Papers for Monday, May 30 2022

We investigate the effects of a massive ($\gtrsim4\times10^{10}M_\odot$) Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy (Sgr) on stellar streams using test particle simulations in a realistic Milky Way potential. We find that Sgr can easily disrupt streams formed more than $\sim3$ Gyr ago, while stars stripped more recently are generally unaffected. In certain realizations, Sgr is able to produce asymmetry between the leading and trailing tails of Pal 5, qualitatively similar to observations. Using data from the Gaia space telescope and elsewhere, we fit models to the GD-1 stream in the presence of a Sgr with various initial masses. While the best-fitting models do show perturbations resulting from interactions with Sgr, we find that the level of disruption is not significantly greater than in the observed stream. To investigate the general effects of Sgr on a population of streams, we generate 1000 mock streams on GD-1-like orbits with randomized orientations. Some streams show clear evidence of disruption, becoming folded on the sky or developing asymmetry betweeen their two tails. However, many survive unaffected and the peak surface brightness of stars is decreased by no more than $\sim0.3$ mag/arcsec$^2$ on average. We conclude that Sgr having an initial mass of $\gtrsim4\times10^{10}M_\odot$ is compatible with the survival and detection of streams formed more than 3 Gyr ago.

Axion-like particles (ALPs) decaying into photons are known to affect a wide range of astrophysical and cosmological observables. In this study we focus on ALPs with masses in the keV-MeV range and lifetimes between $10^4$ and $10^{13}$ seconds, corresponding to decays between the end of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and the formation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Using the CosmoBit module of the global fitting framework GAMBIT, we combine state-of-the-art calculations of the irreducible ALP freeze-in abundance, primordial element abundances (including photodisintegration through ALP decays), CMB spectral distortions and anisotropies, and constraints from supernovae and stellar cooling. This approach makes it possible for the first time to perform a global analysis of the ALP parameter space while varying the parameters of $\Lambda$CDM as well as several nuisance parameters. We find a lower bound on the ALP mass of around $m_a > 300\,\text{keV}$, which can only be evaded if ALPs are stable on cosmological timescales. Future observations of CMB spectral distortions with a PIXIE-like mission are expected to improve this bound by two orders of magnitude.

We computed the luminosity of simulated galaxies of the C-EAGLE project, a suite of 30 high-resolution zoom-in simulations of galaxy clusters based on the EAGLE simulation. The AB magnitudes are derived for different spectral bands, from ultraviolet to infrared, using the simple stellar population modeling based on the E-MILES stellar spectra library. We take into account obscuration due to dust in star forming regions and diffuse interstellar medium. The $g-r$ colour-stellar mass diagram, at z=0.1, presents a defined red sequence, reaching $g-r \simeq 0.8$, 0.05 dex redder than EAGLE at high masses, and a well populated blue cloud, when field galaxies are included. The clusters' inner regions are dominated by red-sequence galaxies at all masses, although a non-negligible amount of blue galaxies are still present. We adopt Bayesian inference to compute the clusters LFs, testing for statistical significance of both single and double Schechter functions. The multicolour LFs at z=0 show a knee luminosity that peaks in the infrared and increases with the cluster's mass. The faint-end is weakly dependent on colour and mass and shows an upturn in the optical, bounded between -1.25 and -1.39, just moderately steeper than the field. The simulations reproduce, within the observational errors, the spectroscopic LFs of the Hercules and Abell 85 clusters, including their faint end upturn. C-EAGLE LFs are in broad agreement with observed LFs taken from SDSS and XXL surveys, up to z=0.67, showing a rather flat faint end when the observational constrains are taken into account.

The images of Sagittarius A$^*$ recently released by the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration have been accompanied [Ap.J.Lett.\,{\bf 930\,\#2}\,(2022)\,L17] by an analysis of the constraints on the possible absence of a trapping horizon, i.e.~on the possibility that the object at the center of our galaxy is an ultra-compact object with a surface re-emitting incident radiation. Indeed, using the observed image size and the broadband spectrum of Sgr A$^*$, it is claimed that the radius of any such thermal surface is strongly bounded from above by these latest observations. Herein, we discuss how the reported constraint relies on the extremely strong assumption of perfect balance in the energy exchange between the accretion disk and the central object, and show that this is violated whenever the surface is endowed with any non-zero absorption coefficient. We discuss in detail the upper-bound constraints that can be cast on the radius and dimensionless absorption coefficient of the surface. We show that the conclusions of the analysis presented by the EHT collaboration hold only for unnaturally small values of the absorption coefficient (i.e. much lower than $10^{-14}$), and thus have to be significantly revised in scenarios with physical significance.

We explore the radial distribution of satellite galaxies in groups in the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey and the IllustrisTNG simulations. Considering groups with masses $12.0 \leq \log_{10} (\mathcal{M}_h / h^{-1} \mathrm{M}_{\odot}) < 14.8$ at $z<0.267$, we find a good agreement between GAMA and a sample of TNG300 groups and galaxies designed to match the GAMA selection. Both display a flat profile in the centre of groups, followed by a decline that becomes steeper towards the group edge, and normalised profiles show no dependence on group mass. Using matched satellites from TNG and dark matter-only TNG-Dark runs we investigate the effect of baryons on satellite radial location. At $z=0$, we find that the matched subhaloes from the TNG-Dark runs display a much flatter radial profile: namely, satellites selected above a minimum stellar mass exhibit both smaller halo-centric distances and longer survival times in the full-physics simulations compared to their dark-matter only analogues. We then divide the TNG satellites into those which possess TNG-Dark counterparts and those which do not, and develop models for the radial positions of each. We find the satellites with TNG-Dark counterparts are displaced towards the halo centre in the full-physics simulations, and this difference has a power-law behaviour with radius. For the `orphan' galaxies without TNG-Dark counterparts, we consider the shape of their radial distribution and provide a model for their motion over time, which can be used to improve the treatment of satellite galaxies in semi-analytic and semi-empirical models of galaxy formation.

Cosmic voids constitute promising cosmological laboratories. However, a full description of all the redshift-space effects that affect observational measurements is mandatory in order to obtain unbiased cosmological constraints. We make a description in a nutshell of these effects and lay the theoretical foundations for designing reliable cosmological tests based on the void size function and the void-galaxy cross-correlation function. We show that modern spectroscopic surveys offer a high signal-to-noise ratio to detect and study them.

