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At least 397 records · Page 22

Bayesian constraints on the origin and geology of exoplanetary material using a population of externally polluted white dwarfs

ABSTRACT White dwarfs that have accreted planetary bodies are a powerful probe of the bulk composition of exoplanetary material. In this paper, we present a Bayesian model to explain the abundances observed in the atmospheres of 202 DZ white dwarfs by considering the heating, geochemical differentiation, and collisional processes experienced by the planetary bodies accreted, as well as gravitational sinking. The majority (>60 per cent) of systems are consistent with the accretion of primitive material. We attribute the small spread in refractory abundances observed to a similar spread in the initial planet-forming material, as seen in the compositions of nearby stars. A range in Na abundances in the pollutant material is attributed to a range in formation temperatures from below 1000 K to higher than 1400 K, suggesting that pollutant material arrives in white dwarf atmospheres from a variety of radial locations. We also find that Solar System-like differentiation is common place in exoplanetary systems. Extreme siderophile (Fe, Ni, or Cr) abundances in eight systems require the accretion of a core-rich fragment of a larger differentiated body to at least a 3σ significance, whilst one system shows evidence that it accreted a crust-rich fragment. In systems where the abundances suggest that accretion has finished (13/202), the total mass accreted can be calculated. The 13 systems are estimated to have accreted masses ranging from the mass of the Moon to half that of Vesta. Our analysis suggests that accretion continues for 11 Myrs on average.

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Incidence, scaling relations and physical conditions of ionized gas outflows in MaNGA

ABSTRACT In this work, we investigate the strength and impact of ionized gas outflows within z ∼ 0.04 MaNGA galaxies. We find evidence for outflows in 322 galaxies ($12{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the analysed line-emitting sample), 185 of which show evidence for hosting an active galactic nucleus (AGN). Most outflows are centrally concentrated with a spatial extent that scales sublinearly with Re. The incidence of outflows is enhanced at higher masses, central surface densities, and deeper gravitational potentials, as well as at higher star formation rate (SFR) and AGN luminosity. We quantify strong correlations between mass outflow rates and the mechanical drivers of the outflow of the form $\dot{M}_{\rm out} \propto \rm SFR^{0.97}$ and $\dot{M}_{\rm out} \propto L_{\rm AGN}^{0.55}$. We derive a master scaling relation describing the mass outflow rate of ionized gas as a function of M⋆, SFR, Re, and LAGN. Most of the observed winds are anticipated to act as galactic fountains, with the fraction of galaxies with escaping winds increasing with decreasing potential well depth. We further investigate the physical properties of the outflowing gas finding evidence for enhanced attenuation in the outflow, possibly due to metal-enriched winds, and higher excitation compared to the gas in the galactic disc. Given that the majority of previous studies have focused on more extreme systems with higher SFRs and/or more luminous AGN, our study provides a unique view of the non-gravitational gaseous motions within ‘typical’ galaxies in the low-redshift Universe, where low-luminosity AGN and star formation contribute jointly to the observed outflow phenomenology.

Avery, Charlotte R.↗

Z-Sequence: photometric redshift predictions for galaxy clusters with sequential random k-nearest neighbours

ABSTRACT We introduce Z-Sequence, a novel empirical model that utilizes photometric measurements of observed galaxies within a specified search radius to estimate the photometric redshift of galaxy clusters. Z-Sequence itself is composed of a machine learning ensemble based on the k-nearest neighbours algorithm. We implement an automated feature selection strategy that iteratively determines appropriate combinations of filters and colours to minimize photometric redshift prediction error. We intend for Z-Sequence to be a standalone technique but it can be combined with cluster finders that do not intrinsically predict redshift, such as our own DEEP-CEE. In this proof-of-concept study, we train, fine-tune, and test Z-Sequence on publicly available cluster catalogues derived from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We determine the photometric redshift prediction error of Z-Sequence via the median value of |Δ$z$|/(1 + $z$) (across a photometric redshift range of 0.05 ≤ $z$ ≤ 0.6) to be ∼0.01 when applying a small search radius. The photometric redshift prediction error for test samples increases by 30–50 per cent when the search radius is enlarged, likely due to line-of-sight interloping galaxies. Eventually, we aim to apply Z-Sequence to upcoming imaging surveys such as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time to provide photometric redshift estimates for large samples of as yet undiscovered and distant clusters.

