Geography of Northwest Argentinian Folklore: A Music between Man and Earth. The Case of Quebrada de Humahuaca

El folclore del noroeste argentino se caracteriza por ser a la vez actor y revelador de múltiples relaciones geográficas, tanto a nivel concreto y cartografiable como simbólico. Las practicas musicales de la Quebrada de Humahuaca, actualmente en plena revalorización, siguen manteniendo una fuerte raíz cultural andina en cuanto a las representaciones de la relación entre naturaleza y cultura. En el actual contexto argentino de trabajo sobre su memoria nacional, de reintegración de patrimonios indígenas y de circulación de ideas y gente entre la Argentina «moderna» y «europea» y la región andina, el objetivo de esta investigación es comprender los sistemas tangibles y simbólicos de la relación entre naturaleza y cultura articulados por la música, para estudiar después la hipótesis de una transmisión cultural de las relaciones con la naturaleza que responda a una necesidad de nuevos valores medioambientales.The Norwest Argentinean folk music is at the same time acting and revealing multiple geographic relationships, both concrete and symbolic. The musical practices of the Quebrada de Humahuaca, now in full revalorization, continue to maintain a strong Andean cultural roots respecting to the representations of the relationship between nature and culture. In the actual Argentinian context of integration of the native cultural heritages and circulation of ideas and people between the «European» Argentina and the Andean region, the objective of this research is to understand the tangible and symbolic systems of the relationship between nature and culture articulated by the music, to then explore the cultural transmission hypothesis of relationships with nature that responds to a need for new environmental values

The ESO UVES Advanced Data Products Quasar Sample - II. Cosmological Evolution of the Neutral Gas Mass Density

Quasar foreground damped absorbers, associated with HI-rich galaxies allow to estimate the neutral gas mass over cosmic time, which is a possible indicator of gas consumption as star formation proceeds. The DLAs and sub-DLAs are believed to contain a large fraction of neutral gas mass in the Universe. In Paper I of the series, we present the results of a search for DLAs and sub-DLAs in the ESO-UVES Advanced Data Products dataset of 250 quasars. Here we use an unbiased sub-sample of sub-DLAs from this dataset. We build a subset of 122 quasars ranging from 1.5 <z_em < 5.0, suitable for statistical analysis. The statistical sample is analyzed in conjunction with other sub-DLA samples from the literature. This makes up a combined sample of 89 sub-DLAs over a redshift path of $\Delta z=193$. Redshift evolution of the number density and the line density are derived for sub-DLAs and compared with the LLSs and DLAs measurements from the literature. The results indicate that these three classes of absorbers are evolving in the redshift interval 1 < z < 5. The column density distribution, f(N,z), down to the sub-DLA limit is determined. The flattening of f_(N,z) in the sub-DLA regime is present in the observations. The redshift evolution of f_(N,z) down to sub-DLA regime is also presented, indicating the presence of more sub-DLAs at high-redshift as compared to low-redshift. f_(N,z) is further used to determine the neutral gas mass density, Omega_g, at 1.5 < z < 5.0. The complete sample shows that sub-DLAs contribute 8-20% to the total Omega_g from 1.5 < z < 5.0. In agreement with previous studies, no evolution of Omega_g is seen from low-redshift to high-redshift, suggesting that star formation solely cannot explain this non-evolution and replenishment of gas and/or recombination of ionized gas is needed. (Abridged)Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, 7 table

Observations cosmologiques avec un télescope grand champ spatial: Simulations pixels du spectromètre sans fente d'EUCLID

