Papers for Wednesday, Dec 08 2021

We show how the interplay between feedback and mass-growth histories introduces scatter in the relationship between stellar and neutral gas properties of field faint dwarf galaxies ($M_{\star} \lessapprox 10^{6} M_{\odot}$). Across a suite of cosmological, high-resolution zoomed simulations, we find that dwarf galaxies of stellar masses $10^5 \leq M_{\star} \leq 10^{6} M_{\odot}$ are bimodal in their cold gas content, being either HI-rich or HI-deficient. This bimodality is generated through the coupling between (i) the modulation of HI contents by the background of ultraviolet radiation (UVB) at late times and (ii) the significant scatter in the stellar-mass-halo-mass relationship induced by reionization. Furthermore, our HI-rich dwarfs exhibit disturbed and time-variable neutral gas distributions primarily due to stellar feedback. Over the last four billion years, we observe order-of-magnitude changes around the median $M_{HI}$, factor-of-a-few variations in HI spatial extents, and spatial offsets between HI and stellar components regularly exceeding the galaxies' optical sizes. Time variability introduces further scatter in the $M_{\star}-M_{HI}$ relation and affects a galaxy's detectability in HI at any given time. These effects will need to be accounted for when interpreting observations of the population of faint, HI-bearing dwarfs by the combination of optical and radio wide, deep surveys.

We share the most up-to-date, carefully verified list of classical Cepheids residing in the Galaxy. Based on long-term OGLE experience in the field of variable stars, we have inspected candidates for Cepheids from surveys such as ASAS, ASAS-SN, ATLAS, Gaia, NSVS, VVV, WISE, ZTF, among others, and also known sources from the General Catalogue of Variable Stars. Only objects confirmed in the optical range as classical Cepheids are included in the list. We provide Gaia EDR3 identifications of the stars. Purity of the sample exceeds 97 per cent, while its completeness is of about 88 per cent down to a magnitude G=18. The list contains 3352 classical Cepheids, of which 2140 stars are fundamental-mode pulsators. Basic statistics and comparison between the classical Cepheids from the Milky Way, Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and Magellanic Clouds are provided. The list is available at the OGLE Internet Data Archive.

Though S0 galaxies are usually considered "red and dead", they often demonstrate star formation organized into ring structures. We try to clarify the nature of this phenomenon and its difference from star formation in spiral galaxies. Here we investigate the nearby moderate luminosity S0 galaxy NGC 254 using long-slit spectroscopy taken with the South African Large Telescope and publicly available imaging data. Applying a full spectral fitting, we analyzed gaseous and stellar kinematics as well as ionized gas excitation and metallicity and stellar population properties resolved by radius. An advanced approach of simultaneous fitting spectra and photometric data allowed us to quantify the fraction of hidden counter-rotating stars in this galaxy. We found that the ionized gas is counter-rotating with respect to the stars throughout NGC 254 disk, indicating an external origin of the gas. We argue the gas-rich galaxy merger from retrograde orbit as a main source of counter-rotating material. The star formation fed by this counter-rotating gas occurs within two rings, an outer ring at R=55-70 arcsec and an inner ring at R = 18 arcsec. The star formation rate is weak, 0.02 solar mass per year in total, the gas metallicity is slightly subsolar. We estimated that the accretion of the gas occurred about 1 Gyr ago, and about 1% of all stars have formed in situ from this gas being also counter-rotating.

Panoramic IFU spectroscopy is a core tool of modern observational astronomy and is especially important for galaxy physics. Many massive IFU surveys, such as SDSS MaNGA (10k targets), SAMI (3k targets), Califa (600 objects), Atlas3D (260 objects) have recently been released and made publicly available to the broad astronomical community. The complexity and massiveness of the derived data products from spectral cubes makes visualization of the entire dataset challenging, but nevertheless very important and crucial for scientific output. Based on our past experience with visualization of spectral and imaging data built in the frame of the VOxAstro Initiative projects, we are now developing online web service for interactive visualizing spectroscopic IFU datasets (ifu.voxastro.org). Our service will provide a convenient access and visualization tool for spectral cubes from publicly available surveys (MaNGA, SAMI, Califa, Atlas3D) and results of their modeling, as well as maps of parameters derived from cubes, implementing the connected views concept. Here we describe the core components and functionality of the service, including REST API implementation on top of the Django+Postgres backend as well as a fast and responsive user interface built using the modern Vue.js-based framework Quasar.

With an equilibrium temperature above 2500 K, the recently discovered HAT-P-70 b belongs to a new class of exoplanets known as ultra-hot Jupiters: extremely irradiated gas giants with day-side temperatures that resemble those found in stars. These ultra-hot Jupiters are among the most amenable targets for follow-up atmospheric characterization through transmission spectroscopy. Here, we present the first analysis of the transmission spectrum of HAT-P-70 b using high-resolution data from the HARPS-N spectrograph of a single transit event. We use a cross-correlation analysis and transmission spectroscopy to look for atomic and molecular species in the planetary atmosphere. We detect absorption by Ca II, Cr I, Cr II, Fe I, Fe II, H I, Mg I, Na I and V I, and we find tentative evidence of Ca I and Ti II. Overall, these signals appear blue-shifted by a few km s$^{-1}$, suggestive of winds flowing at high velocity from the day-side to the night-side. We individually resolve the Ca II H & K lines, the Na I doublet, and the H$\alpha$, H$\beta$ and H$\gamma$ Balmer lines. The cores of the Ca II and H I lines form well above the continuum, indicating the existence of an extended envelope. We refine the obliquity of this highly misaligned planet to $107.9^{+2.0}_{-1.7}$ degrees by examining the Doppler shadow that the planet casts on its A-type host star. These results place HAT-P-70 b as one of the exoplanets with the highest number of species detected in its atmosphere.

The primordial matter power spectrum quantifies fluctuations in the distribution of dark matter immediately following inflation. Over cosmic time, over-dense regions of the primordial density field grow and collapse into dark matter halos, whose abundance and density profiles retain memory of the initial conditions. By analyzing the image magnifications in eleven strongly-lensed and quadruply-imaged quasars, we infer the abundance and concentrations of low-mass halos, and cast the measurement in terms of the amplitude of the primordial matter power spectrum $P\left(k\right)$ on (inverse) length scales $1 < k < 50 \ \rm{Mpc^{-1}}$. Assuming an analytic model for the power spectrum and accounting for several sources of potential systematic uncertainty, including three different models for the halo mass function, we infer $\log_{10}\left(P / P_{\Lambda \rm{CDM}}\right)$, the power spectrum amplitude relative to the predictions of the concordance cosmological model, of $0.0_{-0.4}^{+0.4}$, $0.1_{-0.7}^{+0.6}$, and $0.2_{-1.0}^{+0.9}$ at k = 10, 25 and 50 $\rm{Mpc^{-1}}$ at $68 \%$ confidence. Our inference makes contact with the properties of the early Universe on smaller scales than existing measurements have accessed, and agrees with the predictions of cold dark matter and single-field slow-roll inflation.

To understand the formation of the Milky Way's prominent bar it is important to know whether stars in the bar differ in the chemical element composition of their birth material as compared to disk stars. This requires stellar abundance measurements for large samples across the Milky Way's body. Such samples, e.g. luminous red giant stars observed by SDSS's Apogee survey, will inevitably span a range of stellar parameters; as a consequence, both modelling imperfections and stellar evolution may preclude consistent and precise estimates of their chemical composition at a level of purported bar signatures. This has left current analyses of a chemically distinct bar inconclusive. Here, we develop a new self-calibration approach to eliminate both modelling and astrophysical abundance systematics among red giant branch (RGB) stars of different luminosities (and hence surface gravity $\log g$). Our approach is based on the idea that the stars' element abundances should depend on the orbits of the stars, but not on the evolutionary state along the RGB. We apply our method to $48,853$ luminous Apogee DR16 RGB stars to construct spatial abundance maps of $22$ chemical elements near the Milky Way's mid-plane, covering Galactocentric radii of $0\,{\rm kpc}<R<20\,\rm kpc$. Our results indicate that there are no abundance variations whose geometry matches that of the bar, and that the mean abundance gradients vary smoothly and monotonically with Galactocentric radius. We confirm that the high-$\alpha$ disk is chemically homogeneous, without spatial gradients.

Many population studies have been performed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to understand the bulk properties of protoplanetary disks around young stars. The studied populations mostly consisted of G, K & M stars, with relatively few more massive Herbig stars. With GAIA updated distances, now is a good time to use ALMA archival data for a Herbig disk population study and take an important step forward in our understanding of planet formation. This work determines the masses and sizes of all Herbig dust disks observed with ALMA to date out to 450 pc. These masses and sizes are put into context of the Lupus and Upper Sco T Tauri disk populations. ALMA Band 6 and Band 7 archival data of 36 Herbig stars are used, making this work 64% complete excluding Orion. Using stellar parameters and distances the dust masses and sizes of the disks are determined and survival analysis is used to make cumulative distributions of the dust masses and radii. Herbig disks have a higher dust mass than the T Tauri disk populations of Lupus and Upper Sco by factors of $\sim3$ and $\sim7$ respectively. In addition, Herbig disks are often larger than the typical T Tauri disk. Although the masses and sizes of Herbig disks extend over a similar range as those of T Tauri disks, the distributions of masses and sizes of Herbig disks are significantly skewed toward higher values. Lastly, group I disks are more massive than group II disks. Based on these findings we speculate that these differences between Herbig and T Tauri disks find their origin in an initial disk mass that scales with the stellar mass, and that subsequent disk evolution enlarges the observable differences, especially if (sub)mm continuum optical depth plays a role. Moreover, the larger disk masses and sizes of Herbig stars could be linked to the increasing prevalence of giant planets with host star mass.

