1,975 research outputs found
On Discovering Electromagnetic Emission from Neutron Star Mergers: The Early Years of Two Gravitational Wave Detectors
We present the first simulation addressing the prospects of finding an
electromagnetic (EM) counterpart to gravitational wave detections (GW) during
the early years of only two advanced interferometers. The perils of such a
search may have appeared insurmountable when considering the coarse ring-shaped
GW localizations spanning thousands of deg^2 using time-of-arrival information
alone. We show that leveraging the amplitude and phase information of the
predicted GW signal narrows the localization to arcs with a median area of only
~250 deg^2, thereby making an EM search tractable. Based on the locations and
orientations of the two LIGO detectors, we find that the GW sensitivity is
limited to one polarization and thus to only two sky quadrants. Thus, the rates
of GW events with two interferometers is only ~40% of the rate with three
interferometers of similar sensitivity. Another important implication of the
sky quadrant bias is that EM observatories in North America and Southern Africa
would be able to systematically respond to GW triggers several hours sooner
than Russia and Chile. Given the larger sky areas and the relative proximity of
detected mergers, 1m-class telescopes with very wide-field cameras are well
positioned for the challenge of finding an EM counterpart. Identification of
the EM counterpart amidst the even larger numbers of false positives further
underscores the importance of building a comprehensive catalog of foreground
stellar sources, background AGN and potential host galaxies in the local
universe.Comment: Submitted to ApJL, 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
NSV 11749: Symbiotic Nova, Not a Born-Again Red Giant
NSV 11749 is a little-studied variable star, discovered by W. J. Luyten,
which had a long-duration outburst around the year 1903, reaching blue
magnitude 12.5 at maximum. Following the outburst, it has apparently been
quiescent at about blue magnitude 17 for the past century. It was recently
suggested that NSV 11749 may have been a low- or intermediate-mass star that
underwent a final helium shell flash, making it temporarily a "born-again" red
giant. If so, it would be only the fourth known member of this class, along
with V605 Aql, FG Sge, and V4334 Sgr. However, our newly obtained optical and
near-IR spectra of the object show that it is instead a symbiotic binary, with
strong Balmer and He I-II emission lines, combined with a cool red-giant
companion of spectral type M1-2 III. The 1903 outburst was most likely a
symbiotic nova event, of which less than a dozen are known at present.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, Accepted for publication in PAS
Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory: Realtime Image Subtraction Pipeline
A fast-turnaround pipeline for realtime data reduction plays an essential
role in discovering and permitting follow-up observations to young supernovae
and fast-evolving transients in modern time-domain surveys. In this paper, we
present the realtime image subtraction pipeline in the intermediate Palomar
Transient Factory. By using high-performance computing, efficient database, and
machine learning algorithms, this pipeline manages to reliably deliver
transient candidates within ten minutes of images being taken. Our experience
in using high performance computing resources to process big data in astronomy
serves as a trailblazer to dealing with data from large-scale time-domain
facilities in near future.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in PAS
Calcium-rich Gap Transients: Solving the Calcium Conundrum in the Intracluster Medium
X-ray measurements suggest the abundance of Calcium in the intracluster
medium is higher than can be explained using favored models for core-collapse
and Type Ia supernovae alone. We investigate whether the Calcium conundrum in
the intracluster medium can be alleviated by including a contribution from the
recently discovered subclass of supernovae known as Calcium-rich gap
transients. Although the Calcium-rich gap transients make up only a small
fraction of all supernovae events, we find that their high Calcium yields are
sufficient to reproduce the X-ray measurements found for nearby rich clusters.
We find the goodness-of-fit metric improves from 84 to 2 by
including this new class. Moreover, Calcium-rich supernovae preferentially
occur in the outskirts of galaxies making it easier for the nucleosynthesis
products of these events to be incorporated in the intracluster medium via
ram-pressure stripping. The discovery of a Calcium-rich gap transients in
clusters and groups far from any individual galaxy suggests supernovae
associated with intracluster stars may play an important role in enriching the
intracluster medium. Calcium-rich gap transients may also help explain
anomalous Calcium abundances in many other astrophysical systems including
individual stars in the Milky Way, the halos of nearby galaxies and the
circumgalactic medium. Our work highlights the importance of considering the
diversity of supernovae types and corresponding yields when modeling the
abundance of the intracluster medium and other gas reservoirs
First Detection of Mid-Infrared Variability from an Ultraluminous X-Ray Source Holmberg II X-1
We present mid-infrared (IR) light curves of the Ultraluminous X-ray Source
(ULX) Holmberg II X-1 from observations taken between 2014 January 13 and 2017
January 5 with the \textit{Spitzer Space Telescope} at 3.6 and 4.5 m in
the \textit{Spitzer} Infrared Intensive Transients Survey (SPIRITS). The mid-IR
light curves, which reveal the first detection of mid-IR variability from a
ULX, is determined to arise primarily from dust emission rather than from a jet
or an accretion disk outflow. We derived the evolution of the dust temperature
( K), IR luminosity (
), mass (
), and equilibrium temperature radius
( AU). A comparison of X-1 with a sample
