Astrophysics

New submissions

• New submissions
• Cross-lists
• Replacements

New submissions for Mon, 23 Mar 20

[1]  arXiv:2003.08943 [pdf, other]

Title: Real-Time Value-Driven Data Augmentation in the Era of LSST

Authors: Niharika Sravan, Dan Milisavljevic, Jack M. Reynolds, Geoffrey Lentner, Mark Linvill (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University)

Comments: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

The deluge of data from time-domain surveys is rendering traditional human-guided data collection and inference techniques impractical. We propose a novel approach for conducting data collection for science inference in the era of massive large-scale surveys that uses value-based metrics to autonomously strategize and co-ordinate follow-up in real-time. We demonstrate the underlying principles in the Recommender Engine For Intelligent Transient Tracking (REFITT) that ingests live alerts from surveys and value-added inputs from data brokers to predict the future behavior of transients and design optimal data augmentation strategies given a set of scientific objectives. The prototype presented in this paper is tested to work given simulated Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) core-collapse supernova (CC SN) light-curves from the PLAsTiCC dataset. CC SNe were selected for the initial development phase as they are known to be difficult to classify, with the expectation that any learning techniques for them should be at least as effective for other transients. We demonstrate the behavior of REFITT on a random LSST night given ~32000 live CC SNe of interest. The system makes good predictions for the photometric behavior of the events and uses them to plan follow-up using a simple data-driven metric. We argue that machine-directed follow-up maximizes the scientific potential of surveys and follow-up resources by reducing downtime and bias in data collection.

[2]  arXiv:2003.08946 [pdf, other]

Title: Stellar populations across galaxy bars in the MUSE TIMER project

Authors: Justus Neumann, Francesca Fragkoudi, Isabel Pérez, Dimitri A. Gadotti, Jesús Falcón-Barroso, Patricia Sánchez-Blázquez, Adrian Bittner, Bernd Husemann, Facundo A. Gómez, Robert J. J. Grand, Charlotte E. Donohoe-Keyes, Taehyun Kim, Adriana de Lorenzo-Cáceres, Marie Martig, Jairo Méndez-Abreu, Rüdiger Pakmor, Marja K. Seidel, Glenn van de Ven

Comments: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics; 14 pages, 14 figures, 3 tables (including appendix: 29 pages, 29 figures)

Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

Stellar populations in barred galaxies save an imprint of the influence of the bar on the host galaxy's evolution. We present a detailed analysis of star formation histories (SFHs) and chemical enrichment of stellar populations in nine nearby barred galaxies from the TIMER project. We use integral field observations with the MUSE instrument to derive unprecedented spatially resolved maps of stellar ages, metallicities, [Mg/Fe] abundances and SFHs, as well as H$\alpha$ as a tracer of ongoing star formation. We find a characteristic V-shaped signature in the SFH perpendicular to the bar major axis which supports the scenario where intermediate age stars ($\sim 2$-$6\ \mathrm{Gyr}$) are trapped on more elongated orbits shaping a thinner part of the bar, while older stars ($> 8\ \mathrm{Gyr}$) are trapped on less elongated orbits shaping a rounder and thicker part of the bar. We compare our data to state-of-the-art cosmological magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of barred galaxies and show that such V-shaped SFHs arise naturally due to the dynamical influence of the bar on stellar populations with different ages and kinematic properties. Additionally, we find an excess of very young stars ($< 2\ \mathrm{Gyr}$) on the edges of the bars, predominantly on the leading side, confirming typical star formation patterns in bars. Furthermore, mass-weighted age and metallicity gradients are slightly shallower along the bar than in the disc likely due to orbital mixing in the bar. Finally, we find that bars are mostly more metal-rich and less [Mg/Fe]-enhanced than the surrounding discs. We interpret this as a signature that the bar quenches star formation in the inner region of discs, usually referred to as star formation deserts. We discuss these results and their implications on two different scenarios of bar formation and evolution.

[3]  arXiv:2003.08949 [pdf, other]

Title: Simons Observatory Microwave SQUID Multiplexing Readout -- Cryogenic RF Amplifier and Coaxial Chain Design

Authors: Mayuri Sathyanarayana Rao, Maximiliano Silva-Feaver, Aamir Ali, Kam Arnold, Peter Ashton, Bradley J. Dober, Cody J. Duell, Shannon M. Duff, Nicholas Galitzki, Erin Healy, Shawn Henderson, Shuay-Pwu Patty Ho, Jonathan Hoh, Anna M. Kofman, Akito Kusaka, Adrian T. Lee, Aashrita Mangu, Justin Mathewson, Philip Mauskopf, Heather McCarrick, Jenna Moore, Michael D. Niemack, Christopher Raum, Maria Salatino, Trevor Sasse, Joseph Seibert, Sara M. Simon, Suzanne Staggs, Jason R. Stevens, Grant Teply, Robert Thornton, Joel Ullom, Eve M. Vavagiakis, Benjamin Westbrook, Zhilei Xu, Ningfeng Zhu

Comments: 10 pages, 2 figures

Journal-ref: Journal of Low Temperature Physics, (2020), 1-10

Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det)

The Simons Observatory (SO) is an upcoming polarization-sensitive Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) experiment on the Cerro Toco Plateau (Chile) with large overlap with other optical and infrared surveys (e.g., DESI, LSST, HSC). To enable the readout of \bigO(10,000) detectors in each of the four telescopes of SO, we will employ the microwave SQUID multiplexing technology. With a targeted multiplexing factor of \bigO{(1,000)}, microwave SQUID multiplexing has never been deployed on the scale needed for SO. Here we present the design of the cryogenic coaxial cable and RF component chain that connects room temperature readout electronics to superconducting resonators that are coupled to Transition Edge Sensor bolometers operating at sub-Kelvin temperatures. We describe design considerations including cryogenic RF component selection, system linearity, noise, and thermal power dissipation.

[4]  arXiv:2003.08953 [pdf, other]

Title: Rates of Stellar Tidal Disruption

Authors: Nicholas C. Stone, Eugene Vasiliev, Michael Kesden, Elena M. Rossi, Hagai B. Perets, Pau Amaro-Seoane

Comments: Accepted for publication in Springer Space Science Reviews. Chapter in ISSI review, "The Tidal Disruption of Stars by Massive Black Holes," vol. 79

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)

Tidal disruption events occur rarely in any individual galaxy. Over the last decade, however, time-domain surveys have begun to accumulate statistical samples of these flares. What dynamical processes are responsible for feeding stars to supermassive black holes? At what rate are stars tidally disrupted in realistic galactic nuclei? What may we learn about supermassive black holes and broader astrophysical questions by estimating tidal disruption event rates from observational samples of flares? These are the questions we aim to address in this Chapter, which summarizes current theoretical knowledge about rates of stellar tidal disruption, and compares theoretical predictions to the current state of observations.

[5]  arXiv:2003.08958 [pdf, other]

Title: Studying the Lyman-$α$ optical depth fluctuations at $z \sim 5.5$ using fast semi-numerical methods

Authors: T. Roy Choudhury, Aseem Paranjape, Sarah E. I. Bosman

Comments: 12 pages

Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

We present a computationally efficient and fast semi-numerical technique for simulating the Lyman-$\alpha$ (Ly$\alpha$) absorption optical depth in presence of neutral hydrogen "islands" leftover from reionization at redshifts $5 \lesssim z \lesssim 6$. The main inputs to the analysis are (i) a semi-numerical photon-conserving model of ionized regions during reionization (named SCRIPT) and (ii) the fluctuating Gunn-Peterson approximation to model the Ly$\alpha$ absorption. Our model is then used for simulating the large-scale fluctuations in the effective optical depth as observed along sight lines towards high$-z$ quasars. We find that the model, with fiducial choice of free parameters, is in agreement with the results from more detailed radiative transfer simulations. By varying the free parameters, we obtain the constraints on reionization history at $5 \lesssim z \lesssim 6$ as allowed by the data. We confirm that reionization is not complete before $z \sim 5.6$ and the completion can be as late as $z \sim 5.2$ (both within $2-\sigma$), the exact limits depending on how the non-detections of the flux in the data are treated. With further improvements in the model and with more sight lines at $z \sim 6$, we can take advantage of the computational efficiency of our analysis to obtain more stringent constraints at the tail-end of reionization.

[6]  arXiv:2003.08982 [pdf, other]

Title: The mass discrepancy in intermediate- and high-mass eclipsing binaries: the need for higher convective core masses

Authors: A. Tkachenko, K. Pavlovski, C. Johnston, M. G. Pedersen, M. Michielsen, D. M. Bowman, J. Southworth, V. Tsymbal, C. Aerts

Comments: 22 pages (17 pages of main text + 5 pages of appendix), 14 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

(Abridged) Eclipsing, spectroscopic double-lined binary star systems (SB2) are excellent laboratories for calibrating theories of stellar interior structure and evolution. We aim to investigate the mass discrepancy in binary stars. We study the effect of near-core mixing on the mass of the convective core of the stars and interpret the results in the context of the mass discrepancy. Two scenarios are considered, where individual stellar components of a binary system are treated independent of each other and where they are forced to have the same age and initial chemical composition. We find that the mass discrepancy is present in our sample and that it is anti-correlated with the surface gravity of the star. No correlations are found with other fundamental and atmospheric parameters, including the stellar mass. The mass discrepancy can be partially accounted for by increasing the amount of near-core mixing in stellar evolution models. We also find that ignoring the microturbulent velocity and turbulent pressure in stellar atmosphere models of hot evolved stars results in overestimation of their effective temperature by up to 8%. Together with enhanced near-core mixing, this can almost entirely account for the 30% mass discrepancy found for the evolved primary component of V380 Cyg. We find a strong link between the mass discrepancy and the convective core mass. The mass discrepancy can be solved by considering the combined effect of extra near-core boundary mixing and consistent treatment in the spectrum analysis of hot evolved stars. Our binary modelling results in convective core masses between 17 and 35% of the stellar mass, in excellent agreement with results from gravity-mode asteroseismology of single stars. This implies larger helium core masses near the end of the main sequence than anticipated so far.