The 840 kyr old pulsar PSR J1957+5033, detected so far only in $\gamma$- and X-rays, is a nearby and rather cool neutron star with a temperature of 0.2--0.3 MK, a distance of $\la$1 kpc, and a small colour reddening excess $E(B-V) \approx 0.03$. These properties make it an ideal candidate to detect in the optical to get additional constraints on its parameters. We thus performed the first deep optical observations of the pulsar with the 10.4-meter Gran Telescopio Canarias in the $g'$ band and found its possible counterpart with $g'=27.63\pm 0.26$. The counterpart candidate position is consistent with the X-ray coordinates of the pulsar within the 0.5 arcsec accuracy. Assuming that this is the real counterpart, we analysed the pulsar X-ray spectrum together with the derived optical flux density. As a result, we found that the thermal emission from the bulk surface of the cooling neutron star can significantly contribute to its optical flux. Our multi-wavelength spectral analysis favours the pulsar nature of the detected optical source, since it provides physically adequate parameters of the pulsar emission. We show that the optical data can provide new constraints on the pulsar temperature and distance.

The nearby dwarf spiral galaxy NGC 4395 contains a broad-lined active galactic nucleus (AGN) of exceptionally low luminosity powered by accretion onto a central black hole of very low mass ($\sim10^4-10^5$ M$_\odot$). In order to constrain the size of the optical continuum emission region through reverberation mapping, we carried out high-cadence photometric monitoring of NGC 4395 in the $griz$ filter bands on two consecutive nights in 2022 April using the four-channel MuSCAT3 camera on the Faulkes Telescope North at Haleakal\={a} Observatory. Correlated variability across the $griz$ bands is clearly detected, and the $r$, $i$, and $z$ band light curves show lags of $8.4^{+1.0}_{-1.1}$, $14.2^{+1.2}_{-1.4}$, and $20.4^{+2.0}_{-2.1}$ minutes with respect to the $g$ band when measured using the full-duration light curves. When lags are measured for each night separately, the Night 2 data exhibit lower cross-correlation amplitudes and shorter lags than the Night 1 light curves. Using the full-duration lags, we find that the lag-wavelength relationship is consistent with the $\tau\propto\lambda^{4/3}$ dependence found for more luminous AGN. Combining our results with continuum lags measured for other objects, the lag between $g$ and $z$ band scales with optical continuum luminosity as $\tau_{gz} \propto L^{0.56\pm0.05}$, similar to the scaling of broad-line region size with luminosity, reinforcing recent evidence that diffuse continuum emission from the broad-line region may contribute substantially to optical continuum variability and reverberation lags.

We present an optimisation method for the assignment of photometric galaxies into a chosen set of redshift bins. This is achieved by combining simulated annealing, an optimisation algorithm inspired by solid-state physics, with an unsupervised machine learning method, a self-organising map (SOM) of the observed colours of galaxies. Starting with a sample of galaxies that is divided into redshift bins based on a photometric redshift point estimate, the simulated annealing algorithm repeatedly reassigns SOM-selected subsamples of galaxies, which are close in colour, to alternative redshift bins. We optimise the clustering cross-correlation signal between photometric galaxies and a reference sample of galaxies with well-calibrated redshifts. Depending on the effect on the clustering signal, the reassignment is either accepted or rejected. By dynamically increasing the resolution of the SOM, the algorithm eventually converges to a solution that minimises the number of mismatched galaxies in each tomographic redshift bin and thus improves the compactness of their corresponding redshift distribution. This method is demonstrated on the synthetic LSST cosmoDC2 catalogue. We find a significant decrease in the fraction of catastrophic outliers in the redshift distribution in all tomographic bins, most notably in the highest redshift bin with a decrease in the outlier fraction from 57 per cent to 16 per cent.

Decaying dark matter models provide a physically motivated way of channeling energy between the matter and radiation sectors. In principle, this could affect the predicted value of the Hubble constant in such a way as to accommodate the discrepancies between CMB inferences and local measurements of the same. Here, we revisit the model of warm dark matter decaying non-relativistically to invisible radiation. In particular, we rederive the background and perturbation equations starting from a decaying neutrino model and describe a new, computationally efficient method of computing the decay product perturbations up to large multipoles. We conduct MCMC analyses to constrain all three model parameters, for the first time including the mass of the decaying species, and assess the ability of the model to alleviate the Hubble and $\sigma_8$ tensions, the latter being the discrepancy between the CMB and weak gravitational lensing constraints on the amplitude of matter fluctuations on an $8 h^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ scale. We find that the model reduces the $H_0$ tension from $\sim 4 \sigma$ to $\sim 3 \sigma$ and neither alleviates nor worsens the $S_8 \equiv \sigma_8 (\Omega_m/0.3)^{0.5}$ tension, ultimately showing only mild improvements with respect to $\Lambda$CDM. However, the values of the model-specific parameters favoured by data is found to be well within the regime of relativistic decays where inverse processes are important, rendering a conclusive evaluation of the decaying warm dark matter model open to future work.

In the era of time-domain, multi-messenger astronomy, the detection of transient events on the high-energy electromagnetic sky has become more important than ever. Previous attempts to systematically search for onboard-untriggered events in the data of Fermi-GBM have been limited to short-duration signals with variability time scales smaller than ~1 min due to the dominance of background variations on longer timescales. In this study, we aim at the detection of slowly rising or long-duration transient events with high sensitivity and full coverage of the GBM spectrum. We make use of our earlier developed physical background model, propose a novel trigger algorithm with a fully automatic data analysis pipeline. The results from extensive simulations demonstrate that the developed trigger algorithm is sensitive down to sub-Crab intensities, and has a near-optimal detection performance. During a two month test run on real Fermi-GBM data, the pipeline detected more than 300 untriggered transient signals. For one of these transient detections we verify that it originated from a known astrophysical source, namely the Vela X-1 pulsar, showing pulsed emission for more than seven hours. More generally, this method enables a systematic search for weak and/or long-duration transients.

