Fakultät für Physik - Digitale Hochschulschriften der LMU - Teil 04/05 Archiv

Two analyses searching for squarks and gluinos which decay into final states with multiple jets, an isolated electron or muon and a large missing transverse energy are presented. Both rely on data taken by the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV at the LHC during 2012. The first analysis uses a subset of 5.8 fb-1 of this dataset, the other analysis uses the full statistics of 20.3 fb-1. Both analysis share the same methods regarding the triggers and the background estimation techniques. The two dominant backgrounds are ttbar and W+jets production. The ttbar and the W+jets backgrounds are estimated in a semi-data-driven method. The minor QCD multi-jet background is estimated in an entirely data-driven method. The final background estimates in the analyses are derived in a profile-log-likelihood fit. None of the analyses sees an excess beyond Standard Model expectations. The analysis of the partial dataset derives limits in a MSUGRA/CMSSM model with parameters A_0=0, tan(beta) = 10 and mu > 0 and excludes squarks and gluinos with masses below 1.2 TeV for equal squark and gluino masses. The analysis of the full dataset derives limits in simplified models and in a MSUGRA/CMSSM model with parameters A_0=-2 m_0, tan(beta) = 30 and mu > 0. Gluinos (squarks) with masses below 1.2 TeV (750 GeV) can be excluded for vanishing LSP masses in simplified models. Gluino masses below 1.2 TeV can be excluded for every m_0 value in the MSUGRA/CMSSM model.

Why do we exist? CP violation is an integral part of this question as its understanding is crucial to explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry observed in our universe. Several experiments were designed and carried out to precisely measure CP violation, especially in the B meson system where large asymmetries where predicted and found. With Belle II and LHCb, two new experiments are going to improve the existing measurements. Belle II will be based on the very successful Belle experiment at the KEKB collider, currently holding the world record on luminosity with 2.11×10³⁴ cm⁻²2s⁻¹. The B meson system has a very rich decay topology and many of theses decay modes and their CP asymmetry parameters have already been measured at Belle. The most famous decay channel, B0⟶J/ψK0s, poses very tight constraints on sin 2φ₁ but leaves a twofold ambiguity on the actual value of the angle φ₁ in the CKM triangle. The decay mode B0⟶D*-D*+K0s, while experimentally much more challenging, offers the unique possibility to also extract cos2φ₁ and thus resolve this ambiguity. In the first chapters of this thesis we present the principle of this measurement and the results for the branching fraction and the time-dependent CP violation parameters of B0⟶D*-D*+K0s decays. These results are obtained from the final data sample of the Belle experiment containing 772 million BBbar pairs collected at the Υ(4S) resonance with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e+e- collider. We obtain the branching fraction BR(B0⟶D*-D*+K0s) = (5.35+0.35−0.34(stat) ± 0.57(syst))×10⁻³, which is in agreement with the current world average. In a 3 parameter fit sensitive to cos2φ₁, we extract the currently most precise values for the CP parameters Jc/J0 = 0.37 ± 0.10(stat) ± 0.02(syst), (2Js1/J0) sin(2φ₁) = 0.30 ± 0.16(stat) ± 0.03(syst), (2Js2/J0) cos(2φ₁) = 0.16 ± 0.16(stat) ± 0.03(syst). This allows us to exclude a negative value for cos2φ₁ at a 85% confidence under the assumption that that (2Js2/J0) is positive. Finally, we describe the implementation of the vertex detector geometry for the upcoming Belle II experiment. The upgrade to Belle aims to increase the integrated luminosity by a factor of 50 and will receive, among other upgrades, a completely new vertex detector. To produce simulated events, a precise description of the sensor geometry and material budget is needed.

