Papers for Monday, Aug 02 2021

Gravitational-wave detections are enabling measurements of the rate of coalescences of binaries composed of two compact objects - neutron stars and/or black holes. The coalescence rate of binaries containing neutron stars is further constrained by electromagnetic observations, including Galactic radio binary pulsars and short gamma-ray bursts. Meanwhile, increasingly sophisticated models of compact objects merging through a variety of evolutionary channels produce a range of theoretically predicted rates. Rapid improvements in instrument sensitivity, along with plans for new and improved surveys, make this an opportune time to summarise the existing observational and theoretical knowledge of compact-binary coalescence rates.

We compare the performance of energy-based and entropy-conservative schemes for modeling nonthermal energy components, such as unresolved turbulence and cosmic rays, using idealized fluid dynamics tests and isolated galaxy simulations. While both methods are aimed to model advection and adiabatic compression or expansion of different energy components, the energy-based scheme numerically solves the non-conservative equation for the energy density evolution, while the entropy-conserving scheme uses a conservative equation for modified entropy. Using the standard shock tube and Zel'dovich pancake tests, we show that the energy-based scheme results in a spurious generation of nonthermal energy on shocks, while the entropy-conserving method evolves the energy adiabatically to machine precision. We also show that, in simulations of an isolated $L_\star$ galaxy, switching between the schemes results in $\approx 20-30\%$ changes of the total star formation rate and a significant difference in morphology, particularly near the galaxy center. We also outline and test a simple method that can be used in conjunction with the entropy-conserving scheme to model the injection of nonthermal energies on shocks. Finally, we discuss how the entropy-conserving scheme can be used to capture the kinetic energy dissipated by numerical viscosity into the subgrid turbulent energy implicitly, without explicit source terms that require calibration and can be rather uncertain. Our results indicate that the entropy-conserving scheme is the preferred choice for modeling nonthermal energy components, a conclusion that is equally relevant for Eulerian and moving-mesh fluid dynamics codes.

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extra-galactic radio transients which, owing to the observed dispersion of the signal, can be used as cosmological probes. In this Letter we use high redshift FRBs to constrain the history of hydrogen reionization and measure the reionization optical depth {\tau}. For the first time, we do so in a model-independent way by using a free-form parameterization of the reionization history. In a Bayesian analysis we find that 100 localized FRBs, produced during the first billion years of cosmic history (redshifts z>5), are required to surpass the measurement by the Planck satellite, constraining {\tau} to an accuracy of 11% (at 68% confidence) and the midpoint of reionization to 6%, while 1000 FRBs would further tighten these constraints to 9% and 3% accuracy respectively.

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is central to our interpretation of astronomical observables and to our understanding of most baryonic processes within galaxies. The universality of the IMF, suggested by observations in our own Milky Way, has been thoroughly revisited due to the apparent excess of low-mass stars in the central regions of massive quiescent galaxies. As part of the efforts within the Fornax 3D project, we aim to characterize the two-dimensional IMF variations in a sample of 23 quiescent galaxies within the Fornax cluster. For each galaxy in the sample, we measured the mean age, metallicity, [Mg/Fe], and IMF slope maps from spatially resolved integrated spectra. The IMF maps show a variety of behaviors and internal substructures, roughly following metallicity variations. However, metallicity alone is not able to fully explain the complexity exhibited by the IMF maps. In particular, for relatively metal-poor stellar populations, the slope of the IMF seems to depend on the (specific) star formation rate at which stars were formed. Moreover, metallicity maps have systematically higher ellipticities than IMF slope ones. At the same time, both metallicity and IMF slope maps have at the same time higher ellipticities than the stellar light distribution in our sample of galaxies. In addition we find that, regardless of the stellar mass, every galaxy in our sample shows a positive radial [Mg/Fe] gradient. This results in a strong [Fe/H]-[Mg/Fe] relation, similar to what is observed in nearby, resolved galaxies. Since the formation history and chemical enrichment of galaxies are causally driven by changes in the IMF, our findings call for a physically motivated interpretation of stellar population measurements based on integrated spectra that take into account any possible time evolution of the stellar populations.

We select a sample of Milky Way (MW) mass haloes from a high-resolution version of the EAGLE simulation to study their inner dark matter (DM) content and how baryons alter it. As in previous studies, we find that all haloes are more massive at the centre compared to their DM-only (DMO) counterparts at the present day as a result of the dissipational collapse of baryons during the assembly of the galaxy. However, we identify two processes that can reduce the central halo mass during the evolution of the galaxy. Firstly, gas blowouts induced by AGN feedback can lead to a substantial decrease of the central DM mass. Secondly, the formation of a stellar bar and its interaction with the DM can induce a secular expansion of the halo; the rate at which DM is evacuated from the central region by this process is related to the average bar strength and the timescale on which it acts determines how much the halo has decontracted. Although the inner regions of the haloes we have investigated are still more massive than their DMO counterparts at $z = 0$, they are significantly less massive than in the past and less massive than expected from the classic adiabatic contraction model. Since the MW has both a central supermassive black hole and a bar, the extent to which its halo has contracted is uncertain. This may affect estimates of the mass of the MW halo and of the expected signals in direct and indirect DM detection experiments.

Evidence that the multiple populations (MPs) are common properties of globular clusters (GCs) is accumulated over the past decades from clusters in the Milky Way and in its satellites. This finding has revived GC research, and suggested that their formation at high redshift must have been a much-more complex phenomenon than imagined before. However, most information on MPs is limited to nearby GCs. The main limitation is that most studies on MPs rely on resolved stars, facing a major challenge to investigate the MP phenomenon in distant galaxies. Here we search for integrated colors of old GCs that are sensitive to the multiple-population phenomenon. To do this, we exploit integrated magnitudes of simulated GCs with MPs, and multi-band Hubble Space Telescope photometry of 56 Galactic GCs, where MPs are widely studied, and characterized as part of the UV Legacy Survey of Galactic GCs. We find that both integrated $C_{\rm F275W,F336W,F438W}$ and $m_{\rm F275W}-m_{\rm F814W}$ colors strongly correlate with the iron abundance of the host GC. In second order, the pseudo two-color diagram built with these integrated colors is sensitive to the MP phenomenon. In particular, once removed the dependence from cluster metallicity, the color residuals depend on the maximum internal helium variation within GCs and on the fraction of second-generation stars. This diagram, which we define here for Galactic GCs, has the potential of detecting and characterizing MPs from integrated photometry of old GCs, thus providing the possibility to extend their investigation outside the Local Group.

Growth of the black holes (BHs) from the seeds to supermassive BHs (SMBHs, $\sim\!10^9\,M_\odot$) is not understood, but the mass accretion must have played an important role. We performed two-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics simulations of line-driven disc winds considering the metallicity dependence in a wide range of the BH mass, and investigated the reduction of the mass accretion rate due to the wind mass loss. Our results show that denser and faster disc winds appear at higher metallicities and larger BH masses. The accretion rate is suppressed to $\sim\! 0.4$--$0.6$ times the mass supply rate to the disc for the BH mass of $M_{\rm BH}\gtrsim 10^5\,M_{\odot}$ in high-metallicity environments of $Z\gtrsim Z_\odot$, while the wind mass loss is negligible when the metallicity is sub-solar ($\sim 0.1Z_\odot$). By developing a semi-analytical model, we found that the metallicity dependence of the line force and the BH mass dependence of the surface area of the wind launch region are the cause of the metallicity dependence ($\propto\! Z^{2/3}$) and BH mass dependencies ($\propto\! M_{\rm BH}^{4/3}$ for $M_{\rm BH}\leq 10^6\,M_\odot$ and $\propto\! M_{\rm BH}$ for $M_{\rm BH}\geq 10^6\,M_\odot$) of the mass-loss rate. Our model suggests that the growth of BHs by the gas accretion effectively slows down in the regime $\gtrsim 10^{5}M_\odot$ in metal-enriched environments $\gtrsim Z_\odot$. This means that the line-driven disc winds may have an impact on late evolution of SMBHs.

Early dark energy that relieves Hubble tension leaves a fingerprint in the primordial stochastic gravitational wave background that originates from cosmic string network. We show that the signal is not only detectable with future planned gravitational wave experiments, but also distinguishable from other astrophysical and cosmological signals in the gravitational wave frequency spectrum.

The angular size of the broad line region (BLR) of the nearby active galactic nucleus (AGN) NGC 3783 has been spatially resolved by recent observations with VLTI/GRAVITY. A reverberation mapping (RM) campaign has also recently obtained high quality light curves and measured the linear size of the BLR in a way that is complementary to the GRAVITY measurement. The size and kinematics of the BLR can be better constrained by a joint analysis that combines both GRAVITY and RM data. This, in turn, allows us to obtain the mass of the supermassive black hole in NGC3783 with an accuracy that is about a factor of two better than that inferred from GRAVITY data alone. We derive $M_\mathrm{BH}=2.54_{-0.72}^{+0.90}\times 10^7\,M_\odot$. Finally, and perhaps most notably, we are able to measure a geometric distance to NGC 3783 of $39.9^{+14.5}_{-11.9}$ Mpc. We are able to test the robustness of the BLR-based geometric distance with measurements based on the Tully-Fisher relation and other indirect methods. We find the geometric distance is consistent with other methods within their scatter. We explore the potential of BLR-based geometric distances to directly constrain the Hubble constant, $H_0$, and identify differential phase uncertainties as the current dominant limitation to the $H_0$ measurement precision for individual sources.

The subclass of bipolar Planetary Nebulae (PN) exhibits well-defined low-power outflows and some show shock-related equatorial spiderweb structures and hourglass structures surrounding these outflows. These structures are distinctly different from the phenomena associated with spherical and elliptical PN and suggest a non-standard way to simultaneously energise both kind of structures. This paper presents evidence from the published literature on bipolar PN Hb\,12 and other sources in support of an alternative scenario for energizing these structures by means of accretion from material shells deposited during earlier post-AGB and pre-PN evolutionary stages. In addition to energizing the bipolar outflow, a sub-Eddington accretion scenario could hydrodynamically explain the spiderweb and outer hourglass structures as oblique shockwaves for guiding the accreting material into the equatorial region of the source. Estimates of the accretion rate resulting from fallback-related spherical accretion could indeed help to drive a low-power outflow and contribute to the total luminosity of these sources.

