Papers for Thursday, Feb 29 2024

scida is a Python package for reading and analyzing large scientific data sets with support for various cosmological and galaxy formation simulations out-of-the-box. Data access is provided through a hierarchical dictionary-like data structure after a simple load() function. Using the dask library for scalable, parallel and out-of-core computation, all computation requests from a user session are first collected in a task graph. Arbitrary custom analysis, as well as all available dask (array) operations, can be performed. The subsequent computation is executed only upon request, on a target resource (e.g. a HPC cluster).

Motivated by the recent JWST discovery of galaxy overdensities during the Epoch of Reionzation, we examine the physical properties of high-$z$ protoclusters and their evolution using the FLAMINGO simulation suite. We investigate the impact of the apertures used to define protoclusters, because the heterogeneous apertures used in the literature have limited our understanding of the population. Our results are insensitive to the uncertainties of the subgrid models at a given resolution, whereas further investigation into the dependence on numerical resolution is needed. When considering galaxies more massive than $M_\ast\,{\simeq}\,10^8\,{\rm M_\odot}$, the FLAMINGO simulations predict a dominant contribution from progenitors similar to those of the Coma cluster to the cosmic star-formation rate density during the reionization epoch. Our results indicate the onset of suppression of star formation in the protocluster environments as early as $z\,{\simeq}\,5$. The galaxy number density profiles are similar to NFW at $z\,{\lesssim}\,1$ while showing a steeper slope at earlier times before the formation of the core. Different from most previous simulations, the predicted star-formation history for individual protoclusters is in good agreement with observations. We demonstrate that, depending on the aperture, the integrated physical properties including the total (dark matter and baryonic) mass can be biased by a factor of 2 to 5 at $z\,{=}\,5.5$--$7$, and by an order of magnitude at $z\,{\lesssim}\,4$. This correction suffices to remove the ${\simeq}\,3\,\sigma$ tensions with the number density of structures found in recent JWST observations.

Following the recent identification of discrete ROSAT and radio sources associated with the virial shocks of MCXC clusters and groups, we examine if the early eROSITA-DE data release (EDR) shows virial-shock X-ray sources within its $140$ deg$^2$ field. EDR catalog sources are stacked and radially binned around EDR catalog clusters and groups. The properties of the excess virial-shock sources are inferred statistically by comparing the virial-shock region to the field. An excess of X-ray sources is found narrowly localized at the $2.0<r/R_{500}<2.25$ normalized radii, just inside the anticipated virial shocks, of the resolved 532 clusters, for samples of both extended ($3\sigma$ for 534 sources) or bright ($3.5\sigma$ for 5820 sources; $4\sigma$ excluding the low cluster-mass quartile) sources. The excess sources are on average extended ($\sim 100$ kpc), luminous ($L_X\simeq 10^{43-44}$ erg s$^{-1}$), and hot ($\sim$keV), consistent with infalling gaseous halos crossing the virial shock. The results agree with the stacked ROSAT-MCXC signal, showing the higher $L_X$ anticipated at EDR redshifts and a possible dependence upon host mass. Localized virial-shock spikes in the distributions of discrete radio, X-ray, and probably also $\gamma$-ray sources are new powerful probes of accretion from the cosmic web, with strong constraints anticipated with future all-sky catalogs such as by eROSITA.

The energy injection through Hawking evaporation has been used to put strong constraints on primordial black holes as a dark matter candidate at masses below $10^{17}\,\rm{g}$. However, Hawking's semiclassical approximation breaks down at latest after half-decay. Beyond this point, the evaporation could be significantly suppressed as was shown in recent work. In this study, we review existing cosmological and astrophysical bounds on primordial black holes taking this effect into account. We show that the constraints disappear completely for a reasonable range of parameters, which opens a new window below $10^{10}\,\rm{g}$ for light primordial black holes as a dark matter candidate.

Highly radio-loud quasars (HRLQs; $\log R>2.5$) at $z\gtrsim 4$ show apparent enhanced X-ray emission compared to matched HRLQs at lower redshifts, perhaps due to a redshift-dependent fractional contribution to the X-ray luminosity from inverse-Compton scattering of cosmic microwave background photons (IC/CMB). Using new {\it Chandra} observations and archival X-ray data, we investigate this phenomenon with an optically flux-limited sample of 41 HRLQs at $z = 4$--5.5 all with sensitive X-ray coverage, the largest sample utilized to date by a wide margin. X-ray enhancements are assessed using X-ray-to-optical flux ratios and spectral energy distributions. We confirm the presence of X-ray enhancements at a 4.9--5.3$\sigma$ significance level, finding that the median factor of enhancement is $\approx 1.8$ at our sample median redshift of $z\approx 4.4$. Under a fractional IC/CMB model, the expected enhancement at lower redshifts is modest; e.g., $\approx 4$% at $z\approx 1.5$. We also investigate a sample of seven radio-loud quasars (RLQs; $\log R>1$) at even higher redshifts of $z=5.6$--6.8, using new and archival X-ray data. These RLQs also show evidence for X-ray enhancements by a median factor of $\approx 2.7$ at a 3.7--4.9$\sigma$ significance level. The X-ray spectral and other properties of these $z=5.6$--6.8 RLQs, however, pose challenges for a straightforward fractional IC/CMB interpretation of their enhancements.

The galaxy integrated star-formation rate (SFR) surface density ($\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$) has been proposed as a valuable diagnostic of the mass accumulation in galaxies as being more tightly related to the physics of star-formation (SF) and stellar feedback than other SF indicators. In this paper, we assemble a statistical sample of 230 galaxies observed with JWST in the GLASS and CEERS spectroscopic surveys to estimate Balmer line based dust attenuations and SFRs, and UV rest-frame effective radii. We study the evolution of galaxy SFR and $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ in the first 1.5 Billion years of our Universe, finding that $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ is mildly increasing with redshift with a linear slope of $0.16 \pm 0.06$. We also explore the dependence of SFR and $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ on stellar mass, showing that a SF 'Main-Sequence' and a $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ `Main-Sequence' are in place out to z=10, with a similar slope compared to the same relations at lower redshifts. We find that the specific SFR (sSFR) and $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ are correlated with the [OIII]5007/[OII]3727 ratio and with indirect estimates of the escape fraction of Lyman continuum photons, hence they likely play an important role in the evolution of ionization conditions and in the escape of ionizing radiation. We also search for spectral outflow signatures in a subset of galaxies observed at high resolution, finding an outflow incidence of $2/11$ ($=20\%^{32\%}_{9\%}$) at $z<6$, but no evidence at $z>6$ ($<26\%$). Finally, we find a positive correlation between A$_V$ and $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$, and a flat trend as a function of sSFR, indicating that there is no evidence of a drop of A$_V$ in extremely star-forming galaxies between z=4 and 10. This might be at odds with a dust-clearing outflow scenario, which might instead take place at redshifts $z\geq 10$, as suggested by some theoretical models.

We measure resolved (kiloparsec-scale) outflow properties in a sample of 10 starburst galaxies from the DUVET sample, using Keck/KCWI observations of H$\beta$ and [OIII]~$\lambda$5007. We measure $\sim450$ lines-of-sight that contain outflows, and use these to study scaling relationships of outflow velocity ($v_{\rm out}$), mass-loading factor ($\eta$; mass outflow rate per SFR) and mass flux ($\dot{\Sigma}_{\rm out}$; mass outflow rate per area) with co-located SFR surface density ($\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$) and stellar mass surface density ($\Sigma_{\ast}$). We find strong, positive correlations of $\dot{\Sigma}_{\rm out} \propto \Sigma_{\rm SFR}^{1.2}$ and $\dot{\Sigma}_{\rm out} \propto \Sigma_{\ast}^{1.7}$. We also find shallow correlations between $v_{\rm out}$ and both $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ and $\Sigma_{\ast}$. Our resolved observations do not suggest a threshold in outflows with $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$, but rather we find that the local specific SFR ($\Sigma_{\rm SFR}/\Sigma_\ast$) is a better predictor of where outflows are detected. We find that outflows are very common above $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}/\Sigma_\ast\gtrsim 0.1$~Gyr$^{-1}$ and rare below this value. We argue that our results are consistent with a picture in which outflows are driven by supernovae, and require more significant injected energy in higher mass surface density environments to overcome local gravity. The correlations we present here provide a statistically robust, direct comparison for simulations and higher redshift results from JWST.

