN OF CENTRAL CUSPS IN DARK-MATTER HALOS

We present an equilibrium statistical mechanical theory of collisionless self-gravitational systems with isotropic velocity distributions. Compared with existing standard theories, we introduce two changes: (1) the number of possible microstates is computed in energy (orbit) space rather than phase space and (2) low occupation numbers are treated more appropriately than they are using Stirling's approximation. Combined, the two modifications predict that the relaxed parts of collisionless self-gravitating systems, such as dark-matter halos, have a differential energy distribution N({epsilon}) {proportional_to} [exp({phi}{sub 0} - {epsilon})-1], dubbed 'DARKexp'. Such systems have central power-law density cusps {rho}(r) {proportional_to} r{sup -1}, which suggests a statistical mechanical origin of cusps in simulated dark-matter halos.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2010

CORRECTING A STATISTICAL ARTIFACT IN THE ESTIMATION OF THE HUBBLE CONSTANT BASED ON TYPE IA SUPERNOVAE RESULTS IN A CHANGE IN ESTIMATE OF 1.2%

The Hubble constant enters big bang cosmology by quantifying the expansion rate of the universe. Existing statistical methods used to estimate Hubble's constant only partially take into account random measurement errors. As a consequence, estimates of Hubble's constant are statistically inconsistent and systematically too low. Using the simplest of the existing methods to illustrate the problem, we show that the change in estimate is 1.2%. The more advanced techniques suffer from the same deficiency.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2011

ASTROPHYSICAL FLUID DYNAMICS VIA DIRECT STATISTICAL SIMULATION

In this paper, we introduce the concept of direct statistical simulation for astrophysical flows. This technique may be appropriate for problems in astrophysical fluids where the instantaneous dynamics of the flows are of secondary importance to their statistical properties. We give examples of such problems including mixing and transport in planets, stars, and disks. The method is described for a general set of evolution equations, before we consider the specific case of a spectral method optimized for problems on a spherical surface. The method is illustrated for the simplest non-trivial example of hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics on a rotating spherical surface. We then discuss possible extensions of the method both in terms of computational methods and the range of astrophysical problems that are of interest.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

THE MILKY WAY PROJECT: A STATISTICAL STUDY OF MASSIVE STAR FORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH INFRARED BUBBLES

The Milky Way Project citizen science initiative recently increased the number of known infrared bubbles in the inner Galactic plane by an order of magnitude compared to previous studies. We present a detailed statistical analysis of this data set with the Red MSX Source (RMS) catalog of massive young stellar sources to investigate the association of these bubbles with massive star formation. We particularly address the question of massive triggered star formation near infrared bubbles. We find a strong positional correlation of massive young stellar objects (MYSOs) and H II regions with Milky Way Project bubbles at separations of <2 bubble radii. As bubble sizes increase, a statistically significant overdensity of massive young sources emerges in the region of the bubble rims, possibly indicating the occurrence of triggered star formation. Based on numbers of bubble-associated RMS sources, we find that 67% {+-} 3% of MYSOs and (ultra-)compact H II regions appear to be associated with a bubble. We estimate that approximately 22% {+-} 2% of massive young stars may have formed as a result of feedback from expanding H II regions. Using MYSO-bubble correlations, we serendipitously recovered the location of the recently discovered massive cluster Mercer 81, suggesting the potential of such analyses for discovery of heavily extincted distant clusters.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

TESTING MODELS OF MAGNETIC FIELD EVOLUTION OF NEUTRON STARS WITH THE STATISTICAL PROPERTIES OF THEIR SPIN EVOLUTIONS

We test models for the evolution of neutron star (NS) magnetic fields (B). Our model for the evolution of the NS spin is taken from an analysis of pulsar timing noise presented by Hobbs et al.. We first test the standard model of a pulsar's magnetosphere in which B does not change with time and magnetic dipole radiation is assumed to dominate the pulsar's spin-down. We find that this model fails to predict both the magnitudes and signs of the second derivatives of the spin frequencies ({nu}-double dot). We then construct a phenomenological model of the evolution of B, which contains a long-term decay (LTD) modulated by short-term oscillations; a pulsar's spin is thus modified by its B-evolution. We find that an exponential LTD is not favored by the observed statistical properties of {nu}-double dot for young pulsars and fails to explain the fact that {nu}-double dot is negative for roughly half of the old pulsars. A simple power-law LTD can explain all the observed statistical properties of {nu}-double dot. Finally, we discuss some physical implications of our results to models of the B-decay of NSs and suggest reliable determination of the true ages of many young NSs is needed, in order to constrain further the physical mechanisms of their B-decay. Our model can be further tested with the measured evolutions of {nu}-dot and {nu}-double dot for an individual pulsar; the decay index, oscillation amplitude, and period can also be determined this way for the pulsar.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

