Papers for Wednesday, Dec 21 2022

Gravitational waves with frequencies below 1 nHz are notoriously difficult to detect. With periods exceeding current experimental lifetimes, they induce slow drifts in observables rather than periodic correlations. Observables with well-known intrinsic contributions provide a means to probe this regime. In this work, we demonstrate the viability of using observed pulsar timing parameters to discover such ''ultralow'' frequency gravitational waves, presenting two complementary observables for which the systematic shift induced by ultralow-frequency gravitational waves can be extracted. Using existing data for these parameters, we search the ultralow frequency regime for continuous-wave signals, finding a sensitivity near the expected prediction from supermassive black hole mergers. We do not see an excess in the data, setting a limit on the strain of $ 7.1 \times 10 ^{ - 14} $ at 1 nHz with a sensitivity dropping approximately quadratically with frequency until 10 pHz. Our search method opens a new frequency range for gravitational wave detection and has profound implications for astrophysics, cosmology, and particle physics.

We analyze the late time evolution of 12 supernovae (SNe) occurring over the last ${\sim}$41 years, including nine Type IIP/L, two IIb, and one Ib/c, using UBVR optical data from the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) and difference imaging. We see late time (5 to 42 years) emission from nine of the eleven Type II SNe (eight Type IIP/L, one IIb). We consider radioactive decay, circumstellar medium (CSM) interactions, pulsar/engine driven emission, dust echoes, and shock perturbed binary companions as possible sources of emission. The observed emission is most naturally explained as CSM interactions with the normal stellar winds of red supergiants with mass loss rates in the range $-7.9\lesssim \log_{10}(M_\odot\text{yr}{}^{-1}) \lesssim-4.8$. We also place constraints on the presence of any shock heated binary companion to the Type Ib/c SN 2012fh and provide progenitor photometry for the Type IIb SN 2011dh, the only one of the six SNe with pre-explosion LBT observations where the SN has faded sufficiently to allow the measurement. The results are consistent with measurements from pre-explosion Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images.

We measure the molecular gas environment near recent ($< 100$ yr old) supernovae (SNe) using $\sim1''$ or $\leq 150$pc resolution CO (2-1) maps from the PHANGS-ALMA survey of nearby star-forming galaxies. This is arguably the first such study to approach the scales of individual massive molecular clouds ($M_{\rm mol} \gtrsim 10^{5.3}$ M$_{\odot}$). Using the Open Supernova Catalog (OSC), we identify 63 SNe within the PHANGS-ALMA footprint. We detect CO (2-1) emission near $\sim60\%$ of the sample at 150pc resolution, compared to $\sim35\%$ of map pixels with CO (2-1) emission, and up to $\sim95\%$ of the SNe at 1kpc resolution compared to $\sim80\%$ of map pixels with CO (2-1) emission. We expect the $\sim60\%$ of SNe within the same 150pc beam as a GMC will likely interact with these clouds in the future, consistent with the observation of widespread SN-molecular gas interaction in the Milky Way, while the other $\sim40\%$ of SNe without strong CO (2-1) detections will deposit their energy in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM), perhaps helping drive large-scale turbulence or galactic outflows. Broken down by type, we detect CO (2-1) emission at the sites of $\sim85\%$ of our 9 stripped-envelope SNe (SESNe), $\sim40\%$ of our 34 Type II SNe, and $\sim35\%$ of our 13 Type Ia SNe, indicating that SESNe are most closely associated with the brightest CO (2-1) emitting regions in our sample. Our results confirm that SN explosions are not restricted to only the densest gas, and instead exert feedback across a wide range of molecular gas densities.

We present the first JWST observations of the $z=4.11$ luminous radio galaxy TN J1338$-$1942, obtained as part of the "Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science" (PEARLS) project. Our NIRCam observations, designed to probe the key rest-frame optical continuum and emission line features at this redshift, enable resolved spectral energy distribution modelling that incorporates both a range of stellar population assumptions and radiative shock models. With an estimated stellar mass of $\log_{10}(M/\text{M}_{\odot}) \sim 10.9$, TN J1338$-$1942 is confirmed to be one of the most massive galaxies known at this epoch. Our observations also reveal extremely high equivalent-width nebular emission coincident with the luminous AGN jets that is consistent with radiative shocks surrounded by extensive recent star-formation. We estimate the total star-formation rate (SFR) could be as high as $\sim1800\,\text{M}_{\odot}\,\text{yr}^{-1}$, with the SFR that we attribute to the jet induced burst conservatively $\gtrsim500\,\text{M}_{\odot}\,\text{yr}^{-1}$. The mass-weighted age of the star-formation, $t_{\text{mass}} <4$ Myr, is consistent with the likely age of the jets responsible for the triggered activity and significantly younger than that measured in the core of the host galaxy. The extreme scale of the potential jet-triggered star-formation activity indicates the potential importance of positive AGN feedback in the earliest stages of massive galaxy formation, with our observations also illustrating the extraordinary prospects for detailed studies of high-redshift galaxies with JWST.

We study the electrodynamics of a kinetically mixed dark photon cloud that forms through superradiance around a spinning black hole, and design strategies to search for the resulting multimessenger signals. A dark photon superradiance cloud sources a rotating dark electromagnetic field which, through kinetic mixing, induces a rotating visible electromagnetic field. Standard model charged particles entering this field initiate a transient phase of particle production that populates a plasma inside the cloud and leads to a system which shares qualitative features with a pulsar magnetosphere. We study the electrodynamics of the dark photon cloud with resistive magnetohydrodynamics methods applicable to highly magnetized plasma, adapting techniques from simulations of pulsar magnetospheres. We identify turbulent magnetic field reconnection as the main source of dissipation and electromagnetic emission, and compute the peak luminosity from clouds around solar-mass black holes to be as large as $10^{43}$ erg/s for open dark photon parameter space. The emission is expected to have a significant X-ray component and is potentially periodic, with period set by the dark photon mass. The luminosity is comparable to the brightest X-ray sources in the Universe, allowing for searches at distances of up to hundreds of Mpc with existing telescopes. We discuss observational strategies, including targeted electromagnetic follow-ups of solar-mass black hole mergers and targeted continuous gravitational wave searches of anomalous pulsars.

We explore the relationship between mid-infrared (mid-IR) and CO rotational line emission from massive star-forming galaxies, which is one of the tightest scalings in the local universe. We assemble a large set of unresolved and moderately ($\sim 1$ kpc) spatially resolved measurements of CO (1-0) and CO (2-1) intensity, $I_{\rm CO}$, and mid-IR intensity, $I_{\rm MIR}$, at 8, 12, 22, and 24$\mu$m. The $I_{\rm CO}$ vs. $I_{\rm MIR}$ relationship is reasonably described by a power law with slopes $0.7{-}1.2$ and normalization $I_{\rm CO} \sim 1$ K km s$^{-1}$ at $I_{\rm MIR} \sim 1$ MJy sr$^{-1}$. Both the slopes and intercepts vary systematically with choice of line and band. The comparison between the relations measured for CO~(1-0) and CO (2-1) allow us to infer that $R_{21} \propto I_{\rm MIR}^{0.2}$, in good agreement with other work. The $8\mu$m and $12\mu$m bands, with strong PAH features, show steeper CO vs. mid-IR slopes than the $22\mu$m and $24\mu$m, consistent with PAH emission arising not just from CO-bright gas but also from atomic or CO-dark gas. The CO-to-mid-IR ratio correlates with global galaxy stellar mass ($M_\star$) and anti-correlates with SFR/$M_\star$. At $\sim 1$ kpc resolution, the first four PHANGS-JWST targets show CO to mid-IR relationships that are quantitatively similar to our larger literature sample, including showing the steep CO-to-mid-IR slopes for the JWST PAH-tracing bands, although we caution that these initial data have a small sample size and span a limited range of intensities.

We present a pulse timing analysis of NICER observations of the accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar SAX J1808.4$-$3658 during the outburst that started on 2022 August 19. Similar to previous outbursts, after decaying from a peak luminosity of $\simeq 1\times10^{36} \, \mathrm{erg \, s^{-1}}$ in about a week, the pulsar entered in a $\sim 1$ month-long reflaring stage. Comparison of the average pulsar spin frequency during the outburst with those previously measured confirmed the long-term spin derivative of $\dot{\nu}_{\textrm{SD}}=-(1.15\pm0.06)\times 10^{-15} \, \mathrm{Hz\,s^{-1}}$, compatible with the spin-down torque of a $\approx 10^{26} \, \mathrm{G \, cm^3}$ rotating magnetic dipole. For the first time in the last twenty years, the orbital phase evolution shows evidence for a decrease of the orbital period. The long-term behaviour of the orbit is dominated by a $\sim 11 \, \mathrm{s}$ modulation of the orbital phase epoch consistent with a $\sim 21 \, \mathrm{yr}$ period. We discuss the observed evolution in terms of a coupling between the orbit and variations in the mass quadrupole of the companion star.

We use the ROGER code by de los Rios et al. to classify galaxies around a sample of X-ray clusters into five classes according to their positions in the projected phase space diagram: cluster galaxies, backsplash galaxies, recent infallers, infalling galaxies, and interlopers. To understand the effects of the cluster environment to the evolution of galaxies, we compare across the five classes: stellar mass, specific star formation rate, size, and morphology. Following the guidelines of Coenda et al., a separate analysis is carried out for red and blue galaxies. For red galaxies, cluster galaxies differ from the other classes, having a suppressed specific star formation rate, smaller sizes, and are more likely to be classified as ellipticals. Differences are smaller between the other classes, however backsplash galaxies have significantly lower specific star formation rates than early or recent infalling galaxies. For blue galaxies, we find evidence that recent infallers are smaller than infalling galaxies and interlopers, while the latter two are comparable in size. Our results provide evidence that, after a single passage, the cluster environment can diminish a galaxy's star formation, modify its morphology, and can also reduce in size blue galaxies. We find evidence that quenching occurs faster than morphological transformation from spirals to ellipticals for all classes. While quenching is evidently enhanced as soon as galaxies get into clusters, significant morphological transformations require galaxies to experience the action of the physical mechanisms of the cluster for longer timescales.

