SDSS-III: Massive Spectroscopic Surveys of the Distant Universe, the Milky Way, and Extra-Solar Planetary Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Weinberg, David H.; Agol, Eric; Aihara, Hiroaki; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Anderson, Scott F.; Arns, James A.; Aubourg, Éric; Bailey, Stephen; Balbinot, Eduardo; Barkhouser, Robert; Beers, Timothy C.; Berlind, Andreas A.; Bickerton, Steven J.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanton, Michael R.; Bochanski, John J.; Bolton, Adam S.; Bosman, Casey T.; Bovy, Jo; Brandt, W. N.; Breslauer, Ben; Brewington, Howard J.; Brinkmann, J.; Brown, Peter J.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Burger, Dan; Busca, Nicolas G.; Campbell, Heather; Cargile, Phillip A.; Carithers, William C.; Carlberg, Joleen K.; Carr, Michael A.; Chang, Liang; Chen, Yanmei; Chiappini, Cristina; Comparat, Johan; Connolly, Natalia; Cortes, Marina; Croft, Rupert A. C.; Cunha, Katia; da Costa, Luiz N.; Davenport, James R. A.; Dawson, Kyle; De Lee, Nathan; Porto de Mello, Gustavo F.; de Simoni, Fernando; Dean, Janice; Dhital, Saurav; Ealet, Anne; Ebelke, Garrett L.; Edmondson, Edward M.; Eiting, Jacob M.; Escoffier, Stephanie; Esposito, Massimiliano; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Femenía Castellá, Bruno; Dutra Ferreira, Leticia; Fitzgerald, Greg; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Ford, Eric B.; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; García Pérez, Ana Elia; Gaudi, B. Scott; Ge, Jian; Ghezzi, Luan; Gillespie, Bruce A.; Gilmore, G.; Girardi, Léo; Gott, J. Richard; Gould, Andrew; Grebel, Eva K.; Gunn, James E.; Hamilton, Jean-Christophe; Harding, Paul; Harris, David W.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Hearty, Frederick R.; Hennawi, Joseph F.; González Hernández, Jonay I.; Ho, Shirley; Hogg, David W.; Holtzman, Jon A.; Honscheid, Klaus; Inada, Naohisa; Ivans, Inese I.; Jiang, Linhua; Jiang, Peng; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Jordan, Cathy; Jordan, Wendell P.; Kauffmann, Guinevere; Kazin, Eyal; Kirkby, David; Klaene, Mark A.; Knapp, G. R.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Kochanek, C. S.; Koesterke, Lars; Kollmeier, Juna A.; Kron, Richard G.; Lampeitl, Hubert; Lang, Dustin; Lawler, James E.; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; Lee, Brian L.; Lee, Young Sun; Leisenring, Jarron M.; Lin, Yen-Ting; Liu, Jian; Long, Daniel C.; Loomis, Craig P.; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; Lupton, Robert H.; Ma, Bo; Ma, Zhibo; MacDonald, Nicholas; Mack, Claude; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Maia, Marcio A. G.; Majewski, Steven R.; Makler, Martin; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Mandelbaum, Rachel; Maraston, Claudia; Margala, Daniel; Maseman, Paul; Masters, Karen L.; McBride, Cameron K.; McDonald, Patrick; McGreer, Ian D.; McMahon, Richard G.; Mena Requejo, Olga; Ménard, Brice; Miralda-Escudé, Jordi; Morrison, Heather L.; Mullally, Fergal; Muna, Demitri; Murayama, Hitoshi; Myers, Adam D.; Naugle, Tracy; Neto, Angelo Fausti; Nguyen, Duy Cuong; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; O'Connell, Robert W.; Ogando, Ricardo L. C.; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Oravetz, Daniel J.; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Paegert, Martin; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Pan, Kaike; Pandey, Parul; Parejko, John K.; Pâris, Isabelle; Pellegrini, Paulo; Pepper, Joshua; Percival, Will J.; Petitjean, Patrick; Pfaffenberger, Robert; Pforr, Janine; Phleps, Stefanie; Pichon, Christophe; Pieri, Matthew M.; Prada, Francisco; Price-Whelan, Adrian M.; Raddick, M. Jordan; Ramos, Beatriz H. F.; Reid, I. Neill; Reyle, Celine; Rich, James; Richards, Gordon T.; Rieke, George H.; Rieke, Marcia J.; Rix, Hans-Walter; Robin, Annie C.; Rocha-Pinto, Helio J.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Roe, Natalie A.; Rollinde, Emmanuel; Ross, Ashley J.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Rossetto, Bruno; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Santiago, Basilio; Sayres, Conor; Schiavon, Ricardo; Schlegel, David J.; Schlesinger, Katharine J.; Schmidt, Sarah J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Sellgren, Kris; Shelden, Alaina; Sheldon, Erin; Shetrone, Matthew; Shu, Yiping; Silverman, John D.; Simmerer, Jennifer; Simmons, Audrey E.; Sivarani, Thirupathi; Skrutskie, M. F.; Slosar, Anže; Smee, Stephen; Smith, Verne V.; Snedden, Stephanie A.; Stassun, Keivan G.; Steele, Oliver; Steinmetz, Matthias; Stockett, Mark H.; Stollberg, Todd; Strauss, Michael A.; Szalay, Alexander S.; Tanaka, Masayuki; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Thomas, Daniel; Tinker, Jeremy L.; Tofflemire, Benjamin M.; Tojeiro, Rita; Tremonti, Christy A.; Vargas Magaña, Mariana; Verde, Licia; Vogt, Nicole P.; Wake, David A.; Wan, Xiaoke; Wang, Ji; Weaver, Benjamin A.; White, Martin; White, Simon D. M.; Wilson, John C.; Wisniewski, John P.; Wood-Vasey, W. Michael; Yanny, Brian; Yasuda, Naoki; Yèche, Christophe; York, Donald G.; Young, Erick; Zasowski, Gail; Zehavi, Idit; Zhao, Bo

2011-09-01

Building on the legacy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I and II), SDSS-III is a program of four spectroscopic surveys on three scientific themes: dark energy and cosmological parameters, the history and structure of the Milky Way, and the population of giant planets around other stars. In keeping with SDSS tradition, SDSS-III will provide regular public releases of all its data, beginning with SDSS Data Release 8 (DR8), which was made public in 2011 January and includes SDSS-I and SDSS-II images and spectra reprocessed with the latest pipelines and calibrations produced for the SDSS-III investigations. This paper presents an overview of the four surveys that comprise SDSS-III. The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey will measure redshifts of 1.5 million massive galaxies and Lyα forest spectra of 150,000 quasars, using the baryon acoustic oscillation feature of large-scale structure to obtain percent-level determinations of the distance scale and Hubble expansion rate at z R = λ/Δλ ≈ 1800) optical spectra of 118,000 stars in a variety of target categories, probing chemical evolution, stellar kinematics and substructure, and the mass profile of the dark matter halo from the solar neighborhood to distances of 100 kpc. APOGEE, the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment, will obtain high-resolution (R ≈ 30,000), high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N >= 100 per resolution element), H-band (1.51 μm data set for understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of giant planet systems. As of 2011 January, SDSS-III has obtained spectra of more than 240,000 galaxies, 29,000 z >= 2.2 quasars, and 140,000 stars, including 74,000 velocity measurements of 2580 stars for MARVELS.

