147 research outputs found
Census of the Local Universe (CLU) Narrow-Band Survey I: Galaxy Catalogs from Preliminary Fields
We present the Census of the Local Universe (CLU) narrow-band survey to
search for emission-line (\ha) galaxies. CLU-\ha~has imaged 3 of
the sky (26,470~deg) with 4 narrow-band filters that probe a distance out
to 200~Mpc. We have obtained spectroscopic follow-up for galaxy candidates in
14 preliminary fields (101.6~deg) to characterize the limits and
completeness of the survey. In these preliminary fields, CLU can identify
emission lines down to an \ha~flux limit of
~ at 90\% completeness, and recovers 83\%
(67\%) of the \ha~flux from catalogued galaxies in our search volume at the
=2.5 (=5) color excess levels. The contamination from galaxies
with no emission lines is 61\% (12\%) for =2.5 (=5). Also, in
the regions of overlap between our preliminary fields and previous
emission-line surveys, we recover the majority of the galaxies found in
previous surveys and identify an additional 300 galaxies. In total, we
find 90 galaxies with no previous distance information, several of which are
interesting objects: 7 blue compact dwarfs, 1 green pea, and a Seyfert galaxy;
we also identified a known planetary nebula. These objects show that the
CLU-\ha~survey can be a discovery machine for objects in our own Galaxy and
extreme galaxies out to intermediate redshifts. However, the majority of the
CLU-\ha~galaxies identified in this work show properties consistent with normal
star-forming galaxies. CLU-\ha~galaxies with new redshifts will be added to
existing galaxy catalogs to focus the search for the electromagnetic
counterpart to gravitational wave events.Comment: 28 pages, 22 figures, 4 tables (Accepted to ApJ
WISE/NEOWISE Preliminary Analysis and Highlights of the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Near Nucleus Environs
On January 18-19 and June 28-29 of 2010, the Wide-field Infrared Survey
Explorer (WISE) spacecraft imaged the Rosetta mission target, comet
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. We present a preliminary analysis of the images,
which provide a characterization of the dust environment at heliocentric
distances similar to those planned for the initial spacecraft encounter, but on
the outbound leg of its orbit rather than the inbound. Broad-band photometry
yields low levels of CO2 production at a comet heliocentric distance of 3.32 AU
and no detectable production at 4.18 AU. We find that at these heliocentric
distances, large dust grains with mean grain diameters on the order of a
millimeter or greater dominate the coma and evolve to populate the tail. This
is further supported by broad-band photometry centered on the nucleus, which
yield an estimated differential dust particle size distribution with a power
law relation that is considerably shallower than average. We set a 3-sigma
upper limit constraint on the albedo of the large-grain dust at <= 0.12. Our
best estimate of the nucleus radius (1.82 +/- 0.20 km) and albedo (0.04 +/-
0.01) are in agreement with measurements previously reported in the literature
Zwicky Transient Facility constraints on the optical emission from the nearby repeating FRB 180916.J0158+65
The discovery rate of fast radio bursts (FRBs) is increasing dramatically
thanks to new radio facilities. Meanwhile, wide-field instruments such as the
47 deg Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) survey the optical sky to study
transient and variable sources. We present serendipitous ZTF observations of
the CHIME repeating source FRB 180916.J0158+65, that was localized to a spiral
galaxy 149 Mpc away and is the first FRB suggesting periodic modulation in its
activity. While 147 ZTF exposures corresponded to expected high-activity
periods of this FRB, no single ZTF exposure was at the same time as a CHIME
detection. No optical source was found at the FRB location in 683
ZTF exposures, totalling 5.69 hours of integration time. We combined ZTF upper
limits and expected repetitions from FRB 180916.J0158+65 in a statistical
framework using a Weibull distribution, agnostic of periodic modulation priors.
The analysis yielded a constraint on the ratio between the optical and radio
fluences of , corresponding to an optical energy erg for a fiducial 10 Jy ms FRB (90%
confidence). A deeper (but less statistically robust) constraint of can be placed assuming a rate of Jy ms)= hr and
FRB occurring during exposures taken in high-activity windows. The
constraint can be improved with shorter per-image exposures and longer
integration time, or observing FRBs at higher Galactic latitudes. This work
demonstrated how current surveys can statistically constrain multi-wavelength
counterparts to FRBs even without deliberately scheduled simultaneous radio
observation.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJL, 9 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
WISE/NEOWISE Observations of Comet 103P/Hartley 2
We report results based on mid-infrared photometry of comet 103P/Hartley 2 taken during 2010 May 4-13 (when the comet was at a heliocentric distance of 2.3 AU, and an observer distance of 2.0 AU) by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. Photometry of the coma at 22 Ī¼m and data from the University of Hawaii 2.2 m telescope obtained on 2010 May 22 provide constraints on the dust particle size distribution, d log n/d log m, yielding power-law slope values of alpha = ā0.97 Ā± 0.10, steeper than that found for the inbound particle fluence during the Stardust encounter of comet 81P/Wild 2. The extracted nucleus signal at 12 Ī¼m is consistent with a body of average spherical radius of 0.6 Ā± 0.2 km (one standard deviation), assuming a beaming parameter of 1.2. The 4.6 Ī¼m band signal in excess of dust and nucleus reflected and thermal contributions may be attributed to carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide emission lines and provides limits and estimates of species production. Derived carbon dioxide coma production rates are 3.5(Ā± 0.9) Ć 10^(24) molecules per second. Analyses of the trail signal present in the stacked image with an effective exposure time of 158.4 s yields optical-depth values near 9 Ć 10^(ā10) at a delta mean anomaly of 0.2 deg trailing the comet nucleus, in both 12 and 22 Ī¼m bands. A minimum chi-squared analysis of the dust trail position yields a beta-parameter value of 1.0 Ć 10^(ā4), consistent with a derived mean trail-grain diameter of 1.1/Ļ cm for grains of Ļ g cm^(ā3) density. This leads to a total detected trail mass of at least 4 Ć 10^(10) Ļ kg