We are at a unique timeline in the history of human evolution where we may be able to discover earth-like planets around stars outside our solar system where conditions can support life or even find evidence of life on those planets. With the launch of several satellites in recent years by NASA, ESA, and other major space agencies, an ample amount of datasets are at our disposal which can be utilized to train machine learning models that can automate the arduous tasks of exoplanet detection, its identification, and habitability determination. Automating these tasks can save a considerable amount of time and minimize human errors due to manual intervention. To achieve this aim, we first analyze the light intensity curves from stars captured by the Kepler telescope to detect the potential curves that exhibit the characteristics of an existence of a possible planetary system. For this detection, along with training conventional models, we propose a stacked GBDT model that can be trained on multiple representations of the light signals simultaneously. Subsequently, we address the automation of exoplanet identification and habitability determination by leveraging several state-of-art machine learning and ensemble approaches. The identification of exoplanets aims to distinguish false positive instances from the actual instances of exoplanets whereas the habitability assessment groups the exoplanet instances into different clusters based on their habitable characteristics. Additionally, we propose a new metric called Adequate Thermal Adequacy (ATA) score to establish a potential linear relationship between habitable and non-habitable instances. Experimental results suggest that the proposed stacked GBDT model outperformed the conventional models in detecting transiting exoplanets. Furthermore, the incorporation of ATA scores in habitability classification enhanced the performance of models.

We wish to measure the cool star rotation period distribution for the Pleiades-age rich open cluster NGC 2516 and use it to determine whether cluster-to-cluster variations exist in otherwise identical open clusters. We obtained 42 d-long time-series CCD photometry of NGC 2516 using the Yale 1 m telescope at CTIO and performed a number of related analyses, including PSF-based time-series photometry. Our data are complemented with additional information from several photometric datasets, literature radial velocities, and Gaia DR2 astrometry. All available data are used to construct an integrated membership list for NGC 2516, containing 844 stars in our 1deg FoV. We derived 308 rotation periods for late-F to mid-M cluster members from our photometry. We identified an additional 247 periodic M dwarf stars from a prior study as cluster members, and used these to construct a 555-star rotation period distribution for NGC 2516. We find a group of slowly rotating M dwarfs (10d<P<23d), forming a branch in the colour-period diagram which we call the 'extended slow rotator sequence'. This, and other features of the rotational distribution can also be found in the Pleiades, making the colour-period diagrams of the two clusters nearly indistinguishable. We demonstrate the existence of a representative ZAMS rotational distribution and provide a simple colour-independent way to represent it. We perform a detailed comparison of the NGC 2516 rotation period data with a number of recent rotational evolution models. Using X-ray data from the literature, we also construct the first rotation-activity diagram for solar-type stars in NGC 2516. The two clusters NGC 2516 and Pleiades can be considered twins in terms of stellar rotation and related properties, suggesting that otherwise identical open clusters also have intrinsically similar cool star rotation and activity distributions. (Abridged)

A cluster intermediate in age between the Pleiades (150 Myr) and the Hyades (600 Myr) is needed to probe the rotational evolution, especially the transition between fast and slow rotation that occurs between the two ages. We study the rich 300 Myr-old open cluster NGC 3532 to provide constraints on angular momentum loss. Measuring the rotation periods builds on our prior work of providing spectroscopic membership information for the cluster, and it supports the chromospheric activity measurements of cluster stars that we provide in a companion paper. Using 42 d-long photometric time series observations, we measured rotation periods for members of NGC 3532 and compared them with the predictions of angular momentum evolution models. We directly measured 176 photometric rotation periods for the cluster members. An additional 113 photometric rotation periods were identified using activity information resulting in a total sample containing 279 rotation periods for FGKM stars in NGC 3532. The colour-period diagram constructed from this rich data set shows a well-populated and structured slow rotator sequence, and a fast rotator sequence evolved beyond zero-age main sequence age whose stars are in transition from fast to slow rotation. We also identify an extended slow rotator sequence, apparently the analogue of the one we previously identified in NGC 2516. We compare our period distribution to rotational isochrones in colour-period space and find that all considered models have certain shortcomings. Using more detailed spin-down models, we evolve the rotation periods of the younger NGC 2516 forward in time and find that the spindown of the models is too aggressive with respect to the slow rotators. In contrast, stars on the evolved fast rotator sequence are not spun down strongly enough by these models. Our observations suggest a shorter crossing time for the rotational gap. (Abridged)

The coeval stars of young open clusters provide insights into the formation of the rotation-activity relationship that elude studies of multi-age field populations. We measure the chromospheric activity of cool stars in the 300 Myr old open cluster NGC 3532 in concert with their rotation periods to study the mass-dependent morphology of activity for this transitional coeval population. Using multi-object spectra of the Ca ii infrared triplet region obtained with the AAOmega spectrograph at the Anglo- Australian Telescope, we measure the chromospheric emission ratios for 454 FGKM cluster members of NGC 3532. The morphology of activity against colour appears to be a near-mirror image of the cluster's rotational behaviour. In particular, we identify a group of 'desaturated transitional rotators' that branches off from the main group of unsaturated FGK slow rotators, and from which it is separated by an 'activity gap'. The few desaturated gap stars are identical to the ones in the rotational gap. Nevertheless, the rotation-activity diagram is completely normal. In fact, the relationship is so tight that it allows us to predict rotation periods for many additional stars. We then precisely determine these periods from our photometric light curves. Our activity measurements show that all fast rotators of near-solar mass have evolved to become slow rotators, demonstrating that the absence of fast rotators in a colour-period diagram is not a detection issue but an astrophysical fact. We also identify a new population of low-activity stars among the early M dwarfs, enabling us to populate the extended slow rotator sequence in the colour-period diagram. The joint analysis of chromospheric activity and photometric time series data thus enables comprehensive insights into the evolution of the rotation and activity of stars during the transitional phase between the Pleiades and Hyades age. (Abridged)

We present the KODIAQ-Z survey aimed to characterize the cool, photoionized gas at 2.2<z<3.6 in 202 HI-selected absorbers with 14.6<log N(HI)<20, i.e., the gaseous interface between galaxies and the intergalactic medium (IGM). We find that the 14.6<log N(HI)<20 gas at 2.2<z<3.6 can be metal-rich gas (-1.6<[X/H]<-0.2) as seen in damped Ly-alpha absorbers (DLAs); it can also be very metal-poor ([X/H]<-2.4) or even pristine gas ([X/H]<-3.8) not observed in DLAs, but commonly observed in the IGM. For 16<log N(HI)<20 absorbers, the frequency of pristine absorbers is about 1%-10%, while for 14.6<log N(HI)<16 absorbers it is 10%-20%, similar to the diffuse IGM. Supersolar gas is extremely rare (<1%) in this gas. The factor of several thousand spread from the lowest to highest metallicities and large metallicity variations (a factor of a few to >100) between absorbers separated by less than 500 km/s imply that the metals are poorly mixed in 14.6<log N(HI)<20 gas. We show that these photoionized absorbers contribute to about 10% of the cosmic baryons and 30% of the cosmic metals at 2.2<z<3.6. We find the mean metallicity increases with N(HI), consistent with what is found in z<1 gas. The metallicity of gas in this column density regime has increased by a factor ~8 from 2.2<z<3.6 to z<1, but the contribution of the 14.6<log N(HI)<19 absorbers to the total metal budget of the universe at z<1 is half that at 2.2<z<3.6, indicating a substantial shift in the reservoirs of metals between these two epochs. We compare the KODIAQ-Z results to FOGGIE cosmological zoom simulations. The simulations show an evolution of [X/H] with N(HI) similar to our observational results. Very metal-poor absorbers with [X/H]<-2.4 at z~2-3 in these simulations are excellent tracers of inflows, while higher metallicity absorbers are a mixture of inflows and outflows.

Periodic variables illuminate the physical processes of stars throughout their lifetime. Wide-field surveys continue to increase our discovery rates of periodic variable stars. Automated approaches are essential to identify interesting periodic variable stars for multi-wavelength and spectroscopic follow-up. Here, we present a novel unsupervised machine learning approach to hunt for anomalous periodic variables using phase-folded light curves presented in the Zwicky Transient Facility Catalogue of Periodic Variable Stars by \citet{Chen_2020}. We use a convolutional variational autoencoder to learn a low dimensional latent representation, and we search for anomalies within this latent dimension via an isolation forest. We identify anomalies with irregular variability. Most of the top anomalies are likely highly variable Red Giants or Asymptotic Giant Branch stars concentrated in the Milky Way galactic disk; a fraction of the identified anomalies are more consistent with Young Stellar Objects. Detailed spectroscopic follow-up observations are encouraged to reveal the nature of these anomalies.

We present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of the type IIb supernova (SN) 2016gkg at 652, 1698, and 1795 days with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Comparing to pre-explosion imaging from 2001 obtained with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, we demonstrate that SN 2016gkg is now fainter than its candidate counterpart in the latest WFC3 imaging, implying that the counterpart has disappeared and confirming that it was the SN progenitor star. We show the latest light curve and Keck spectra of SN 2016gkg, which implies that SN 2016gkg is declining more slowly than the expected rate for ${}^{56}$Co decay during its nebular phase. We find that this emission is too luminous to be powered by other radioisotopes, thus we infer that SN 2016gkg is entering a new phase in its evolution where it is powered primarily by interaction with circumstellar matter. Finally, we re-analyze the progenitor star spectral energy distribution and late-time limits in the context of binary evolution models and including emission from a potential companion star and find that all companion stars would be fainter than our limiting magnitudes.

Spirals in protoplanetary discs have been used to locate the potential planet in discs. Since only the spiral shape from a circularly orbiting perturber is known, most previous works assume that the planet is in a circular orbit. We develop a simple semi-analytical method to calculate the shape of the spirals launched by an eccentric planet. We assume that the planet emits wavelets during its orbit, and the wave fronts of these propagating wavelets form the spirals. The resulting spiral shape from this simple method agrees with numerical simulations exceptionally well. The spirals excited by an eccentric planet can detach from the planet, bifurcate, or even cross each other, which are all reproduced by this simple method. The spiral's bifurcation point corresponds to the wavelet that is emitted when the planet's radial speed reaches the disc's sound speed. Multiple spirals can be excited by an eccentric planet (more than 5 spirals when $e\gtrsim0.2$). The pitch angle and pattern speed are different between different spirals and can vary significantly across one spiral. The spiral wakes launched by high-mass eccentric planets steepen to spiral shocks and the crossing of spiral shocks leads to distorted or broken spirals. With the same mass, a more eccentric planet launches weaker spirals and induces a shallower gap over a long period of time. The observed unusually large/small pitch angles of some spirals, the irregular multiple spirals, and the different pattern speeds between different spirals may suggest the existence of eccentric perturbers in protoplanetary discs.