Target Selection for the SDSS-IV APOGEE-2 Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zasowski, G. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Cohen, R. E.; Carlberg, J. K.; Fleming, Scott W. [Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Chojnowski, S. D.; Holtzman, J. [Department of Astronomy, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88001 (United States); Santana, F. [Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, Santiago (Chile); Oelkers, R. J.; Bird, J. C. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235 (United States); Andrews, B. [PITT PACC, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (United States); Beaton, R. L. [The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States); Bender, C.; Cunha, K. [Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719 (United States); Bovy, J. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3H4 (Canada); Covey, K. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225 (United States); Dell’Agli, F.; García-Hernández, D. A. [Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, and Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain); Frinchaboy, P. M. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX 76129 (United States); Harding, P. [Department of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106 (United States); Johnson, J. A., E-mail: gail.zasowski@gmail.com [Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); and others

2017-11-01

APOGEE-2 is a high-resolution, near-infrared spectroscopic survey observing ∼3 × 10{sup 5} stars across the entire sky. It is the successor to APOGEE and is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV). APOGEE-2 is expanding on APOGEE’s goals of addressing critical questions of stellar astrophysics, stellar populations, and Galactic chemodynamical evolution using (1) an enhanced set of target types and (2) a second spectrograph at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. APOGEE-2 is targeting red giant branch and red clump stars, RR Lyrae, low-mass dwarf stars, young stellar objects, and numerous other Milky Way and Local Group sources across the entire sky from both hemispheres. In this paper, we describe the APOGEE-2 observational design, target selection catalogs and algorithms, and the targeting-related documentation included in the SDSS data releases.

DEEP 21 cm H I OBSERVATIONS AT z ∼ 0.1: THE PRECURSOR TO THE ARECIBO ULTRA DEEP SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Freudling, Wolfram; Zwaan, Martin; Staveley-Smith, Lister; Meyer, Martin; Catinella, Barbara; Minchin, Robert; Calabretta, Mark; Momjian, Emmanuel; O'Neil, Karen

2011-01-01

The 'ALFA Ultra Deep Survey' (AUDS) is an ongoing 21 cm spectral survey with the Arecibo 305 m telescope. AUDS will be the most sensitive blind survey undertaken with Arecibo's 300 MHz Mock spectrometer. The survey searches for 21 cm H I line emission at redshifts between 0 and 0.16. The main goals of the survey are to investigate the H I content and probe the evolution of H I gas within that redshift region. In this paper, we report on a set of precursor observations with a total integration time of 53 hr. The survey detected a total of eighteen 21 cm emission lines at redshifts between 0.07 and 0.15 in a region centered around α 2000 ∼ 0 h , δ ∼ 15 0 42'. The rate of detection is consistent with the one expected from the local H I mass function. The derived relative H I density at the median redshift of the survey is ρ H I [z = 0.125] = (1.0 ± 0.3)ρ 0 , where ρ 0 is the H I density at zero redshift.

THE SWIFT AGN AND CLUSTER SURVEY. II. CLUSTER CONFIRMATION WITH SDSS DATA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Griffin, Rhiannon D.; Dai, Xinyu; Kochanek, Christopher S.; Bregman, Joel N.

2016-01-01

We study 203 (of 442) Swift AGN and Cluster Survey extended X-ray sources located in the SDSS DR8 footprint to search for galaxy over-densities in three-dimensional space using SDSS galaxy photometric redshifts and positions near the Swift cluster candidates. We find 104 Swift clusters with a >3σ galaxy over-density. The remaining targets are potentially located at higher redshifts and require deeper optical follow-up observations for confirmation as galaxy clusters. We present a series of cluster properties including the redshift, brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) magnitude, BCG-to-X-ray center offset, optical richness, and X-ray luminosity. We also detect red sequences in ∼85% of the 104 confirmed clusters. The X-ray luminosity and optical richness for the SDSS confirmed Swift clusters are correlated and follow previously established relations. The distribution of the separations between the X-ray centroids and the most likely BCG is also consistent with expectation. We compare the observed redshift distribution of the sample with a theoretical model, and find that our sample is complete for z ≲ 0.3 and is still 80% complete up to z ≃ 0.4, consistent with the SDSS survey depth. These analysis results suggest that our Swift cluster selection algorithm has yielded a statistically well-defined cluster sample for further study of cluster evolution and cosmology. We also match our SDSS confirmed Swift clusters to existing cluster catalogs, and find 42, 23, and 1 matches in optical, X-ray, and Sunyaev–Zel’dovich catalogs, respectively, and so the majority of these clusters are new detections

Detecting active comets with SDSS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Solontoi, Michael; Ivezic, Zeljko; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; West, Andrew A.; /MIT, MKI; Claire, Mark; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Juric, Mario; /Princeton U. Observ.; Becker, Andrew; Jones, Lynne; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Hall, Patrick B.; /York U., Canada; Kent, Steve; /Fermilab; Lupton, Robert H.; /Princeton U. Observ.; Quinn, Tom; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept. /Princeton U. Observ.

2010-12-01

Using a sample of serendipitously discovered active comets in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we develop well-controlled selection criteria for greatly increasing the efficiency of comet identification in the SDSS catalogs. After follow-up visual inspection of images to reject remaining false positives, the total sample of SDSS comets presented here contains 19 objects, roughly one comet per 10 million other SDSS objects. The good understanding of selection effects allows a study of the population statistics, and we estimate the apparent magnitude distribution to r {approx} 18, the ecliptic latitude distribution, and the comet distribution in SDSS color space. The most surprising results are the extremely narrow range of colors for comets in our sample (e.g. root-mean-square scatter of only {approx}0.06 mag for the g-r color), and the similarity of comet colors to those of jovian Trojans. We discuss the relevance of our results for upcoming deep multi-epoch optical surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey, Pan-STARRS, and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), and estimate that LSST may produce a sample of about 10,000 comets over its 10-year lifetime.