Motivated by observational results, we use hydrodynamical numerical simulations to study the alignment of the central galaxies in groups with the surrounding structures. This approach allows us to analyse galaxy and group properties not available in observations. To perform this analysis, we use a modified version of the two-point cross-correlation function and a measure of the angle between the semi-major axes of the central galaxies and the larger structures. Overall, our results reproduce observational ones, as we find large-scale anisotropy, which is dominated by the red central galaxies. In addition, the latter is noticeably more aligned with their group than the blue ones. In contrast to the observations, we find a strong dependence of the anisotropy on the central galaxy with mass, probably associated with the inability of observational methods to determine them. This result allows us to link the alignment to the process of halo assembly and the well-known dependence of halo anisotropy on mass. When we include dark matter particles in the analysis, it allows us to conclude that the alignment detected in both observations and simulations is the consequence of a sequence of alignments ranging from the central galaxy to the large-scale structure, probably as a consequence of a combination of different physical processes.

Waves and oscillations have been observed in the Sun's atmosphere for over half a century. While such phenomena have readily been observed across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, spanning radio to gamma-ray sources, the underlying role of waves in the supply of energy to the outermost extremities of the Sun's corona has yet to be uncovered. Of particular interest is the lower solar atmosphere, including the photosphere and chromosphere, since these regions harbor the footpoints of powerful magnetic flux bundles that are able to guide oscillatory motion upwards from the solar surface. As a result, many of the current- and next-generation ground-based and space-borne observing facilities are focusing their attention on these tenuous layers of the lower solar atmosphere in an attempt to study, at the highest spatial and temporal scales possible, the mechanisms responsible for the generation, propagation, and ultimate dissipation of energetic wave phenomena. Here, we present a two-fold review that is designed to overview both the wave analyses techniques the solar physics community currently have at their disposal, as well as highlight scientific advancements made over the last decade. Importantly, while many ground-breaking studies will address and answer key problems in solar physics, the cutting-edge nature of their investigations will naturally pose yet more outstanding observational and/or theoretical questions that require subsequent follow-up work. This is not only to be expected, but should be embraced as a reminder of the era of rapid discovery we currently find ourselves in. We will highlight these open questions and suggest ways in which the solar physics community can address these in the years and decades to come.

The 21-cm signal from neutral hydrogen in the early universe will provide unprecedented information about the first stars and galaxies. Extracting this information, however, requires accounting for many unknown astrophysical processes. Semi-numerical simulations are key for exploring the vast parameter space of said processes. These simulations use approximate techniques such as excursion-set and perturbation theory to model the 3D evolution of the intergalactic medium, at a fraction of the computational cost of hydrodynamic and/or radiative transfer simulations. However, exploring the enormous parameter space of the first galaxies can still be computationally expensive. Here we introduce 21cmfish, a Fisher-matrix wrapper for the semi-numerical simulation 21cmFAST. 21cmfish facilitates efficient parameter forecasts, scaling to significantly higher dimensionalities than MCMC approaches, assuming a multi-variate Gaussian posterior. Our method produces comparable parameter uncertainty forecasts to previous MCMC analyses but requires ~10$^4$x fewer simulations. This enables a rapid way to prototype analyses adding new physics and/or additional parameters. We carry out a forecast for HERA using the largest astrophysical parameter space to-date, with 10 free parameters, spanning both population II and III star formation. We find X-ray parameters for the first galaxies could be measured to sub-percent precision, and, though they are highly degenerate, the stellar-to-halo mass relation and ionizing photon escape fraction for population II and III galaxies can be constrained to ~10% precision (logarithmic quantities). Using a principal component analysis we find HERA is most sensitive to the product of the ionizing escape fraction and the stellar-to-halo mass fraction for population II galaxies.

We study the one-point probability distribution function (PDF) for matter density averaged over spherical cells. The leading part to the PDF is defined by the dynamics of the spherical collapse whereas the next-to-leading part comes from the integration over fluctuations around the saddle-point solution. The latter calculation receives sizable contributions from unphysical short modes and must be renormalized. We propose a new approach to renormalization by modeling the effective stress-energy tensor for short perturbations. The model contains three free parameters related to the counterterms in the one-loop matter power spectrum and bispectrum, as well as their redshift dependence. This relation can be used to impose priors in fitting the model to the PDF data. We confront the model with the results of high-resolution N-body simulations and find excellent agreement for cell radii $r_*\geq 10\,{\rm Mpc}/h$ at all redshifts up to $z=0$. Discrepancies at a few per cent level are detected at low redshifts for $r_*\leq 10\,{\rm Mpc}/h$ and are associated with two-loop corrections to the model.

Identification of white dwarfs (WD) with main-sequence (MS) companions and characterization of their properties can put important constraints on our understanding of binary stellar evolution and guide the theoretical predictions for a wide range of interesting transient events relevant for, e.g., LSST, ZTF, and LISA. In this study, we combine ultraviolet (UV) and optical color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) to identify unresolved WD--MS binaries. In particular, we combine high-precision astrometric and photometric data in the optical from \gaia\ -EDR3 and UV data from GALEX GR6/7 to identify 92 WD--MS candidates within 100 pc. Of these, 77 are newly identified. Using the Virtual Observatory SED Analyzer (VOSA) we fit the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of all our candidates and derive stellar parameters, such as effective temperature, bolometric luminosity, and radius for both companions. We find that our identification method helps identify hotter and smaller WD companions (majority with $\geq$10,000 K and $\leq$0.02 $R_\odot$) relative to the WDs identified by past surveys. We infer that these WDs are relatively more massive ($>0.3 M_\odot$). We find that most of the MS companions in our binaries are of the $K$ and $M$ spectral types.

Spatial curvature is one of the most fundamental parameters in our current concordance flat $\Lambda$CDM model of the Universe. The goal of this work is to investigate how the constraint on the spatial curvature is affected by an assumption on the sound horizon scale. The sound horizon is an essential quantity to use the standard ruler from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs). As an example, we study the curvature constraint in an axion-like Early Dark Energy (EDE) model in light of recent cosmological datasets from Planck, the South Pole Telescope (SPT), and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), as well as BAO data compiled in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16. We find that, independent of the CMB datasets, the EDE model parameters are constrained only by the CMB power spectra as precisely and consistently as the flat case in previous work, even with the spatial curvature. We also demonstrate that combining CMB with BAO is extremely powerful to constrain the curvature parameter even with a reduction of the sound-horizon scale in an EDE model, resulting in $\Omega_K=-0.0056\pm 0.0031$ in the case of ACT+BAO after marginalizing over the parameters of the EDE model. This constraint is as competitive as the Planck+BAO result in a $\Lambda$CDM model, $\Omega_{K}=-0.0001\pm 0.0018$.

We present the detection of 68 sources from the most sensitive radio survey in circular polarisation conducted to date. We use the second data release of the 144 MHz LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey to produce circularly-polarised maps with median 140 $\mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$ noise and resolution of 20$''$ for $\approx$27% of the northern sky (5634 deg$^{2}$). The leakage of total intensity into circular polarisation is measured to be $\approx$0.06%, and our survey is complete at flux densities $\geq1$ mJy. A detection is considered reliable when the circularly-polarised fraction exceeds 1%. We find the population of circularly-polarised sources is composed of four distinct classes: stellar systems, pulsars, active galactic nuclei, and sources unidentified in the literature. The stellar systems can be further separated into chromospherically-active stars, M dwarfs, and brown dwarfs. Based on the circularly-polarised fraction and lack of an optical counterpart, we show it is possible to infer whether the unidentified sources are likely unknown pulsars or brown dwarfs. By the completion of this survey of the northern sky, we expect to detect 300$\pm$100 circularly-polarised sources.

We study compact stars with hybrid equations of state consisting of a nuclear outer region and two nested quark phases, each separated from the lower density phase by a strong first-order phase transition. The stability of these models is determined by calculating their radial oscillation modes with different conversion rates between adjacent phases and hence junction conditions for the modes at the phase separation interface between them. In the case when the timescale of transition is faster than the period of oscillations, we recover the traditional stability criterion implying that $\partial M/\partial\rho_c>0$ on the stable branch(es), where $M$ is the mass and $\rho_c$ is the central density. In the opposite limit of slow conversion, we find stable stellar multiplets beyond triplets consisting of stars that are stable by the usual criterion plus slow-conversion (denoted by $s$) hybrid stars with $\partial M/\partial\rho_c<0$ that are stabilized due to an alternative junction condition on the fluid displacement field at the interface reflecting the slow rate of conversion. We also study the properties of the reaction mode, the radial mode that only exists for stars with rapid (abbreviated by $r$) phase transitions, in stars with either two rapid phase transitions or alternating rapid and slow phase transitions for the first time. The implications of alternative junction conditions are also examined, with these conditions generally being found to provide stability properties similar to those for a slow conversion rate.

One of the fundamental questions in inflation is how to characterize the structure of different types of models in the field theoretic landscape. Proposals in this direction include attempts to directly characterize the formal structure of the theory by considering complexity measures of the potentials. An alternative intrinsic approach is to focus on the behavior of the observables that result from different models and to ask whether their behavior differs among models. This type of analysis can be applied even to nontrivial multifield theories where a natural measure of the complexity of the model is not obvious and the analytical evaluation of the observables is often impossible. In such cases one may still compute these observables numerically and investigate their behavior. One interesting case is when observables show a scaling behavior, in which case theories can be characterized in terms of their scaling amplitudes and exponents. Generically, models have nontrivial parameter spaces, leading to exponents that are functions of these parameters. In such cases we consider an iterative procedure to determine whether the exponent functions in turn lead to a scaling behavior. We show that modular inflation models can be characterized by families of simple scaling laws and that the scaling exponents that arise in this way in turn show a scaling law in dependence of these varying energy scales.

