Sky survey detects Einstein-predicted cosmic magnification
April 26, 2005
An international team of scientists associated with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will report on April 26 the detection of the long-sought "Cosmic Magnification," which is predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.
Donald Schneider, Penn State professor of astronomy and astrophysics, is one of the authors of the study, which measures how gravity influenced the light produced by a set of 200,000 quasars as it traveled billions of light years through the universe on its way to Earth.
Image: The left panel shows a grid of points representing background quasars. The right panel is the same grid after being "gravitationally lensed" by the cluster of galaxies shown in the center of the panel (the magnitude of the effect is exaggerated to make it apparent by eye). Photo: Joerg Colberg, Ryan Scranton, Robert Lupton, Sloan Digital Sky Survey
"This is a major result because it tests and confirms Einstein's theory on the largest possible scale -- that of the universe," Schneider said. "It is quite exciting to find that General Relativity appears to apply everywhere and at all times." The research will be published in The Astronomical Journal.
Other research groups have reported detections of cosmic magnification in the past, but their data sets lacked the size and precision to allow the definitive measurements needed for confirmation of this aspect of Einstein's theory.
By using new statistical techniques, the Sloan Survey scientists were able to identify 200,000 quasars in the Sloan Survey database; this sample is about 10 times larger than could be produced by conventional methods in just a few years. The study examined how light from the quasars was affected by the gravitational fields of 13 million galaxies located between the Earth and the quasars. The high precision of the survey data allowed the small but distinct signal imprinted by gravity on the radiation to be detected.
"The SDSS measurement, in contrast to previous reported detections of cosmic magnification, suggests a structure for spacetime that is consistent with the model that has arisen from other recent and independent techniques," said Schneider, who is the chairman of the SDSS Quasar Science Group and is the SDSS scientific publications coordinator. "This complex and large-scale problem is exactly the type of science that the SDSS was designed to address."
Source: Penn State
-
New map of the universe reveals its history for the past six-billion years
Jan 13, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (9) |
19
-
How supermassive black holes came into existence shortly after the Big Bang
Dec 12, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (18) |
30
-
Astrophysicists find evidence of black holes' destruction of stars
Oct 11, 2011 |
4.7 / 5 (7) |
14
-
Just four percent of galaxies have neighbors like the Milky Way
May 23, 2011 |
3.8 / 5 (5) |
5
-
Measuring the distant universe in 3-D: BOSS proves it can do the job with quasars
May 01, 2011 |
5 / 5 (8) |
7
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (31) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
More news stories
Putting the squeeze on planets outside our solar system
(PhysOrg.com) -- Using high-powered lasers, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and collaborators discovered that molten magnesium silicate undergoes a phase change in the liquid state, abruptly ...
17 hours ago |
4.3 / 5 (7) |
0
|
Hovering not hard if you're top-heavy, researchers find
Top-heavy structures are more likely to maintain their balance while hovering in the air than are those that bear a lower center of gravity, researchers at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences ...
18 hours ago |
5 / 5 (2) |
1
|
SLAC, Stanford team focuses on high-energy electrons to treat cancer
Accelerator physicists at SLAC and cancer specialists from Stanford are working on a new technology that could dramatically reduce the time needed for cancer radiation treatments. The team ran an initial experiment ...
21 hours ago |
5 / 5 (2) |
0
Measurements from high-energy collisions lead to better understanding of why meson particles disappear
For several years, physicists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), USA, have studied an unusual state of matter called the quarkgluon plasma, which they ...
22 hours ago |
4.5 / 5 (4) |
0
Explained: Sigma
It's a question that arises with virtually every major new finding in science or medicine: What makes a result reliable enough to be taken seriously? The answer has to do with statistical significance -- but ...
Feb 09, 2012 |
5 / 5 (16) |
53
Anonymous knocks CIA website offline (Update)
The website of the Central Intelligence Agency was inaccessible on Friday after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have knocked it offline.
New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission
Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. Theyre a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel such as an optical fiber o ...
Small modular reactor design could be a 'SUPERSTAR'
(PhysOrg.com) -- Though most of today's nuclear reactors are cooled by water, we've long known that there are alternatives; in fact, the world's first nuclear-powered electricity in 1951 came from a reactor ...
New power source discovered
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and RMIT University have made a breakthrough in energy storage and power generation.
The power of estrogen -- male snakes attract other males
A new study has shown that boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes causes them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turned the males into just about the sexiest ...
Advanced power-grid model finds low-cost, low-carbon future in West
(PhysOrg.com) -- The least expensive way for the Western U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to help prevent the worst consequences of global warming is to replace coal with renewable and other ...