First author: William Giarè
Inflationary gravitational waves, behaving as additional radiation in the Early Universe, can increase the effective number of relativistic species ($N_{\rm eff}$) by a further correction that depends on the integrated energy-density in gravitational waves over all scales. This effect is typically used to constrain (blue-tilted) models of inflation in light of the bounds resulting from the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. In this paper, we recompute this contribution, discussing some caveats of the state-of-the-art analyses.
First author: M. Lopez-Corredoira
A specific modification of Newtonian dynamics known as MOND has been shown to reproduce the dynamics of most astrophysical systems at different scales without invoking non-baryonic dark matter (DM). There is, however, a long-standing unsolved problem when MOND is applied to rich clusters of galaxies in the form of a deficit (by a factor around two) of predicted dynamical mass derived from the virial theorem with respect to observations.
First author: B. Sykes
Fallback supernovae and the collapsar scenario for long-gamma ray burst and hypernovae have received considerable interest as pathways to black-hole formation and extreme transient events. Consistent simulations of these scenarios require a general relativistic treatment and need to deal appropriately with the formation of a singularity. Free evolution schemes for the Einstein equations can handle the formation of black holes by means of excision or puncture schemes.
First author: E. Redaelli
Prestellar cores, the birthplace of Sun-like stars, form from the fragmentation of the filamentary structure that composes molecular clouds, from which they must inherit at least partially the kinematics. Furthermore, when they are on the verge of gravitational collapse, they show signs of subsonic infall motions. How extended these motions are, which depends on how the collapse occurs, remains largely unknown. We want to investigate the kinematics of the envelope that surrounds the prototypical prestellar core L1544, studying the cloud-core connection.
First author: Jessica Sutter
We present Herschel, ALMA, and MUSE observations of the molecular ring of Messier 104, also known as the Sombrero galaxy. These previously unpublished archival data shed new light on the content of the interstellar medium of M104. In particular, molecular hydrogen measured by CO emission and dust measured by far-infrared light are uniformly distributed along the ring. The ionized gas revealed by H$\alpha$ and $[CII]$ emission is distributed in knots along the ring.
First author: Peter Breiding
Over 150 resolved, kpc-scale X-ray jets hosted by active galactic nuclei have been discovered with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. A significant fraction of these jets have an X-ray spectrum either too high in flux or too hard to be consistent with the high-energy extension of the radio-to-optical synchrotron spectrum, a subtype we identify as Multiple Spectral Component (MSC) X-ray jets. A leading hypothesis for the origin of the X-rays is the inverse-Compton scattering of the cosmic microwave background by the same electron population producing the radio-to-optical synchrotron spectrum (known as the IC/CMB model).
First author: Philippe Z. Yao
We report the detection of a long-timescale negative lag, where the blue bands lag the red bands, in the nearby Seyfert 1 galaxy Fairall 9. Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) light curves show variability over a wide range of timescales. By measuring time lags between different wavelengths, the otherwise inaccessible structure and kinematics of the accretion disk can be studied. One common approach, reverberation mapping, quantifies the continuum and line lags moving outwards through the disk at the light-travel time, revealing the size and temperature profile of the disk.
First author: Lilit V. Barkhudaryan
In this Letter, using classified 197 supernovae (SNe) Ia, we perform an analyses of their height distributions from the disc in edge-on spirals and investigate their light-curve (LC) decline rates $(\Delta m_{15})$. We demonstrate, for the first time, that 91T-, 91bg-like, and normal SNe Ia subclasses are distributed differently toward the plane of their host disc. The average height from the disc and its comparison with scales of thin/thick disc components gives a possibility to roughly estimate the SNe Ia progenitor ages: 91T-like events, being at the smallest heights, originate from relatively younger progenitors with ages of about several 100 Myr, 91bg-like SNe, having the highest distribution, arise from progenitors with significantly older ages $\sim 10$ Gyr, and normal SNe Ia, which distributed between those of the two others, are from progenitors of about one up to $\sim 10$ Gyr.
First author: Nadine H. Soliman
Partial dust obscuration in active galactic nuclei (AGN) has been proposed as a potential explanation for some cases of AGN variability. The dust-gas mixture present in AGN torii is accelerated by radiation pressure leading to the launching of an AGN wind. Dust under these conditions has been shown to be unstable to a generic class of fast growing resonant drag instabilities (RDIs). We present the first set of numerical simulations of radiation driven outflows that include explicit dust dynamics in conditions resembling AGN winds and discuss the implications of the RDIs on the morphology of the AGN torus, AGN variability, and the ability of the radiation to effectively launch a wind.
First author: G. C. Jones
Gaseous outflows are key phenomena in the evolution of galaxies, as they affect star formation (either positively or negatively), eject gas from the core or disk, and directly cause mixing of pristine and processed material. Active outflows may be detected through searches for broad spectral line emission or high-velocity gas, but it is also possible to determine the presence of past outflows by searching for extended reservoirs of chemically enriched molecular gas in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) around galaxies.
