556 research outputs found
Strong Lens Models for 37 Clusters of Galaxies from the SDSS Giant Arcs Survey
We present strong gravitational lensing models for 37 galaxy clusters from
the SDSS Giant Arcs Survey. We combine data from multi-band Hubble Space
Telescope WFC3imaging, with ground-based imaging and spectroscopy from
Magellan, Gemini, APO, and MMT, in order to detect and spectroscopically
confirm new multiply-lensed background sources behind the clusters. We report
spectroscopic or photometric redshifts of sources in these fields, including
cluster galaxies and background sources. Based on all available lensing
evidence, we construct and present strong lensing mass models for these galaxy
clusters.Comment: 53 pages; submitted to ApJ
Time-dependent photoionization of azulene: Optically induced anisotropy on the femtosecond scale
We measure the photoionization cross-section of vibrationally excited levels
in the S2 state of azulene by femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy. At the
wavelengths studied (349-265 nm in the pump) the transient signals exhibit two
distinct and well-defined behaviours: (i) Short-term (on the order of a
picosecond) polarization dependent transients and (ii) longer (10 ps - 1 ns)
time-scale decays. This letter focuses on the short time transient. In contrast
to an earlier study by Diau et al.22 [J. Chem. Phys. 110 (1999) 9785.] we
unambiguously assign the fast initial decay signal to rotational dephasing of
the initial alignment created by the pump transition.Comment: Chemical Physics Letters (2008
Microbial responses to warming enhance soil carbon loss following translocation across a tropical forest elevation gradient
Tropical soils contain huge carbon stocks, which climate warming is projected to reduce by stimulating organic matter decomposition, creating a positive feedback that will promote further warming. Models predict that the loss of carbon from warming soils will be mediated by microbial physiology, but no empirical data are available on the response of soil carbon and microbial physiology to warming in tropical forests, which dominate the terrestrial carbon cycle. Here we show that warming caused a considerable loss of soil carbon that was enhanced by associated changes in microbial physiology. By translocating soils across a 3000 m elevation gradient in tropical forest, equivalent to a temperature change of ± 15 °C, we found that soil carbon declined over 5 years by 4% in response to each 1 °C increase in temperature. The total loss of carbon was related to its original quantity and lability, and was enhanced by changes in microbial physiology including increased microbial carbon‐use‐efficiency, shifts in community composition towards microbial taxa associated with warmer temperatures, and increased activity of hydrolytic enzymes. These findings suggest that microbial feedbacks will cause considerable loss of carbon from tropical forest soils in response to predicted climatic warming this century
An Older, More Quiescent Universe from Panchromatic SED Fitting of the 3D-HST Survey
Galaxy observations are influenced by many physical parameters: stellar
masses, star formation rates (SFRs), star formation histories (SFHs),
metallicities, dust, black hole activity, and more. As a result, inferring
accurate physical parameters requires high-dimensional models which capture or
marginalize over this complexity. Here we re-assess inferences of galaxy
stellar masses and SFRs using the 14-parameter physical model
Prospector- built in the Prospector Bayesian inference framework. We
fit the photometry of 58,461 galaxies from the 3D-HST catalogs at . The resulting stellar masses are dex larger than the
fiducial masses while remaining consistent with dynamical constraints. This
change is primarily due to the systematically older SFHs inferred with
Prospector. The SFRs are dex lower than UV+IR SFRs, with the
largest offsets caused by emission from "old" ( Myr) stars. These new
inferences lower the observed cosmic star formation rate density by
dex and increase the observed stellar mass growth by dex, finally
bringing these two quantities into agreement and implying an older, more
quiescent Universe than found by previous studies at these redshifts. We
corroborate these results by showing that the Prospector- SFHs are both
more physically realistic and are much better predictors of the evolution of
the stellar mass function. Finally, we highlight examples of observational data
which can break degeneracies in the current model; these observations can be
incorporated into priors in future models to produce new & more accurate
physical parameters.Comment: Replaced w/ accepted versio
Leveraging 3D-HST Grism Redshifts to Quantify Photometric Redshift Performance
We present a study of photometric redshift accuracy in the 3D-HST photometric catalogs, using 3D-HST grism redshifts to quantify and dissect trends in redshift accuracy for galaxies brighter than JH IR > 24 with an unprecedented and representative high-redshift galaxy sample. We find an average scatter of 0.0197 ± 0.0003(1 + z) in the Skelton et al. photometric redshifts. Photometric redshift accuracy decreases with magnitude and redshift, but does not vary monotonically with color or stellar mass. The 1σ scatter lies between 0.01 and 0.03 (1 + z) for galaxies of all masses and colors below z JH IR 2), dusty star-forming galaxies for which the scatter increases to ~0.1 (1 + z). We find that photometric redshifts depend significantly on galaxy size; the largest galaxies at fixed magnitude have photo-zs with up to ~30% more scatter and ~5 times the outlier rate. Although the overall photometric redshift accuracy for quiescent galaxies is better than that for star-forming galaxies, scatter depends more strongly on magnitude and redshift than on galaxy type. We verify these trends using the redshift distributions of close pairs and extend the analysis to fainter objects, where photometric redshift errors further increase to ~0.046 (1 + z) at HF160W=26. We demonstrate that photometric redshift accuracy is strongly filter dependent and quantify the contribution of multiple filter combinations. We evaluate the widths of redshift probability distribution functions and find that error estimates are underestimated by a factor of ~1.1–1.6, but that uniformly broadening the distribution does not adequately account for fitting outliers. Finally, we suggest possible applications of these data in planning for current and future surveys and simulate photometric redshift performance in the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, Dark Energy Survey (DES), and combined DES and Vista Hemisphere surveys
