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At least 361 records · Page 20

The volumetric rate of normal type Ia supernovae in the local Universe discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory

We present the volumetric rate of normal type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF). Using strict data-quality cuts, and considering only periods when the PTF maintained a regular cadence, PTF discovered 90 SNe Ia at z ≤ 0.09 in a well-controlled sample over three years of operation (2010–2012). We use this to calculate the volumetric rate of SN Ia events by comparing this sample to simulations of hundreds of millions of SN Ia light curves produced in statistically representative realizations of the PTF survey. This quantifies the recovery efficiency of each PTF SN Ia event, and thus the relative weighting of each event. From this, the volumetric SN Ia rate was found to be r(v) = 2.43 ± 0.29 (stat)(+0.33,−0.19)(sys) × 10^(−5) SNe per yr Mpc^(-3) h(3,70). This represents the most precise local measurement of the SNIa rate. We fit a simple SNIa delay-time distribution model, ∝ t^(−β) , to our PTF rate measurement combined with a literature sample of rate measurements from surveys at higher redshifts. We find β ∼ 1, consistent with a progenitor channel governed by the gravitational inspiral of binary white dwarfs.

C. Frohmaier↗

Cross-correlation of SPT-3G D1 CMB lensing and DES Y3 galaxy lensing

Measurements of the weak lensing of galaxies and of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) provide direct probes of the cosmic matter density field, but the two observables are sensitive to different spatial scales, redshift ranges, and survey systematics. Their cross-correlation thus enables consistency checks of the theoretical model and of potential systematics in either dataset. We present measurements of the cross-correlation between CMB lensing and cosmic shear over $\sim$1,300 deg$^2$ of the sky using the SPT-3G D1 CMB lensing maps and the Dark Energy Survey Year 3 (DES Y3) shear catalogs. For the first time, we measure this cross-correlation at high significance ($\sim 14σ$) when using a polarization-only CMB lensing reconstruction that is expected to be robust against biases induced by extragalactic foregrounds. We test a variety of other CMB lensing estimators that include temperature information and exhibit different tradeoffs between foreground biases and noise, as well as a shear sample that consists of blue, star-forming galaxies and has been shown to be less impacted by galaxy intrinsic alignments. Assuming $Λ$CDM and marginalizing over uncertainties in intrinsic alignments, baryonic feedback, and various nuisance parameters, we obtain a constraint on the amplitude of matter clustering $S_8 \equiv σ_8 \sqrt{Ω_m / 0.3} = 0.833^{+0.047}_{-0.061}$, consistent with both the primary CMB results from Planck and shear-only results from DES Y3. By combining our measurement with Planck, we find mild constraints on the astrophysical processes that impact the cross-correlation. We obtain a constraint on the intrinsic alignment amplitude of the DES sample that is competitive with that from shear-only analyses, and we find a lower limit on the strength of baryonic feedback.

Ouellette, A. [Illinois U., Urbana] (ORCID:0000000↗

DESI z ≳ 5 Quasar Survey. I. A First Sample of 400 New Quasars at z ~ 4.7–6.6

We report the first results of a high-redshift (z ≳ 5) quasar survey using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). As a DESI secondary target program, this survey is designed to carry out a systematic search and investigation of quasars at 4.8 < z < 6.8. The target selection is based on the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys (the Legacy Surveys) DR9 photometry, combined with the Pan-STARRS1 data and J-band photometry from public surveys. A first quasar sample has been constructed from the DESI Survey Validation 3 (SV3) and first-year observations until 2022 May. This sample includes more than 400 new quasars at redshift 4.7 ≤ z < 6.6, down to 21.5 magnitude (AB) in the z band, discovered from 35% of the entire target sample. Remarkably, there are 220 new quasars identified at z ≥ 5, more than one-third of existing quasars previously published at this redshift. The observations so far result in an average success rate of 23% at z > 4.7. The current spectral data set has already allowed analysis of interesting individual objects (e.g., quasars with damped Lyα absorbers and broad absorption line features), and statistical analysis will follow the survey's completion. A set of science projects will be carried out leveraging this program, including quasar luminosity function, quasar clustering, intergalactic medium, quasar spectral properties, intervening absorbers, and properties of early supermassive black holes. Additionally, a sample of 38 new quasars at z ~ 3.8–5.7 discovered from a pilot survey in the DESI SV1 is also published in this paper.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