We find a class of twisted and differentially rotating neutron star magnetospheres that do not have a light cylinder, generate no wind and thus do not spin-down. The magnetosphere is composed of embedded differentially rotating flux surfaces, with the angular velocity decreasing as $\Omega \propto 1/r$ (equivalently, becoming smaller at the foot-points closer to the axis of rotation). For each given North-South self-similar twist profile there is a set of self-similar angular velocity profiles (limited from above) with a "smooth", dipolar-like magnetic field structure extending to infinity. For spin parameters larger than some critical value, the light cylinder appears, magnetosphere opens up, and the wind is generated.

SU Lyn is a binary system composed of a white dwarf and a red giant star. Although it is known to be bright and variable at X-ray wavelengths, the optical counterpart of the source appeared as a single red giant without prominent emission lines. Because of the lack of optical features typical for interacting systems, the system was classified as a hidden symbiotic star. We present the results of optical monitoring of the system. While SU Lyn did not show substantial photometric variability, the spectroscopic observations revealed a complex behavior. The system showed strong emission line variability, including P Cygni profiles, changing line emission environments, and variable reddening. Both X-ray and optical observations indicate that the components of SU Lyn were interacting only for a short time during the last twelve years of monitoring. For the first time we showed that SU Lyn resembled a classical symbiotic star when it was X-ray bright, and remained hidden afterwards. We also discuss the current evolutionary status of the red giant, as well as possible future evolution of the system. We suggest that SU Lyn could be a progenitor of a classical, persistent symbiotic system.

Purely-rotational CO $(\rm \triangle J = \pm1)$ arising from magneto-hydrodynamic shock in supernova -- molecular cloud interaction is an effective shock tracer. In this work, we present a new theoretical radiative transfer framework for predicting the line profile of CO with the Paris-Durham shock model. We generated line profile predictions for CO emission produced by slow, magnetized C-shocks of $\sim 10^4$ cm$^{-3}$ and $35 \leq$ V$_{\rm Shock}$ $\leq 50$ km s$^{-1}$. The numerical framework for reproducing CO line profiles utilizes the Large Velocity Gradient (LVG) approximation and the omission of optically-thick plane-parallel slabs. With this framework, we generated predictions for various CO lines up to $J=16$ at multiple locations in supernova remnants W28 and IC443. We found that CO line profile prediction offers robust constraints of shock velocity and preshock density while requiring a fewer number of CO lines.

Thioacetamide (CH3CSNH2) is the sulfur analog to acetamide (CH3CONH2) and it is a viable candidate to search for in astronomical environments specifically toward regions where other S-bearing molecules have been found and, if possible, that also contain a detection of CH3CONH2. If detected, it would not only continue to expand the view of molecular complexity in astronomical environments, but also help to better elucidate the possible formation pathways of these types of species in these environments. The rotational spectrum of CH3CSNH2 was investigated up to 650 GHz. Using the newly refined spectrum of CH3CSNH2, as well as additional spectroscopic data on the chemically related species CH3CONH2, a variety of astronomical sources were searched including data from the following large surveys: The PRIMOS conducted with the Green Bank Telescope (GBT); Exploring molecular complexity with ALMA (EMoCA) conducted with ALMA; and Astrochemical Surveys at IRAM (ASAI) conducted with the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimetrique (IRAM) 30m Telescope. A total of 1428 transitions from the vt=0 state with maximum values J=47 and Ka=20 in the range up to 330 GHz, and J=95 and Ka=20 in the range from 400 - 660 GHz were assigned. We also assigned 321 transitions from the vt=1 state with the maximum values J=35 and Ka=9 up to 330 GHz. The final fit is based on the rho-axis-method (RAM) Hamiltonian model that includes 40 parameters. An astronomical search for CH3CSNH2 was conducted based on all the new spectroscopic data. No transitions of CH3CSNH2 were detected toward any of the sources contained in our survey. Using the appropriate telescope and physical parameters for each astronomical source, upper limits to the column densities were found for CH3CSNH2 toward each source.

Forthcoming cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarized anisotropy experiments have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the Universe and fundamental physics. The sought-after, tale-telling signatures will be however distributed over voluminous data sets which these experiments will collect. These data sets will need to be efficiently processed and unwanted contributions due to astrophysical, environmental, and instrumental effects characterized and efficiently mitigated in order to uncover the signatures. This poses a significant challenge to data analysis methods, techniques, and software tools which will not only have to be able to cope with huge volumes of data but to do so with unprecedented precision driven by the demanding science goals posed for the new experiments. A keystone of efficient CMB data analysis are solvers of very large linear systems of equations. Such systems appear in very diverse contexts throughout CMB data analysis pipelines, however they typically display similar algebraic structures and can therefore be solved using similar numerical techniques. Linear systems arising in the so-called map-making problem are one of the most prominent and common ones. In this work we present a massively parallel, flexible and extensible framework, comprised of a numerical library, MIDAPACK, and a high level code, MAPPRAISER, which provide tools for solving efficiently such systems. The framework implements iterative solvers based on conjugate gradient techniques: enlarged and preconditioned using different preconditioners. We demonstrate the framework on simulated examples reflecting basic characteristics of the forthcoming data sets issued by ground-based and satellite-borne instruments, executing it on as many as 16,384 compute cores. The software is developed as an open source project freely available to the community at: https://github.com/B3Dcmb/midapack .

The photometric and spectroscopic signatures of habitable planets orbiting FGK stars may be modulated by surface ice coverage. To estimate its frequency and locations, we simulated the climates of hypothetical planets with a 1D energy balance model and assumed that the planets possess properties similar to modern Earth (mass, geography, atmosphere). We first simulated planets with fixed rotational axes and circular orbits, finding that the vast majority (>90%) of planets with habitable surfaces are free of ice. For planets with partial ice coverage, the parameter space for ice caps (interannual ice located at the poles) is about as large as that for "ice belts" (interannual ice located at the equator), but belts only persist on land. We then performed simulations that mimicked perturbations from other planets by forcing sinusoidal orbital and rotational oscillations over a range of frequencies and amplitudes. We assume initially ice-free surfaces and set the initial eccentricity distribution to mirror known exoplanets, while the initial obliquity distribution matches planet formation predictions, ie favoring 90 degrees. For these dynamic cases, we find again that ~90% of habitable planets are free of surface ice for a range of assumptions for ice's albedo. Planets orbiting F dwarfs are three times as likely to have ice caps than belts, but for planets orbiting K and G dwarfs ice belts are twice as likely as caps. In some cases, a planet's surface ice can cycle between the equatorial and polar regions. Future direct imaging surveys of habitable planets may be able to test these predictions.

Pulsating low-mass white dwarf stars are white dwarfs with stellar masses between 0.30~M$_{\odot}$ and 0.45~M$_{\odot}$ that show photometric variability due to gravity-mode pulsations. Within this mass range, they can harbour both a helium- and hybrid-core, depending if the progenitor experienced helium-core burning during the pre-white dwarf evolution. SDSS J115219.99$+$024814.4 is an eclipsing binary system where both components are low-mass white dwarfs, with stellar masses of 0.362$\pm$0.014~M$_{\odot}$ and 0.325$\pm$0.013~M$_{\odot}$. In particular, the less massive component is a pulsating star, showing at least three pulsation periods of $\sim$1314 s, $\sim$1069 s and $\sim$582.9 s. This opens the way to use asteroseismology as a tool to uncover its inner chemical structure, in combination with the information obtained using the light-curve modelling of the eclipses. To this end, using binary evolutionary models leading to helium- and hybrid-core white dwarfs, we compute adiabatic pulsations for $\ell=1$ and $\ell=2$ gravity modes with \texttt{Gyre}. We found that the pulsating component of the SDSS J115219.99$+$024814.4 system must have a hydrogen envelope thinner that the value obtained from binary evolution computations, independently of the inner composition. Finally, from our asteroseismological study, we find a best fit model characterised by T$_{\rm e ff}=10\, 917$ K, M=0.338~M$_{\odot}$, M$_{\rm H}=10^{-6}$~M$_{\odot}$ with the inner composition of a hybrid WD.

We use a high-precision radial velocity survey of FGKM stars to study the conditional occurrence of two classes of planets: close-in small planets (0.023--1 au, 2--30 Earth masses) and distant giant planets (0.23--10 au, 30--6000 Earth masses). We find that $41^{+15}_{-13}\%$ of systems with a close-in, small planet also host an outer giant, compared to $17.6^{+2.4}_{-1.9}\%$ for stars irrespective of small planet presence. This implies that small planet hosts may be enhanced in outer giant occurrence compared to all stars with $1.7\sigma$ significance. Conversely, we estimate that $42^{+17}_{-13}\%$ of cold giant hosts also host an inner small planet, compared to $27.6^{+5.8}_{-4.8}\%$ of stars irrespective of cold giant presence. We also find that more massive and close-in giant planets are not associated with small inner planets. Specifically, our sample indicates that small planets are less likely to host outer giant companions more massive than approximately 120 Earth masses and within 0.3--3 au than to host less massive or more distant giant companions, with $\sim$2.2$\sigma$ confidence. This implies that massive gas giants within 0.3--3 au may suppress inner small planet formation. Additionally, we compare the host-star metallicity distributions for systems with only small planets and those with both small planets and cold giants. In agreement with previous studies, we find that stars in our survey that only host small planets have a metallicity distribution that is consistent with the broader solar-metallicity-median sample, while stars that host both small planets and gas giants are distinctly metal-rich with $\sim$2.3$\sigma$ confidence.