We perform a ground-based near-infrared spectroscopic survey using the Keck/MOSFIRE spectrograph to target Ly$\alpha$ emission at $7.0<z<8.2$ from 61 galaxies to trace the ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM). We cover a total effective sky area of $\sim10^\prime\times10^\prime$ in the Extended Groth Strip field of the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey. From our observations, we detect Ly$\alpha$ emission at a $>$4$\sigma$ level in eight $z>7$ galaxies, which include additional members of the known $z\sim7.7$ Ly$\alpha$-emitter (LAE) cluster (Tilvi et al. 2020). With the addition of these newly-discovered $z\sim7.7$ LAEs, this is currently the largest measured LAE cluster at $z>7$. The unusually-high Ly$\alpha$ detection rate at $z\sim7.7$ in this field suggests significantly stronger Ly$\alpha$ emission from the clustered LAEs than from the rest of our targets. We estimate the ionized bubble sizes around these LAEs and conclude that the LAEs are clustered within an extended ionized structure created by overlapping ionized bubbles which allow the easier escape of Ly$\alpha$ from galaxies. It is remarkable that the brightest object in the cluster has the lowest measured redshift of the Ly$\alpha$ line, being placed in front of the other LAEs in the line-of-sight direction. This suggests that we are witnessing the enhanced IGM transmission of Ly$\alpha$ from galaxies on the rear side of an ionized area. This could be a consequence of Ly$\alpha$ radiative transfer: Ly$\alpha$ close to the central velocity is substantially scattered by the IGM while Ly$\alpha$ from the rear-side galaxies is significantly redshifted to where it has a clear path.

The Microchannel X-ray Telescope (MXT) is an innovative compact X-ray instrument on board the SVOM astronomical mission dedicated to the study of transient phenomena such as gamma-ray bursts. During 3 weeks, we have tested the MXT flight model at the Panter X-ray test facility under the nominal temperature and vacuum conditions that MXT will undergo in-flight. We collected data at series of characteristic energies probing the entire MXT energy range, from 0.28 keV up to 9 keV, for multiple source positions with the center of the point spread function (PSF) inside and outside the detector field of view (FOV). We stacked the data of the positions with the PSF outside the FOV to obtain a uniformly illuminated matrix and reduced all data sets using a dedicated pipeline. We determined the best spectral performance of MXT using an optimized data processing, especially for the energy calibration and the charge sharing effect induced by the pixel low energy thresholding. Our results demonstrate that MXT is compliant with the instrument requirement regarding the energy resolution (<80 eV at 1.5 keV), the low and high energy threshold, and the accuracy of the energy calibration ($\pm$20 eV). We also determined the charge transfer inefficiency (~$10^{-5}$) of the detector and modeled its evolution with energy prior to the irradiation that MXT will undergo during its in-orbit lifetime. Finally, we measured the relation of the energy resolution as function of the photon energy. We determined an equivalent noise charge of 4.9 $\pm$ 0.2 e- rms for the MXT detection chain and a Fano factor of 0.131 $\pm$ 0.003 in silicon at 208 K, in agreement with previous works. This campaign confirmed the promising scientific performance that MXT will be able to deliver during the mission lifetime.

Soft x-ray emissions induced by solar wind ions that collide with neutral material in the solar system have been detected around planets, and were proposed as a remote probe for the solar wind interaction with the Martian exosphere. A multi-fluid three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamic model is adopted to derive the global distributions of solar wind particles. Spherically symmetric exospheric H, H$_2$, He, O, and CO$_2$ density profiles and a sophisticated hybrid model that includes charge-exchange and proton/neutral excitation processes are used to study the low triplet line ratio $G=\frac{i+f}{r}$ (0.77$\pm$0.58) of O VII and total x-ray luminosity around Mars. We further calculate the emission factor $\alpha$-value with different neutrals over a wide ion abundance and velocity ranges. Our results are in good agreement with those of previous reports. The evolution of the charge stage of solar wind ions shows that sequential recombination due to charge-exchange can be negligible at the interaction region. This only appears below the altitude of 400~km. The anonymous low disk $G$ ratio can be easily explained by the collisional quenching effect at neutral densities higher than 10$^{11}$cm$^{-3}$. However, the quenching contribution is small in Mars' exosphere and only appears below 400~km. Charge-exchange with H$_2$ and N$_2$ is still the most likely reason for this low $G$-ratio. X-ray emissivity maps in collisions with different neutrals differ from each other. A clear bow shock in the collision with all the neutrals is in accordance with previous reports. The resulting total x-ray luminosity of 6.55~MW shows a better agreement with the XMM-Newton observation of 12.8$\pm$1.4~MW than that of previous predictions.

We compare the peak optical luminosity with the orbital period for a sample of 22 stellar-mass black hole candidates with good measurements of both quantities. We find that the peak absolute magnitude for the outbursts follows a linear relation with $M_{V,peak}=3.48 (\pm 0.85)-3.89 (\pm 0.91) {\rm log}P_{orb}$, which corresponds to a $L_V \propto P_{orb}^{1.56\pm 0.36}$ power law relation. Excluding V4641 Sgr which is a strong outlier and not likely to have outbursts produced by the standard disc instability model, in addition to BW Cir and V821 Ara -- both of which have highly uncertain distances; the new correlation for the 19 sources is found to be $M_{V,peak}= 3.01\;(\pm 0.93)-3.21\;(\pm 1.04){\rm log}P_{orb}$, which corresponds to $L_V \propto P_{orb}^{1.28 \pm 0.42}$. This is an analogous relationship to the "Warner relation" between orbital period and peak luminosity found for cataclysmic variables. We discuss the implications of these results for finding black hole X-ray binaries in other galaxies and in our own Galaxy with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and other future large time domain surveys.

This work presents an analytical perturbation method to define and study the dynamics of frozen orbits under the perturbation effects produced by the oblatness of the main celestial body. This is done using a perturbation method purely based on osculating elements. This allows to characterize, define, and study the three existing families of frozen orbits in closed-form: the two families of frozen orbits close to the critical inclination, and the family of frozen orbits that appears at low values of eccentricity. To that end, this work includes the first and second order approximate solutions of the proposed perturbation method, including their applications to define frozen orbits, repeating ground-track orbits, and sun-synchronous orbits. Examples of application are also presented to show the expected error performance of the proposed approach.

We present a machine-learning framework to accurately characterize morphologies of Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) host galaxies within $z<1$. We first use PSFGAN to decouple host galaxy light from the central point source, then we invoke the Galaxy Morphology Network (GaMorNet) to estimate whether the host galaxy is disk-dominated, bulge-dominated, or indeterminate. Using optical images from five bands of the HSC Wide Survey, we build models independently in three redshift bins: low $(0<z<0.25)$, medium $(0.25<z<0.5)$, and high $(0.5<z<1.0)$. By first training on a large number of simulated galaxies, then fine-tuning using far fewer classified real galaxies, our framework predicts the actual morphology for $\sim$ $60\%-70\%$ host galaxies from test sets, with a classification precision of $\sim$ $80\%-95\%$, depending on redshift bin. Specifically, our models achieve disk precision of $96\%/82\%/79\%$ and bulge precision of $90\%/90\%/80\%$ (for the 3 redshift bins), at thresholds corresponding to indeterminate fractions of $30\%/43\%/42\%$. The classification precision of our models has a noticeable dependency on host galaxy radius and magnitude. No strong dependency is observed on contrast ratio. Comparing classifications of real AGNs, our models agree well with traditional 2D fitting with GALFIT. The PSFGAN+GaMorNet framework does not depend on the choice of fitting functions or galaxy-related input parameters, runs orders of magnitude faster than GALFIT, and is easily generalizable via transfer learning, making it an ideal tool for studying AGN host galaxy morphology in forthcoming large imaging survey.

Variable stars play a key role in understanding the Milky Way and the universe. The era of astronomical big data presents new challenges for quick identification of interesting and important variable stars. Accurately estimating the periods is the most important step to distinguish different types of variable stars. Here, we propose a new method of determining the variability periods. By combining the statistical parameters of the light curves, the colors of the variables, the window function and the GLS algorithm, the aperiodic variables are excluded and the periodic variables are divided into eclipsing binaries and NEB variables (other types of periodic variable stars other than eclipsing binaries), the periods of the two main types of variables are derived. We construct a random forest classifier based on 241,154 periodic variables from the ASAS-SN and OGLE datasets of variables. The random forest classifier is trained on 17 features, among which 11 are extracted from the light curves and 6 are from the Gaia Early DR3, ALLWISE and 2MASS catalogs. The variables are classified into 7 superclasses and 17 subclasses. In comparison with the ASAS-SN and OGLE catalogs, the classification accuracy is generally above approximately 82% and the period accuracy is 70%-99%. To further test the reliability of the new method and classifier, we compare our results with the results of Chen et al. (2020) for ZTF DR2. The classification accuracy is generally above 70%. The period accuracy of the EW and SR variables is 50% and 53%, respectively. And the period accuracy of other types of variables is 65%-98%.

We derived position-velocity density distribution diagrams along the major (PA = 77$^{\circ}$) axis of the elliptical planetary nebula NGC 7009 with the Keck HIRES [SII] 6716/6731 \A, doublet spectral images. The average densities of the main shell and knots of NGC 7009 derived from the [SII] 6716/673 \A, fluxes integrated over the line of sight indicate a density range of $N_{\rm e}$ = $10^{3.4}$ to 10$^{3.9}$ $cm^{-3}$, while the local densities from the volume fraction resolved in radial velocities along the line of sight show a considerably large range of about 10$^{2.8}$ -- 10$^{4.7}$ $cm^{-3}$. The derived projection angle of the major axis of the main shell is about $\psi \sim$18.3($\pm$2)$^{\circ}$. Assuming that the main shell is an ellipsoidal shell with $a \simeq$16$''$ and $b \simeq 6''$, we found the range of expansion velocity, radius, and latitude of four knots and a hot bubble. The four knots at the points in symmetrical positions are roughly aligned with the same axis of expansion of latitudes $\phi \sim \pm 34.5(\pm 0.6)^{\circ}$: One pair expands at about 35 $kms^{-1}$ close to the main ellipsoidal shell, and the other expands rapidly at about 60 $kms^{-1}$ at a distance of $r \sim 16''$. In the latitude range $\phi = $65 -- 75$^{\circ}$, the hot bubble of a relatively large structure expands rapidly with a velocity of 130 -- 150 $kms^{-1}$. Four knots and hot bubble points that expand faster than the main shell appear to have been formed by two to three eruptions at a different epoch than the primary structure formation.