The Extremely Luminous Quasar Survey (ELQS) in SDSS and the high-z bright-end Quasar Luminosity Function

Science.gov (United States)

Schindler, Jan-Torge; Fan, Xiaohui; McGreer, Ian

2018-01-01

Studies of the most luminous quasars at high redshift directly probe the evolution of the most massive black holes in the early Universe and their connection to massive galaxy formation. Unfortunately, extremely luminous quasars at high redshift are very rare objects. Only wide area surveys have a chance to constrain their population. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) nd the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) have so far provided the most widely adopted measurements of the type I quasar luminosity function (QLF) at z>3. However, a careful re-examination of the SDSS quasar sample revealed that the SDSS quasar selection is in fact missing a significant fraction of $z~3$ quasars at the brightest end.We have identified the purely optical color selection of SDSS, where quasars at these redshifts are strongly contaminated by late-type dwarfs, and the spectroscopic incompleteness of the SDSS footprint as the main reasons. Therefore we have designed the Extremely Luminous Quasar Survey (ELQS), based on a novel near-infrared JKW2 color cut using WISE AllWISE and 2MASS all-sky photometry, to yield high completeness for very bright (i < 18.0) quasars in the redshift range of 2.8<= z<=5.0. It effectively uses Random Forest machine-learning algorithms on SDSS and WISE photometry for quasar-star classification and photometric redshift estimation.The ELQS is spectroscopically following up ~230 new quasar candidates in an area of ~12000 deg2 in the SDSS footprint, to obtain a well-defined and complete quasar sample for an accurate measurement of the bright-end quasar luminosity function (QLF) at 2.8<= z<=5.0. So far the ELQS has identified 75 bright new quasars in this redshift range and observations of the fall sky will continue until the end of the year. At the AAS winter meeting we will present the full spectroscopic results of the survey, including a re-estimation and extension of the high-z QLF toward higher luminosities.

THE TIME-DOMAIN SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY: UNDERSTANDING THE OPTICALLY VARIABLE SKY WITH SEQUELS IN SDSS-III

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ruan, John J.; Anderson, Scott F.; Davenport, James R. A.; Green, Paul J.; Morganson, Eric; Eracleous, Michael; Brandt, William N.; Myers, Adam D.; Badenes, Carles; Bershady, Matthew A.; Chambers, Kenneth C.; Flewelling, Heather; Kaiser, Nick; Dawson, Kyle S.; Heckman, Timothy M.; Isler, Jedidah C.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; MacLeod, Chelsea L.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Paris, Isabelle

2016-01-01

The Time-Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) is an SDSS-IV eBOSS subproject primarily aimed at obtaining identification spectra of ∼220,000 optically variable objects systematically selected from SDSS/Pan-STARRS1 multi-epoch imaging. We present a preview of the science enabled by TDSS, based on TDSS spectra taken over ∼320 deg 2 of sky as part of the SEQUELS survey in SDSS-III, which is in part a pilot survey for eBOSS in SDSS-IV. Using the 15,746 TDSS-selected single-epoch spectra of photometrically variable objects in SEQUELS, we determine the demographics of our variability-selected sample and investigate the unique spectral characteristics inherent in samples selected by variability. We show that variability-based selection of quasars complements color-based selection by selecting additional redder quasars and mitigates redshift biases to produce a smooth quasar redshift distribution over a wide range of redshifts. The resulting quasar sample contains systematically higher fractions of blazars and broad absorption line quasars than from color-selected samples. Similarly, we show that M dwarfs in the TDSS-selected stellar sample have systematically higher chromospheric active fractions than the underlying M-dwarf population based on their H α emission. TDSS also contains a large number of RR Lyrae and eclipsing binary stars with main-sequence colors, including a few composite-spectrum binaries. Finally, our visual inspection of TDSS spectra uncovers a significant number of peculiar spectra, and we highlight a few cases of these interesting objects. With a factor of ∼15 more spectra, the main TDSS survey in SDSS-IV will leverage the lessons learned from these early results for a variety of time-domain science applications.

The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Aihara, Hiroaki; /Tokyo U.; Prieto, Carlos Allende; /Laguna U., Tenerife; An, Deokkeun; /Ewha Women' s U., Seoul; Anderson, Scott F.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Aubourg, Eric; /APC, Paris /DAPNIA, Saclay; Balbinot, Eduardo; /Rio Grande do Sul U. /Rio de Janeiro Observ.; Beers, Timothy C.; /Michigan State U.; Berlind, Andreas A.; /Vanderbilt U.; Bickerton, Steven J.; /Princeton U.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; /Apache Point Observ.; Blanton, Michael R.; /New York U., CCPP /Penn State U.

2011-01-01

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) started a new phase in August 2008, with new instrumentation and new surveys focused on Galactic structure and chemical evolution, measurements of the baryon oscillation feature in the clustering of galaxies and the quasar Ly{alpha} forest, and a radial velocity search for planets around {approx}8000 stars. This paper describes the first data release of SDSS-III (and the eighth counting from the beginning of the SDSS). The release includes 5-band imaging of roughly 5200 deg{sup 2} in the Southern Galactic Cap, bringing the total footprint of the SDSS imaging to 14,555 deg{sup 2}, or over a third of the Celestial Sphere. All the imaging data have been reprocessed with an improved sky-subtraction algorithm and a final, self-consistent recalibration and flat-field determination. This release also includes all data from the second phase of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Evolution (SEGUE-2), consisting of spectroscopy of approximately 118,000 stars at both high and low Galactic latitudes. All the more than half a million stellar spectra obtained with the SDSS spectrograph have been reprocessed through an improved stellar parameters pipeline, which has better determination of metallicity for high metallicity stars.

SDSS-III: Massive Spectroscopic Surveys of the Distant Universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, and Extra-Solar Planetary Systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Weinberg, David H.; Agol, Eric; Aihara, Hiroaki; Prieto, Carlos Allende; Anderson, Scott F.; Arns, James A.; Aubourg, Eric; Bailey, Stephen; Balbinot, Eduardo; Barkhouser, Robert

2011-01-01

Building on the legacy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I and II), SDSS-III is a program of four spectroscopic surveys on three scientific themes: dark energy and cosmological parameters, the history and structure of the Milky Way, and the population of giant planets around other stars. The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) will measure redshifts of 1.5 million massive galaxies and Lyα forest spectra of 150,000 quasars, using the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature of large scale structure to obtain percent-level determinations of the distance scale and Hubble expansion rate at z 5 evolved, late-type stars, measuring separate abundances for ∼ 15 elements per star and creating the first high-precision spectroscopic survey of all Galactic stellar populations (bulge, bar, disks, halo) with a uniform set of stellar tracers and spectral diagnostics. The Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Large-area Survey (MARVELS) will monitor radial velocities of more than 8000 FGK stars with the sensitivity and cadence (10-40 m s -1 , ∼ 24 visits per star) needed to detect giant planets with periods up to two years, providing an unprecedented data set for understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of giant planet systems. As of January 2011, SDSS-III has obtained spectra of more than 240,000 galaxies, 29,000 z (ge) 2.2 quasars, and 140,000 stars, including 74,000 velocity measurements of 2580 stars for MARVELS. In keeping with SDSS tradition, SDSS-III will provide regular public releases of all its data, beginning with SDSS Data Release 8 (DR8) in January 2011.