JWST reveals a population of ultra-red, flattened disk galaxies at 2<z<6 previously missed by HST
With just a month of data, JWST is already transforming our view of the
Universe, revealing and resolving starlight in unprecedented populations of
galaxies. Although ``HST-dark" galaxies have previously been detected at long
wavelengths, these observations generally suffer from a lack of spatial
resolution which limits our ability to characterize their sizes and
morphologies. Here we report on a first view of starlight from a subset of the
HST-dark population that are bright with JWST/NIRCam (4.4m<24.5mag) and
very faint or even invisible with HST (1.6m). In this Letter we focus
on a dramatic and unanticipated population of physically extended galaxies
(0.17''). These 12 galaxies have photometric redshifts , high
stellar masses , and significant
dust-attenuated star formation. Surprisingly, the galaxies have elongated
projected axis ratios at 4.4m, suggesting that the population is
disk-dominated or prolate. Most of the galaxies appear red at all radii,
suggesting significant dust attenuation throughout. We refer to these red,
disky, HST-dark galaxies as Ultra-red Flattened Objects (UFOs). With
(F444W)~kpc, the galaxies are similar in size to compact massive
galaxies at and the cores of massive galaxies and S0s at . The
stellar masses, sizes, and morphologies of the sample suggest that some could
be progenitors of lenticular or fast-rotating galaxies in the local Universe.
The existence of this population suggests that our previous censuses of the
universe may have missed massive, dusty edge-on disks, in addition to
dust-obscured starbursts
MALT90 Kinematic Distances to Dense Molecular Clumps
Using molecular-line data from the Millimetre Astronomy Legacy Team 90 GHz Survey (MALT90), we have estimated kinematic distances to 1905 molecular clumps identified in the ATLASGAL 870 μm continuum survey over the longitude range 295° < l < 350°. The clump velocities were determined using a flux-weighted average of the velocities obtained from Gaussian fits to the HCO+, HNC, and N2H+ (1–0) transitions. The near/far kinematic distance ambiguity was addressed by searching for the presence or absence of absorption or self-absorption features in 21 cm atomic hydrogen spectra from the Southern Galactic Plane Survey. Our algorithm provides an estimation of the reliability of the ambiguity resolution. The Galactic distribution of the clumps indicates positions where the clumps are bunched together, and these locations probably trace the locations of spiral arms. Several clumps fall at the predicted location of the far side of the Scutum–Centaurus arm. Moreover, a number of clumps with positive radial velocities are unambiguously located on the far side of the Milky Way at galactocentric radii beyond the solar circle. The measurement of these kinematic distances, in combination with continuum or molecular-line data, now enables the determination of fundamental parameters such as mass, size, and luminosity for each clump
Spatially resolved star formation and inside-out quenching in the TNG50 simulation and 3D-HST observations
We compare the star-forming main sequence (SFMS) of galaxies – both integrated and resolved on 1 kpc scales – between the high-resolution TNG50 simulation of IllustrisTNG and observations from the 3D-HST slitless spectroscopic survey at z ∼ 1. Contrasting integrated star formation rates (SFRs), we find that the slope and normalization of the star-forming main sequence in TNG50 are quantitatively consistent with values derived by fitting observations from 3D-HST with the Prospector Bayesian inference framework. The previous offsets of 0.2–1 dex between observed and simulated main-sequence normalizations are resolved when using the updated masses and SFRs from Prospector. The scatter is generically smaller in TNG50 than in 3D-HST for more massive galaxies with M*&gt; 1010 M⊙, by ∼10–40 per cent, after accounting for observational uncertainties. When comparing resolved star formation, we also find good agreement between TNG50 and 3D-HST: average specific star formation rate (sSFR) radial profiles of galaxies at all masses and radii below, on, and above the SFMS are similar in both normalization and shape. Most noteworthy, massive galaxies with M*&gt; 1010.5 M⊙, which have fallen below the SFMS due to ongoing quenching, exhibit a clear central SFR suppression, in both TNG50 and 3D-HST. In contrast, the original Illustris simulation and a variant TNG run without black hole kinetic wind feedback, do not reproduce the central SFR profile suppression seen in data. In TNG, inside-out quenching is due to the supermassive black hole (SMBH) feedback model operating at low accretion rates
Microbes follow Humboldt: temperature drives plant and soil microbial diversity patterns from the Amazon to the Andes
Soil microbial diversity, by high-throughput sequencing data to characterise the variation in marker gene sequences, for 14 sites along a 3000 m elevation gradient in tropical forest in Peru. For bacterial community composition, the 16S rRNA gene was amplified in triplicate PCR reactions using the 515f and 806r primers. For fungal community composition, the first internal transcribed spacer region (ITS1) of the rRNA gene was amplified using the ITS1-F and ITS2 primer pair
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