Over the next year, a new era of observations of compact objects in X-ray polarization will commence. Among the key targets for the upcoming Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer mission, will be the magnetars 4U 0142+61 and 1RXS J170849.0-400910. Here we present the first detailed predictions of the expected polarization from these sources that incorporate realistic models of emission physics at the surface (gaseous or condensed), the temperature distribution on the surface, general relativity, quantum electrodynamics and scattering in the magnetosphere, and also account for the broadband spectral energy distribution of these sources from below 1 keV to nearly 100 keV. We find that either atmospheres or condensed surfaces can account for the emission at a few keV; in both cases either a small hot polar cap or scattering is required to account for the emission at 5-10 keV, and above 10 keV scattering by a hard population of electrons can account for the rising power in the hard X-rays observed in many magnetars in quiescence. Although these different scenarios result in very similar spectral energy distributions, they generate dramatically different polarization signatures from 2-10 keV, which is the range of sensitivity of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer. Observations of these sources in X-ray polarization will therefore probe the emission from magnetars in an essentially new way.

Extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) are important targets for future space-borne gravitational-wave (GW) detectors, such as the Laser Interferometer Sapce Antenna (LISA). Recent works suggest that EMRI may reside in a population of newly discovered X-ray transients called "quasi-periodic eruptions" (QPEs). Here we follow this scenario and investigate the detectability of the five recently discovered QPEs by LISA. We consider two specific models in which the QPEs are made of either stellar-mass objects moving on circular orbits around massive black holes (MBHs) or white dwarfs (WDs) on eccentric orbits around MBHs. We find that in either case each QPE is too weak to be resolvable by LISA. However, if QPEs are made of eccentric WD-MBH binaries, they radiate GWs in a wide range of frequencies. The broad spectra overlap to form a background which, between $0.003-0.02$ Hz, exceeds the background known to exist due to other types of sources. Presence of this GW background in the LISA band could impact the future search for the seed black holes at high redshift as well as the stellar-mass binary black holes in the local universe.

Multi-dimensional optimization is widely used in virtually all areas of modern astrophysics. However, it is often too computationally expensive to evaluate a model on-the-fly. Typically, it is solved by pre-computing a grid of models for a predetermined set of positions in the parameter space and then interpolating. Here we present a hybrid minimization approach based on the local quadratic approximation of the $\chi^2$ profile from a discrete set of models in a multidimensional parameter space. The main idea of our approach is to eliminate the interpolation of models from the process of finding the best-fitting solution. We present several examples of applications of our minimization technique to the analysis of stellar and extragalactic spectra.

Modern spectroscopic surveys of galaxies such as MaNGA consist of millions of diverse spectra covering different regions of thousands of galaxies. We propose and implement a deep unsupervised machine learning method to summarize the entire diversity of MaNGA spectra onto a 15x15 map (DESOM-1), where neighbouring points on the map represent similar spectra. We demonstrate our method as an alternative to conventional full spectral fitting for deriving physical quantities, as well as their full probability distributions, much more efficiently than traditional resource-intensive Bayesian methods. Since spectra are grouped by similarity, the distribution of spectra onto the map for a single galaxy, i.e., its "fingerprint", reveals the presence of distinct stellar populations within the galaxy indicating smoother or episodic star-formation histories. We further map the diversity of galaxy fingerprints onto a second map (DESOM-2). Using galaxy images and independent measures of galaxy morphology, we confirm that galaxies with similar fingerprints have similar morphologies and inclination angles. Since morphological information was not used in the mapping algorithm, relating galaxy morphology to the star-formation histories encoded in the fingerprints is one example of how the DESOM maps can be used to make scientific inferences.

We present a second paper related to the analyses of high-dispersion spectroscopic observations of the magnetic cataclysmic variable AE Aquarii. We focus our efforts on the study of the emission lines and their radial velocities. We detect a sinusoidal behaviour, in several of the observing runs, with variable amplitudes. Of those runs presented, the velocity curve of 2000 August shows less instability in the emission material. In this case, we obtain K1 = 114 +/- 8 km s-1, which we take as our best value for the radial velocity of the primary. This result is consistent within 2sigma with previously published values obtained using indirect methods. We interpret this consistency as observational evidence of material orbiting the rapidly rotating primary star. We present a Doppler tomography study, which shows that the H alpha emission is primarily concentrated within a blob in the lower left quadrant, a structure similar to that predicted by the propeller model. However, for 2000 August, we find the emission centred around the position of the white dwarf, which supports the possibility of the K1 value of this run of being a valid approximation of the orbital motion of the white dwarf.

We present new observations of the cataclysmic variable DW Cancri, after the system recovered from a low state. We performed a power spectrum analysis that reveals a clear signal of the 38 min spin period in our photometric data. Our spectroscopic power spectrum search was consistent with studies performed before the low state, showing the orbital and spin modulations. We also conducted a Doppler Tomography study which exhibits a disc structure and an enhanced emission region, possibly related to a hot spot component. Through a wavelet transform analysis we also found evidence of the 70 min spin-orbit beat period. We interpret these results as indication of a partial recovery of the system. Nonetheless, DW Cnc does not yet show all the original photometric modulations reported in 2004, before experiencing the low state. Namely, these signals are a 38 min spin period, an 86 min orbital period, a 70 min beat period between the latter modulations, and an unresolved 110 min period. Even though our photometry shows a spin cycle modulation and a long 108 min period, it lacks the beat and orbital period signals. Thus, we propose further observations of DW Cancri, to elucidate if the mechanisms giving rise to the signatures observed prior to the low state, require more time to reactivate.

A novel search technique for ultralight dark matter has been developed and carried out over a narrow range in L-band, utilizing the recent Breakthrough Listen public data release of three years of observation with the Green Bank Telescope. The search concept depends only on the assumption of decay or annihilation of virialized dark matter to a quasi-monochromatic radio line, and additionally that the frequency and intensity of the line be consistent with most general properties expected of the phase space of our Milky Way halo. Specifically, the search selects for a line which exhibits a Doppler shift with position according to the solar motion through a static galactic halo, and similarly varies in intensity with position with respect to the galactic center. Over the frequency range $1.73-1.83$ GHz, radiative annihilation of dark matter is excluded above $\langle{\sigma}v\rangle$ = $1.2 \times 10^{-47} \text{ cm}^3 \text{ s}^{-1}$, and for decay above ${\lambda}$ = $4.1 \times 10^{-35} \text{ s}^{-1}$. The analysis of the full L-, S-, C- and X-band dataset by this method ($25,000$ spectra, $1.1-11.6$ GHz) is currently underway.

Interpreting 21 cm measurements from current and upcoming experiments like HERA and the SKA will provide new scientific insights and exciting implications for astrophysics and cosmology regarding the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). Several recent works have proposed using machine learning methods, such as convolutions neural networks (CNNs), to analyze images of reionization generated by these experiments. Generally, these studies have used only a single semi-numeric method to generate the input 21 cm data. In this work, we use two semi-numeric methods, 21cmfast and zreion, to generate comparable 21 cm input data for training CNNs. We show that neural networks trained on input data from only one semi-numeric method produce poor predictions when using data produced by the other model. Satisfactory results are only achieved when images from both models are included in the training data. This finding has important implications for future analyses that work on telescope data, and encourages the use of multiple models to produce images that capture the full complexity of the EoR.

We present the analysis of three kinds of oscillating behavior using multi-wavelength observations of the 10 November 2013 (SOL2013-11-10T05:14) circular-ribbon flare. This event is a typical circular-ribbon flare with an outer spine structure and homologous jets. We found three kinds of oscillations (or perturbation): i) flux oscillation (or QPP) with a dominant period of about 20 seconds at X-rays, EUV and microwave emissions, ii) periodic jets with an intermittent cadence of around 72 seconds, iii) outer loop perturbs a half cycle with the duration of about 168 seconds. Similar to the periodic jets that could be produced by a nonthermal process, like repeated magnetic reconnection, the flare QPP detected in thermal emissions could have the same origin as the oscillation seen in nonthermal emissions. The outer loop perturbation is possibly triggered by a blast wave driven by the circular-ribbon flare, or it might be modulated by the sausage wave or the slow magnetoacoustic wave. The results obtained provide data for further numerical study of the physical origin of flare oscillations.

In this work, we present new two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of the major eruption of $\eta$ Car in the 1840s, which resulted in the formation of a bipolar nebula that is commonly known as the large Homunculus. In our numerical models, we have included the high-speed component of 10000 km s$^{-1}$, detected in recent observations, that provides direct evidence of an explosive event. Here, we investigate whether such a violent explosion is able to explain both the shape and the dynamical evolution of $\eta$ Car's nebula. As in our previous work, we have assumed a two-stage scenario for $\eta$ Car's eruption: a slow outflow phase during a few decades before the eruption followed by the explosive event. From the collision of these outflow phases, the large Homunculus is produced. Our numerical simulations show that such scenario does not resemble some of the observed physical features and the expansion of the nebula. Notwithstanding, we also explore other injection parameters (mass-loss rate and ejection velocity) for these outflow phases. In particular, we find that an explosion with an intermediate-speed of 1000 km s$^{-1}$ is able to reproduce the morphology and the kinematical age of the large Homunculus.

As a transient X-ray binary, MAXI J1659-152 contains a black hole candidate as its compact star. MAXI J1659-152 was discovered on 2010 September 25 during its only known outburst. Previously-published studies of this outburst indicate that MAXI J1659-152 may have an extreme retrograde spin, which, if confirmed, would provide an important clue as to the origin of black hole spin. In this paper, utilizing updated dynamical binary-system parameters (i.e. the black hole mass, the orbital inclination and the source distance) provided by \cite{Torres2021}, we analyze 65 spectra of MAXI J1659-152 from \emph{RXTE}/PCA, in order to assess the spin parameter. With a final selection of 9 spectra matching our $f_{\mathrm{sc}} \lesssim 25 \%$, soft-state criteria, we apply a relativistic thin disk spectroscopic model \texttt{kerrbb2} over 3.0-45.0 keV. We find that inclination angle correlates inversely with spin, and, considering the possible values for inclination angle, we constrain spin to be $-1 < a_{*} \lesssim 0.44$ at 90\% confidence interval via X-ray continuum-fitting. We can only rule out an extreme prograde (positive) spin. We confirm that an extreme retrograde solution is possible and is not ruled out by considering accretion torques given the young age of the system.