[7]  arXiv:2003.08984 [pdf, other]

Title: Origin of Star-Forming Rings around Massive Centres in Massive Galaxies at $z\!<\!4$

Authors: Avishai Dekel, Sharon Lapiner, Omri Ginzburg, Jonathan Freundlich, Fangzhou Jiang, Doug Lin, Daniel Ceverino, Joel Primack, Mauro Giavalisco, Zhiyuan Ji

Comments: 37 pages, 29 figures

Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

Using analytic modeling and simulations, we address the origin of an abundance of star-forming, clumpy, extended gas rings about massive central bodies in massive galaxies at $z\! <\! 4$. Rings form by high-angular-momentum streams and may survive in galaxies of $M_{\rm star} \!>\! 10^{9.5}\, M_\odot$ where merger-driven spin flips and supernova feedback are ineffective. The rings survive above this threshold mass after events of compaction to central nuggets. Ring longevity seemed to conflict with the expected inward mass transport driven by torques from violent disc instability. However, by evaluating the torques from a tightly wound spiral structure, we find that the timescale for transport per orbital time is $\propto\! \delta_{\rm d}^{-3}$, with $\delta_{\rm d}$ the cold-to-total mass ratio interior to the ring. A long-lived ring forms when the ring transport is slower than its replenishment by accretion and the interior depletion by SFR, both valid for $\delta_{\rm d} \!<\! 0.3$. The central mass that lowers $\delta_{\rm d}$ and maintains the ring is made of compaction-driven bulge and/or dark-matter, aided by the lower gas fraction at lower $z$. The ring could be Toomre unstable for clump and star formation. Mock images of simulated rings through dust indicate qualitative consistency with observed rings about bulges in massive $z\!\sim\!0.5\!-\!3$ galaxies, in $H_{\alpha}$ and in deep HST imaging. ALMA mock images indicate that $z\!\sim\!0.5\!-\!1$ rings should be detectable. We quote expected observable properties and abundances of rings and their central blue or red nuggets for comparison to observations.

[8]  arXiv:2003.08997 [pdf, other]

Title: Common dynamo scaling in slowly rotating young and evolved stars

Authors: Jyri J. Lehtinen, Federico Spada, Maarit J. Käpylä, Nigul Olspert, Petri J. Käpylä

Comments: This is the initial submission version of the paper "Common dynamo scaling in slowly rotating young and evolved stars" (Lehtinen et al. 2020). The final version accepted in Nature Astronomy can be found at this https URL

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

One interpretation of the activity and magnetism of late-type stars is that these both intensify with decreasing Rossby number up to a saturation level, suggesting that stellar dynamos depend on both rotation and convective turbulence. Some studies have claimed, however, that rotation alone suffices to parametrise this scaling adequately. Here, we tackle the question of the relevance of turbulence to stellar dynamos by including evolved, post main sequence stars in the analysis of the rotation-activity relation. These stars rotate very slowly compared with main sequence stars, but exhibit similar activity levels. We show that the two evolutionary stages fall together in the rotation-activity diagram and form a single sequence in the unsaturated regime in relation only to Rossby numbers derived from stellar models, confirming earlier preliminary results that relied on a more simplistic parametrisation of the convective turnover time. This mirrors recent results of fully convective M dwarfs, which likewise fall on the same rotation-activity sequence as partially convective solar-type stars. Our results demonstrate that turbulence plays a crucial role in driving stellar dynamos and suggest that there is a common turbulence-related dynamo mechanism explaining the magnetic activity of all late-type stars.

[9]  arXiv:2003.08998 [pdf, other]

Title: Evolutionary Models for 43 Galactic Supernova Remnants with Distances and X-ray Spectra

Authors: D.A. Leahy, S. Ranasinghe. M. Gelowitz

Comments: 49 pages, 6 figures

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

The X-ray emission from a supernova remnant (SNR) is a powerful diagnostic of the state of the shocked plasma. The temperature (kT) and the emission measure (EM) of the shocked-gas are related to the energy of the explosion, the age of the SNR, and the density of the surrounding medium. Progress in X-ray observations of SNRs has resulted in a significant sample of Galactic SNRs with measured kT and EM values. We apply spherically symmetric SNR evolution models to a new set of 43 SNRs to estimate ages, explosion energies, and circumstellar medium densities. The distribution of ages yields a SNR birth rate. The energies and densities are well fit with log-normal distributions, with wide dispersions. SNRs with two emission components are used to distinguish between SNR models with uniform ISM and with stellar wind environment. We find type Ia SNRs to be consistent with a stellar wind environment. Inclusion of stellar wind SNR models has a significant effect on estimated lifetimes and explosion energies of SNRs. This reduces the discrepancy between the estimated SNR birthrate and the SN rate of the Galaxy.

[10]  arXiv:2003.09008 [pdf, other]

Title: Spectroscopic patch model for massive stars using PHOEBE II and FASTWIND

Authors: Michael Abdul-Masih, Hugues Sana, Kyle E. Conroy, Jon Sundqvist, Andrej Prša, Angela Kochoska, Joachim Puls

Comments: 10 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

Massive stars play an important role in the mechanical and chemical evolution of galaxies. Understanding the internal processes of these stars is vital to our understanding of their evolution and eventual end products. Deformations from spherical geometry are common for massive stars; however, the tools that are currently available for the study of these systems are almost exclusively one-dimensional. We present a new spectroscopic analysis tool tailored for massive stars that deviate from spherical symmetry. This code (entitled SPAMMS) is a spectroscopic patch model that takes the three-dimensional surface geometry of the system into account to produce spectral profiles at given phases and orientations. In using the Wilson-Devinney-like code PHOEBE in combination with the non local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) radiative transfer code FASTWIND, we created a three-dimensional mesh that represents the surface geometry of our system and we assigned FASTWIND emergent intensity line profiles to each mesh triangle, which take the local parameters such as temperature, surface gravity, and radius into account. These line profiles were then integrated across the visible surface, where their flux contribution and radial velocity are taken into account, thus returning a final line profile for the visible surface of the system at a given phase. We demonstrate that SPAMMS can accurately reproduce the morphology of observed spectral line profiles for overcontact systems. Additionally, we show how line profiles of rapidly-rotating single stars differ when taking rotational distortion into account, and the effects that these can have on the determined parameters. Finally, we demonstrate the code's ability to reproduce the Rossiter-Mclaughlin and Struve-Sahade effects.

[11]  arXiv:2003.09011 [pdf, other]

Title: Modelling of the Effects of Stellar Feedback during Star Cluster Formation Using a Hybrid Gas and N-Body Method

Authors: Joshua E. Wall, Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, Stephen L. W. McMillan, Ralf S. Klessen, Simon Portegies Zwart, Andrew Pellegrino

Comments: 27 pages, 18 figures, submitted to AAS Journals. Source code at this https URL and documentation at this https URL

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

Understanding the formation of stellar clusters requires following the interplay between gas and newly formed stars accurately. We therefore couple the magnetohydrodynamics code FLASH to the N-body code ph4 and the stellar evolution code SeBa using the Astrophysical Multipurpose Software Environment (AMUSE) to model stellar dynamics, evolution, and collisional N-body dynamics and the formation of binary and higher-order multiple systems, while implementing stellar feedback in the form of radiation, stellar winds and supernovae in FLASH. We use this novel numerical method to simulate the formation and early evolution of open clusters of $\sim 1000$ stars formed from clouds with a mass range of $10^3$-$10^5$ M$_\odot$. Analyzing the effects of stellar feedback on the gas and stars of the natal cluster, we find that our clusters are resilient to disruption, even in the presence of intense feedback. This can even slightly increase the amount of dense, Jeans unstable gas by sweeping up shells; thus, a stellar wind strong enough to trap its own H II region shows modest triggering of star formation. Our clusters are born moderately mass segregated, an effect enhanced by feedback, and retained after the ejection of their natal gas, in agreement with observations.

[12]  arXiv:2003.09046 [pdf, other]

Title: Utilizing Small Telescopes Operated by Citizen Scientists for Transiting Exoplanet Follow-up

Authors: Robert T. Zellem, Kyle A. Pearson, Ethan Blaser, Martin Fowler, David R. Ciardi, Anya Biferno, Bob Massey, Franck Marchis, Robert Baer, Conley Ball, Mike Chasin, Mike Conley, Scott Dixon, Elizabeth Fletcher, Saneyda Hernandez, Sujay Nair, Quinn Perian, Frank Sienkiewicz, Kalee Tock, Vivek Vijayakumar, Mark R. Swain, Gael M. Roudier, Geoffrey Bryden, Dennis M. Conti, Dolores H. Hill, Carl W. Hergenrother, Mary Dussault, Stephen R. Kane, Michael Fitzgerald, Pat Boyce, Laura Peticolas, Wilfred Gee, Lynn Cominsky, Rachel Zimmerman-Brachman, Denise Smith, Michelle J. Creech-Eakman, John Engelke, Alexandra Iturralde, Diana Dragomir, Nemanja Jovanovic, Brandon Lawton, Emmanuel Arbouch, Marc Kuchner, Arnaud Malvache

Comments: 26 pages, 15 figures; accepted for publication by PASP

Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)

Due to the efforts by numerous ground-based surveys and NASA's Kepler and TESS, there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of transiting exoplanets ideal for atmospheric characterization via spectroscopy with large platforms such as JWST and ARIEL. However their next predicted mid-transit time could become so increasingly uncertain over time that significant overhead would be required to ensure the detection of the entire transit. As a result, follow-up observations to characterize these exoplanetary atmospheres would require less-efficient use of an observatory's time---which is an issue for large platforms where minimizing observing overheads is a necessity. Here we demonstrate the power of citizen scientists operating smaller observatories ($\le$1-m) to keep ephemerides "fresh", defined here as when the 1$\sigma$ uncertainty in the mid-transit time is less than half the transit duration. We advocate for the creation of a community-wide effort to perform ephemeris maintenance on transiting exoplanets by citizen scientists. Such observations can be conducted with even a 6-inch telescope, which has the potential to save up to $\sim$8000 days for a 1000-planet survey. Based on a preliminary analysis of 14 transits from a single 6-inch MicroObservatory telescope, we empirically estimate the ability of small telescopes to benefit the community. Observations with a small-telescope network operated by citizen scientists are capable of resolving stellar blends to within 5''/pixel, can follow-up long period transits in short-baseline TESS fields, monitor epoch-to-epoch stellar variability at a precision 0.67% $\pm$ 0.12% for a 11.3 V-mag star, and search for new planets or constrain the masses of known planets with transit timing variations greater than two minutes.