Observations at UV and optical wavelengths have revealed that galaxies at z~1-4 host star-forming regions, dubbed "clumps", which are believed to form due to the fragmentation of gravitationally unstable, gas-rich disks. However, the detection of the parent molecular clouds that give birth to such clumps is still possible only in a minority of galaxies, mostly at z~1. We investigated the [CII] and dust morphology of a z~3.4 lensed galaxy hosting four clumps detected in the UV continuum. We aimed to observe the [CII] emission of individual clumps that, unlike the UV, is not affected by dust extinction, to probe their nature and cold gas content. We conducted ALMA observations probing scales down to ~300 pc and detected three [CII] clumps. One (dubbed "NE") coincides with the brightest UV clump, while the other two ("SW" and "C") are not detected in the UV continuum. We do not detect the dust continuum. We converted the [CII] luminosity of individual clumps into molecular gas mass and found Mmol~10^8 Msun. By complementing it with the star formation rate (SFR) estimate from the UV continuum, we estimated the gas depletion time (tdep) of clumps and investigated their location in the Schmidt-Kennicutt plane. While the NE clump has a short tdep=0.16 Gyr, comparable with high-redshift starbursts, the SW and C clumps instead have longer tdep>0.65 Gyr and are likely probing the initial phases of star formation. The lack of dust continuum detection is consistent with the blue UV continuum slope estimated for this galaxy (beta~-2.5) and it indicates that dust inhomogeneities do not significantly affect the detection of UV clumps in this target. We pushed the observation of the cold gas content of individual clumps up to z~3.4 and showed that the [C II] line emission is a promising tracer of molecular clouds at high redshift, allowing the detection of clumps with a large range of depletion times.

We present the results of a ~60-hr observational campaign with ALMA targeting a spectroscopically confirmed and lensed sub-$L^\star$ galaxy at z=6.07, identified during the ALMA Lensing Cluster Survey (ALCS). We sample the dust continuum emission from rest frame 90 to 370 $\mu$m at six different frequencies and set constraining upper limits on the molecular gas line emission and content via CO(7-6) and [CI](2-1) for two lensed images with $\mu\gtrsim20$. Complementing these sub-mm observations with deep optical and near-IR photometry and spectroscopy with JWST, we find this galaxy to form stars at a rate of SFR~7 Msun/yr, ~50-70% of which is obscured by dust. This is consistent with what is expected for a $M_\star$~7.5$\times10^{8}$ Msun object by extrapolating the $M_\star$-obscured SFR fraction relation at z<2.5 and with observations at 5<z<7. The dust temperature of ~50K is similar to that of more massive galaxies at similar redshifts, although with large uncertainties and with possible negative gradients. We measure a dust mass of $M_{\rm dust}$~1.5$\times10^6$ Msun and, by combining [CI], [CII], and a dynamical estimate, a gas mass of ~2$\times10^9$ Msun. Their ratio is in good agreement with the predictions from models in the literature. The $M_{\rm dust}$/$M_\star$ fraction of ~0.002 and the young stellar age are consistent with dust production via supernovae. Also, models predict a number density of galaxies with $M_{\rm dust}\sim10^{6}$ Msun at z=6 in agreement with our estimate from the parent ALCS survey. The combination of lensing and multiwavelength observations allow us to probe luminosity regimes up to two orders of magnitude lower than what has been explored so far for field galaxies at similar redshifts. Our results serve as a benchmark for future observations of faint sub-$L^\star$ galaxy population that might have driven the reionization of the Universe. [Abridged]

Local ULIRGs host ubiquitous molecular outflows, including the most massive and powerful ever detected. These sources have also exceptionally excited global, galaxy-integrated CO ladders. A connection between outflows and molecular gas excitation has however never been established, since previous multi-J CO surveys were limited in spectral resolution and sensitivity and so could only probe the global molecular gas conditions. We address this question using new, ground-based, sensitive heterodyne spectroscopy of multiple CO rotational lines (up to CO(7-6)) in a sample of 17 local ULIRGs. We used the APEX telescope to survey the CO($J_{up}\geq4$) lines at a high signal-to-noise ratio, and complemented these data with CO($J_{up}\leq3$) observations presented in Montoya Arroyave et al. (2023). We detected 74 (out of 75) CO lines, with up to six transitions per source. Some CO SLEDs peak at $J_{up}\sim3,4$, which we classify as 'lower excitation', while others plateau or keep increasing up to the highest-J CO transition probed, and we classify these as 'higher excitation'. Our analysis includes the results of CO SLED fits performed with a single large velocity gradient component, but our main focus is the investigation of possible links between global CO excitation and the presence of broad and/or high-velocity CO spectral components that can contain outflowing gas. We discovered an increasing trend of line width as a function of $J_{up}$ of the CO transition, which is significant at the $4\sigma$ level and appears to be driven by the eight sources classified as 'higher excitation'. For such ULIRGs we found that the CO ladders are more excited for spectral components characterised by higher velocities and/or velocity dispersion. We favour an interpretation whereby the highly excited CO-emitting gas in ULIRGs resides in galactic-scale massive molecular outflows.

The surface array of IceCube, IceTop, operates primarily as a cosmic-ray detector, as well as a veto for astrophysical neutrino searches for the IceCube in-ice instrumentation. However, the snow accumulation on top of the IceTop detectors increases the detection threshold and attenuates the measured IceTop signals. Enhancing IceTop by a hybrid array of scintillation detectors and radio antennas will lower the energy threshold for air-shower measurements, provide more efficient veto capabilities, enable more accurate cosmic-ray measurements, and improve the detector calibration by compensating for snow accumulation. After the initial commissioning period, a prototype station at the South Pole has been recording air-shower data and has successfully observed coincident events of both the scintillation detectors and the radio antennas with the IceTop array. The production and calibration of the detectors for the full planned array has been ongoing. Additionally, one station each has been installed at the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array for further R\&D of these detectors in different environmental conditions. This contribution will present the status and future plans of the hybrid detector stations for the IceCube Surface Array Enhancement.

To constrain the universe before recombination (380000 years after the Big Bang), we mostly rely on the measurements of the primordial abundances that indicate the first insight into the thermal history of the universe. The first production of elements is obtained by the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). The production of the elements (Deuterium, Helium-3, Helium-4) during the BBN matches well the observations; however, the production of lithium (Lithium-7) based on the Standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (SBBN) is found to be higher by about a factor of three than the observed abundance from metal-poor halo stars. This so-called "Cosmological Lithium Problem" is still elusive and needs to be resolved. One important attempt to get more insight into this problem is to invoke a non-standard description of the SBBN to decrease the lithium abundance. In our previous work, we encountered a problem that the decrease in the Lithium-7 abundance requires an increase in the deuterium abundance to maximum values that are not accepted by observations. In the present work, a decrease in the lithium abundance could be achieved without maximizing the deuterium abundance by modifying the time-temperature relation in the range (0.43-0.91) GK during the nucleosynthesis process. This range is crucial to reduce the strong correlation between lithium and deuterium production. The main conclusion of the present work is that Lithium-7 abundance in the atmospheres of metal-poor stars cannot be analyzed without considering possible modification of the primordial nucleosynthesis.