Chan, Matthew C.↗

The first Hubble diagram and cosmological constraints using superluminous supernovae

In this work, we present the first Hubble diagram of superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) out to a redshift of two, together with constraints on the matter density, Ω M , and the dark energy equation-of-state parameter, w(≡p/ρ). We build a sample of 20 cosmologically useful SLSNe I based on light curve and spectroscopy quality cuts. We confirm the robustness of the peak–decline SLSN I standardization relation with a larger data set and improved fitting techniques than previous works. We then solve the SLSN model based on the above standardization via minimization of the χ2 computed from a covariance matrix that includes statistical and systematic uncertainties. For a spatially flat Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmological model, we find $\Omega _{\rm M}=0.38^{+0.24}_{-0.19}$, with an rms of 0.27 mag for the residuals of the distance moduli. For a w 0 w a CDM cosmological model, the addition of SLSNe I to a ‘baseline’ measurement consisting of Planck temperature together with Type Ia supernovae, results in a small improvement in the constraints of w 0 and wa of 4 per cent. We present simulations of future surveys with 868 and 492 SLSNe I (depending on the configuration used) and show that such a sample can deliver cosmological constraints in a flat ΛCDM model with the same precision (considering only statistical uncertainties) as current surveys that use Type Ia supernovae, while providing a factor of 2–3 improvement in the precision of the constraints on the time variation of dark energy, w 0 and w a . This paper represents the proof of concept for superluminous supernova cosmology, and demonstrates they can provide an independent test of cosmology in the high-redshift (z > 1) universe.

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BEBOP II: sensitivity to sub-Saturn circumbinary planets using radial-velocities

ABSTRACT BEBOP is a radial-velocity survey that monitors a sample of single-lined eclipsing binaries, in search of circumbinary planets by using high-resolution spectrographs. Here, we describe and test the methods we use to identify planetary signals within the BEBOP data and establish how we quantify our sensitivity to circumbinary planets by producing detection limits. This process is made easier and more robust by using a diffusive nested sampler. In the process of testing our methods, we notice that contrary to popular wisdom, assuming circular orbits in calculating detection limits for a radial-velocity survey provides overoptimistic detection limits by up to $40{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ in semi-amplitude with implications for all radial-velocity surveys. We perform example analyses using three BEBOP targets from our Southern HARPS survey. We demonstrate for the first time a repeated ability to reach a residual root mean squared scatter of $3\, \rm m\, s^{-1}$ (after removing the binary signal), and find that we are sensitive to circumbinary planets with masses down to that of Neptune and Saturn, for orbital periods up to $1000\, \rm d$.

Standing, Matthew R. (ORCID:0000000276088905)↗

The Milky Way tomography with APOGEE: intrinsic density distribution and structure of mono-abundance populations

ABSTRACT The spatial distribution of mono-abundance populations (MAPs, selected in [Fe/H] and [Mg/Fe]) reflect the chemical and structural evolution in a galaxy and impose strong constraints on galaxy formation models. In this paper, we use APOGEE data to derive the intrinsic density distribution of MAPs in the Milky Way, after carefully considering the survey selection function. We find that a single exponential profile is not a sufficient description of the Milky Way’s disc. Both the individual MAPs and the integrated disc exhibit a broken radial density distribution; densities are relatively constant with radius in the inner Galaxy and rapidly decrease beyond the break radius. We fit the intrinsic density distribution as a function of radius and vertical height with a 2D density model that considers both a broken radial profile and radial variation of scale height (i.e. flaring). There is a large variety of structural parameters between different MAPs, indicative of strong structure evolution of the Milky Way. One surprising result is that high-α MAPs show the strongest flaring. The young, solar-abundance MAPs present the shortest scale height and least flaring, suggesting recent and ongoing star formation confined to the disc plane. Finally we derive the intrinsic density distribution and corresponding structural parameters of the chemically defined thin and thick discs. The chemical thick and thin discs have local surface mass densities of 5.62 ± 0.08 and 15.69 ± 0.32 M⊙pc−2, respectively, suggesting a massive thick disc with a local surface mass density ratio between thick to thin disc of 36 per cent.