MAGNITUDE GAP STATISTICS AND THE CONDITIONAL LUMINOSITY FUNCTION

In a recent preprint, Hearin et al. (H12) suggest that the halo mass-richness calibration of clusters can be improved by using the difference in the magnitude of the brightest and the second brightest galaxy (magnitude gap) as an additional observable. They claim that their results are at odds with the results from Paranjape and Sheth (PS12) who show that the magnitude distribution of the brightest and second brightest galaxies can be explained based on order statistics of luminosities randomly sampled from the total galaxy luminosity function. We find that a conditional luminosity function (CLF) for galaxies which varies with halo mass, in a manner which is consistent with existing observations, naturally leads to a magnitude gap distribution which changes as a function of halo mass at fixed richness, in qualitative agreement with H12. We show that, in general, the luminosity distribution of the brightest and the second brightest galaxy depends upon whether the luminosities of galaxies are drawn from the CLF or the global luminosity function. However, we also show that the difference between the two cases is small enough to evade detection in the small sample investigated by PS12. This shows that the luminosity distribution is not the appropriate statistic to distinguish between the two cases, given the small sample size. We argue in favor of the CLF (and therefore H12) based upon its consistency with other independent observations, such as the kinematics of satellite galaxies, the abundance and clustering of galaxies, and the galaxy-galaxy lensing signal from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

THE ABSOLUTE MAGNITUDE OF RRc VARIABLES FROM STATISTICAL PARALLAX

We present the first definitive measurement of the absolute magnitude of RR Lyrae c-type variable stars (RRc) determined purely from statistical parallax. We use a sample of 242 RRc variables selected from the All Sky Automated Survey for which high-quality light curves, photometry, and proper motions are available. We obtain high-resolution echelle spectra for these objects to determine radial velocities and abundances as part of the Carnegie RR Lyrae Survey. We find that M{sub V,RRc} = 0.59 ± 0.10 at a mean metallicity of [Fe/H] = –1.59. This is to be compared with previous estimates for RRab stars (M{sub V,RRab} = 0.76 ± 0.12) and the only direct measurement of an RRc absolute magnitude (RZ Cephei, M{sub V,RRc} = 0.27 ± 0.17). We find the bulk velocity of the halo relative to the Sun to be (W{sub π}, W{sub θ}, W{sub z} ) = (12.0, –209.9, 3.0) km s{sup –1} in the radial, rotational, and vertical directions with dispersions (σ{sub W{sub π}},σ{sub W{sub θ}},σ{sub W{sub z}}) = (150.4, 106.1, 96.0) km s{sup -1}. For the disk, we find (W{sub π}, W{sub θ}, W{sub z} ) = (13.0, –42.0, –27.3) km s{sup –1} relative to the Sun with dispersions (σ{sub W{sub π}},σ{sub W{sub θ}},σ{sub W{sub z}}) = (67.7,59.2,54.9) km s{sup -1}. Finally, as a byproduct of our statistical framework, we are able to demonstrate that UCAC2 proper-motion errors are significantly overestimated as verified by UCAC4.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

The matryoshka run: A Eulerian refinement strategy to study the statistics of turbulence in virialized cosmic structures