In dieser Arbeit wird ein schnelles Strahlungsmodell im sichtbaren Spektralbereich erstellt. Ausgehend vom von einem meteorologischen Modell berechneten Zustand der Atmosphäre ergibt dieses Strahlungsmodell die Strahldichte am oberen Rand der Atmosph äre, die ein Satellit messen würde, wenn die Atmosphäre tatsächlich so aussehen würde (synthetisches Satellitenbild). Der Vergleich mit einem tatsächlichen Satellitenbild gibt Hinweise über mögliche Fehler des meteorologischen Modells. Mehrere Forschungsrichtungen werden in dieser Arbeit untersucht. Das Endprogramm (pastat) basiert weitgehend auf Look-Up Tables. Eine Erweiterung der Eddington-Approximation bis auf die dritte Ordnung wird verwendet, um die azimutal gemittelte Strahldichte zu berechnen. Ein Ansatz mit 16 statistisch bestimmten Parametern bringt die notwendige azimutale Abhängigkeit. Das Genauigkeitskriterium für das zu erstellende Strahlungsmodell ist ein relativer Fehler der Re�ektivität unter 10% oder ein absoluter Fehler unter 0.02. Die Erfolgsrate von pastat hängt stark vom Sonnenzenitwinkel ab. Der mittlere relative Fehler von pastat ist eine Gröÿenordnung höher als der von den meisten vorhandenen schnellen Strahlungsmodellen im Infraroten. Im Sichtbaren bringt der Mehrfachstreuterm der Strahlungstransportgleichung nämlich eine erhebliche zusätzliche Erschwernis im Vergleich zum Infraroten. Jedoch wird das Erfolgskriterium in fast allen Fällen von pastat eingehalten. Somit erlaubt dieses Verfahren, Modellfehler auf 10% Genauigkeit zu detektieren. pastat ist das erste schnelle Strahlungsmodell im sichtbaren Spektralbereich für wolkige Atmosphären.

We present a study of the galaxy populations in massive galaxy clusters selected by their Sunyaev–Zel’dovich Effect (SZE) signatures. Selection via the SZE is approximately mass- limited where the mass limit varies only slightly with redshift, making it an ideal selection method for studying the evolution of the galaxy content of clusters. We begin by introducing the SZE, the South Pole Telescope (SPT), and the larger research project in which this Thesis is embedded. We then present the core galaxy population studies of this Thesis. In Chapter 3, we present the first large-scale follow-up of an SZE-selected galaxy cluster sample. Of 224 galaxy cluster candidates in the sample, we optically confirm 158 clusters and measure their photometric redshifts. We find a redshift range of 0.1

One of the most fundamental correlations between the properties of galaxies in the local Universe is the so-called morphology-density relation (Dressler 1980). A plethora of studies utilizing multi-wavelength tracers of activity have shown that late type star forming galaxies favour low density regions in the local Universe (e.g. G´omez et al. 2003). In particular, the cores of massive galaxy clusters are galaxy graveyards full of massive spheroids that are dominated by old stellar populations. A variety of physical processes might be effective in suppressing star formation and affecting the morphology of cluster and group galaxies. Broadly speaking, these can be grouped in two big families: (i) interactions with other cluster members and/or with the cluster gravitational potential and (ii) interactions with the hot gas that permeates massive galaxy systems. Galaxy groups are the most common galaxy environment in our Universe, bridging the gap between the low density field and the crowded galaxy clusters. Indeed, as many as 50%-70% of galaxies reside in galaxy groups in the nearby Universe (Huchra & Geller 1982; Eke et al. 2004), while only a few percent are contained in the denser cluster cores. In addition, in the current bottom-up paradigm of structure formation, galaxy groups are the building blocks of more massive systems: they merge to form clusters. As structures grow, galaxies join more and more massive systems, spending most of their life in galaxy groups before entering the cluster environment. Thus, it is plausible to ask if group-related processes may drive the observed relations between galaxy properties and their environment. To shed light on this topic we have built the largest X-ray selected samples of galaxy groups with secure spectroscopic identification on the major blank field surveys. For this purpose, we combine deep X-ray Chandra and XMM data of the four major blank fields (All-wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey (AEGIS), the COSMOS field, the Extended Chandra Deep Field South (ECDFS), and the Chandra Deep Field North (CDFN) ). The group catalog in each field is created by associating any X-ray extended emission to a galaxy overdensity in the 3D space. This is feasible given the extremely rich spectroscopic coverage of these fields. Our identification method