Promotionsvortrag Physik: „Analysis of cosmic structures with Minkowski tensors“

Ankündigung des Promotionsvortrags von: Frau Caroline Collischon

The analysis of cosmic structures requires powerful analysis tools on the sphere. In the search for non-Gaussian information to distinguish models, such tools need to be sensitive to higher order information. Such measures are provided in the form of the Minkowski tensors and functionals. They intuitively capture comprehensive information on symmetries and alignment of structures. Through their additivity, they can be straightforwardly applied to pixel images and easily adapted to handle masked data.

I showcase their implementation on the unit sphere for HEALPix-format input data and their appli-cation to common data products in the form of Minkowski maps. Such maps contain morphological information on local neighborhoods of arbitrary scale.

Looking into the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature field in comparison to simulations, I find two notable regions where structures in the data appear more elongated than in the simula-tions.

I then go on to apply them to maps of the Large-Scale Structure of galaxy clusters, in this case in the form of snapshots of the Magneticum simulations, which are highly detailed simulations incor-porating a number of physical effects. I use projected maps at various redshifts and for a variety of cosmic parameters. Comparing to surrogate data, I utilize systematic pixel effects of rank 2 Minkowski maps as a sensitive tracer of structure formation over time that also correlates with cosmic parameters.

(Vortrag auf Englisch)

Dem Vortrag schließt sich eine Diskussion von 15 Minuten an. Vortrag und Diskussion sind öffentlich. Diesen Verfahrensteilen folgt ein nicht öffentliches Rigorosum von 45 Minuten.