We present the Cosmological Double Radio Active Galactic Nuclei (CosmoDRAGoN) project: a large suite of simulated AGN jets in cosmological environments. These environments sample the intra-cluster media of galaxy clusters that form in cosmological smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations, which we then use as inputs for grid-based hydrodynamic simulations of radio jets. Initially conical jets are injected with a range of jet powers, speeds (both relativistic and non-relativistic), and opening angles; we follow their collimation and propagation on scales of tens to hundreds of kiloparsecs, and calculate spatially-resolved synthetic radio spectra in post-processing. In this paper, we present a technical overview of the project, and key early science results from six representative simulations which produce radio sources with both core- (Fanaroff-Riley Type I) and edge-brightened (Fanaroff-Riley Type II) radio morphologies. Our simulations highlight the importance of accurate representation of both jets and environments for radio morphology, radio spectra, and feedback the jets provide to their surroundings.

Hot subdwarf stars are very important for understanding stellar evolution, stellar astrophysics, and binary star systems. Identifying more such stars can help us better understand their statistical distribution, properties, and evolution. In this paper, we present a new method to search for hot subdwarf stars in photometric data (b, y, g, r, i, z) using a machine learning algorithm, graph neural network, and Gaussian mixture model. We use a Gaussian mixture model and Markov distance to build the graph structure, and on the graph structure, we use a graph neural network to identify hot subdwarf stars from 86 084 stars, when the recall, precision, and f1 score are maximized on the original, weight and synthetic minority oversampling technique datasets. Finally, from 21 885 candidates, we selected approximately 6 000 stars that were the most similar to the hot subdwarf star.

With the development of a series of Galaxy sky surveys in recent years, the observations increased rapidly, which makes the research of machine learning methods for galaxy image recognition a hot topic. Available automatic galaxy image recognition researches are plagued by the large differences in similarity between categories, the imbalance of data between different classes, and the discrepancy between the discrete representation of Galaxy classes and the essentially gradual changes from one morphological class to the adjacent class (DDRGC). These limitations have motivated several astronomers and machine learning experts to design projects with improved galaxy image recognition capabilities. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel learning method, ``Hierarchical Imbalanced data learning with Weighted sampling and Label smoothing" (HIWL). The HIWL consists of three key techniques respectively dealing with the above-mentioned three problems: (1) Designed a hierarchical galaxy classification model based on an efficient backbone network; (2) Utilized a weighted sampling scheme to deal with the imbalance problem; (3) Adopted a label smoothing technique to alleviate the DDRGC problem. We applied this method to galaxy photometric images from the Galaxy Zoo-The Galaxy Challenge, exploring the recognition of completely round smooth, in between smooth, cigar-shaped, edge-on and spiral. The overall classification accuracy is 96.32\%, and some superiorities of the HIWL are shown based on recall, precision, and F1-Score in comparing with some related works. In addition, we also explored the visualization of the galaxy image features and model attention to understand the foundations of the proposed scheme.

E-TEST (Einstein Telescope Euregio-Meuse-Rhin Site and Technology) is a project recently funded by the European program Ineterreg Euregio Meuse-Rhine. This program is dedicated to innovative cross boarder activities between Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany. With a total budget of15MC and a consortium of 11 partners from the three countries, the objective of the project is twofold. Firstly, to develop an eco-friendly and non-invasive imaging of the geological conditions as well as the development of an observatory of the underground in the EMR region. Secondly, to develop technologies necessary for 3rd generation gravitational wave detectors. In particular, it is proposed to develop a prototype of large suspended cryogenic silicon mirror, isolated from seismic vibrations at low frequency. The total budget of the project is equally spread over the two activities. The first activity is not discussed at all in this report. The E-TEST prototype will have some key unique features: a silicon mirror of 100 kg, a radiative cooling strategy (non contact), a low-frequency hybrid isolation stage, cryogenic sensors and electronics, a laser and optics at 2 microns, a low thermal noise coating.

We report on the analysis of the AstroSat dataset of the accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658, obtained during its 2019 outburst. We found coherent pulsations at $\sim 401$ Hz and an orbital solution consistent with previous studies. The 3-20 keV pulse profile can be well fitted with three harmonically related sinusoidal components with background-corrected fractional amplitude of $\sim 3.5 \%$, $\sim 1.2 \%$ and $\sim 0.37 \%$ for fundamental, second and third harmonic, respectively. Our energy-resolved pulse profile evolution study indicate a strong energy dependence. We also observed a soft lag in fundamental and hard lag during its harmonic. The broadband spectrum of SAX J1808.4-3658 can be well described with a combination of thermal emission component with $kT \sim 1$ keV, a thermal Comptonization ($\Gamma \sim 1.67$) from the hot corona and broad emission lines due to Fe.

The characterization of the dynamical state of clusters is key to study their evolution, their selection, and use them as a cosmological probe. The offsets between different definitions of the center have been used to estimate the cluster disturbance. Our goal is to study the distribution of the offset between the X-ray and optical centers in clusters of galaxies. We study the offset for eROSITA clusters. We aim to connect observations to hydrodynamical simulations and N-body models. We assess the astrophysical effects affecting the displacements. We measure the offset for clusters observed in eFEDS and eRASS1. We focus on a subsample of 87 massive eFEDS clusters at low redshift. We link the observations to the offset parameter Xoff measured on dark matter halos in N-body simulations, using the hydrodynamical simulations as a bridge. eFEDS clusters show a smaller offset compared to eRASS1, because the latter contains a larger fraction of massive and disturbed structures. We measure an average offset of 76.3+30.1-27.1 kpc on the subsample of 87 eFEDS clusters. This is in agreement with the predictions from TNG and Magneticum, and the distribution of Xoff from DMO simulations. The tails of the distributions are different. Using the offset to classify relaxed and disturbed clusters, we measure a relaxed fraction of 31% in the eFEDS subsample. Finally, we find a correlation between the offset in hydrodynamical simulations and Xoff measured on their parent DMO run and calibrate a relation between them. There is good agreement between eROSITA data and simulations. Baryons cause a decrement (increment) in the low (high) offset regime compared to the Xoff distribution. The offset-Xoff relation provides an accurate prediction of the true Xoff distribution in Magneticum and TNG. It allows introducing the offsets in cosmology, marginalizing on dynamical selection effects.

Jets may have contributed to promoting the growth of seed black holes in the early Universe, and thus observations of radio-loud high-redshift quasars are crucial to understanding the growth and evolution of the early supermassive black holes. Here we report the radio properties of an X-ray bright $z=5.5$ quasar, SRGE J170245.3+130104 (J1702+1301). Our high-resolution radio images reveal the radio counterpart at the optical position of J1702+1301, while another radio component is also detected at $\sim$23.5\arcsec\ to the southwest. Our analysis suggests that this southwest component is associated with a foreground galaxy at $z\approx 0.677$, which is mixed with J1702+1301 in low-frequency low-resolution radio images. After removing the contamination from this foreground source, we recalculated the radio loudness of J1702+1301 to be $R>$1100, consistent with those of blazars. J1702+1301 exhibits a flat radio spectrum ($\alpha = -0.17 \pm 0.05$, $S \propto \nu^\alpha$) between 0.15 and 5 GHz; above 5 GHz, it shows a rising spectrum shape, and the spectral index $\alpha^{8.2}_{4.7}$ appears to be correlated with the variation of the flux density: in burst states, $\alpha^{8.2}_{4.7}$ becomes larger. J1702+1301 displays distinct radio variability on timescales from weeks to years in the source's rest frame. These radio properties, including high radio loudness, rising spectrum, and rapid variability, tend to support it as a blazar.

We utilise JWST NIRCam medium-band imaging to search for extreme redshift ($z \geq 9.5$) galaxy candidates in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) and the additional pointing within the GOODS-South field provided by the second NIRCam module. Our search reveals 6 robust candidates, 3 of which have recently been spectroscopically confirmed. One of these 3 is the previously controversial $z \simeq 12$ galaxy candidate UDF-22980 which is now detected in five JWST NIRCam medium-band filters (F182M, F210M, F430M, F460M and F480M), efficiently excluding alternative low-redshift solutions and allowing us to now report a secure photometric redshift of $z = 11.6 \pm 0.2$. We also detect 2 galaxies at $z \geq 12.5$ including a newly-detected candidate in the imaging provided by the second NIRCam module (south-west of the HUDF) at $z = 12.6 \pm 0.6$. We determine the physical properties of the 6 galaxies by fitting the 14-band photometry with Bagpipes. We find stellar masses of $\log(M_{\star}/{\rm {M_{\odot}}}) \simeq 7.5 - 8.7$ and star-formation rates of $\log(\rm{SFR}/M_{\odot}^{-1} \rm{yr}^{-1}) \simeq 0.3 - 5.0$. Despite the relatively small cosmological volume covered by the HUDF itself and the second NIRCam module imaging, we find that the existence of these galaxies is fully consistent with the latest measurements of both the UV luminosity function and cosmic star-formation rate density at $z\simeq11$, supporting a gradual steady decline in the cosmic star-formation rate density out to at least $z\simeq15$.

The remnant phase of a radio galaxy is characterized by the cessation of AGN activity resulting in the stoppage of jets supplying plasma to radio lobes. In this paper, we present the search and characterization of remnant candidates in 12.5 deg$^{2}$ of the {\em XMM$-$Newton} Large$-$Scale Structure (XMM$-$LSS) field by using deep radio observations at 325 MHz from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), at 150 MHz from the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR), at 1.4 GHz from the Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA), and at 3 GHz from the VLA Sky Survey (VLASS). By using both morphological criteria {\viz}undetected radio core as well as spectral criteria {\viz}high spectral curvature, and ultra$-$steep spectrum, we identify 21 remnant candidates that are found to reside mostly in non$-$cluster environments, and exhibit diverse properties in terms of morphology, spectral index ($\alpha_{\rm 150}^{\rm 1400}$ in the range of $-1.71$ to $-0.75$ with a median of $-1.10$), and linear radio size (ranging from 242 kpc to 1.3 Mpc with a median of 469 kpc). Our study attempts to identify remnant candidates down to the flux density limit of 6.0 mJy at 325 MHz, and yields an upper limit on the remnant fraction ($f_{\rm rem}$) to be around 5$\%$. The observed $f_{\rm rem}$ seems consistent with the predictions of an evolutionary model assuming power law distributions of the duration of active phase and jet kinetic power with index $-0.8$ to $-1.2$.