We present JWST/NIRCam observations of a strongly-lensed, multiply-imaged galaxy at $z=6.072$, with magnification factors >~20 across the galaxy. We perform a spatially-resolved analysis of the physical properties at scales of ~200 pc, inferred from SED modelling of 5 NIRCam imaging bands on a pixel-by-pixel basis. We find young stars surrounded by extended older stellar populations. By comparing H$\alpha$+[NII] and [OIII]+H$\beta$ maps inferred from the image analysis with our additional NIRSpec IFU data, we find that the spatial distribution and strength of the line maps are in agreement with the IFU measurements. We explore different parametric SFH forms with Bagpipes on the spatially-integrated photometry, finding that a double power-law star formation history retrieves the closest value to the spatially-resolved stellar mass estimate, and other SFH forms suffer from the dominant outshining emission from the youngest stars, thus underestimating the stellar mass - up to ~0.5 dex-. On the other hand, the DPL cannot match the IFU measured emission lines. Additionally, the ionizing photon production efficiency may be overestimated in a spatially-integrated approach by ~0.15 dex, when compared to a spatially-resolved analysis. The agreement with the IFU measurements points towards the pixel-by-pixel approach as a way to mitigate the general degeneracy between the flux excess from emission lines and underlying continuum, especially when lacking photometric medium-band coverage and/or IFU observations. This study stresses the importance of studying galaxies as the complex systems that they are, resolving their stellar populations when possible, or using more flexible SFH parameterisations. This can aid our understanding of the early stages of galaxy evolution by addressing the challenge of inferring robust stellar masses and ionizing photon production efficiencies of high redshift galaxies.

Cosmological simulations have been used to study interacting galaxies as a function of galaxy pair separation, enabling comparisons with observational studies of galaxy pairs. The study of interacting galaxies as a function of time (i.e. merger stage) has mostly been limited to high resolution merger simulations, due to the poor time sampling available in cosmological simulations. Building on an earlier study of galaxy pairs in the IllustrisTNG cosmological simulations, we reconstruct the orbits of galaxy pairs involving massive galaxies ($M_* > 10^{10}M_{\odot}$) at redshifts of $0 \leq z < 1$, using a novel kinematic interpolation scheme to model the orbits in between the IllustrisTNG snapshots (which are separated by 162 Myr on average). We assess the accuracy of these interpolations using a pre-existing suite of merger simulations, and find that kinematic interpolations provide a remarkable improvement in accuracy compared with interpolations that use only radial separations or 3D positions. We find that nearly 90 per cent of the closest pairs ($r < 25$ kpc) have had a pericentre encounter within the past Gyr. Many of these close pairs are found on rapidly shrinking orbits, and roughly 85 per cent of these pairs will merge within 1 Gyr. However, approximately 3 per cent of these close pairs appear to be flyby systems that will never merge. These reconstructed orbits will be used in future studies to investigate how and when galaxy properties change during close encounters and mergers between galaxies in IllustrisTNG.

The number of extrasolar planets discovered is increasing, so that more than five thousand exoplanets have been confirmed to date. Now we have an opportunity to test the validity of the laws governing planetary systems and take steps to discover the relationships between the physical parameters of planets and stars. Firstly, we present the results of a search for additional exoplanets in 229 multi-planetary systems that house at least three or more confirmed planets, employing a logarithmic spacing between planets in our Solar System known as the Titius-Bode (TB) relation. We find that the planets in $\sim53\%$ of these systems adhere to a logarithmic spacing relation remarkably better than the Solar System planets. We predict the presence of 426 additional exoplanets, 47 of which are located within the habitable zone (HZ), and five of the 47 planets have a maximum mass limit of 0.1-2$M_{\oplus}$ and a maximum radius lower than 1.25$R_{\oplus}$. Secondly, we employ efficient machine learning approaches to analyze a dataset comprising 762 confirmed exoplanets and eight Solar System planets, aiming to characterize their fundamental quantities. We classify the data into two main classes: 'small' and 'giant' planets, with cut-off values at $R_{p}=8.13R_{\oplus}$ and $M_{p}=52.48M_{\oplus}$. Giant planets have lower densities, suggesting higher H-He mass fractions, while small planets are denser, composed mainly of heavier elements. We highlight that planetary mass, orbital period, and stellar mass play crucial roles in predicting exoplanet radius. Notably, our study reveals a noteworthy result: for giant planets, we observe a strong correlation between planetary radius and the mass of their host stars, which might provide intriguing insights into the relationship between giant planet formation and stellar characteristics.

The progenitor of the W49B supernova remnant is still under debate. One of the candidates is a jet-driven core-collapse supernova. In such a highly asymmetric explosion, a strong $\alpha$-rich freezeout is expected in local high entropy regions, which should enrich elements synthesized by the capture of $\alpha$-particles such as $^{44}$Ti and $^{48}$Cr (decaying to $^{44}$Ca and $^{48}$Ti, respectively). In the present work, in order to infer the progenitor of the W49B remnant, we constrain the amount of stable Ti ($^{48}$Ti) synthesized, using the {\it Suzaku} observation. We found no firm evidence for the Ti line and set the upper limit of $M_{\rm Ti}/M_{\rm Fe} < 8.2 \times$ 10$^{-4}$ (99\% limit using Xspec) and $M_{\rm Ti}/M_{\rm Fe} < 1.9 \times$ 10$^{-3}$ (99\% limit using SPEX), and thus excluded almost all hypernova/jet-driven supernova models. Our results, as complemented by some previous studies, suggest that a Type Ia supernova from a near-$M_{\rm Ch}$ (Chandrasekhar mass) white dwarf is the most favorable candidate for the origin of W49B. Future observations with X-ray calorimeter missions, such as XRISM, will give us a stronger constraint on the progenitor.

One intriguing approach for studying the dynamical evolution of galaxy clusters is to compare the spatial distributions among various components, such as dark matter, member galaxies, gas, and intracluster light (ICL). Utilizing the recently introduced Weighted Overlap Coefficient (WOC) \citep{2022ApJS..261...28Y}, we analyze the spatial distributions of components within 174 galaxy clusters ($M_{\rm tot}> 5 \times 10^{13} M_{\odot}$, $z=0.625$) at varying dynamical states in the cosmological hydrodynamical simulation Horizon Run 5. We observe that the distributions of gas and the combination of ICL with the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) closely resembles the dark matter distribution, particularly in more relaxed clusters, characterized by the half-mass epoch. The similarity in spatial distribution between dark matter and BCG+ICL mimics the changes in the dynamical state of clusters during a major merger. Notably, at redshifts $>$ 1, BCG+ICL traced dark matter more accurately than the gas. Additionally, we examined the one-dimensional radial profiles of each component, which show that the BCG+ICL is a sensitive component revealing the dynamical state of clusters. We propose a new method that can approximately recover the dark matter profile by scaling the BCG+ICL radial profile. Furthermore, we find a recipe for tracing dark matter in unrelaxed clusters by including the most massive satellite galaxies together with BCG+ICL distribution. Combining the BCG+ICL and the gas distribution enhances the dark matter tracing ability. Our results imply that the BCG+ICL distribution is an effective tracer for the dark matter distribution, and the similarity of spatial distribution may be a useful probe of the dynamical state of a cluster.

Radio astronomy file formats are now required to store wide frequency bandwidths and multiple simultaneous receiver beams and must be able to account for versatile observing modes and numerous calibration strategies. The need to capture and archive high-time and high frequency-resolution data, along with the comprehensive metadata that fully describe the data, implies that a new data format and new processing software are required. This requirement is suited to a well-defined, hierarchically-structured and flexible file format. In this paper we present the Spectral-Domain Hierarchical Data Format (`SDHDF') -- a new file format for radio astronomy data, in particular for single dish or beam-formed data streams. Since 2018, SDHDF has been the primary format for data products from the spectral-line and continuum observing modes at Murriyang, the CSIRO Parkes 64-m radio telescope, and we demonstrate that this data format can also be used to store observations of pulsars and fast radio bursts.