Images collected with ground-based telescopes suffer blurring and distortions from turbulence in Earth's atmosphere. Adaptive optics (AO) can only partially compensate for these effects. Neither multi-frame blind deconvolution (MFBD) nor speckle techniques restore AO compensated images to the correct power spectrum and contrast. MFBD can only compensate for a finite number of low-order aberrations, leaving a tail of uncorrected high-order modes. Speckle restoration of AO-corrected data depends on calibrations of the AO corrections and assumptions regarding the height distribution of atmospheric turbulence. We seek to develop an improvement to MFBD that combines speckle's usage of turbulence statistics to account for high-order modes with the ability of MFBD to sense low-order modes that can be partially corrected by AO and/or include fixed or slowly changing instrumental aberrations. We modify the image formation model, supplementing the fitted low-order wavefront aberrations with tails of random high-order aberrations that follow Kolmogorov statistics, scaled to estimated or measured values of Fried's parameter, r0, that characterize the strength of the seeing at the moment of data collection. We refer to this as statistical diversity (SD). We test MFBD with SD with noise-free synthetic data, simulating many different r0 and numbers of AO-corrected modes. SD improves the contrasts and power spectra of restored images, both in accuracy and in consistency with varying r0, without penalty in processing time. With focus diversity (FD), the results are almost perfect. SD also reduces errors in the fitted wavefront parameters. MFBD with SD and FD seems robust with respect to several percents of error in r0. Adding SD to MFBD shows great promise for improving contrasts and power spectra in restored images. Further studies with real data are motivated.

We present a method to identify type-1 active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the central 3 arcsec integrated spectra of galaxies in the MaNGA DR15 sample. It is based on flux ratios estimates in spectral bands flanking the expected H$\alpha$ broad component H$\alpha_{BC}$. The high signal-to-noise ratio obtained (mean S/N = 84) permits the identification of H$\alpha_{BC}$ without prior subtraction of the host galaxy (HG) stellar component. A final sample of 47 type-1 AGN is reported out of 4700 galaxies at $z$ < 0.15. The results were compared with those from other methods based on the SDSS DR7 and MaNGA data. Detection of type-1 AGN in those works compared to our method goes from 26% to 81%. Spectral indexes were used to classify the type-1 AGN spectra according to different levels of AGN-HG contribution, finding 9 AGN-dominated, 14 intermediate, and 24 HG-dominated objects. Complementary data in NIR-MIR allowed us to identify type I AGN-dominated objects as blue and HG-dominated as red in the WISE colors. From NVSS and FIRST radio continuum data, we identify 5 HERGs (high-excitation radio galaxies) and 4 LERGs (low-excitation radio galaxies), three showing evidence of radio-jets in the FIRST maps. Additional X-ray data from ROSAT allowed us to build [OIII] and H$\alpha_{BC}$ versus X-ray, NIR-MIR, and radio continuum diagrams, showing that L(H$\alpha_{BC}$) and L([OIII]) provide good correlations. The range in H$\alpha_{BC}$ luminosity is wide 38 < logL(H$\alpha_{BC}$) < 44, with log FWHM(H$\alpha_{BC}$)$\sim$ 3-4, covering a range of Eddington ratios of -5.15 < log L$_{bol}$/L$_{edd}$ < 0.70. Finally, we also identify and report ten possible changing-look AGN candidates.

Powerful outflows are thought to play a critical role in galaxy evolution and black hole growth. We present the first large-scale systematic study of ionised outflows in paired galaxies and post-mergers compared to a robust control sample of isolated galaxies. We isolate the impact of the merger environment to determine if outflow properties depend on merger stage. Our sample contains $\sim$4,000 paired galaxies and $\sim$250 post-mergers in the local universe ($0.02 \leq z \leq 0.2$) from the SDSS DR 7 matched in stellar mass, redshift, local density of galaxies, and [OIII] $\lambda$5007 luminosity to a control sample of isolated galaxies. By fitting the [OIII] $\lambda$5007 line, we find ionised outflows in $\sim$15 per cent of our entire sample. Outflows are much rarer in star-forming galaxies compared to AGN, and outflow incidence and velocity increase with [OIII] $\lambda$5007 luminosity. Outflow incidence is significantly elevated in the optical+mid-infrared selected AGN compared to purely optical AGN; over 60 per cent show outflows at the highest luminosities ($L_{\mathrm{[OIII] \lambda5007}}$ $\gtrsim$ 10$^{42}$ erg s$^{-1}$), suggesting mid-infrared AGN selection favours galaxies with powerful outflows, at least for higher [OIII] $\lambda$5007 luminosities. However, we find no statistically significant difference in outflow incidence, velocity, and luminosity in mergers compared to isolated galaxies, and there is no dependence on merger stage. Therefore, while interactions are predicted to drive gas inflows and subsequently trigger nuclear star formation and accretion activity, when the power source of the outflow is controlled for, the merging environment has no further impact on the large-scale ionised outflows as traced by [OIII] $\lambda5007$.

Recent theoretical and numerical studies of Type Ia supernova explosion within the single-degenerate scenario suggest that the non-degenerate companions could survive during the supernova impact and could be detectable in nearby supernova remnants. However, observational efforts show less promising evidence on the existence of surviving companions from the standard single-degenerate channels. The spin-up/spin-down models are possible mechanisms to explain the non-detection of surviving companions. In these models, the spin-up phase could increase the critical mass for explosion, leading to a super-Chandrasekhar mass explosion, and the spin-down phase could lead to extra mass loss and angular momentum redistribution. Since the spin-down timescale for the delayed explosion of a rotating white dwarf is unclear, in this paper, we explore a vast parameter space of main-sequence-like surviving companions via two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of supernova impact and the subsequent stellar evolution of surviving companions. Tight universal relations to describe the mass stripping effect, supernova kick, and depth of supernova heating are provided. Our results suggest that the not-yet detected surviving companions from observations of nearby Type Ia supernova remnants might favor low mass companions, short binary separation, or stronger supernova explosion energies than the standard singe-degenerate channels.

In this paper, leveraging the capabilities of neural networks for modeling the non-linearities that exist in the data, we propose several models that can project data into a low dimensional, discriminative, and smooth manifold. The proposed models can transfer knowledge from the domain of known classes to a new domain where the classes are unknown. A clustering algorithm is further applied in the new domain to find potentially new classes from the pool of unlabeled data. The research problem and data for this paper originated from the Gravity Spy project which is a side project of Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). The LIGO project aims at detecting cosmic gravitational waves using huge detectors. However non-cosmic, non-Gaussian disturbances known as "glitches", show up in gravitational-wave data of LIGO. This is undesirable as it creates problems for the gravitational wave detection process. Gravity Spy aids in glitch identification with the purpose of understanding their origin. Since new types of glitches appear over time, one of the objective of Gravity Spy is to create new glitch classes. Towards this task, we offer a methodology in this paper to accomplish this.

