First author: Edward W. Kolb
The phenomenon of cosmological gravitational particle production (CGPP) is expected to occur during the period of inflation and the transition into a hot big bang cosmology. Particles may be produced even if they only couple directly to gravity, and so CGPP provides a natural explanation for the origin of dark matter. In this work we study the gravitational production of massive spin-2 particles assuming two different couplings to matter.
First author: Mikhail M. Ivanov
We present a framework for self-consistent cosmological analyses of the full-shape anisotropic bispectrum, including the quadrupole $(\ell=2)$ and hexadecapole $(\ell=4)$ moments. This features a novel window-free algorithm for extracting the latter quantities from data, derived using a maximum-likelihood prescription. Furthermore, we introduce a theoretical model for the bispectrum multipoles (which does not introduce new free parameters), and test both aspects of the pipeline on several high-fidelity mocks, including the PT Challenge suite of gigantic cumulative volume.
Edoardo Altamura
Recent high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamic simulations run with a variety of codes systematically predict large amounts of entropy in the intra-cluster medium at low redshift, leading to flat entropy profiles and a suppressed cool-core population. This prediction is at odds with X-ray observations of groups and clusters. We use a new implementation of the EAGLE galaxy formation model to investigate the sensitivity of the central entropy and the shape of the profiles to changes in the sub-grid model applied to a suite of zoom-in cosmological simulations of a group of mass $M_{500} = 8.
First author: Jingzhe Ma
Kilo-parsec scale hard ($>$ 3 keV) X-ray continuum and fluorescent Fe K$\alpha$ line emission has been recently discovered in nearby Compton-thick (CT) active galactic nuclei (AGN), which opens new opportunities to improve AGN torus modeling and investigate how the central supermassive black hole interacts with and impacts the host galaxy. Following a pilot Chandra survey of nearby CT AGN, we present in this paper the Chandra spatial analysis results of five uniformly selected non-CT but still heavily obscured AGN to investigate the extended hard X-ray emission by measuring the excess emission counts, excess fractions, and physical scales.
First author: Corey Brummel-Smith
Early photometric results from JWST have revealed a number of galaxy candidates above redshift 10. The initial estimates of inferred stellar masses and the associated cosmic star formation rates are above most theoretical model predictions up to a factor of 20 in the most extreme cases, while this has been moderated after the recalibration of NIRCam and subsequent spectroscopic detections. Using these recent JWST observations, we use galaxy scaling relations from cosmological simulations to model the star formation history to very high redshifts, back to a starting halo mass of 10^7 solar masses, to infer the intrinsic properties of the JWST galaxies.
First author: Wei Du
With mock strong gravitational lensing images, we investigate the performance of broken power-law (BPL) model on the mass reconstruction of galaxy-scale lenses. An end-to-end test is carried out, including the creation of mock strong lensing images, the subtraction of lens light, and the reconstruction of lensed images. Based on these analyses, we can reliably evaluate how accurate the lens mass and source light distributions can be measured.
Gourab Giri
We search for signatures of recent galaxy close interactions and mergers in a sample of 202 early-type galaxies in the local universe from the public SDSS Stripe82 deep images ($μ_r \sim 28.5$ mag arcsec$^{-2}$). Using two different methods to remove galaxies' smooth and symmetric light distribution, we identify and characterize eleven distinct types of merger remnants embedded in the diffuse light of these early-type galaxies. We discuss how the morphology of merger remnants can result from different kinds of minor and major mergers, and estimate the fraction of early-type galaxies in the local universe with evidence of recent major (27%) and minor (57%) mergers.
First author: Gourab Giri
We search for signatures of recent galaxy close interactions and mergers in a sample of 202 early-type galaxies in the local universe from the public SDSS Stripe82 deep images ($\mu_r \sim 28.5$ mag arcsec$^{-2}$). Using two different methods to remove galaxies’ smooth and symmetric light distribution, we identify and characterize eleven distinct types of merger remnants embedded in the diffuse light of these early-type galaxies. We discuss how the morphology of merger remnants can result from different kinds of minor and major mergers, and estimate the fraction of early-type galaxies in the local universe with evidence of recent major (27%) and minor (57%) mergers.
First author: Matthew J. Hayes
We demonstrate how the stellar and nebular conditions in star-forming galaxies modulate the emission and spectral profile of HI Lya emission line. We examine the net Lya output, kinematics, and in particular emission of blue-shifted Lya radiation, using spectroscopy from with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on HST, giving a sample of 87 galaxies at redshift z=0.05-0.44. We contrast the Lya spectral measurements with properties of the ionized gas (from optical spectra) and stars (from stellar modeling).
Sami Dib
Globular clusters display an anticorrelation between the fraction of the first generation of stars ($N({\rm G1})/N({\rm tot})$) and the slope of the present-day mass function of the clusters ($α_{pd}$), which is particularly significant for massive clusters. In the framework of the binary-mediated collision scenario for the formation of the second-generation stars in globular clusters, we test the effect of a varying stellar initial mass function (IMF) of the G1 stars on the $(N({\rm G1})/N({\rm tot}))-α_{pd}$ anticorrelation.