The fundamental plane of back hole activity (BHFP) describes the correlation between radio luminosity ($L_R$), X-ray luminosity ($L_X$), and black hole mass ($M_{BH}$). It reflects a connection between accretion disc and jet. However, the dependence of the BHFP on various physical properties of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and host galaxies remains unclear, especially for low-luminosity AGNs. From the deep and large multi-wavelength surveys in the GOODS-N, GOODS-S, and COSMOS/UltraVISTA fields, we constructed a large and homogeneous radio AGN sample including 208 objects. We divided this sample into 141 radio-quiet (RQ) AGNs and 67 radio-loud (RL) AGNs according to the radio-loudness defined by the ratio of $L_R$ to $L_X$. The $L_R$-to-$L_X$ ratio shows a bimodal distribution that is well described by two single Gaussian models. Their cross point corresponds to a radio-loudness threshold of $\log (L_R/L_X)=-2.73$. The RQ AGNs have larger Eddington ratio ($\lambda_{Edd}$) than the RL AGNs. Our RQ and RL AGNs show different BHFPs that are $\log L_R=(0.55\pm 0.05)\log L_X+(0.28\pm 0.06)\log M_{BH}+(13.54\pm 2.27)$ and $\log L_R=(0.82\pm 0.08)\log L_X+(0.07\pm 0.08)\log M_{BH}+(5.24\pm 3.33)$, respectively. For both RQ and RL AGNs, the BHFP does not show a significant dependence on redshift and galaxy star-formation properties, while it shows a significant dependence on $\lambda_{Edd}$. The BHFP sheds important light on the accretion physics of central engines. RQ AGNs at $0.01<\lambda_{Edd}<0.1$ agree with the advection dominated accretion flow (ADAF) coupled with a synchrotron jet model, while at $0.1<\lambda_{Edd}< 1$, they mainly follow the jet model. RL AGNs are consistent with a combination of ADAF and jet model at $\lambda_{Edd}<0.01$, and agree with the jet model at $0.01<\lambda_{Edd}<0.1$, and follow a combination of the standard thin disc and jet model at $\lambda_{Edd}>0.1$.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will measure millions of quasar spectra by the end of its 5 year survey. Quasar redshift errors impact the shape of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest correlation functions, which can affect cosmological analyses and therefore cosmological interpretations. Using data from the DESI Early Data Release and the first two months of the main survey, we measure the systematic redshift error from an offset in the cross-correlation of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest with quasars. We find evidence for a redshift dependent bias causing redshifts to be underestimated with increasing redshift, stemming from improper modeling of the Lyman-$\alpha$ optical depth in the templates used for redshift estimation. New templates were derived for the DESI Year 1 quasar sample at $z > 1.6$ and we found the redshift dependent bias, $\Delta r_\parallel$, increased from $-1.94 \pm 0.15$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc to $-0.08 \pm 0.04$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc ($-205 \pm 15~\text{km s}^{-1}$ to $-9.0 \pm 4.0~\text{km s}^{-1}$). These new templates will be used to provide redshifts for the DESI Year 1 quasar sample.

We have developed a novel method for co-adding multiple under-sampled images that combines the iteratively reweighted least squares and divide-and-conquer algorithms. Our approach not only allows for the anti-aliasing of the images but also enables PSF deconvolution, resulting in enhanced restoration of extended sources, the highest PSNR, and reduced ringing artefacts. To test our method, we conducted numerical simulations that replicated observation runs of the CSST/VST telescope and compared our results to those obtained using previous algorithms. The simulation showed that our method outperforms previous approaches in several ways, such as restoring the profile of extended sources and minimizing ringing artefacts. Additionally, because our method relies on the inherent advantages of least squares fitting, it is more versatile and does not depend on the local uniformity hypothesis for the PSF. However, the new method consumes much more computation than the other approaches.

A measurement of the diffuse astrophysical neutrino spectrum is presented using IceCube data collected from 2011-2022 (10.3 years). We developed novel detection techniques to search for events with a contained vertex and exiting track induced by muon neutrinos undergoing a charged-current interaction. Searching for these starting track events allows us to not only more effectively reject atmospheric muons but also atmospheric neutrino backgrounds in the southern sky, opening a new window to the sub-100 TeV astrophysical neutrino sky. The event selection is constructed using a dynamic starting track veto and machine learning algorithms. We use this data to measure the astrophysical diffuse flux as a single power law flux (SPL) with a best-fit spectral index of $\gamma = 2.58 ^{+0.10}_{-0.09}$ and per-flavor normalization of $\phi^{\mathrm{Astro}}_{\mathrm{per-flavor}} = 1.68 ^{+0.19}_{-0.22} \times 10^{-18} \times \mathrm{GeV}^{-1} \mathrm{cm}^{-2} \mathrm{s}^{-1} \mathrm{sr}^{-1}$ (at 100 TeV). The sensitive energy range for this dataset is 3 - 550 TeV under the SPL assumption. This data was also used to measure the flux under a broken power law, however we did not find any evidence of a low energy cutoff.

Rotating Radio Transients (RRATs) are a relatively new subclass of pulsars that emit detectable radio bursts sporadically. We conducted an analysis of 10 RRATs observed using the Parkes telescope, with 8 of these observed via the Ultra-Wideband Receiver. We measured the burst rate and produced integrated profiles spanning multiple frequency bands for 3 RRATs. We also conducted a spectral analysis on both integrated pulses and individual pulses of 3 RRATs. All of their integrated pulses follow a simple power law, consistent with the known range of pulsar spectral indices. Their average spectral indices of single pulses are -0.9, -1.2, and -1.0 respectively, which are within the known range of pulsar spectral indices. Additionally, we find that the spreads of single-pulse spectral indices for these RRATs (ranging from -3.5 to +0.5) are narrower compared to what has been observed in other RRATs (Shapiro-Albert et al. 2018; Xie et al. 2022). It is notable that the average spectral index and scatter of single pulses are both relatively small. For the remaining 5 RRATs observed at the UWL receiver, we also provided the upper limits on fluence and flux density. In addition, we obtained the timing solution of PSR J1709-43. Our analysis shows that PSRs J1919+1745, J1709-43 and J1649-4653 are potentially nulling pulsars or weak pulsars with sparse strong pulses.

We report measurements of the galaxy two-point correlation function at cosmic dawn, using photometrically-selected sources from the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES). The JWST/NIRCam dataset comprises approximately $N_g \simeq 7000$ photometrically-selected Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs), spanning from $z=5.5$ up to $z=10.6$. The primary objective of this study is to extend clustering measurements beyond redshift $z>10$, finding a galaxy bias $b=9.6\pm1.7$ for the sample at $\overline{z} = 10.6$. The result suggests that the observed sources are hosted by dark matter halos of approximately $M_{h}\sim 10^{10.5}~\mathrm{M_{\odot}}$, in broad agreement with theoretical and numerical modelling of early galaxy formation during the epoch of reionization. Furthermore, the JWST JADES dataset enables an unprecedented investigation of clustering of dwarf galaxies two orders of magnitude fainter than the characteristic $L_*$ luminosity (i.e. with $M_{F200W}\simeq-14.5$) during the late stages of the epoch of reionization at $z\sim 6$. By measuring clustering versus luminosity, we observe that $b(M_{F200W})$ initially decreases with $M_{F200W}$ as theoretically expected, but a turning point of the relationship is seen at $M_{F200W} \sim -16$. We interpret the rise of clustering of the faintest dwarf as evidence of multiple halo occupation (i.e. as a one-halo term in bias modelling). These initial results demonstrate the potential for further quantitative characterisation of the interplay between assembly of dark matter and light during cosmic dawn that the growing samples of JWST observations are enabling.

In this paper, with a set of high-resolution He I 10830 \AA\ filtergrams, we select an area in a plage, very likely an EUV moss area, as an interface layer to follow the clues of coronal heating channels down to the photosphere. The filtergrams are obtained from the 1-meter aperture New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST). We make a distinction between the darker and the brighter regions in the selected area and name the two regions enhanced absorption patches (EAPs) and low absorption patches (LAPs). With well-aligned, nearly simultaneous data from multiple channels of the AIA and the continuum of the HMI on board SDO, we compare the EUV/UV emissions, emission measure, mean temperature, and continuum intensity in the two kinds of regions. The following progress is made: 1) The mean EUV emissions over EAPs are mostly stronger than the corresponding emissions over LAPs except for the emission at 335 \AA. The UV emissions at 1600 and 1700 \AA\ fail to capture the difference between the two regions. 2) In the logarithmic temperature range of 5.6-6.2, EAPs have higher EUV emission measure than LAPs, but they have lower mean coronal temperature. 3) The mean continuum intensity over EAPs is lower. Based on the above progress, we suggest that the energy for coronal heating in the moss region can be traced down to some areas in intergranular lanes with enhanced density of both cool and hot material. The lower temperature over the EAPs is due to the greater fraction of cool material over there.