We report new HI observations of the Type Ia supernova remnant SN 1006 using the Australia Telescope Compact Array with an angular resolution of $4.5' \times 1.4'$ ($\sim$2 pc at the assumed SNR distance of 2.2 kpc). We find an expanding gas motion in position-velocity diagrams of HI with an expansion velocity of $\sim$4 km s$^{-1}$ and a mass of $\sim$1000 $M_\odot$. The spatial extent of the expanding shell is roughly the same as that of SN 1006. We here propose a hypothesis that SN 1006 exploded inside the wind-blown bubble formed by accretion winds from the progenitor system consisting of a white dwarf and a companion star, and then the forward shock has already reached the wind wall. This scenario is consistent with the single-degenerate model. We also derived the total energy of cosmic-ray protons $W_\mathrm{p}$ to be only $\sim$1.2-$2.0 \times 10^{47}$ erg by adopting the averaged interstellar proton density of $\sim$25 cm$^{-3}$. The small value is compatible with the relation between the age and $W_\mathrm{p}$ of other gamma-ray supernova remnants with ages below $\sim$6 kyr. The $W_\mathrm{p}$ value in SN 1006 will possibly increase up to several 10$^{49}$ erg in the next $\sim$5 kyr via the cosmic-ray diffusion into the HI wind-shell.

Over the past decade, the number of known wide binary systems has exponentially expanded thanks to the release of data from the Gaia Mission. Some of these wide binary systems are actually higher-order multiples, where one of the components is an unresolved binary itself. One way to search for these systems is by identifying overluminous components in the systems. In this study, we examine 4947 K+K wide binary pairs from the SUPERWIDE catalog and quantify the relative color and luminosity of the components to find evidence for additional, unresolved companions. The method is best illustrated in a graph we call the "Lobster diagram." To confirm that the identified overluminous components are close binary systems, we cross-match our wide binaries with the TESS, K2 and Kepler archives and search for the signs of eclipses and fast stellar rotation modulation in the light curves. We find that $78.9\%\pm20.7\%$ of the wide binaries which contain an eclipsing system are identified to be overluminous in the "Lobster Diagram" and $73.5\%\pm12.4\%$ of the wide binaries which contain a component showing fast rotation ($P<5$) days also show an overluminous component. From these results, we calculate a revised lower limit on the higher-order multiplicity fraction for K+K wide binaries of $40.0\%\pm1.6\%$. We also examine the higher-order multiplicity fraction as a function of projected physical separation and metallicity. The fraction is unusually constant as a function of projected physical separation while we see no statistically significant evidence that the fraction varies with metallicity.

Observations of long-term north-south asymmetry in solar activity demand the equator-symmetric (quadrupolar) mode be present in the solar magnetic field in line with the dominant antisymmetric (dipolar) mode. This paper proposes treating the sunspot area as a proxy for subsurface toroidal magnetic flux to infer the quadrupolar mode of the solar dynamo from sunspot data. Toroidal pseudo-fluxes (PF) in the northern and southern hemispheres are defined as a signed sunspot area with plus or minus sign prescribed to them in accord with the Hale's sunspot polarity rules. Statistical correlation analysis and wavelet analysis of so-defined PFs reveal quadrupolar oscillations with a period of about 16 yr and amplitude of about 0.17 relative to the amplitude of the dominant 22-yr dipolar mode.

Understanding the collisional behavior of dust aggregates consisting of submicron-sized grains is essential to unveiling how planetesimals formed in protoplanetary disks. It is known that the collisional behavior of individual dust particles strongly depends on the strength of viscous dissipation force; however, impacts of viscous dissipation on the collisional behavior of dust aggregates have not been studied in detail, especially for the cases of oblique collisions. Here we investigated the impacts of viscous dissipation on the collisional behavior of dust aggregates. We performed numerical simulations of collisions between two equal-mass dust aggregates with various collision velocities and impact parameters. We also changed the strength of viscous dissipation force systematically. We found that the threshold collision velocity for the fragmentation of dust aggregates barely depends on the strength of viscous dissipation force when we consider oblique collisions. In contrast, the size distribution of fragments changes significantly when the viscous dissipation force is considered. We obtained the empirical fitting formulae for the size distribution of fragments for the case of strong dissipation, which would be useful to study the evolution of size and spatial distributions of dust aggregates in protoplanetary disks.

The Hubble constant estimated from the CMB measurements shows large disagreement with the locally measured value. This inconsistency is called the Hubble tension and is vastly studied in recent years. Early Dark Energy (EDE) gives a few percent contribution to the total energy density of the universe only at an epoch before the recombination, and it is considered as a promising solution to the tension. A simple realization of EDE is given by dynamics of a scalar field, called the EDE scalar, and models including the EDE scalar are extensively studied in the literature. In this paper, we present a novel EDE scenario based on higher-dimensional gauge theories. An extra component of gauge fields associated with a compact extra dimension behaves as the EDE scalar at low-energy and has a periodic potential, which has a similar form as potentials for pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons (PNGB). In a five-dimensional U(1) gauge theory, we show that a scalar field that originates from the gauge field can give EDE through its dynamics in a PNGB type potential with a suitable choice of parameters in the theory. We focus on the scenario where EDE is explained by the scalar field and clarify constraints on the fundamental parameters of the gauge theory, such as the gauge coupling, the compactification scale, and the mass parameters for matter fields. We also find that a sufficient dilution of EDE requires non-trivial relations among U(1) charges of matter fields. With specific matter contents, we numerically solve the time evolution of the scalar field and confirm that its energy density behaves as an EDE. In our scenario, the parameters of the gauge theory and predicted properties of EDE are related to each other. Thus, the cosmological restrictions on the EDE properties provide insights into higher-dimensional gauge theories.

The surface of Mars is bombarded by energetic charged particles of solar and galactic origin with little shielding offered by a thin atmosphere and lack of a global magnetic field. As space agencies around the globe are planning for crewed missions to the planet, one has to account for a number of factors, a major one being the impact of ionizing radiation on astronaut health. Keeping optimal exposure below acceptable radiation dose levels is crucial for good health and survival of the crew. In this study, our goal is to understand the radiation environment of Mars and describe the main strategies to be adopted to protect astronauts from the harmful impacts of cosmic radiation. Specifically, we investigate the shielding properties of various materials in the Martian radiation field (Solar Energetic Particles and Galactic Cosmic Rays) using the GEANT4 numerical model. Our results indicate that H-rich materials show a similar response against cosmic rays and are the best shields, whereas regolith has an intermediate behavior and therefore could be used as an additional option, considering its practicability. Additionally, we show that although aluminum is not as effective as other materials, it could nonetheless be helpful when combined with other materials.

