Re: Evolution reply to comments

From: Chris Lidman (clidman@eso.org)
Date: Mon Mar 07 2005 - 15:38:48 PST

  • Next message: Gabriele Garavini: "Re: Evolution reply to comments"

    Hi Gabrielle,
      Could you check that the version that is on the web is the
    latest one. The latest version that I could find is
    version 2.0 from Feb 21st.

    Cheers, Chirs.

    On Fri, 2005-03-04 at 14:09, Gabriele Garavini wrote:
    > Dear Chris, Dear All,
    >
    > I've implemented the latest comments from Chris, Andy and Rob into a
    > new draft of the paper and made some more modifications
    > (supernovae.in2p3.fr/~garavini/papers)
    >
    >
    > The most relevant news are:
    >
    > Section 3.3
    >
    > I've completely redone the statistics. I've included in the chi^2 test
    > also the error on the x axis into. It was not there before. This was
    > done propagating it into an y axis error according to the ew model of
    > the low redshift SNe. This needed to be done for correctness, and has
    > some nice consequences especially for MgII. Since the ew evolution of
    > this feature has a big derivative wrt time the difference in the
    > probability in table 5 is significant. Now the hypothesis that low and
    > high redshift SN have the same ew trend is true for both Fe and Mg.
    > Also, I've included in table 5 the same chi^2 test considering in the
    > uncertainties also the systematic due to the misidentification of the
    > fitting regions.
    >
    >
    > Section 3.2.2
    >
    > The last paragraph about the systematic due to host galaxy removal was
    > not exhaustive. I've expanded it explaining in some more details where
    > the 10% of uncertainty comes from.
    >
    >
    > Section 3.2.3
    >
    > In the second last paragraph of page 8 we commented on the higher
    > than average values of ew for Mg before max light (a 2-sigma effect).
    > The previous version of the paper included an explanation that did not
    > convince neither me nor Chris. So I've done some thinking and some
    > checks. Looking at the spectra and trying to identify the feature I
    > noticed that in the early epochs since this feature is shallow it is
    > easy to misidentify the maxima perhaps including some of the neighbor
    > absorptions. This would bias the ew measurements toward higher values.
    > This effect is taken into account by the misidentification systematic
    > uncertainties. In the current version of this paragraph I explain that
    > this could be the origin of the problem but that anyway it is not
    > statistical significant.
    >
    >
    > Section 3.2.1
    >
    > I included the latest comments from Rob. We now agreed on a description
    > that hopefully will allow the reader to measure ew as was done for this
    > paper.
    >
    >
    > This should cover all the comment and worries raised so far.
    >
    > Please let me know what you think and how we proceed from here?
    > I think now the paper can safely state that we do not see evolution.
    > The new version includes all the authors that were included into the
    > VLT paper. I know some of the affiliation are wrong. I'll check them
    > out.
    >
    >
    > Thank you very much
    > Cheers
    > Gabriele
    >
    >
    >
    > On Feb 23, 2005, at 4:48 PM, Chris Lidman wrote:
    >
    > > Hi Gabriele,
    > > I've given some more thought about the possibility of doing a 2D KS
    > > test with the data in figure 5. It seems to me that we cannot do
    > > this test because one is not sampling the nearby and
    > > distant samples randomly.
    > >
    > > The alternative is the chi-sq test, as you have done. The
    > > resulting probability (0.15) is low. The question we must now ask
    > > ourselves is do we believe this result. If we do, then we cannot
    > > say that there is no evidence for evolution, as we do in the abstract.
    > >
    > > There could be reasons for the difference. The example you give
    > > is systematic errors in host galaxy subtraction. If this is the case,
    > > why would if affect the the Mg II index but not the FeII index.
    > >
    > > Regards, Chris.
    > >
    > > On Tue, 2005-02-22 at 20:56, Chris Lidman wrote:
    > >> Hi Gabriele,
    > >> Thanks for the reply. I forwarded your paper to Andy and he has
    > >> provided some additional comments. Andy's comments consist of
    > >> grammatical corrections, which I reproduce below, and an important
    > >> question regarding host galaxy subtraction.
    > >>
    > >> Before I list Andy's comments, I'd like to add to my point
    > >> concerning
    > >> the significance of the difference seen in figure 5.
    > >>
    > >> The test you have done is to test whether high redshift SNe are more
    > >> similar to low redshift normal SNe or to low redshift underluminous
    > >> SNe.
    > >> You have found the former to be true. However, this does not mean that
    > >> they are the same as low redshift normal supernova. Hence, you cannot
    > >> conclude that there is no evolution. For this, you need to conduct a
    > >> more sophisticated test.
    > >>
    > >> It may not be easy to do this in 2 dimensions. In 1D, the
    > >> obvious tests would be the KS test and Student's t-test.