BASS. XXXIII. Swift-BAT Blazars and Their Jets through Cosmic Time

We derive the most up-to-date Swift-Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) blazar luminosity function in the 14–195 keV range, making use of a clean sample of 118 blazars detected in the BAT 105 month survey catalog, with newly obtained redshifts from the BAT Active Galatic Nucleus Spectroscopic Survey. We determine the best-fit X-ray luminosity function for the whole blazar population, as well as for flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) alone. The main results are: (1) at any redshift, BAT detects the most luminous blazars, above any possible break in their luminosity distribution, which means we cannot differentiate between density and luminosity evolution; (2) the whole blazar population, dominated by FSRQs, evolves positively up to redshift z ~ 4.3, confirming earlier results and implying lower number densities of blazars at higher redshifts than previously estimated. The contribution of this source class to the cosmic X-ray background at 14–195 keV can range from 5%–18%, while possibly accounting for 100% of the MeV background. We also derived the average 14 keV–10 GeV spectral energy distribution for BAT blazars, which allows us to predict the number counts of sources in the MeV range, as well as the expected number of high-energy (>100 TeV) neutrinos. A mission like COSI will detect 40 MeV blazars, of which two may have coincident neutrino detections. Finally, taking into account beaming selection effects, the distribution and properties of the parent population of these extragalactic jets are derived. We find that the distribution of viewing angles is quite narrow, with most sources aligned within <5° of the line of sight. Moreover, the average Lorentz factor, $\langle$Γ$\rangle$ = 8–12, is lower than previously suggested for these powerful sources.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Constraints on Cosmological Parameters with a Sample of Type Ia Supernovae from JWST

We investigate the potential of using a sample of very high-redshift (2 ≲ z ≲ 6) (VHZ) Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) attainable by JWST on constraining cosmological parameters. At such high redshifts, the age of the universe is young enough that the VHZ SN Ia sample comprises the very first SNe Ia of the universe, with progenitors among the very first generation of low-mass stars that the universe has made. We show that the VHZ SNe Ia can be used to disentangle systematic effects due to the luminosity distance evolution with redshifts intrinsic to SN Ia standardization. Assuming that the systematic evolution can be described by a linear or logarithmic formula, we found that the coefficients of this dependence can be determined accurately and decoupled from cosmological models. Systematic evolution as large as 0.15 mag and 0.45 mag out to z = 5 can be robustly separated from popular cosmological models for linear and logarithmic evolution, respectively. The VHZ SNe Ia will lay the foundation for quantifying the systematic redshift evolution of SN Ia luminosity distance scales. When combined with SN Ia surveys at comparatively lower redshifts, the VHZ SNe Ia allow for the precise measurement of the history of the expansion of the universe from z ~ 0 to the epoch approaching reionization.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Primordial black hole mass functions as a probe of cosmic origin

Here, we discuss a novel window to probe the origin of our universe via the mass functions of primordial black holes (PBHs). The mass functions of PBHs are simply estimated using the conventional Press-Schechter formalism for two paradigms of cosmic origin, including inflationary ΛCDM and bounce cosmology. The standard inflationary ΛCDM model cannot generate an appreciable number of massive PBHs; however, non-trivial inflation models with blue-tilted power spectra at small scales and matter bounce cosmology provide formation mechanisms for heavy PBHs, which in turn, may seed the observed supermassive black holes (SMBHs). By fitting the SMBH mass functions at high redshift (z ~ 6) derived from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey (CFHQS) quasars, for two paradigms of cosmic origin, we derive constraints on the PBH density fraction $f$ PBH at z ~ 6 and the characteristic mass M $\ast$ , with the prior assumption that all SMBHs stem from PBHs. We demonstrate that this newly proposed procedure, relying on astronomical measurements that utilize deep-field surveys of SMBHs at high redshift, can be used to constrain models of cosmic origin. Additionally, although not the main focus of this paper, we evolve the mass function from z ~ 6 to z ~ 0 through an assumption of 3 × 10 8 -year Eddington’s accretion, and give a rough estimation of $f$ PBH at z ~ 0.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