We aim to determine the star formation history (SFH) of the progenitor of the Helmi streams. From the 5D Gaia EDR3 data set, we extract local samples of stars dominated by the Helmi streams, and the Galactic (thick and thin) disc and halo. We do this by identifying regions in a pseudo-Cartesian velocity space (obtained by setting line-of-sight velocities to zero), where stars belonging to these components, as identified in samples with 6D phase-space information, are predominantly found. We make use of an updated absolute colour-magnitude diagram (aCMD) fitting methodology to contrast, for the first time, the SFH of a disrupted accreted system -- the Helmi streams -- to that of the average Milky Way inner halo. To this end, special attention is given to the correct characterisation of Gaia completeness effects and observational errors on the aCMD. We find that the progenitor of the Helmi streams experienced an early star formation but which was sustained for longer (until 7-9~Gyr ago) than for the Milky Way halo (10-11 Gyr ago). As a consequence, half of its stellar mass was in place $\sim$ 0.7 Gyr later. The quenching of star formation in the Helmi streams progenitor, together with some hints of a star formation burst at $\sim$8 Gyr, suggest it was accreted by the Milky Way around this time, in concert with previous estimates based on the dynamics of the streams.

Globular clusters being old and densely packed serve as ideal laboratories to test stellar evolution theories. Although there is enormous literature on globular clusters in optical bands, studies in the ultraviolet (UV) regime are sparse. In this work, we study the stellar populations of a metal poor and a rather dispersed globular cluster, NGC 5053, using the UV instrument of AstroSat, namely the Ultra Violet Imaging Telescope in three far-UV (F154W, F169M, F172M) and three near-UV (N219M, N245M, N263M) filters. Photometry was carried out on these images to construct a catalogue of UV stars, of which the cluster members were identified using Gaia EDR3 catalogue. UV and optical CMDs help us locate known stellar populations such as BHB stars, RR-Lyrae stars, RHB stars, BSSs, SX-Phe, RGB and AGB stars. Based on their locations in the CMDs, we have identified 8 new BSS candidates, 6 probable eBSSs, and an EHB candidate. Their nature has been confirmed by fitting their spectral energy distributions with stellar atmospheric models. We believe the BSS population of this cluster is likely to have a collisional origin based on our analyses of their radial distribution and SEDs. BaSTI-IAC isochrones were generated to characterize the cluster properties, and we find that the observed brightness and colours of cluster members are best-fit with a model that is alpha-enhanced with a helium fraction of 0.247, metallicity of -1.9 dex and age within a range of 10.5-14.5 Gyr.

Dynamical scalar fields in an effective four-dimensional field theory are naturally expected to couple to the rest of the theory's degrees of freedom, unless some new symmetry is postulated to suppress these couplings. In particular, a coupling to the electromagnetic sector will lead to spacetime variations of the fine-structure constant, $\alpha$. Astrophysical tests of the space-time stability of $\alpha$ are therefore a powerful probe of new physics. Here we use ESPRESSO and other contemporary measurements of $\alpha$, together with background cosmology data, local laboratory atomic clock and Weak Equivalence Principle measurements, to place stringent constraints on the simplest examples of the two broad classes of varying $\alpha$ models: Bekenstein models and quintessence-type dark energy models, both of which are parametric extensions of the canonical $\Lambda$CDM model. In both cases, previously reported constraints are improved by more than a factor of ten. This improvement is largely due to the very strong local constraints, but astrophysical measurements can help to break degeneracies between cosmology and fundamental physics parameters.

In the present study, we continue testing the Primordial Group hypothesis (Casado 2022), which postulates that only sufficiently young open clusters can be binary or multiple, and old clusters are essentially single. To this end, we revisit all the remaining binary cluster candidates in the Galaxy having at least one cluster older than 100 Myr through Gaia data and careful revision of the literature. We have found no convincing case for an old binary system among the 120 pairs/groups revised. Most of the pairs are optical pairs or flyby encounters. However, we have found three dubious pairs that could falsify the title hypothesis upon further research. We also have found two possible primordial pairs older than expected. Our results confirm that the vast majority of binary/multiple OCs in the Galaxy, if not all, are of primordial origin and are not stable for a long time. This finding is in line with similar studies of the Magellanic Clouds and theoretical N-body simulations in the Galaxy. The pairs of OCs in these groups are generally not binary systems since they are not gravitationally bound. We also point out some inconsistencies in previous works and databases, such as false open clusters and duplicities.

Aims. The aim of our study is to obtain the near-ultraviolet to visible (NUV-VIS, 0.35 - 0.95 micron) reflectance spectra of primitive asteroids with a focus on members of the Themis and Polana-Eulalia complex families. This characterization allows us to discuss the origin of two recent sample return mission target asteroids, (162173) Ryugu and (101955) Bennu. Methods. We obtain low-resolution visible spectra of target asteroids down to 0.35 micron using the telescopes located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory and revisit spectroscopic data that have already been published. We study the characteristics of the NUV-VIS reflectance spectra of primitive asteroids, focusing on data of the Themis family and the Polana-Eulalia family complex. Finally, we compare the NUV characteristics of these families with (162173) Ryugu and (101955) Bennu. In this work, we also study systematic effects due to the use of the five commonly used stars in Landolt's catalog as solar analogs to obtain the asteroid reflectance in the NUV wavelength range. We compare the spectra of five G-stars in Landolt's catalog with the spectrum of the well-studied solar analog Hyades 64, also observed on the same nights. Results. We find that many widely used Landolt's G-type stars are not solar analogs in the NUV wavelength spectral region and thus are not suitable for obtaining the reflectance spectra of asteroids. We also find that, even though the Themis family and the Polana-Eulalia family complex show a similar blueness at visible wavelengths, the NUV absorption of the Themis family is much deeper than that of the Polana-Eulalia family complex. We did not find significant differences between the New Polana and Eulalia families in terms of the NUV-VIS slope. (162173) Ryugu's and (101955) Bennu's spectral characteristics in the NUV-VIS overlap with those of the Polana-Eulalia family complex which implies that it.