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Dark Energy Survey Year 3 results: calibration of lens sample redshift distributions using clustering redshifts with BOSS/eBOSS

ABSTRACT We present clustering redshift measurements for Dark Energy Survey (DES) lens sample galaxies used in weak gravitational lensing and galaxy clustering studies. To perform these measurements, we cross-correlate with spectroscopic galaxies from the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Survey (BOSS) and its extension, eBOSS. We validate our methodology in simulations, including a new technique to calibrate systematic errors that result from the galaxy clustering bias, and we find that our method is generally unbiased in calibrating the mean redshift. We apply our method to the data, and estimate the redshift distribution for 11 different photometrically selected bins. We find general agreement between clustering redshift and photometric redshift estimates, with differences on the inferred mean redshift found to be below |Δz| = 0.01 in most of the bins. We also test a method to calibrate a width parameter for redshift distributions, which we found necessary to use for some of our samples. Our typical uncertainties on the mean redshift ranged from 0.003 to 0.008, while our uncertainties on the width ranged from 4 to 9 per cent. We discuss how these results calibrate the photometric redshift distributions used in companion papers for DES Year 3 results.

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Probing for the host galaxies of the fast X-ray transients XRT 000519 and XRT 110103

Over the past few years, ~30 extragalactic fast X-ray transients (FXRTs) have been discovered, mainly in Chandra and XMM-Newton data. Their nature remains unclear, with proposed origins, including a double neutron star merger, a tidal disruption event involving an intermediate-mass black hole and a white dwarf, or a supernova shock breakout. A decisive differentiation between these three promising mechanisms for their origin requires an understanding of the FXRT energetics, environments, and/or host properties. We present optical observations obtained with the Very Large Telescope for the FXRTs XRT 000519 and XRT 110103 and Gran Telescopio Canarias observations for XRT 000519 designed to search for host galaxies of these FXRTs. In the g s , r s , and R-band images, we detect an extended source on the north-west side of the $\sim \, 1^{\prime \prime }$ (68 per cent confidence) error circle of the X-ray position of XRT 000519 with a Kron magnitude of g s = 26.29 ± 0.09 (AB magnitude). We discuss the XRT 000519 association with the probable host candidate for various possible distances, and we conclude that if XRT 000519 is associated with the host candidate a supernova shock breakout scenario is likely excluded. No host galaxy is found near XRT 110103 down to a limiting magnitude of R > 25.8.

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Optical variability of quasars with 20-yr photometric light curves

ABSTRACT We study the optical gri photometric variability of a sample of 190 quasars within the SDSS Stripe 82 region that have long-term photometric coverage during ∼1998−2020 with SDSS, PanSTARRS-1, the Dark Energy Survey, and dedicated follow-up monitoring with Blanco 4m/DECam. With on average ∼200 nightly epochs per quasar per filter band, we improve the parameter constraints from a Damped Random Walk (DRW) model fit to the light curves over previous studies with 10–15 yr baselines and ≲ 100 epochs. We find that the average damping time-scale τDRW continues to rise with increased baseline, reaching a median value of ∼750 d (g band) in the rest frame of these quasars using the 20-yr light curves. Some quasars may have gradual, long-term trends in their light curves, suggesting that either the DRW fit requires very long baselines to converge, or that the underlying variability is more complex than a single DRW process for these quasars. Using a subset of quasars with better-constrained τDRW (less than 20 per cent of the baseline), we confirm a weak wavelength dependence of τDRW∝λ0.51 ± 0.20. We further quantify optical variability of these quasars over days to decades time-scales using structure function (SF) and power spectrum density (PSD) analyses. The SF and PSD measurements qualitatively confirm the measured (hundreds of days) damping time-scales from the DRW fits. However, the ensemble PSD is steeper than that of a DRW on time-scales less than ∼ a month for these luminous quasars, and this second break point correlates with the longer DRW damping time-scale.