Most of the baryons in L* galaxies are unaccounted for and are predicted to lie in hot gaseous halos (T ~ 3E6 K) that may extend beyond R200. A hot gaseous halo will produce a thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich signal that is proportional to the product of the gas mass and the mass-weighted temperature. To best detect this signal, we used a Needlet Independent Linear Combination all-sky Planck map that we produced from the most recent Planck data release, also incorporating WMAP data. The sample is 12 L* spiral galaxies with distances of 3-10 Mpc, which are spatially resolved so that contamination from the optical galaxy can be excluded. One galaxy, NGC 891, has a particularly strong SZ signal, and when excluding it, the stack of 11 galaxies is detected at about 4sigma (declining with radius) and is extended to at least 250 kpc (~R_{200}) at > 99% confidence. The gas mass within a spherical volume to a radius of 250 kpc is 9.8 +/- 2.8 E10 Msun, for Tavg = 3E6 K. This is about 30% of the cosmic baryon content of the average galaxy (3.1E11 Msun), and about equal to the mass of stars, disk gas, and warm halo gas. The remaining missing baryons (~ 1.4E11 Msun, 40-50% of the total baryon content) are likely to be hot and extend to the 400-500 kpc volume, if not beyond. The result is higher than predictions, but within the uncertainties.

We present $Spitzer$ IRS 5--14 $\mu$m spectra and 16 $\mu$m and 22 $\mu$m photometry of the T2.5 companion to the $\sim$300 Myr-old G0V star HN Peg. We incorporate previous 0.8--5 $\mu$m observations to obtain the most comprehensive spectral energy distribution of an intermediate-gravity L/T-transition dwarf which, together with an accurate Gaia EDR3 parallax of the primary, enable us to derive precise fundamental parameters. We find that young ($\approx$0.1--0.3 Gyr) early-T dwarfs on average have $\approx$140 K lower effective temperatures, $\approx$20% larger radii, and similar bolometric luminosities compared to $\gtrsim$1 Gyr-old field dwarfs with similar spectral types. Our accurate infrared spectrophotometry offers new detail at wavelengths where the dominant carbon-bearing molecules have their strongest transitions: at 3.4 $\mu$m for methane and at 4.6 $\mu$m for carbon monoxide. We assess the performance of various widely available photospheric models and find that models with condensates and/or clouds better reproduce the full SED of this moderately young early-T dwarf. However, cloud-free models incorporating a more general convective instability treatment reproduce at least the low-resolution near-IR spectrum similarly well. Our analysis of $R\approx2300$ $J$-band spectra shows that the near-infrared potassium absorption lines in HN Peg B have similar strengths to those seen in both younger and older T2-T3 dwarfs. We conclude that while alkali lines are well-established as surface gravity indicators for L-type or warmer stars, they are insensitive to surface gravity in early-T dwarfs

We present the core mass function (CMF) of the massive star-forming clump G33.92+0.11 using 1.3 mm observations obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). With a resolution of 1000 au, this is one of the highest resolution CMF measurements to date. The CMF is corrected by flux and number incompleteness to obtain a sample that is complete for gas masses $M\gtrsim2.0\ M_\odot$. The resulting CMF is well represented by a power-law function ($dN/d\log M\propto M^\Gamma$), whose slope is determined using two different approaches: $i)$ by least-squares fitting of power-law functions to the flux- and number-corrected CMF, and $ii)$ by comparing the observed CMF to simulated samples with similar incompleteness. We provide a prescription to quantify and correct a flattening bias affecting the slope fits in the first approach, which is caused by small-sample or edge effects when the data is represented by either classical histograms or a kernel density estimate, respectively. The resulting slopes from both approaches are in good agreement each other, with $\Gamma=-1.11_{-0.11}^{+0.12}$ being our adopted value. Although this slope appears to be slightly flatter than the Salpeter slope $\Gamma=-1.35$ for the stellar initial mass function (IMF), we find from Monte Carlo simulations that the CMF in G33.92+0.11 is statistically indistinguishable from the Salpeter representation of the stellar IMF. Our results are consistent with the idea that the form of the IMF is inherited from the CMF, at least at high masses and when the latter is observed at high-enough resolution.

Precise mass measurements of exoplanets discovered by the direct imaging or transit technique are required to determine planet bulk properties and potential habitability. Furthermore, it is generally acknowledged that, for the foreseeable future, the Extreme Precision Radial Velocity (EPRV) measurement technique is the only method potentially capable of detecting and measuring the masses and orbits of habitable-zone Earths orbiting nearby F, G, and K spectral-type stars from the ground. In particular, EPRV measurements with a precision of better than approximately 10 cm/s (with a few cm/s stability over many years) are required. Unfortunately, for nearly a decade, PRV instruments and surveys have been unable to routinely reach RV accuracies of less than roughly 1 m/s. Making EPRV science and technology development a critical component of both NASA and NSF program plans is crucial for reaching the goal of detecting potentially habitable Earthlike planets and supporting potential future exoplanet direct imaging missions such as the Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx) or the Large Ultraviolet Optical Infrared Surveyor (LUVOIR). In recognition of these facts, the 2018 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Exoplanet Science Strategy (ESS) report recommended the development of EPRV measurements as a critical step toward the detection and characterization of habitable, Earth-analog planets. In response to the NAS-ESS recommendation, NASA and NSF commissioned the EPRV Working Group to recommend a ground-based program architecture and implementation plan to achieve the goal intended by the NAS. This report documents the activities, findings, and recommendations of the EPRV Working Group.

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has observed a diffuse flux of astrophysical neutrinos with energies from TeV to a few PeV. Recent IceCube analyses have limited sensitivity to PeV neutrinos because upward-going neutrino fluxes are attenuated by the Earth while the Extremely High Energy (EHE) result targets cosmogenic neutrinos only above 10 PeV. In this work, we present a new event selection that fills the gap between 1 PeV and 10 PeV. This sample is obtained by selecting high-energy down-going through-going tracks from 8 years of data. To reduce the atmospheric muon backgrounds and achieve a high signal-to-background ratio, we combine two techniques. The first technique selects events with high stochasticity because single muons created by neutrinos lose energy more stochastically than atmospheric muon bundles whose energy losses are smoothened due to large muon multiplicities. The second technique uses the IceTop surface array as a veto of atmospheric background events. To characterize the astrophysical neutrino flux and test the existence of a cut-off in the neutrino energy spectrum at a few PeV, a global fit will be performed by combining this sample with results from the 7-year High Energy Starting Events (HESE) analysis.

Because the galaxies of the Local Group have such large angular sizes, much of their diffuse, large-angular-scale emission is filtered out by the Herschel data reduction process. In this work, we restore this previously missed dust in Herschel observations of the Large Magellanic Cloud, Small Magellanic Cloud, M31, and M33. We do this by combining Herschel data (including new reductions for the Magellanic Clouds), in Fourier space, with lower-resolution data from all-sky surveys (Planck, IRAS, and COBE) that did not miss the extended emission. With these new maps, we find that a significant amount of emission was missing from uncorrected Herschel data of these galaxies; over 20% in some bands. Our new photometry also resolves the disagreement between fluxes reported from older HERITAGE Magellanic Cloud Herschel reductions, and fluxes reported from other telescopes. More emission is restored in shorter wavelength bands, especially in the galaxies' peripheries, making these regions 20-40% bluer than before. We also find that the Herschel-PACS instrument response conflicts with the all-sky data, over the 20-90' angular scales to which they are both sensitive, by up to 31%. By binning our new data based on hydrogen column density, we are able to detect emission from dust at low ISM densities (at $\Sigma_{\rm H} < 1\,{\rm M_{\odot} pc^{-2}}$ in some cases), and are able to detect emission at much lower densities (a factor of 2.2 lower on average, and more than a factor of 7 lower in several cases) than was possible with uncorrected data.

The high-energy muon neutrino events of the IceCube telescope, that are triggered as neutrino alerts in one of two probability ranks of astrophysical origin, "gold" and "bronze", have been followed up by the Baikal-GVD in a fast quasi-online mode since September 2020. Search for correlations between alerts and GVD events reconstructed in two modes, muon-track and electromagnetic shower (cascade), for the time windows $ \pm $ 1 h and $ \pm $ 12 h does not indicate statistically significant excess of the measured events over the expected number of background events. Upper limits on the neutrino fluence will be presented for each alert.

Sixty years ago the first observation was published showing solar energetic particles (SEPs) with a sampling of chemical elements. Thus began study of the direct products of dynamic physics in the solar corona. As we have progressed from 4-min sounding-rocket samples to continuous satellite coverage of SEP events, we have extended the observations to the unusual distribution of element abundances throughout the periodic table. Small "impulsive" SEP events from islands of magnetic reconnection on open magnetic-field lines in solar jets generate huge enhancements in abundances of 3He and of the heaviest elements. Solar flares involve the same physics but there the SEPs are trapped on closed loops, expending their energy as heat and light. The larger, energetic "gradual" SEP events are accelerated at shock waves driven by fast, wide coronal mass ejections (CMEs). However, these shocks can also reaccelerate ions from pools of residual suprathermal impulsive ions, and CMEs from jets can also drive fast shocks, complicating the picture. The underlying element abundances in SEP events represent the solar corona, which differs from corresponding abundances in the photosphere as a function of the first ionization potential (FIP) of the elements, distinguishing low-FIP (<10 eV) ions from high-FIP neutral atoms as they expand through the chromosphere. Dependence of SEP acceleration upon A/Q allows best-fit estimation of ion Q-values and hence of the source plasma temperature of ~1 - 3 MK, derived from abundances, which correlates with recent measures of temperatures using extreme ultraviolet emission from jets. New questions arise, however, about the theoretical basis of correlations of energy-spectral indices with power-laws of abundances, about the coexistence of mechanisms for enhancements of 3He and of heavy elements, and about the overall paucity of C in FIP comparisons.