In this paper, we present an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based reconstruction analysis of the Supernova Ia (SNIa) distance moduli ($\mu(z)$), and hence dark energy, using LSST simulated three-year SNIa data. Our ANN reconstruction architecture can model both the distance moduli and their corresponding error estimates. For this we employ astroANN and incorporate Monte Carlo dropout techniques to quantify uncertainties in our predictions. We tune our hyperparameters through advanced genetic algorithms, including elitism, utilizing the DEAP library. We compared the performance of the ANN based reconstruction with two theoretical descriptions of dark energy models, $\Lambda$CDM and Chevallier-Linder-Polarski (CPL). We perform a Bayesian analysis for these two theoretical models using the LSST simulations and also compare with observations from Pantheon and Pantheon+ SNIa real data. We show that our model-independent reconstruction using ANN is consistent with both of them. We assessed the performance using mean squared error (MSE) and showed that the ANN can produce distance estimates in better agreement with the LSST dataset than either $\Lambda$CDM or CPL, albeit very small. We included an additional residual analysis and a null test with $F$-scores to show that the reconstructed distances from the ANN model, are in excellent agreement with the $\Lambda$CDM or CPL model.

SGR J1935+2154 has truly been the most prolific magnetar over the last decade: It has been entering into burst active episodes once every 1-2 years since its discovery in 2014, it emitted the first Galactic fast radio burst associated with an X-ray burst in 2020, and has emitted hundreds of energetic short bursts. Here, we present the time-resolved spectral analysis of 51 bright bursts from SGR J1935+2154. Unlike conventional time-resolved X-ray spectroscopic studies in the literature, we follow a two-step approach to probe true spectral evolution. For each burst, we first extract spectral information from overlapping time segments, fit them with three continuum models, and employ a machine learning based clustering algorithm to identify time segments that provide the largest spectral variations during each burst. We then extract spectra from those non-overlapping (clustered) time segments and fit them again with the three models: the cutoff power-law model, the sum of two blackbody functions, and the model considering the emission of a modified black body undergoing resonant cyclotron scattering, which is applied systematically at this scale for the first time. Our novel technique allowed us to establish the genuine spectral evolution of magnetar bursts. We discuss the implications of our results and compare their collective behavior with the average burst properties of other magnetars.

Recent numerical simulations have shown that the unstable disk within the central regime of the primordial gas cloud fragments to form multiple protostars on several scales. Their evolution depends on the mass accretion phenomenon, interaction with the surrounding medium and radiative feedback respectively. In this work, we use a fast semi-analytical framework in order to model multiple protostars within a rotating cloud, where the mass accretion is estimated via a Bondi-Hoyle flow and the feedback process is approximated through radiation pressure. We observe that while some of the evolving protostars possibly grow massive ($\approx 1-24 M_{\odot}$) via accretion and mergers, a fraction of them ($\approx 20\%$) are likely to be ejected from the parent cloud with a mass corresponding to $M_{*} \lesssim 0.8 M_{\odot}$. These low-mass protostars may be considered as the potential candidates to enter the zero-age-main-sequence (ZAMS) phase and possibly survive till the present epoch.

We identify axion miniclusters collapsing in the radiation-dominated era and follow them to redshift $z=99$ with N-body simulations. We find that the majority of the densest miniclusters end up in the center of larger minicluster halos at late times. Soon after their formation, the miniclusters exhibit NFW profiles but they subsequently develop a steeper inner slope approaching $\rho\sim r^{-2}$ on small scales. Using the so far most highly resolved axion structure formation simulation with $2048^3$ particles we examine the structure of previously studied minicluster halos. While the density profiles of their subhalos are NFW-like we confirm that a modified NFW profile with a steeper inner slope provides a better description for minicluster halos with masses above $\sim 10^{-12}\,M_\odot$. We show that miniclusters with a higher central density might be in contrast to pure NFW halos dense enough to induce gravitational microlensing. Likewise, more compact minicluster halos will have immediate implications for direct and indirect axion detection.

The integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect (ISW) describes how CMB photons pick up a net blue or redshift when traversing the time-varying gravitational potentials between the last scattering surface and us. Deviations from its standard amplitude could hint new physics. We show that reconstructing the amplitude of the ISW effect as a function of the redshift may provide a unique tool to probe the gravity sector during the era of dark ages, inaccessible via other cosmological observables. Exploiting Planck CMB temperature, polarization and lensing observations, we find a $2\sigma$ deviation from the standard ISW amplitude at redshift $z=500$. Barrying a systematic origin, our findings could point to either possibly new physics or a departure from the standard picture of structure formation under the General Relativity framework. Assuming the simplest two-redshift-bin scenario, we ensure $38\sigma$ and $2\sigma$ evidences of the early and late ISW effects, respectively, despite a priori possible degeneracy with the CMB lensing amplitude. Using a multiple tomographic method, we present the first complete characterization of the ISW effect over space and time. Future tomographic ISW analyses are therefore crucial to probe the dark ages at redshifts otherwise unreachable via other probes.

We derive molecular gas fractions ($f_\mathrm{mol}=M_\mathrm{mol}/M_*$) and depletion times ($\tau_\mathrm{mol}= M_\mathrm{mol}/\mathrm{SFR} $) for 353 galaxies representative of the local star-forming population with $10^{8.5}\,M_\odot < M_* < 10^{10.5}\,M_\odot$ drawn from the ALLSMOG and xCOLDGASS surveys of CO(2-1) and CO(1-0) line emission. By adding constraints from low-mass galaxies and upper limits for CO non-detections, we find the median molecular gas fraction of the local star-forming population to be constant at $f_\mathrm{mol}=-1.04\pm 0.04$ challenging previous reports of increased molecular gas fractions in low mass galaxies. Above $M_*\sim 10^{10.5}\,M_\odot$ we find the $M_*$ vs $f_\mathrm{mol}$ relation to be sensitive to the selection criteria for star-forming galaxies. We test the robustness of our results against different prescriptions for the CO-to-H$_2$ conversion factor and different selection criteria for star-forming galaxies. The depletion timescale $\tau_\mathrm{mol}$ depends weakly on $M_*$, following a power law with a best-fit slope of $0.24\pm 0.03$. This suggests that small variations in specific SFR ($ \mathrm{sSFR=SFR}/M_*$) across the local main sequence of star forming galaxies with $M_* < 10^{10.5}\,M_\odot$ are driven mainly by differences in the efficiency of converting the available molecular gas into stars. We test these results against a possible dependence of $f_\mathrm{mol}$ and $\tau_\mathrm{mol}$ on the surrounding (group) environment of the targets by splitting them into centrals, satellites, and isolated galaxies, and find no significant variation between these populations. We conclude that the group environment is unlikely to have a large systematic effect on the molecular gas content of star-forming galaxies in the local universe.

We propose a model for the origin of the broad He II 4686A emission in the early spectrum of type II SN~2020jfo. The 4686A line is emitted presumably by dense fragments embedded into a hot gas of the forward shock wave. The fragments are produced as a result of a heavy braking of the dense low-mass shell at the ejecta boundary and a simultaneous Rayleigh-Taylor instability. The temperature of line-emitting fragments is $\approx$5$\times10^4$K. Calculations of ionization and excitation of helium and hydrogen account for the He II 4686A luminosity, the large flux ratio of He II 4686A/H$\alpha$, and a significant optical depth of the 4686A line. We demonstrate that fragments heating by hot electrons behind the forward shock compensates cooling via the HeII 304A emission.

In this work, we extended an energy-integrated neutrino transport method to facilitate efficient, yet precise, modeling of compact astrophysical objects. We focus particularly on core-collapse supernovae. We implemented the framework of Foucart et al. (2016) into FLASH and performed a detailed evaluation of its accuracy in core-collapse supernova simulations. Based on comparisons with results from simulations using energy-dependent neutrino transport, we incorporated several improvements to the original scheme. Our analysis shows that our grey neutrino transport method successfully reproduces key aspects from more complex energy-dependent transport across a variety of progenitors and equations of state. We find both qualitative and reasonable quantitative agreement with multi-group M1 transport simulations. However, the grey scheme tends to slightly favor shock revival. In terms of gravitational wave and neutrino signals, there is a good alignment with the energy-dependent transport, although we find 15-30 percent discrepancies in the average energy and luminosity of heavy-lepton neutrinos. Simulations using the grey transport are around four times faster than those using energy-dependent transport.