THE TIME-DOMAIN SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY: UNDERSTANDING THE OPTICALLY VARIABLE SKY WITH SEQUELS IN SDSS-III

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ruan, John J.; Anderson, Scott F.; Davenport, James R. A. [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Green, Paul J.; Morganson, Eric [Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Eracleous, Michael; Brandt, William N. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Lab, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Myers, Adam D. [Department of Physics and Astronomy 3905, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University, Laramie, WY 82071 (United States); Badenes, Carles [Department of Physics and Astronomy and Pittsburgh Particle Physics, Astrophysics, and Cosmology Center (PITT-PACC), University of Pittsburgh (United States); Bershady, Matthew A. [Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 475 N. Charter Street, Madison, WI 53706 (United States); Chambers, Kenneth C.; Flewelling, Heather; Kaiser, Nick [Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822 (United States); Dawson, Kyle S. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Heckman, Timothy M. [Center for Astrophysical Sciences, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Isler, Jedidah C. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235 (United States); Kneib, Jean-Paul [Laboratoire d’astrophysique, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Observatoire de Sauverny, 1290 Versoix (Switzerland); MacLeod, Chelsea L.; Ross, Nicholas P. [Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, EH9 3HJ (United Kingdom); Paris, Isabelle, E-mail: jruan@astro.washington.edu [INAF—Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via G. B. Tiepolo 11, I-34131 Trieste (Italy); and others

2016-07-10

The Time-Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) is an SDSS-IV eBOSS subproject primarily aimed at obtaining identification spectra of ∼220,000 optically variable objects systematically selected from SDSS/Pan-STARRS1 multi-epoch imaging. We present a preview of the science enabled by TDSS, based on TDSS spectra taken over ∼320 deg{sup 2} of sky as part of the SEQUELS survey in SDSS-III, which is in part a pilot survey for eBOSS in SDSS-IV. Using the 15,746 TDSS-selected single-epoch spectra of photometrically variable objects in SEQUELS, we determine the demographics of our variability-selected sample and investigate the unique spectral characteristics inherent in samples selected by variability. We show that variability-based selection of quasars complements color-based selection by selecting additional redder quasars and mitigates redshift biases to produce a smooth quasar redshift distribution over a wide range of redshifts. The resulting quasar sample contains systematically higher fractions of blazars and broad absorption line quasars than from color-selected samples. Similarly, we show that M dwarfs in the TDSS-selected stellar sample have systematically higher chromospheric active fractions than the underlying M-dwarf population based on their H α emission. TDSS also contains a large number of RR Lyrae and eclipsing binary stars with main-sequence colors, including a few composite-spectrum binaries. Finally, our visual inspection of TDSS spectra uncovers a significant number of peculiar spectra, and we highlight a few cases of these interesting objects. With a factor of ∼15 more spectra, the main TDSS survey in SDSS-IV will leverage the lessons learned from these early results for a variety of time-domain science applications.

The Ninth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ahn, Christopher P.; Alexandroff, Rachael; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Anderson, Scott F.; Anderton, Timothy; Andrews, Brett H.; Aubourg, Éric; Bailey, Stephen; Balbinot, Eduardo; Barnes, Rory; Bautista, Julian; Beers, Timothy C.; Beifiori, Alessandra; Berlind, Andreas A.; Bhardwaj, Vaishali; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blake, Cullen H.; Blanton, Michael R.; Blomqvist, Michael; Bochanski, John J.; Bolton, Adam S.; Borde, Arnaud; Bovy, Jo; Brandt, W. N.; Brinkmann, J.; Brown, Peter J.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bundy, Kevin; Busca, N. G.; Carithers, William; Carnero, Aurelio R.; Carr, Michael A.; Casetti-Dinescu, Dana I.; Chen, Yanmei; Chiappini, Cristina; Comparat, Johan; Connolly, Natalia; Crepp, Justin R.; Cristiani, Stefano; Croft, Rupert A. C.; Cuesta, Antonio J.; da Costa, Luiz N.; Davenport, James R. A.; Dawson, Kyle S.; de Putter, Roland; De Lee, Nathan; Delubac, Timothée; Dhital, Saurav; Ealet, Anne; Ebelke, Garrett L.; Edmondson, Edward M.; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Escoffier, S.; Esposito, Massimiliano; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Femenía Castellá, Bruno; Fernández Alvar, Emma; Ferreira, Leticia D.; Filiz Ak, N.; Finley, Hayley; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; García-Hernández, D. A.; Pérez, A. E. García; Ge, Jian; Génova-Santos, R.; Gillespie, Bruce A.; Girardi, Léo; González Hernández, Jonay I.; Grebel, Eva K.; Gunn, James E.; Guo, Hong; Haggard, Daryl; Hamilton, Jean-Christophe; Harris, David W.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Hearty, Frederick R.; Ho, Shirley; Hogg, David W.; Holtzman, Jon A.; Honscheid, Klaus; Huehnerhoff, J.; Ivans, Inese I.; Ivezić, Željko; Jacobson, Heather R.; Jiang, Linhua; Johansson, Jonas; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Kauffmann, Guinevere; Kirkby, David; Kirkpatrick, Jessica A.; Klaene, Mark A.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; Leauthaud, Alexie; Lee, Khee-Gan; Lee, Young Sun; Long, Daniel C.; Loomis, Craig P.; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; Lupton, Robert H.; Ma, Bo; Ma, Zhibo; MacDonald, Nicholas; Mack, Claude E.; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Maia, Marcio A. G.; Majewski, Steven R.; Makler, Martin; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Manchado, A.; Mandelbaum, Rachel; Manera, Marc; Maraston, Claudia; Margala, Daniel; Martell, Sarah L.; McBride, Cameron K.; McGreer, Ian D.; McMahon, Richard G.; Ménard, Brice; Meszaros, Sz.; Miralda-Escudé, Jordi; Montero-Dorta, Antonio D.; Montesano, Francesco; Morrison, Heather L.; Muna, Demitri; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Murayama, Hitoshi; Myers, Adam D.; Neto, A. F.; Nguyen, Duy Cuong; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; Noterdaeme, Pasquier; Nuza, Sebastián E.; Ogando, Ricardo L. C.; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Oravetz, Daniel J.; Owen, Russell; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John K.; Parihar, Prachi; Pâris, Isabelle; Pattarakijwanich, Petchara; Pepper, Joshua; Percival, Will J.; Pérez-Fournon, Ismael; Pérez-Ràfols, Ignasi; Petitjean, Patrick; Pforr, Janine; Pieri, Matthew M.; Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Porto de Mello, G. F.; Prada, Francisco; Price-Whelan, Adrian M.; Raddick, M. Jordan; Rebolo, Rafael; Rich, James; Richards, Gordon T.; Robin, Annie C.; Rocha-Pinto, Helio J.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Roe, Natalie A.; Ross, Ashley J.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Rossi, Graziano; Rubiño-Martin, J. A.; Samushia, Lado; Sanchez Almeida, J.; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Santiago, Basílio; Sayres, Conor; Schlegel, David J.; Schlesinger, Katharine J.; Schmidt, Sarah J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Schultheis, Mathias; Schwope, Axel D.; Scóccola, C. G.; Seljak, Uros; Sheldon, Erin; Shen, Yue; Shu, Yiping; Simmerer, Jennifer; Simmons, Audrey E.; Skibba, Ramin A.; Skrutskie, M. F.; Slosar, A.; Sobreira, Flavia; Sobeck, Jennifer S.; Stassun, Keivan G.; Steele, Oliver; Steinmetz, Matthias; Strauss, Michael A.; Streblyanska, Alina; Suzuki, Nao; Swanson, Molly E. C.; Tal, Tomer; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Thomas, Daniel; Thompson, Benjamin A.; Tinker, Jeremy L.; Tojeiro, Rita; Tremonti, Christy A.; Vargas Magaña, M.; Verde, Licia; Viel, Matteo; Vikas, Shailendra K.; Vogt, Nicole P.; Wake, David A.; Wang, Ji; Weaver, Benjamin A.; Weinberg, David H.; Weiner, Benjamin J.; West, Andrew A.; White, Martin; Wilson, John C.; Wisniewski, John P.; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Yanny, Brian; Yèche, Christophe; York, Donald G.; Zamora, O.; Zasowski, Gail; Zehavi, Idit; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zheng, Zheng; Zhu, Guangtun; Zinn, Joel C.