[13]  arXiv:2003.09052 [pdf, other]

Title: Design and operation of the ATLAS Transient Science Server

Authors: K. W. Smith, S. J. Smartt, D. R. Young, J. L. Tonry, L. Denneau, H. Flewelling, A. N. Heinze, H. J. Weiland, B. Stalder, A. Rest, C. W. Stubbs, J. P. Anderson, T.-W. Chen, P. Clark, A. Do, F. Förster, M. Fulton, J. Gillanders, O. R. McBrien, D. O'Neill, S. Srivastav, D. E. Wright

Comments: 26 pages, 12 figures. Submitted to PASP

Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

The Asteroid Terrestrial impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) system consists of two 0.5m Schmidt telescopes with cameras covering 29 square degrees at plate scale of 1.86 arcsec per pixel. Working in tandem, the telescopes routinely survey the whole sky visible from Hawaii (above $\delta > -50^{\circ}$) every two nights, exposing four times per night, typically reaching $o < 19$ magnitude per exposure when the moon is illuminated and $c < 19.5$ per exposure in dark skies. Construction is underway of two further units to be sited in Chile and South Africa which will result in an all-sky daily cadence from 2021. Initially designed for detecting potentially hazardous near earth objects, the ATLAS data enable a range of astrophysical time domain science. To extract transients from the data stream requires a computing system to process the data, assimilate detections in time and space and associate them with known astrophysical sources. Here we describe the hardware and software infrastructure to produce a stream of clean, real, astrophysical transients in real time. This involves machine learning and boosted decision tree algorithms to identify extragalactic and Galactic transients. Typically we detect 10-15 supernova candidates per night which we immediately announce publicly. The ATLAS discoveries not only enable rapid follow-up of interesting sources but will provide complete statistical samples within the local volume of 100 Mpc. A simple comparison of the detected supernova rate within 100 Mpc, with no corrections for completeness, is already significantly higher (factor 1.5 to 2) than the current accepted rates.

[14]  arXiv:2003.09066 [pdf, other]

Title: Multiwavelength Study of an X-ray Tidal Disruption Event Candidate in NGC 5092

Authors: Dongyue Li, R.D. Saxton, Weimin Yuan, Luming Sun, He-Yang Liu, Ning Jiang, Huaqing Cheng, Hongyan Zhou, S. Komossa, Chichuan Jin

Comments: 24 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

We present multiwavelength studies of a transient X-ray source, XMMSL1 J131952.3+225958, associated with the galaxy NGC 5092 at $z=0.023$ detected in the XMM-Newton SLew survey (XMMSL). The source brightened in the 0.2--2 keV band by a factor of $>20$ in 2005 as compared with previous flux limits and then faded by a factor of $>200$ as observed with it XMM-Newton in 2013 and with it Swift in 2018. At the flaring state, the X-ray spectrum can be modeled with a blackbody at a temperature of $\sim$ 60 eV and an overall luminosity of $\sim$ $1.5 \times 10^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$. A UV flare and optical flare were also detected with the Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, respectively, within several months of the X-ray flare, whose nonstellar UV--optical spectrum can be described with a blackbody at a temperature of $\sim$ $(1-2) \times 10^4$ K and a luminosity of $\sim$ $(2-6) \times 10^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$. Interestingly, mid-infrared monitoring observations of NGC 5092 with the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer 5--13 yr later show a continuous flux decline. These dramatic variability properties, from the X-ray through UV and optical to infrared, appear to be orderly, suggestive of a stellar tidal disruption event (TDE) by a massive black hole, confirming the postulation by Kanner et al.(2013). This TDE candidate belongs to a rare sample with contemporaneous bright emission detected in the X-ray, UV, and optical, which are later echoed by dust-reprocessed light in the mid-infrared. The black hole has a mass of $\sim$ $5 \times 10^{7} \rm M_{\odot}$, residing in a galaxy that is dominated by a middle-aged stellar population of 2.5 Gyr.

[15]  arXiv:2003.09068 [pdf, ps, other]

Title: Flux-tubes forming instability near the base of the rotating convection zone: A possible explanation for low latitudes of sunspots

Authors: Leonid Kitchatinov

Comments: Accepted in ApJ, 8 pages, 6 figures

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

The rise of flux-tubes with intense magnetic fields from the base of the convection zone to the solar surface has been substantiated as a probable mechanism for sunspot formation. The origin of flux-tubes of sufficient strength (~10^5 G) is however uncertain. This paper considers the instability of a large-scale toroidal magnetic field caused by the magnetic suppression of convective heat transport as a candidate for the flux tube forming mechanism. The consideration employs the analytical dependence of the eddy diffusion on the magnetic field supplied by mean-field magnetohydrodynamics. The instability tends to produce regions of increased field strength with spatial scales of an order of 100 Mm at the base of the convection zone. Characteristic growth times of the instability are short compared to the 11-year cycle. The threshold field strength for the onset of the instability increases from several hundred Gauss in the vicinity of the equator to some kilo-Gauss at middle latitudes. Growth rates of unstable disturbances decrease with latitude. These latitudinal trends can be the reason for the observed confinement of sunspot activity to a near-equatorial belt.

[16]  arXiv:2003.09069 [pdf, other]

Title: Forecasts for Next Generation tSZ Surveys: the Impact of a Cosmology-Dependent Selection Function

Authors: Nikhel Gupta, Cristiano Porciani, Kaustuv Basu

Comments: 12 pages, 9 figures

Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

The thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect is one of the primary tools for finding and characterizing galaxy clusters. Several ground-based experiments are either underway or are being planned for mapping wide areas of the sky at $\sim 150$ GHz with large-aperture telescopes. We present cosmological forecasts for a 'straw man' tSZ survey that will observe a sky area between $200$ and $10^4$ deg$^2$ to an rms noise level between 2.8 and 20.2 $\mu$K-arcmin. The probes we consider are the cluster number counts (as a function of the integrated Compton-$Y$ parameter and redshift) and their angular clustering (as a function of redshift). At fixed observing time, we find that wider surveys constrain cosmology slightly better than deeper ones due to their increased ability to detect rare high-mass clusters. In all cases, we notice that adding the clustering information does not practically improve the constraints derived from the number counts. We compare forecasts obtained by sampling the posterior distribution with the Markov-chain-Monte-Carlo method against those derived using the Fisher-matrix formalism. We find that the latter produces slightly optimistic constraints where errors are underestimated at the 10 per cent level. Most importantly, we use an analytic method to estimate the selection function of the survey and account for its response to variations of the cosmological parameters in the likelihood function. Our analysis demonstrates that neglecting this effect (as routinely done in the literature) yields artificially tighter constraints by a factor of 2.2 and 1.7 for $\sigma_8$ and $\Omega_\mathrm{M}$, respectively.

[17]  arXiv:2003.09118 [pdf, other]

Title: Photoprocessing of formamide ice: route towards prebiotic chemistry in space

Authors: Maria Angela Corazzi, Davide Fedele, Giovanni Poggiali, John Robert Brucato

Comments: In press Astronomy and Astrophysics, 13 pages, 12 figures

Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

Aims. Formamide (HCONH2) is the simplest molecule containing the peptide bond first detected in the gas phase in Orion-KL and SgrB2. In recent years, it has been observed in high temperature regions such as hot corinos, where thermal desorption is responsible for the sublimation of frozen mantles into the gas phase. The interpretation of observations can benefit from information gathered in the laboratory, where it is possible to simulate the thermal desorption process and to study formamide under simulated space conditions such as UV irradiation. Methods. Here, two laboratory analyses are reported: we studied formamide photo-stability under UV irradiation when it is adsorbed by space relevant minerals at 63 K and in the vacuum regime. We also investigated temperature programmed desorption of pure formamide ice in the presence of TiO2 dust before and after UV irradiation. Results. Through these analyses, the effects of UV degradation and the interaction between formamide and different minerals are compared.We find that silicates, both hydrates and anhydrates, offer molecules a higher level of protection from UV degradation than mineral oxides. The desorption temperature found for pure formamide is 220 K. The desorption temperature increases to 250 K when the formamide desorbs from the surface of TiO2 grains. Conclusions. Through the experiments outlined here, it is possible to follow the desorption of formamide and its fragments, simulate the desorption process in star forming regions and hot corinos, and constrain parameters such as the thermal desorption temperature of formamide and its fragments and the binding energies involved. Our results offer support to observational data and improve our understanding of the role of the grain surface in enriching the chemistry in space.

[18]  arXiv:2003.09172 [pdf, other]

Title: Bimodal distribution of the solar wind at 1 AU

Authors: Carlos Larrodera, Consuelo Cid

Journal-ref: A&A 635, A44 (2020)

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Space Physics (physics.space-ph)

Here we aim to separate the two main contributions of slow and fast solar wind that appear at 1 AU. The Bi-Gaussian function is proposed as the probability distribution function of the two main components of the solar wind. The positions of the peaks of every simple Gaussian curve are associated with the typical values of every contribution to solar wind. We used the entire data set from the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) mission in an analysis of the data set as a whole and as yearly series. Solar cycle dependence is considered to provide more accurate results for the typical values of the different parameters. The distribution of the solar wind at 1 AU is clearly bimodal, not only for velocity, but also for proton density, temperature and magnetic field. New typical values for the main parameters of the slow and fast components of the solar wind at 1 AU are proposed.

[19]  arXiv:2003.09183 [pdf, other]

Title: Hard X-ray selected giant radio galaxies -- II. Morphological evidence of restarted radio activity

Authors: G. Bruni, F. Panessa, L. Bassani, D. Dallacasa, T. Venturi, L. Saripalli, M. Brienza, L. Hernández-García, E. Chiaraluce, F. Ursini, A. Bazzano, A. Malizia, P. Ubertini

Comments: Accepted for publication on MNRAS

Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

About 6% of Radio Galaxies (RG) can reach linear sizes larger than 0.7 Mpc, and are then classified as Giant Radio Galaxies (GRG). The conditions that make possible the formation of such big structures is still not clear - either core accretion properties or environmental factors. Recent studies have shown that GRG can be up to four times more abundant in hard X-ray selected (i.e. from INTEGRAL/IBIS and Swift/BAT at >20 keV) RG samples. Moreover, a high fraction of young radio sources found in their cores suggests a recently restarted activity, as suggested from the discrepancy between the measured jet and lobes power, with respect to the one expected from core X-ray luminosity. Here we present a radio morphological study of a sample of 15 hard X-ray selected GRG, discussing low-frequency images from our GMRT campaign complemented with others from the literature: among them, 7/15 show evidence of restarted radio activity either in the form of double-double/X-shaped morphology, or as a cocoon emission embedding more recent jets. This, together with the objects from this sample already found hosting a young radio source in their core, suggests that at least 13 over 15 of these hard X-ray selected GRG show features which are consistent with the possibility of restarted radio activity.

