215 research outputs found
Structure of the Milky Way stellar halo out to its outer boundary with blue horizontal-branch stars
We present the structure of the Milky Way stellar halo beyond Galactocentric
distances of kpc traced by blue horizontal-branch (BHB) stars, which
are extracted from the survey data in the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic
Program (HSC-SSP). We select BHB candidates based on photometry,
where the -band is on the Paschen series and the colors that involve the
-band are sensitive to surface gravity. About 450 BHB candidates are
identified between kpc and 300 kpc, most of which are beyond the reach
of previous large surveys including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find that
the global structure of the stellar halo in this range has substructures, which
are especially remarkable in the GAMA15H and XMM-LSS fields in the HSC-SSP. We
find that the stellar halo can be fitted to a single power-law density profile
with an index of () with (without) these fields and
its global axial ratio is (). Thus, the stellar halo may be
significantly disturbed and be made in a prolate form by halo substructures,
perhaps associated with the Sagittarius stream in its extension beyond kpc. For a broken power-law model allowing different power-law indices
inside/outside a break radius, we obtain a steep power-law slope of outside a break radius of kpc ( kpc) for the case
with (without) GAMA15H and XMM-LSS. This radius of kpc might be as close
as a halo boundary if there is any, although larger BHB sample is required from
further HSC-SSP survey to increase its statistical significance.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, revised version, accepted for publication in
PAS
Search for a stochastic background of 100-MHz gravitational waves with laser interferometers
This letter reports the results of a search for a stochastic background of
gravitational waves (GW) at 100 MHz by laser interferometry. We have developed
a GW detector, which is a pair of 75-cm baseline synchronous recycling
(resonant recycling) interferometers. Each interferometer has a strain
sensitivity of ~ 10^{-16} Hz^{-1/2} at 100 MHz. By cross-correlating the
outputs of the two interferometers within 1000 seconds, we found h_{100}^2
Omega_{gw} < 6 times 10^{25} to be an upper limit on the energy density
spectrum of the GW background in a 2-kHz bandwidth around 100 MHz, where a flat
spectrum is assumed.Comment: Accepted by Phys.Rev.Lett.; 10 pages, 4 figure
Searches for New Milky Way Satellites from the First Two Years of Data of the Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey: Discovery of Cetus~III
We present the results from a search for new Milky Way (MW) satellites from
the first two years of data from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru Strategic
Program (SSP) ~deg and report the discovery of a highly
compelling ultra-faint dwarf galaxy candidate in Cetus. This is the second
ultra-faint dwarf we have discovered after Virgo~I reported in our previous
paper. This satellite, Cetus~III, has been identified as a statistically
significant (10.7) spatial overdensity of star-like objects, which are
selected from a relevant isochrone filter designed for a metal-poor and old
stellar population. This stellar system is located at a heliocentric distance
of 251~kpc with a most likely absolute magnitude of ~mag estimated from a Monte Carlo analysis. Cetus~III is extended with
a half-light radius of ~pc, suggesting that this is a
faint dwarf satellite in the MW located beyond the detection limit of the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey. Further spectroscopic studies are needed to assess the
nature of this stellar system. We also revisit and update the parameters for
Virgo~I finding ~mag and ~pc. Using simulations of -dominated cold dark matter
models, we predict that we should find one or two new MW satellites from ~deg HSC-SSP data, in rough agreement with the discovery rate so far.
The further survey and completion of HSC-SSP over ~deg will
provide robust insights into the missing satellites problem.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in PASJ special issu
A New Milky Way Satellite Discovered In The Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey
We report the discovery of a new ultra-faint dwarf satellite companion of the
Milky Way based on the early survey data from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru
Strategic Program. This new satellite, Virgo I, which is located in the
constellation of Virgo, has been identified as a statistically significant (5.5
sigma) spatial overdensity of star-like objects with a well-defined main
sequence and red giant branch in their color-magnitude diagram. The
significance of this overdensity increases to 10.8 sigma when the relevant
isochrone filter is adopted for the search. Based on the distribution of the
stars around the likely main sequence turn-off at r ~ 24 mag, the distance to
Virgo I is estimated as 87 kpc, and its most likely absolute magnitude
calculated from a Monte Carlo analysis is M_V = -0.8 +/- 0.9 mag. This stellar
system has an extended spatial distribution with a half-light radius of 38
+12/-11 pc, which clearly distinguishes it from a globular cluster with
comparable luminosity. Thus, Virgo I is one of the faintest dwarf satellites
known and is located beyond the reach of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This
demonstrates the power of this survey program to identify very faint dwarf
satellites. This discovery of VirgoI is based only on about 100 square degrees
of data, thus a large number of faint dwarf satellites are likely to exist in
the outer halo of the Milky Way.Comment: typos are corrected, 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in
Ap
Optimal Location of Two Laser-interferometric Detectors for Gravitational Wave Backgrounds at 100 MHz
Recently, observational searches for gravitational wave background (GWB) have
been developed and given constraints on the energy density of GWB in a broad
range of frequencies. These constraints have already resulted in the rejection
of some theoretical models of relatively large GWB spectra. However, at 100
MHz, there is no strict upper limit from direct observation, though an indirect
limit exists due to He4 abundance due to big-bang nucleosynthesis. In our
previous paper, we investigated the detector designs that can effectively
respond to GW at high frequencies, where the wavelength of GW is comparable to
the size of a detector, and found that the configuration, a so-called
synchronous-recycling interferometer is best at these sensitivity. In this
paper, we investigated the optimal location of two synchronous-recycling
interferometers and derived their cross-correlation sensitivity to GWB. We
found that the sensitivity is nearly optimized and hardly changed if two
coaligned detectors are located within a range 0.2 m, and that the sensitivity
achievable in an experiment is far below compared with the constraint
previously obtained in experiments.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure
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