2012-11-19

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) presents the first spectroscopic data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This ninth data release (DR9) of the SDSS project includes 535,995 new galaxy spectra (median z=0.52), 102,100 new quasar spectra (median z=2.32), and 90,897 new stellar spectra, along with the data presented in previous data releases. These spectra were obtained with the new BOSS spectrograph and were taken between 2009 December and 2011 July. In addition, the stellar parameters pipeline, which determines radial velocities, surface temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities of stars, has been updated and refined with improvements in temperature estimates for stars with T_eff<5000 K and in metallicity estimates for stars with [Fe/H]>-0.5. DR9 includes new stellar parameters for all stars presented in DR8, including stars from SDSS-I and II, as well as those observed as part of the SDSS-III Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration-2 (SEGUE-2). The astrometry error introduced in the DR8 imaging catalogs has been corrected in the DR9 data products. The next data release for SDSS-III will be in Summer 2013, which will present the first data from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) along with another year of data from BOSS, followed by the final SDSS-III data release in December 2014.

THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH DATA RELEASES OF THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY: FINAL DATA FROM SDSS-III

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alam, Shadab; Albareti, Franco D.; Prieto, Carlos Allende; Anders, F.; Anderson, Scott F.; Anderton, Timothy; Andrews, Brett H.; Armengaud, Eric; Aubourg, Éric; Bautista, Julian E.; Bailey, Stephen; Basu, Sarbani; Beaton, Rachael L.; Beers, Timothy C.

2015-01-01

The third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) took data from 2008 to 2014 using the original SDSS wide-field imager, the original and an upgraded multi-object fiber-fed optical spectrograph, a new near-infrared high-resolution spectrograph, and a novel optical interferometer. All of the data from SDSS-III are now made public. In particular, this paper describes Data Release 11 (DR11) including all data acquired through 2013 July, and Data Release 12 (DR12) adding data acquired through 2014 July (including all data included in previous data releases), marking the end of SDSS-III observing. Relative to our previous public release (DR10), DR12 adds one million new spectra of galaxies and quasars from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) over an additional 3000 deg 2 of sky, more than triples the number of H-band spectra of stars as part of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), and includes repeated accurate radial velocity measurements of 5500 stars from the Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS). The APOGEE outputs now include the measured abundances of 15 different elements for each star. In total, SDSS-III added 5200 deg 2 of ugriz imaging; 155,520 spectra of 138,099 stars as part of the Sloan Exploration of Galactic Understanding and Evolution 2 (SEGUE-2) survey; 2,497,484 BOSS spectra of 1,372,737 galaxies, 294,512 quasars, and 247,216 stars over 9376 deg 2 ; 618,080 APOGEE spectra of 156,593 stars; and 197,040 MARVELS spectra of 5513 stars. Since its first light in 1998, SDSS has imaged over 1/3 of the Celestial sphere in five bands and obtained over five million astronomical spectra

The Eleventh and Twelfth Data Releases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final Data from SDSS-III

Science.gov (United States)

