169 research outputs found
A Centennial Record of Paleosalinity Change in the Tidal Reaches of the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, Tributaries to Chesapeake Bay
Gravity and push cores from the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers (Virginia Tidewater) were collected from central and proximal estuarine zones with known seasonal salinity stratification. The lowermost microfossil associations in the cores comprise alternating ostracode populations of Cyprideis salebrosa and Cytheromorpha. This microfossil association gives way to an oligohaline association dominated by the freshwater ostracode Darwinula stevensoni. Stable oxygen isotope values (δ18O) of Rapphannock Cyprideis salebrosa are highly variable ranging between -6.6 to -3.2‰ VPDB. δ18O values for Potomac Cytheromorpha fuscata range from -8.2 to -3.2‰ VPDB. Positive excursions in δ18O values are synchronous with population peaks for both Cyprideis and Cytheromorpha indicative of increased marine influence and/or higher salinities. Microfossil paleoecology coupled with oxygen isotope values record a marked shift towards gradual freshening and deterioration of the salinity structure in the tidal tributaries during the mid-to late 19th century. We attribute these trends to both decadal climate trends and aggressive land use practices in the Chesapeake Bay watershed during the late 19th to middle 20th centuries
Missing Giants: Predictions on Dust-Obscured Galaxy Stellar Mass Assembly Throughout Cosmic Time
Due to their extremely dust-obscured nature, much uncertainty still exists
surrounding the stellar mass growth and content in dusty, star-forming galaxies
(DSFGs) at . In this work, we present a numerical model built using
empirical data on DSFGs to estimate their stellar mass contributions across the
first 10 Gyr of cosmic time. We generate a dust-obscured stellar mass
function that extends beyond the mass limit of star-forming stellar mass
functions in the literature, and predict that massive DSFGs constitute as much
as of all star-forming galaxies with M M at
. We predict the number density of massive DSFGs and find general
agreement with observations, although more data is needed to narrow wide
observational uncertainties. We forward model mock massive DSFGs to their
quiescent descendants and find remarkable agreement with observations from the
literature demonstrating that, to first order, massive DSFGs are a sufficient
ancestral population to describe the prevalence of massive quiescent galaxies
at . We predict that massive DSFGs and their descendants contribute as
much as to the cosmic stellar mass density during the peak of cosmic
star formation, and predict an intense epoch of population growth during the
Gyr from to 3 during which the majority of the most massive
galaxies at high- grow and then quench. Future studies seeking to understand
massive galaxy growth and evolution in the early Universe should strategize
synergies with data from the latest observatories (e.g. JWST and ALMA) to
better include the heavily dust-obscured galaxy population.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Ap
A Mixture of LBG Overdensities in the Fields of Three Quasars: Implications for the Robustness of Photometric Selection
The most luminous quasars at are suspected to be both highly
clustered and reside in the most massive dark matter halos in the early
Universe, making them prime targets to search for galaxy overdensities and/or
protoclusters. We search for Lyman-break dropout-selected galaxies using HST
WFC3/ACS broadband imaging in the fields of three quasars, as well
as their simultaneously observed coordinated-parallel fields, and constrain
their photometric redshifts using EAZY. One field, J0305-3150, shows a volume
density 10 higher than the blank-field UV luminosity function (UVLF) at
M, with tentative evidence of a 3 overdensity in its
parallel field located 15 cMpc away. Another field, J2054-0005, shows an
angular overdensity within 500 ckpc from the quasar but still consistent with
UVLF predictions within 3, while the last field, J2348-3054, shows no
enhancement. We discuss methods for reducing uncertainty in overdensity
measurements when using photometric selection and show that we can robustly
select LBGs consistent with being physically associated with the quasar,
corroborated by existing JWST/NIRCam WFSS data in the J0305 field. Even
accounting for incompleteness, the overdensities in J0305 and J2054 are higher
for brighter galaxies at short angular separations, suggesting preferential
enhancement of more massive galaxies in the immediate vicinity of the quasar.
