The environment of bright QSOs at z̃6: Star-forming galaxies and X-ray emission

We employ cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to investigate models in which the supermassive black holes (BHs) powering luminous z ~ 6 QSOs grow from massive seeds. We simulate at high resolution 18 fields sampling regions with densities ranging from the mean cosmic density all the way to the highest sigma peaks in the Millennium simulation volume. Only in the most massive halos, BHs can grow to masses up to ~ 10^9 Msun by z ~ 6 without invoking super-Eddington accretion. Accretion onto the most massive BHs becomes limited by thermal AGN feedback by z ~ 9-8 with further BH growth proceeding in short Eddington limited bursts. Our modelling suggests that current flux-limited surveys of QSOs at high redshift preferentially detect objects at their peak luminosity and therefore miss a substantial population of QSOs powered by similarly massive BHs but with low accretion rates. To test whether the required host halo masses are consistent with the observed galaxy environment of z ~ 6 QSOs, we produce realistic rest-frame UV images of our simulated galaxies. Without strong stellar feedback, our simulations predict numbers of bright galaxies larger than observed by a factor ten or more. Supernova-driven galactic winds reduce the predicted numbers to a level consistent with observations indicating that stellar feedback was already very efficient at high redshifts. We have further investigated the effect of thermal AGN feedback on the surrounding gas. Our adopted AGN feedback prescription drives mostly energy-driven highly anisotropic outflows with gas speeds of >= 1000 km/s to distances of >= 10 kpc consistent with observations. The spatially extended thermal X-ray emission around bright QSOs powered by these outflows can exceed by large factors the emission expected without AGN feedback and is an important diagnostic of the mechanism whereby AGN feedback energy couples to surrounding gas

A spectroscopically confirmed z=1.327 galaxy-scale deflector magnifying a z~8 Lyman-Break galaxy in the Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies survey

We present a detailed analysis of an individual case of gravitational lensing of a $z\sim8$ Lyman-Break galaxy (LBG) in a blank field, identified in Hubble Space Telescope imaging obtained as part of the Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies survey. To investigate the close proximity of the bright ($m_{AB}=25.8$) $Y_{098}$-dropout to a small group of foreground galaxies, we obtained deep spectroscopy of the dropout and two foreground galaxies using VLT/X-Shooter. We detect H-$\alpha$, H-$\beta$, [OIII] and [OII] emission in the brightest two foreground galaxies (unresolved at the natural seeing of $0.8$ arcsec), placing the pair at $z=1.327$. We can rule out emission lines contributing all of the observed broadband flux in $H_{160}$ band at $70\sigma$, allowing us to exclude the $z\sim8$ candidate as a low redshift interloper with broadband photometry dominated by strong emission lines. The foreground galaxy pair lies at the peak of the luminosity, redshift and separation distributions for deflectors of strongly lensed $z\sim8$ objects, and we make a marginal detection of a demagnified secondary image in the deepest ($J_{125}$) filter. We show that the configuration can be accurately modelled by a singular isothermal ellipsoidal deflector and a S\'{e}rsic source magnified by a factor of $\mu=4.3\pm0.2$. The reconstructed source in the best-fitting model is consistent with luminosities and morphologies of $z\sim8$ LBGs in the literature. The lens model yields a group mass of $9.62\pm0.31\times10^{11} M_{\odot}$ and a stellar mass-to-light ratio for the brightest deflector galaxy of $M_{\star}/L_{B}=2.3^{+0.8}_{-0.6} M_{\odot}/L_{\odot}$ within its effective radius. The foreground galaxies' redshifts would make this one of the few strong lensing deflectors discovered at $z>1$.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 16 pages, 11 figures, 3 table

HST followup observations of two bright z ~ 8 candidate galaxies from the BoRG pure-parallel survey

