75 research outputs found
Pressure Regulator for a High Altitude Balloon
High altitude balloons are large latex balloons filled with gas that carry a payload to near space. Because they can travel to around 100,000 feet, they provide a convenient way to study the Earth’s atmosphere. Per Boyle’s Law, the pressure and volume of a confined gas are inversely proportional. Thus, as the balloon ascends and the atmospheric pressure decreases, the gas inside the balloon expands. This pressure difference allows the balloon to ascend, but it also causes it to continuously expand until it bursts. For some observations, one might want their balloon to remain at about the same altitude for a period of time. One way to do this is to periodically release gas from the balloon, decreasing the volume of gas in the balloon. The objective of this experiment was to design a valve with a sensor to regulate the pressure inside the balloon and in turn, prolong its flight. To do this, we designed an automated pressure valve that will be tested in the near future by way of a tethered flight
Pressure Regulator for a High Altitude Balloon
High altitude balloons are large latex balloons filled with gas that carry a payload to near space. Because they can travel to around 100,000 feet, they provide a convenient way to study the Earth’s atmosphere. Per Boyle’s Law, the pressure and volume of a confined gas are inversely proportional. Thus, as the balloon ascends and the atmospheric pressure decreases, the gas inside the balloon expands. This pressure difference allows the balloon to ascend, but it also causes it to continuously expand until it bursts. For some observations, one might want their balloon to remain at about the same altitude for a period of time. One way to do this is to periodically release gas from the balloon, decreasing the volume of gas in the balloon. The objective of this experiment was to design a valve with a sensor to regulate the pressure inside the balloon and in turn, prolong its flight. To do this, we designed an automated pressure valve that will be tested in the near future by way of a tethered flight
2-point statistics covariance with fewer mocks
We present an approach for accurate estimation of the covariance of 2-point
correlation functions that requires fewer mocks than the standard mock-based
covariance. This can be achieved by dividing a set of mocks into jackknife
regions and fitting the correction term first introduced in Mohammad & Percival
(2022), such that the mean of the jackknife covariances corresponds to the one
from the mocks. This extends the model beyond the shot-noise limited regime,
allowing it to be used for denser samples of galaxies. We test the performance
of our fitted jackknife approach, both in terms of accuracy and precision,
using lognormal mocks with varying densities and approximate EZmocks mimicking
the DESI LRG and ELG samples in the redshift range of z = [0.8, 1.2].
We find that the Mohammad-Percival correction produces a bias in the 2-point
correlation function covariance matrix that grows with number density and that
our fitted jackknife approach does not. We also study the effect of the
covariance on the uncertainty of cosmological parameters by performing a
full-shape analysis. We find that our fitted jackknife approach based on 25
mocks is able to recover unbiased and as precise cosmological parameters as the
ones obtained from a covariance matrix based on 1000 or 1500 mocks, while the
Mohammad-Percival correction produces uncertainties that are twice as large.