The observations of the supernovae, the cosmic microwave background, and more recently the measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations and the weak lensing effects, converge to a Lambda CDM model, with an accelerating expansion of the today Universe. This model need two dark components to fit the observations, the dark matter and the dark energy. Two approaches seem particularly promising to measure both geometry of the Universe and growth of dark matter structures, the analysis of the weak distortions of distant galaxies by gravitational lensing and the study of the baryon acoustic oscillations. Both methods required a very large sky surveys of several thousand square degrees. In the context of the spectroscopic survey of the space mission EUCLID, dedicated to the study of the dark side of the universe, I developed a pixel simulation tool for analyzing instrumental performances. The proposed method can be summarized in three steps. The first step is to simulate the observables, ie mainly the sources of the sky. I work up a new method, adapted for spectroscopic simulations, which allows to mock an existing survey of galaxies in ensuring that the distribution of the spectral properties of galaxies are representative of current observations, in particular the distribution of the emission lines. The second step is to simulate the instrument and produce images which are equivalent to the expected real images. Based on the pixel simulator of the HST, I developed a new tool to compute the images of the spectroscopic channel of EUCLID. The new simulator have the particularity to be able to simulate PSF with various energy distributions and detectors which have different pixels. The last step is the estimation of the performances of the instrument. Based on existing tools, I set up a pipeline of image processing and performances measurement. My main results were: 1) to validate the method by simulating an existing survey of galaxies, the WISP survey, 2) to determine the tolerances on the energy distribution of the PSF for the slitless spectrometer of EUCLID, 3) to determine the tolerances on the properties of near-infrared detectors of EUCLID.Les observations des supernovae, du fond diffus cosmologique, et plus récemment la mesure des oscillations acoustiques des baryons et des effets de lentilles gravitationnelles faibles, favorisent le modèle cosmologique Lambda CDM pour lequel l'expansion de l'Univers est actuellement en accélération. Ce modèle fait appel à deux composants insaisissables, la matière sombre et l'énergie sombre. Deux approches semblent particulièrement prometteuses pour sonder à la fois la géométrie de l'Univers et la croissance des structures de matière noire, l'analyse des distorsions faibles des galaxies lointaines par cisaillement gravitationnel et l'étude des oscillations acoustiques des baryons. Ces deux méthodes demandent de très grands relevés du ciel, de plusieurs milliers de degrés carrés, en imagerie et en spectroscopie. Dans le contexte du relevé spectroscopique de la mission spatiale EUCLID, dédiée à l'étude des composantes sombres de l'univers, j'ai réalisé des simulations pixels permettant l'analyse des performances instrumentales. La méthode proposée peut se résumer en trois étapes. La première étape est de simuler les observables, c'est à dire principalement les sources du ciel. Pour cela j'ai développé une nouvelle méthode, adapté à la spectroscopie, qui permet d'imiter un relevé existant, en s'assurant que la distribution des propriétés spectrales des galaxies soit représentative des observations actuelles, en particulier la distribution des raies d'émission. La seconde étape est de simuler l'instrument et de produire des images équivalentes aux images réelles attendues. En me basant sur le simulateur pixel du HST, j'ai développé un nouvel outil permettant de simuler les images en spectroscopie sans fente d'EUCLID. Le nouveau simulateur a la particularité de pouvoir simuler des PSF avec une distribution d'énergie variée et des détecteurs dont chaque pixel est différent. La dernière étape est l'estimation des performances de l'instrument. Encore en me basant sur les outils existant, j'ai mis en place un pipeline de traitement des images et de mesure de performances. Mes résultat principaux ont été : 1) de valider la méthode en simulant un relevé de galaxies existant, le relevé WISP, 2) de déterminer les tolérances sur la distribution d'énergie de la PSF du spectromètre sans fente d'EUCLID, 3) de déterminer les tolérances sur les propriétés de détecteurs proche infrarouge d'EUCLID

Deep GALEX Observations of the Coma Cluster: Source Catalog and Galaxy Counts

We present a source catalog from deep 26 ks GALEX observations of the Coma cluster in the far-UV (FUV; 1530 A) and near-UV (NUV; 2310 A) wavebands. The observed field is centered 0.9 deg (1.6 Mpc) south-west of the Coma core, and has full optical photometric coverage with SDSS. The catalog consists of 9700 galaxies with GALEX and SDSS photometry, including 242 spectroscopically-confirmed Coma member galaxies that range from giant spirals and elliptical galaxies to dwarf irregular and early-type galaxies. The full multi-wavelength catalog (cluster plus background galaxies) is ~80% complete to NUV=23 and FUV=23.5, and has a limiting depth at NUV=24.5 and FUV=25.0 which corresponds to a star formation rate of ~0.001 Msun/yr at the distance of Coma. Our deep GALEX observations required a two-fold approach to generating a source catalog: we used a Bayesian deblending algorithm to measure faint and compact sources (using SDSS coordinates as a position prior), and relied on the GALEX pipeline catalog for bright/extended objects. We performed simulations to assess the influence that systematic effects (e.g. object blends, source confusion, Eddington Bias) have on source detection and photometry when using both methods. The Bayesian deblending method roughly doubles the number of source detections and provides reliable photometry to a few magnitudes deeper than the GALEX pipeline catalog. This method is also free from source confusion over the UV magnitude range studied here; conversely, we estimate that the GALEX pipeline catalogs are confusion limited at magnitudes fainter than NUV~23 and FUV~24. We have measured the total UV galaxy counts using our catalog and report a ~50% excess of counts across FUV=22-23.5 and NUV=21.5-23 relative to previous GALEX measurements, which is not attributed to cluster member galaxies. Our galaxy counts are a better match to deeper UV counts measured with HST.Comment: 27 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