[20]  arXiv:2003.09188 [pdf, other]

Title: Identification of pre-biotic molecules containing Peptide-like bond in a hot molecular core, G10.47+0.03

Authors: Prasanta Gorai, Bratati Bhat, Milan Sil, Suman K. Mondal, Rana Ghosh, Sandip K. Chakrabarti, Ankan Das

Comments: Accepted for the publication in the Astrophysical Journal

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

After hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, nitrogen is one of the most chemically active species in the interstellar medium (ISM). Nitrogen bearing molecules have great importance as they are actively involved in the formation of biomolecules. Therefore, it is essential to look for nitrogen-bearing species in various astrophysical sources, specifically around high-mass star-forming regions where the evolutionary history is comparatively poorly understood. In this paper, we report the observation of three potential pre-biotic molecules, namely, isocyanic acid (HNCO), formamide (NH2CHO), and methyl isocyanate (CH3NCO), which contain peptide-like bonds (-NH-C(=O)-) in a hot molecular core, G10.47+0.03 (hereafter, G10). Along with the identification of these three complex nitrogen-bearing species, we speculate their spatial distribution in the source and discuss their possible formation pathways under such conditions. The rotational diagram method under the LTE condition has been employed to estimate the excitation temperature and the column density of the observed species. Markov Chain Monte Carlo method was used to obtain the best suited physical parameters of G10 as well as line properties of some species. We also determined the hydrogen column density and the optical depth for different continuum observed in various frequency ranges. Finally, based on these observational results, we have constructed a chemical model to explain the observational findings. We found that HNCO, NH2CHO, and CH3NCO are chemically linked with each other.

[21]  arXiv:2003.09212 [pdf, ps, other]

Title: The resonant drag instability of dust streaming in turbulent protoplanetary disc

Authors: V.V. Zhuravlev

Comments: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn)

Damping of the previously discovered resonant drag instability (RDI) of dust streaming in protoplanetary disc is studied using the local approach to dynamics of gas-dust perturbations in the limit of the small dust fraction. Turbulence in a disc is represented by the effective viscosity and diffusivity in equations of motion for gas and dust, respectively. In the standard case of the Schmidt number (ratio of the effective viscosity to diffusivity) Sc = 1, the reduced description of RDI in terms of the inertial wave (IW) and the streaming dust wave (SDW) falling in resonance with each other reveals that damping solution differs from the inviscid solution simply by adding the characteristic damping frequency to its growth rate. RDI is fully suppressed at the threshold viscosity, which is estimated analytically, first, for radial drift, next, for vertical settling of dust, and at last, in the case of settling combined with radial drift of the dust. In the last case, RDI survives up to the highest threshold viscosity, with a greater excess for smaller solids. Once Sc \neq 1, a new instability specific for dissipative perturbations on the dust settling background emerges. This instability of the quasi-resonant nature is referred to as settling viscous instability (SVI). The mode akin to SDW (IW) becomes growing in a region of long waves provided that Sc > 1 (Sc < 1). SVI leads to an additional increase of the threshold viscosity.

[22]  arXiv:2003.09220 [pdf, other]

Title: On the orbital evolution of meteoroid 2020 CD3, a temporarily-captured orbiter of the Earth-Moon system

Authors: C. de la Fuente Marcos, R. de la Fuente Marcos

Comments: 6 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Abstract abridged

Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)

Any near-Earth object (NEO) following an Earth-like orbit may eventually be captured by Earth's gravity during low-velocity encounters. This theoretical possibility was first attested during the fly-by of 1991 VG in 1991-1992 with the confirmation of a brief capture episode ---for about a month in February 1992. Further evidence was obtained when 2006 RH120 was temporarily captured into a geocentric orbit from July 2006 to July 2007. Here, we perform a numerical assessment of the orbital evolution of 2020 CD3, a small NEO found recently that could be the third instance of a meteoroid temporarily captured by Earth's gravity. We confirm that 2020 CD3 is currently following a geocentric trajectory although it will escape into a heliocentric path by early May 2020. Our calculations indicate that it was captured by the Earth in 2016 (median). This episode is longer than that of 2006 RH120. Prior to its capture as a minimoon, 2020 CD3 was probably a NEO of the Aten type, but an Apollo type cannot be excluded; in both cases, the orbit was very Earth-like, with low eccentricity and low inclination, typical of an Arjuna-type meteoroid. A few clone orbits remained geocentric for nearly a century, opening the door to the existence of yet-to-be-detected minimoons that are relatively stable for time-scales comparable to those of unbound quasi-satellites such as (469219) Kamo`oalewa. In addition, nearly 10 per cent of the experiments led to brief moonmoon episodes in which the value of the selenocentric energy of 2020 CD3 became negative.

[23]  arXiv:2003.09231 [pdf, other]

Title: The subsurface habitability of small, icy exomoons

Authors: J. Tjoa (1), M. Mueller (1,2,3), F.F.S. van der Tak (1,2) ((1) Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, (2) SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, (3) Leiden Observatory)

Comments: 18 pages, 12 figures. To be published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, section 10. Planets and planetary systems

Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)

Assuming our Solar System as typical, exomoons may outnumber exoplanets. If their habitability fraction is similar, they would thus constitute the largest portion of habitable real estate in the Universe. Icy moons in our Solar System, such as Europa and Enceladus, have already been shown to possess liquid water, a prerequisite for life on Earth. We intend to investigate under what circumstances small, icy moons may sustain subsurface oceans and thus be "subsurface habitable". We pay specific attention to tidal heating. We made use of a phenomenological approach to tidal heating. We computed the orbit averaged flux from both stellar and planetary (both thermal and reflected stellar) illumination. We then calculated subsurface temperatures depending on illumination and thermal conduction to the surface through the ice shell and an insulating layer of regolith. We adopted a conduction only model, ignoring volcanism and ice shell convection as an outlet for internal heat. In doing so, we determined at which depth, if any, ice melts and a subsurface ocean forms. We find an analytical expression between the moon's physical and orbital characteristics and the melting depth. Since this expression directly relates icy moon observables to the melting depth, it allows us to swiftly put an upper limit on the melting depth for any given moon. We reproduce the existence of Enceladus' subsurface ocean; we also find that the two largest moons of Uranus (Titania & Oberon) could well sustain them. Our model predicts that Rhea does not have liquid water. Habitable exomoon environments may be found across an exoplanetary system, largely irrespective of the distance to the host star. Small, icy subsurface habitable moons may exist anywhere beyond the snow line. This may, in future observations, expand the search area for extraterrestrial habitable environments beyond the circumstellar habitable zone.

[24]  arXiv:2003.09237 [pdf, other]

Title: Planetesimals in Rarefied Gas: Wind Erosion in Slip Flow

Authors: Tunahan Demirci, Niclas Schneider, Tobias Steinpilz, Tabea Bogdan, Jens Teiser, Gerhard Wurm

Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)

A planetesimal moves through the gas of its protoplanetary disc where it experiences a head wind. Though the ambient pressure is low, this wind can erode and ultimately destroy the planetesimal if the flow is strong enough. For the first time, we observe wind erosion in ground based and microgravity experiments at pressures relevant in protoplanetary discs, i.e. down to $10^{-1}\, \rm mbar$. We find that the required shear stress for erosion depends on the Knudsen number related to the grains at the surface. The critical shear stress to initiate erosion increases as particles become comparable to or larger than the mean free path of the gas molecules. This makes pebble pile planetesimals more stable at lower pressure. However, it does not save them as the experiments also show that the critical shear stress to initiate erosion is very low for sub-millimetre sized grains.

[25]  arXiv:2003.09245 [pdf, ps, other]

Title: 2016 outburst of H~1743--322: \textit{XMM-Newton} and \textit{NuSTAR} view

Authors: Swadesh Chand, V. K. Agrawal, G. C. Dewangan, Prakash Tripathi, Parijat Thakur

Comments: Accepted for Publication in Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), 33 Pages, 10 Figures, 4 Tables

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

We report the detection of type C QPO along with the upper harmonic in the commensurate ratio of 1:2 in the two observations of the low-mass black hole transient H~1743--322 jointly observed by \textit{XMM-Newton} and \textit{NuSTAR} during the 2016 outburst. We find that the QPO and the upper harmonic exhibit shifts in their centroid frequencies in the second observation with respect to the first one. The hardness intensity diagram implies that in contrast to 2008 and 2014 failed outbursts, 2016 outburst was a successful one. We also detect the presence of a broad iron K$\alpha$ line at $\sim$6.5 keV and reflection hump in the energy range of 15--30 keV in both the observations. Along with the shape of the power density spectra, the nature of the characteristic frequencies and the fractional rms amplitude of the timing features imply that the source stayed in the low/hard state during these observations. Moreover, photon index and other spectral parameters also indicate the low/hard state behavior of the source. Unlike the soft lag detected in this source during the 2008 and 2014 failed outbursts, we observe hard time-lag of $0.40\pm0.15$ and $0.32\pm0.07$ s in the 0.07--0.4 Hz frequency range in the two observations during the 2016 outburst. The correlation between the photon index and the centroid frequency of the QPO is consistent with the previous results. Furthermore, the high value of the Comptonized fraction and the weak thermal component indicate that the QPO is being modulated by the Comptonization process.