In this article, we present multi-band photometric observations and analysis of the host galaxies for a sample of five interesting gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) observed using the 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT) and the back-end instruments. The host galaxy observations of GRBs provide unique opportunities to estimate the stellar mass, ages, star-formation rates, and other vital properties of the burst environments and hence progenitors. We performed a detailed spectral energy distribution modelling of the five host galaxies using an advanced tool called Prospector, a stellar population synthesis model. Furthermore, we compared the results with a larger sample of well-studied host galaxies of GRBs, supernovae, and normal star-forming galaxies. Our SED modelling suggests that GRB 130603B, GRB 140102A, GRB 190829A, and GRB 200826A have massive host galaxies with high star formation rates (SFRs). On the other hand, a supernovae-connected GRB 030329 has a rare low-mass galaxy with a low star formation rate. We also find that GRB 190829A has the highest (in our sample) amount of visual dust extinction and gas in its local environment of the host, suggesting that the observed high energy emission from this burst might have a unique local environment. Broadly, the five GRBs in our sample satisfy the typical correlations between host galaxies parameters and these physical parameters are more common to normal star-forming galaxies at the high-redshift Universe. Our results also demonstrate the capabilities of 3.6m DOT and the back-end instruments for the deeper photometric studies of the host galaxies of energetic transients such as GRBs, supernovae, and other transients in the long run.

The observed pattern of linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons is a sensitive probe of physics violating parity symmetry under inversion of spatial coordinates. A new parity-violating interaction might have rotated the plane of linear polarization by an angle $\beta$ as the CMB photons have been traveling for more than 13 billion years. This effect is known as ''cosmic birefringence.'' In this paper, we present new measurements of cosmic birefringence from a joint analysis of polarization data from two space missions, Planck and WMAP. This dataset covers a wide range of frequencies from 23 to 353 GHz. We measure $\beta = 0.342^{\circ\,+0.094^\circ}_{\phantom{\circ\,}-0.091^\circ}$ (68% C.L.) for nearly full-sky data, which excludes $\beta=0$ at 99.987% C.L. This corresponds to the statistical significance of $3.6\sigma$. There is no evidence for frequency dependence of $\beta$. We find a similar result, albeit with a larger uncertainty, when removing the Galactic plane from the analysis.

We present a Bayesian parametric component separation method for polarised microwave sky maps. We solve jointly for the primary cosmic microwave background (CMB) signal and the main Galactic polarised foreground components. For the latter, we consider electron-synchrotron radiation and thermal dust emission, modelled in frequency as a power law and a modified blackbody respectively. We account for inter-pixel correlations in the noise covariance matrices of the input maps and introduce a spatial correlation length in the prior matrices for the spectral indices beta. We apply our method to low-resolution polarised Planck 2018 Low and High Frequency Instrument (LFI/HFI) data, including the SRoll2 re-processing of HFI data. We find evidence for spatial variation of the synchrotron spectral index, and no evidence for depolarisation of dust. Using the HFI SRoll2 maps, and applying wide priors on the spectral indices, we find a mean polarised synchrotron spectral index over the unmasked sky of beta-sync = -2.833 +- 0.620. For polarised dust emission, we obtain beta-dust = 1.429 +- 0.236. Our method returns correlated uncertainties for all components of the sky model. Using our recovered CMB maps and associated uncertainties, we constrain the optical depth to reionization, tau, using a cross-spectrum-based likelihood-approximation scheme (momento) to be tau = 0.0598 +- 0.0059. We confirm our findings using a pixel-based likelihood (pixlike). In both cases, we obtain a result that is consistent with, albeit a fraction of a sigma higher than, that found by subtracting spatially uniform foreground templates. While the latter method is sufficient for current polarisation data from Planck, next-generation space-borne CMB experiments will need more powerful schemes such as the one presented here.

In recent years, analyzing the bimodality in the size distribution of small planets, i.e., the `radius valley', has given us unprecedented insight into the planet formation process. Here we explore the properties of the radius valley for low mass stars, assuming that the core-powered mass-loss is the dominant process shaping the small exoplanet population. We show that the slope of radius valley in the planet size-orbital period space, to first-order, does not vary with stellar mass and has a negative slope of $\text{d log}R_p/\text{d log}P \simeq -0.11$ even for stars as small as 0.1 $M_\odot$, as observed in latest studies. Furthermore, we find that the slope of the radius valley in the planet size-stellar mass space is $\text{d log}R_p/\text{d log}M_\ast \simeq (3 \zeta - 2)/36$ where $\zeta$ is given by the stellar mass-luminosity relation $L_\ast \propto M_\ast^\zeta$. Because $\zeta$ is $\gtrsim$ 2 and increases with stellar mass, we predict that the radius valley has a positive slope in the planet size-stellar mass space across FGKM dwarfs. This slope, however, decreases (increases) in magnitude towards lower (higher) mass stars, due to the variation of $\zeta$ with stellar mass. While around 1.0 $M_\odot$ stars the slope is $\text{d log}R_p/\text{d log}M_\ast \sim 0.37$, it is as low as $\sim 0.13$ around 0.1 $M_\odot$ stars. In addition, we find that the radius valley is narrower and less empty around lower mass stars. Finally, we show that predictions for the radius valley for core-powered mass-loss and photoevaporation become increasingly distinct for lower mass stars.

The next generation of detectors will detect gravitational waves from binary neutron stars at cosmological distances, for which around a thousand electromagnetic follow-ups may be observed per year. So far, most work devoted to the expected cosmological impact of these standard sirens employed them only as distance indicators. Only recently their use as tracers of clustering, similar to what already proposed for supernovae, has been studied. Focusing on the expected specifications of the Einstein Telescope (ET), we forecast here the performance on cosmological parameters of future standard sirens as both distance and density indicators, with emphasis on the linear perturbation growth index and on spatial curvature. We improve upon previous studies in a number of ways: a more detailed analysis of available telescope time, the inclusion of more cosmological and nuisance parameters, the Alcock-Paczynski correction, the use of sirens also as both velocity and density tracers, and a more accurate estimation of the distance posterior. We find that the analysis of the clustering of sirens improves the constraints on $H_0$ by 30% and on $\Omega_{k0}$ by over an order of magnitude, with respect to their use merely as distance indicators. With 5 years of joint ET and Rubin Observatory follow-ups we could reach precision of 0.1 km/s/Mpc in $H_0$ and 0.02 in $\Omega_{k0}$ using only data in the range $0<z<0.5$. We also find that the use of sirens as tracers of density, and not only velocity, yields good improvements on the growth of structure constraints.

We present a new catalog of 81 ancient globular clusters (GCs) in the early-type spiral (SB0/a) galaxy NGC 1291. Candidates have been selected from B,V, and I band images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, which also reveal 17 younger (t < few x 100Myr) clusters. The luminosity function shows a peaked shape similar to that found for GC systems in other spiral and elliptical galaxies. The ancient clusters have a bimodal color distribution, with approximately 65% (35%) of the population having blue (red) colors. The red, presumably metal-rich GCs are more centrally concentrated, as expected for a bulge population; while the blue, presumably metal-poor GCs, are more broadly distributed, consistent with expectations of a halo population. The specific frequency of GCs in NGC 1291 is higher than found previously in most spiral galaxies. However, if we consider just the blue subpopulation, we find Sn,blue=0.50 +/- 0.06, quite similar to that found for other spirals. This result supports the hypothesis of a universal population of halo GCs in spirals. The fraction of red GCs in NGC 1291, when compared with those found in other galaxies, suggests that these correlate with host galaxy type rather than with host galaxy luminosity.