Alam, Shadab; Albareti, Franco D.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Anders, F.; Anderson, Scott F.; Anderton, Timothy; Andrews, Brett H.; Armengaud, Eric; Aubourg, Éric; Bailey, Stephen; Basu, Sarbani; Bautista, Julian E.; Beaton, Rachael L.; Beers, Timothy C.; Bender, Chad F.; Berlind, Andreas A.; Beutler, Florian; Bhardwaj, Vaishali; Bird, Jonathan C.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blake, Cullen H.; Blanton, Michael R.; Blomqvist, Michael; Bochanski, John J.; Bolton, Adam S.; Bovy, Jo; Shelden Bradley, A.; Brandt, W. N.; Brauer, D. E.; Brinkmann, J.; Brown, Peter J.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Burden, Angela; Burtin, Etienne; Busca, Nicolás G.; Cai, Zheng; Capozzi, Diego; Carnero Rosell, Aurelio; Carr, Michael A.; Carrera, Ricardo; Chambers, K. C.; Chaplin, William James; Chen, Yen-Chi; Chiappini, Cristina; Chojnowski, S. Drew; Chuang, Chia-Hsun; Clerc, Nicolas; Comparat, Johan; Covey, Kevin; Croft, Rupert A. C.; Cuesta, Antonio J.; Cunha, Katia; da Costa, Luiz N.; Da Rio, Nicola; Davenport, James R. A.; Dawson, Kyle S.; De Lee, Nathan; Delubac, Timothée; Deshpande, Rohit; Dhital, Saurav; Dutra-Ferreira, Letícia; Dwelly, Tom; Ealet, Anne; Ebelke, Garrett L.; Edmondson, Edward M.; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Ellsworth, Tristan; Elsworth, Yvonne; Epstein, Courtney R.; Eracleous, Michael; Escoffier, Stephanie; Esposito, Massimiliano; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Fernández-Alvar, Emma; Feuillet, Diane; Filiz Ak, Nurten; Finley, Hayley; Finoguenov, Alexis; Flaherty, Kevin; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Foster, Jonathan; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; Galbraith-Frew, J. G.; García, Rafael A.; García-Hernández, D. A.; García Pérez, Ana E.; Gaulme, Patrick; Ge, Jian; Génova-Santos, R.; Georgakakis, A.; Ghezzi, Luan; Gillespie, Bruce A.; Girardi, Léo; Goddard, Daniel; Gontcho, Satya Gontcho A.; González Hernández, Jonay I.; Grebel, Eva K.; Green, Paul J.; Grieb, Jan Niklas; Grieves, Nolan; Gunn, James E.; Guo, Hong; Harding, Paul; Hasselquist, Sten; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Hayden, Michael; Hearty, Fred R.; Hekker, Saskia; Ho, Shirley; Hogg, David W.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Holtzman, Jon A.; Honscheid, Klaus; Huber, Daniel; Huehnerhoff, Joseph; Ivans, Inese I.; Jiang, Linhua; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Kinemuchi, Karen; Kirkby, David; Kitaura, Francisco; Klaene, Mark A.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Koenig, Xavier P.; Lam, Charles R.; Lan, Ting-Wen; Lang, Dustin; Laurent, Pierre; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; Leauthaud, Alexie; Lee, Khee-Gan; Lee, Young Sun; Licquia, Timothy C.; Liu, Jian; Long, Daniel C.; López-Corredoira, Martín; Lorenzo-Oliveira, Diego; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; Lupton, Robert H.; Mack, Claude E., III; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Maia, Marcio A. G.; Majewski, Steven R.; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Manchado, A.; Manera, Marc; Mao, Qingqing; Maraston, Claudia; Marchwinski, Robert C.; Margala, Daniel; Martell, Sarah L.; Martig, Marie; Masters, Karen L.; Mathur, Savita; McBride, Cameron K.; McGehee, Peregrine M.; McGreer, Ian D.; McMahon, Richard G.; Ménard, Brice; Menzel, Marie-Luise; Merloni, Andrea; Mészáros, Szabolcs; Miller, Adam A.; Miralda-Escudé, Jordi; Miyatake, Hironao; Montero-Dorta, Antonio D.; More, Surhud; Morganson, Eric; Morice-Atkinson, Xan; Morrison, Heather L.; Mosser, Benôit; Muna, Demitri; Myers, Adam D.; Nandra, Kirpal; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Neyrinck, Mark; Nguyen, Duy Cuong; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; Noterdaeme, Pasquier; Nuza, Sebastián E.; O'Connell, Julia E.; O'Connell, Robert W.; O'Connell, Ross; Ogando, Ricardo L. C.; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Oravetz, Audrey E.; Oravetz, Daniel J.; Osumi, Keisuke; Owen, Russell; Padgett, Deborah L.; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Paegert, Martin; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John K.; Pâris, Isabelle; Park, Changbom; Pattarakijwanich, Petchara; Pellejero-Ibanez, M.; Pepper, Joshua; Percival, Will J.; Pérez-Fournon, Ismael; P´rez-Ra`fols, Ignasi; Petitjean, Patrick; Pieri, Matthew M.; Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Porto de Mello, Gustavo F.; Prada, Francisco; Prakash, Abhishek; Price-Whelan, Adrian M.; Protopapas, Pavlos; Raddick, M. Jordan; Rahman, Mubdi; Reid, Beth A.; Rich, James; Rix, Hans-Walter; Robin, Annie C.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Rodrigues, Thaíse S.; Rodríguez-Torres, Sergio; Roe, Natalie A.; Ross, Ashley J.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Rossi, Graziano; Ruan, John J.; Rubiño-Martín, J. A.; Rykoff, Eli S.; Salazar-Albornoz, Salvador; Salvato, Mara; Samushia, Lado; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Santiago, Basílio; Sayres, Conor; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; Schlegel, David J.; Schmidt, Sarah J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Schultheis, Mathias; Schwope, Axel D.; Scóccola, C. G.; Scott, Caroline; Sellgren, Kris; Seo, Hee-Jong; Serenelli, Aldo; Shane, Neville; Shen, Yue; Shetrone, Matthew; Shu, Yiping; Silva Aguirre, V.; Sivarani, Thirupathi; Skrutskie, M. F.; Slosar, Anže; Smith, Verne V.; Sobreira, Flávia; Souto, Diogo; Stassun, Keivan G.; Steinmetz, Matthias; Stello, Dennis; Strauss, Michael A.; Streblyanska, Alina; Suzuki, Nao; Swanson, Molly E. C.; Tan, Jonathan C.; Tayar, Jamie; Terrien, Ryan C.; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Thomas, Daniel; Thomas, Neil; Thompson, Benjamin A.; Tinker, Jeremy L.; Tojeiro, Rita; Troup, Nicholas W.; Vargas-Magaña, Mariana; Vazquez, Jose A.; Verde, Licia; Viel, Matteo; Vogt, Nicole P.; Wake, David A.; Wang, Ji; Weaver, Benjamin A.; Weinberg, David H.; Weiner, Benjamin J.; White, Martin; Wilson, John C.; Wisniewski, John P.; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Ye`che, Christophe; York, Donald G.; Zakamska, Nadia L.; Zamora, O.; Zasowski, Gail; Zehavi, Idit; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zheng, Zheng; Zhou, Xu; Zhou, Zhimin; Zou, Hu; Zhu, Guangtun

2015-07-01

The third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) took data from 2008 to 2014 using the original SDSS wide-field imager, the original and an upgraded multi-object fiber-fed optical spectrograph, a new near-infrared high-resolution spectrograph, and a novel optical interferometer. All of the data from SDSS-III are now made public. In particular, this paper describes Data Release 11 (DR11) including all data acquired through 2013 July, and Data Release 12 (DR12) adding data acquired through 2014 July (including all data included in previous data releases), marking the end of SDSS-III observing. Relative to our previous public release (DR10), DR12 adds one million new spectra of galaxies and quasars from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) over an additional 3000 deg2 of sky, more than triples the number of H-band spectra of stars as part of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), and includes repeated accurate radial velocity measurements of 5500 stars from the Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS). The APOGEE outputs now include the measured abundances of 15 different elements for each star. In total, SDSS-III added 5200 deg2 of ugriz imaging; 155,520 spectra of 138,099 stars as part of the Sloan Exploration of Galactic Understanding and Evolution 2 (SEGUE-2) survey; 2,497,484 BOSS spectra of 1,372,737 galaxies, 294,512 quasars, and 247,216 stars over 9376 deg2; 618,080 APOGEE spectra of 156,593 stars; and 197,040 MARVELS spectra of 5513 stars. Since its first light in 1998, SDSS has imaged over 1/3 of the Celestial sphere in five bands and obtained over five million astronomical spectra.