Asteroidal impact threats to the Earth will be predicted a century or more in advance. Changing an asteroid's albedo changes the force of Solar radiation on it, and hence its orbit. Albedo may be changed by applying a thin ($\sim 0.1\,\mu$) reflective coat of alkali metal, dispensed as vapor by an orbiting spacecraft. A complete coat reduces the effective Solar gravity, changing the orbital period. A Tunguska-class (50 m diameter) asteroid in a nominal orbit with perihelion 1 AU and aphelion 3 AU ($a = 2\,$AU, $e = 0.5$) may be displaced along its path by $\sim 1000\,$km in 100 years, sufficient to avoid impact in a populated area, by application of one kg of lithium or sodium metal over its entire surface. Alternatively, coating one hemisphere of an asteroid in an elliptical orbit may produce a Solar radiation torque, analogous to but distinct from the Yarkovsky effect, displacing it by an Earth radius in $\sim 200$ years. The time required scales as the square root of the asteroid's diameter (the 1/6 power of its mass) because the displacement increases quadratically with time, making it possible to prevent the catastrophic impact of a km-sized asteroid with a minimal mass.

We investigate how much the ratio of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization power spectra $C^{BB}_\ell/C^{EE}_\ell$ at low-$\ell$ ($\ell \lesssim 10$) depends on the process of reionization. Both such low-$\ell$ B-mode and E-mode polarization powers are dominantly produced by Thomson scattering of CMB photons off the free electrons which are produced in the process of reionization. Since the reionization should be finished until at least the redshift $z \simeq 6$ and the low-$\ell$ polarization powers are produced at late time, the ratio is rather insensitive by the ionization process at higher redshifts, but it is sensitive to the value of optical depth.The value of the ratio at $\ell=2$, however, is almost insensitive to the reionization process including the value of optical depth, and the value is approximately half of the value of tensor-to-scalar ratio. This fact can be utilized for future determination of tensor-to-scalar ratio in spite of the ambiguity due to cosmic variance.

The nearby Seyfert type galaxy NGC 1275 contains a bright radio nucleus at its center, revealed through high-spatial resolution imaging to be the source of the jets emanating from the galaxy. Coincident with the emergence of a new component C3 in the nucleus since 2005, flux densities from NGC 1275, at least at radio, millimeter (mm), and gamma-ray frequencies, had been increasing up through 2017 and leveled off afterwards. We analyze the long-term light curves of the nucleus that span the rising trend to 2015 July, and find a pair of approximately year-long quasi-periodic oscillations, with periods of $P_l\simeq 345$\,d and $P_h\simeq 386$\,d respectively, in emission at 1.3-mm wavelength. We discuss the case that there would be a long precession period $P_{\rm prec}\simeq 9$\,yr, causing the appearance of $P_h$ that is slightly higher than $P_l$. The accretion disk around the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) would be precessing at $P_{\rm prec}$, induced by either the Lense-Thirring effect or the existence of a companion SMBH. In the two scenarios, $P_l$ would be the jet wobbling timescale or the SMBH binary period respectively. The finding, which could be verified through high-spatial resolution mm imaging, would not only identify the nature of the jet variation but also help reveal the full features of the galaxy.

We perform comprehensive temporal and spectral analysis of the newly discovered X-ray transient MAXI~J1803--298 using an AstroSat target of opportunity observation on May 11, 2021 during its outburst. The source was found to be in the hard intermediate state. We detect type C quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) at the frequencies of $\sim5.4$ Hz and $\sim6.3$ Hz along with a sub-harmonic at $\sim2.8$ Hz in the $3-15$ keV band. The frequency and fractional rms amplitude of the QPO in the $15-30$ keV band are found to be higher than those in the $3-15$ keV band. We find soft lags of $\sim3.8$ ms and $\sim6.8$ ms for the respective QPOs at $\sim5.4$ Hz and $\sim6.3$ Hz, whereas soft lag of $\sim4.7$ ms is found at the sub-harmonic frequency. The increase in the soft lags at the QPO frequencies with energy is also observed in other black hole transients and is attributed to the inclination dependence of the lags. The rms-energy spectra indicate the power-law component to be more variable than the disk and the reflection components. We find a broad iron line with an equivalent width of $\sim174-193$ eV and a reflection hump above $\sim12$ keV in the energy spectrum. The estimated mass of the black hole ($\sim11-14$ M$_\odot$) and the spin parameter suggest the source likely to be a stellar mass Kerr black hole X-ray binary.

In this work, we explore the potential of multi-domain multi-branch convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for identifying comparatively rare giant radio galaxies from large volumes of survey data, such as those expected for new-generation radio telescopes like the SKA and its precursors. The approach presented here allows models to learn jointly from multiple survey inputs, in this case NVSS and FIRST, as well as incorporating numerical redshift information. We find that the inclusion of multi-resolution survey data results in correction of 39% of the misclassifications seen from equivalent single domain networks for the classification problem considered in this work. We also show that the inclusion of redshift information can moderately improve the classification of giant radio galaxies.

Context. The Fundamental Plane (FP) relation and the distribution of early-type galaxies (ETGs) in the FP projections, cannot be easily explained in the hierarchical framework, where galaxies grow up by merging and star formation episodes. Aims. We want to show here that both the FP and its projections arise naturally from the combination of the Virial Theorem (VT) and a new time-dependent relation, describing how luminosity and stellar velocity dispersion change during galaxy evolution. This relation has the form of the Faber-Jackson (FJ) relation but a different physical meaning: the new relation is $L = L'_0(t) \sigma^{\beta(t)}$, where its coefficients $L'_0$ and $\beta$ are time-dependent and can vary considerably from object to object, at variance with those obtained from the fit of the $L - \sigma$ plane. Methods. We derive the equations of the FP and its projections as a function of $\beta$ and $L'_0$, by combining the VT and the $L = L'_0(t) \sigma^{\beta(t)} law. Then, from their combination we derive the expression of the FP as a function of $\beta$ and the solutions for $\beta$ and $L'_0$. Results. We demonstrate that the observed properties of ETGs in the FP and its projections can be understood in terms of variations of $\beta$ and $L'_0$. These two parameters encrypt the history of galaxy evolution across the cosmic epochs and determine the future aspect of the FP and its projections. Using the solutions found for $\beta$ and $L_0$ for each galaxy at the present epoch, we derive the coefficients of the FP (and FJ relation) and show that, the values of the coefficients coming form the fit, obtained in the literature, originate from the average of the single FP coefficients derived for each galaxy. In addition, we show that the variations of beta naturally explain the curvature observed in the FP projections and the correct position of the Zone of Exclusion.

We model here the merger histories of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) population in the late stages of a cosmological simulation of a $\sim 2 \times 10^{13} M_\odot$ galaxy group. The gravitational dynamics around the several tens of SMBHs ($M_{\bullet} \gtrsim 7.5\times 10^7 M_\odot$) hosted by the galaxies in the group is computed at high accuracy using regularized integration with the KETJU code. The 11 SMBHs which form binaries and hierarchical triplets eventually merge after hardening through dynamical friction, stellar scattering, and gravitational wave (GW) emission. The binaries form at eccentricities of $e \sim 0.3$-$0.9$, with one system evolving to a very high eccentricity of $e = 0.998$, and merge on timescales of a few tens to several hundred megayears. During the simulation the merger induced GW recoil kicks eject one SMBH remnant from the central host galaxy. This temporarily drives the galaxy off the $M_{\bullet}$-$\sigma_{\star}$ relation, however the galaxy returns to the relation due to subsequent galaxy mergers, which bring in new SMBHs. This showcases a possible mechanism contributing to the observed scatter of the relation. Finally, we show that Pulsar Timing Arrays and LISA would be able to detect parts of the GW signals from the SMBH mergers that occur during the $\sim 4\,\mathrm{Gyr}$ time span simulated with KETJU.

The Diffuse Interstellar Bands (DIBs) are absorption features seen in the spectra of astronomical objects, that arise in the interstellar medium. Today more than 500 DIBs have been observed mostly in the optical and near-infrared wavelengths. The origin of the DIBs are unclear; only ionized buckminsterfullerene C$_{60}^+$ has been identified as a viable candidate for two strong and three weaker DIBs. In this study, we investigate the correlations between the strengths of the two strongest C$_{60}^+$ DIBs as well as their environmental behaviour. Therefore, we analysed measurements of the strengths of the two C$_{60}^+$ DIBs at 9577 and 9633 $\r{A}$ for 26 lines of sight. We used two different methods, including Monte Carlo simulations, to study their correlations and the influence of measurement errors on the correlation coefficients. Furthermore, we examined how the strength of the C$_{60}^+$ DIBs changes as a result of different environmental conditions, as measured by the concentration of H/H$_2$ and the strength of the ambient UV radiation. In contrast to results recently reported by Galazutdinov et al. (2021), we find a high correlation between the strengths of the C$_{60}^+$ DIBs. We also discovered that the behaviour of the correlated C$_{60}^+$ bands is quite distinct from other DIBs at 5780, 5797 and 6203 $\r{A}$ in different environments.

We provide the first combined cosmological analysis of South Pole Telescope (SPT) and Planck cluster catalogs. The aim is to provide an independent calibration for Planck scaling relations, exploiting the cosmological constraining power of the SPT-SZ cluster catalog and its dedicated weak lensing (WL) and X-ray follow-up observations. We build a new version of the Planck cluster likelihood. In the $\nu \Lambda$CDM scenario, focusing on the mass slope and mass bias of Planck scaling relations, we find $\alpha_{\text{SZ}} = 1.49 _{-0.10}^{+0.07}$ and $(1-b)_{\text{SZ}} = 0.69 _{-0.14}^{+0.07}$ respectively. The results for the mass slope show a $\sim 4 \, \sigma$ departure from the self-similar evolution, $\alpha_{\text{SZ}} \sim 1.8$. This shift is mainly driven by the matter density value preferred by SPT data, $\Omega_m = 0.30 \pm 0.03$, lower than the one obtained by Planck data alone, $\Omega_m = 0.37 _{-0.06}^{+0.02}$. The mass bias constraints are consistent both with outcomes of hydrodynamical simulations and external WL calibrations, $(1-b) \sim 0.8$, and with results required by the Planck cosmic microwave background cosmology, $(1-b) \sim 0.6$. From this analysis, we obtain a new catalog of Planck cluster masses $M_{500}$. We estimate the relation between the published Planck derived $M_{\text{SZ}}$ masses and our derived masses, as a measured mass bias. We analyse the mass, redshift and detection noise dependence of this quantity, finding an increasing trend towards high redshift and low mass. These results mimic the effect of departure from self-similarity in cluster evolution, showing different dependencies for the low-mass high-mass, low-z high-z regimes.