Observations from Parker Solar Probe's first five orbits are used to investigate the helioradial evolution of probability density functions (PDFs) of fluctuations of magnetic field components, between \(\sim 28\) - 200 \(\rs\). Transformation of the magnetic field vector to a local mean-field coordinate system permits examination of anisotropy relative to the mean magnetic field direction. Attention is given to effects of averaging-interval size. It is found that PDFs of the perpendicular fluctuations are well approximated by a Gaussian function, with the parallel fluctuations less so: kurtoses of the latter are generally larger than 10, and their PDFs indicate increasing skewness with decreasing distance \(r\) from the Sun. The ratio of perpendicular to parallel variances is greater than unity; this variance anisotropy becomes stronger with decreasing \(r\). The ratio of the total rms fluctuation strength to the mean field magnitude decreases with decreasing \(r\), with a value \(\sim 0.8\) near 1 AU and \(\sim 0.5\) at 0.14 AU; the ratio is well approximated by a \(r^{1/4}\) power law. These findings improve our understanding of the radial evolution of turbulence in the solar wind, and have implications for related phenomena such as energetic-particle transport in the inner heliosphere.

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

Asteroseismology is a powerful tool to infer the evolutionary status and chemical stratification of white dwarf (WD) stars, and to explore the physical processes that lead to their formation. This is particularly true for the variable H-rich atmosphere (DA) WDs, known as DAV or ZZ Ceti stars. We present a new grid of DA WD models that take into account the last advances in the modeling and input physics of both the progenitor and the WD stars, thus avoiding and improving several shortcomings present in the set of DA WD models employed in the asteroseismological analyses of ZZ Ceti stars we carried out in our previous works. These new models are derived from a self-consistent way with the changes in the internal chemical distribution that result from the mixing of all the core chemical components induced by mean molecular-weight inversions, from $^{22}$Ne diffusion, Coulomb sedimentation, and from residual nuclearburning. In addition, the expected nuclear-burning history and mixing events along the progenitor evolution are accounted for, in particular the occurrence of third dredge-up, which determines the properties of the core and envelope of post-AGB and white dwarf stars, as well as the WD initial-final mass relation. The range of H envelopes of our new ZZ star models extends from log(M_H/M_*)= -4 to -5, to log(M_H/M_*)= -13.5. This allows, for the first time, to consider seismological solutions for ZZ Ceti stars with extremely thin H envelopes. Our new H-burning post-AGB models predict chemical profiles of O and C near the stellar centre of ZZ Ceti stars substantially different from those we used in our previous works. We find that the pulsation periods of $g$ modes and the mode-trapping properties of the new models differ significantly from those characterizing the ZZ Ceti models of our previous works, particularly for long periods.

General extensions of General Relativity (GR) based on bona fide degrees of freedom predict a fifth force which operates within massive objects, opening up an exciting opportunity to perform precision tests of gravity at stellar scales. Here, focusing on general scalar-tensor theories for dark energy, we utilize the Sun as our laboratory and search for imprints of the fifth-force effect on the solar equilibrium structure. With analytic results and numerical simulations, we explain how the different solar regions offer powerful ways to test gravity. Accounting for the delicate interplay between fifth force and solar microphysics such as opacity, diffusion, equation of state and metallicity, we demonstrate that the fifth force still leaves a sharp signature on the solar sound speed, in a region where simple estimates of input physics uncertainties become negligible. For general scalar-field extensions of GR, known as (U-)DHOST, based solely on the observational helioseismic errors, our analysis at the equilibrium level allows to place an approximate constraint on the fifth-force coupling strength of $-10^{-3} \lesssim \mathcal{Y} \lesssim 5\cdot 10^{-4}$ at $2\sigma$. This result improves previous stellar constraints by $\sim 3$ orders of magnitude, and should be confirmed and improved by future helioseismic inversions in modified gravity combined with an elaborate accounting of theoretical uncertainties. Our analysis can be applied to a wide set of theories beyond GR, and also paves the way for helioseismic analyses in this context. In this regard, we discuss how the solar radiative and convective zone can be employed as promising laboratories to test generic theories of gravity.

Direct detection experiments for dark matter are increasingly ruling out large parameter spaces. However, light dark matter models with particle masses $<$ GeV are still largely unconstrained. Here we examine a proposal to use atom interferometers to detect a light dark matter subcomponent at sub-GeV masses. We describe the decoherence and phase shifts caused by dark matter scattering off of one "arm" of an atom interferometer using a generalized dark matter direct detection framework. This allows us to consider multiple channels: nuclear recoils, hidden photon processes, and axion interactions. We apply this framework to several proposed atom interferometer experiments. Because atom interferometers are sensitive to extremely low momentum deposition and their coherent atoms give them a boost in sensitivity, these experiments will be highly competitive and complementary to other direct detection methods. In particular, atom interferometers are uniquely able to probe a dark matter sub-component with $m_\chi \lesssim 10~\rm{keV}$. We find that, for a mediator mass $m_\phi=10^{-10}m_\chi$, future atom interferometers could close a gap in the existing constraints on nuclear recoils down to $\bar{\sigma}_n \sim 10^{-50}~\rm{cm}^2$ for $m_\chi \sim 10^{-5} - 10^{-1}~\rm{MeV}$ dark matter masses.

We present a new solution in Einstein's General Relativity representing a Schwarzschild black hole immersed in a rotating universe. Such a solution is constructed analytically by means of the last unexplored Lie point symmetry of the Ernst equations for stationary and axisymmetric spacetimes. This kind of the Ehlers transformation is able to embed any given solution into a rotating background, which is not of NUT type. We analyse the physical properties, ergoregions and geodesics of the new metric, which is regular outside the event horizon and has a well defined thermodynamics. We finally consider the Kerr generalisation.