We present followup imaging of two bright (L > L*) galaxy candidates at z > 8 from the Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies (BoRG) survey with the F098M filter on HST/WFC3. The F098M filter provides an additional constraint on the flux blueward of the spectral break, and the observations are designed to discriminate between low- and high-z photometric redshift solutions for these galaxies. Our results confirm one galaxy, BoRG 0116+1425 747, as a highly probable z ~ 8 source, but reveal that BoRG 0116+1425 630 - previously the brightest known z > 8 candidate (mAB = 24.5) - is likely to be a z ~ 2 interloper. As this source was substantially brighter than any other z > 8 candidate, removing it from the sample has a significant impact on the derived UV luminosity function in this epoch. We show that while previous BoRG results favored a shallow power-law decline in the bright end of the luminosity function prior to reionization, there is now no evidence for departure from a Schechter function form and therefore no evidence for a difference in galaxy formation processes before and after reionization.Comment: Accepted by ApJL, 7 pages, 4 figure

Dark matter powered stars: Constraints from the extragalactic background light

The existence of predominantly cold non-baryonic dark matter is unambiguously demonstrated by several observations (e.g., structure formation, big bang nucleosynthesis, gravitational lensing, and rotational curves of spiral galaxies). A candidate well motivated by particle physics is a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP). Self-annihilating WIMPs would affect the stellar evolution especially in the early universe. Stars powered by self-annihilating WIMP dark matter should possess different properties compared with standard stars. While a direct detection of such dark matter powered stars seems very challenging, their cumulative emission might leave an imprint in the diffuse metagalactic radiation fields, in particular in the mid-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. In this work the possible contributions of dark matter powered stars (dark stars; DSs) to the extragalactic background light (EBL) are calculated. It is shown that existing data and limits of the EBL intensity can already be used to rule out some DS parameter sets.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ; 7 pages, 5 figure

First Results from the KMOS Lens-Amplified Spectroscopic Survey (KLASS): Kinematics of Lensed Galaxies at Cosmic Noon

We present the first results of the KMOS Lens-Amplified Spectroscopic Survey (KLASS), a new ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) large program, doing multi-object integral field spectroscopy of galaxies gravitationally lensed behind seven galaxy clusters selected from the HST Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS). Using the power of the cluster magnification we are able to reveal the kinematic structure of 25 galaxies at $0.7 \lesssim z \lesssim 2.3$, in four cluster fields, with stellar masses $8 \lesssim \log{(M_\star/M_\odot)} \lesssim 11$. This sample includes 5 sources at $z>1$ with lower stellar masses than in any previous kinematic IFU surveys. Our sample displays a diversity in kinematic structure over this mass and redshift range. The majority of our kinematically resolved sample is rotationally supported, but with a lower ratio of rotational velocity to velocity dispersion than in the local universe, indicating the fraction of dynamically hot disks changes with cosmic time. We find no galaxies with stellar mass $<3 \times 10^9 M_\odot$ in our sample display regular ordered rotation. Using the enhanced spatial resolution from lensing, we resolve a lower number of dispersion dominated systems compared to field surveys, competitive with findings from surveys using adaptive optics. We find that the KMOS IFUs recover emission line flux from HST grism-selected objects more faithfully than slit spectrographs. With artificial slits we estimate slit spectrographs miss on average 60% of the total flux of emission lines, which decreases rapidly if the emission line is spatially offset from the continuum.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

The Impact of Strong Gravitational Lensing on Observed Lyman-Break Galaxy Numbers at 4<z<8 in the GOODS and the XDF Blank Fields

Detection of Lyman-Break Galaxies (LBGs) at high-redshift can be affected by gravitational lensing induced by foreground deflectors not only in galaxy clusters, but also in blank fields. We quantify the impact of strong magnification in the samples of $B$, $V$, $i$, $z$ $\&$ $Y$ LBGs ($4\lesssim z \lesssim8$) observed in the XDF and GOODS/CANDELS fields, by investigating the proximity of dropouts to foreground objects. We find that $\sim6\%$ of bright LBGs ($m_{H_{160}}2$) by foreground objects. This fraction decreases from $\sim 3.5\%$ at $z\sim6$ to $\sim1.5\%$ at $z\sim4$. Since the observed fraction of strongly lensed galaxies is a function of the shape of the luminosity function (LF), it can be used to derive Schechter parameters, $\alpha$ and $M_{\star}$, independently from galaxy number counts. Our magnification bias analysis yields Schechter-function parameters in close agreement with those determined from galaxy counts albeit with larger uncertainties. Extrapolation of our analysis to $z\gtrsim 8$ suggests that future surveys with JSWT, WFIRST and EUCLID should find excess LBGs at the bright-end, even if there is an intrinsic exponential cutoff of number counts. Finally, we highlight how the magnification bias measurement near the detection limit can be used as probe of the population of galaxies too faint to be detected. Preliminary results using this novel idea suggest that the magnification bias at $M_{UV}\sim -18$ is not as strong as expected if $\alpha\lesssim -1.7$ extends well below the current detection limits in the XDF. At face value this implies a flattening of the LF at $M_{UV}\gtrsim-16.5$. However, selection effects and completeness estimates are difficult to quantify precisely. Thus, we do not rule out a steep LF extending to $M_{UV}\gtrsim -15$.Comment: Submitted to ApJ on 18/12/201