and the dynamical analysis used to identify the galaxy group members and to estimate the group velocity dispersion is extensively tested on the AEGIS field and with mock catalogs extracted from the Millennium Simulation (Springel et al. 2005). The effect of dynamical complexity, substructure, shape of X-ray emission, different radial and redshift cuts have been explored on the LX −sigma relation. We also discover a high redshift group at z~1.54 in the AEGIS field. This detection illustrates that mega-second Chandra exposures are required for detecting such objects in the volume of deep fields. We provide an accurate measure of the Star Formation Rate (SFR) of galaxies by using the deepest available Herschel PACS and Spitzer MIPS data available for the considered fields. We also provide a well-calibrated estimate of the SFR derived by using the SED fitting technique for undetected sources in mid- and far-infrared observations. Using this unique sample, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of the dependence of the total SFR , total stellar masses and halo occupation distribution (HOD) of massive galaxies (M*>10^10 M_sun) on the halo mass of the groups with rigorous consideration of uncertainties. We observe a clear evolution in the level of star formation (SF) activity in galaxy groups. Indeed, the total star formation activity in high redshift (0.5 10^10.4−10.6 M_sun). Above this limit, the galaxy SFR has a very weak dependence on the stellar mass. This flattening, to different extent, is present in all environments. At low redshift, group galaxies tend to deviate more from the mean MS towards the region of quiescence with respect to isolated and filament-like galaxies. This environment dependent location of low redshift group galaxies with respect to the mean MS causes the increase of the dispersion of the distribution of galaxies around the MS as a function of the stellar mass. At high redshift we do not find significant evidence for a differential location of galaxies with respect to the MS as a function of the environment. Indeed, in this case we do not observe a significant increase of the dispersion of the distribution of galaxies around the MS as a function of the stellar mass. We do not find evidence for a differential distribution in the morphological type of MS galaxies in different environments. Instead, we observe a much stronger dependence of the mean S´ersic index on the stellar mass. These results suggest that star formation quenching in group galaxies is not due to galaxy structural transformations. It also suggests that while morphology of MS galaxies is more stellar mass dependent, star formation quenching is mostly environment dependent. We conclude that the membership to a massive halo is a key ingredient in the galaxy evolution and that this acts in terms of star formation quenching in group sized halos.

The work presented here focuses on the investigation and further development of simple mass estimators for early-type galaxies which are suitable for large optical galaxy surveys with poor and/or noisy data. We consider simple and robust methods that provide an anisotropy-independent estimate of the galaxy mass relying on the stellar surface brightness and projected velocity dispersion profiles. Under reasonable assumptions a fundamental mass-anisotropy degeneracy can be circumvented without invoking any additional observational data, although at a special (characteristic) radius only, i.e these approaches do not recover the radial mass distribution. Reliable simple mass estimates at a single radius could be used (i) to cross-calibrate other mass determination methods; (ii) to estimate a non-thermal contribution to the total gas pressure when compared with the X-ray mass estimate at the same radius; (iii) to evaluate a dark matter fraction when compared with the luminous mass estimate; (iv) to derive the slope of the mass profile when combined with the mass estimate from strong lensing; (v) or as a virial mass proxy. Two simple mass estimators have been suggested recently - the local (Churazov et al. 2010) and the global (Wolf et al. 2010) methods - which evaluate mass at a particular radius and are claimed to be weakly dependent on the anisotropy of stellar orbits. One approach (Wolf et al. 2010) uses the total luminosity-weighted velocity dispersion and evaluates the mass at a deprojected half-light radius, i.e. relies on the global properties of a galaxy. In contrast, the Churazov et al. technique uses local properties: logarithmic slopes of the surface brightness and velocity dispersion profiles, and recovers the mass at a radius where the surface brightness declines as R^{-2} (see also Richstone and Tremaine 1984, Gerhard 1993). To test the