Due to its physical nature, the solar corona exhibits large spatial variations of intensity that make it difficult to simultaneously visualize the features present at all levels and scales. Many general-purpose and specialized filters have been proposed to enhance coronal images. However, most of them require the ad hoc tweaking of parameters to produce subjectively good results. Our aim was to develop a general purpose image enhancement technique that would produce equally good results, but based on an objective criterion. The underlying principle of the method is the equalization, or whitening, of power in the {\it \`a trous} wavelet spectrum of the input image at all scales and locations. An edge-avoiding modification of the {\it \`a trous} transform that uses bilateral weighting by the local variance in the wavelet planes is used to suppress the undesirable halos otherwise produced by discontinuities in the data. Results are presented for a variety of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and white light images of the solar corona. The proposed filter produces sharp and contrasted output, without requiring the manual adjustment of parameters. Furthermore, the built-in denoising scheme prevents the explosion of high-frequency noise typical of other enhancement methods, without smoothing statistically significant small-scale features. The standard version of the algorithm is about two times faster than the widely used multiscale Gaussian normalization (MGN). The bilateral version is slower, but provides significantly better results in the presence of spikes or edges. Comparisons with other methods suggest that the whitening principle may correspond to the subjective criterion of most users when adjusting free parameters.

We analyze various tracers of magnetic activity for 23 solar twins which are characterized by significant scatter of lithium abundance in their atmospheres. A level of coronal and chromospheric activity has been studied from available X-ray and UV-archival data. It gives us a chance to compare coronae of solar twins of various ages with the solar case. We found a scatter in the X-ray to bolometric luminosity ratio $L_X/L_{bol}$ by several orders of magnitude, which exists in these stars along with a significant spread in Li abundance. This may link the surface activity of stars with phenomena at the base of their convective zones. The TESS data allowed us to reveal rotation modulation of stellar brightness associated with starspots. For some twins of our samples, periods of axial rotation are detected around 6 days, i.e. these stars rotate almost 4 times faster than the contemporary Sun. This indicates their relative youth. Flare activity of solar twins is discovered in the TESS data; we showed existence of various kinds of flares, and present temporal profiles for some of them. We obtained the energy about of $8 \times 10^{33}$ erg for the largest flare of our samples, lasting longer than 4 h. In addition, we discuss also magnetic fields and exoplanets, orbiting these stars.

We report on recent technical developments in the front- and back-ends for the four 20 m radio telescopes of the Japanese Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) project, VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA). We present a brief overview of a dual-circular polarization receiving and ultrawideband (16 Giga bit s$^{-1}$) recording systems that were installed on each of the four telescopes operating at 22 and 43 GHz bands. The wider-band capability improves the sensitivity of VLBI observations for continuum emission, and the dual-polarization capability enables the study of magnetic fields in relativistic jets ejected from supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei and in sites of star formation and around evolved stars. We present the linear polarization intensity maps of extragalactic sources at 22 and 43 GHz obtained from the most recent test observations to show the state of the art of the VERA polarimetric observations. At the end of this article, given the realization of VLBI polarimetry with VERA, we describe the future prospects for scientific aims and further technical developments.

Colliding-Wind Binaries (CWBs) constitute an emerging class of gamma-ray sources powered by strong, dense winds in massive stellar systems. The most powerful of them are those binaries hosting a Wolf-Rayet (WR) star. Following the recent discovery of Apep - the closest known Galactic WR-WR binary - we discuss here the non-detection of its putative high-energy emission by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT). The limits reported in the GeV regime can be used to set a lower limit on the magnetic field pressure density within the shocked wind-collision region (WCR), and exclude Apep as a bright gamma-ray emitting binary. Given that this WR-WR system is the most luminous CWB identified until now at radio wavelengths, this result proves unambiguously that non-thermal synchrotron emission is not a suitable identifier for the subset of gamma-ray emitters in this class of particle accelerators. Rather, Apep could be an interesting case of study for magnetic field amplification in shocked stellar winds.

The standard formation theory of binary millisecond pulsars (BMSPs) predicts efficient orbital circularization due to tidal interaction during the previous mass transfer phase. Therefore, BMSPs are expected to have a circular orbit. However, the discovery of several eccentric BMSPs (eBMSPs) with a white dwarf (WD) companion has challenged this picture. In particular, recent observation reveals that the spin angular momentum of the eBMSP J0955$-$6150 is tilted at an angle $>4.8^{\rm \degree}$ from the orbital angular momentum. This is the first time that a tilt angle is deduced for eBMSPs, which provides an important clue to their formation mechanism. Both the orbital eccentricity and tilt angle could be qualitatively accounted for by asymmetrical mass ejection during thermonuclear flashes from proto-WDs (so-called the thermonuclear rocket model), but detailed studies are still lacking. In this paper, we simulate the impact of the kick caused by asymmetrical mass ejection on the properties of BMSPs. We find that the thermonuclear rocket model can potentially explain the observational characteristics of both eBMSPs and normal BMSPs under reasonable input parameters. In addition, our results predict a wide range of the orbital period (from less than one day to more than several hundred days) for eBMSPs, which can be tested by future observations.

We wrote and used an automated flare detection Python script to search for super-flares on main-sequence stars of types A, F, G, K, and M in the entire Kepler's long-cadence data from Q0 to Q17 following Shibayama et al. 2013 method. Hence, we extended previous studies by Shibayama et al. 2013, who considered a smaller number of quarters, Q0-Q6, and on G-type dwarfs only. Using these new data, we studied the statistical properties of the occurrence rate of super-flares using three different data-sets, namely, Q0-Q6, Q7-Q17 and Q0-Q17 and provide their inter-comparison. For Q0-Q17 data-set we estimated that a super-flare on G-type dwarfs of energy of $10^{35}$ erg occurs on a star once every 4360 years. We found 4637 super-flares on 1896 G-type dwarfs. Moreover, we found 321, 1125, 4538 and 5445 super-flares on 136, 522, 770 and 312 dwarfs of types A, F, K and M respectively. We found that the occurrence rate ($dN/dE$) of super-flares versus flare energy, $E$, shows a power-law distribution with $dN/dE \propto E^{-\alpha}$, where $\alpha \simeq$ 2.0 to 2.1 for all different spectral types from F-type to M-type stars. The similarity of the power-law index values implies that the flares are generated by similar conditions in the underlying physical mechanism, which is believed to be magnetic reconnection. In contrast, the obtained $\alpha \simeq$ 1.3 for A-type stars suggests that the flare conditions are different from the rest spectral type stars. We note a general increase in flare incidence rate 4.79 \% - 14.04 \% in F-type to M-type stars and a slight decrease in flare incidence rate 5.13 \% - 4.79 \% in A-type to F-type stars. These results are similar to other results, who studied stars with any size, not necessarily the main-sequence, considered here.

We study the relation between halo concentration and mass (c-M relation) using the Seventh and Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS DR7 and DR8) galaxy catalogue. Assuming that the satellite galaxies follow the distribution of dark matter, we derive the halo concentration by fitting the satellite radial profile with a Nararro Frank and White (NFW) format. The derived c-M relation covers a wide halo mass range from $10^{11.6}$ to $10^{14.1} \rm\ M_\odot$. We confirm the anti-correlation between the halo mass and concentration as predicted in cosmological simulations. Our results are in good agreement with those derived using galaxy dynamics and gravitational lensing for halos of $10^{11.6}-10^{12.9} \rm\ M_\odot$, while they are slightly lower for halos of $10^{12.9}-10^{14.1}\rm\ M_\odot$. It is because blue satellite galaxies are less concentrated, especially in the inner regions. Instead of using all satellite galaxies, red satellites could be better tracers of the underlying dark matter distribution in galaxy groups.

The X-ray signal from active galactic nuclei and black hole X-ray binaries is highly variable on a range of timescales. This variability can be exploited to map the region of interest close to the black hole, which is far too small to directly image for all but two black holes in the Universe. Spectral-timing techniques provide causal information by combining timing and spectral information. I present a brief review of such techniques, focusing on two examples: X-ray reverberation mapping and phase-resolved spectroscopy of low frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (LF QPOs). The former provides a means to diagnose the accretion geometry and measure parameters such as black hole mass, and the latter gives perhaps the best constraints we currently have as to the enigmatic LF QPO mechanism.

In gamma ray astronomy with Cherenkov telescopes, machine learning models are needed to guess what kind of particles generated the detected light, and their energies and directions. The focus in this work is on the classification task, training a simple convolutional neural network suitable for binary classification (as it could be a cats vs dogs classification problem), using as input uncleaned images generated by Montecarlo data for a single ASTRI telescope. Results show an enhanced discriminant power with respect to classical random forest methods.

In this paper we determine the dipole in the Pantheon+ data. We find that, while its amplitude roughly agrees with the dipole found in the cosmic microwave background which is attributed to the motion of the solar system with respect to the cosmic rest frame, the direction is different at very high significance. While the amplitude depends on the lower redshift cutoff, the direction is quite stable. For redshift cuts of order $z_{\rm cut} \simeq 0.05$ and higher, the dipole is no longer detected with high statistical significant. An important r\^ole seems to be played by the redshift corrections for peculiar velocities.