spectroscopically identified massive stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud on a
mid-IR color-magnitude diagram suggests that the mass donor in X-1 is a
supergiant (sg) B[e]-star. The sgB[e]-interpretation is consistent with the
derived dust properties and the presence of the [Fe II] (
m) emission line revealed from previous near-IR studies of X-1. We
attribute the mid-IR variability of X-1 to increased heating of dust located in
a circumbinary torus. It is unclear what physical processes are responsible for
the increased dust heating; however, it does not appear to be associated with
the X-ray flux from the ULX given the constant X-ray luminosities provided by
serendipitous, near-contemporaneous X-ray observations around the first mid-IR
variability event in 2014. Our results highlight the importance of mid-IR
observations of luminous X-ray sources traditionally studied at X-ray and radio
wavelengths.Comment: 9 page, 4 figures, 1 table, Accepted to ApJ Letter
Infrared emission from kilonovae: the case of the nearby short hard burst GRB 160821B
We present constraints on Ks-band emission from one of the nearest short hard
gamma-ray bursts, GRB 160821B, at z=0.16, at three epochs. We detect a reddened
relativistic afterglow from the jetted emission in the first epoch but do not
detect any excess kilonova emission in the second two epochs. We compare upper
limits obtained with Keck I/MOSFIRE to multi-dimensional radiative transfer
models of kilonovae, that employ composition-dependent nuclear heating and LTE
opacities of heavy elements. We discuss eight models that combine toroidal
dynamical ejecta and two types of wind and one model with dynamical ejecta
only. We also discuss simple, empirical scaling laws of predicted emission as a
function of ejecta mass and ejecta velocity. Our limits for GRB 160821B
constrain the ejecta mass to be lower than 0.03 Msun for velocities greater
than 0.1c. At the distance sensitivity range of advanced LIGO, similar
ground-based observations would be sufficiently sensitive to the full range of
predicted model emission including models with only dynamical ejecta. The color
evolution of these models shows that I-K color spans 7--16 mag, which suggests
that even relatively shallow infrared searches for kilonovae could be as
constraining as optical searches.Comment: Accepted for Publication in Astrophysical Journal Letter
Calcium-rich gap transients in the remote outskirts of galaxies
From the first two seasons of the Palomar Transient Factory, we identify three peculiar transients (PTF09dav, PTF10iuv, PTF11bij) with five distinguishing characteristics: peak luminosity in the gap between novae and supernovae (M_R ≈ - 15.5 to -16.5), rapid photometric evolution (t_(rise) ≈12-15 days), large photospheric velocities (≈6000 to 11000 km s^(-1)), early spectroscopic evolution into nebular phase (≈1 to 3 months) and peculiar nebular spectra dominated by Calcium. We also culled the extensive decade-long Lick Observatory Supernova Search database and identified an additional member of this group, SN 2007ke. Our choice of photometric and spectroscopic properties was motivated by SN 2005E (Perets et al. 2010). To our surprise, as in the case of SN 2005E, all four members of this group are also clearly offset from the bulk of their host galaxy. Given the well-sampled early and late-time light curves, we derive ejecta masses in the range of 0.4--0.7 M_⊙. Spectroscopically, we find that there may be a diversity in the photospheric phase, but the commonality is in the unusual nebular spectra. Our extensive follow-up observations rule out standard thermonuclear and standard core-collapse explosions for this class of "Calcium-rich gap" transients. If the progenitor is a white dwarf, we are likely seeing a detonation of the white dwarf core and perhaps, even shock-front interaction with a previously ejected nova shell. In the less likely scenario of a massive star progenitor, a very non-standard channel specific to a low-metallicity environment needs to be invoked (e.g., ejecta fallback leading to black hole formation). Detection (or lack thereof) of a faint underlying host (dwarf galaxy, cluster) will provide a crucial and decisive diagnostic to choose between these alternatives
A Comparison of Weak Lensing Measurements From Ground- and Space-Based Facilities
We assess the relative merits of weak lensing surveys, using overlapping
imaging data from the ground-based Subaru telescope and the Hubble Space
Telescope (HST). Our tests complement similar studies undertaken with simulated
data. From observations of 230,000 matched objects in the 2 square degree
COSMOS field, we identify the limit at which faint galaxy shapes can be
reliably measured from the ground. Our ground-based shear catalog achieves
sub-percent calibration bias compared to high resolution space-based data, for
galaxies brighter than i'~24.5 and with half-light radii larger than 1.8". This
selection corresponds to a surface density of ~15 galaxies per sq arcmin
compared to ~71 per sq arcmin from space. On the other hand the survey speed of
current ground-based facilities is much faster than that of HST, although this
gain is mitigated by the increased depth of space-based imaging desirable for
tomographic (3D) analyses. As an independent experiment, we also reconstruct
the projected mass distribution in the COSMOS field using both data sets, and
compare the derived cluster catalogs with those from X-ray observations. The
ground-based catalog achieves a reasonable degree of completeness, with minimal
contamination and no detected bias, for massive clusters at redshifts
0.2<z<0.5. The space-based data provide improved precision and a greater
sensitivity to clusters of lower mass or at higher redshift.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, submitted to ApJ, Higher resolution figures
available at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~mansi/GroundvsSpace.pd
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