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Constraining low redshift [C II ] emission by cross-correlating FIRAS and BOSS data

ABSTRACT We perform a tomographic cross-correlation analysis of archival FIRAS data and the BOSS galaxy redshift survey to constrain the amplitude of [C II] 2P3/2 → 2P1/2 fine structure emission. Our analysis employs spherical harmonic tomography (SHT), which is based on the angular cross-power spectrum between FIRAS maps and BOSS galaxy over-densities at each pair of redshift bins, over a redshift range of 0.24 < z < 0.69. We develop the SHT approach for intensity mapping, where it has several advantages over existing power spectral estimators. Our analysis constrains the product of the [C II] bias and [C II] specific intensity, $b_{\rm [C \small{\rm II}]}I_{\rm [C \small{\rm II}]}$, to be <0.31 MJy/sr at z ≈ 0.35 and <0.28 MJy/sr at z ≈ 0.57 at $95{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ confidence. These limits are consistent with most current models of the [C II] signal, as well as with higher-redshift [C II] cross-power spectrum measurements from the Planck satellite and BOSS quasars. We also show that our analysis, if applied to data from a more sensitive instrument such as the proposed PIXIE satellite, can detect pessimistic [C II] models at high significance.

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Galaxy blending effects in deep imaging cosmic shear probes of cosmology

ABSTRACT Upcoming deep imaging surveys such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time will be confronted with challenges that come with increased depth. One of the leading systematic errors in deep surveys is the blending of objects due to higher surface density in the more crowded images; a considerable fraction of the galaxies which we hope to use for cosmology analyses will overlap each other on the observed sky. In order to investigate these challenges, we emulate blending in a mock catalogue consisting of galaxies at a depth equivalent to 1.3 yr of the full 10-yr Rubin Observatory that includes effects due to weak lensing, ground-based seeing, and the uncertainties due to extraction of catalogues from imaging data. The emulated catalogue indicates that approximately 12 per cent of the observed galaxies are ‘unrecognized’ blends that contain two or more objects but are detected as one. Using the positions and shears of half a billion distant galaxies, we compute shear–shear correlation functions after selecting tomographic samples in terms of both spectroscopic and photometric redshift bins. We examine the sensitivity of the cosmological parameter estimation to unrecognized blending employing both jackknife and analytical Gaussian covariance estimators. An ∼0.025 decrease in the derived structure growth parameter S8 = σ8(Ωm/0.3)0.5 is seen due to unrecognized blending in both tomographies with a slight additional bias for the photo-z-based tomography. This bias is greater than the 2σ statistical error in measuring S8.

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Nothing to see here: failed supernovae are faint or rare

ABSTRACT The absence of Type IIP core-collapse supernovae arising from progenitors above 17 solar masses suggests the existence of another evolutionary path by which massive stars end their lives. The direct collapse of a stellar core to a black hole without the production of a bright, explosive transient is expected to produce a long-lived, dim, red transient known as a failed supernova. Despite the detection of a number of candidates for disappearing massive stars in recent years, conclusive observational evidence for failed supernovae remains elusive. A custom-built pipeline designed for the detection of faint transients is used to re-analyse 10 yr of observations of 231 nearby galaxies from the PTF/ZTF surveys. This analysis recovers known supernovae, and yields a number of interesting transients. However, none of these are consistent with a failed supernova. Through Monte Carlo tests the recovery efficiency of our pipeline is quantified. By assuming failed supernovae occur as a Poissonian process with zero detections in the data set, 95 per cent upper limits to the rate of failed supernovae are calculated as a function of failed supernova absolute magnitude. We estimate failed supernovae to be less than 0.61, 0.33, 0.26, or 0.23 of the core-collapse SN rate for absolute magnitudes of −11, −12, −13, and −14, respectively. Finally, we show that if they exist, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will find 1.7–3.7 failed SNe per year for an absolute bolometric luminosity of ∼6 × 1039 erg s−1 out to distances of 33–43 Mpc, depending on their assumed spectral energy distribution.