We present a review of the topics of X-ray stellar tidal disruption events (TDEs) and changing-look active galactic nuclei (AGN). Stars approaching a supermassive black hole (SMBH) can be tidally disrupted and accreted. TDEs were first discovered in the X-ray regime and appear as luminous, giant-amplitude flares from inactive galaxies. The early X-ray observations with ROSAT also established the extreme X-ray spectral softness of these events with temperatures of order 50-100 eV that continues to be seen in the majority of more recently identified events. While the majority of X-ray TDEs has been identified from {\it inactive} galaxies and some showed the highest amplitudes of variability recorded from galaxy cores (amplitudes exceeding factors of 1000--6000), a small fraction of {\it active} galactic nuclei (AGN) has been found to be highly variable as well. In AGN, this so-called changing-look phenomenon often comes with a strong change in the optical broad emission lines, leading to Seyfert-type changes between class 1 and class 2. These two forms of activity represent the extremes of variability among active and quiescent galaxies, and have opened up a new window on understanding accretion physics under extreme conditions. Finally, we introduce the term ``frozen-look AGN'' to describe systems that show constant line emission despite strong/dramatic changes in the observed ionizing continuum. These systems are best explained by strong changes of absorption along our line-of-sight.

Key non-Gaussian properties of cosmological fields can be captured by their one-point statistics, providing a complement to two-point statistical measurements from power spectra or correlation functions. Large deviation theory can robustly predict the one-point statistics of cosmological density fields on mildly non-linear scales from first principles. It provides a direct prediction for the cumulant generating function (CGF) of such fields, from which a prediction for the more commonly used probability density function (PDF) is extracted through an inverse Laplace transform. For joint one-point statistics of multiple fields, the inverse Laplace transform rapidly becomes more cumbersome and computationally expensive. In this work, we demonstrate for the first time that the CGF itself can be used as an observable that captures an equal amount of cosmological information to the PDF. We use the weak-lensing convergence field as an example but in practice this result should be generally applicable for a multi-scale tomographic analysis of weak lensing and galaxy clustering.

In this paper, we apply the feature-integration idea to fuse the abstract features extracted by Se-ResNet with experience features into hybrid features and input the hybrid features to the Support Vector Machine (SVM) to classify Hot subdwarfs. Based on this idea, we construct a Se-ResNet+SVM model, including a binary classification model and a four-class classification model. The four-class classification model can further screen the hot subdwarf candidates obtained by the binary classification model. The F1 values derived by the binary and the four-class classification model on the test set are 96.17% and 95.64%, respectively. Then, we use the binary classification model to classify 333,534 nonFGK type spectra in the low-resolution spectra of LAMOST DR8 and obtain a catalog of 3,266 hot subdwarf candidates, of which 1223 are newly-determined. Subsequently, the four-class classification model further filtered the 3,266 candidates, 409 and 296 are newly-determined respectively when the thresholds were set at 0.5 and 0.9. Through manual inspection, The true number of hot subdwarfs in the three newly-determined canditates are 176, 63, and 41, the corresponding precision of the classification model in the three cases are 67.94%, 84.88%, and 87.60%, respectively. Finally, we train a Se-ResNet regression model with MAE values of 1212.65 K for Teff, 0.32 dex for log g and 0.24 for [He/H], and predict the atmospheric parameters of these 176 hot subdwarf stars. This provides a certain amount of samples to help for future studies of hot subdwarfs.

We present a sample of 254,882 luminous red giant branch (LRGB) stars selected from the APOGEE and LAMOST surveys. By combining photometric and astrometric information from the 2MASS and Gaia surveys, the precise distances of the sample stars are determined by a supervised machine learning algorithm: the gradient boosted decision trees. To test the accuracy of the derived distances, member stars of globular clusters (GCs) and open clusters (OCs) are used. The tests by cluster member stars show a precision of about 10 per cent with negligible zero-point offsets, for the derived distances of our sample stars. The final sample covers a large volume of the Galactic disk(s) and halo of $0<R<30$ kpc and $|Z|\leqslant15$ kpc. The rotation curve (RC) of the Milky Way across radius of $5\lesssim R\lesssim25$ kpc have been accurately measured with $\sim$ 54,000 stars of the thin disk population selected from the LRGB sample. The derived RC shows a weak decline along $R$ with a gradient of $-1.83\pm0.02$ $({\rm stat.}) \pm 0.07$ $({\rm sys.})$ km s$^{-1}$ kpc$^{-1}$, in excellent agreement with the results measured by previous studies. The circular velocity at the solar position, yielded by our RC, is $234.04\pm0.08$ $({\rm stat.}) \pm 1.36$ $({\rm sys.})$ km s$^{-1}$, again in great consistent with other independent determinations. From the newly constructed RC, as well as constraints from other data, we have constructed a mass model for our Galaxy, yielding a mass of the dark matter halo of $M_{\rm{200}}$ = ($8.05\pm1.15$)$\times$10$^{11} \rm{M_\odot}$ with a corresponding radius of $R_{\rm{200}}$ = $192.37\pm9.24$ kpc and a local dark matter density of $0.39\pm0.03$ GeV cm$^{-3}$.

The work is focused on the characterization of a long-range interacting complex in the reaction between atomic oxygen, in its ground state O(3P) and acrylonitrile CH2CHCN, also known as vinyl cyanide or cyano ethylene, through electronic structure calculations. Different ab initio methods have been used in order to understand which functional provides a better description of the long-range interaction. The results of the work suggest that B2PLYPD3 gives the best description of the long-range interaction, while CAM-B3LYP represents the best compromise between chemical accuracy and computational cost.

We briefly discuss the connection of the Pierre Auger Observatory data with a large class of dark matter models based on the early universe generation of super heavy particles, their role in the solution of the dark matter problem, highlighting the remarkable constraining capabilities of the Auger observations.

We use measurements of 59/58 quasars (QSOs), over a redshift range $0.0041\leq z \leq 1.686$, to do a comparative study of the radius--luminosity ($R-L$) and X-ray$-$UV luminosity ($L_X-L_{UV}$) relations and the implication of these relations for cosmological parameter estimation. By simultaneously determining $R-L$ or $L_X-L_{UV}$ relation parameters and cosmological parameters in six different cosmological models, we find that both $R-L$ and $L_X-L_{UV}$ relations are standardizable but provide only weak cosmological parameter constraints, with $L_X-L_{UV}$ relation data favoring larger current non-relativistic matter density parameter $\Omega_{m0}$ values than $R-L$ relation data and most other available data. We derive $L_X-L_{UV}$ and $R-L$ luminosity distances for each of the sources in the six cosmological models and find that $L_X-L_{UV}$ relation luminosity distances are shorter than $R-L$ relation luminosity distances as well as standard flat $\Lambda$CDM model luminosity distances. This explains why $L_X-L_{UV}$ relation QSO data favor larger $\Omega_{m0}$ values than do $R-L$ relation QSO data or most other cosmological measurements. While our sample size is small and only spans a small $z$ range, these results indicate that more work is needed to determine whether the $L_X-L_{UV}$ relation can be used as a cosmological probe.

Rotation is ubiquitous among massive stars. With rotation comes a deformation to the surface geometry, which in turn leads to alterations in the distribution of parameters across the surface including surface gravity, temperature and ionization balance of surface elements. Often, these 3D effects are neglected when analyzing spectra of rapidly rotating massive stars. We aim to determine whether neglecting the 3D deformations resulting from rapid rotation has an impact on the final spectroscopic observables, and if so to what degree. Using the SPAMMS code, we generate a grid of synthetic spectra that account for the 3D geometry of rapidly rotating stars and compare them to synthetic spectra generated assuming spherical geometry. Using equivalent width and full width half maximum measurements as proxies, we determine how the measured temperature, helium abundance and projected rotation rates of individual lines in different ionization states vary with rotation rate and inclination. We find that the 3D geometry can have a significant impact on the measured parameters. We show that the temperature is highly dependent on both the rotation rate and the inclination, and that the same system viewed at different inclinations can have measured temperatures that differ by as much as 10\%. We also find that the helium abundance can be underestimated by as much as 60\%, and that lines in different ionization states can have measurable differences in rotation rates. We demonstrate that these differences in rotation rates can be seen in observed data and show that this could allow for an inclination independent measurement of the rotational velocity. Our results indicate that neglecting the 3D effects of rotation can cause significant biases in the measured spectroscopic parameters, and that in many cases, the measured values are more than 3$\sigma$ away from the true values.

The fallback disc model predicted that anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) and soft-gamma repeaters (SGRs) will evolve to isolated long period pulsars before the discovery of the first two long-period pulsars (LPPs) this year. Unlike normal radio pulsars, LPPs show transient pulsed-radio epochs with unusual and variable pulse shapes, similar to the radio behaviour of the few radio emitting AXP/SGRs. We show that the present properties of the recently discovered second LPP, PSR J0901-4046 ($P \simeq 76$ s), are obtained as a result of evolution in interaction with a fallback disc, as we had already shown for the first discovered LPP, GLEAM-X J162759.5-523504.3 ($P \simeq 1091$ s). While there is only an upper limit to the period derivative, $\dot{P}$, of GLEAM-X J162759.5-523504.3, the $\dot{P}$ of the PSR J0901-4046 has already been measured, providing better constraints for the evolutionary models. The model can produce the source properties with a dipole moment $\mu \simeq 10^{30}$ G cm$^3$. The results are not sensitive to the initial pulsar period. Our results indicate that PSR J0901-4046 went through an AXP/SGR epoch at an age of a few $10^4$ yr, and is $\sim (6 - 8) \times 10^5$ yr old at present.

Ratios of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) vibrational bands are a promising tool for measuring the properties of the PAH population and their effect on star formation. The photometric bands of the MIRI and NIRCam instruments on JWST provide the opportunity to measure PAH emission features across entire galaxy disks at unprecedented resolution and sensitivity. Here we present the first results of this analysis in a sample of three nearby galaxies: NGC 628, NGC 1365, and NGC 7496. Based on the variations observed in the 3.3, 7.7, and 11.3 $\mu$m features, we infer changes to the average PAH size and ionization state across the different galaxy environments. High values of F335M$_{\rm PAH}$/F1130W and low values of F1130W/F770W are measured in H II regions in all three galaxies. This suggests that these regions are populated by hotter PAHs, and/or that the PAH ionization fraction is larger. We see additional evidence of heating and/or changes in PAH size in regions with higher molecular gas content as well as increased ionization in regions with higher H$\alpha$ intensity.