Finally, we compare the LBG population with previously-identified [CII] and
mm-continuum companions; the LBG overdensities are not accompanied by an
enhanced number of dusty galaxies, suggesting that the overdense quasar fields
are not in the bursty star-forming phase sometimes seen in high-redshift
protoclusters.Comment: 22 pages (main text), 12 figures, 10 tables, 2 appendices. Final
version after addressing referee report, accepted to ApJ May 202
Searching Far and Long I: Pilot ALMA 2mm Follow-up of Bright Dusty Galaxies as a Redshift Filter
A complete census of dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) at early epochs is
necessary to constrain the obscured contribution to the cosmic star formation
rate density (CSFRD), however DSFGs beyond are both rare and hard to
identify from photometric data alone due to degeneracies in submillimeter
photometry with redshift. Here, we present a pilot study obtaining follow-up
Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) mm observations of a complete sample
of 39 -bright dusty galaxies in the SSA22 field. Empirical
modeling suggests mm imaging of existing samples of DSFGs selected at
mm can quickly and easily isolate the "needle in a
haystack" DSFGs that sit at or beyond. Combining archival submillimeter
imaging with our measured ALMA mm photometry (mJybeam rms), we characterize the galaxies' IR SEDs and use
them to constrain redshifts. With available redshift constraints fit via the
combination of six submillimeter bands, we identify 6/39 high- candidates
each with likelihood to sit at , and find a positive correlation
between redshift and mm flux density. Specifically, our models suggest the
addition of mm to a moderately constrained IR SED will improve the
accuracy of a millimeter-derived redshift from to
. Our IR SED characterizations provide evidence for
relatively high emissivity spectral indices () in the sample. We measure that especially bright (mJy) DSFGs contribute % to the cosmic-averaged CSFRD from
, confirming findings from previous work with similar samples.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Quantum curves for Hitchin fibrations and the Eynard-Orantin theory
We generalize the topological recursion of Eynard-Orantin (2007) to the
family of spectral curves of Hitchin fibrations. A spectral curve in the
topological recursion, which is defined to be a complex plane curve, is
replaced with a generic curve in the cotangent bundle of an arbitrary
smooth base curve . We then prove that these spectral curves are
quantizable, using the new formalism. More precisely, we construct the
canonical generators of the formal -deformation family of -modules
over an arbitrary projective algebraic curve of genus greater than ,
from the geometry of a prescribed family of smooth Hitchin spectral curves
associated with the -character variety of the fundamental
group . We show that the semi-classical limit through the WKB
approximation of these -deformed -modules recovers the initial family
of Hitchin spectral curves.Comment: 34 page
Structure and mechanics of supporting cells in the guinea pig organ of Corti.
The mechanical properties of the mammalian organ of Corti determine its sensitivity to sound frequency and intensity, and the structure of supporting cells changes progressively with frequency along the cochlea. From the apex (low frequency) to the base (high frequency) of the guinea pig cochlea inner pillar cells decrease in length incrementally from 75-55 µm whilst the number of axial microtubules increases from 1,300-2,100. The respective values for outer pillar cells are 120-65 µm and 1,500-3,000. This correlates with a progressive decrease in the length of the outer hair cells from >100 µm to 20 µm. Deiters'cell bodies vary from 60-50 µm long with relatively little change in microtubule number. Their phalangeal processes reflect the lengths of outer hair cells but their microtubule numbers do not change systematically. Correlations between cell length, microtubule number and cochlear location are poor below 1 kHz. Cell stiffness was estimated from direct mechanical measurements made previously from isolated inner and outer pillar cells. We estimate that between 200 Hz and 20 kHz axial stiffness, bending stiffness and buckling limits increase, respectively,~3, 6 and 4 fold for outer pillar cells, ~2, 3 and 2.5 fold for inner pillar cells and ~7, 20 and 24 fold for the phalangeal processes of Deiters'cells. There was little change in the Deiters'cell bodies for any parameter. Compensating for effective cell length the pillar cells are likely to be considerably stiffer than Deiters'cells with buckling limits 10-40 times greater. These data show a clear relationship between cell mechanics and frequency. However, measurements from single cells alone are insufficient and they must be combined with more accurate details of how the multicellular architecture influences the mechanical properties of the whole organ