We study the statistical properties of turbulence driven by structure formation in a massive merging galaxy cluster at redshift z = 0. The development of turbulence is ensured as the largest eddy turnover time is much shorter than the Hubble time independent of mass and redshift. We achieve a large dynamic range of spatial scales through a novel Eulerian refinement strategy where the cluster volume is refined with progressively finer uniform nested grids during gravitational collapse. This provides an unprecedented resolution of 7.3 h {sup –1} kpc across the virial volume. The probability density functions of various velocity-derived quantities exhibit the features characteristic of fully developed compressible turbulence observed in dedicated periodic-box simulations. Shocks generate only 60% of the total vorticity within the R {sub vir}/3 region and 40% beyond that. We compute second- and third-order longitudinal and transverse structure functions for both solenoidal and compressional components in the cluster core, virial region, and beyond. The structure functions exhibit a well-defined inertial range of turbulent cascade. The injection scale is comparable to the virial radius but increases toward the outskirts. Within R {sub vir}/3, the spectral slope of the solenoidal component is close to Kolmogorov's, but for the compressional component is substantially steeper and close to Burgers's; the flow is mostly solenoidal and statistically rigorously, which is consistent with fully developed homogeneous and isotropic turbulence. Small-scale anisotropy appears due to numerical artifact. Toward the virial region, the flow becomes increasingly compressional, the structure functions become flatter, and modest genuine anisotropy appear particularly close to the injection scale. In comparison, mesh adaptivity based on Lagrangian refinement and the same finest resolution leads to a lack of turbulent power on a small scales, an excess thereof on large scales, and unreliable density-weighted structure functions.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

The statistical nature of the brightest group galaxies

We examine the statistical properties of the brightest group galaxies (BGGs) by using a complete spectroscopic sample of groups/clusters of galaxies selected from the Data Release 7 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We test whether BGGs and other bright members of groups are consistent with an ordered population among the total population of group galaxies. We find that the luminosity distributions of BGGs do not follow the predictions from the order statistics (OS). The average luminosities of BGGs are systematically brighter than OS predictions. On the other hand, by properly taking into account the brightening effect of the BGGs, the luminosity distributions of the second brightest galaxies are in excellent agreement with the expectations of OS. The brightening of BGGs relative to the OS expectation is consistent with a scenario that the BGGs on average have overgrown about 20% masses relative to the other member galaxies. The growth (ΔM) is not stochastic but correlated with the magnitude gap (G {sub 1,} {sub 2}) between the brightest and the second brightest galaxy. The growth (ΔM) is larger for the groups having more prominent BGGs (larger G {sub 1,} {sub 2}) and averagely contributes about 30% of the final G {sub 1,} {sub 2} of the groups of galaxies.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

LyMAS: Predicting large-scale Lyα forest statistics from the dark matter density field

We describe Lyα Mass Association Scheme (LyMAS), a method of predicting clustering statistics in the Lyα forest on large scales from moderate-resolution simulations of the dark matter (DM) distribution, with calibration from high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations of smaller volumes. We use the 'Horizon-MareNostrum' simulation, a 50 h {sup –1} Mpc comoving volume evolved with the adaptive mesh hydrodynamic code RAMSES, to compute the conditional probability distribution P(F{sub s} |δ {sub s}) of the transmitted flux F{sub s} , smoothed (one-dimensionally, 1D) over the spectral resolution scale, on the DM density contrast δ {sub s}, smoothed (three-dimensionally, 3D) over a similar scale. In this study we adopt the spectral resolution of the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) at z = 2.5, and we find optimal results for a DM smoothing length σ = 0.3 h {sup –1} Mpc (comoving). In its simplest form, LyMAS draws randomly from the hydro-calibrated P(F{sub s} |δ {sub s}) to convert DM skewers into Lyα forest pseudo-spectra, which are then used to compute cross-sightline flux statistics. In extended form, LyMAS exactly reproduces both the 1D power spectrum and one-point flux distribution of the hydro simulation spectra. Applied to the MareNostrum DM field, LyMAS accurately predicts the two-point conditional flux distribution and flux correlation function of the full hydro simulation for transverse sightline separations as small as 1 h {sup –1} Mpc, including redshift-space distortion effects. It is substantially more accurate than a deterministic density-flux mapping ({sup F}luctuating Gunn-Peterson Approximation{sup )}, often used for large-volume simulations of the forest. With the MareNostrum calibration, we apply LyMAS to 1024{sup 3} N-body simulations of a 300 h {sup –1} Mpc and 1.0 h {sup –1} Gpc cube to produce large, publicly available catalogs of mock BOSS spectra that probe a large comoving volume. LyMAS will be a powerful tool for interpreting 3D Lyα forest data, thereby transforming measurements from BOSS and other massive quasar absorption surveys into constraints on dark energy, DM, space geometry, and intergalactic medium physics.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Validation of Kepler's multiple planet candidates. II. Refined statistical framework and descriptions of systems of special interest