The number of mocks required to obtain an accurate estimation of the covariance
for 2-point correlation function is therefore reduced by a factor of 40-60.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures, submitted to MNRA
Intrinsic Alignment as an RSD Contaminant in the DESI Survey
We measure the tidal alignment of the major axes of Luminous Red Galaxies
(LRGs) from the Legacy Imaging Survey and use it to infer the artificial
redshift-space distortion signature that will arise from an
orientation-dependent, surface-brightness selection in the Dark Energy
Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey. Using photometric redshifts to
down-weight the shape-density correlations due to weak lensing, we measure the
intrinsic tidal alignment of LRGs. Separately, we estimate the net polarization
of LRG orientations from DESI's fiber-magnitude target selection to be of order
10^-2 along the line of sight. Using these measurements and a linear tidal
model, we forecast a 0.2% fractional decrease on the quadrupole of the 2-point
correlation function for projected separations of 40-80 Mpc/h. We also use a
halo catalog from the Abacus Summit cosmological simulation suite to reproduce
this false quadrupole.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures. Submitted to MNRAS. For an accessible summary
of this paper, see https://cmlamman.github.io/doc/fakeRSD_summary.pd
Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. I. Sample from the Early Data
Changing-look active galactic nuclei (CL AGNs) can be generally confirmed by the emergence (turn-on) or disappearance (turn-off) of broad emission lines (BELs), associated with a transient timescale (about 100 ∼ 5000 days) that is much shorter than predicted by traditional accretion disk models. We carry out a systematic CL AGN search by crossmatching the spectra coming from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Following previous studies, we identify CL AGNs based on Hα, Hβ, and Mg ii at z ≤ 0.75 and Mg ii, C iii], and C iv at z > 0.75. We present 56 CL AGNs based on visual inspection and three selection criteria, including 2 Hα, 34 Hβ, 9 Mg ii, 18 C iii], and 1 C iv CL AGN. Eight cases show simultaneous appearances/disappearances of two BELs. We also present 44 CL AGN candidates with significant flux variation of BELs, but remaining strong broad components. In the confirmed CL AGNs, 10 cases show additional CL candidate features for different lines. In this paper, we find: (1) a 24:32 ratio of turn-on to turn-off CL AGNs; (2) an upper-limit transition timescale ranging from 330 to 5762 days in the rest frame; and (3) the majority of CL AGNs follow the bluer-when-brighter trend. Our results greatly increase the current CL census (∼30%) and would be conducive to exploring the underlying physical mechanism
PROVABGS: The Probabilistic Stellar Mass Function of the BGS One-Percent Survey
We present the probabilistic stellar mass function (pSMF) of galaxies in the
DESI Bright Galaxy Survey (BGS), observed during the One-Percent Survey. The
One-Percent Survey was one of DESI's survey validation programs conducted from
April to May 2021, before the start of the main survey. It used the same target
selection and similar observing strategy as the main survey and successfully
observed the spectra and redshifts of 143,017 galaxies in the
magnitude-limited BGS Bright sample and 95,499 galaxies in the fainter surface
brightness and color selected BGS Faint sample over . We derive pSMFs
from posteriors of stellar mass, , inferred from DESI photometry and
spectroscopy using the Hahn et al. (2022a; arXiv:2202.01809) PRObabilistic
Value-Added BGS (PROVABGS) Bayesian SED modeling framework. We use a
hierarchical population inference framework that statistically and rigorously
propagates the uncertainties. Furthermore, we include correction weights
that account for the selection effects and incompleteness of the BGS
observations. We present the redshift evolution of the pSMF in BGS as well as
the pSMFs of star-forming and quiescent galaxies classified using average
specific star formation rates from PROVABGS. Overall, the pSMFs show good
agreement with previous stellar mass function measurements in the literature.
Our pSMFs showcase the potential and statistical power of BGS, which in its
main survey will observe >100 more galaxies. Moreover, we present the
statistical framework for subsequent population statistics measurements using
BGS, which will characterize the global galaxy population and scaling relations
at low redshifts with unprecedented precision.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures; data used to generate figures is available at
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8018936; submitted to Ap
Detecting and Characterizing Mg II absorption in DESI Survey Validation Quasar Spectra
In this paper we will present findings on the detection of Magnesium II
(MgII, lambda = 2796 {\AA}, 2803 {\AA}) absorption systems observed in data
from the Early Data Release (EDR) of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
(DESI). DESI is projected to obtain spectroscopy of approximately 3 million
quasars (QSOs), of which over 99% are anticipated to be found at redshifts
greater than z < 0.3, such that DESI would be able to observe an associated or
intervening Mg II absorber illuminated by the background QSO. We have developed