robustness and accuracy of the methods I applied them to analytic models and to simulated galaxies from a sample of cosmological zoom-simulations which are similar in properties to nearby early-type galaxies. Both local and global simple mass estimates are found to be in good agreement with the true mass at the corresponding characteristic radius. Particularly, for slowly rotating simulated galaxies the local method gives an almost unbiased mass-estimate (when averaged over the sample) with a modest RMS-scatter of 12% (Chapter 2). When applied to massive simulated galaxies with a roughly flat velocity dispersion profile, the global approach on average also provides the almost unbiased mass-estimate, although the RMS-scatter is slightly larger (14-20 %) than for the local estimator (Chapter 4). A noticeable scatter in the determination of the characteristic radius is also expected since the half-light radius depends on the radial range used for the analysis and applied methodology. Next I tested the simple mass estimators on a sample of real early-type galaxies which had previously been analyzed in detail using state-of-the-art dynamical modeling. For this set of galaxies the simple mass estimates are in remarkable agreement with the results of the Schwarzschild modeling despite the fact that some of the considered galaxies are flattened and mildly rotating. When averaged over the sample the simple local method overestimates the best-fit mass from dynamical modeling by 10% with the RMS-scatter 13% between different galaxies. The bias is comparable to measurement uncertainties. Moreover, it is mainly driven by a single galaxy which has been found to be the most compact one in the sample. When this galaxy is excluded from the sample, the bias and the RMS-scatter are both reduced to 6%. The global estimator for the same sample gives the mean deviation 4% with the slightly larger RMS-scatter of 15% (Chapter 4). Given the encouraging results of the tests I apply the local mass estimation method to a sample of five X-ray bright early-type galaxies observed with the 6-m telescope BTA in Russia. Using publicly available Chandra data I derived the X-ray mass profile assuming spherical symmetry and hydrostatic equilibrium of hot gas. A comparison between the X-ray and optical mass estimates allowed me to put constraints on the non-thermal contribution (sample averaged value is 4%) to the total gas pressure arising from, for instance, microturbulent gas motions. Once the X-ray derived circular speed is corrected for the non-thermal contribution, the mismatch between the X-ray circular speed V_c^X and the optical circular velocity for isotropic stellar orbits V_c^{iso} provides a clue to the orbital structure of the galaxy. E.g., at small radii V_c^X > V_c^{iso} would suggest more circular orbits, while at larger radii this would correspond to more radial orbits. For two galaxies in our sample there is a clear indication that at radii larger than the half-light radius stellar orbits become predominantly radial. Finally, the difference between the optical mass-estimate at the characteristic radius and the stellar contribution to the total mass permitted the derivation of a dark-matter fraction. A typical dark matter fraction for our sample of early-type galaxies is 50% for Salpeter IMF and 70% for Kroupa IMF at the radius which is close to the half-light radius (Chapter 3).

The search for exo-planets is currently one of the most exiting and active topics in astronomy. Small and rocky planets are particularly the subject of intense research, since if they are suitably located from their host star, they may be warm and potentially habitable worlds. On the other hand, the discovery of giant planets in short-period orbits provides important constraints on models that describe planet formation and orbital migration theories. Several projects are dedicated to discover and characterize planets outside of our solar system. Among them, the Wide-Field Camera Transit Survey (WTS) is a pioneer program aimed to search for extra-solar planets, that stands out for its particular aims and methodology. The WTS has been in operation since August 2007 with observations from the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope, and represents the first survey that searches for transiting planets in the near-infrared wavelengths; hence the WTS is designed to discover planets around M-dwarfs. The survey was originally assigned about 200 nights, observing four fields that were selected seasonally (RA = 03, 07, 17 and 19h) during a year. The images from the survey are processed by a data reduction pipeline, which uses aperture photometry to construct the light curves. For the most complete field (19h-1145 epochs) in the