[26]  arXiv:2003.09295 [pdf, other]

Title: The TESS light curve of AI Phoenicis

Authors: P. F. L. Maxted (1), Patrick Gaulme (2), D. Graczyk (3, 4 and 5), K. G. Hełminiak (6), C. Johnston (7), Jerome A. Orosz (8), Andrej Prša (9), John Southworth (1), Guillermo Torres (10), Guy R. Davies (11 and 12), Warrick Ball (11 and 12), William J Chaplin (11 and 12). ((1) Keele University, UK, (2) MPIA, Göttingen, Germany, (3) Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Centre, Warsaw, Poland (4) Universidad de Concepción, Chile, (5) MAS, Santiago, Chile, (6) Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Torún, Poland, (7) KU Leuven, Belgium, (8) San Diego State University, USA, (9) Villanova University, USA, (10) CfA, Harvard & Smithsonian, USA, (11) University of Birmingham, UK, (12) Aarhus University, Denmark)

Comments: Submitted to MNRAS. 12 pages, 4 tables and 8 figures

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

Accurate masses and radii for normal stars derived from observations of detached eclipsing binary stars are of fundamental importance for testing stellar models and may be useful for calibrating free parameters in these model if the masses and radii are sufficiently precise and accurate. We aim to measure precise masses and radii for the stars in the bright eclipsing binary AI Phe, and to quantify the level of systematic error in these estimates. We use several different methods to model the TESS light curve of AI Phe combined with spectroscopic orbits from multiple sources to estimate precisely the stellar masses and radii together with robust error estimates. We find that the agreement between different methods for the light curve analysis is very good but some methods underestimate the errors on the model parameters. The semi-amplitudes of the spectroscopic orbits derived from spectra obtained with modern echelle spectrographs are consistent to within 0.1%. The masses of the stars in AI Phe are $M_1 = 1.1938 \pm 0.0008 M_{\odot}$ and $M_2 = 1.2438 \pm 0.0008M_{\odot}$, and the radii are $R_1 = 1.8050 \pm 0.0022 R_{\odot}$ and $R_2 = 2.9332 \pm 0.0023 R_{\odot}$. We conclude that it is possible to measure accurate masses and radii for stars in bright eclipsing binary stars to a precision of 0.2% or better using photometry from TESS and spectroscopy obtained with modern echelle spectrographs. We provide recommendations for publishing masses and radii of eclipsing binary stars at this level of precision.

[27]  arXiv:2003.09302 [pdf, other]

Title: The HI mass function of group galaxies in the ALFALFA survey

Authors: Michael G. Jones, Kelley M. Hess, Elizabeth A. K. Adams, Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro

Comments: Accepted to MNRAS. 20 pages, 9 figures, 6 tables

Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

We estimate the HI mass function (HIMF) of galaxies in groups based on thousands of ALFALFA (Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA survey) HI detections within the galaxy groups of four widely used SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey) groups catalogues. Although differences between the catalogues mean that there is no one definitive group galaxy HIMF, in general we find that the low-mass slope is flat, in agreement with studies based on small samples of individual groups, and that the 'knee' mass is slightly higher than that of the global HIMF of the full ALFALFA sample. We find that the observed fraction of ALFALFA galaxies in groups is approximately 22 per cent. These group galaxies were removed from the full ALFALFA source catalogue to calculate the field HIMF using the remaining galaxies. Comparison between the field and group HIMFs reveals that group galaxies make only a small contribution to the global HIMF as most ALFALFA galaxies are in the field, but beyond the HIMF 'knee' group galaxies dominate. Finally we attempt to separate the group galaxy HIMF into bins of group halo mass, but find that too few low-mass galaxies are detected in the most massive groups to tightly constrain the slope, owing to the rarity of such groups in the nearby Universe where low-mass galaxies are detectable with existing HI surveys.

[28]  arXiv:2003.09305 [pdf, other]

Title: Expectations for the confirmation of Proxima c from a long-term radial velocity follow-up

Authors: Mario Damasso, Fabio Del Sordo

Comments: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 2020

Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)

Proxima c, a candidate second planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, was detected with the radial velocity method. The announced long orbital period (5.21$^{+0.26}_{-0.22}$ years), and small semi-amplitude of the induced Doppler signal (1.2$\pm$0.4 m/s), make this detection challenging and the target worthy of a follow-up in the next years. We intend to evaluate the impact of future data on the statistical significance of the detection through realistic simulated radial velocities to be added to the published dataset, spanning up to one orbital period of Proxima c in the time range 2019-2023. We find that the detection significance of Proxima c increases depending not only on the amount of data collected, but also on the number of instruments used, and especially on the timespan covered by the observational campaign. However, on average we do not get strong statistical evidence and we predict that, in the best-case scenario, in the next 5 years the detection of Proxima c can become significant at 4$\sigma$ level. If instead Proxima c does not exist, the detected signal may lower its significance down to 2$\sigma$.

[29]  arXiv:2003.09307 [pdf, other]

Title: The effect of diffusive nuclear burning in neutron star envelopes on cooling in accreting systems

Authors: M.J.P Wijngaarden, Wynn C.G. Ho, Philip Chang, Dany Page, Rudy Wijnands, Laura S. Ootes, Andrew Cumming, Nathalie Degenaar, Mikhail Beznogov

Comments: 10 pages, 10 figures; Published in MNRAS

Journal-ref: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 493, Issue 4, April 2020, Pages 4936-4944

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

Valuable information about the neutron star interior can be obtained by comparing observations of thermal radiation from a cooling neutron star crust with theoretical models. Nuclear burning of lighter elements that diffuse to deeper layers of the envelope can alter the relation between surface and interior temperatures and can change the chemical composition over time. We calculate new temperature relations and consider two effects of diffusive nuclear burning (DNB) for H-C envelopes. First, we consider the effect of a changing envelope composition and find that hydrogen is consumed on short timescales and our temperature evolution simulations correspond to those of a hydrogen-poor envelope within ~100 days. The transition from a hydrogen-rich to a hydrogen-poor envelope is potentially observable in accreting NS systems as an additional initial decline in surface temperature at early times after the outburst. Second, we find that DNB can produce a non-negligible heat flux, such that the total luminosity can be dominated by DNB in the envelope rather than heat from the deep interior. However, without continual accretion, heating by DNB in H-C envelopes is only relevant for <1-80 days after the end of an accretion outburst, as the amount of light elements is rapidly depleted. Comparison to crust cooling data shows that DNB does not remove the need for an additional shallow heating source. We conclude that solving the time-dependent equations of the burning region in the envelope self-consistently in thermal evolution models instead of using static temperature relations would be valuable in future cooling studies.

[30]  arXiv:2003.09324 [pdf]

Title: A catalog of intermediate duration Type I X-ray bursts observed with the INTEGRAL satellite

Authors: K. Alizai, J. Chenevez, S. Brandt, N. Lund

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

We present a catalog of long duration bursts observed with the Joint European X-ray Monitor (JEM-X) and IBIS/ISGRI instruments onboard the INTEGRAL satellite. The fourteen bursts have e-folding times ranging from 55 s to ? 17 min, and are therefore classified as intermediate-duration bursts, caused by the ignition of an unusually thick helium layer. Though seven events have already been reported in literature, we have systematically re-analyzed the whole sample. We find three new photospheric radius expansion (PRE) bursts, which are not reported in the literature, allowing us to provide a new estimate of the distances to these sources. We apply the enhanced persistent emission method (also known as the fa method) on sources with detectable persistent emission prior to a burst, in order to follow the evolution of the accretion rate during the burst. Although we do not get significantly better fits, the evolution of the fa factor shows an indicative behavior, which we discuss.

[31]  arXiv:2003.09325 [pdf, other]

Title: The changing-type SN 2014C may come from an 11-$M_\odot$ star stripped by binary interaction and violent eruption

Authors: Ning-Chen Sun, Justyn R. Maund, Paul A. Crowther

Comments: 18 pages, 12 figures, submitted to MNRAS

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

SN 2014C was an unprecedented supernova (SN) that displayed a metamorphosis from Type Ib to Type IIn over $\sim$200 days. This transformation is consistent with a helium star having exploded in a cavity surrounded by a dense shell of the progenitor's stripped hydrogen envelope. For at least 5 years post-explosion, the ejecta continued to interact with an outer, extended component of circumstellar medium (CSM) that was ejected even before the dense shell. It is still unclear, however, what kind of progenitor could have undergone such a complicated mass-loss history before it produced this peculiar SN. In this paper, we report a new analysis of SN 2014C's host star cluster based on data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). By carefully fitting its spectral energy distribution (SED), we derive a precise cluster age of 20.0$^{+3.5}_{-2.6}$ Myr, which corresponds to the progenitor's lifetime assuming coevolution. Combined with binary stellar evolution models, we find that SN 2014C's progenitor may have been an $\sim$11-$M_\odot$ star in a relatively wide binary system. The progenitor's envelope was partially stripped by Case C or Case BC mass transfer via binary interaction, followed by a violent eruption that ejected the last hydrogen layer before terminal explosion. Thus, SN 2014C, in common with SNe 2006jc and 2015G, may be a third example that violent eruptions, with mass-loss rates matching luminous blue variable (LBV) giant eruptions, can also occur in much lower-mass massive stars if their envelopes are partially or completely stripped in interacting binaries.

[32]  arXiv:2003.09341 [pdf, ps, other]

Title: High-redshift cosmography: auxiliary variables versus Padé polynomials

Authors: Salvatore Capozziello, Rocco D'Agostino, Orlando Luongo

Comments: 18 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)

In this work, we critically compare the two main solutions of the convergence problem, i.e. the $y$-parameterizations of the redshift and the alternatives to Taylor expansions based on Pad\'e series. In particular, among several possibilities, we consider two widely adopted parameterizations, namely $y_1=1-a$ and $y_2=\arctan(a^{-1}-1)$, being $a$ the scale factor of the Universe. We show the theoretical conditions that both rational approximations and auxiliary variables should fulfill to make cosmography more predictive when high-redshift data are involved. We therefore find that the $y_2$-parameterization performs relatively better than the $y_1$-parameterization over the whole redshift domain. Even though $y_2$ overcomes the issues of $y_1$, we get that the most viable approximations of the luminosity distance $d_L(z)$ are given in terms of Pad\'e approximations. In order to check this result by means of cosmic data, we analyze the Pad\'e approximations up to the fifth order, and compare these series with the corresponding $y$-variables of the same orders. We investigate two distinct domains involving Monte Carlo analysis on the Pantheon Superovae Ia data, $H(z)$ and shift parameter measurements. We conclude that the (2,1) Pad\'e approximation is statistically the optimal approach to explain low and high-redshift data, together with the fifth-order $y_2$-parameterization. At high redshifts, the (3,2) Pad\'e approximation cannot be fully excluded, while the (2,2) Pad\'e one is essentially ruled out. Our results are reinforced by the outcomes of the Akaike and Bayesian information criteria, which lead to conclude unequivocally that the Pad\'e series are always more stable, smooth and suitable than any kinds of auxiliary variables at both low and high redshifts.