We extend the statistical analysis performed by Lissauer et al. in 2012, which demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of Kepler candidate multiple transiting systems (multis) represents true transiting planets, and we develop therefrom a procedure to validate large numbers of planet candidates in multis as bona fide exoplanets. We show that this statistical framework correctly estimates the abundance of false positives already identified around Kepler targets with multiple sets of transit-like signatures based on their abundance around targets with single sets of transit-like signatures. We estimate the number of multis that represent split systems of one or more planets orbiting each component of a binary star system. We use the high reliability rate for multis to validate more than one dozen particularly interesting multi-planet systems herein. Hundreds of additional multi-planet systems are validated in a companion paper by Rowe et al. We note that few very short period (P < 1.6 days) planets orbit within multiple transiting planet systems and discuss possible reasons for their absence. There also appears to be a shortage of planets with periods exceeding a few months in multis.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Statistical analysis of the horizontal divergent flow in emerging solar active regions

Solar active regions (ARs) are thought to be formed by magnetic fields from the convection zone. Our flux emergence simulations revealed that a strong horizontal divergent flow (HDF) of unmagnetized plasma appears at the photosphere before the flux begins to emerge. In our earlier study, we analyzed HMI data for a single AR and confirmed presence of this precursor plasma flow in the actual Sun. In this paper, as an extension of our earlier study, we conducted a statistical analysis of the HDFs to further investigate their characteristics and better determine the properties. From SDO/HMI data, we picked up 23 flux emergence events over a period of 14 months, the total flux of which ranges from 10{sup 20} to 10{sup 22} Mx. Out of 23 selected events, 6 clear HDFs were detected by the method we developed in our earlier study, and 7 HDFs detected by visual inspection were added to this statistic analysis. We found that the duration of the HDF is on average 61 minutes and the maximum HDF speed is on average 3.1 km s{sup –1}. We also estimated the rising speed of the subsurface magnetic flux to be 0.6-1.4 km s{sup –1}. These values are highly consistent with our previous one-event analysis as well as our simulation results. The observation results lead us to the conclusion that the HDF is a rather common feature in the earliest phase of AR emergence. Moreover, our HDF analysis has the capability of determining the subsurface properties of emerging fields that cannot be directly measured.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

A statistical analysis of seeds and other high-contrast exoplanet surveys: massive planets or low-mass brown dwarfs?

We conduct a statistical analysis of a combined sample of direct imaging data, totalling nearly 250 stars. The stars cover a wide range of ages and spectral types, and include five detections (κ And b, two ∼60 M {sub J} brown dwarf companions in the Pleiades, PZ Tel B, and CD–35 2722B). For some analyses we add a currently unpublished set of SEEDS observations, including the detections GJ 504b and GJ 758B. We conduct a uniform, Bayesian analysis of all stellar ages using both membership in a kinematic moving group and activity/rotation age indicators. We then present a new statistical method for computing the likelihood of a substellar distribution function. By performing most of the integrals analytically, we achieve an enormous speedup over brute-force Monte Carlo. We use this method to place upper limits on the maximum semimajor axis of the distribution function derived from radial-velocity planets, finding model-dependent values of ∼30-100 AU. Finally, we model the entire substellar sample, from massive brown dwarfs to a theoretically motivated cutoff at ∼5 M {sub J}, with a single power-law distribution. We find that p(M, a)∝M {sup –0.65} {sup ±} {sup 0.60} a {sup –0.85} {sup ±} {sup 0.39} (1σ errors) provides an adequate fit to our data, with 1.0%-3.1% (68% confidence) of stars hosting 5-70 M {sub J} companions between 10 and 100 AU. This suggests that many of the directly imaged exoplanets known, including most (if not all) of the low-mass companions in our sample, formed by fragmentation in a cloud or disk, and represent the low-mass tail of the brown dwarfs.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