survey, we produce an alternative set of light curves by using the method of difference imaging, which is a photometric technique that has shown important advantages when used in crowded fields. A quantitative comparison between the photometric precision achieved with both methods is carried out in this work. We remove systematic effects using the sysrem algorithm, scale the error bars on the light curves, and perform a comparison of the corrected light curves. The results show that the aperture photometry light curves provide slightly better precision for objects with J < 16. However, difference photometry light curves present a significant improvement for fainter stars. In order to detect transits in the WTS light curves, we use a modified version of the box-fitting algorithm. The implementation on the detection algorithm performs a trapezoid-fit to the folded light curve. We show that the new fit is able to produce more accurate results than the box-fit model. We describe a set of selection criteria to search for transit candidates that include a parameter calculated by our detection algorithm: the V-shape parameter, which has proven to be useful to automatically identify and remove eclipsing binaries from the survey. The criteria are optimized using Monte-Carlo simulations of artificial transit signals that are injected into the real WTS light curves and subsequently analyzed by our detection algorithm. We separately optimize the selection criteria for two different sets of light curves, one for F-G-K stars, and another for M-dwarfs. In order to search for transiting planet candidates, the optimized selection criteria are applied to the aperture photometry and difference imaging light curves. In this way, the best 200 transit candidates from a sample of ~ 475 000 sources are automatically selected. A visual inspection of the folded light curves of these detections is carried out to eliminate clear false-positives or false-detections. Subsequently, several analysis steps are performed on the 18 best detections, which allow us to classify these objects as transiting planet and eclipsing binary candidates. We report one planet candidate orbiting a late G-type star, which is proposed for photometric follow-up. The independent analysis on the M-dwarf sample provides no planet candidates around these stars. Therefore, the null detection hypothesis and upper limits on the occurrence rate of giant planets around M-dwarfs with J < 17 mag presented in a prior study are confirmed. In this work, we extended the search for transiting planets to stars with J < 18 mag, which enables us to impose a more strict upper limit of 1.1 % on the occurrence rate of short-period giant planets around M-dwarfs, which is significantly lower than other limit published so far. The lack of Hot Jupiters around M-dwarfs play an important role in the existing theories of planet formation and orbital migration of exo-planets around low-mass stars. The dearth of gas-giant planets in short-period orbit detections around M stars indicates that it is not necessary to invoke the disk instability formation mechanism, coupled with an orbital migration process to explain the presence of such planets around low-mass stars. The much reduced efficiency of the core-accretion model to form Jupiters around cool stars seems to be in agreement with the current null result. However, our upper limit value, the lowest reported sofar, is still higher than the detection rates of short-period gas-giant planets around hotter stars. Therefore, we cannot yet reach any firm conclusion about Jovian planet formation models around low-mass and cool main-sequence stars, since there are currently not sufficient observational evidences to support the argument that Hot Jupiters are less common around M-dwarfs than around Sun-like stars. The way to improve this situation is to monitor larger samples of M-stars. For example, an extended analysis of the remaining three WTS fields and currently running M-dwarf transit surveys (like Pan-Planets and PTF/M-dwarfs projects, which are monitoring up to 100 000 objects) may reduce this upper limit. Current and future space missions like Kepler and GAIA could also help to either set stricter upper limits or finally detect Hot Jupiters around low-mass stars. In the last part of this thesis, we present other applications of the difference imaging light curves. We report the detection of five faint extremely-short-period eclipsing binary systems with periods shorter than 0.23 d, as well as two candidates and one confirmed M-dwarf/M-dwarf eclipsing binaries. The etections and results presented in this work demonstrate the benefits of using the difference imaging light curves, especially when going to fainter magnitudes.