Power spectrum of \HI 21 cm radiation is one of the promising probes to study large scale structure of the universe. Presence of orders of magnitude larger foregrounds in the frequency range for such observations has been one of the major challenge. The foreground contamination also introduce residual calibration errors in the interferometric data. The latter introduce bias in the 21-cm power spectrum estimates and increase systematics. There have been several efforts to understand and improve on the calibration errors. In this work we use an analytical estimate of the bias and variance in redshifted 21-cm power spectrum in presence of time-correlated residual gain errors and foreground. We use the uGMRT Band-3 observations of the ELAIS-N1 field and estimate the bias and variance in the power spectrum from these observation. We first access the statistics of the gain errors and based on the quality of calibration we flag a set of additional antennae. The latter reduce the bias and variance of power spectrum significantly and we found it to be recommended for such analysis. We observe that for the uGMRT baseline configuration and system parameters, the variance is always higher than the bias. The excess variance in the power spectrum reduces with increase of the angular scales and at about $\ell\sim6000$ the effects from residual gain errors are negligible. Based on our analysis we observe that for an angular multipole of $\ell \sim3000$, $2000$ hours of `on source time' is required with uGMRT to detect redshifted 21-cm signal at $3-\sigma$ significance from a redshift of $2.55$. In this work we only consider the power spectrum measurement in the plane of the sky, an assessment of residual gain statistics and its effect on multifrequency angular power spectrum estimation will be presented in a companion paper.

We used an unbiased CMB lensing mass estimator on 468 SPT-SZ clusters from the SPT-SZ and the Planck public data, the first such estimation using combined ground- and space-based data. We measured the average ratio between CMB lensing and SZ mass to be $M_{\rm CMBlens}/M_{\rm SZ} = 0.98 \pm 0.19$ (stat.) $\pm 0.03$ (syst.). The average CMB lensing mass from the combination of the two data sets is measured at 4.8$\sigma$, which is a significant gain with respect to the measurement performed on the SPT-SZ only (3.9$\sigma$) or the Planck only (3.7$\sigma$) data set. We showed that the combination not only takes advantage of the two different ranges of spatial scales (i.e. Fourier modes) observed but also exploits the lensing induced correlation between scales observed by one experiment and the other. This result demonstrates the importance of measuring a large range of spatial scales for CMB lensing mass estimation, from arcmin to degrees. This large range of scales will most probably be provided by the combination of various data sets, such as from the large and small aperture telescopes of the upcoming Simons Observatory and future CMB-S4 experiment, and Planck. In this context, the Planck data will remain a key element for CMB lensing cluster studies in the years to come.

We present a high angular resolution multi-wavelength study of the massive globular cluster NGC 1835 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Thanks to a combination of optical and near ultraviolet images acquired with the WFC3 on board the HST, we performed a detailed inspection of the stellar population in this stellar system adopting a ``UV-guided search'' to optimize the detection of relatively hot stars. This allowed us to discover a remarkably extended horizontal branch (HB), spanning more than 4.5 magnitudes in both magnitude and colour from the region redder than the instability strip, up to effective temperatures of 30,000 K, and including a large population of RR Lyrae (67 confirmed variables, and 52 new candidates). This is the first time that such a feature has been detected in an extra-Galactic cluster, demonstrating that the physical conditions responsible for the formation of extended HBs are ubiquitous. The acquired dataset has been also used to redetermine the cluster distance modulus, reddening, and absolute age, yielding $(m-M)_0=18.58$, $E(B-V)=0.08$, and $t=12.5$ Gyr, respectively.

We present the results of a preliminary study of a correction method applied to the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope images affected by clouds. The studied data are Monte Carlo simulations made with CORSIKA, imitating the very high energy events registered by the Large-Sized Telescopes, a type of telescope within the future Cherenkov Telescope Array. We implement the cloud correction method in the ctapipe/lstchain analysis framework. The correction is based on a simple geometrical model of the emission. We show the effect of the correction method on the image parameters and the stereo-reconstructed shower parameters.

To date, the most precise measurement of the observer's peculiar velocity comes from the dipole in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). This velocity also generates a dipole in the source number counts, whose amplitude is governed not only by the observer velocity, but also by specific properties of the sources, that are difficult to determine precisely. Quantitative studies of the source number counts currently give dipoles which are reasonably well aligned with the CMB dipole, but with a significantly larger amplitude than that of the CMB dipole. In this work, we explore an alternative way of measuring the observer velocity from the source number counts, using correlations between neighboring spherical harmonic coefficients, induced by the velocity. We show that these correlations contain both a term sensitive to the source properties and another one directly given by the observer velocity. We explore the potential of a Euclid-like survey to directly measure this second contribution, independently of the characteristics of the population of sources. We find that the method can reach a precision of 4%, corresponding to a detection significance of 24 sigma, on the observer velocity. This will settle with precision the present "dipole tension".

Multiple-cluster systems, superclusters, contain large numbers of galaxies assembled in clusters inter-connected by multi-scale filamentary networks. As such, superclusters are a smaller version of the cosmic web and can be considered as miniature universes. Superclusters also contain gas, hot in the clusters and warmer in the filaments. Thus, they are ideal laboratories to study the interplay between the galaxies and the gas. In this context, the Shapley supercluster (SSC) stands out since it hosts the highest number of galaxies in the local universe. In addition, it is detected in both X-rays and via the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect, making it ideal for a multi-wavelength study. Applying for the first time a filament-finder based on graphs, T-REx, on a spectroscopic galaxy catalogue, we uncovered the 3D filamentary network in and around SSC. Simultaneously, we used a large sample of photometric galaxies with information on their star formation rates (SFR) in order to investigate the quenching of star formation in the SSC environments which we define with the gas distribution in the Planck tSZ map and the ROSAT X-ray map. We confirm filaments already observed in the distribution of galaxies of the SSC, and detect new ones. We observe the quenching of star formation as a function of the gas, and show a general trend of decreasing SFR where the tSZ and X-ray signals are the highest. Within these regions, we also observe a rapid decline of the number of star-forming galaxies, coinciding with an increasing number of transitioning and passive galaxies. Within the filaments, the fraction of passive galaxies is larger than outside filaments, irrespective of the gas pressure. Our results suggest the zone of influence of the SSC, in which galaxies are pre-processed and quenched, is well defined by the tSZ signal that combines the density and temperature of the environments.

We present a new 2D axisymmetric code, cuDisc, for studying protoplanetary discs, focusing on the self-consistent calculation of dust dynamics, grain size distribution and disc temperature. Self-consistently studying these physical processes is essential for many disc problems, such as structure formation and dust removal, given that the processes heavily depend on one another. To follow the evolution over substantial fractions of the disc lifetime, cuDisc uses the CUDA language and libraries to speed up the code through GPU acceleration. cuDisc employs a second-order finite-volume Godonuv solver for dust dynamics, solves the Smoluchowski equation for dust growth and calculates radiative transfer using a multi-frequency hybrid ray-tracing/flux-limited-diffusion method. We benchmark our code against current state-of-the-art codes. Through studying steady-state problems, we find that including 2D structure reveals that when collisions are important, the dust vertical structure appears to reach a diffusion-settling-coagulation equilibrium that can differ substantially from standard models that ignore coagulation. For low fragmentation velocities, we find an enhancement of intermediate-sized dust grains at heights of ~ 1 gas scale height due to the variation in collision rates with height, and for large fragmentation velocities, we find an enhancement of small grains around the disc mid-plane due to collisional ''sweeping'' of small grains by large grains. These results could be important for the analysis of disc SEDs or scattered light images, given these observables are sensitive to the vertical grain distribution.