[33]  arXiv:2003.09353 [pdf, other]

Title: Scattering-induced intensity reduction: large mass content with small grains in the inner region of the TW Hya disk

Authors: Takahiro Ueda, Akimasa Kataoka, Takashi Tsukagoshi

Comments: 17 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

Dust continuum observation is one of the best methods to constrain the properties of protoplanetary disks. Recent theoretical studies have suggested that the dust scattering at the millimeter wavelength potentially reduces the observed intensity, which results in an underestimate in the dust mass. We investigate whether the dust scattering indeed reduces the observed continuum intensity by comparing the ALMA archival data of the TW Hya disk at Band 3, 4, 6, 7 and 9 to models obtained by radiative transfer simulations. We find that the model with scattering by 300 ${\rm \mu m}$-sized grains well reproduces the observed SED of the central part of the TW Hya disk while the model without scattering is also consistent within the errors of the absolute fluxes. To explain the intensity at Band 3, the dust surface density needs to be $\sim$ 10 ${\rm g\,cm^{-2}}$ at 10 au in the model with scattering, which is 26 times more massive than previously predicted. The model without scattering needs 2.3 times higher dust mass than the model with scattering because it needs lower temperature. At Band 7, scattering reduces the intensity by $\sim$ 35% which makes the disk looks optically thin even though it is optically thick. Our study suggests the TW Hya disk is still capable of forming cores of giant planets at where the current solar system planets exist.

[34]  arXiv:2003.09357 [pdf, ps, other]

Title: Intermediate-mass Early-type Disk Galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. II. Near-Infrared Spectra and Evidence for Differences in Evolution

Authors: T. J. Davidge

Comments: To appear in the Astronomical Journal

Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

We discuss near-infrared (NIR) slit spectra of six early-type disk galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. While the depth of the CO(2,0) band is consistent with the centers of these galaxies having solar or slightly sub-solar luminosity-weighted metallicities, galaxy-to-galaxy variations in the depth of the NaI 2.21um doublet are found, with NaI2.21um lines in three galaxies (NGC 4491, NGC 4584, and NGC 4620) that are deeper than those predicted for a solar chemical mixture and a solar-neighborhood mass function. Considering the depth of the NaD lines found by Davidge (2018a), the deep NaI2.21um lines are tentatively attributed to a bottom-heavy mass function. This is counter to observed trends between mass function slope and velocity dispersion. Two of the three galaxies with deep NaI2.21um (NGC 4584 and NGC 4620) have Sersic exponents that are consistent with a classical bulge. As for NGC 4491, its central NIR spectrum contains prominent emission lines. The relative strengths of Brgamma and H_2S(1), the presence of [FeII] emission, and the mid-infrared spectral-energy distribution are all consistent with intense recent star formation near the center of that galaxy. Wavelengths that contain the Ballick-Ramsey C_2 band at 1.76um are matched by moderately metal-poor E-MILES model spectra with an age of 2 Gyr. It is concluded that these galaxies have evolved in a cluster environment for at least several Gyr.

[35]  arXiv:2003.09359 [pdf, ps, other]

Title: ASAS J174406+2446.8 is identified as a marginal-contact binary with a possible cool third body

Authors: Xiang-Dong Shi, Sheng-Bang Qian, Lin-Jia, Wei-Wei Na, Xiao Zhou

Comments: 12 pages, 9 figures

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

ASAS J174406+2446.8 was originally found as a $\delta$ Scuti-type pulsating star with the period P=0.189068 $days$ by ASAS survey. However, the LAMOST stellar parameters reveal that it is far beyond the red edge of pulsational instability strip on the $\log g-T$ diagram of $\delta$ Scuti pulsating stars. To understand the physical properties of the variable star, we observed it by the 1.0-m Cassegrain reflecting telescope at Yunnan Observatories. Multi-color light curves in B, V, R$_{c}$ and I$_{c}$ bands were obtained and are analyzed by using the W-D program. It is found that this variable star is a shallow-contact binary with an EB-type light curve and an orbital period of 0.3781\,days rather than a $\delta$ Scuti star. It is a W-subtype contact binary with a mass ratio of $1.135(\pm0.019)$ and a fill-out factor of $10.4(\pm5.6)\,\%$. The situation of ASAS J174406+2446.8 resembles those of other EB-type marginal-contact binaries such as UU Lyn, II Per and GW Tau. All of them are at a key evolutionary phase from a semi-detached configuration to a contact system predicted by the thermal relaxation oscillation theory. The linear ephemeris was corrected by using 303 new determined times of light minimum. It is detected that the O - C curve shows a sinusoidal variationthat could be explained by the light-travel-time effect via the presence of a cool red dwarf. The present investigation reveals that some of the $\delta$ Scuti-type stars beyond the red edge of pulsating instability strip on the $\log g-T$ diagram are misclassified eclipsing binaries. To understand their structures and evolutionary states, more studies are required in the future.

[36]  arXiv:2003.09410 [pdf, other]

Title: Cosmic rays from the nearby starburst galaxy NGC 253: the effect of a low luminosity active galactic nucleus

Authors: Eduardo M. Gutiérrez, Gustavo E. Romero, Florencia L. Vieyro

Comments: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

NGC 253 is a nearby starburst galaxy in the Sculptor group located at a distance of 3.5 Mpc that has been suggested by some authors as a potential site for cosmic-ray acceleration up to ultra-high energies. Its nuclear region is heavily obscured by gas and dust, which prevents establishing whether or not the galaxy harbours a supermassive black hole coexisting with the starburst. Some sources have been proposed in the literature as candidates for an active nucleus. In this work, we aim at determining the implications that the presence of a supermassive black hole at the nucleus of NGC 253 might have on cosmic ray acceleration. With this aim, we model the accretion flow on to the putative active nucleus, and we evaluate the feasibility of particle acceleration by the black hole dynamo mechanism. As a by-product, we explore the potential contribution from non-thermal particles in the accretion flow to the high-energy emission of the galaxy. We found that in the three most plausible nucleus candidates, the emission of the accretion flow would inhibit the black hole dynamo mechanism. To rule out completely the influence that a putative nucleus in NGC 253 might have in cosmic-ray acceleration, a better clarification concerning the true nature of the nucleus is needed.

Cross-lists for Mon, 23 Mar 20

[37]  arXiv:2003.08287 (cross-list from physics.geo-ph) [pdf, other]

Title: Magmatic intrusions control Io's crustal thickness

Authors: D. C. Spencer, R. F. Katz, I. J. Hewitt

Comments: 32 pages inc appendices and references. 7 figures

Subjects: Geophysics (physics.geo-ph); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)

Io, the most volcanically active body in the solar system, loses heat through eruptions of hot lava. Heat is supplied by tidal heating and is thought to be transferred through the mantle by magmatic segregation, a mode of transport that sets it apart from convecting terrestrial planets. We present a model that couples magmatic transport of tidal heat to the volcanic system in the crust, in order to determine the controls on crustal thickness, magmatic intrusions, and eruption rates. We demonstrate that magmatic intrusions are a key component of Io's crustal heat balance; around 80% of the magma delivered to the base of the crust must be emplaced and frozen as plutons to match rough estimates of crustal thickness. As magma ascends from a partially molten mantle into the crust, a decompacting boundary layer forms, which can explain inferred observations of a high-melt-fraction region.

[38]  arXiv:2003.08950 (cross-list from gr-qc) [pdf, other]

Title: Transient weak gravity in scalar-tensor theories

Authors: Manuel Wittner, Giorgio Laverda, Oliver F. Piattella, Luca Amendola

Comments: 20 pages, 2 figures

Subjects: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)

Sub-horizon perturbations in scalar-tensor theories have been shown to grow generically faster than in uncoupled models due to a positive, additive Yukawa force. In such cases, the amount of clustering becomes larger than in the standard cosmological model, exacerbating the observed tension in the $\sigma_8$ parameter. Here we show instead that in some simple cases of conformally coupled dark energy one can obtain a transient regime of negative Yukawa force, without introducing ghosts or other instabilities.

[39]  arXiv:2003.08959 (cross-list from physics.geo-ph) [pdf, other]

Title: On-deck seismology: Lessons from InSight for future planetary seismology

Authors: Mark P. Panning, W. Tom Pike, Philippe Lognonné, W. Bruce Banerdt, Naomi Murdoch, Don Banfield, Constantinos Charalambous, Sharon Kedar, Ralph D. Lorenz, Angela G. Marusiak, John B. McClean, Ceri Nunn, Simon C. Stähler, Alexander E. Stott, Tristram Warren

Comments: 20 pages, 7 figures, accepted to Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets

Subjects: Geophysics (physics.geo-ph); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)

Before deploying to the surface of Mars, the short-period (SP) seismometer of the InSight mission operated on deck for a total of 48 hours. This dataset can be used to understand how deck-mounted seismometers can be used in future landed missions to Mars, Europa, and other planetary bodies. While operating on deck, the SP seismometer showed signals comparable to the Viking-2 seismometer near 3 Hz where the sensitivity of the Viking instrument peaked. Wind sensitivity showed similar patterns to the Viking instrument, although amplitudes on InSight were ~80% larger for a given wind velocity. However, during the low wind evening hours the instrument noise levels at frequencies between 0.1 and 1 Hz were comparable to quiet stations on Earth, although deployment to the surface below the Wind and Thermal Shield lowered installation noise by roughly 40 dB in acceleration power. With the observed noise levels and estimated seismicity rates for Mars, detection probability for quakes for a deck-mounted instrument are low enough that up to years of on-deck recordings may be necessary to observe an event. Because the noise is dominated by wind acting on the lander, though, deck-mounted seismometers may be more practical for deployment on airless bodies, and it is important to evaluate the seismicity of the target body and the specific design of the lander. Detection probabilities for operation on Europa reach over 99% for some proposed seismicity models for a similar duration of operation if noise levels are comparable to low-wind time periods on Mars.