Axion-like particles (ALPs) are a class of hypothetical pseudoscalar particles which feebly interact with ordinary matter. The hot plasma of core-collapse supernovae is a possible laboratory to explore physics beyond the standard model including ALPs. Once produced, some of the ALPs can be absorbed by the supernova matter and affect energy transfer. In this study, we calculate the ALP emission in core-collapse supernovae and the backreaction on supernova dynamics consistently. It is found that the stalled bounce shock can be revived if the coupling between ALPs and photons is as high as g_{ag}~10^{-9} GeV^{-1} and the ALP mass is 40-400 MeV. This provides a new mechanism to obtain a successful supernova explosion with explosion energies reaching even those of broad-line type Ic supernovae.

RU Peg is a dwarf nova (DN) of the U Gem type. Our analysis of its long-term optical activity uses the data from the AAVSO database. It concentrates on investigating the properties of the individual outbursts and the time evolution of the ensemble of these events. No significant irradiation of the disc by the white dwarf was detected. In the interpretation, a variable steepness of the rising branches of the individual outbursts shows that the start of outbursts of RU Peg can occur at various distances from the disc centre without remarkable changes of the outburst recurrence time $T_{\rm C}$. The disc overflow of the inflowing mass stream, varying with time, could contribute to the changes in the starting position of the heating front, hence the variations of the outburst types. A typical length of $T_{\rm C}$ was 90 days. The segments of the relatively stable length of $T_{\rm C}$ were accompanied by the primarily little variable and small values of the fluence (the energy radiated in the optical band in the individual outbursts). Jumps of $T_{\rm C}$, accompanied by the big scatter of the fluences, sometimes replaced them. In the interpretation, a combination of variations of $T_{\rm C}$ with the unstable properties of the outbursts, including an unstable mass transfer rate between the components, shows the influence of several mechanisms on the state of the disc in various time segments.

Galaxy groups constitute the most common class of galaxy systems in the known Universe, unique in terms of environmental properties. However, despite recent advances in optical and infrared observations as well as in theoretical research, little is known about magnetic fields and the associated continuum radio emission. Studies on this issue have only been conducted in recent years, and many questions have yet to be resolved. This article aims to put the study of group magnetism in a broader context, to present recent advances in the field (mainly achieved with low-frequency radio interferometers), and to list the issues that need to be addressed in future observations. To make it easier for the Readers to get acquainted with the concepts presented in the manuscript, radio observations of two sample groups of galaxies are also presented.

The dynamics of isolated galaxy pairs represents an important tool to investigate the behavior of gravity in the low acceleration regime. Statistical analysis of a large sample of galaxy pairs led to the noticeable discovery of a region of preferred 3-dimensional velocities centered at $\sim 150$ km/s and $\sim 100$ km/s wide, a feature hard to justify in the context of numerical simulations of cosmological structure formation. It is shown here that such a feature is expected within the framework of the Modified Newtonian Dynamics, which, however, predicts it to be centered at $\sim$ 170 Km/s.

Current sheets (CSs) are preferred sites of magnetic reconnection and energy dissipation in turbulent collisionless astrophysical plasmas. In our prior theoretical studies of processes associated with the CS formation in turbulent plasmas, for which we utilized fully kinetic and hybrid code simulations with ions considered as particles and electrons - as a massless fluid, we found that (i) inside ion-scale CSs thin electron-scale CSs form, (ii) with the CS thinning the electron-to-ion bulk speed ratio $u_e/u_i$ increases, and (iii) the electrons become the main carriers of the electric currents and contributors to energy dissipation. The question arises: is it possible to find electron-dominated-CSs in natural plasmas, using the $u_e/u_i$ signature as a search criterion? We apply this parameter to the solar wind to locate electron CSs there at least approximately. Existing methods of identification of CSs in the solar wind focus on the search for ion-scale structures by considering changes in the magnetic field and plasma parameters. We now found that electron-dominated CSs observed during a period of quiet solar wind conditions at 1 AU can be identified by sharp variations of $u_e/u_i$ often localized in the vicinity of ion-scale CSs, showing the same clustering. We conclude that $u_e/u_i$ may be used as one of key parameters for probing CSs and the role of electrons in them.

In this work we performed a spectral energy distribution (SED) analysis in the optical/infrared band of the host galaxy of a proto-brightest bluster galaxy (BCG, NVSS J103023+052426) in a proto-cluster at z = 1.7. We found that it features a vigorous star formation rate (SFR) of ${\sim}$570 $\mathrm{M_{\odot}}$/yr and a stellar mass of $M_{\ast} \sim 3.7 \times 10^{11}$ $\mathrm{M_{\odot}}$; the high corresponding specific SFR = $1.5 \pm 0.5$ $\mathrm{Gyr^{-1}}$ classifies this object as a starburst galaxy that will deplete its molecular gas reservoir in $\sim$ $3.5 \times 10^8$ yr. Thus, this system represents a rare example of a proto-BCG caught during the short phase of its major stellar mass assembly. Moreover, we investigated the nature of the host galaxy emission at 3.3 mm. We found that it originates from the cold dust in the interstellar medium, even though a minor non-thermal AGN contribution cannot be completely ruled out. Finally, we studied the polarized emission of the lobes at 1.4 GHz. We unveiled a patchy structure where the polarization fraction increases in the regions in which the total intensity shows a bending morphology; in addition, the magnetic field orientation follows the direction of the bendings. We interpret these features as possible indications of an interaction with the intracluster medium. This strengthens the hypothesis of positive AGN feedback, as inferred in previous studies of this object on the basis of X-ray/mm/radio analysis. In this scenario, the proto-BCG heats the surrounding medium and possibly enhances the SFR in nearby galaxies.

Oscillating eclipsing Algols (oEAs) are remarkable systems which allow us to determine accurate fundamental stellar parameters (mass, radius) and probe the stellar interiors through pulsations. TZ\,Dra is an oEA system containing a $\delta$ Scuti component. To examine particular characteristics of such close systems including pulsations and mass transfer, we present a detailed photometric and spectroscopic study of TZ\,Dra. With the analysis of high-resolution spectra, the orbital parameters were determined by the radial velocity analysis and the atmospheric parameters were derived for the primary component. The binary modelling and the pulsational frequency analysis was carried out using the TESS data set. The H$\alpha$ line profiles show the signature of mass transfer from the cool to the hot binary component. The conclusion of mass transfer/mass loss in the system was supported by the analysis of the orbital period changes. As a result, it was found that there is $3.52 \times 10^{-9}$ $M_\odot$/year mass loss from the system most probably through the hotspot and stellar winds. Additionally, most pulsation frequencies originating from the primary component were found to be spaced by harmonics of the orbital frequencies in particular, twelve doublets spaced by $2f_{\rm orb}$ were detected from which we infer that this star a tidally tilted pulsator. A mean p-mode frequency spacing of $\approx 7.2 $d$^{-1}$ was found as well.

We study the halo mass function (HMF) in modified gravity (MG) models using a set of large $N$-body simulations -- the ELEPHANT suite. We consider two popular beyond-general relativity scenarios: the Hu-Sawicki chameleon $f(R)$ model and the normal branch of the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati braneworld (nDGP). We show that in MG, analytic formulation based on the Press-Schechter framework offers a grossly inaccurate description of the HMF. We find, however, that once the HMF is expressed in terms of the dimensionless multiplicity function, it approximately assumes a redshift-independent universal character for all the models. Exploiting this property, we propose universal fits for the MG HMF in terms of their fractional departures from the $\mathrm{\Lambda \text{CDM}}$ case. We find two enclosed formulas, one for $f(R)$ and another for nDGP, that provide a reliable description of the HMF over the mass range covered by the simulations. These are accurate to a few percent with respect to the $N$-body data. We test the extrapolation potential of our fits against separate simulations with a different cosmological background and mass resolution, and find very good accuracy, within $\sim 10\%$. A particularly interesting finding from our analysis is a Gaussian-like shape of the HMF deviation that seems to appear universally across the whole $f(R)$ family, peaking at a mass variance scale characteristic for each $f(R)$ variant. We attribute this behavior to the specific physics of the environmentally-dependent chameleon screening models.

Pulsating stars occupy a significant place in the H-R diagram and it was thought that all stars inside the classical instability strip should pulsate. However, recent studies showed that there are many non-pulsating stars placed inside the classical instability strip. The existence of these non-pulsating stars is still a mystery. To deeply understand the properties of these non-pulsating and pulsating stars, one needs precise fundamental stellar parameters (e.g mass). For this purpose, the eclipsing binaries are unique systems. Hence, in this study, we present the TESS data analysis of one candidate pulsating eclipsing binary system V948\,Her. TESS data were used for the binary modelling with the literature radial velocity measurements and the precise fundamental parameters of the system were obtained. The system's age was derived as 1$\pm$0.24 Gyr. The positions of the binary components in the H-R diagram were examined and the primary component was found inside the $\delta$\,Scuti instability strip. However, in the frequency analysis of TESS data, we found no significant pulsation frequencies. Only the harmonics of the orbital periods were obtained in the analysis. Therefore, the system was classified as a non-pulsator. V948\,Her is an important object to understand the nature of non-pulsating stars inside the $\delta$\,Scuti instability strip.