We introduce a model for dust evolution in the {\sc ramses} code for simulations of galaxies with a resolved multiphase interstellar medium. Dust is modelled as a fluid transported with the gas component, and is decomposed into two sizes, 5 nm and $0.1 \, \mu\rm m$, and two chemical compositions for carbonaceous and silicate grains. Using a suite of isolated disc simulations with different masses and metallicities, the simulations can explore the role of these processes in shaping the key properties of dust in galaxies. The simulated Milky Way analogue reproduces the dust-to-metal mass ratio, depletion factors, size distribution and extinction curves of the Milky Way. Galaxies with lower metallicities reproduce the observed decrease in the dust-to-metal mass ratio with metallicity at around a few $0.1\,\rm Z_\odot$. This break in the DTM corresponds to a galactic gas metallicity threshold that marks the transition from an ejecta-dominated to an accretion-dominated grain growth, and that is different for silicate and carbonaceous grains, with $\simeq0.1\,\rm Z_\odot$ and $\simeq 0.5\,\rm Z_\odot$ respectively. This leads to more Magellanic Cloud-like extinction curves, with steeper slopes in the ultraviolet and a weaker bump feature at 217.5 nm, in galaxies with lower masses and lower metallicities. Steeper slopes in these galaxies are caused by the combination of the higher efficiency of gas accretion by silicate relative to carbonaceous grains, and by the low rates of coagulation that preserves the amount of small silicate grains. Weak bumps are due to the overall inefficient accretion growth of carbonaceous dust at low metallicity, whose growth is mostly supported by the release of large grains in SN ejecta. We also show that the formation of CO molecules is a key component to limit the ability of carbonaceous dust to grow, in particular in low-metallicity gas-rich galaxies.

Galaxy mergers play a crucial role in galaxy evolution. However, the correlation between mergers and the local environment of galaxies is not fully understood. We aim to address the question of whether galaxy mergers prefer denser or less dense environments by quantifying the spatial clustering of mergers and non-mergers. We use two different indicators to classify mergers and non-mergers - classification based on a deep learning technique ($f$) and non-parametric measures of galaxy morphology, Gini-$M_{20}$ ($g$). We used a set of galaxy samples in the redshift range 0.1 < z < 0.15 from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey with a stellar mass cut of log (M*/Msun) > 9.5. We measured and compared the two-point correlation function (2pCF) of mergers and non-mergers classified using the two merger indicators $f$ and $g$. We measured the marked correlation function (MCF), in which the galaxies are weighted by $f$ to probe the environmental dependence of galaxy mergers. We do not observe a statistically significant difference between the clustering strengths of mergers and non-mergers obtained using 2pCF. However, using the MCF measurements with $f$ as a mark, we observe an anti-correlation between the likelihood of a galaxy being a merger and its environment. Our results emphasise the advantage of MCF over 2pCF in probing the environmental correlations. Based on the MCF measurements, we conclude that the galaxy mergers prefer to occur in the under-dense environments on scales greater than 50 kpc/h of the large-scale structure (LSS). We attribute this observation to the high relative velocities of galaxies in the densest environments that prevent them from merging.

Spectral line observations encode a wealth of information. A key challenge, therefore, lies in the interpretation of these observations in terms of models to derive the physical and chemical properties of the astronomical environments from which they arise. In this paper, we present pomme: an open-source Python package that allows users to retrieve 1D or 3D models of physical properties, such as chemical abundance, velocity, and temperature distributions of (optically thin) astrophysical media, based on spectral line observations. We discuss how prior knowledge, for instance, in the form of a steady-state hydrodynamics model, can be used to guide the retrieval process, and demonstrate our methods both on synthetic and real observations of cool stellar winds.

The conformal flatness approximation to the Einstein equations has been successfully used in many astrophysical applications such as initial data constructions and dynamical simulations. Although it has been shown that full general relativistic strongly differentially rotating equilibrium models deviate by at most a few percents from their conformally flat counterparts, whether those solutions share the same dynamical stabilities has not been fully addressed. To further understand the limitations of the conformal flatness approximation, in this work, we construct spatially-conformally-flat hot hypermassive neutron stars with postmerger-like rotation laws, and perform conformally flat evolutions and analysis over dynamical timescales. We found that the stellar profiles of quasi-toroidal models with high angular momentum for $J \gtrsim 9 \;G M_{\odot}^2 / c$ can change significantly over dynamical timescales. In contrast, all the quasi-spherical models considered in this work remain stable even with high angular momentum $J=9\;G M_{\odot}^2 / c$. Our investigation suggest that the quasi-spherical models are suitable initial data for long-lived hypermassive neutron star modelings in conformally flat spacetime.

In this study, we extend the dust-independent Hatzidimitriou (1991) relation between cluster age and $d_{B-R}$ color difference between red giant branch (RGB) and red clump (RC) to younger cluster ages. We perform membership analysis on twenty-two open clusters using $\textit{Gaia}$ DR3 astrometry, then compute the difference in color of red giant branch and red clump $d_{B-R}$ using $\textit{Gaia}$ photometry. We find that the trend derived from older clusters does not extrapolate to younger ages and becomes double-valued. We confirm that $d_{B-R}$ is independent of metallicity. Current stellar evolutionary isochrones do not quantitatively reproduce the trend and furthermore predict an increased color gap with a decrease in metallicity that is not echoed in the data. Integrated light models based on current isochrones exaggerate the color change over the $-0.5 <$ [Fe/H] $< 0$ interval at the few-percent level.

We present constraints on the Dark Scattering model through cosmic shear measurements from the Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS-1000), using an accelerated pipeline with novel emulators produced with $\tt{CosmoPower}$. Our main emulator, for the Dark Scattering non-linear matter power spectrum, is trained on predictions from the halo model reaction framework, previously validated against simulations. Additionally, we include the effects of baryonic feedback from $\tt{HMcode2016}$, whose contribution is also emulated. We analyse the complete set of statistics of KiDS-1000, namely Band Powers, COSEBIs and Correlation Functions, for Dark Scattering in two distinct cases. In the first case, taking into account only KiDS cosmic shear data, we constrain the amplitude of the dark energy - dark matter interaction to be $\vert A_{\rm ds} \vert \lesssim 20$ $\rm b/GeV$ at 68\% C.L. Furthermore, we add information from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from Planck, along with baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) from 6dFGS, SDSS and BOSS, approximating a combined weak lensing + CMB + BAO analysis. From this combination, we constrain $A_{\rm ds} = 10.6^{+4.5}_{-7.3}$ $\rm b/GeV$ at 68\% C.L. We confirm that with this estimated value of $A_{\rm ds}$ the interacting model considered in this work offers a promising alternative to solve the $S_8$ tension.

We study the constraints on the primordial magnetic fields in light of Dark Ages global 21-cm signal. An early absorption signal in the redshift of $200 \leq z \leq 30$ is predicted in the $\Lambda\rm CDM$ model of cosmology. During the Dark Ages, there were no stars, therefore, measuring the global 21-cm signal can provide pristine cosmological information. However, measuring the Dark Ages global 21-cm signal from ground-based telescopes is challenging. To overcome this difficulty, recently lunar and space-based experiments have been proposed, such as FARSIDE, DAPPER, FarView, etc. Primordial magnetic fields can heat the intergalactic medium gas via magnetohydrodynamic effects. We study the effects of magnetic fields on the Dark Ages global 21-cm signal and constrain the present-day strength of primordial magnetic fields and the spectral index. We find that measuring the Dark Ages signal can provide stronger bounds compared to the existing constraints from Planck 2016. Additionally, we also explore the dark-ages consistency ratio which can identify the magnetic heating of IGM by measuring the 21-cm signal at only three different redshifts in future experiments.

We propose a new method to search for parity-violating new physics via measurements of cosmic birefringence and demonstrate its power in detecting the topological effect originating from an axion string network with an axion-photon coupling as a motivated source of cosmic birefringence. The method, using large galaxy samples, exploits an empirical correlation between the polarization direction of the integrated radio emission from a spiral galaxy and its apparent shape. We devise unbiased minimum-variance quadratic estimators for discrete samples of galaxies with both integrated radio polarization and shape measurements. Assuming a synergy with overlapping optical imaging surveys, we forecast the sensitivity to polarization rotation of the forthcoming SKA radio continuum surveys of spiral galaxies out to $z \sim 1.5$. The angular noise power spectrum of polarization rotation using our method can be lower than that expected from CMB Stage-IV experiments, when assuming a wide survey covering $\sim 1000\,{\rm deg}^2$ and reaching an RMS flux of $\sim 1\,\mu{\rm Jy}$. Our method will be complementary to CMB-based methods as it will be subject to different systematics. It can be generalized to probe time-varying or redshift-varying birefringence signals.