We revisit asteroseismology with quadrupolar wI modes and present universal relationships for its fundamental and first overtone. In contrast to relationships proposed in the literature, our universal relationships are capable of including slow stable hybrid stars that appear when considering slow sharp hadron-quark phase transitions. We show that, if the frequency and damping time of the fundamental mode of a given pulsating object are measured, its mass, radius, and dimensionless tidal deformability can be inferred. Moreover, we show that the errors of such estimates are smaller than a few percent for the mass and radius. For the dimensionless tidal deformability, the errors are -- for compact objects with $M\gtrsim 1.4\,M_\odot$ -- in general smaller than ~100%. Comparison with previous universal relationships shows that the ones proposed in this work produce better estimates of the mass and radius of totally stable compact objects.

Red geysers are a specific type of quiescent galaxy, denoted by twin jets emerging from their galactic centers. These bisymmetric jets possibly inject energy and heat into the surrounding material, effectively suppressing star formation by stabilizing cool gas. In order to confirm the presence and evolutionary consequences of these jets, this paper discusses the scaling, stacking, and conversion of 21-cm HI flux data sourced from the HI-MaNGA survey into HI gas-to-stellar mass (G/S) spectra. Our samples were dominated by non-detections, or galaxies with weak HI signals, and consequently by HI upper limits. The stacking technique discussed successfully resolved emission features in both the red geyser G/S spectrum and the control sample G/S spectrum. From these stacked spectra, we find that on average, red geyser galaxies have G/S of 0.086 $\pm$ 0.011(random)+0.029(systematic), while non-red geyser galaxies of similar stellar mass have a G/S ratio of 0.039 $\pm$ 0.018(random)+0.013(systematic). Therefore, we find no statistically significant evidence that the HI content of red geysers is different from the general quiescent population.

Line-like features in TeV $\gamma$-rays constitute a ''smoking gun'' for TeV-scale particle dark matter and new physics. Probing the Galactic Center region with ground-based Cherenkov telescopes enables the search for TeV spectral features in immediate association with a dense dark matter reservoir at a sensitivity out of reach for satellite $\gamma$-ray detectors, and direct detection and collider experiments. We report on 223 hours of observations of the Galactic Center region with the MAGIC stereoscopic telescope system reaching $\gamma$-ray energies up to 100 TeV. We improved the sensitivity to spectral lines at high energies using large-zenith-angle observations and a novel background modeling method within a maximum-likelihood analysis in the energy domain. No line-like spectral feature is found in our analysis. Therefore, we constrain the cross section for dark matter annihilation into two photons to $\langle \sigma v \rangle \lesssim 5 \times 10^{-28}\,\mathrm{cm^3\,s^{-1}}$ at 1 TeV and $\langle \sigma v \rangle \lesssim 1 \times 10^{-25}\,\mathrm{cm^3\,s^{-1}}$ at 100 TeV, achieving the best limits to date for a dark matter mass above 20 TeV and a cuspy dark matter profile at the Galactic Center. Finally, we use the derived limits for both cuspy and cored dark matter profiles to constrain supersymmetric wino models.

Some binary black hole systems potentially observable in LISA could be in orbit around a supermassive black hole (SMBH). The imprint of relativistic three-body effects on the waveform of the binary can be used to estimate all the parameters of the triple system, in particular the mass of the SMBH. We determine the phase shift in the waveform due to the Doppler effect of the SMBH up to second order in velocity, which breaks a well-known exact degeneracy of the lowest-order Doppler effect between the mass of the SMBH and its inclination. We perform several parameter estimations for LISA signals including this additional dephasing in the wave, showing that one can determine accurately all parameters of the three-body system. Our results indicate that one can measure the mass of a $10^8\,$M$_{\odot}$ SMBH with an accuracy better than $\sim 30\%$ (resp. $\sim 15\%$) by monitoring the waveform of a binary system whose period around the SMBH is less 100 yr (resp. 20 yr).

A dark photon is predicted by several well-motivated Standard Model extensions and UV completions. Here the most general effective field theory up to dimension-six operators describing the interactions of a massless dark photon with all Standard Model particles is considered. This captures the predictions of a generic model featuring this type of vector boson at sufficiently low energies. In such framework the thermal production rate of dark photons is computed at leading order, including the contributions of all SM particles. The corresponding cosmological yield of the dark photon and its contribution to the effective number of neutrinos are also calculated. These predictions satisfy the current observational bounds and will be tested by future measurements.

Dark photon dark matter that has a kinetic mixing with the Standard Model photon can resonantly convert in environments where its mass $m_{A'}$ coincides with the plasma frequency. We show that such conversion in neutron stars or accreting white dwarfs in the galactic centre can lead to detectable radio signals. Depending on the dark matter spatial distribution, future radio telescopes could be sensitive to values of the kinetic mixing parameter that exceed current constraints by orders of magnitude for $m_{A'} \in \left(6\times 10^{-6},7\times 10^{-4}\right)$ eV.

We present a new way of deriving effective theories of dynamical electromagnetic fields in general media. It can be used to give a systematic formulation of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) with strong magnetic fields, including systems with chiral matter and Adler-Bell-Jackiw (ABJ) anomaly. We work in the regime in which velocity and temperature fluctuations can be neglected. The resulting chiral anomalous MHD incorporates and generalizes the chiral magnetic effect, the chiral separation effect, the chiral electric separation effect, as well as recently derived strong-field MHD, all in a single coherent framework. At linearized level, the theory predicts that the chiral magnetic wave survives strong dynamical magnetic fields, and predicts the wave velocity. We also introduce a simple, but solvable nonlinear model to explore the fate of the chiral instability.

We revise gamma-ray limits on axion-like particles (ALPs) emitted from supernova SN1987A based on Solar Maximum Mission data. We improve and simplify the computation of the expected gamma-ray signal from ALP decays, while also extending it to non-instantaneous ALP emission. For the first time we make use of the temporal information in the data to update the associated ALP-photon coupling limits. For ALP decays, our updated likelihood only mildly affects the limit compared to previous works due to the absorption of gamma rays close to SN1987A. However, for ALP conversions in the Galactic magnetic field, temporal information improves the limit on the ALP-photon coupling by a factor of 1.4.

We revisit phase transitions in Twin Higgs (TH) models. We show that strong first-order phase transitions (FOPTs) can occur provided that appropriate source of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry breaking between the twin and Standard Model (SM) sectors is present. We found FOPTs in two classes of models. First: with hard $\mathbb{Z}_2$ breaking in the scalar potential allowing for FOPT. Second: with $\mathbb{Z}_2$ broken by enhanced Yukawa couplings of twin leptons. We also considered supersymmetric UV completion of the second scenario with light sleptons. The signal of gravitational waves produced during these phase transitions is typically small but can be close to the reach of AEDGE and Einstein Telescope in the case of the FOPT induced by light twin sleptons. Our results open a way to generate SM baryon asymmetry in TH models.

In the cosmological settings, Quantum Gravity effects are typically understood to be limited towards very early phase of the universe, namely in the pre-inflationary era, with limited signatures remaining present in the succeeding inflationary era. These signatures also gradually fade away as the universe grows and exits the inflationary era. In the subsequent radiation and matter dominated era quantum gravity is expected to play no significant role. Classicalized primordial perturbations such as the scalar perturbations and the gravitational waves are expected to leave an imprint on CMB anisotropy and its polarization respectively but quantized gravitational waves are not expected to lead to any appreciable observable effects. Apart from cosmology, in other avenues as well, the imprints of quantum character of gravitational waves are typically so subdued that any possible signature gets buried under a huge pile of the noise or effects from other much stronger processes. In this work, we demonstrate that quantum gravity perturbations cause strong observable effects in cosmological settings post the Last Scattering Surface (LSS) more prominently than any other classical or quantum processes. This counter-intuitive effect is facilitated by the fact that the correlators of the gravitational waves {\it grow divergently large in the matter dominated era} unlike any other background fields, leading to an abrupt rise in the processes mediated by correlators of quantum gravitons. The transitions between spherical harmonics states of newly formed hydrogen atom at the LSS, when the universe resides in strong matter dominated era, provides an example of such a process. We further establish that the late time epoch just before the kicking in of the dark energy provides one of the cleanest avenues to study such quantum gravity effects.

We consider chiral magnetohydrodynamics, i.e. a finite-temperature system where an axial $U(1)$ current is not conserved due to an Adler-Bell-Jackiw anomaly saturated by the dynamical operator $F_{\mu\nu} \tilde{F}^{\mu\nu}$. We express this anomaly in terms of the 1-form symmetry associated with magnetic flux conservation and study its realization at finite temperature. We present Euclidean generating functional and dissipative action approaches to the dynamics and reproduce some aspects of chiral MHD phenomenology from an effective theory viewpoint, including the chiral separation and magnetic effects. We also discuss the construction of non-invertible axial symmetry defect operators in our formalism.

We consider a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter (DM) annihilating into all possible Standard Model particle pairs, including the neutrinos, via $s$-wave processes and derive the branching ratio independent upper limit on the total annihilation cross-section $\langle \sigma v \rangle$ using the data of several astrophysical and cosmological observations. For conservative choices of all astrophysical parameters, we obtain upper limits of $10^{-23}-10^{-25}\,{\rm cm}^3{\rm s}^{-1}$ on the total $\langle \sigma v \rangle$, for the WIMP mass range $10\,{\rm MeV}-100\,{\rm TeV}$, thus making the entire mass range consistent with the observed relic density.

We study the stability of theories where the gravitational action has arbitrary algebraic dependence on the three first traces of the Riemann tensor: the Ricci tensor, the co-Ricci tensor, and the homothetic curvature tensor. We collectively call them Ricci-type tensors. We allow arbitrary coupling to matter. We consider the case when the connection is unconstrained, and the cases when either torsion or non-metricity is assumed to vanish. We find which combinations of Ricci-type tensors lead to new degrees of freedom around Minkowski and FLRW space, and when there are ghosts. None of the theories with new degrees of freedom are healthy, except the previously known case when torsion is zero and the action depends only on the Ricci tensor. We find that projective invariance is not a sufficient condition for a theory to be ghost-free.

