Angular size redshift relation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Angular diameter distance. (Discuss)

The angular size redshift relation for a Lambda cosmology.

The angular size redshift relation describes the relation between the angular size observed on the sky of an object of given physical size, and the objects redshift from Earth (which is related to its distance, $d$ , from Earth). In a Euclidean geometry the relation between size on the sky and distance from Earth would simply be given by the equation:

$\tan\left ( \theta \right )= \frac{x}{d}$

where $θ$ is the angular size of the object on the sky, $x$ is the size of the object and $d$ is the distance to the object. Where $θ$ is small this approximates to:

$\theta = \frac{x}{d}$ .

However, in the currently favoured geometric model of our Universe, the relation is more complicated. In this model, objects at redshifts greater than about 1.5 appear larger on the sky with increasing redshift.

This is related to the angular diameter distance, which is the distance an object is calculated to be at from $θ$ and $x$ , assuming the Universe is Euclidean.

The actual relation between the angular-diameter distance, $d a$ , and redshift is given below. $q 0$ is called the deceleration parameter and measures the deceleration of the expansion rate of the Universe; in the simplest models, $q 0 < 0.5$ corresponds to the case where the Universe will expand for ever, $q 0 > 0.5$ to closed models which will ultimately stop expanding and contract $q 0 = 0.5$ corresponds to the critical case – Universes which will just be able to expand to infinity without re-contracting.