717 research outputs found
All NIRspec needs is HST/WFC3 pre-imaging? The use of Milky Way Stars in WFC3 Imaging to Register NIRspec MSA Observations
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be an exquisite new near-infrared
observatory with imaging and multi-object spectroscopy through ESA's NIRspec
instrument with its unique Micro-Shutter Array (MSA), allowing for slits to be
positioned on astronomical targets by opening specific 0.002"-wide micro
shutter doors.
To ensure proper target acquisition, the on-sky position of the MSA needs to
be verified before spectroscopic observations start. An onboard centroiding
program registers the position of pre-identified guide stars in a Target
Acquisition (TA) image, a short pre-spectroscopy exposure without dispersion
(image mode) through the MSA with all shutters open.
The outstanding issue is the availability of Galactic stars in the right
luminosity range for TA relative to typical high redshift targets. We explore
this here using the stars and candidate galaxies identified in the
source extractor catalogs of Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies survey
(BoRG[z8]), a pure-parallel program with Hubble Space Telescope Wide-Field
Camera 3.
We find that (a) a single WFC3 field contains enough Galactic stars to
satisfy the NIRspec astrometry requirement (20 milli-arcseconds), provided its
and the NIRspec TA's are AB in WFC3 F125W, (b) a single WFC3
image can therefore serve as the pre-image if need be, (c) a WFC3 mosaic and
accompanying TA image satisfy the astrometry requirement at AB mag in
WFC3 F125W, (d) no specific Galactic latitude requires deeper TA imaging due to
a lack of Galactic stars, and (e) a depth of AB mag in WFC3 F125W is
needed if a guide star in the same MSA quadrant as a target is required.
We take the example of a BoRG identified candidate galaxy and
require a Galactic star within 20" of it. In this case, a depth of 25.5 AB in
F125W is required (with 97% confidence).Comment: 17 pages, 15 figures, to appear in the Journal of Astronomical
Instrumentatio
Intermediate Mass Black Hole Induced Quenching of Mass Segregation in Star Clusters
In many theoretical scenarios it is expected that intermediate-mass black
holes (IMBHs, with masses M ~ 100-10000 solar masses) reside at the centers of
some globular clusters. However, observational evidence for their existence is
limited. Several previous numerical investigations have focused on the impact
of an IMBH on the cluster dynamics or brightness profile. Here we instead
present results from a large set of direct N-body simulations including single
and binary stars. These show that there is a potentially more detectable IMBH
signature, namely on the variation of the average stellar mass between the
center and the half-light radius. We find that the existence of an IMBH
quenches mass segregation and causes the average mass to exhibit only modest
radial variation in collisionally relaxed star clusters. This differs from when
there is no IMBH. To measure this observationally requires high resolution
imaging at the level of that already available from the Hubble Space Telescope
(HST) for the cores of a large sample of galactic globular clusters. With a
modest additional investment of HST time to acquire fields around the
half-light radius, it will be possible to identify the best candidate clusters
to harbor an IMBH. This test can be applied only to globulars with a half-light
relaxation time less than or equal to 1 Gyr, which is required to guarantee
efficient energy equipartition due to two-body relaxation.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, ApJ, in pres
Overdensities of Y-dropout Galaxies from the Brightest-of-Reionizing Galaxies Survey: A Candidate Protocluster at Redshift z~8
Theoretical and numerical modeling of dark-matter halo assembly predicts that
the most luminous galaxies at high redshift are surrounded by overdensities of
fainter companions. We test this prediction with HST observations acquired by
our Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies (BoRG) survey, which identified four very
bright z~8 candidates as Y-dropout sources in four of the 23 non-contiguous
WFC3 fields observed. We extend here the search for Y-dropouts to fainter
luminosities (M_* galaxies with M_AB\sim-20), with detections at >5sigma
confidence (compared to >8sigma confidence adopted earlier) identifying 17 new
candidates. We demonstrate that there is a correlation between number counts of
faint and bright Y-dropouts at >99.84% confidence. Field BoRG58, which contains
the best bright z\sim8 candidate (M_AB=-21.3), has the most significant
overdensity of faint Y-dropouts. Four new sources are located within 70arcsec
(corresponding to 3.1 comoving Mpc at z=8) from the previously known brighter
z\sim8 candidate. The overdensity of Y-dropouts in this field has a physical
origin to high confidence (p>99.975%), independent of completeness and
contamination rate of the Y-dropout selection. We modeled the overdensity by
means of cosmological simulations and estimate that the principal dark matter
halo has mass M_h\sim(4-7)x10^11Msun (\sim5sigma density peak) and is
surrounded by several M_h\sim10^11Msun halos which could host the fainter
dropouts. In this scenario, we predict that all halos will eventually merge
into a M_h>2x10^14Msun galaxy cluster by z=0. Follow-up observations with
ground and space based telescopes are required to secure the z\sim8 nature of
the overdensity, discover new members, and measure their precise redshift.Comment: Minor revision: ApJ accepted [17 pages (emulateapj style), 7 figures,
2 tables
Expanded Search for z~10 Galaxies from HUDF09, ERS, and CANDELS Data: Evidence for Accelerated Evolution at z>8?