The hot Jupiter WASP-79b is a prime target for exoplanet atmospheric characterization both now and in the future. Here we present a thermal emission spectrum of WASP-79b, obtained via Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 G141 observations as part of the PanCET program. Given the temporal coverage of WASP-79b's secondary eclipse, we consider two scenarios: a fixed mid-eclipse time based on the expected occurrence time and a mid-eclipse time as a free parameter. In both scenarios, we can measure thermal emission from WASP-79b from 1.1-1.7 $\mu$m at 2.4$\sigma$ confidence consistent with a 1900 K brightness temperature for the planet. We combine our observations with Spitzer dayside photometry (3.6 and 4.5 $\mu$m) and compare these observations to a grid of atmospheric forward models. Given the precision of our measurements, WASP-79b's infrared emission spectrum is consistent with theoretical spectra assuming equilibrium chemistry, enhanced abundances of H-, VO, or FeH, as well as clouds. The best match equilibrium model suggests WASP-79b's dayside has a solar metallicity and carbon-to-oxygen ratio, alongside a recirculation factor of 0.75. Models including significant H- opacity provide the best match to WASP-79b's emission spectrum near 1.58 $\mu$m. However, models featuring high-temperature cloud species - formed via vigorous vertical mixing and low sedimentation efficiencies - with little day-to-night energy transport also match WASP-79b's emission spectrum. Given the broad range of equilibrium chemistry, disequilibrium chemistry, and cloudy atmospheric models consistent with our observations of WASP-79b's dayside emission, further observations will be necessary to constrain WASP-79b's dayside atmospheric properties.

We present the results of a multiwavelength campaign of FRB20201124A, the second closest repeating fast radio burst recently localized in a nearby (z=0.0978) galaxy. Deep VLA observations led to the detection of a quiescent radio emission, also marginally visible in X-rays with Chandra. Imaging at 22 GHz allowed us to resolve the source on a scale of $\gtrsim 1$ arcsec in a direction tangential to the center of the host galaxy and locate it at the position of the FRB, within an error of $0.2$ arcsec. EVN and e-MERLIN observations sampled small angular scales, from 2 to 100 mas, providing tight upper limits on the presence of a compact source and evidence for diffuse radio emission. We argue that this emission is associated with enhanced star formation activity in the proximity of the FRB, corresponding to a star formation rate of $\approx 10\ {\rm M}_\odot {\rm yr}^{-1}$. The surface star formation rate at the location of FRB20201124A is two orders of magnitude larger than typically observed in other precisely localized FRBs. Such a high SFR is indicative of this FRB source being a new-born magnetar produced from a SN explosion of a massive star progenitor. Upper limits to the X-ray counterparts of 49 radio bursts observed in our simultaneous FAST, SRT and Chandra campaign are consistent with a magnetar scenario.

Measuring the orbits of directly-imaged exoplanets requires precise astrometry at the milliarcsec level over long periods of time due to their wide separation to the stars ($\gtrsim$10 au) and long orbital period ($\gtrsim$20 yr). To reach this challenging goal, a specific strategy was implemented for the instrument Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE), the first dedicated exoplanet imaging instrument at the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). A key part of this strategy relies on the astrometric stability of the instrument over time. We monitored for five years the evolution of the optical distortion, pixel scale, and orientation to the True North of SPHERE images using the near-infrared instrument IRDIS. We show that the instrument calibration achieves a positional stability of $\sim$1 mas over 2$"$ field of views. We also discuss the SPHERE astrometric strategy, issues encountered in the course of the on-sky operations, and lessons learned for the next generation of exoplanet imaging instruments on the Extremely Large Telescope being built by ESO.

Images recorded with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini South are combined with archival images from other facilities to search for variable stars in the southern portion of the nearby disk galaxy NGC 247. Fifteen new periodic and non-periodic variables are identified. These include three Cepheids with periods < 25 days, four semi-regular variables, one of which shows light variations similar to those of R CrB stars, five variables with intrinsic visible/red brightnesses and colors that are similar to those of luminous blue variables (LBVs), and three fainter blue variables, one of which may be a non-eclipsing close binary system. The S Doradus instability strip defines the upper envelope of a distinct sequence of objects on the (i', g'-i') color-magnitude diagram (CMD) of NGC 247. The frequency of variability with an amplitude > 0.1 magnitude in the part of the CMD that contains LBVs over the seven month period when the GMOS images were recorded is ~ 0.2. The light curve of the B[e] supergiant J004702.18--204739.9, which is among the brightest stars in NGC 247, is also examined. Low amplitude variations on day-to-day timescales are found, coupled with a systematic trend in mean brightness over a six month time interval.

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory is a wide-field-of-view gamma-ray observatory that is optimized to detect gamma rays between ~300 GeV and several hundred TeV. The HAWC Collaboration recently released their third source catalog (3HWC), which contains 65 sources. One of these sources, the ultra-high-energy gamma-ray source 3HWC J1908+063, may exhibit a hardening of the spectral index at the highest energies (above 56 TeV). At least two populations of particles are needed to satisfactorily explain the highest energy emission. This second component could be leptonic or hadronic in origin. If it is hadronic in origin, it would imply the presence of protons with energies up to $\sim$1 PeV near the source. We have searched other 3HWC sources for the presence of this spectral hardening feature. If observed, this would imply that the sources could make good PeVatron candidates.

The TeV gamma-ray source MGRO J1908+06 is one of the highest-energy sources known, with observed emission by the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory extending well past 100 TeV. The source exhibits both energy-dependent morphology and a spatially-dependent spectral index. The emission is likely to be dominantly leptonic, and associated with the radio-quiet PSR J1907+0602. However, one-population models do not describe the data well; a second particle population is needed to explain the shape of the spectral energy distribution at the highest energies. This component can be well-described by either leptonic or hadronic hypotheses. We discuss this feature and implications for detection by multi-wavelength and multi-messenger experiments.

We have studied how local density perturbations could reconcile the Hubble tension. We reproduced a local void through a perturbed FLRW metric with a potential $\Phi$ which depends on both time and space. This method allowed us to obtain a perturbed luminosity distance, which is compared with both local and cosmological data. We got a region of local parameters, $q_0^\text{Lo}$ and $j_0^\text{Lo}$, which are in agreement with a local void of $\Omega_{m,\text{void}}=-0.30\pm 0.15$ explaining the differences between the local $H_0$ and the Planck $H_0$. However, when constraining local cosmological parameters with previous results, we found that neither $\Lambda$CDM nor $\Lambda(\omega)$CDM could solve the Hubble tension.

Giant exoplanets on 10-100 au orbits have been directly imaged around young stars. The peak of the thermal emission from these warm young planets is in the near-infrared (~1-5 microns), whereas mature, temperate exoplanets (i.e., those within their stars' habitable zones) radiate primarily in the mid-infrared (mid-IR: ~10 microns). If the background noise in the mid-IR can be mitigated, then exoplanets with low masses--including rocky exoplanets--can potentially be imaged in very deep exposures. Here, we review the recent results of the Breakthrough Watch/New Earths in the Alpha Centauri Region (NEAR) program on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. NEAR pioneered a ground-based mid-IR observing approach designed to push the capabilities for exoplanet imaging with a specific focus on the closest stellar system, Alpha Centauri. NEAR combined several new optical technologies--including a mid-IR optimized coronagraph, adaptive optics system, and rapid chopping strategy to mitigate noise from the central star and thermal background within the habitable zone. We focus on the lessons of the VLT/NEAR campaign to improve future instrumentation--specifically on strategies to improve noise mitigation through chopping. We also present the design and commissioning of the Large Binocular Telescope's Exploratory Survey for Super-Earths Orbiting Nearby Stars (LESSONS), an experiment in the Northern hemisphere that is building on what was learned from NEAR to further push the sensitivity of mid-IR imaging. Finally, we briefly discuss some of the possibilities that mid-IR imaging will enable for exoplanet science.

The observation of a neutrino at IceCube in association with the Tidal Disruption Event (TDE) AT2019dsg has suggested TDEs as a new class of sources of astrophysical neutrinos. We present a model of this multi-messenger observation in a jetted concordance scenario, where the neutrino production is directly linked to the observed X-rays, and the timing of the neutrino observation (about 150 days post peak) can be naturally described. We briefly discuss the implications of our model for future neutrino-TDE associations.

Using Public Data Release of Zwicky Transient Facility observations, we found that MGAB-V859 and ZTF18abgjsdg are dwarf novae and show both ER UMa-type and Z Cam-type states. There had been only two dwarf novae showing similar transitions between the ER UMa-type and Z Cam-type states. MGAB-V859 showed both a transition from the ER UMa-type state to a long standstill in 2019 and a Z Cam-type state in 2020. During the standstill in 2020, this object faded twice and showed dwarf nova-type variations. ZTF18abgjsdg usually showed ER UMa-type behavior but standstills were seen in 2018 and 2019. The supercycles of these objects during the typical ER UMa-type phase were 55 d and 58 d, respectively. These objects provide additional evidence that some ER UMa stars indeed bridge between dwarf nova and novalike states as proposed in Kato et al. (2016).

Issues for transport facilities on the lunar surface related to science, engineering, architecture, and human-factors are discussed. Logistic decisions made in the next decade may be crucial to financial success. In addition to outlining some of the problems and their relations with math and computation, the paper provides useful resources for decision-makers, scientists, and engineers.