an autonomous supplementary spectral pipeline that detects such systems through
an initial line-fitting process and then confirms line properties using a
Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampler. Based upon both a visual inspection
and the reanalysis of coadded observations, we estimate this sample of
absorption systems to have a completeness of 82.56% and purity of 99.08%. As
the spectra in which Mg II systems are detected are the result of coadding
multiple observations, we can determine the sensitivity, and therefore
completeness, of the sample by searching for known Mg II systems in coadded
data with fewer observations (and therefore lower signal-to-noise). From a
parent catalog containing 83,207 quasars, we detect a total of 23,921 Mg II
absorption systems following a series of quality cuts. Extrapolating from this
occurrence rate of 28.75% implies a catalog at the completion of the five-year
DESI survey that contains over eight hundred thousand Mg II absorbers. The
cataloging of these systems will enable significant further research as they
carry information regarding circumgalactic medium (CGM) environments, the
distribution of intervening galaxies, and the growth of metallicity across the
redshift range 0.3 < z < 2.5.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure
Validation of semi-analytical, semi-empirical covariance matrices for two-point correlation function for Early DESI data
We present an extended validation of semi-analytical, semi-empirical
covariance matrices for the two-point correlation function (2PCF) on simulated
catalogs representative of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRG) data collected during
the initial two months of operations of the Stage-IV ground-based Dark Energy
Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). We run the pipeline on multiple extended
Zel'dovich (EZ) mock galaxy catalogs with the corresponding cuts applied and
compare the results with the mock sample covariance to assess the accuracy and
its fluctuations. We propose an extension of the previously developed formalism
for catalogs processed with standard reconstruction algorithms. We consider
methods for comparing covariance matrices in detail, highlighting their
interpretation and statistical properties caused by sample variance, in
particular, nontrivial expectation values of certain metrics even when the
external covariance estimate is perfect. With improved mocks and validation
techniques, we confirm a good agreement between our predictions and sample
covariance. This allows one to generate covariance matrices for comparable
datasets without the need to create numerous mock galaxy catalogs with matching
clustering, only requiring 2PCF measurements from the data itself. The code
used in this paper is publicly available at
https://github.com/oliverphilcox/RascalC.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure. Code available at
https://github.com/oliverphilcox/RascalC, table and figure data available at
https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.775063
PROVABGS: The Probabilistic Stellar Mass Function of the BGS One-percent Survey
We present the probabilistic stellar mass function (pSMF) of galaxies in the DESI Bright Galaxy Survey (BGS), observed during the One-percent Survey. The One-percent Survey was one of DESI’s survey validation programs conducted from 2021 April to May, before the start of the main survey. It used the same target selection and similar observing strategy as the main survey and successfully observed the spectra and redshifts of 143,017 galaxies in the r 100 × more galaxies. Moreover, we present the statistical framework for subsequent population statistics measurements using BGS, which will characterize the global galaxy population and scaling relations at low redshifts with unprecedented precision
Long-term follow-up observations of extreme coronal line emitting galaxies
We present new spectroscopic and photometric follow-up observations of the
known sample of extreme coronal line emitting galaxies (ECLEs) identified in
the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). With these new data, observations of the
ECLE sample now span a period of two decades following their initial SDSS
detections. We confirm the nonrecurrence of the iron coronal line signatures in
five of the seven objects, further supporting their identification as the
transient light echoes of tidal disruption events (TDEs). Photometric
observations of these objects in optical bands show little overall evolution.
In contrast, mid-infrared (MIR) observations show ongoing long-term declines.
The remaining two objects had been classified as active galactic nuclei (AGN)
with unusually strong coronal lines rather than being TDE related, given the
persistence of the coronal lines in earlier follow-up spectra. We confirm this
classification, with our spectra continuing to show the presence of strong,
unchanged coronal-line features and AGN-like MIR colours and behaviour. We have
constructed spectral templates of both subtypes of ECLE to aid in
distinguishing the likely origin of newly discovered ECLEs. We highlight the
need for higher cadence, and more rapid, follow-up observations of such objects
to better constrain their properties and evolution. We also discuss the
relationships between ECLEs, TDEs, and other identified transients having
significant MIR variability.Comment: Submitted to MNRAS. 33 pages, 15 figure
- …