We search for z~10 galaxies over ~160 arcmin^2 of WFC3/IR data in the Chandra
Deep Field South, using the public HUDF09, ERS, and CANDELS surveys, that reach
to 5sigma depths ranging from 26.9 to 29.4 in H_160 AB mag. z>~9.5 galaxy
candidates are identified via J_125-H_160>1.2 colors and non-detections in any
band blueward of J_125. Spitzer IRAC photometry is key for separating the
genuine high-z candidates from intermediate redshift (z~2-4) galaxies with
evolved or heavily dust obscured stellar populations. After removing 16 sources
of intermediate brightness (H_160~24-26 mag) with strong IRAC detections, we
only find one plausible z~10 galaxy candidate in the whole data set, previously
reported in Bouwens et al. (2011). The newer data cover a 3x larger area and
provide much stronger constraints on the evolution of the UV luminosity
function (LF). If the evolution of the z~4-8 LFs is extrapolated to z~10, six
z~10 galaxies are expected in our data. The detection of only one source
suggests that the UV LF evolves at an accelerated rate before z~8. The
luminosity density is found to increase by more than an order of magnitude in
only 170 Myr from z~10 to z~8. This increase is >=4x larger than expected from
the lower redshift extrapolation of the UV LF. We are thus likely witnessing
the first rapid build-up of galaxies in the heart of cosmic reionization.
Future deep HST WFC3/IR data, reaching to well beyond 29 mag, can enable a more
robust quantification of the accelerated evolution around z~10.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, ApJ resubmitted after referee repor
HST followup observations of two bright z ~ 8 candidate galaxies from the BoRG pure-parallel survey
We present followup imaging of two bright (L > L*) galaxy candidates at z > 8
from the Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies (BoRG) survey with the F098M filter
on HST/WFC3. The F098M filter provides an additional constraint on the flux
blueward of the spectral break, and the observations are designed to
discriminate between low- and high-z photometric redshift solutions for these
galaxies. Our results confirm one galaxy, BoRG 0116+1425 747, as a highly
probable z ~ 8 source, but reveal that BoRG 0116+1425 630 - previously the
brightest known z > 8 candidate (mAB = 24.5) - is likely to be a z ~ 2
interloper. As this source was substantially brighter than any other z > 8
candidate, removing it from the sample has a significant impact on the derived
UV luminosity function in this epoch. We show that while previous BoRG results
favored a shallow power-law decline in the bright end of the luminosity
function prior to reionization, there is now no evidence for departure from a
Schechter function form and therefore no evidence for a difference in galaxy
formation processes before and after reionization.Comment: Accepted by ApJL, 7 pages, 4 figure
Monte Carlo Simulations of Globular Cluster Evolution. V. Binary Stellar Evolution
We study the dynamical evolution of globular clusters containing primordial
binaries, including full single and binary stellar evolution using our Monte
Carlo cluster evolution code updated with an adaptation of the single and
binary stellar evolution codes SSE/BSE from Hurley et. al (2000, 2002). We
describe the modifications we have made to the code. We present several test
calculations and comparisons with existing studies to illustrate the validity
of the code. We show that our code finds very good agreement with direct N-body
simulations including primordial binaries and stellar evolution. We find
significant differences in the evolution of the global properties of the
simulated clusters using stellar evolution compared to simulations without any
stellar evolution. In particular, we find that the mass loss from stellar
evolution acts as a significant energy production channel simply by reducing
the total gravitational binding energy and can significantly prolong the
initial core contraction phase before reaching the binary-burning quasi steady
state of the cluster evolution as noticed in Paper IV. We simulate a large grid
of clusters varying the initial cluster mass, binary fraction, and
concentration and compare properties of the simulated clusters with those of
the observed Galactic globular clusters (GGCs). We find that our simulated
cluster properties agree well with the observed GGC properties. We explore in
some detail qualitatively different clusters in different phases of their
evolution, and construct synthetic Hertzprung-Russell diagrams for these
clusters.Comment: 46 preprint pages, 18 figures, 3 tables, submitted to Ap
Understanding the Dynamical State of Globular Clusters: Core-Collapsed vs Non Core-Collapsed
We study the dynamical evolution of globular clusters using our H\'enon-type
Monte Carlo code for stellar dynamics including all relevant physics such as
two-body relaxation, single and binary stellar evolution, Galactic tidal
stripping, and strong interactions such as physical collisions and binary
mediated scattering. We compute a large database of several hundred models
starting from broad ranges of initial conditions guided by observations of
young and massive star clusters. We show that these initial conditions very
naturally lead to present day clusters with properties including the central
density, core radius, half-light radius, half-mass relaxation time, and cluster
mass, that match well with those of the old Galactic globular clusters. In
particular, we can naturally reproduce the bimodal distribution in observed
core radii separating the "core-collapsed" vs the "non core-collapsed"
clusters. We see that the core-collapsed clusters are those that have reached
or are about to reach the equilibrium "binary burning" phase. The non
core-collapsed clusters are still undergoing gravo-thermal contraction.Comment: 42 pages, 12 figures, 1 table, submitted to MNRA
Beacons into the Cosmic Dark Ages: Boosted transmission of Ly from UV bright galaxies at
Recent detections of Lyman alpha (Ly) emission from galaxies
were somewhat unexpected given a dearth of previous non-detections in this era
when the intergalactic medium (IGM) is still highly neutral. But these
detections were from UV bright galaxies, which preferentially live in
overdensities which reionize early, and have significantly Doppler-shifted
Ly line profiles emerging from their interstellar media (ISM), making
them less affected by the global IGM state. Using a combination of reionization
simulations and empirical ISM models we show, as a result of these two effects,
UV bright galaxies in overdensities have higher transmission through
the IGM than typical field galaxies, and this boosted transmission is
enhanced as the neutral fraction increases. The boosted transmission is not
sufficient to explain the observed high Ly fraction of galaxies (Stark et al. 2017), suggesting Ly emitted by
these galaxies must be stronger than expected due to enhanced production and/or
selection effects. Despite the bias of UV bright galaxies to reside in
overdensities we show Ly observations of such galaxies can accurately
measure the global neutral hydrogen fraction, particularly when Ly from
UV faint galaxies is extinguished, making them ideal candidates for
spectroscopic follow-up into the cosmic Dark Ages.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ
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