The surface density profile of NGC 6388: a good candidate for harboring an intermediate-mass black hole

We have used a combination of high resolution (HST ACS-HRC, ACS-WFC, and WFPC2) and wide-field (ESO-WFI) observations of the galactic globular cluster NGC 6388 to derive its center of gravity, projected density profile, and central surface brightness profile. While the overall projected profiles are well fit by a King model with intermediate concentration (c=1.8) and sizable core radius (rc=7"), a significant power law (with slope \alpha=-0.2) deviation from a flat core behavior has been detected within the inner 1 arcsecond. These properties suggest the presence of a central intermediate mass black hole. The observed profiles are well reproduced by a multi-mass isotropic, spherical model including a black hole with a mass of ~5.7x10^3 Msol.Comment: ApJ Letter in pres

Semi-annual seasonal pattern of serum thyrotropin in adults

Circannual rhythmicity in thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) secretion is proposed, whereas evidences on seasonal peripheral thyroid hormones' fluctuation are contradictory. This study was designed to evaluate hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) seasonal secretion pattern using a big data approach. An observational, retrospective, big data trial was carried out, including all TSH measurements performed in a single laboratory between January 2010 and December 2017. A large dataset was created matching TSH data with patients' age, gender, environmental temperature exposure, and free triiodothyronine (fT3) and free thyroxine (fT4) when available. The trend and seasonal distributions were analysed using autoregressive integrated moving average models. A total of 1,506,495 data were included in the final database with patients mean age of 59.00 +/- 18.44 years. The mean TSH serum levels were 2.08 +/- 1.57 microIU/mL, showing a seasonal distribution with higher levels in summer and winter seasons, independently from age, gender and environmental temperatures. Neither fT3 nor fT4 showed a seasonal trend. TSH seasonal changes occurred independently from peripheral thyroid hormone variations, gender, age and environmental temperatures. Although seasonal TSH fluctuation could represent a residual ancestral mechanism to maintain HPT homeostasis, the underlying physiological mechanism remains unclear and specific studies are needed to clarify its impacting role in humans

The bright-end galaxy candidates at z ~ 9 from 79 independent HST fields

We present a full data analysis of the pure-parallel Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging observations in the Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies Survey (BoRG[z9]) in Cycle 22. The medium-deep exposures with five HST/WFC3IR+UVIS filter bands from 79 independent sightlines (~370 arcmin^2) provide the least biased determination of number density for z>9 bright galaxies against cosmic variance. After a strict two-step selection for candidate galaxies, including dropout color and photometric redshift analyses, and revision of previous BoRG candidates, we identify one source at z~10 and two sources at z~9. The z~10 candidate shows evidence of line-of-sight lens magnification (mu~1.5), yet it appears surprisingly luminous (MUV ~ -22.6\pm0.3 mag), making it one of the brightest candidates at z > 8 known (~ 0.3 mag brighter than the z = 8.68 galaxy EGSY8p7, spectroscopically confirmed by Zitrin and collaborators). For z ~ 9 candidates, we include previous data points at fainter magnitudes and find that the data are well fitted by a Schechter luminosity function with alpha ~ -2.1, MUV ~ -21.5 mag, and log phi ~ -4.5 Mpc^-3mag^-1, for the first time without fixing any parameters. The inferred cosmic star formation rate density is consistent with unaccelerated evolution from lower redshift.Comment: 18pages, 7figures, 6tables. accepted to the Astrophysical Journa