The eleventh and twelfth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final data from SDSS-III

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Alam, Shadab; Albareti, Franco D.; Prieto, Carlos Allende; Anders, F.; Anderson, Scott F.; Anderton, Timothy; Andrews, Brett H.; Armengaud, Eric; Aubourg, Éric; Bailey, Stephen; Basu, Sarbani; Bautista, Julian E.; Beaton, Rachael L.; Beers, Timothy C.; Bender, Chad F.; Berlind, Andreas A.; Beutler, Florian; Bhardwaj, Vaishali; Bird, Jonathan C.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blake, Cullen H.; Blanton, Michael R.; Blomqvist, Michael; Bochanski, John J.; Bolton, Adam S.; Bovy, Jo; Bradley, A. Shelden; Brandt, W. N.; Brauer, D. E.; Brinkmann, J.; Brown, Peter J.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Burden, Angela; Burtin, Etienne; Busca, Nicolás G.; Cai, Zheng; Capozzi, Diego; Rosell, Aurelio Carnero; Carr, Michael A.; Carrera, Ricardo; Chambers, K. C.; Chaplin, William James; Chen, Yen-Chi; Chiappini, Cristina; Chojnowski, S. Drew; Chuang, Chia-Hsun; Clerc, Nicolas; Comparat, Johan; Covey, Kevin; Croft, Rupert A. C.; Cuesta, Antonio J.; Cunha, Katia; Costa, Luiz N. da; Rio, Nicola Da; Davenport, James R. A.; Dawson, Kyle S.; Lee, Nathan De; Delubac, Timothée; Deshpande, Rohit; Dhital, Saurav; Dutra-Ferreira, Letícia; Dwelly, Tom; Ealet, Anne; Ebelke, Garrett L.; Edmondson, Edward M.; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Ellsworth, Tristan; Elsworth, Yvonne; Epstein, Courtney R.; Eracleous, Michael; Escoffier, Stephanie; Esposito, Massimiliano; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Fernández-Alvar, Emma; Feuillet, Diane; Ak, Nurten Filiz; Finley, Hayley; Finoguenov, Alexis; Flaherty, Kevin; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Foster, Jonathan; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; Galbraith-Frew, J. G.; García, Rafael A.; García-Hernández, D. A.; Pérez, Ana E. García; Gaulme, Patrick; Ge, Jian; Génova-Santos, R.; Georgakakis, A.; Ghezzi, Luan; Gillespie, Bruce A.; Girardi, Léo; Goddard, Daniel; Gontcho, Satya Gontcho A.; Hernández, Jonay I. González; Grebel, Eva K.; Green, Paul J.; Grieb, Jan Niklas; Grieves, Nolan; Gunn, James E.; Guo, Hong; Harding, Paul; Hasselquist, Sten; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Hayden, Michael; Hearty, Fred R.; Hekker, Saskia; Ho, Shirley; Hogg, David W.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Holtzman, Jon A.; Honscheid, Klaus; Huber, Daniel; Huehnerhoff, Joseph; Ivans, Inese I.; Jiang, Linhua; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Kinemuchi, Karen; Kirkby, David; Kitaura, Francisco; Klaene, Mark A.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Koenig, Xavier P.; Lam, Charles R.; Lan, Ting-Wen; Lang, Dustin; Laurent, Pierre; Goff, Jean-Marc Le; Leauthaud, Alexie; Lee, Khee-Gan; Lee, Young Sun; Licquia, Timothy C.; Liu, Jian; Long, Daniel C.; López-Corredoira, Martín; Lorenzo-Oliveira, Diego; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; Lupton, Robert H.; III, Claude E. Mack; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Maia, Marcio A. G.; Majewski, Steven R.; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Manchado, A.; Manera, Marc; Mao, Qingqing; Maraston, Claudia; Marchwinski, Robert C.; Margala, Daniel; Martell, Sarah L.; Martig, Marie; Masters, Karen L.; Mathur, Savita; McBride, Cameron K.; McGehee, Peregrine M.; McGreer, Ian D.; McMahon, Richard G.; Ménard, Brice; Menzel, Marie-Luise; Merloni, Andrea; Mészáros, Szabolcs; Miller, Adam A.; Miralda-Escudé, Jordi; Miyatake, Hironao; Montero-Dorta, Antonio D.; More, Surhud; Morganson, Eric; Morice-Atkinson, Xan; Morrison, Heather L.; Mosser, Benôit; Muna, Demitri; Myers, Adam D.; Nandra, Kirpal; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Neyrinck, Mark; Nguyen, Duy Cuong; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; Noterdaeme, Pasquier; Nuza, Sebastián E.; O’Connell, Julia E.; O’Connell, Robert W.; O’Connell, Ross; Ogando, Ricardo L. C.; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Oravetz, Audrey E.; Oravetz, Daniel J.; Osumi, Keisuke; Owen, Russell; Padgett, Deborah L.; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Paegert, Martin; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John K.; Pâris, Isabelle; Park, Changbom; Pattarakijwanich, Petchara; Pellejero-Ibanez, M.; Pepper, Joshua; Percival, Will J.; Pérez-Fournon, Ismael; Pe´rez-Ra`fols, Ignasi; Petitjean, Patrick; Pieri, Matthew M.; Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Mello, Gustavo F. Porto de; Prada, Francisco; Prakash, Abhishek; Price-Whelan, Adrian M.; Protopapas, Pavlos; Raddick, M. Jordan; Rahman, Mubdi; Reid, Beth A.; Rich, James; Rix, Hans-Walter; Robin, Annie C.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Rodrigues, Thaíse S.; Rodríguez-Torres, Sergio; Roe, Natalie A.; Ross, Ashley J.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Rossi, Graziano; Ruan, John J.; Rubiño-Martín, J. A.; Rykoff, Eli S.; Salazar-Albornoz, Salvador; Salvato, Mara; Samushia, Lado; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Santiago, Basílio; Sayres, Conor; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; Schlegel, David J.; Schmidt, Sarah J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Schultheis, Mathias; Schwope, Axel D.; Scóccola, C. G.; Scott, Caroline; Sellgren, Kris; Seo, Hee-Jong; Serenelli, Aldo; Shane, Neville; Shen, Yue; Shetrone, Matthew; Shu, Yiping; Aguirre, V. Silva; Sivarani, Thirupathi; Skrutskie, M. F.; Slosar, Anže; Smith, Verne V.; Sobreira, Flávia; Souto, Diogo; Stassun, Keivan G.; Steinmetz, Matthias; Stello, Dennis; Strauss, Michael A.; Streblyanska, Alina; Suzuki, Nao; Swanson, Molly E. C.; Tan, Jonathan C.; Tayar, Jamie; Terrien, Ryan C.; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Thomas, Daniel; Thomas, Neil; Thompson, Benjamin A.; Tinker, Jeremy L.; Tojeiro, Rita; Troup, Nicholas W.; Vargas-Magaña, Mariana; Vazquez, Jose A.; Verde, Licia; Viel, Matteo; Vogt, Nicole P.; Wake, David A.; Wang, Ji; Weaver, Benjamin A.; Weinberg, David H.; Weiner, Benjamin J.; White, Martin; Wilson, John C.; Wisniewski, John P.; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Ye`che, Christophe; York, Donald G.; Zakamska, Nadia L.; Zamora, O.; Zasowski, Gail; Zehavi, Idit; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zheng, Zheng; Zhou (周旭), Xu; Zhou (周志民), Zhimin; Zou (邹虎), Hu; Zhu, Guangtun