How to Obtain the Redshift Distribution from Probabilistic Redshift Estimates

Abstract A reliable estimate of the redshift distribution n ( z ) is crucial for using weak gravitational lensing and large-scale structures of galaxy catalogs to study cosmology. Spectroscopic redshifts for the dim and numerous galaxies of next-generation weak-lensing surveys are expected to be unavailable, making photometric redshift (photo- z ) probability density functions (PDFs) the next best alternative for comprehensively encapsulating the nontrivial systematics affecting photo- z point estimation. The established stacked estimator of n ( z ) avoids reducing photo- z PDFs to point estimates but yields a systematically biased estimate of n ( z ) that worsens with a decreasing signal-to-noise ratio, the very regime where photo- z PDFs are most necessary. We introduce Cosmological Hierarchical Inference with Probabilistic Photometric Redshifts ( CHIPPR ), a statistically rigorous probabilistic graphical model of redshift-dependent photometry that correctly propagates the redshift uncertainty information beyond the best-fit estimator of n ( z ) produced by traditional procedures and is provably the only self-consistent way to recover n ( z ) from photo- z PDFs. We present the chippr prototype code, noting that the mathematically justifiable approach incurs computational cost. The CHIPPR approach is applicable to any one-point statistic of any random variable, provided the prior probability density used to produce the posteriors is explicitly known; if the prior is implicit, as may be the case for popular photo- z techniques, then the resulting posterior PDFs cannot be used for scientific inference. We therefore recommend that the photo- z community focus on developing methodologies that enable the recovery of photo- z likelihoods with support over all redshifts, either directly or via a known prior probability density.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Dark Energy Survey: A 2.1% measurement of the angular baryonic acoustic oscillation scale at redshift z eff = 0.85 from the final dataset

Here, we present the angular diameter distance measurement obtained with the baryonic acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature from galaxy clustering in the completed Dark Energy Survey, consisting of six years (Y6) of observations. We use the Y6 BAO galaxy sample, optimized for BAO science in the redshift range 0.6 < z <1.2, with an effective redshift at z eff = 0.85 and split into six tomographic bins. The sample has nearly 16 million galaxies over 4,273 square degrees. Our consensus measurement constrains the ratio of the angular distance to sound horizon scale to D M ⁡(z eff )/r d = 19.51 ± 0.41 (at 68.3% confidence interval), resulting from comparing the BAO position in our data to that predicted by planck Λ⁢CDM via the BAO shift parameter α =(D M /r d )/(D M /r d ) PLANCK . To achieve this, the BAO shift is measured with three different methods, angular correlation function (ACF), angular power spectrum (APS), and projected correlation function (PCF), obtaining α = 0.952 ± 0.023, 0.962 ± 0.022, and 0.955 ± 0.020, respectively, which we combine to α = 0.957 ± 0.020, including systematic errors. When compared with the Λ⁢CDM model that best fits planck data, this measurement is found to be 4.3% and 2.1⁢σ below the angular BAO scale predicted. To date, it represents the most precise angular BAO measurement at z > 0.75 from any survey and the most precise measurement at any redshift from photometric surveys. The analysis was performed blinded to the BAO position, and it is shown to be robust against analysis choices, data removal, redshift calibrations, and observational systematics.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Probing gravity with the DES-CMASS sample and BOSS spectroscopy

ABSTRACT The DES-CMASS sample (DMASS) is designed to optimally combine the weak lensing measurements from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and redshift-space distortions (RSD) probed by the CMASS galaxy sample from the Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. In this paper, we demonstrate the feasibility of adopting DMASS as the equivalent of CMASS for a joint analysis of DES and BOSS in the framework of modified gravity. We utilize the angular clustering of the DMASS galaxies, cosmic shear of the DES metacalibration sources, and cross-correlation of the two as data vectors. By jointly fitting the combination of the data with the RSD measurements from the CMASS sample and Planck data, we obtain the constraints on modified gravity parameters $\mu _0=-0.37^{+0.47}_{-0.45}$ and $\Sigma _0=0.078^{+0.078}_{-0.082}$. Our constraints of modified gravity with DMASS are tighter than those with the DES Year 1 redMaGiC sample with the same external data sets by 29 per cent for μ0 and 21 per cent for Σ0, and comparable to the published results of the DES Year 1 modified gravity analysis despite this work using fewer external data sets. This improvement is mainly because the galaxy bias parameter is shared and more tightly constrained by both CMASS and DMASS, effectively breaking the degeneracy between the galaxy bias and other cosmological parameters. Such an approach to optimally combine photometric and spectroscopic surveys using a photometric sample equivalent to a spectroscopic sample can be applied to combining future surveys having a limited overlap such as DESI and LSST.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

A Sample of Nearby Isolated Dwarf Galaxies: A First Look at the Mass Function of Field Dwarfs