[40]  arXiv:2003.09006 (cross-list from gr-qc) [pdf, other]

Title: Modified gravity with an exponential function of curvature

Authors: L. N. Granda

Comments: 27 pages, 8 figures

Subjects: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

The role of an exponential function of the scalar curvature in the modified gravity is analyzed. Two models are proposed. A toy model that complies with local and cosmological constraints and gives appropriate qualitative description of the cosmic evolution. The trajectories in the $m-r$ plane, given by $m=-(r+1)(\eta+r)/r$, lead to saddle matter dominant critical point ($r=-1$, $m=0$) that can evolve towards the late time de Sitter attractor at $r=-2$ and $0<m\le 1$. Initial conditions for the case $\eta=0.68$ have proposed, showing that this toy model has an acceptable matter era and gives an approximate qualitative behavior of cosmic evolution. A second viable model, behaves very close to $\Lambda$CDM at early times and can satisfy local and cosmological constraints. It behaves as $R-2\Lambda$ at $R\rightarrow \infty$ and tends to zero at $R\rightarrow 0$, containing flat spacetime solution. The model gives viable trajectories in the $(r,m)$-plane that, as the first model, connect the matter dominated point with a de Sitter attractor at $r=-2$. The cosmic evolution of the main density parameters in this model is consistent with current observations with an equation of state very close to $-1$.

[41]  arXiv:2003.09121 (cross-list from gr-qc) [pdf, other]

Title: The Effective Potential Originating from Swampland and the Non-trivial Brans-Dicke Coupling

Authors: Qi Li, Jing Li, Yongxiang Zhou, Xun Xue

Subjects: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

The effective vacuum energy density contributed by the non-trivial contortion distribution and the bare vacuum energy density can be viewed as the energy density of the auxiliary quintessence field potential. We find that the negative bare vacuum energy density from string landscape leads to a monotonically decreasing quintessence potential while the positive one from swampland leads to the meta stable or stable de Sitter like potential. Moreover, the non-trivial Brans-Dicke like coupling between quintessence field and gravitation field is necessary in the latter case.

[42]  arXiv:2003.09283 (cross-list from hep-ph) [pdf, other]

Title: Indirect detection prospects for d$^*$(2380) dark matter

Authors: Geoff Beck

Comments: 13 pages, 4 figures

Subjects: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

A Bose-Einstein condensate of the hexaquark particle known as d$^*$(2380) has been recently proposed as a dark matter candidate by the authors in Bashkanov \& Watts 2020. This particle can produced in an abundant condensate state in the early universe and is argued to satisfy all the stability and weak interaction constraints of a viable dark matter candidate. This dark matter candidate is able to evade direct detection bounds and is suggested to have the best observational prospects in the form of indirect astrophysical emissions due to the decay of the d$^*$ condensate. In this work we test the indirect observational prospects of this form of dark matter and find that its low mass $\sim 2$ GeV mean that sub-GeV gamma-rays searches have the best prospects in the Milky-Way galactic centre where we find $\Gamma_{d^*} < 3.9 \times 10^{-24}$ s$^{-1}$, with current extra-galactic data from M31 and the Coma cluster producing constraints on the d$^*$ decay rate two orders of magnitude weaker.

[43]  arXiv:2003.09286 (cross-list from physics.pop-ph) [pdf, other]

Title: Water and air consumption aboard interstellar arks

Authors: F. Marin, C. Beluffi

Comments: 15 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in JBIS (Journal of the British Interplanetary Society)

Subjects: Popular Physics (physics.pop-ph); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)

The architecture of a large interstellar spaceship, which is capable of serving as a living environment for a population over many generations, is mainly dictated by the needs of said population in terms of food, water and breathable gases. These resources cannot be stored for the entire duration of a journey that goes on for several centuries, so they must be produced in situ. In order to determine the quantities necessary for the survival of the population, it is imperative to precisely estimate their needs. In this article, we focus on accurate simulations of the water and air (oxygen) requirements for any type of population in order to be able to provide precise constraints on the overall architecture of an interstellar ark (the requirements in terms of food having already been studied in a previous publication). We upgrade our agent-based, numerical, Monte Carlo code HERITAGE to include human physiological needs. Our simulations show that, for a crew of about 1100 crew members (each characterized with individual anthropometric and biological data), 1.8 $\times$ 10$^8$ litres of oxygen are annually required, together with 1.1 $\times$ 10$^6$ litres of water. Those results do not account for oxygen and water used in growing plants, but they give us an insight of how much resources are needed in the spaceship. We also review the best methods for generating water from waste gases (namely carbon dioxide and dihydrogen) and how such system could complement the oxygen-supplying biospheres inside multi-generational spaceship to form a closed and controlled environment.

[44]  arXiv:2003.09290 (cross-list from hep-ph) [pdf, other]

Title: Effective theory for self-interacting dark matter and massive spin-2 mediators

Authors: Yoo-Jin Kang, Hyun Min Lee

Comments: 29 pages, 3 figures

Subjects: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)

We consider the effective theory for self-interacting dark matter with arbitrary spin and go beyond the previous discussion in the literature by introducing a massive spin-2 particle as the mediator for the dark matter self-scattering. We present the effective interactions and corresponding effective potential for dark matter in the leading order expansions with the momentum transfer and the dark matter velocity. We find that the Born cross section and Sommerfeld factor are joined to renter the self-scattering of dark matter velocity-dependent to solve small-scale problems at galaxies as well as satisfy the bounds from galaxy clusters at the same time, for a wide range of dark matter and spin-2 particle masses.

[45]  arXiv:2003.09292 (cross-list from physics.space-ph) [pdf]

Title: Sun-Heliosphere Observation-based Ionization Rates Model

Authors: Justyna M. Sokół, D. J. McComas, M. Bzowski, M. Tokumaru

Comments: 22 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables; submitted to The Astrophysical Journal

Subjects: Space Physics (physics.space-ph); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

The solar wind (SW) and the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation modulate fluxes of interstellar and heliospheric particles inside the heliosphere both in time and in space. Understanding this modulation is necessary to correctly interpret measurements of interstellar neutral gas, energetic neutral atoms, pickup ions, and helioglow radiation measured inside the heliosphere. We report a change of heliospheric ionization rates due to the update of the SW and solar EUV data, revise the calculation of these ionization rates, and provide the most up-to-date version of the model of the Sun-Heliosphere Observation-based Ionization Rates (SHOIR). With the new results, we study the in-ecliptic variation of the SW parameters, the latitudinal structure of the SW speed and density, and the reconstruction of the photoionization rates based on the currently available data. We observe a significant change in the total ionization rates for O and Ne (up to 30%) and the latitudinal variations of the total ionization rates for H (up to 50%). The new rates are higher than previously thought. The least affected are the ionization rates for He, being about 10%. The changes are the greatest for the solar maximum period of the solar cycle 24. We discuss the consequences of the update of the ionization rates for the study of the heliosphere.

[46]  arXiv:2003.09387 (cross-list from physics.geo-ph) [pdf]

Title: Rapid 14C excursion at 3372-3371 BCE not observed at two different locations, a comment on Wang et al. (2017)

Authors: AJ Timothy Jull, Irina Panyushkina, Matthew Salzer, Chris Baisan, Mihaly Molnar, Tamas Varga, Lukas Wacker, Nicholas Brehm, Willy Tegel

Comments: 3 figures, 8 pages

Subjects: Geophysics (physics.geo-ph); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

Excursions in the carbon-14 record measured in tree rings are attributed to various high energy but short-lived cosmic effects. So far, rapid changes at 774-775 CE, 993-994 CE and 660 BCE have been convincingly interpreted as due to rapid changes in solar cosmic-ray flux, usually accredited with reproduction of the events in trees at different locations and different laboratories, and followed with equivalent peaks of other cosmogenic isotopes in polar ice cores. In 2017, Wang et al. proposed a new event at 3372-3371 BCE based on a single set of annual 14C data measured on a floating series of tree rings sampled from a buried specimen of Chinese wingnut tree (Pterocarya stenoptera). We attempted to reproduce this event in tree rings of an absolutely dated bristlecone pine specimen (Pinus longaeva) from the White Mountains, California USA and a subfossil European oak (Quercus sp.) from the Moselle River Valley in France. Unfortunately, we are unable to determine whether there is any rapid 14C excursion during this time, although the regular 11-year Schwabe cycle is clearly observable. Therefore, the presence of a cosmic-ray event as suggested at 3372-3371 BCE cannot be confirmed. It is possible the exposed 14C spike occurred at some other time, the absolute age of which we cannot determine unless the precise calendar age of the Chinese wingnut wood is properly crossdated, although the other data of Wang et al. (2017) is not inconsistent with our records. In either case, this is important because the frequency of such extreme cosmic events needs to be well-documented to assess the likelihood of similar high-energy effects occurring in the future.

[47]  arXiv:2003.09388 (cross-list from physics.geo-ph) [pdf]

Title: Image Gravimetry: A New Remote Sensing Approach for Gravity Analysis in Geophysics

Authors: M. Kiani

Comments: Third International Congress on Science and Engineering, Hamburg, Germany

Subjects: Geophysics (physics.geo-ph); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Image and Video Processing (eess.IV); Numerical Analysis (math.NA)

In this paper a new Geophysical gravimetry approach is presented, which is based on satellite imagery in remote sensing. The method uses a satellite image, together with a set of points in the image the gravity values of which are known. Template-based spheroidal spline method of interpolation is used to constitute a system of equations to find the values of gravity at other points in the image. A real case study is presented for the Qom region in Iran. Values of gravity are determined from the Landsat satellite image for this region, using 9 points in the image whose gravity values are known. Reference ellipsoid gravity values, which are based on coefficients derived from satellite gravimetry, are computed for this region, as well. Comparison between gravity values derived from Landsat image and those from reference ellipsoid shows that the standard deviation of the results is around 6.71 milli Gal, with the maximum of differences being 35 milli Gal.