We present a database of 45,000 atmospheric models (which will become 80,000 models by the end of the project) with stellar masses between 9 and 120 M$_{\odot}$, covering the region of the OB main sequence and W-R stars in the H-R diagram. The models were calculated using the ABACUS I supercomputer and the stellar atmosphere code CMFGEN. The parameter space has 6 dimensions: the effective temperature $T_{\rm eff}$, the luminosity $L$, the metallicity $Z$, and three stellar wind parameters, namely the exponent $\beta$, the terminal velocity $V_{\infty}$, and the volume filling factor $F_{cl}$. For each model, we also calculate synthetic spectra in the UV (900-2000 Angstroms), optical (3500-7000 Angstroms), and near IR (10000-30000 Angstroms) regions. To facilitate comparison with observations, the synthetic spectra were rotationally broaden using ROTIN3, by covering $v$ sin $i$ velocities between 10 and 350 km/s with steps of 10 km/s, resulting in a library of 1 575 000 synthetic spectra. In order to demonstrate the benefits of employing the databases of pre-calculated models, we also present the results of the re-analysis of $\epsilon$ Ori by using our grid.

We report a detailed modelling of soft X-ray emission lines from two stellar-wind fed Galactic high mass X-ray binary (HMXB) systems, Cyg X-3 and 4U 1538-522, and estimate physical parameters, e.g., hydrogen density, radiation field, chemical abundances, wind velocity, etc. The spectral synthesis code CLOUDY is utilized for this modelling. We model highly ionised X-ray spectral lines such as Fe XXV (6.700 keV), Fe XXVI (6.966 keV), and reproduce the observed line flux values. We find that for Cyg X--3 and 4U 1538-522, the inner radius of the ionised gas is at a distance of 10$^{12.25}$ cm and 10$^{10.43}$ cm respectively from the primary star, which is the main source of ionisation. The densities of the ionised gas for Cyg X--3 and 4U 1538--522 are found to be $\sim$ 10$^{11.35}$ cm$^{-3}$ and 10$^{11.99}$ cm$^{-3}$, respectively. The corresponding wind velocities are 2000 km s$^{-1}$ and 1500 km s$^{-1}$. The respective predicted hydrogen column densities for Cyg X--3 and 4U 1538--522 are $10^{23.2}$ cm$^{-2}$ and 10$^{22.25}$ cm$^{-2}$. In addition, we find that a magnetic field affects the strength of the spectral lines through cyclotron cooling. Hence, we perform separate model comparisons including a magnetic field for both the sources. Most of the parameters, except the hydrogen column density, have similar values with and without a magnetic field. We estimate that the most probable strength of the magnetic field for Cyg X--3 and 4U 1538--522, where the Fe XXV and Fe XXVI lines originate, is $\sim$ 10$^{2.5}$G.

The Baikal-GVD deep underwater neutrino experiment participates in the international multi-messenger program on discovering the astrophysical sources of high energy fluxes of cosmic particles, while being at the stage of deployment with a gradual increase of its effective volume to the scale of a cubic kilometer. In April 2021 the effective volume of the detector has been reached 0.4 km3 for cascade events with energy above 100 TeV generated by neutrino interactions in Lake Baikal. The alarm system in real-time monitoring of the celestial sphere was launched at the beginning of 2021, that allows to form the alerts of two ranks like "muon neutrino" and "VHE cascade". Recent results of fast follow-up searches for coincidences of Baikal-GVD high energy cascades with ANTARES/TAToO high energy neutrino alerts and IceCube GCN messages will be presented, as well as preliminary results of searches for high energy neutrinos in coincidence with the magnetar SGR 1935+2154 activity in period of radio and gamma burst in 2020.

We present high-angular-resolution radio continuum observations of the Quintuplet cluster, one of the most emblematic massive clusters in the Galactic centre. Data were acquired in two epochs and at 6 and 10 GHz with the Karl J. Jansky Very Large Array. With this work, we have quadrupled the number of known radio stars in the cluster. Nineteen of them have spectral indices consistent with thermal emission from ionised stellar winds, five are consistent with colliding wind binaries, two are ambiguous cases, and one was only detected in a single band. Regarding variability, remarkably we find a significantly higher fraction of variable stars in the Quintuplet cluster (approximately 30%) than in the Arches cluster (< 15%), probably due to the older age of the Quintuplet cluster. Our determined stellar wind mass-loss rates are in good agreement with theoretical models. Finally, we show that the radio luminosity function can be used as a tool to constrain the age and the mass function of a cluster.

The origin of the radio emission in radio-quiet quasars (RQQs) remains unclear. Radio photons may be produced by a scaled-down version of the relativistic jets observed in radio-loud (RL) AGN, an AGN-driven wind, the accretion disc corona, AGN photon-ionisation of ambient gas (free-free emission), or star formation (SF). Here, we report a pilot study, part of a radio survey (`PG-RQS') aiming at exploring the spectral distributions of the 71 Palomar-Green (PG) RQQs: high angular resolution observations ($\sim$50 mas) at 45~GHz (7 mm) with the Jansky Very Large Array of 15 sources. Sub-mJy radio cores are detected in 13 sources on a typical scale of $\sim$100 pc, which excludes significant contribution from galaxy-scale SF. For 9 sources the 45-GHz luminosity, $\nu L_{45~{\rm GHz}}$, is above the lower frequency ($\sim$1--10 GHz) spectral extrapolation, indicating the emergence of an additional flatter-spectrum compact component at high frequencies. The X-ray luminosity and black hole (BH) mass, correlate more tightly with the 45-GHz luminosity than the 5-GHz. The 45GHz-based radio-loudness increases with decreasing Eddington ratio and increasing BH mass. These results suggest that the 45-GHz emission from PG RQQs nuclei originates from the innermost region of the core, probably from the accretion disc corona. Increasing contributions to 45-GHz emission from a jet at higher BH masses and lower Eddington ratios and from a disc wind at large Eddington ratios are still consistent with our results. Future full radio spectral coverage of the sample will help us investigating the different physical mechanisms in place in RQQ cores.

The main purpose of the Baikal-GVD Data Quality Monitoring (DQM) system is to monitor the status of the detector and collected data. The system estimates quality of the recorded signals and performs the data validation. The DQM system is integrated with the Baikal-GVD's unified software framework ("BARS") and operates in quasi-online manner. This allows us to react promptly and effectively to the changes in the telescope conditions.

We investigate timing and spectral characteristics of the transient X-ray pulsar 2S 1417$-$624 during its 2018 outburst with \emph{NICER} follow up observations. We describe the spectra with high-energy cut-off and partial covering fraction absortion (PCFA) model and present flux-dependent spectral changes of the source during the 2018 outburst. Utilizing the correlation-mode switching of the spectral model parameters, we confirm the previously reported sub-critical to critical regime transitions and we argue that secondary transition from the gas-dominated to the radiation pressure-dominated disc do not lead to significant spectral changes below 12 keV. Using the existing accretion theories, we model the spin frequency evolution of 2S 1417$-$624 and investigate the noise processes of a transient X-ray pulsar for the first time using both polynomial and luminosity-dependent models for the spin frequency evolution. For the first model, the power density spectrum of the torque fluctuations indicate that the source exhibits red noise component ($\Gamma \sim -2$) within the timescales of outburst duration which is typical for disc-fed systems. On the other hand, the noise spectrum tends to be white on longer timescales with high timing noise level that indicates an ongoing accretion process in between outburst episodes. For the second model, most of the red noise component is eliminated and the noise spectrum is found to be consistent with a white noise structure observed in wind-fed systems.

The locations of Ly-$\alpha$ emitting galaxies (LAEs) at the end of the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR) are expected to correlate with regions of ionised hydrogen, traced by the redshifted 21~cm hyperfine line. Mapping the neutral hydrogen around regions with detected and localised LAEs offers an avenue to constrain the brightness temperature of the Universe within the EoR by providing an expectation for the spatial distribution of the gas, thereby providing prior information unavailable to power spectrum measurements. We use a test set of 12 hours of observations from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in extended array configuration, to constrain the neutral hydrogen signature of 58 LAEs, detected with the Subaru Hypersuprime Cam in the \textit{Silverrush} survey, centred on $z$=6.58. We assume that detectable emitters reside in the centre of ionised HII bubbles during the end of reionization, and predict the redshifted neutral hydrogen signal corresponding to the remaining neutral regions using a set of different ionised bubble radii. A prewhitening matched filter detector is introduced to assess detectability. We demonstrate the ability to detect, or place limits upon, the amplitude of brightness temperature fluctuations, and the characteristic HII bubble size. With our limited data, we constrain the brightness temperature of neutral hydrogen to $\Delta{\rm T}_B<$30 mK ($<$200 mK) at 95% (99%) confidence for lognormally-distributed bubbles of radii, $R_B =$ 15$\pm$2$h^{-1}$cMpc.

We report SOFIA-upGREAT spectroscopic imaging of the [C II] 158um spectral line, as well as a number of [O I] 63um spectra, across a 67x45 pc field toward the Sgr B region in our Galactic center. The fully-sampled and velocity-resolved [C II] images have 0.55 pc spatial and 1 km/s velocity resolutions. We find that Sgr B extends as a coherent structure spanning some 34 pc along the Galactic plane. Bright [C II] emission encompasses Sgr B1 (G0.5-0.0), the G0.6-0.0 HII region, and passes behind and beyond the luminous star forming cores toward Sgr B2 (G0.7-0.0). Sgr B is a major contributor to the entire Galactic center's [C II] luminosity, with surface brightness comparable to [C II] from the Arches region. [C II], 70um, and 20cm emission share nearly identical spatial distributions. Combined with the lack of [C II] self-absorption, this indicates that these probes trace UV on the near surfaces of more extended clouds visible in CO isotopologues and 160um continuum. Stars from regions of local star formation likely dominate the UV field. Photodissociation regions and HII regions contribute similar amounts of [C II] flux. The extreme star formation cores of Sgr B2 contribute negligible amounts to the total [C II] intensity from the Sgr B region. Velocity fields and association with a narrow dust lane indicate that they may have been produced in a local cloud-cloud collision. The cores are likely local analogs of the intense star formation regions where ideas to explain the "C+ deficit" in ultra-luminous galaxies can be tested.