We present ALMA 870um and JCMT SCUBA2 850um dust continuum observations of a sample of optically dark and strongly lensed galaxies in the cluster fields. The ALMA and SCUBA2 observations reach a median rms of about 0.11 mJy and 0.44 mJy, respectively, with the latter close to the confusion limit of the data at 850um. This represents one of the most sensitive searches for dust emission in optically dark galaxies. We detect the dust emission in 12 out of 15 galaxies at >3.8 sigma, corresponding to a detection rate of 80 per cent. Thanks to the gravitational lensing, our observations reach a deeper limiting flux than previous surveys in blank fields by a factor of 3. We estimate delensed infrared luminosities in the range log(LIR)=11.5-12.7 Lsun, which correspond to dust-obscured star formation rates (SFRs) of 30 to 520 Msun per year. Stellar population fits to the optical-to-NIR photometric data yield a median redshift z=4.26 and de-lensed stellar mass log(Mstar)=10.78 Msun. They contribute a lensing-corrected star-formation rate density at least an order of magnitude higher than that of equivalently massive UV-selected galaxies at z>3. The results suggest that there is a missing population of massive star-forming galaxies in the early Universe, which may dominate the SFR density at the massive end. Five optically dark galaxies are located within r<50 arcsec in one cluster field, representing a potential overdensity structure that has a physical origin at a confidence level >99.974% from Poisson statistics. Follow-up spectroscopic observations with ALMA and JWST are crucial to confirm whether it is associated with a protocluster at similar redshifts.

Strong lensing of Fast Radio Bursts (FBRs) has been proposed as a relatively clean probe of primordial black hole (PBH) dark matter. Recently, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) published a first catalog of 536 FRBs, 62 of which are from repeating sources. In light of this new data, we re-examine the prospects to constrain the abundance of PBHs via FRBs. Extending previous forecasts, we calculate a PBH dark matter bound using the intrinsic burst width and a calibrated flux-ratio threshold per FRB. In addition, we take into account the uncertainty in the relation between the FRB dispersion measure and source redshift. We outline an algorithm to detect lensed FRBs and a method to simulate its performance on real data and set a flux-ratio threshold for each event, which we use to infer realistic forecasts. We then attempt to extract a preliminary bound using the publicly available CHIME data. Unfortunately, both instrumental noise and the provided ~1 ms time-resolution of the public data hinder this effort. We identify two candidate events where a double burst could be explained via strong lensing by a 10 solar-mass PBH, which will require follow-up study at higher time resolution to either confirm or discard. We show that with a few times the size of the first catalog -- sampled at the full instrumental time-resolution so that candidates can be efficiently scrutinized -- CHIME will be able to find strong evidence for or robustly rule out PBHs with mass above 10 solar masses as the dark matter. Finally, we demonstrate that stacking repeating FRBs can improve the constraints, especially for lower masses.

Apertif (APERture Tile In Focus) is one of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) pathfinder facilities. The Apertif project is an upgrade to the 50-year-old Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) using phased-array feed technology. The new receivers create 40 individual beams on the sky, achieving an instantaneous sky coverage of 6.5 square degrees. The primary goal of the Apertif Imaging Survey is to perform a wide survey of 3500 square degrees (AWES) and a medium deep survey of 350 square degrees (AMES) of neutral atomic hydrogen (up to a redshift of 0.26), radio continuum emission and polarisation. Each survey pointing yields 4.6 TB of correlated data. The goal of Apercal is to process this data and fully automatically generate science ready data products for the astronomical community while keeping up with the survey observations. We make use of common astronomical software packages in combination with Python based routines and parallelisation. We use an object oriented module-based approach to ensure easy adaptation of the pipeline. A Jupyter notebook based framework allows user interaction and execution of individual modules as well as a full automatic processing of a complete survey observation. If nothing interrupts processing, we are able to reduce a single pointing survey observation on our five node cluster with 24 physical cores and 256 GB of memory each within 24h keeping up with the speed of the surveys. The quality of the generated images is sufficient for scientific usage for 44 % of the recorded data products with single images reaching dynamic ranges of several thousands. Future improvements will increase this percentage to over 80 %. Our design allowed development of the pipeline in parallel to the commissioning of the Apertif system.

We use MHD simulations to detect the nonlinear effects of torsional Alfv\'en wave propagation in a potential magnetic field with exponentially divergent field lines, embedded in a stratified solar corona. In Paper I we considered solutions to the linearised governing equations torsional Alfv\'en wave propagation and showed, using a finite difference solver we developed named WiggleWave, that in certain scenarios wave damping is stronger than what would be predicted by our analytic solutions. In this paper we consider whether damping would be further enhanced by the presence of nonlinear effects. We begin by deriving the nonlinear governing equations for torsional Alfv\'en wave propagation and identifying the terms that cause coupling to magnetosonic perturbations. We then compare simulation outputs from an MHD solver called Lare3d, which solves the full set of nonlinear MHD equations, to the outputs from WiggleWave to detect nonlinear effects such as: the excitation of magnetosonic waves by the Alfv\'en wave, self-interaction of the Alfv\'en wave through coupling to the induced magnetosonic waves, and the formation of shock waves higher in the atmosphere caused by the steepening of these compressive perturbations. We suggest that the presence of these nonlinear effects in the solar corona would lead to Alfv\'en wave heating that exceeds the expectation from the phase mixing alone.

Transiting planets at young ages are key targets for improving our understanding of the evolution of exo-atmospheres. We present results of a new X-ray observation of V1298 Tau with XMM-Newton, aimed to determine more accurately the high-energy irradiation of the four planets orbiting this pre-main-sequence star, and the possible variability due to magnetic activity on short and long time scales. Following the first measurements of planetary masses in the V1298 Tau system, we revise early guesses of the current escape rates from the planetary atmospheres, employing our updated atmospheric evaporation models to predict the future evolution of the system. Contrary to previous expectations, we find that the two outer Jupiter-size planets will not be affected by any evaporation on Gyr time scales, and the same occurs for the two smaller inner planets, unless their true masses are lower than $\sim 40$ M$_\oplus$. These results confirm that relatively massive planets can reach their final position in the mass-radius diagram very early in their evolutionary history.

Bachetti et al. (2021) have recently claimed to measure the mass transfer rate in the pulsing ULX system M82 X-2 by following the change of its orbital period over 7 yr. We reiterate the known point that this method cannot give a reliable result (or even necessarily predict the correct sign of long-term period change) without a far longer baseline (here $\gg 1000$~yr) or for systems with a much higher long-term mass transfer rate ($\gg 10^{-4} \rm M_{\odot}/{\rm yr}$), if they exist. Applying the method of Bachetti et al. (2021) to measured orbital period derivatives predicts that the well-studied quiescent X-ray transients XTEJ1118+480, A0620-00 should currently instead have steady accretion discs and be bright X-ray sources, while Nova Muscae 1991 should be still brighter (a ULX). But all three sources are observed to be extremely faint. We conclude that there is no evidence to support the high mass transfer rate that Bachetti et al. (2021) find for M82 X-2 as it is deduced from period noise not related to the binary evolution.

We report the first evidence of an on-going collision between two star clusters in our Galaxy, namely IC 4665 and Collinder 350. These are open clusters located at a distance of ~330 pc from the Sun and ~100 pc above the Galactic plane, and they both have prograde motions with only a small difference in their velocities (Collinder 350 moves ~5 km/s faster than IC 4665); as inferred from ESA/Gaia based catalogue. Interestingly, the two clusters are physically separated by only 36 pc in space; a distance that is smaller than the sum of their respective radii. Furthermore, the clusters exhibit signatures of elongated stellar density distributions, and we also detect an onset of an inter-cluster stellar bridge. Moreover, the orbit analysis suggests that the younger cluster IC 4665 (age=53 Myr) must have formed at a distance > 500 pc away from Collinder 350 (age=617 Myr). These findings together imply that the two clusters do not represent merging of two objects in a binary system, rather, what we are witnessing is an actual collision between two independently formed star clusters. This collision phenomenon provides a unique opportunity to explore new aspects of formation and evolution theory of star clusters.

In this work, we study the information content learned by a convolutional neural network (CNN) when trained to carry out the inverse mapping between a database of synthetic Ca II intensity spectra and the vertical stratification of the temperature of the atmospheres used to generate such spectra. In particular, we evaluate the ability of the neural network to extract information about the sensitivity of the spectral line to temperature as a function of height. By training the CNN on sufficiently narrow wavelength intervals across the Ca II spectral profiles, we find that the error in the temperature prediction shows an inverse relationship to the response function of the spectral line to temperature, this is, different regions of the spectrum yield a better temperature prediction at their expected regions of formation. This work shows that the function that the CNN learns during the training process contains a physically-meaningful mapping between wavelength and atmospheric height.

We developed a convolutional neural network (CNN) model to distinguish the double-lined spectroscopic binaries (SB2s) from others based on single exposure medium-resolution spectra ($R\sim 7,500$). The training set consists of a large set of mock spectra of single stars and binaries synthesized based on the MIST stellar evolutionary model and ATLAS9 atmospheric model. Our model reaches a novel theoretic false positive rate by adding a proper penalty on the negative sample (e.g., 0.12\% and 0.16\% for the blue/red arm when the penalty parameter $\Lambda=16$). Tests show that the performance is as expected and favors FGK-type Main-sequence binaries with high mass ratio ($q \geq 0.7$) and large radial velocity separation ($\Delta v \geq 50\,\mathrm{km\,s^{-1}}$). Although the real false positive rate can not be estimated reliably, validating on eclipsing binaries identified from Kepler light curves indicates that our model predicts low binary probabilities at eclipsing phases (0, 0.5, and 1.0) as expected. The color-magnitude diagram also helps illustrate its feasibility and capability of identifying FGK MS binaries from spectra. We conclude that this model is reasonably reliable and can provide an automatic approach to identify SB2s with period $\lesssim 10$ days. This work yields a catalog of binary probabilities for over 5 million spectra of 1 million sources from the LAMOST medium-resolution survey (MRS), and a catalog of 2198 SB2 candidates whose physical properties will be analyzed in our following-up paper. Data products are made publicly available at the journal as well as our Github website.