Replacements for Mon, 23 Mar 20

[48]  arXiv:1710.03061 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Primordial black hole evolution in two-fluid cosmology

Authors: Eduardo M. Gutiérrez, Florencia L. Vieyro, Gustavo E. Romero

Comments: 8 pages, 7 figures. Modified to match the published version

Journal-ref: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 473, Issue 4, p.5385-5392 (2018)

Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)

[49]  arXiv:1904.08786 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Structured Jets and X-ray Plateaus in Gamma-Ray Burst Phenomena

Authors: Gor Oganesyan, Stefano Ascenzi, Marica Branchesi, Om Sharan Salafia, Simone Dall'Osso, Giancarlo Ghirlanda

Comments: accepted in ApJ

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

[50]  arXiv:1905.07495 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Multi-field Inflation in High-Slope Potentials

Authors: Vikas Aragam, Sonia Paban, Robert Rosati

Comments: 34 pages, 10 figures. v2: updated section 4 and appendix B to properly give credit to previous work. v3: fix geodesic prefactor in appendix C. v4: include new analysis of both potentials, matches version accepted for publication in JCAP

Subjects: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

[51]  arXiv:1907.12473 (replaced) [pdf, ps, other]

Title: Fast radio burst counterparts and their implications for the central engine

Authors: Jie-Shuang Wang, Dong Lai

Comments: 11 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ; plots and constraints on the central engine and the RM are updated

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

[52]  arXiv:1908.08951 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Probing the theory of gravity with gravitational lensing of gravitational waves and galaxy surveys

Authors: Suvodip Mukherjee, Benjamin D. Wandelt, Joseph Silk

Comments: 16 pages, 7 figures. Minor changes in the text and added new references. Matches the version accepted for publication in MNRAS

Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)

[53]  arXiv:1909.04742 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Enhanced Detectability of Spinning Primordial Black Holes

Authors: Florian Kuhnel

Comments: 4 pages, 1 figure; v2: minor changes to match published version

Journal-ref: Eur. Phys. J. C (2020) 80: 243

Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)

[54]  arXiv:1911.00276 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Relativistic hybrid stars with sequential first-order phase transitions and heavy-baryon envelopes

Authors: Jia Jie Li, Armen Sedrakian, Mark Alford

Comments: 11 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables; minor corrections, matches published version

Journal-ref: Phys. Rev. D 101, 063022 (2020)

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)

[55]  arXiv:1911.09678 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Intermediate-Mass Black Holes

Authors: Jenny E. Greene, Jay Strader, Luis C. Ho

Comments: Invited review in Annual Reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics; an edited final version is to published in 2020; this version corrects an error in Table 1

Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

[56]  arXiv:1912.06151 (replaced) [pdf, ps, other]

Title: An accurate and efficient numerical calculation of detonation waves in multidimensional supernova simulations using a burning limiter and adaptive quasi-statistical equilibrium

Authors: Doron Kushnir, Boaz Katz (WIS)

Comments: 21 pages, 15 figures. The main results are summarized in the first 5 pages (with 3 figures). Revised following referee's review

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

[57]  arXiv:1912.06522 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: The frequency of very young galaxies in the local Universe: II. The view from SDSS spectra

Authors: Gary A. Mamon, Marina Trevisan, Trinh X. Thuan, Anna Gallazzi, Romeel Davé

Comments: Published version, consolidated with Erratum on caption of Table A1 (the table is for all 404 931 galaxies in the Clean sample, not just those that are candidate VYGs according to at least one spectral model). New is in green and omitted is in strikeout-red

Journal-ref: MNRAS 492, 1791-1811 (2020)

Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

[58]  arXiv:1912.12889 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Influence of magnetic field on beta-processes in supernova matter

Authors: Alexandra Dobrynina, Igor Ognev

Comments: 10 pages, 11 figures. Added new figure and references, text around them is rewritten. Accepted to Phys.Rev.D

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)

[59]  arXiv:2001.01186 (replaced) [pdf, ps, other]

Title: Constraints on the intergalactic magnetic field from $γ$-ray observations of GRB 190114C

Authors: Ze-Rui Wang, Shao-Qiang Xi, Ruo-Yu Liu, Rui Xue, Xiang-Yu Wang

Comments: 6 pages, 5 figures, Accepted by PRD

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

[60]  arXiv:2001.01399 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Applying Noether's theorem to matter in the Milky Way: evidence for external perturbations and non-steady-state effects from Gaia Data Release 2

Authors: Susan Gardner, Austin Hinkel, Brian Yanny

Comments: 15 pages, 8 figure panels, AASTeX, accepted for publication in ApJ; sentence added to Table 1 in proofs; typos fixed; note companion paper Hinkel et al., arXiv:2003.08389, to appear in ApJ

Journal-ref: ApJ (2020) 890, 110

Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)

[61]  arXiv:2001.06037 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Electromagnetic precursors to gravitational wave events: Numerical simulations of flaring in pre-merger binary neutron star magnetospheres

Authors: Elias R. Most, Alexander A. Philippov

Comments: 9 pages, 5 figures, matches version accepted by ApJL

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)

[62]  arXiv:2001.06102 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Gravitational waves or deconfined quarks: what causes the premature collapse of neutron stars born in short gamma-ray bursts?

Authors: Nikhil Sarin, Paul D. Lasky, Gregory Ashton

Comments: Published in Phys. Rev. D: Vol 101, Issue 6

Journal-ref: Phys. Rev. D 101, 063021 (2020)

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)

[63]  arXiv:2001.06363 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: COBRaS: The e-MERLIN 21 cm Legacy survey of Cygnus OB2

Authors: J. C. Morford, D. M. Fenech, R. K. Prinja, R. Blomme, J. A. Yates, J. J. Drake, S. P. S. Eyres, A. M. S. Richards, I. R. Stevens, N. J. Wright, J. S. Clark, S. Dougherty, J. M. Pittard, H. Smith, J. S. Vink

Comments: 41 pages, 12 figures, accepted in A&A

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

[64]  arXiv:2002.01954 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Review of Pulsar Timing Array for Gravitational Wave Research

Authors: Pravin Kumar Dahal

Comments: 8 pages, 4 figures; Full text available at this https URL

Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)

[65]  arXiv:2002.02150 (replaced) [pdf, ps, other]

Title: Towards a real-time fully-coherent all-sky search for gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences using particle swarm optimization

Authors: Marc E. Normandin, Soumya D. Mohanty

Comments: Revised following referee comments, to be published, 13 pages, 12 figures

Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)

[66]  arXiv:2002.08846 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Neutrino effects on the morphology of cosmic large-scale structure

Authors: Yu Liu, Yu Yu, Hao-Ran Yu, Pengjie Zhang

Comments: 8 pages, 2 figures, published in PRD

Journal-ref: Phys.Rev.D 101,063515 (2020)

Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

[67]  arXiv:2002.08967 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: X-ray quasi-periodic eruptions from the galactic nucleus of RX J1301.9+2747

Authors: Margherita Giustini, Giovanni Miniutti, Richard D. Saxton

Comments: Letter accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; plus one table and one figure in appendix

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

[68]  arXiv:2002.12534 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Current status and muon $g-2$ explanation of lepton portal dark matter

Authors: Junichiro Kawamura, Shohei Okawa, Yuji Omura

Comments: 34+21 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables; v2, references added, typos corrected

Subjects: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex)

[69]  arXiv:2003.02667 (replaced) [pdf, ps, other]

Title: Light $Z^\prime$ and Dark Matter from U(1)$_X$ Gauge Symmetry

Authors: Nobuchika Okada, Satomi Okada, Qaisar Shafi

Comments: 18 pages, 4 figures, new references added, typos corrected

Subjects: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex)

[70]  arXiv:2003.04545 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Annual Modulation in Direct Dark Matter Searches

Authors: Francis Froborg, Alan R Duffy

Comments: 49 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics as a review article. v2 with updated text and references. Further comments still welcomed

Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex); Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det)

[71]  arXiv:2003.04925 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Perfectly parallel cosmological simulations using spatial comoving Lagrangian acceleration

Authors: Florent Leclercq, Baptiste Faure, Guilhem Lavaux, Benjamin D. Wandelt, Andrew H. Jaffe, Alan F. Heavens, Will J. Percival, Camille Noûs

Comments: 24 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. added references to match submitted version

Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)

[72]  arXiv:2003.05657 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Dynamics of Viscous Phantom Universe

Authors: Ji-Yao Wang, Chao-Jun Feng, Xiang-Hua Zhai, Xin-Zhou Li

Comments: 15 pages, 6 figures

Subjects: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

[73]  arXiv:2003.06424 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: HST/STIS transmission spectrum of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-76 b confirms the presence of sodium in its atmosphere

Authors: C. von Essen, M. Mallonn, S. Hermansen, M. C. Nixon, N. Madhusudhan, H. Kjeldsen, G. Tautvaišienė

Comments: 14 pages, 10 figures

Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

[74]  arXiv:2003.06429 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Absorption line abundances in the SMC-like galaxy UGC 5282: evidence for ISM dilution from inflows on kpc scales

Authors: David V. Bowen, Todd M. Tripp, Edward B. Jenkins, Max Pettini, Doron Chelouche, Renyue Cen, Donald G. York

Comments: Accepted for publication in ApJ

Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

[75]  arXiv:2003.07006 (replaced) [pdf, ps, other]

Title: Long-term orbital evolution of Galactic satellites and the effects on their star formation histories

Authors: Takahiro Miyoshi, Masashi Chiba

Comments: 12 pages, 10 figures, version submitted to ApJ

Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

[76]  arXiv:2003.07869 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: All sky angular power spectrum: I. Estimating brightness temperature fluctuations using TGSS 150 MHz survey

Authors: Samir Choudhuri, Abhik Ghosh, Nirupam Roy, Somnath Bharadwaj, Huib. T. Intema, Sk. Saiyad Ali

Comments: 11 pages, 7 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

[77]  arXiv:2003.08067 (replaced) [src]

Title: A Preferred Orientation Angle for Bipolar Planetary Nebulae

Authors: Andreas Ritter, Quentin A. Parker

Comments: I just discovered a bug in my program, the results are wrong

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

[78]  arXiv:2003.08263 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: Detecting outliers in astronomical images with deep generative networks

Authors: Berta Margalef-Bentabol, Marc Huertas-Company, Tom Charnock, Carla Margalef-Bentabol, Mariangela Bernardi, Yohan Dubois, Kate Storey-Fisher, Lorenzo Zanis

Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

[79]  arXiv:2003.08508 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: An Application of Gaussian Process Modeling for High-order Accurate Adaptive Mesh Refinement Prolongation

Authors: Steven I. Reeves, Dongwook Lee, Adam Reyes, Carlo Graziani, Petros Tzeferacos

Subjects: Numerical Analysis (math.NA); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn)

[80]  arXiv:2003.08922 (replaced) [pdf, other]

Title: A Sub-Solar Metallicity Progenitor for Cassiopeia A, the remnant of a Type IIb Supernova

Authors: Toshiki Sato, Takashi Yoshida, Hideyuki Umeda, Shigehiro Nagataki, Masaomi Ono, Keiichi Maeda, Ryosuke Hirai, John P. Hughes, Brian J. Williams, Yoshitomo Maeda

Comments: 13 pages, 5 figure. Accepted for publication in ApJ. minor changes

Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

• New submissions
• Cross-lists
• Replacements