Hot atmospheres of massive galaxies are enriched with metals. Elemental abundances measured in the X-ray band have been used to study the chemical enrichment of supernova remnants, elliptical galaxies, groups and clusters of galaxies. Here we measure the elemental abundances of the hot atmosphere of luminous infrared galaxy Arp 299 observed with XMM-Newton. To measure the abundances in the hot atmosphere, we use a multi-temperature thermal plasma model, which provides a better fit to the Reflection Grating Spectrometer data. The observed Fe/O abundance ratio is subsolar, while those of Ne/O and Mg/O are slightly above solar. Core-collapse supernovae (SNcc) are the dominant metal factory of elements like O, Ne, and Mg. We find some deviations between the observed abundance patterns and theoretical ones from a simple chemical enrichment model. One possible explanation is that massive stars with $M_{\star}\gtrsim23-27~M_{\odot}$ might not explode as SNcc and enrich the hot atmosphere. This is in accordance with the missing massive SNcc progenitors problem, where very massive progenitors $M_{\star}\gtrsim18~M_{\odot}$ of SNcc have not been clearly detected. It is also possible that theoretical SNcc nucleosynthesis yields of Mg/O yields are underestimated.

We present SN 2020jfo, a Type IIP supernova in the nearby galaxy M61. Optical light curves from the Zwicky Transient Facility, complemented with data from Swift and near-IR photometry are presented. The 350-day duration bolometric light curve exhibits a relatively short (~ 65 days) plateau. This implies a moderate ejecta mass (~ 5 Msun). A series of spectroscopy is presented, including spectropolarimetric observations. The nebular spectra are dominated by Halpha but also reveal emission lines from oxygen and calcium. Comparisons to synthetic nebular spectra indicate an initial progenitor mass of about 12 Msun. Stable nickel is present in the nebular spectrum, with a super-solar Ni/Fe ratio. Several years of pre-discovery data are examined, but no signs of pre-cursor activity is found. Pre-explosion Hubble Space Telescope imaging reveals a probable progenitor star, detected only in the reddest band and is fainter than expected for stars in the 10 - 15 Msun range, in tension with the analysis of the LC and the nebular spectral modeling. We present two additional core-collapse SNe monitored by the ZTF, which also have nebular Halpha-dominated spectra. This illustrates how the absence or presence of interaction with circumstellar material affect both the LCs and in particular the nebular spectra. Type II SN 2020amv has a LC powered by CSM interaction, in particular after about 40 days when the LC is bumpy and slowly evolving. The late-time spectra show strong Halpha emission with a structure suggesting emission from a thin, dense shell. The evolution of the complex three-horn line profile is reminiscent of that observed for SN 1998S. SN 2020jfv has a poorly constrained early-time LC, but shows a transition from a hydrogen-poor Type IIb to a Type IIn, where the nebular spectrum after the light-curve rebrightening is dominated by Halpha, although with an intermediate line width.

Despite extended past studies, several questions regarding the resonant structure of the medium-Earth orbit (MEO) region remain hitherto unanswered. This work describes in depth the effects of the $2g+h$ lunisolar resonance. In particular, (i) we compute the correct forms of the separatrices of the resonance in the inclination-eccentricity space for fixed semi-major axis. This allows to compute the change in the width of the $2g+h$ resonance as the altitude increases. (ii) We discuss the crucial role played by the value of the inclination of the Laplace plane, $i_{L}$. Since $i_L$ is comparable to the resonance's separatrix width, the parametrization of all resonance bifurcations has to be done in terms of the proper inclination $i_{p}$, instead of the mean one. (iii) The subset of circular orbits constitutes an invariant subspace embedded in the full phase space, the center manifold $\mathcal{C}$. Using $i_p$ as a label, we compute its range of values for which $\mathcal{C}$ becomes a normally hyperbolic invariant manifold (NHIM). The structure of invariant tori in $\mathcal{C}$ allows to explain the role of the initial phase $h$ noticed in several works. (iv) Through Fast Lyapunov Indicator (FLI) cartography, we portray the stable and unstable manifolds of the NHIM as the altitude increases. Manifold oscillations dominate in phase space between $a=24,000$ km and $a=30,000$ km as a result of the sweeping of the $2g+h$ resonance by the $h-\Omega_{\rm{Moon}}$ and $2h-\Omega_{\rm{Moon}}$ resonances. The noticeable effects of the latter are explained as a consequence of the relative inclination of the Moon's orbit with respect to the ecliptic. The role of the phases $(h,\Omega_{\rm{Moon}})$ in the structures observed in the FLI maps is also clarified. Finally,(v) we discuss how the understanding of the manifold dynamics could inspire end-of-life disposal strategies.

The Baikal-GVD (Gigaton Volume Detector) is a km$^{3}$- scale neutrino telescope located in Lake Baikal. Currently (year 2021) the Baikal-GVD is composed of 2304 optical modules divided to 8 independent detection units, called clusters. Specific neutrino interactions can cause Cherenkov light topology, referred to as a cascade. However, cascade-like events originate from discrete stochastic energy losses along muon tracks. These cascades produce the most abundant background in searching for high-energy neutrino cascade events. Several methods have been developed, optimized, and tested to suppress background cascades.

Binary neutron stars have been observed as millisecond pulsars, gravitational-wave sources, and as the progenitors of short gamma-ray bursts and kilonovae. Massive stellar binaries that evolve into merging double neutron stars are believed to experience a common-envelope episode. During this episode, the envelope of a giant star engulfs the whole binary. The energy transferred from the orbit to the envelope by drag forces or from other energy sources can eject the envelope from the binary system, leading to a stripped short-period binary. In this paper, we use one-dimensional single stellar evolution to explore the final stages of the common-envelope phase in progenitors of neutron star binaries. We consider an instantaneously stripped donor star as a proxy for the common-envelope phase and study the star's subsequent radial evolution. We determine a range of stripping boundaries which allow the star to avoid significant rapid re-expansion and which thus represent plausible boundaries for the termination of the common-envelope episode. We find that these boundaries lie above the maximum compression point, a commonly used location of the core/envelope boundary. We conclude that stars may retain fractions of a solar mass of hydrogen-rich material even after the common-envelope episode. We show that, under the standard energy formalism, all of our models require additional energy sources in order to successfully eject the common envelope.

We present high angular resolution 1.1mm continuum and spectroscopic ALMA observations of the well-known massive proto-cluster Mon R 2 IRS 3.The continuum image at 1.1mm shows two components, IRS 3 A and IRS 3 B, that are separated by $\sim$0.65$"$. We estimate that IRS 3 A is responsible of $\sim$80 % of the continuum flux, being the most massive component. We explore the chemistry of IRS 3 A based on the spectroscopic observations. In particular, we have detected intense lines of S-bearing species such as SO, SO$_2$, H$_2$CS and OCS, and of the Complex Organic Molecules (COMs) methyl formate (CH$_3$OCHO) and dimethyl ether (CH$_3$OCH$_3$). The integrated intensity maps of most species show a compact clump centered on IRS 3 A, except the emission of the COMs that is more intense towards the near-IR nebula located to the south of IRS 3 A, and HC$_3$N whose emission peak is located $\sim$0.5$"$ NE from IRS 3 A. The kinematical study suggests that the molecular emission is mainly coming from a rotating ring and/or an unresolved disk. Additional components are traced by the ro-vibrational HCN $\nu_2$=1 3$\rightarrow$2 line which is probing the inner disk/jet region, and the weak lines of CH$_3$OCHO, more likely arising from the walls of the cavity excavated by the molecular outflow. Based on SO$_2$ we derive a gas kinetic temperature of T$_k$$\sim$ 170 K towards the IRS 3 A. The most abundant S-bearing species is SO$_2$ with an abundance of $\sim$ 1.3$\times$10$^{-7}$, and $\chi$(SO/SO$_2$) $\sim$ 0.29. Assuming the solar abundance, SO$_2$ accounts for $\sim$1 % of the sulphur budget.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) come in two types, short and long. The distribution of logarithmic durations of long GRBs is asymmetric rather than Gaussian. Such an asymmetry, when modelled with a mixture of Gaussian distributions, requires an introduction of an additional component, often associated with another class of GRBs. However, when modelled with inherently asymmetric distributions, there is no need for such a component. The cosmological dilation was already ruled out as a source of the asymmetry, hence its origin resides in the progenitors. GRB light curves (LCs) are usually well described by a series of fast-rise-exponential-decay pulses. A statistical analysis of ensembles of simulated LCs shows that the asymmetry is a natural consequence of the pulse shape and the multi-pulse character of the LCs.

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the future ground-based observatory for gamma-ray astronomy at very high energies. The atmosphere is an integral part of every Cherenkov telescope. Different atmospheric conditions, such as clouds, can reduce the fraction of Cherenkov photons produced in air showers that reach ground-based telescopes, which may affect the performance. Decreased sensitivity of the telescopes may lead to misconstructed energies and spectra. This study presents the impact of various atmospheric conditions on CTA performance. The atmospheric transmission in a cloudy atmosphere in the wavelength range from 203 nm to 1000 nm was simulated for different cloud bases and different optical depths using the MODerate resolution atmospheric TRANsmission (MODTRAN) code. MODTRAN output files were used as inputs for generic Monte Carlo simulations. The analysis was performed using the MAGIC Analysis and Reconstruction Software (MARS) adapted for CTA. As expected, the effects of clouds are most evident at low energies, near the energy threshold. Even in the presence of dense clouds, high-energy gamma rays may still trigger the telescopes if the first interaction occurs lower in the atmosphere, below the cloud base. A method to analyze very high-energy data obtained in the presence of clouds is presented. The systematic uncertainties of the method are evaluated. These studies help to gain more precise knowledge about the CTA response to cloudy conditions and give insights on how to proceed with data obtained in such conditions. This may prove crucial for alert-based observations and time-critical studies of transient phenomena.