Processing Images from the Zwicky Transient Facility
The Zwicky Transient Facility is a new robotic-observing program, in which a
newly engineered 600-MP digital camera with a pioneeringly large field of view,
47~square degrees, will be installed into the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope
at the Palomar Observatory. The camera will generate ~petabyte of raw
image data over three years of operations. In parallel related work, new
hardware and software systems are being developed to process these data in real
time and build a long-term archive for the processed products. The first public
release of archived products is planned for early 2019, which will include
processed images and astronomical-source catalogs of the northern sky in the
and bands. Source catalogs based on two different methods will be
generated for the archive: aperture photometry and point-spread-function
fitting.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, submitted to RTSRE Proceedings (www.rtsre.org
Cataclysmic Variables in the First Year of the Zwicky Transient Facility
Using selection criteria based on amplitude, time, and color, we have identified 329 objects as known or candidate cataclysmic variables (CVs) during the first year of testing and operation of the Zwicky Transient Facility. Of these, 90 are previously confirmed CVs, 218 are strong candidates based on the shape and color of their light curves obtained during 3ā562 days of observation, and the remaining 21 are possible CVs but with too few data points to be listed as good candidates. Almost half of the strong candidates are within 10 deg of the galactic plane, in contrast to most other large surveys that have avoided crowded fields. The available Gaia parallaxes are consistent with sampling the low mass transfer CVs, as predicted by population models. Our follow-up spectra have confirmed Balmer/helium emission lines in 27 objects, with four showing high-excitation He ii emission, including candidates for an AM CVn, a polar, and an intermediate polar. Our results demonstrate that a complete survey of the Galactic plane is needed to accomplish an accurate determination of the number of CVs existing in the Milky Way
SPIRITS: Uncovering Unusual Infrared Transients with Spitzer
We present an ongoing, five-year systematic search for extragalactic infrared transients, dubbed SPIRITSāSPitzer InfraRed Intensive Transients Survey. In the first year, using Spitzer/IRAC, we searched 190 nearby galaxies with cadence baselines of one month and six months. We discovered over 1958 variables and 43 transients. Here, we describe the survey design and highlight 14 unusual infrared transients with no optical counterparts to deep limits, which we refer to as SPRITEs (eSPecially Red Intermediate-luminosity Transient Events). SPRITEs are in the infrared luminosity gap between novae and supernovae, with [4.5] absolute magnitudes between ā11 and ā14 (Vega-mag) and [3.6]ā[4.5] colors between 0.3 mag and 1.6 mag. The photometric evolution of SPRITEs is diverse, ranging from 7 mag yr^(ā1). SPRITEs occur in star-forming galaxies. We present an in-depth study of one of them, SPIRITS 14ajc in Messier 83, which shows shock-excited molecular hydrogen emission. This shock may have been triggered by the dynamic decay of a non-hierarchical system of massive stars that led to either the formation of a binary or a protostellar merger
A new class of large-amplitude radial-mode hot subdwarf pulsators
Using high-cadence observations from the Zwicky Transient Facility at low Galactic latitudes, we have discovered a new class of pulsating, hot compact stars. We have found four candidates, exhibiting blue colors (g ā r ā¤ ā0.1 mag), pulsation amplitudes of >5%, and pulsation periods of 200ā475 s. Fourier transforms of the light curves show only one dominant frequency. Phase-resolved spectroscopy for three objects reveals significant radial velocity, T eff, and log(g) variations over the pulsation cycle, which are consistent with large-amplitude radial oscillations. The mean T eff and log(g) for these stars are consistent with hot subdwarf B (sdB) effective temperatures and surface gravities. We calculate evolutionary tracks using MESA and adiabatic pulsations using GYRE for low-mass, helium-core pre-white dwarfs (pre-WDs) and low-mass helium-burning stars. Comparison of low-order radial oscillation mode periods with the observed pulsation periods show better agreement with the pre-WD models. Therefore, we suggest that these new pulsators and blue large-amplitude pulsators (BLAPs) could be members of the same class of pulsators, composed of young ā0.25ā0.35 M ā helium-core pre-WDs.Published versio
WISE/NEOWISE observations of Active Bodies in the Main Belt
We report results based on mid-infrared photometry of 5 active main belt
objects (AMBOs) detected by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)
spacecraft. Four of these bodies, P/2010 R2 (La Sagra), 133P/Elst-Pizarro,
(596) Scheila, and 176P/LINEAR, showed no signs of activity at the time of the
observations, allowing the WISE detections to place firm constraints on their
diameters and albedos. Geometric albedos were in the range of a few percent,
and on the order of other measured comet nuclei. P/2010 A2 was observed on
April 2-3, 2010, three months after its peak activity. Photometry of the coma
at 12 and 22 {\mu}m combined with ground-based visible-wavelength measurements
provides constraints on the dust particle mass distribution (PMD), dlogn/dlogm,
yielding power-law slope values of {\alpha} = -0.5 +/- 0.1. This PMD is
considerably more shallow than that found for other comets, in particular
inbound particle fluence during the Stardust encounter of comet 81P/Wild 2. It
is similar to the PMD seen for 9P/Tempel 1 in the immediate aftermath of the
Deep Impact experiment. Upper limits for CO2 & CO production are also provided
for each AMBO and compared with revised production numbers for WISE
observations of 103P/Hartley 2.Comment: 32 Pages, including 5 Figure
- ā¦