Galaxy Quenching from Cosmic Web Detachment

We propose the Cosmic Web Detachment (CWD) model, a framework to interpret the star-formation history of galaxies in a cosmological context. The CWD model unifies several starvation mechanisms known to disrupt or stop star formation into one single physical framework. Galaxies begin accreting star-forming gas at early times via a network of primordial filaments, simply related to the pattern of density fluctuations in the initial conditions. But when shell-crossing occurs on intergalactic scales, this pattern is disrupted, and the galaxy detaches from its primordial filaments, ending the accretion of cold gas. We argue that CWD encompasses known external processes halting star formation, such as harassment, strangulation and starvation. On top of these external processes, internal feedback processes such as AGN contribute to stop in star formation as well. By explicitly pointing out the non-linear nature of CWD events we introduce a simple formalism to identify CWD events in N-body simulations. With it we reproduce and explain, in the context of CWD, several observations including downsizing, the cosmic star formation rate history, the galaxy mass-color diagram and the dependence of the fraction of red galaxies with mass and local density.Comment: 20 pages, accepted for publication in OJA. High-res version: http://skysrv.pha.jhu.edu/~miguel/Papers/CWD/ms.pd

A halo bias function measured deeply into voids without stochasticity

We study the relationship between dark-matter haloes and matter in the MIP $N$-body simulation ensemble, which allows precision measurements of this relationship, even deeply into voids. What enables this is a lack of discreteness, stochasticity, and exclusion, achieved by averaging over hundreds of possible sets of initial small-scale modes, while holding fixed large-scale modes that give the cosmic web. We find (i) that dark-matter-halo formation is greatly suppressed in voids; there is an exponential downturn at low densities in the otherwise power-law matter-to-halo density bias function. Thus, the rarity of haloes in voids is akin to the rarity of the largest clusters, and their abundance is quite sensitive to cosmological parameters. The exponential downturn appears both in an excursion-set model, and in a model in which fluctuations evolve in voids as in an open universe with an effective $\Omega_m$ proportional to a large-scale density. We also find that (ii) haloes typically populate the average halo-density field in a super-Poisson way, i.e. with a variance exceeding the mean; and (iii) the rank-order-Gaussianized halo and dark-matter fields are impressively similar in Fourier space. We compare both their power spectra and cross-correlation, supporting the conclusion that one is roughly a strictly-increasing mapping of the other. The MIP ensemble especially reveals how halo abundance varies with `environmental' quantities beyond the local matter density; (iv) we find a visual suggestion that at fixed matter density, filaments are more populated by haloes than clusters.Comment: Changed to version accepted by MNRA

Morphology-dependent trends of galaxy age with environment in Abell 901/902 seen with COMBO-17

We investigate correlations between galaxy age and environment in the Abell 901/2 supercluster for separate morphologies. Using COMBO-17 data, we define a sample of 530 galaxies, complete at $M_V -5\log h<-18$ on an area of $3.5\times 3.5$ (Mpc/$h$)$^2$. We explore several age indicators including an extinction-corrected residual from the colour-magnitude relation (CMR). As a result, we find a clear trend of age with density for galaxies of all morphologies that include a spheroidal component, in the sense that galaxies in denser environments are older. This trend is not seen among Scd/Irr galaxies since they all have young ages. However, the trend among the other types is stronger for fainter galaxies. While we also see an expected age-morphology relation, we find no evidence for a morphology-density relation at fixed age.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS (Letters

Using visual analytics to develop situation awareness in astrophysics

We present a novel collaborative visual analytics application for cognitively overloaded users in the astrophysics domain. The system was developed for scientists who need to analyze heterogeneous, complex data under time pressure, and make predictions and time-critical decisions rapidly and correctly under a constant influx of changing data. The Sunfall Data Taking system utilizes several novel visualization and analysis techniques to enable a team of geographically distributed domain specialists to effectively and remotely maneuver a custom-built instrument under challenging operational conditions. Sunfall Data Taking has been in production use for 2 years by a major international astrophysics collaboration (the largest data volume supernova search currently in operation), and has substantially improved the operational efficiency of its users. We describe the system design process by an interdisciplinary team, the system architecture and the results of an informal usability evaluation of the production system by domain experts in the context of Endsley's three levels of situation awareness

The Tully-Fisher relation of intermediate redshift field and cluster galaxies from Subaru spectroscopy

We have carried out spectroscopic observations in 4 cluster fields using Subaru's FOCAS multi-slit spectrograph and obtained spectra for 103 bright disk field and cluster galaxies at $0.06 \le z \le 1.20$. Seventy-seven of these show emission lines, and 33 provide reasonably-secure determinations of the galaxies' rotation velocity. The rotation velocities, luminosities, colours and emission-line properties of these galaxies are used to study the possible effects of the cluster environment on the star-formation history of the galaxies. Comparing the Tully-Fisher relations of cluster and field galaxies at similar reshifts we find no measurable difference in rest-frame $B$-band luminosity at a given rotation velocity (the formal difference is $0.18\pm0.33$mag). The colours of the cluster emission line galaxies are only marginally redder in rest-frame $B-V$ (by $0.06\pm0.04$mag) than the field galaxies in our sample. Taken at face value, these results seem to indicate that bright star-forming cluster spirals are similar to their field counterparts in their star-formation properties. However, we find that the fraction of disk galaxies with absorption-line spectra (i.e., with no current star formation) is larger in clusters than in the field by a factor of $\sim3$--5. This suggests that the cluster environment has the overall effect of switching off star formation in (at least) some spiral galaxies. To interpret these observational results, we carry out simulations of the possible effects of the cluster environment on the star-formation history of disk galaxies and thus their photometric and spectroscopic properties. Finally, we evaluate the evolution of the rest-frame absolute $B$-band magnitude per unit redshift at fixed rotation velocity.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

How to Find More Supernovae with Less Work: Object Classification Techniques for Difference Imaging

We present the results of applying new object classification techniques to difference images in the context of the Nearby Supernova Factory supernova search. Most current supernova searches subtract reference images from new images, identify objects in these difference images, and apply simple threshold cuts on parameters such as statistical significance, shape, and motion to reject objects such as cosmic rays, asteroids, and subtraction artifacts. Although most static objects subtract cleanly, even a very low false positive detection rate can lead to hundreds of non-supernova candidates which must be vetted by human inspection before triggering additional followup. In comparison to simple threshold cuts, more sophisticated methods such as Boosted Decision Trees, Random Forests, and Support Vector Machines provide dramatically better object discrimination. At the Nearby Supernova Factory, we reduced the number of non-supernova candidates by a factor of 10 while increasing our supernova identification efficiency. Methods such as these will be crucial for maintaining a reasonable false positive rate in the automated transient alert pipelines of upcoming projects such as PanSTARRS and LSST.Comment: 25 pages; 6 figures; submitted to Ap