The Fermi bubbles are structures observed in gamma rays at GeV energies, emanating from the central region of our galaxy and extending up to 8.5 kpc above and below the galactic plane. While initial studies showed a flat brightness across the entire structure, more recent work found a brightening at the base. We perform a template-based search for TeV signals from the northern Fermi bubble and just from the base of it in data from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory. We employ a profile likelihood approach to calculate the significance and flux from the search regions. With no significant signal from the northern Fermi bubble and its base, we report new upper limits on the integral flux at 95% confidence level. Our integral flux upper limits for the northern Fermi bubble are more constraining than the previous limits reported by HAWC. Moreover, we present, for the first time, TeV limits pertaining to the base of the bubble which constitutes a more fair comparison to Fermi Large Area Telescope data points close to this particular region.

The dependence of the bispectrum on the size and shape of the triangle contains a wealth of cosmological information. Here we consider a triangle parameterization which allows us to separate the size and shape dependence. We have implemented an FFT based fast estimator for the bin averaged bispectrum, and we demonstrate that it allows us to study the variation of the bispectrum across triangles of all possible shapes (and also sizes). The computational requirement is shown to scale as $\sim N_{\rm g}^3~\log{N_{\rm g}^3}$ where $N_g$ is the number of grid points along each side of the volume. We have validated the estimator using a non-Gaussian field for which the bispectrum can be analytically calculated. The estimated bispectrum values are found to be in good agreement ($< 10 \%$ deviation) with the analytical predictions across much of the triangle-shape parameter space. We also introduce linear redshift space distortion, a situation where also the bispectrum can be analytically calculated. Here the estimated bispectrum is found to be in close agreement with the analytical prediction for the monopole of the redshift space bispectrum.

The Tibet AS$\gamma$ experiment provided the first measurement of the total diffuse gamma-ray emission from the Galactic disk in the sub-PeV energy range. Based on the analysis of TeV sources included in the HGPS catalog, we predict the expected contribution of unresolved sources in the two angular windows of the Galactic plane observed by Tibet AS$\gamma$. We show that the sum of this additional diffuse component due to unresolved sources and the truly diffuse emission, due to cosmic ray interaction with the interstellar medium, well saturates the Tibet data, without the need to introduce a progressive hardening of the cosmic-ray spectrum toward the Galactic center.

Spatial heterogeneity and temporal variability are general features in planetary weather and climate, due to the effects of planetary rotation, uneven stellar flux distribution, fluid motion instability, etc. In this study, we investigate the asymmetry and variability in the transmission spectra of 1:1 spin--orbit tidally locked (or called synchronously rotating) planets around low-mass stars. We find that for rapidly rotating planets, the transit atmospheric thickness on the evening terminator (east of the substellar region) is significantly larger than that of the morning terminator (west of the substellar region). The asymmetry is mainly related to the spatial heterogeneity in ice clouds, as the contributions of liquid clouds and water vapor are smaller. The underlying mechanism is that there are always more ice clouds on the evening terminator, due to the combined effect of coupled Rossby--Kelvin waves and equatorial superrotation that advect vapor and clouds to the east, especially at high levels of the atmosphere. For slowly rotating planets, the asymmetry reverses (the morning terminator has a larger transmission depth than the evening terminator) but the magnitude is small or even negligible. For both rapidly and slowly rotating planets, there is strong variability in the transmission spectra. The asymmetry signal is nearly impossible to be observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), because the magnitude of the asymmetry (about 10 ppm) is smaller than the instrumental noise and the high variability further increases the challenge.

Cosmic-ray antiprotons are a remarkable diagnostic tool for the study of astroparticle physics' processes in our Galaxy. While the bulk of measured antiprotons is consistent with a secondary origin, several studies have found evidence for a subdominant primary component in the AMS-02 data. In this proceedings article, we revisit the excess considering systematic errors that could affect the signal. Of particular importance are unknown correlations in the AMS-02 systematic errors, the dominant of which are associated with the cross sections for cosmic-ray absorption in the detector. We compute their correlations in a careful reevaluation of nuclear scattering data, utilizing the Glauber-Gribov theory to introduce a welcomed redundancy that we explore in a global fit. The inclusion of correlated errors has a dramatic effect on the significance of the signal. In particular, the analysis becomes more sensitive to the diffusion model at low rigidities. For a minimal extension beyond single-power-law diffusion, the global significance drops below 1$\sigma$ severely questioning the robustness of the finding.

The characterization of interstellar chemical inventories provides valuable insight into the chemical and physical processes in astrophysical sources. The discovery of new interstellar molecules becomes increasingly difficult as the number of viable species grows combinatorially, even when considering only the most thermodynamically stable. In this work, we present a novel approach for understanding and modeling interstellar chemical inventories by combining methodologies from cheminformatics and machine learning. Using multidimensional vector representations of molecules obtained through unsupervised machine learning, we show that identification of candidates for astrochemical study can be achieved through quantitative measures of chemical similarity in this vector space, highlighting molecules that are most similar to those already known in the interstellar medium. Furthermore, we show that simple, supervised learning regressors are capable of reproducing the abundances of entire chemical inventories, and predict the abundance of not yet seen molecules. As a proof-of-concept, we have developed and applied this discovery pipeline to the chemical inventory of a well-known dark molecular cloud, the Taurus Molecular Cloud 1 (TMC-1); one of the most chemically rich regions of space known to date. In this paper, we discuss the implications and new insights machine learning explorations of chemical space can provide in astrochemistry.

Blue Large-Amplitude Pulsators (BLAPs) are a recently discovered class of pulsating star, believed to be proto-white dwarfs, produced by mass stripping of a red giant when it has a small helium core. An outstanding question is why the stars in this class of pulsator seem to form two distinct groups by surface gravity, despite predictions that stars in the gap between them should also pulsate. We use a binary population synthesis model to identify potential evolutionary pathways that a star can take to become a BLAP. We find that BLAPs can be produced either through common envelope evolution or Roche lobe overflow, with a Main Sequence star or an evolved compact object being responsible for the envelope stripping. The mass distribution of the inferred population indicates that fewer stars would be expected in the range of masses intermediate to the two known groups of pulsators, suggesting that the lack of observational discoveries in this region may be a result of the underlying population of pre-white dwarf stars. We also consider metallicity variation and find evidence that BLAPs at $Z = 0.010$ (half-Solar) would be pulsationally unstable and may also be more common. Based on this analysis, we expect the Milky Way to host around 12000 BLAPs and we predict the number density of sources expected in future observations such as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time at the Vera Rubin Observatory.

Blazars are the most extreme subclass of active galactic nuclei with relativistic jets emerging from a super-massive black hole and forming a small angle with respect to our line of sight. Blazars are also known to be related to flaring activity as they exhibit large flux variations over a wide range of frequency and on multiple timescales, ranging from a few minutes to several months. The detection of a high-energy neutrino from the flaring blazar TXS 0506+056 and the subsequent discovery of a neutrino excess from the same direction have naturally strengthened the hypothesis that blazars are cosmic neutrino sources. While neutrino production during gamma-ray flares has been widely discussed, the neutrino yield of X-ray flares has received less attention. Motivated by a theoretical scenario where high energy neutrinos are produced by energetic protons interacting with their own X-ray synchrotron radiation, we make neutrino predictions over a sample of a sample of X-ray blazars. This sample consists of all blazars observed with the X-ray Telescope (XRT) on board Swift more than 50 times from November 2004 to November 2020. The statistical identification of a flaring state is done using the Bayesian Block algorithm to the 1 keV XRT light curves of frequently observed blazars. We categorize flaring states into classes based on their variation from the time-average value of the data points. During each flaring state, we compute the expected muon plus anti-muon neutrino events as well as the total signal for each source using the point-source effective area of Icecube for different operational seasons. We find that the median of the total neutrino number (in logarithm) from flares with duration $<30$ d is $\mathcal{N}^{(\rm tot)}_{\nu_{\mu}+\bar{\nu}_{\mu}} \sim 0.02$.

In the upcoming decades, the KM3NeT detectors will produce valuable data that can be used in various scientific contexts from astro- and particle physics to environmental and Earth and Sea science. Based on the Open Science policy established by the KM3NeT Collaboration, several efforts to offer science-ready data, foster common analysis approaches and publish open source software are currently pursued. In this contribution, ongoing projects focusing on the exchange of high-level data and simulation derivatives, production of particle event simulations and establishment of an integrated computing environment supporting an open-science focused workflow will be discussed.

The presented study is an updated search for magnetic monopoles using data taken with the ANTARES neutrino telescope over a period of 10 years (January 2008 to December 2017). In accordance with some grand unification theories, magnetic monopoles were created during the phase of symmetry breaking in the early Universe, and accelerated by galactic magnetic fields. As a consequence of their high energy, they could cross the Earth and emit a significant signal in a Cherenkov-based telescope like ANTARES, for appropriate mass and velocity ranges. This analysis uses a run-by-run simulation strategy, as well as a new simulation of magnetic monopoles taking into account the Kasama, Yang and Goldhaber model for their cross section with matter. The results obtained for relativistic magnetic monopoles with velocity higher than 0.817c, where c is the speed of light in vacuum, are presented.

Stellar winds are one of several ways that massive stars can affect the star formation process on local and galactic scales. In this paper we investigate the resolution requirements to inflate a stellar wind bubble in an external medium. We find that the radius of the wind injection region, $r_{\rm inj}$, must be below a maximum value, $r_{\rm inj,max}$, in order for a bubble to be produced, but must be significantly below this value if the bubble is to be modelled correctly. Our work has significance for the amount of radial momentum that a wind-blown bubble can impart to the ambient medium in simulations, and thus on the relative importance of stellar wind feedback.

Modelling the magnetic field in prestellar cores can serve as a useful tool for studying the initial conditions of star formation. The analytic hourglass model of Ewertowski and Basu (2013) provides a means to fit observed polarimetry measurements and extract useful information. The original model does not specify any radial distribution of the electric current density. Here, we perform a survey of possible centrally-peaked radial distributions of the current density, and numerically derive the full hourglass patterns. Since the vertical distribution is also specified in the original model, we can study the effect of different ratios of vertical to radial scale length on the overall hourglass pattern. Different values of this ratio may correspond to different formation scenarios for prestellar cores. We demonstrate the flexibility of our model and how it can be applied to a variety of magnetic field patterns.

