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arXiv 0910.2699astro-ph.COastro-ph.IM
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马尔可夫链蒙特卡罗方法在类星体精细结构常数测量中的应用

Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods applied to measuring the fine structure constant from quasar spectroscopy

Julian A. King, Daniel J. Mortlock, John K. Webb, Michael T. Murphy

摘要:

最近试图限制宇宙学的变化,在精细结构常数,α,使用类星体吸收线产生了两个统计样本,最初似乎是不一致的。其中一个样品随后被证明没有通过一致性测试;看来用于将模型拟合到光谱的优化算法失败了。然而,另一个铰链的频谱拟合程序VPFIT,这已经通过模拟测试,但不是通过直接探索的似然函数的鲁棒性的结果。我们提出了应用马尔可夫链蒙特卡罗(MCMC)方法来解决这个问题,并表明,VPFIT产生类似的值和不确定性(Δ α)/(α),在精细结构常数的分数变化,作为我们的MCMC算法,因此,VPFIT是可靠的。

英文摘要:

Recent attempts to constrain cosmological variation in the fine structure constant, alpha, using quasar absorption lines have yielded two statistical samples which initially appear to be inconsistent. One of these samples was subsequently demonstrated to not pass consistency tests; it appears that the optimisation algorithm used to fit the model to the spectra failed. Nevertheless, the results of the other hinge on the robustness of the spectral fitting program VPFIT, which has been tested through simulation but not through direct exploration of the likelihood function. We present the application of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to this problem, and demonstrate that VPFIT produces similar values and uncertainties for (Delta alpha)/(alpha), the fractional change in the fine structure constant, as our MCMC algorithm, and thus that VPFIT is reliable.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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