We present the results of the Exploration of Local VolumE Survey-Field, a survey of the dwarf galaxies in the Local Volume (LV; D < 10 Mpc) over roughly 3000 deg 2 , focusing on the field dwarf population. Candidates are detected using a semiautomated algorithm tailored for low-surface brightness dwarfs. Using tests with injected galaxies, we show the detection is 50% complete to m g ∼ 20 mag and M ⋆ ∼ 10 6 M ⊙ . Candidates are confirmed to be true nearby dwarfs through distance measurements including redshift, tip of the red giant branch, and surface brightness fluctuations. We identify isolated field dwarfs using various environmental criteria. Over the survey footprint, we detect and confirm 95 LV dwarfs, 44 of which we consider isolated. Using this sample, we infer the field dwarf mass function and find good agreement at the high-mass end with previous redshift surveys and with the predictions of the Illustris-TNG simulation. This sample of isolated field dwarfs represents a powerful dataset to investigate aspects of small-scale structure and the effect of environment on dwarf galaxy evolution.

Carlsten, Scott G. [Princeton Univ., NJ (United St↗

Lensing Without Borders: Measurements of galaxy-galaxy lensing and projected galaxy clustering in DESI DR1

We present Galaxy-Galaxy Lensing measurements obtained by cross-correlating spectroscopically observed galaxies from the first data release of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) with source galaxies from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Survey, the Kilo-Degree Survey, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and the Dark Energy Survey. Specifically, we measure the excess surface mass density $ΔΣ$ and tangential shear $γ_\mathrm{t}$ for the Bright Galaxy Sample and Luminous Red Galaxies measured within the first year of observations with DESI. To ensure robustness, we test the measurements for systematic biases, finding no significant trends related to the properties of the \acrshort{desi} lens galaxies. We identify a significant trend with the average redshift of source galaxies, however, this trend vanishes once we apply shifts to the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Survey redshift distributions that are also favored by their fiducial cosmology analysis. Additionally, we compare the observed scatter in the measurements with the theoretical covariance and find excess scatter, driven primarily by small-scale measurements of $r\leq 1 \, \mathrm{Mpc}/h$; measurements on larger scales are consistent at the $2\,σ$ level. We further present the projected clustering measurements $w_p$ of the galaxy samples in the the first data release of DESI. These measurements, which will be made publicly available, serve as a foundation for forthcoming cosmological analyses.

Heydenreich, S. [Lick Observ.] (ORCID:000000027273↗

Clusters of galaxies up to z = 1.5 identified from photometric data of the Dark Energy Survey and unWISE

ABSTRACT Using photometric data from the Dark Energy Survey and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, we estimate photometric redshifts for 105 million galaxies using the nearest-neighbour algorithm. From such a large data base, 151 244 clusters of galaxies are identified in the redshift range of 0.1 < z ≲ 1.5 based on the overdensity of the total stellar mass of galaxies within a given photometric redshift slice, among which 76 826 clusters are newly identified and 30 477 clusters have a redshift z > 1. We cross-match these clusters with those in the catalogues identified from the X-ray surveys and the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) effect by the Planck, South Pole Telescope and Atacama Cosmology Telescope surveys, and get the redshifts for 45 X-ray clusters and 56 SZ clusters. More than 95 per cent SZ clusters in the sky region have counterparts in our catalogue. We find multiple optical clusters in the line of sight towards about 15 per cent of SZ clusters.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Using a Neural Network Classifier to Select Galaxies with the Most Accurate Photometric Redshifts

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will produce several billion photometric redshifts (photo-z's), enabling cosmological analyses to select a subset of galaxies with the most accurate photo-z. For this work, we perform initial redshift fits on Subaru Strategic Program galaxies with deep grizy photometry using Trees for Photo-Z (TPZ) before applying a custom neural network classifier (NNC) tuned to select galaxies with (z phot – z spec )/(1 + z spec ) < 0.10. We consider four cases of training and test sets ranging from an idealized case to using data augmentation to increase the representation of dim galaxies in the training set. Selections made using the NNC yield significant further improvements in outlier fraction and photo-z scatter (σ z ) over those made with typical photo-z uncertainties. As an example, when selecting the best third of the galaxy sample, the NNC achieves a 35% improvement in outlier rate and a 23% improvement in σ z compared to using uncertainties from TPZ. For cosmology and galaxy evolution studies, this method can be tuned to retain a particular sample size or to achieve a desired photo-z accuracy; our results show that it is possible to retain more than a third of an LSST-like galaxy sample while reducing σ z by a factor of 2 compared to the full sample, with one-fifth as many photo-z outliers. For surveys like LSST that are not limited by shot noise, this method enables a larger number of tomographic redshift bins and hence a significant increase in the total signal to noise of galaxy angular power spectra.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Photometric redshifts probability density estimation from recurrent neural networks in the DECam local volume exploration survey data release 2