    > >> However, using a web search, I found the following web page
    > >> which describes a 2D KS test.
    > >>
    > >> http://beowulf.lcs.mit.edu/18.337-2002/projects-2002/ianchan/KS2D/
    > >> Project%20Page.html
    > >>
    > >> Have a look and let me know what you think.
    > >>
    > >> In addition to Andy's comment regarding host galaxy subtraction, one
    > >> should note that the bias could go either way. In some cases, you
    > >> might
    > >> subtract too much host and in other cases you might subtract too
    > >> little.
    > >> Currently, the paper assumes that the error in the subtraction is 10%.
    > >> Where does this percentage come from? I think that this needs more
    > >> justification.
    > >>
    > >> Cheers, Chris.
    > >>
    > >> Start of Andy's comments
    > >> ========================
    > >>
    > >> Comment #1
    > >>
    > >> The largest source of uncertainty is the host galaxy subtraction. Yet
    > >> this is swept under the rug. If this was done using the determination
    > >> from my program, for example, you can't trust any of the conclusions
    > >> from the paper. My program simultaneously fits host galaxy and SN
    > >> templates. In other words, it *assumes* that the high-z spectra is
    > >> similar to a low-z one and subtracts an amount of host light such that
    > >> the high-z and low-z spectra will look similar. The proper thing to
    > >> do
    > >> would be to use the photometry (e.g. percent increase) to constrain
    > >> the
    > >> amount of host galaxy light, and to use imaging and spectral features
    > >> to
    > >> constrain the host characteristics. You might be able to say some
    > >> spectrum has 30% host +/- 10%, and is either an E, SO, or Sa. Then
    > >> you
    > >> could do different subtractions in that parameter space and test the
    > >> results. Defining a technique like this would be a great addition to
    > >> this paper because any time people use high-z spectra they are going
    > >> to
    > >> have to do something like this.
    > >>
    > >> Comment #2
    > >> ==========
    > >>
    > >> One other point -- in the SNLS we have many 91T/99aa SNe at high
    > >> redshift. So there is no need to make a big deal out of having one in
    > >> the sample, as this paper does.
    > >>
    > >> Minor comments
    > >> ==============
    > >>
    > >> p. 1
    > >> Intro, par. 1 -- plural of supernova is supernovae
    > >> tidly ????
    > >> par. 4 it should be pointed out that the effect metallicity has
    > >> on the spectrum pointed out by Hoeflich and Lentz are only for
    > >> early-time
    > >> spectra, of which there aren't many here.
    > >>
    > >> par. 6 -- I have submitted a paper on SNLS gemini spectra -- Howell et
    > >> al.
    > >> 2005, ApJ, submitted
    > >>
    > >> p. 2, section 2.1 last sentence, One SNe -> One supernova
    > >>
    > >> last paragraph of section -- two days is no longer the uncertainty for
    > >> the
    > >> spectroscopic epoch determination in Hook et al.
    > >>
    > >> section 2.3, par 1 -- you say EWS but it is not defined yet.
    > >>
    > >> p. 4
    > >> table 2 'Si' should be 'Si 4000' since you say it is absent in
    > >> underluminous SNe.
    > >>
    > >> first paragraph on page - there is a period missing before SN 2002fd
    > >>
    > >> p. 5
    > >> 3.1, 3rd par. "uncertainty in the redshifts is taken to be 300 km/s if
    > >> the
    > >> redshift was estimated from galaxy lines..."
    > >> shouldn't this be proportional to the redshift?
    > >>
    > >> 3.2 first sentence -- delete ", they" and second comma.
    > >>
    > >> p. 6
    > >> "possible involved" delete involved
    > >>
    > >> p. 7 last par in 3.2.1 delete space in "spectra ,"
    > >>
    > >> 3.2.3, 4th par -- delete space: "( with"
    > >>
    > >> p. 8 3.3 miss-identification -> misidentification
    > >> this whole parenthetical expression should be made into a new sentence
    > >> because it is confusing with "uncertainties" written twice in a row.
    > >>
    > >>
    > >>
    > >> On Tue, 2005-02-22 at 05:24, Gabriele Garavini wrote:
    > >>> I'm very sorry chris I sent by mistake the wrong file.
    > >>> Here is the one I meant to send.
    > >>> Thanks
    > >>> Gabriele
    > >>>
    > >>> On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, Chris Lidman wrote:
    > >>>
    > >>>> Hi Gabriele,
    > >>>> Could you resend the attachment. The one I received seems to be
    > >>>> chopped at the end.
    > >>>>
    > >>>> Regards,
    > >>>>
    > >>>> Chris.
    > >>>>
    > >>>> On Mon, 2005-02-21 at 13:29, Gabriele Garavini wrote:
    > >>>>> Dear Chris
    > >>>>>
    > >>>>> thanks you very much for the careful reading of the paper. I've
    > >>>>> implements most of you comments. Please find all my answers in the
    > >>>>> attached file. I also changed extensively the section about EW
    > >>>>> (3.2) I
    > >>>>> hope this will allow us to go to submission shortly.
    > >>>>>
    > >>>>> Thanks again
    > >>>>> Hasta la vista.
    > >>>>> Cheers
    > >>>>> Gabriele
    > >>>>
    > >>>>
    > >>>>
    > >>
    > >>
    > >
    > >

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