In many astrophysical environments, self-gravity can generate kinetic energy, which, in principle, is available for driving dynamo action. Using direct numerical simulations, we show that in unstirred self-gravitating subsonic turbulence with helicity and a magnetic Prandtl number of unity, there is a critical magnetic Reynolds number of about 25 above which the work done against the Lorentz force exceeds the Ohmic dissipation. We find that one third of the work done by the gravitational force goes into compressional heating and the remaining two thirds go first into kinetic energy of the turbulence before a fraction of it is converted further into magnetic and finally thermal energies. The evolution of the magnetic field follows closely that of the vorticity. When the magnetic field is strong, however, the fraction of compressional heating is still one third, but of the remaining two thirds, one quarter can go directly into magnetic energy via work against the Lorentz force. The fraction of vortical motions diminishes in favor of compressive motions that are almost exclusively driven by the Jeans instability. Even for a strong magnetic fields, no inverse cascade is being driven by the kinetic helicity. However, for uniform initial magnetic field, fields at scales larger than those of the initial turbulence are driven by tangling.

Here we present 1701 light curves of spectroscopically confirmed Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) that will be used to infer cosmological parameters as part of the Pantheon+ SN analysis and the SH0ES (Supernovae and H0 for the Equation of State of dark energy) distance-ladder analysis. This effort is one part of a series of works that perform an extensive review of redshifts, peculiar velocities, photometric calibration, and intrinsic-scatter models of SNe Ia. The total number of light curves, which are compiled across 18 different surveys, is a significant increase from the first Pantheon analysis (1048 SNe), particularly at low redshift ($z$). Furthermore, unlike in the Pantheon analysis, we include light curves for SNe with $z<0.01$ such that SN systematic covariance can be included in a joint measurement of the Hubble constant (H$_0$) and the dark energy equation-of-state parameter ($w$). We use the large sample to compare properties of 170 SNe Ia observed by multiple surveys and 12 pairs/triplets of "SN siblings" - SNe found in the same host galaxy. Distance measurements, application of bias corrections, and inference of cosmological parameters are discussed in the companion paper by Brout et al. (2022b), and the determination of H$_0$ is discussed by Riess et al. (2022). These analyses will measure w with $\sim3\%$ precision and H$_0$ with 1 km/s/Mpc precision.

We present here a re-calibration of the photometric systems used in the Pantheon+ sample of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) including those used for the SH0ES distance-ladder measurement of H$_0$. We utilize the large and uniform sky coverage of the public Pan-STARRS stellar photometry catalog to cross-calibrate against tertiary standards released by individual SN Ia surveys. The most significant updates over the `SuperCal' cross-calibration used for the previous Pantheon and SH0ES analyses are: 1) expansion of the number of photometric systems (now 25) and filters (now 105), 2) solving for all filter offsets in all systems simultaneously in order to produce a calibration uncertainty covariance matrix that can be used in cosmological-model constraints, and 3) accounting for the change in the fundamental flux calibration of the HST CALSPEC standards from previous versions on the order of $1.5\%$ over a $\Delta \lambda$ of 4000~\AA. The re-calibration of samples used for light-curve fitting has historically been decoupled from the retraining of the light-curve model. Here, we are able to retrain the SALT2 model using this new calibration and find the change in the model coupled with the change to the calibration of the light-curves themselves causes a net distance modulus change ($d\mu/dz$) of 0.04 mag over the redshift range $0<z<1$. We introduce a new formalism to determine the systematic impact on cosmological inference by propagating the covariance in fitted calibration offsets through retraining simultaneously with light-curve fitting and find a total calibration uncertainty impact of $\sigma_w=0.013$, which is roughly half the size of the sample statistical uncertainty. Similarly, we find a systematic SN calibration contribution to the SH0ES H$_0$ uncertainty is less than 0.2~km/s/Mpc, suggesting that SN Ia calibration cannot resolve the current level of the `Hubble Tension'.

Now Standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmology is based on physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM), which in turn needs cosmological probes for its study. This vicious circle of problems can be resolved by methods of cosmoparticle physics, in which cosmological messengers of new physics provide sensitive model dependent probes for BSM physics. Such messengers, which are inevitably present in any BSM basis for now Standard cosmology, lead to deviations from the Standard cosmological paradigm. We give brief review of some possible cosmological features and messengers of BSM physics, which include balancing of baryon asymmetry and dark matter by sphaleron transitions, hadronic dark matter and exotic cosmic ray components, a solution for puzzles of direct dark matter searches in dark atom model, antimatter in baryon asymmetrical Universe as sensitive probe for models of inflation and baryosynthesis and its possible probe in AMS02 experiment, PBH and GW messengers of BSM models and phase transitions in early Universe. These aspects are discussed in the general framework of methods of cosmoparticle physics.

We show that the evolution of interacting massive particles in the de Sitter bulk can be understood at leading order as a series of resonant decay and production events. From this perspective, we classify the cosmological collider signals into local and nonlocal categories with drastically different physical origins. This further allows us to derive a cutting rule for efficiently extracting these cosmological collider signals in an analytical fashion. Our cutting rule is a practical way for extracting cosmological collider signals in model building, and can be readily implemented as symbolic computational packages in the future.

A detailed study of the structural properties of neutron star (NS) is performed within the coherent density fluctuation model using the recently developed G3 and widely used NL3 and IU-FSU parameter sets in the relativistic mean-field formalism. The masses, moment of inertia, and density profiles of the NS at various mass limits are studied. The incompressibility $K^{star}$, symmetry energy $S^{star}$, slope parameter $L_{sym}^{star}$ and curvature coefficient $K_{sym}^{star}$ of the NS at various masses are analyzed. The surface properties ($K^{star}$, $S^{star}$, $L_{sym}^{star}$ and $K_{sym}^{star}$) are found to be model dependent, NL3 is the stiffest equation of state gives the higher magnitude of surface quantities as compared to the G3 and IU-FSU forces.

We derive a first exact law for compressible pressure-anisotropic magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. For a gyrotropic pressure tensor, we study the double-adiabatic case and show the presence of new flux and source terms in the exact law, reminiscent of the firehose and mirror instabilities. The Hall term is shown to bring ion-scale corrections to the exact law without affecting explicitly the pressure terms. In the pressure isotropy limit we recover all known results obtained for isothermal and polytropic closures. The incompressible limit of the gyrotropic system leads to a generalization of the Politano and Pouquet's law where a new incompressible source term is revealed and reflects exchanges of the magnetic and kinetic energies with the no-longer-conserved internal energy. We highlight the possibilities offered by the new laws to investigate potential links between turbulence cascade and instabilities widely observed in laboratory and astrophysical plasmas.

We study three aspects of the early-evolutionary phases in low-mass stars within Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld (EiBI) gravity, a viable extension of General Relativity. These aspects are concerned with the Hayashi tracks (i.e. the effective temperature-luminosity relation); the minimum mass required to belong to the main sequence; and the maximum mass allowed for a fully convective star within the main sequence. In all cases we find a dependence of these quantities not only on the theory's parameter, but also on the star's central density, a feature previously found in Palatini $f(R)$ gravity. Using this, we investigate the evolution of these quantities with the (sign of the) EiBI parameter, finding a shift in the Hayashi tracks in opposite directions in the positive/negative branches of it, and an increase (decrease) for positive (negative) parameter in the two masses above. We use these results to ellaborate on the chances to seek for traces of new physics in low-mass stars within this theory.

Modern cosmology successfully deals with the origin and the evolution of the Universe at large scales, but it is unable to completely answer the question about the nature of the fundamental objects that it is describing. As a matter of fact, about 95\% of the constituents of the Universe is indeed completely unknown: it cannot be described in terms of known particles. Despite intense efforts to shed light on this literal darkness by dark matter and dark energy direct and indirect searches, not much progress has been made so far. In this work, we take a different perspective by reviewing and elaborating an old idea of studying the mass-radius distribution of structures in the Universe in relationship with the fundamental forces acting on them. As we will describe in detail, the distribution of the observed structures in the Universe is not completely random, but it reflects the intimate features of the involved particles and the nature of the fundamental interactions at play. The observed structures cluster in restricted regions of the mass-radius diagram linked to known particles, with the remarkable exception of very large structures that seem to be linked to an unknown particle in the sub-eV mass range. We conjecture that this new particle is a self-interacting dark matter candidate.

The continuous improvement of current gravitational wave detectors (GWDs) and the preparations for next generation GWDs place high demands on their stabilized laser sources. Some of the laser souces need to operate at laser wavelengths between 1.5um and 2.2um to support future detectors, based on cooled silicon test masses for thermal noise reduction. We present a detailed characterizations of different commercial low power seed laser sources and power amplifiers at the wavelength of 1550nm with regard to performance parameters needed in GWDs. A combination with the most complete set of actuators was arranged as a master-oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) and integrated into a stabilization environment. We demonstrate the operation of a pre-stabilized laser system (PSL) and characterize its performance. We present the results of this characterization that make this PSL to a highly relevant prototype for future GWDs as well as a low noise light source for other experiments in high precision metrology.

Screening mechanisms are often deployed by dark energy models in order to conceal the effects of their new degrees of freedom from the scrutiny of terrestrial and solar system experiments. However, extreme properties of nuclear matter may lead to a partial failure of screening mechanisms inside the most massive neutron stars observed in Nature, opening up the possibility of probing these theories with neutron star observations. In this work we explore equilibrium and stability properties of neutron stars in two variants of the symmetron model. We show that around sufficiently compact neutron stars, the symmetron is amplified with respect to its background, cosmological value by several orders of magnitude, and that properties of such unscreened stars are sensitive to corrections to the leading linear coupling between the symmetron and matter.

In the present paper we derive strong constrains on scalarization in scalar-Gauss-Bonnet (sGB) gravity using observations of pulsars in close binary systems. Since scalarized neutron stars carry a nonzero scalar change, they emit scalar dipole radiation while inspiraling which speeds up the orbital decay. The observations support the conjecture that such radiation is either absent or very small for the observed binary pulsars. Using this, we determine the allowed range of parameters for sGB gravity. We also transfer the derived constraints to black holes in sGB gravity. It turns out that the maximum mass of a scalarized black hole can not exceed roughly five to ten solar masses, depending on the initial assumptions we make for the nuclear matter equations of state. The black hole scalar charge on the other hand can reach relatively large values that are potentially observable.