Byrne, R. A. (ORCID:0000000177661737)↗

Redshifts of radio sources in the Million Quasars Catalogue from machine learning

ABSTRACT With the aim of using machine learning techniques to obtain photometric redshifts based upon a source’s radio spectrum alone, we have extracted the radio sources from the Million Quasars Catalogue. Of these, 44 119 have a spectroscopic redshift, required for model validation, and for which photometry could be obtained. Using the radio spectral properties as features, we fail to find a model which can reliably predict the redshifts, although there is the suggestion that the models improve with the size of the training sample. Using the near-infrared–optical–ultraviolet bands magnitudes, we obtain reliable predictions based on the 12 503 radio sources which have all of the required photometry. From the 80:20 training–validation split, this gives only 2501 validation sources, although training the sample upon our previous SDSS model gives comparable results for all 12 503 sources. This makes us confident that SkyMapper, which will survey southern sky in the u, v, g, r, i, z bands, can be used to predict the redshifts of radio sources detected with the Square Kilometre Array. By using machine learning to impute the magnitudes missing from much of the sample, we can predict the redshifts for 32 698 sources, an increase from 28 to 74 per cent of the sample, at the cost of increasing the outlier fraction by a factor of 1.4. While the ‘optical’ band data prove successful, at this stage we cannot rule out the possibility of a radio photometric redshift, given sufficient data which may be necessary to overcome the relatively featureless radio spectra.

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Out of one, many: distinguishing time delays from lensed supernovae

ABSTRACT Gravitationally lensed Type Ia supernovae are an emerging probe with great potential for constraining dark energy, spatial curvature, and the Hubble constant. The multiple images and their time delayed and magnified fluxes may be unresolved, however, blended into a single light curve. We demonstrate methods without a fixed source template matching for extracting the individual images, determining whether there are one (no lensing) or two or four (lensed) images, and measuring the time delays between them that are valuable cosmological probes. We find 100 per cent success for determining the number of images for time delays greater than ∼10 d.

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Stellar kinematics of dwarf galaxies from multi-epoch spectroscopy: application to Triangulum II

ABSTRACT We present new MMT/Hectochelle spectroscopic measurements for 257 stars observed along the line of sight to the ultrafaint dwarf galaxy Triangulum II (Tri II). Combining results from previous Keck/DEIMOS spectroscopy, we obtain a sample that includes 16 likely members of Tri II, with up to 10 independent redshift measurements per star. To this multi-epoch kinematic data set, we apply methodology that we develop in order to infer binary orbital parameters from sparsely sampled radial velocity curves with as few as two epochs. For a previously identified (spatially unresolved) binary system in Tri II, we infer an orbital solution with period $296.0_{-3.3}^{+3.8} \rm ~ d$, semimajor axis $1.12^{+0.41}_{-0.24}\rm ~au$, and systemic velocity $-380.0 \pm 1.7 \rm ~km ~s^{-1}$ that we then use in the analysis of Tri II’s internal kinematics. Despite this improvement in the modelling of binary star systems, the current data remain insufficient to resolve the velocity dispersion of Tri II. We instead find a 95 per cent confidence upper limit of $\sigma _{v} \lesssim 3.4 \rm ~km~s^{-1}$.