We present a comprehensive atmospheric retrieval study of the hot Jupiter WASP-77A\,b using eclipse observations from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and JWST. Using atmospheric retrievals, the spectral features of H$_2$O, CO, and TiO are identified, with volume mixing ratios estimated at log$_{\rm 10}$(VMR) = -4.40$^{+0.14}_{-0.11}$, -4.44$^{+0.34}_{-0.28}$, and -6.40$^{+0.22}_{-0.23}$, respectively. We derive the atmospheric carbon-to-oxygen ratio -- a key planetary formation tracer -- to be C/O = 0.54$\pm$0.12, which is consistent with both the stellar host value and previous studies of the planet's atmosphere, suggesting a relatively close-in formation. Computing other elemental ratios (i.e., C/H, O/H, and Ti/H), we conclude that the general enrichment of the atmosphere (i.e., metallicity) is sub-stellar, is depleted in C and O, but that Ti appears slightly super-stellar. A low C and O content could be obtained, in combination with a stellar C/O ratio, if the planet formed outside of the CO$_2$ snow line before migrating inwards. Meanwhile, a super-stellar Ti/H could be obtained by late contamination from refractory rich planetesimals. While broadly in agreement with previous works, we do find some differences and discuss these while also highlighting the need for homogeneous analyses when comparative exoplanetology is conducted.

In general relativity, there is a velocity dependent term in the gravitational acceleration of a test particle for an observer at infinity. Depending on the direction of motion and the speed, that term can be repulsive. We show that this is also the case in the Parametrized Post-Newtonian (PPN) formalism. We compute the magnitude of that repulsive term for an expanding sphere of dust observed at infinity, and find that it could mimic the effect of a cosmological constant. The time evolution of such an expanding ball of dust for an observer at infinity is calculated, and compared with the standard $\Lambda$CDM model. We find that the so-called coincidence problem does not exist for such a model as the energy density attributed to the expansion is always of the same order as the matter energy density.

Many astrophysical and cosmological observations consistently indicate that the universe is currently accelerating. Despite many possible explanations, the exact cause of this acceleration remains unknown. Therefore, additional observational probes are necessary to pinpoint the cause. Gravitational waves (GWs) have the potential to unravel some of the unresolved mysteries in cosmology. In this work, we highlight the potential utility of gravitational wave memory as a tool to identify the cause of this acceleration. We evaluate cosmological memory as a particular case of the master equation for GW memory in Locally Rotationally Symmetric type II spacetimes. Unlike the previous works, the master equation for GW memory contains non-linear dependence of the background quantities. Hence, even though the successive GWs generated are smaller than their predecessors, we demonstrate that their cumulative effect over cosmological time leads to observable signatures, akin to the growth of density perturbations resulting in large-scale structures. Finally, we show that the GW memory exhibits distinct signatures between accelerated and decelerated universes, potentially enabling the identification of the transition redshift from a matter-dominated to a dark-energy-dominated universe.

We study the dynamics of Abelian gauge fields invariant under transverse diffeomorphisms (TDiff) in cosmological contexts. We show that in the geometric optics approximation, very much as for Diff invariant theories, the corresponding massless gauge bosons propagate along null geodesics and particle number is conserved. In addition, the polarization vectors are orthogonal to the propagation direction and the physical (transverse projection) polarization is parallel transported along the geodesics. We also consider TDiff invariant Dirac spinors, study the coupling to the gauge fields and analyze the conditions in order to avoid violations of Einstein's Equivalence Principle. The contributions to the energy-momentum tensor of the gauge field are also analyzed. We find that, in general, the breaking of Diff invariance makes the electric and magnetic parts of the vector field to gravitate in a different way. In the sub-Hubble regime we recover the standard radiation-like behaviour of the energy density, however in the super-Hubble regime the behaviour is totally different to the Diff case, thus opening up a wide range of possibilities for cosmological model building. In particular, possible effects on the evolution of large-scale primordial magnetic fields are discussed.

We study the prospects for measuring the time variation of solar and atmospheric neutrino fluxes at future large-scale Xenon and Argon dark matter detectors. For solar neutrinos, a yearly time variation arises from the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit, and, for charged current interactions, from a smaller energy-dependent day-night variation to due flavor regeneration as neutrinos travel through the Earth. For a 100-ton Xenon detector running for 10 years with a Xenon-136 fraction of $\lesssim 0.1\%$, in the electron recoil channel a time-variation amplitude of about 0.8\% is detectable with a power of 90\% and the level of significance of 10\%. This is sufficient to detect time variation due to eccentricity, which has amplitude of $\sim 3\%$. In the nuclear recoil channel, the detectable amplitude is about 10\% under current detector resolution and efficiency conditions, and this generally reduces to about 1\% for improved detector resolution and efficiency, the latter of which is sufficient to detect time variation due to eccentricity. Our analysis assumes both known and unknown periods. We provide scalings to determine the sensitivity to an arbitrary time-varying amplitude as a function of detector parameters. Identifying the time variation of the neutrino fluxes will be important for distinguishing neutrinos from dark matter signals and other detector-related backgrounds, and extracting properties of neutrinos that can be uniquely studied in dark matter experiments.

We compute the dominant QED correction to the neutrino-electron interaction rate in the vicinity of neutrino decoupling in the early universe, and estimate its impact on the effective number of neutrino species $N_{\rm eff}$ in cosmic microwave background anisotropy observations. We find that the correction to the interaction rate is at the sub-percent level, consistent with a recent estimate by Jackson and Laine. Relative to that work we include the electron mass in our computations, but restrict our analysis to the enhanced $t$-channel contributions. The fractional change in $N_{\rm eff}^{\rm SM}$ due to the rate correction is of order $10^{-5}$ or below, i.e., about a factor of 30 smaller than that recently claimed by Cielo {\it et al.}, and below the nominal computational uncertainties of the current benchmark value of $N_{\rm eff}^{\rm SM} = 3.0440 \pm 0.0002$. We therefore conclude that aforementioned number remains to be the state-of-the-art benchmark for $N_{\rm eff}^{\rm SM}$ in the standard model of particle physics.

The Sun may capture asymmetric dark matter (DM), which can subsequently form bound-states through the radiative emission of a sub-GeV scalar. This process enables generation of scalars without requiring DM annihilation. In addition to DM capture on nucleons, the DM-scalar coupling responsible for bound-state formation also induces capture from self-scatterings of ambient DM particles with DM particles already captured, as well as with DM bound-states formed in-situ within the Sun. This scenario is studied in detail by solving Boltzmann equations numerically and analytically. In particular, we take into consideration that the DM self-capture rates require a treatment beyond the conventional Born approximation. We show that, thanks to DM scatterings on bound-states, the number of DM particles captured increases exponentially, leading to enhanced emission of relativistic scalars through bound-state formation, whose final decay products could be observable. We explore phenomenological signatures with the example that the scalar mediator decays to neutrinos. We find that the neutrino flux emitted can be comparable to atmospheric neutrino fluxes within the range of energies below one hundred MeV. Future facilities like Hyper-K, and direct DM detection experiments can further test such scenario.

We study dark matter production from mediator decays in scenarios with an epoch of early matter domination. Particles that mediate interactions between dark matter and the standard model particles are kinematically accessible to the thermal bath as long as their mass is below the reheating temperature of the Universe after inflation. Decay of on-shell mediators can then lead to copious production of dark matter during early matter domination or a preceding radiation-dominated phase. In particular, for mediators that are charged under the standard model, it can exceed the standard freeze-in channel due to inverse annihilations at much lower temperatures (often by many orders of magnitude). The requirement to obtain the correct relic abundance severely constrains the parameter space for dark matter masses above a few TeV.