A common alternative to the standard assumption of nucleonic composition of matter in the interior of a neutron star is to include strange baryons, particularly hyperons. Any change in composition of the neutron star core has an effect on g-mode oscillations of neutron stars, through the compositional dependence of the equilibrium and adiabatic sound speeds. We study the core g-modes of a neutron star contaning hyperons, using a variety of relativistic mean field models of dense matter that satisfy observational constraints on global properties of neutron stars. Our selected models predict a sharp rise in the g-mode frequencies upon the onset of strange baryons. Should g-modes be observed in the near future, their frequency could be used to test the presence of hyperonic matter in the core of neutron stars.

In the general framework of Metric-Affine theories of gravity, where the metric and the connection are independent variables, we consider actions quadratic in the Ricci scalar curvature and the Holst invariant (the contraction of the Riemann curvature with the Levi-Civita antisymmetric tensor) coupled non-minimally to a scalar field. We study the profile of the equivalent effective metric theory, featuring an extra dynamical pseudoscalar degree of freedom, and show that it reduces to an effective single-field inflationary model. We analyze in detail the inflationary predictions and find that they fall within the latest observational bounds for a wide range of parameters, allowing for an increase in the tensor-to-scalar ratio. The spectral index can either decrease or increase depending on the position in parameter space.

We apply Newtonian Fractional-Dimension Gravity (NFDG), an alternative gravitational model, to some notable cases of galaxies with little or no dark matter. In the case of the ultra-diffuse galaxy AGC 114905, we show that NFDG methods can effectively reproduce the observed rotation curve, by using a variable fractional dimension $D\left (R\right )$ as was done for other galaxies in previous studies. For AGC 114905, we obtain a variable dimension in the range $D \approx 2.2 -3.2$, but our fixed $D =3$ curve can still fit all the experimental data within their error bars. This confirms other studies indicating that the dynamics of this galaxy can be described almost entirely by the baryonic mass distribution alone. However, our NFDG model explains the residual discrepancies without using any dark matter component. In the case of NGC 1052-DF2, we use an argument based on the NFDG extension of the virial theorem applied to the velocity dispersion of globular clusters showing that, in general, discrepancies between observed and predicted velocity dispersions can be attributed to an overall fractal dimension $D <3$ of the astrophysical structure considered and not to the presence of dark matter. For NGC 1052-DF2 we estimate $D \approx 2.9$, thus confirming that this galaxy almost follows standard Newtonian behavior. We also consider the case of the Bullet Cluster merger (1E0657-56), assumed to be one of the strongest proofs of dark matter existence. A simplified but effective NFDG model of the collision shows that the observed infall velocity of this merger can be explained by a fractional dimension of the system in the range $D \simeq 2.4 -2.5$, again without using any dark matter.

In gravitational theories where a canonical scalar field $\phi$ with a potential $V(\phi)$ is coupled to a Gauss-Bonnet (GB) term ${\cal G}$ with the Lagrangian $f(\phi,{\cal G})$, we study the cosmological stability of tensor and scalar perturbations in the presence of a perfect fluid. We show that, in decelerating cosmological epochs with a positive tensor propagation speed squared, the existence of nonlinear functions of ${\cal G}$ in $f$ always induces Laplacian instability of a dynamical scalar perturbation associated with the GB term. This is also the case for $f({\cal G})$ gravity, where the presence of nonlinear GB functions $f({\cal G})$ is not allowed during the radiation- and matter-dominated epochs. A linearly coupled GB term with $\phi$ of the form $\xi (\phi){\cal G}$ can be consistent with all the stability conditions, provided that the scalar-GB coupling is subdominant to the background cosmological dynamics.

In a recent paper we described a novel approach to the detection and parameter estimation of a non\textendash Gaussian stochastic background of gravitational waves. We devised an inference procedure that uses signal realizations and importance sampling to weight integrals appearing in relevant statistical quantities. In particular, we constructed the associated detection statistics: in order to provide robustness against stationary noise uncertainties we proposed a subtraction procedure to remove terms with non--zero expectation values in absence of signal. We characterized the detector statistics performances, and observed that for low to moderate non-Gaussianities it is outperformed by established Gaussian inference schemes. In this work we propose a more careful, robust subtraction procedure: while still using the importance sampling scheme, it does not introduce performance penalties. We provide formal proof of its efficiency and, following closely the approach in our previous paper, we benchmark its performances on the same toy model: the proposed approach performs better than the Gaussian statistics everywhere in the model parameter space, therefore constituting a crucial addition to our framework.

Speed of sound is given attention in multi-messenger astronomy as it encodes information of the dense matter equation of state. Recently the trace anomaly was proposed as a more informative quantity. In this work, we statistically determine the speed of sound and trace anomaly and show that they are driven to their conformal values at the centers of maximally massive neutron stars. We show that the local peak in the speed of sound can be associated with deconfinement along with percolation conditions in QCD matter.

We numerically test quasi-periodic oscillations using three theoretically-motivated models of spacetime adopting neutron star sources. Then, we compare our findings with a spherically-symmetric spacetime inferred from $F(R)$ gravity, with constant curvature, showing that it fully-degenerates with our previous metrics, that have been adopted in the context of general relativity. To do so, we work out eight neutron stars in low mass X-ray binary systems and consider a Reisser-Nordstr\"{o}m solution plus a de Sitter phase with unspecified sign for the cosmological constant term. In particular, we investigate three hierarchies, \textit{i.e.}, the first dealing with a genuine Schwarzschild spacetime, the second with de Sitter phase whose sign is not fixed \emph{a priori} and, finally, a Reisser-Nordstr\"{o}m spacetime with an additional cosmological constant contribution. We perform Markov chain Monte Carlo analyses, based on the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, and infer 1--$\sigma$ and 2--$\sigma$ error bars. For all the sources, we find suitable agreement with spherical solutions with non-zero cosmological constant terms, \textit{i.e.}, with either de Sitter or anti-de Sitter solutions. From our findings, we notice that the existence of topological contribution to the net charge, suggested from $F(R)$ extensions of gravity, seems to be disfavored. Finally, we focus on the physics of the cosmological constant term here involved, investigating physical consequences and proposing possible extensions to improve our overall treatments.

If the gauge fields are amplified from the inflationary vacuum, the quantum mechanical initial data correspond to travelling waves that turn asymptotically into standing waves whose phases only depend on the evolution of the gauge coupling. We point out that these gauge analogs of the Sakharov oscillations are exchanged by the duality symmetry and ultimately constrain both the relative scaling of the hypermagnetic power spectra and their final asymptotic values. Unlike the case of the density contrasts in a relativistic plasma, the standing oscillations never develop since they are eventually overdamped by the finite value of the conductivity as soon as the corresponding modes are comparable with the expansion rates after inflation. We show that the late-time value of the magnetic field is not determined at radiation dominance (and in spite of the value of the wavenumber) but it depends on the moment when the wavelengths (comparable with the Mpc) get of the order of the Hubble radius before equality. This means that the magnetogenesis requirements are only relaxed if the post-inflationary expansion rate is slower than radiation but the opposite is true when the plasma expands faster than radiation and the corresponding power spectra are further suppressed. After combining the present findings with the evolution of the gauge coupling we show that these results are consistent with a magnetogenesis scenario where the gauge coupling is always perturbative during the inflationary stage while, in the dual case, the same requirements cannot be satisfied.

Test beam facilities are essential to study the response of novel detectors to particles. At the DESY II Test Beam facility, users can test their detectors with an electron beam with a momentum from 1-6 GeV. To track the beam particles, EUDET-style telescopes are provided in each beam area. They provide excellent spatial resolution, but the time resolution is limited by the rolling shutter architecture to a precision of approximately 230 $\mu$s. Since the demand on particle rates -- and hence track multiplicities -- is increasing timing is becoming more relevant. DESY foresees several upgrades of the telescopes. TelePix is an upgrade project to provide track timestamping with a precision of better than 5 ns and a configurable region of interest to trigger the telescope readout. Small scale prototypes have been characterised in laboratory and test beam measurements. Laboratory tests with an injection corresponding to 2300 electrons show a S/N of above 20. Test beam characterization shows efficiencies of above 99% over a threshold range of more than 100 mV and time resolutions of 2.4 ns at low noise rates.

We recently reported on the radio-frequency attenuation length of cold polar ice at Summit Station, Greenland, based on bistatic radar measurements of radio-frequency bedrock echo strengths taken during the summer of 2021. Those data also include echoes attributed to stratified impurities or dielectric discontinuities within the ice sheet (layers), which allow studies of a) estimation of the relative contribution of coherent (discrete layers, e.g.) vs. incoherent (bulk volumetric, e.g.) scattering, b) the magnitude of internal layer reflection coefficients, c) limits on the azimuthal asymmetry of reflections (birefringence), and d) limits on signal dispersion in-ice over a bandwidth of ~100 MHz. We find that i) after averaging 10000 echo triggers, reflected signal observable over the thermal floor (to depths of approximately 1500 m) are consistent with being entirely coherent, ii) internal layer reflection coefficients are measured at approximately -60 to -70 dB, iii) birefringent effects for vertically propagating signals are smaller by an order of magnitude relative to comparable studies performed at South Pole, and iv) within our experimental limits, glacial ice is non-dispersive over the frequency band relevant for neutrino detection experiments.

The anisotropies of the stochastic gravitational wave background, as produced in the early phases of cosmological evolution, can act as a key probe of the primordial universe particle content. We point out a new universal property of gravitational wave anisotropies of cosmological origin: for adiabatic initial conditions, their angular power spectrum is insensitive to the equation of state of the cosmic fluid driving the expansion before big-bang nucleosynthesis. Any deviation from this universal behaviour points to the presence of non-adiabatic sources of primordial fluctuations. Such scenarios can be tested by gravitational wave detectors operating at a frequency range which is fully complementary to CMB experiments. In this work we prove this general result, and we illustrate its consequences for a representative realisation of initial conditions based on the curvaton scenario. In the case of the simplest curvaton setup, we also find a significant cross-correlation between gravitational wave anisotropies and the CMB temperature fluctuations. There is a fourfold enhancement vis-\`{a}-vis the purely adiabatic scenario. We discuss the implications of our findings for identifying the origin of the (cosmological) gravitational wave background when, as is often the case, this cannot be determined solely on the basis of its spectral shape.