Buttry, Rachel (ORCID:0000000155017609)↗

Star formation characteristics of CNN-identified post-mergers in the Ultraviolet Near Infrared Optical Northern Survey (UNIONS)

ABSTRACT The importance of the post-merger epoch in galaxy evolution has been well documented, but post-mergers are notoriously difficult to identify. While the features induced by mergers can sometimes be distinctive, they are frequently missed by visual inspection. In addition, visual classification efforts are highly inefficient because of the inherent rarity of post-mergers (~1 per cent in the low-redshift Universe), and non-parametric statistical merger selection methods do not account for the diversity of post-mergers or the environments in which they appear. To address these issues, we deploy a convolutional neural network (CNN) that has been trained and evaluated on realistic mock observations of simulated galaxies from the IllustrisTNG simulations, to galaxy images from the Canada France Imaging Survey, which is part of the Ultraviolet Near Infrared Optical Northern Survey. We present the characteristics of the galaxies with the highest CNN-predicted post-merger certainties, as well as a visually confirmed subset of 699 post-mergers. We find that post-mergers with high CNN merger probabilities [p(x) > 0.8] have an average star formation rate that is 0.1 dex higher than a mass- and redshift-matched control sample. The SFR enhancement is even greater in the visually confirmed post-merger sample, a factor of 2 higher than the control sample.

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Jets from main sequence and white dwarf companions during common envelope evolution

ABSTRACT It has long been speculated that jet feedback from accretion on to the companion during a common envelope (CE) event could affect the orbital evolution and envelope unbinding process. We present global 3D hydrodynamical simulations of CE evolution (CEE) that include a jet subgrid model and compare them with an otherwise identical model without a jet. Our binary consists of a 2-M⊙ red giant branch primary and a 1- or 0.5-M⊙ main sequence (MS) or white dwarf (WD) secondary companion modelled as a point particle. We run the simulations for 10 orbits (40 d). Our jet model adds mass at a constant rate $\dot{M}_\mathrm{j}$ of the order of the Eddington rate, with maximum velocity vj of the order of the escape speed, to two spherical sectors with the jet axis perpendicular to the orbital plane. We explore the influence of the jet on orbital evolution, envelope morphology and envelope unbinding, and assess the dependence of the results on the jet mass-loss rate, launch speed, companion mass, opening angle, and accretion rate. In line with our theoretical estimates, jets are choked around the time of first periastron passage and remain choked thereafter. Subsequent to choking, but not before, jets efficiently transfer energy to bound envelope material. This leads to increases in unbound mass of up to $\sim 10{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, as compared to the simulations without jets. We also estimate the cumulative effects of jets over a full CE phase, finding that jets launched by MS and WD companions are unlikely to dominate envelope unbinding.

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iMaNGA: mock MaNGA galaxies based on IllustrisTNG and MaStar SSPs – I. Construction and analysis of the mock data cubes

ABSTRACT Galaxy formation and evolution simulations are essential tools to probe poorly known astrophysics processes, but particular care is needed to compare simulations with galaxy observations, as observed data need to be modelled as well. We present a method to generate mock galaxies from the hydro-dynamical IllustrisTNG simulations which are suited to compare with integral field spectroscopic observation of galaxies from the SDSS-IV/Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey. First, we include the same instrumental effects and procedures as adopted in the acquisition and analysis of real data. Furthermore, we generate the galaxy spectra from the simulations using new stellar population models based on the MaNGA stellar library (MaStar). In this way, our mock data cubes have the same spatial sampling, cover the same wavelength range (3600–10 300 Å), and share the same spectral resolution (R ≈ 1800) and flux calibration of real MaNGA galaxy spectra. In this first paper, we demonstrate the method over an early- and a late-type simulated galaxy from TNG50. We analyse the correspondent mock MaNGA-like data cubes with the same full spectral fitting code, firefly, which was used for the observed spectra. We find that the intrinsic and recovered age and metallicity gradients are consistent within 1σ, with residuals over all tassels consistent with 0 at the 68 ${{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ confidence level. We also perform the challenging test at comparing intrinsic and recovered star formation histories, finding a close resemblance between input and output. In follow-up papers, we will present a full simulated MaNGA-like catalogue (≈10 000 galaxies) with a comprehensive comparison of TNG50 simulations to MaNGA observational results.

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