Photometric wide-field surveys are imaging the sky in unprecedented detail. These surveys face a significant challenge in efficiently estimating galactic photometric redshifts while accurately quantifying associated uncertainties. In this work, we address this challenge by exploring the estimation of Probability Density Functions (PDFs) for the photometric redshifts of galaxies across a vast area of 17,000 square degrees, encompassing objects with a median 5 σ point-source depth of g = 24.3, r = 23 . 9 , i = 23.5, and z = 22.8 mag. Our approach uses deep learning, specifically integrating a Recurrent Neural Network architecture with a Mixture Density Network, to leverage magnitudes and colors as input features for constructing photometric redshift PDFs across the whole DECam Local Volume Exploration (DELVE) survey sky footprint. Subsequently, we rigorously evaluate the reliability and robustness of our estimation methodology, gauging its performance against other well-established machine learning methods to ensure the quality of our redshift estimations. Our best results constrain photometric redshifts with the bias of − 0 . 0013 , a scatter of 0.0293, and an outlier fraction of 5.1%. These point estimates are accompanied by well-calibrated PDFs evaluated using diagnostic tools such as Probability Integral Transform and Odds distribution. We also address the problem of the accessibility of PDFs in terms of disk space storage and the time demand required to generate their corresponding parameters.We present a novel Autoencoder model that reduces the size of PDF parameter arrays to one-sixth of their original length, significantly decreasing the time required for PDF generation to one-eighth of the time needed when generating PDFs directly from the magnitudes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

UV Spectral Templates for High-Redshift Galaxies

New instrumentation such as DEIMOS on Keck-II now enable deep spectral surveys, and thereby samples of galaxies at younger ages. At a redshift, z = 1, all galaxies are less than 6 Gyr old and hence, have not yet formed horizontal-branch stars. Also, at z = 1, the restframe-UV comes into view, and with it, a new set of spectral diagnostics. UV spectral features are especially important because most of the UV flux comes from stars at the main-sequence turnoff (MSTO). Hence, UV spectral diagnostics enable the ages of z = 1 galaxies to be estimated directly from MSTO stars. In preparation for these high-redshift spectral surveys, we are developing UV spectral templates for stellar populations younger than 6 Gyr using UV-optical spectra of stars observed by HST/STIS. We are also planning to supplement these observations with theoretical spectral grids of stars of various metallicities. In this paper, we present a progress report on the observation-based spectral templates and spectral diagnostics.

Heap, Sara↗

A Catalog of Candidate Double and Lensed Quasars from Gaia and WISE Data

Making use of strong correlations between closely separated multiple or double sources and photometric and astrometric metadata in Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3), we generate a catalog of candidate double- and multiply imaged lensed quasars and active galactic nuclei (AGNs), comprising 3140 systems. It includes two partially overlapping parts: a sample of distant (redshifts mostly greater than 1) sources with perturbed data; and systems that have been resolved into separate components by Gaia at separations less than 2''. For the first part, which is roughly one-third of the published catalog, we synthesized 0.617 million redshifts using multiple machine-learning prediction and classification methods, using independent photometric and astrometric data from Gaia EDR3 and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, with accurate spectroscopic redshifts from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) as a training set. Using these synthetic redshifts, we estimate a 4.9% rate of interlopers with spectroscopic redshifts below 1 in this part of the catalog. Unresolved candidate double and dual AGNs and quasars are selected as sources with a marginally high BP/RP excess factor (phot_bp_rp_excess_factor), which is sensitive to source extent, limiting our search to high-redshift quasars. For the second part of the catalog, additional filters on measured parallax and near-neighbor statistics are applied to diminish the propagation of the remaining stellar contaminants. The estimated rate of the positives (double or multiple sources) is 98%, and the estimated rate of dual (physically related) quasars is greater than 54%. A few dozen serendipitously found objects of interest are discussed in more detail, including known and new lensed images, planetary nebulae, young IR stars of peculiar morphology, and quasars with catastrophic redshift errors in SDSS.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