Das Gebiet der Nichtgleichgewichtsdynamik stark korrelierter Quantensysteme beinhaltet eine Vielzahl interessanter Fragestellungen, erweist sich dabei allerdings oftmals als schwer zugänglich für gängige numerische und analytische mathematische Methoden. In den letzten Jahren hat sich durch die experimentelle Realisierung gut kontrollierbarer quantenmechanischer Systeme die Möglichkeit eröffnet, Experimente als Quantensimulatoren für das Verhalten komplexer Vielteilchensysteme zu benutzen. Ultrakalte Atome in optischen Gittern eignen sich hervorragend als Simulatoren für simple Festkörpersysteme, da sich sämtliche Parameter der zugrunde liegenden Hamiltonoperatoren präzise kontrollieren lassen und der Zustand der Systeme mit einer Vielzahl an Messmethoden untersucht werden kann. In unseren Experimenten realisieren wir Bose-Hubbard Systeme durch ultrakalte 39K Atome in blau verstimmten optischen Gittern. Zusätzliche optische Dipolpotenziale und magnetische Feshbach-Resonanzen erlauben es uns dabei, die Parameter der Systeme zu jedem Zeitpunkt beliebig zu variieren. Dadurch sind die von uns erzeugten Systeme in besonderem Maße dazu geeignet, Nichtgleichgewichtseffekte zu untersuchen. Unser Hauptaugenmerk liegt auf der Untersuchung der Expansionsdynamik wechselwirkender Atome in homogenen Gittern. Wir beginnen unsere Experimente mit einem Anfangszustand im tiefen Gitter, der aus lokalisierten Atomen auf maximal einfach besetzten Gitterplätzen besteht. Durch gleichzeitiges schnelles Verringern der Gittertiefe und der externen Potenziale werden die Atome in ein homogenes Gitter entlassen und die Zeitentwicklung ihrer Dichteverteilung wird durch Absorptionsabbildungen festgehalten. Es zeigt sich, dass sowohl die Wechselwirkung zwischen den Atomen als auch die Dimensionalität der Gitter einen starken Einfluss auf die Dynamik haben. In allen integrablen Grenzfällen des Bose-Hubbard Modells verhalten sich die Atome ballistisch und expandieren mit hoher Geschwindigkeit, doch sobald sich das System außerhalb der integrablen Regime befindet verringert sich die Expansionsgeschwind-igkeit drastisch. Diese verringerte Geschwindigkeit geht einher mit der Ausbildung charakteristischer bimodaler Dichteverteilungen, die auf eine diffusive Dynamik schließen lassen. Für stark wechselwirkende Systeme können wir einen dimensionalitätsabhängigen Übergang zwischen ballistischer Dynamik im 1D hard-core-regime und diffusiver Dynamik im 2D Fall beobachten sowie eine starke Verringerung der Expansionsgeschwindigkeit, wenn der Anfangszustand des Systems mehrfach besetzte Gitterplätze enthält. Des Weiteren beobachten wir die Erzeugung solcher Mehrfachbesetzungen nach dem Entlassen der Atome, deren schnelle Entwicklung auf eine lokale Relaxationsdynamik hin zu quasistationären Werten deuten lässt. Als Letztes untersuchen wir die Entwicklung der Quasiimpulsverteilung stark wechselwirkender expandierender Atome, die laut theoretischer Vorhersagen eine vorübergehende Quasikondensation zeigen sollen, bei der sich scharfe lokale Maxima in der Quasiimpulsverteilung bei endlichen Quasiimpulsen bilden. Wir beobachten die Entstehung nicht-thermischer Quasiimpulsverteilungen die Maxima an den vor-hergesagten Positionen zeigen. Allerdings sind die von uns beobachteten Maxima wesentlich breiter als die vorhergesagten und wir diskutieren eine Reihe möglicher Erklärungen für diese Verbreiterung sowie Vorschläge zur Verbesserung zukünftiger Experimente.

The majority of stars in the universe has formed in disc galaxies with masses similar to that of the Milky Way. Ab-initio cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of the formation and evolution of galaxies in a Lambda Cold Dark Matter universe have long suffered from serious problems in correctly modelling the star-formation history and structure of disc galaxies. We first use idealized semi-cosmological simulations to gain a better understanding of processes leading to problems in disc formation simulations. We add rotating spheres of hot gas to cosmological dark-matter-only simulations of individual haloes and follow the formation and evolution of galaxy discs from the cooling gas. The initial orientation of the baryonic angular momentum with respect to the halo has a major effect on disc formation. Despite the coherently rotating initial conditions, the orientations of the disc and the outer gas and the relative angle between the components can all change by more than 90 degrees over several billion years. Dominant discs with realistic structural and kinematical properties form preferentially if slow cooling times shift disc formation to later times, if the initial angular momentum is aligned with the halo minor axis and if there is little reorientation of the disc. We then present a new set of fully cosmological simulations with an updated multiphase smoothed particle hydrodynamics galaxy formation code. The update includes improved treatment of metal-line cooling, metal production, turbulent diffusion of metals, kinetic and thermal supernova feedback and radiation pressure from massive young stars. We compare the models to a variety of observations at high and low redshifts and find good agreement for morphologies, stellar-to-dark-matter mass ratios, star formation rates, gas fractions and heavy element abundances. Agreement is better at redshift z=1 than at present day as discrepancies in star formation histories for the lowest and highest simulated galaxy masses become apparent at late times. 18 out of 19 of our model galaxies at z=0 contain stellar discs with kinematic disc fractions up to 65 %, higher than in any previous simulations. We finally compare our model galaxies in detail with recent observations of the structural evolution of stellar galactic discs and the structure of z=0 gas discs. Stellar surface density profiles agree well with observations at z>1, but reveal too little central growth afterwards. This is likely connected to a lack of bars in our simulations resulting from overly strong feedback. Discs at z=0 are too extended by a factor \sim 2. The discs have diverse formation histories ranging from pure inside-out growth in systems with quiescent merger histories to continuous mass growth at all radii. Central mass growth in our models is driven by mergers and misaligned infall events, which leave signatures in the present day distributions of radii and element abundances as functions of stellar age. Gas discs agree well with observations in terms of sizes and profile shapes, but on average have overly high gas-to-stellar mass ratios. Our models agree well with the observed neutral hydrogen mass-size relation. Despite significant progress, our models continue to suffer from various problems illustrating that we are still far away from capturing all relevant physical processes accurately.

Semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) exhibit a chirality depended band structure of a one-dimensional lattice. Due to the radiative recombination of excitons CNTs emit photoluminescence in the near and mid infrared ranges depending on the tube diameter. Excitons are subject to diffusion along the tube before radiative recombination. Thereby they probe sites that give rise to spin-flips or non-radiative decay, or, at cryogenic temperatures, they localize in zero-dimensional quantum dots at the minima of the local energy potential landscape. Thus, the optical spectroscopy of individual CNTs probes not only the intrinsic exciton dynamics, like diffusion and intrinsic life-time, but also disorder of the CNT lattice and its environment. Intrinsic and extrinsic inhomogeneities and impurities may give rise to photoluminescence quenching, brightening of dark exciton states or generation of charged exciton complexes. In the framework of this thesis the physics of excitons in CNTs was investigated in two ways: On the one hand their environment was varied with an static electric field, on the other hand the CNTs were isolated from their environment. A comprehensive set of optical spectroscopy techniques was used to study individual CNTs at low temperatures. This included photoluminescence excitation, (time-resolved) photoluminescence, and photon correlation spectroscopy. This work identified exciton localization as predominant feature of individual CNTs at cryogenic temperatures. CNTs on substrate exhibited asymmetric line shapes at low temperature and temperature dependent shifts on the PL energy. Moreover for constant temperature, PL energies were subject to spectral diffusion, which arose - in analogy to compound semiconductor quantum dots - from interaction with a few close charge fluctuators in the dielectric environment. In addition, evidence for exciton localization was provided by the non-classical photon emission statistics of cryogenic CNTs. The main focus of this thesis was the study of individual CNTs in a static electric field. A metal-oxide-semiconductor device was used to probe for the transverse polarizability of excitons. In consequence, the PL energy of CNTs exhibited red-shifts as a quadratic function of the perpendicular electric field. However, a subclass of CNTs was characterized by satellite peaks in the emission profile. By their energy splitting they were assigned to PL emission from dark exciton states, e.g. triplet and k-momentum excitons, and resulted presumably from impurity induced symmetry breaking. As a function of the electric field, CNTs with a broken symmetry featured linear shifts of the PL energy of bright and triplet excitons. A third energy scale in the exciton fine structure was manifested by CNTs that exhibited the emergence of a satellite peak as a function of the electric field. These satellites were assigned to the PL of trions generated by doping of individual CNTs with charges from close oxide states. Presumably such close charge states played also an important role in the variation of the excitation spectra of individual CNTs, which was observed as a function of the applied electric field. This variation could be mediated by switching of charge states, which varied the localization potential of excitons. Finally, the extrinsic effects of the surrounding dielectric medium were contrasted by the remarkable optical properties of as-grown suspended CNTs. Freely suspended CNTs featured isolated localized excitons with narrow linewidths, intrinsic exciton lifetime and a significantly increased quantum yield. Moreover, they lack signatures of spectral diffusion or intermittency even on the shortest timescales.