The Cygnus Cocoon region is a complex region containing an OB star cluster that is prominent in the TeV energy range. Located in this region is 3HWC J2031+415, a significant TeV gamma-ray source whose emission is possibly associated with 2 components, the Cygnus OB2 star cluster and a pulsar wind nebula (PWN). In this work, several modelling methods are presented to best describe the emission. These models disentangle emission believed to be from the Cocoon and isolate the component emitted by the probable PWN. I will present several spectral models to describe the emission of the probable PWN using the latest data set from the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory. Furthermore, I will present an energy morphology study of the PWN component of 3HWC J2031+415 in distinct energy bands.

A galaxy merger is expected to cause the formation of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) binary, which itself eventually coalesces through the anisotropic emission of gravitational waves. This may result in the merged SMBH receiving a recoil kick velocity ~100 - 1000 km/s, causing it to oscillate in the gravitational potential of the host galaxy. The luminous quasar E1821+643, identified as an SMBH recoil candidate via spectropolarimetry observations, shows Doppler shifting of the broad emission lines in direct and scattered light, consistent with a relative velocity of 2100 km/s between the quasar nucleus and host galaxy. In this paper, we attempt to detect the expected spatial displacement using a combination of optical spectroastrometry and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) narrow band images. The spectroastrometry reveals a relative spatial displacement between the quasar nucleus and the gas emitting the [OIII]4959,5007 lines of ~130mas (~580pc) to the North-West. Our HST images resolve the [OIII] emission on sub-arcsecond scales, showing that it is asymmetrically distributed, extending to radial distances ~0.5 - 0.6" from the nucleus in a wide arc running from the North-East around to the West. A simulated spectroastrometry observation based on the HST [OIII] image indicates that only a small fraction of the measured displacement can be attributed to the asymmetric [OIII] emission. This displacement therefore appears to be a real spatial offset of the quasar nucleus with respect to the narrow-line region, presumed to be located at the host galaxy center, further supporting the interpretation that a post-merger gravitational recoil of the SMBH has occurred in E1821+643.

In recent years, $\gamma$-ray emission has been detected from star-forming galaxies (SFGs) in the local universe, including M82, NGC 253, Arp 220 and M33. The bulk of this emission is thought to be of hadronic origin, arising from the interactions of cosmic rays (CRs) with the interstellar medium of their host galaxy. Distant SFGs are presumably also bright in $\gamma$-rays. Although they would not be resolvable as point sources, distant unresolved SFG populations contribute $\gamma$-rays to the extra-galactic $\gamma$-ray background (EGB). Despite the wealth of high-quality all-sky EGB data collected over more than a decade of operation with the \textit{Fermi}-LAT $\gamma$-ray space telescope, the exact contribution of SFGs to the EGB remains unsettled. In this study, we model the $\gamma$-ray emission from SFG populations and demonstrate that such emission can be characterized by just a small number of physically-motivated parameters. We further show that source populations would leave anisotropic signatures in the EGB, which could be used to yield information about the underlying properties, dynamics and evolution of CR-rich SFGs.

We present an intensive effort to refine the mass and orbit of the enveloped terrestrial planet GJ 1214 b using 165 radial velocity (RV) measurements taken with the HARPS spectrograph over a period of ten years. We conduct a joint analysis of the RVs with archival Spitzer/IRAC transits and measure a planetary mass and radius of $8.17\pm 0.43 M_{\oplus}$ and $2.742^{+0.050}_{-0.053} R_{\oplus}$. Assuming GJ 1214 b is an Earth-like core surrounded by a H/He envelope, we measure an envelope mass fraction of $X_{\rm env}= 5.24^{+0.30}_{-0.29}$%. GJ 1214 b remains a prime target for secondary eclipse observations of an enveloped terrestrial, the scheduling of which benefits from our tight constraint on the orbital eccentricity of $<0.063$ at 95% confidence, which narrows the secondary eclipse window to 2.8 hours. By combining GJ 1214 with other mid-M dwarf transiting systems with intensive RV follow-up, we calculate the frequency of mid-M dwarf planetary systems with multiple small planets and find that $90^{+5}_{-21}$% of mid-M dwarfs with a known planet with mass $\in [1,10] M_{\oplus}$ and orbital period $\in [0.5,50]$ days, will host at least one additional planet. We rule out additional planets around GJ 1214 down to $3 M_{\oplus}$ within 10 days such that GJ 1214 is a single-planet system within these limits, a result that has a $44^{+9}_{-5}$% probability given the prevalence of multi-planet systems around mid-M dwarfs. We also investigate mid-M dwarf RV systems and show that the probability that all reported RV planet candidates are real planets is $<12$% at 99% confidence, although this statistical argument is unable to identify the probable false positives.

We want to explore the geometrical structure and mutual interactions of the innermost components of the broad line radio galaxy (BLRG) 3C 215, with particular interest in the accretion and ejection mechanisms involving the central supermassive black hole (SMBH). We compare these observational features with the ones of the RQ Seyfert 1 galaxies. Investigating their differences it is possible to understand more about the jet launching mechanisms, and why this phenomenon is efficient only in a small fraction of all the AGNs. Using high quality data from a $\sim60$ ks observation with XMM-Newton, we carried out a detailed X-ray spectral analysis of 3C 215 in the broad energy range $0.5-10$ keV. We modeled the spectrum with an absorbed double power-law model for the primary continuum, reprocessed by reflection from ionized and cold neutral material and modified by relativistic blurring. We also compared our results with the ones obtained with previous multi-wavelength observations. We obtain a primary continuum photon index from the corona $\Gamma_1=1.97\pm0.06$ and evidence of a jet contribution, modeled as a power law with photon index $\Gamma_2\simeq1.29$. The reflector, possibly the accretion disk and portions of the broad-line region (BLR), is ionized ($\log\xi=2.31_{-0.27}^{+0.37}\ \mathrm{erg\ s^{-1}\ cm}$) and relatively distant from the SMBH ($R_{in}>38\ R_g$), where $R_g=GM_{BH}/c^2$ is the gravitational radius. The obscuring torus seems patchy, dust-poor and inefficient, while the jet emission shows a twisted and knotted geometry. We propose three scenarios in order to describe these characteristics: 1.) ADAF state in the inner disk; 2.) Slim accretion disk; 3.) sub-pc SMBH binary system (SMBHB).

We present the Optimization Method for the Electron Multiplying Charge-Coupled Devices (EMCCDs) of the Acquisition System of the SPARC4 (OMASS4). The OMASS4 uses as figures of merit the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the acquisition rate (AR) as a function of the operation mode of the CCDs. Three different modes of optimization are included in the OMASS4: (1) optimization of SNR only; (2) optimization of AR only; and (3) optimization of both SNR and AR simultaneously. The first two modes calculate an analytical maximization of the cost function whereas the third mode uses the bayesian optimization method to determine the optimum mode of operation. We apply the OMASS4 to find the optimum mode for observations obtained at the Pico dos Dias Observatory, Brazil, and compare the delivered modes of operation and its performance with the ones adopted by the observer. If the OMASS4 had been used as a tool to optimize the CCDs in all of these nights, it would be possible to improve their efficiency in 97.17 %, 65.08 %, and 77.66 % for the optimization modes 1, 2, and 3, respectively.

Using viscoelastic mass/spring model simulations, we explore tidal evolution and migration of compact binary asteroid systems. We find that after the secondary is captured into a spin-synchronous state, non-principal axis rotation in the secondary can be long-lived. The secondary's long axis can remain approximately aligned along the vector connecting secondary to primary while the secondary rocks back and forth about its long axis. Inward orbital semi-major axis migration can also resonantly excite non-principal axis rotation. By estimating solar radiation forces on triangular surface meshes, we show that the magnitude of the BYORP effect induced torque is sensitive to the secondary's spin state. Non-principal axis rotation within the 1:1 spin-orbit resonance can reduce the BYORP torque or cause frequent reversals in its direction.

Using the recent GAIA eDR3 catalogue we construct a sample of solar neighbourhood isolated wide binaries satisfying a series of strict signal-to-noise data cuts, exclusion of random association criteria and detailed colour-magnitude diagram selections, to minimise the presence of any kinematic contaminating effects having been discussed in the literature to date. Our final high-purity sample consists of 421 binary pairs within 130 pc of the sun and in all cases high-quality GAIA single-stellar fits for both components of each binary (final average RUWE values of 0.99), both also restricted to the cleanest region of the main sequence. We find kinematics fully consistent with Newtonian expectations for separations, $s$, below 0.009 pc, with relative velocities scaling with $\Delta V \propto s^{-1/2}$ and a total binary mass, $M_{b}$, velocity scaling of $\Delta V \propto M_{b}^{1/2}$. For the separation region of $s> 0.009$ pc we obtain significantly different results, with a separation independent $\Delta V \approx 0.5$ km/s and a $\Delta V \propto M_{b}^{0.22 \pm 0.18}$. This situation is highly reminiscent of the low acceleration galactic baryonic Tully-Fisher phenomenology, and indeed, the change from the two regimes we find closely corresponds to the $a \lesssim a_{0}$ transition.

Do neutrinos have sizable self-interactions? They might. Laboratory constraints are weak, so strong effects are possible in astrophysical environments and the early universe. Observations with neutrino telescopes can provide an independent probe of neutrino self ("secret") interactions, as the sources are distant and the cosmic neutrino background intervenes. We define a roadmap for making decisive progress on testing secret neutrino interactions governed by a light mediator. This progress will be enabled by IceCube-Gen2 observations of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. Critical to this is our comprehensive treatment of the theory, taking into account previously neglected or overly approximated effects, as well as including realistic detection physics. We show that IceCube-Gen2 can realize the full potential of neutrino astronomy for testing neutrino self-interactions, being sensitive to cosmologically relevant interaction models. To facilitate forthcoming studies, we release nuSIProp, a code that can also be used to study neutrino self-interactions from a variety of sources.