CEERS: Diversity of Lyman-Alpha Emitters during the Epoch of Reionization
We analyze rest-frame ultraviolet to optical spectra of three -
galaxies whose Ly-emission lines were previously detected with
Keck/MOSFIRE observations, using the JWST/NIRSpec observations from the Cosmic
Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey. From NIRSpec data, we confirm
the systemic redshifts of these Ly emitters, and emission-line ratio
diagnostics indicate these galaxies were highly ionized and metal poor. We
investigate Ly line properties, including the line flux, velocity
offset, and spatial extension. For the one galaxy where we have both NIRSpec
and MOSFIRE measurements, we find a significant offset in their flux
measurements ( greater in MOSFIRE) and a marginal difference in
the velocity shifts. The simplest interpretation is that the Ly
emission is extended and not entirely encompassed by the NIRSpec slit. The
cross-dispersion profiles in NIRSpec reveal that Ly in one galaxy is
significantly more extended than the non-resonant emission lines. We also
compute the expected sizes of ionized bubbles that can be generated by the
Ly sources, discussing viable scenarios for the creation of sizable
ionized bubbles (1 physical Mpc). The source with the highest-ionization
condition is possibly capable of ionizing its own bubble, while the other two
do not appear to be capable of ionizing such a large region, requiring
additional sources of ionizing photons. Therefore, the fact that we detect
Ly from these galaxies suggests diverse scenarios on escape of
Ly during the epoch of reionization. High spectral resolution spectra
with JWST/NIRSpec will be extremely useful for constraining the physics of
patchy reionization.Comment: Submitted to ApJ (18 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables
Efficient NIRCam Selection of Quiescent Galaxies at 3 < z < 6 in CEERS
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Substantial populations of massive quiescent galaxies at z ≥ 3 challenge our understanding of rapid galaxy growth and quenching over short timescales. In order to piece together this evolutionary puzzle, more statistical samples of these objects are required. Established techniques for identifying massive quiescent galaxies are increasingly inefficient and unconstrained at z > 3. As a result, studies report that as much as 70% of quiescent galaxies at z > 3 may be missed from existing surveys. In this work, we propose a new empirical color selection technique designed to select massive quiescent galaxies at 3 ≲ z ≲ 6 using JWST NIRCam imaging data. We use empirically constrained galaxy spectral energy distribution (SED) templates to define a region in the F277W − F444W versus F150W − F277W color plane that captures quiescent galaxies at z > 3. We apply these color selection criteria to the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey and use SED fitting on sources in the region to identify 44 candidate z ≳ 3 quiescent galaxies. Over half of these sources are newly discovered and, on average, exhibit specific star formation rates of poststarburst galaxies. Most of these sources would not be discovered using canonical UVJ diagrams. We derive volume density estimates of n ∼ 1–4 × 10−5 Mpc−3 at 3 < z < 5, finding excellent agreement with existing reports on similar populations in the CEERS field. Thanks to NIRCam’s wavelength coverage and sensitivity, this technique provides an efficient tool to search for large samples of these rare galaxies.Peer reviewe
The Web Epoch of Reionization Lyman- Survey (WERLS) I. MOSFIRE Spectroscopy of Lyman- Emitters
We present the first results from the Web Epoch of Reionization
Lyman- Survey (WERLS), a spectroscopic survey of Lyman-
emission using Keck I/MOSFIRE and LRIS. WERLS targets bright () galaxy
candidates with photometric redshifts of selected
from pre-JWST imaging embedded in the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) within three
JWST deep fields: CEERS, PRIMER, and COSMOS-Web. Here, we report 11
Lyman- emitters (LAEs; 3 secure and 8 tentative candidates) detected in
the first five nights of WERLS MOSFIRE data. We estimate our observed LAE yield
is %, broadly consistent with expectations assuming some loss from
redshift uncertainty, contamination from sky OH lines, and that the Universe is
approximately half-ionized at this epoch, whereby observable Lyman-
emission is unlikely for galaxies embedded in a neutral intergalactic medium.
Our targets are selected to be UV-bright, and span a range of absolute UV
magnitudes with . With two LAEs detected at
, we also consider the possibility of an ionized bubble at this
redshift. Future synergistic Keck+JWST efforts will provide a powerful tool for
pinpointing beacons of reionization and mapping the large scale distribution of
mass relative to the ionization state of the Universe.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures; ApJ submitte
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