The increasing sensitivity of gravitational wave detectors has brought about an increase in the rate of astrophysical signal detections as well as the rate of "glitches"; transient and non-Gaussian detector noise. Temporal overlap of signals and glitches in the detector presents a challenge for inference analyses that typically assume the presence of only gaussian detector noise. In this study we perform an extensive exploration of the efficacy of a recently proposed method that models the glitch with sine-Gaussian wavelets while simultaneously modeling the signal with compact-binary waveform templates. We explore a wide range of glitch families and signal morphologies and demonstrate that the joint modeling of glitches and signals (with wavelets and templates respectively) can reliably separate the two. We find that the glitches that most affect parameter estimation are also the glitches that are well-modeled by such wavelets due to their compact time-frequency signature. As a further test, we investigate the robustness of this analysis against waveform systematics like those arising from the exclusion of higher-order modes and spin-precession effects. Our analysis provides an estimate of the signal parameters; the glitch waveform to be subtracted from the data; and an assessment of whether some detected excess power consists of a glitch, signal, or both. We analyze the low-significance triggers 191225_215715 and 200114_020818 and find that they are both consistent with glitches overlapping high-mass signals.

We have studied the image of Bonnor black dihole surrounded by a thin accretion disk where the electromagnetic emission is assumed to be dominated respectively by black body radiation and synchrotron radiation. Our results show that the intensity of Bonnor black dihole image increases with the magnetic parameter and the inclination angle in both radiation models. The image of Bonnor black dihole in the synchrotron radiation model is one order of magnitude brighter than that in the black body radiation model, but its intensity in the former decreases more rapidly with the radial coordinate. Especially, for the synchrotron radiation model, the intensity of the secondary image is stronger than that of the direct image at certain an inclination angle. We also present the polarization partners for the images of Bonnor black dihole arising from the synchrotron radiation, which depend sharply on the magnetic parameter and inclination angle. Finally, we make a comparison between the polarimetric images of Bonnor black dihole and M87*. Our result further confirms that the image of black hole depends on the black hole's properties itself, the matter around black hole and the corresponding radiation occurred in the accretion disk.

We highlight developments in the domain of supernova neutrinos. We discuss the importance of the future observation, by running and upcoming experiments, of the neutrino signals from the next supernova as well as of the diffuse supernova neutrino background.

Pycnonuclear reactions in the compact stars at zero temperatures are studied on quantum mechanical basis in the paper. Formalism of multiple internal reflections is generalized for analysis, that was developed for nuclear decays and captures by nuclei with high precision and tests. For the chosen reaction $^{12}$C + $^{12}$C = $^{24}$Mg, we find the following. A quantum study of the pycnonuclear reaction requires a complete analysis of quantum fluxes in the internal nuclear region. This reduces rate and number of pycnonuclear reactions by 1.8 times. This leads to the appearance of new states (called as quasibound states) where the compound nuclear system is formed with maximal probability. As shown, minimal energy of such a state is a little higher than energy of zero-point vibrations in lattice sites in pycnonuclear reaction, however probability of formation of compound system at the quasibound state is essentially larger than the corresponding probability at state of zero-point vibrations. Hence, there is a sense to tell about reaction rates in such quasibound states as more probable, rather than states of zero-point vibrations. This can lead to the essential changes in estimation of the rates of nuclear reactions in stars.

Contrary to a recent assertion [Fulvio Melia "The electroweak horizon problem" 2022], there is no electroweak horizon problem.

Spontaneously broken symmetries in particle physics may have produced several phase transitions in cosmology, e.g., at the GUT energy scale (~10^15 GeV), resulting in a quasi-de Sitter inflationary expansion, solving the background temperature horizon problem. This transition would have occurred at t~10^-36 to 10^-33 seconds, leading to a separation of the strong and electroweak forces. The discovery of the Higgs boson confirms that the Universe must have undergone another phase transition at the electroweak (EWPT) scale 159.5+/-1.5 GeV, about 10^-11 seconds later, when fermions and the W^+/- and Z^0 bosons gained mass, leading to the separation of the electric and weak forces. But today the vacuum expectation value (vev) of the Higgs field appears to be uniform throughout the visible Universe, a region much larger than causally-connected volumes at the EWPT. The discovery of the Higgs boson thus creates another serious horizon problem for LCDM, for which there is currently no established theoretical resolution. The EWPT was a smooth crossover, however, so previously disconnected electroweak vacuua might have homogenized as they gradually came into causal contact. But using the known Higgs potential and vev, we estimate that this process would have taken longer than the age of the Universe, so it probably could not have mitigated the emergence of different standard model parameters across the sky. The EWPT horizon problem thus argues against the expansion history of the early Universe predicted by standard cosmology.

Gravitational waves from the coalescences of black hole and neutron stars afford us the unique opportunity to determine the sources' properties, such as their masses and spins, with unprecedented accuracy. To do so, however, theoretical models of the emitted signal that are i) extremely accurate and ii) computationally highly efficient are necessary. The inclusion of more detailed physics such as higher-order multipoles and relativistic spin-induced orbital precession increases the complexity and hence also computational cost of waveform models, which presents a severe bottleneck to the parameter inference problem. A popular method to generate waveforms more efficiently is to build a fast surrogate model of a slower one. In this paper, we show that traditional surrogate modelling methods combined with artificial neural networks can be used to build a computationally highly efficient while still accurate emulation of multipolar time-domain waveform models of precessing binary black holes. We apply this method to the state-of-the-art waveform model SEOBNRv4PHM and find significant computational improvements: On a traditional CPU, the typical generation of a single waveform using our neural network surrogate SEOBNN_v4PHM_4dq2 takes 18ms for a binary black hole with a total mass of $44 M_{\odot}$ when generated from 20Hz. In comparison to SEOBNRv4PHM itself, this amounts to an improvement in computational efficiency by two orders of magnitude. Utilising additional GPU acceleration, we find that this speed-up can be increased further with the generation of batches of waveforms simultaneously. Even without additional GPU acceleration, this dramatic decrease in waveform generation cost can reduce the inference timescale from weeks to hours.

The Hyper-Kamiokande (HyperK) experiment is expected to measure precisely the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background (DSNB). This requires that the backgrounds in the relevant energy range are well understood. One possible background that has not been considered thus far is the annihilation of low-mass dark matter (DM) to neutrinos. We conduct simulations of the DSNB signal and backgrounds in HyperK, and quantify the extent to which DM annihilation products can pollute the DSNB signal. We find that the presence of DM could affect the determination of the correct values of parameters of interest for DSNB physics, such as effective neutrino temperatures and star formation rates. Since the DSNB is isotropic, and the DM annihilation flux would originate predominantly from the Galactic centre, we show how this effect can be mitigated with the use of angular information. This opens up the possibility of simultaneously characterising the DNSB and discovering dark matter via indirect detection.