The effect of a parallel velocity shear on the explosive phase of a double current sheet system is investigated within the 2D resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) framework. We further explore the effect of this shear on acceleration of test particles. The general evolution pattern of the double current sheets is similar for all sub-Alfv\'enic shears with respect to the initial transient phase, the onset of the plasmoid instability and the final relaxation phase. We find that the theoretical scaling of the reconnection rate with shear holds if the rate is measured when the islands have a similar size. The larger island widths for lower shears greatly enhance the reconnection rate during the explosive phase. We have further examined the modification of the energy spectrum of the accelerated particles in the presence of a shear. Our results also show that the flow only modifies the high energy tail of the particle spectrum and has negligible effect on the power-law index. Individual particle trajectories help to explore the various mechanisms associated with the acceleration. Based on the location of the particles, the acceleration mechanisms are found to vary. We highlight the importance of the convective electric field in the inflow as well as the outflow region inside large magnetic islands in the acceleration of particles. The interaction and reflection of the particles with the reconnection exhausts inside the large scale primary magnetic islands is found to have a significant effect on the energization of the particles.

Hawking radiation of astrophysical black holes is minute and thought to be unobservable. However, different mechanisms could contribute to an anomalously high emission rate: extra dimensions, new "dark" families of bosons or fermions, or a lower fundamental Planck scale. Do black holes flood the Universe with gravitational waves via mass loss? Here, we show that the formation of black hole binaries and the absence of a stochastic background of gravitational waves can limit the emission rate to $|\dot{M}|\lesssim 10^{-15}M_{\odot}/{\rm yr}$, seven orders of magnitude more stringent than bounds from resolvable inspiralling binaries.

Neutron monitors have been the premier ground-based instruments for monitoring the near-Earth cosmic ray flux for more than 70 years. It is essential to continue with such measurements in order to extend this unique long-term time series. Moreover, with the recent interest of the aviation industry to space weather effects, and especially the radiation risk posed by solar energetic particles and galactic cosmic rays, it is vital to extend the current neutron monitor network in order to provide near-real-time measurements to the space weather community. In this paper we discuss a new electronics system that was retrofitted to the SANAE neutron monitor in Antarctica. We present initial results from this system, featuring very high temporal resolution and discuss the techniques applied to the data analysis. Based on these successful upgrades, we are confident that this system can be used to rejuvenate the aligning neutron monitor network, and even possibly to revive some of the decommissioned instruments.

A contribution to Frank Wilczek's 70th birthday's festschrift, this brief note considers how much power can be extracted from dark matter.

Stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs) may merge in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole (SMBH). It is suggested that the gravitational-wave (GW) emitted by a BBH has a high probability to be lensed by the SMBH if the BBH's orbit around the SMBH (i.e., the outer orbit) has a period of less than a year and is less than the duration of observation of the BBH by a space-borne GW observatory. For such a BBH + SMBH triple system, the de Sitter precession of the BBH's orbital plane is also significant. In this work, we thus study GW waveforms emitted by the BBH and then modulated by the SMBH due to effects including Doppler shift, de Sitter precession, and gravitational lensing. We show specifically that for an outer orbital period of 0.1 yr and an SMBH mass of $10^7 M_\odot$, there is a 3\%-10\% chance for the standard, strong lensing signatures to be detectable by space-borne GW detectors such as LISA and/or TianGO. For more massive lenses ($\gtrsim 10^8 M_\odot$) and more compact outer orbits with periods <0.1 yr, retro-lensing of the SMBH might also have a 1%-level chance of detection. Furthermore, by combining the lensing effects and the dynamics of the outer orbit, we find the mass of the central SMBH can be accurately determined with a fraction error of $\sim 10^{-4}$. This is much better than the case of static lensing because the degeneracy between the lens' mass and the source's angular position is lifted by the outer orbital motion. Including lensing effects also allows the de Sitter precession to be detectable at a precession period 3 times longer than the case without lensing. Lastly, we demonstrate that one can check the consistency between the SMBH's mass determined from the orbital dynamics and the one inferred from gravitational lensing, which serves as a test on theories behind both phenomena. The statistical error on the deviation can be constrained to a 1% level.

Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe, and together with silica, they are major components of giant planets. Exploring the reactivity and state of helium and silica under high pressure is of fundamental importance for developing and understanding of the evolution and internal structure of giant planets. Here, using first-principles calculations and crystal structure predictions, we identify four stable phases of a helium-silica compound with seven/eight-coordinated silicon atoms at pressure range of 600-4000 GPa, corresponding to the interior condition of the outer planets in the solar system. The density of HeSiO2 agrees with current structure models of the planets. This helium-silica compound exhibits a superionic-like helium diffusive state at the high pressure and high temperature conditions along the isentropes of Saturn, a metallic fluid state in Jupiter, and a solid state in the deep interiors of Uranus and Neptune. The reaction of helium and silica may lead to the erosion of the rocky core of giant planets and form a diluted core region. These results highlight the reactivity of helium under high pressure to form new compounds, and also provides evidence to help build more sophisticated interior models of giant planets.

Nowadays the implementation of artificial neural networks in high-energy physics has obtained excellent results on improving signal detection. In this work we propose to use neural networks (NNs) for event discrimination in HAWC. This observatory is a water Cherenkov gamma-ray detector that in recent years has implemented algorithms to identify horizontal muon tracks. However, these algorithms are not very efficient. In this work we describe the implementation of three NNs: two based on image classification and one based on object detection. Using these algorithms we obtain an increase in the number of identified tracks. The results of this study could be used in the future to improve the performance of the Earth-skimming technique for the indirect measurement of neutrinos with HAWC.

We study the chiral condensates in neutron star matter from nuclear to quark matter domain. We describe nuclear matter with a parity doublet model (PDM), quark matter with the Nambu--Jona-Lasino (NJL) model, and a matter at the intermediate density by interpolating nuclear and quark matter equations of state. The model parameters are constrained by nuclear physics and neutron star observations. Various condensates in the interpolated domain are estimated from the chemical potential dependence of the condensates at the boundaries of the interpolation. The use of the PDM with substantial chiral invariant mass ($m_0 \gtrsim 500$ MeV, which is favored by the neutron star observations) predicts the mild chiral restoration, and the significant chiral condensate remains to baryon density $n_B \sim 2-3n_0$ ($n_0\simeq 0.16\,{\rm fm}^{-3}$: nuclear saturation density), smoothly approaching the NJL predictions for the color-flavor-locked phase at $n_B \gtrsim 5n_0$. The same method is applied to estimate diquark condensates, number densities of up-, down- and strange-quarks, and the lepton fraction. In our descriptions the chiral restoration in the interpolated domain proceeds with two conceptually distinct chiral restoration effects; the first is associated with the positive scalar density in a nucleon, relevant in dilute regime, and the other primarily arises from the modification of the quark Dirac sea, which is triggered by the growth of the quark Fermi sea. We discuss several qualitative conjectures to interpolate the microphysics in nuclear and quark matter.

A main question in astrophysics and cosmology has been the severe stability of the astrophysical objects, whether a particular equilibrium configuration is stable. In this article, we study the relativistic self-gravitating, hydrostatic spheres with a polytropic equation of state , considering structures with the polytropic indices and illustrates the results for the relativistic parameters . We determined the critical relativistic parameter at which the mass of the polytrope has a maximum value and represents the first mode of radial instability. For n=1 (0.5)-2.5, stable relativistic polytropes occur for less than the critical values 0.42, 0.20, 0.10, and 0.04 respectively, while unstable relativistic polytropes are obtained when the relativistic parameter is greater than the same values. When n=3.0 and, energetically unstable solutions have occurred. The results of critical values obtained in this paper for different polytropic indices are in full agreement with those evaluated by several authors. Comparisons between analytical and numerical solutions of the given relativistic functions provide a maximum relative error of order.

Today we have a solid, if incomplete, physical picture of how inertia is created in the standard model. We know that most of the visible baryonic `mass' in the Universe is due to gluonic back-reaction on accelerated quarks, the latter of which attribute their own inertia to a coupling with the Higgs field -- a process that elegantly and self-consistently also assigns inertia to several other particles. But we have never had a physically viable explanation for the origin of rest-mass energy, in spite of many attempts at understanding it towards the end of the nineteenth century, culminating with Einstein's own landmark contribution in his Annus Mirabilis. Here, we introduce to this discussion some of the insights we have garnered from the latest cosmological observations and theoretical modeling to calculate our gravitational binding energy with that portion of the Universe to which we are causally connected, and demonstrate that this energy is indeed equal to mc^2 when the inertia m is viewed as a surrogate for gravitational mass.

Three body systems where one of the bodies is ejected without escaping the binary system have previously been studied in various restricted forms. However, none of these studies dwells on the problem in a general setting. Thus, to study this phenomenon qualitatively, we try to expand this problem's scope to unequal mass systems and generalize them by considering various configurations of fixed initial points with precisely calculated initial velocities, some zero velocity models, and some optimized models. We will see the use of terminology similar to the previous studies done in this domain, but incorporate different analytical and evaluation methods.

A scalar charged particle moving in a curved background spacetime will emit a field effecting its own motion; the resolving of this resulting motion is often referred to as the self-force problem. This also serves as a toy model for the astrophysically interesting compact body binaries, Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals, targets for the future space-based gravitational wave detector, LISA. In the modelling of such systems, a point particle assumption leads to problematic singularities which need to be safely removed to solve for the motion of the particle regardless of the scenario: scalar, electromagnetic or gravitational. Here, we concentrate on a scalar charged particle and calculate the next order of the Detweiler-Whiting singular field and its resulting regularisation parameter when employing the mode-sum method of regularisation. This enables sufficiently faster self-force calculations giving the same level of accuracy with significantly less $\ell$ modes. Due to the similarity of the governing equations, this also lays the groundwork for similar calculations for an electromagnetic or mass charged particle in Kerr spacetime and has applications in other regularisation schemes like the effective source and matched expansion.