2015-07-20

The third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) took data from 2008 to 2014 using the original SDSS wide-field imager, the original and an upgraded multi-object fiber-fed optical spectrograph, a new near-infrared high-resolution spectrograph, and a novel optical interferometer. All of the data from SDSS-III are now made public. In particular, this paper describes Data Release 11 (DR11) including all data acquired through 2013 July, and Data Release 12 (DR12) adding data acquired through 2014 July (including all data included in previous data releases), marking the end of SDSS-III observing. Relative to our previous public release (DR10), DR12 adds one million new spectra of galaxies and quasars from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) over an additional 3000 deg² of sky, more than triples the number of H-band spectra of stars as part of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), and includes repeated accurate radial velocity measurements of 5500 stars from the Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS). The APOGEE outputs now include the measured abundances of 15 different elements for each star. In total, SDSS-III added 5200 deg² of ugriz imaging; 155,520 spectra of 138,099 stars as part of the Sloan Exploration of Galactic Understanding and Evolution 2 (SEGUE-2) survey; 2,497,484 BOSS spectra of 1,372,737 galaxies, 294,512 quasars, and 247,216 stars over 9376 deg²; 618,080 APOGEE spectra of 156,593 stars; and 197,040 MARVELS spectra of 5513 stars. Since its first light in 1998, SDSS has imaged over 1/3 of the Celestial sphere in five bands and obtained over five million astronomical spectra.

SDSS-II SUPERNOVA SURVEY: AN ANALYSIS OF THE LARGEST SAMPLE OF TYPE IA SUPERNOVAE AND CORRELATIONS WITH HOST-GALAXY SPECTRAL PROPERTIES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wolf, Rachel C.; Gupta, Ravi R.; Sako, Masao; Fischer, John A.; March, Marisa C.; Fischer, Johanna-Laina; D’Andrea, Chris B.; Smith, Mathew; Kessler, Rick; Scolnic, Daniel M.; Jha, Saurabh W.; Campbell, Heather; Nichol, Robert C.; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Richmond, Michael; Schneider, Donald P.

2016-01-01

Using the largest single-survey sample of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) to date, we study the relationship between properties of SNe Ia and those of their host galaxies, focusing primarily on correlations with Hubble residuals (HRs). Our sample consists of 345 photometrically classified or spectroscopically confirmed SNe Ia discovered as part of the SDSS-II Supernova Survey (SDSS-SNS). This analysis utilizes host-galaxy spectroscopy obtained during the SDSS-I/II spectroscopic survey and from an ancillary program on the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey that obtained spectra for nearly all host galaxies of SDSS-II SN candidates. In addition, we use photometric host-galaxy properties from the SDSS-SNS data release such as host stellar mass and star formation rate. We confirm the well-known relation between HR and host-galaxy mass and find a 3.6 σ significance of a nonzero linear slope. We also recover correlations between HR and host-galaxy gas-phase metallicity and specific star formation rate as they are reported in the literature. With our large data set, we examine correlations between HR and multiple host-galaxy properties simultaneously and find no evidence of a significant correlation. We also independently analyze our spectroscopically confirmed and photometrically classified SNe Ia and comment on the significance of similar combined data sets for future surveys.

The 13th Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-IV Survey Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory

Science.gov (United States)

Albareti, Franco D.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Almeida, Andres; Anders, Friedrich; Anderson, Scott; Andrews, Brett H.; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Argudo-Fernández, Maria; Armengaud, Eric; Aubourg, Eric; Avila-Reese, Vladimir; Badenes, Carles; Bailey, Stephen; Barbuy, Beatriz; Barger, Kat; Barrera-Ballesteros, Jorge; Bartosz, Curtis; Basu, Sarbani; Bates, Dominic; Battaglia, Giuseppina; Baumgarten, Falk; Baur, Julien; Bautista, Julian; Beers, Timothy C.; Belfiore, Francesco; Bershady, Matthew; Bertran de Lis, Sara; Bird, Jonathan C.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Blanton, Michael; Blomqvist, Michael; Bolton, Adam S.; Borissova, J.; Bovy, Jo; Nielsen Brandt, William; Brinkmann, Jonathan; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bundy, Kevin; Burtin, Etienne; Busca, Nicolás G.; Orlando Camacho Chavez, Hugo; Cano Díaz, M.; Cappellari, Michele; Carrera, Ricardo; Chen, Yanping; Cherinka, Brian; Cheung, Edmond; Chiappini, Cristina; Chojnowski, Drew; Chuang, Chia-Hsun; Chung, Haeun; Cirolini, Rafael Fernando; Clerc, Nicolas; Cohen, Roger E.; Comerford, Julia M.; Comparat, Johan; Correa do Nascimento, Janaina; Cousinou, Marie-Claude; Covey, Kevin; Crane, Jeffrey D.; Croft, Rupert; Cunha, Katia; Darling, Jeremy; Davidson, James W., Jr.; Dawson, Kyle; Da Costa, Luiz; Da Silva Ilha, Gabriele; Deconto Machado, Alice; Delubac, Timothée; De Lee, Nathan; De la Macorra, Axel; De la Torre, Sylvain; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Donor, John; Downes, Juan Jose; Drory, Niv; Du, Cheng; Du Mas des Bourboux, Hélion; Dwelly, Tom; Ebelke, Garrett; Eigenbrot, Arthur; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Elsworth, Yvonne P.; Emsellem, Eric; Eracleous, Michael; Escoffier, Stephanie; Evans, Michael L.; Falcón-Barroso, Jesús; Fan, Xiaohui; Favole, Ginevra; Fernandez-Alvar, Emma; Fernandez-Trincado, J. G.; Feuillet, Diane; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Freischlad, Gordon; Frinchaboy, Peter; Fu, Hai; Gao, Yang; Garcia, Rafael A.; Garcia-Dias, R.; Garcia-Hernández, D. A.; Garcia Pérez, Ana E.; Gaulme, Patrick; Ge, Junqiang; Geisler, Douglas; Gillespie, Bruce; Gil Marin, Hector; Girardi, Léo; Goddard, Daniel; Gomez Maqueo Chew, Yilen; Gonzalez-Perez, Violeta; Grabowski, Kathleen; Green, Paul; Grier, Catherine J.; Grier, Thomas; Guo, Hong; Guy, Julien; Hagen, Alex; Hall, Matt; Harding, Paul; Harley, R. E.; Hasselquist, Sten; Hawley, Suzanne; Hayes, Christian R.; Hearty, Fred; Hekker, Saskia; Hernandez Toledo, Hector; Ho, Shirley; Hogg, David W.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Holtzman, Jon A.; Holzer, Parker H.; Hu, Jian; Huber, Daniel; Hutchinson, Timothy Alan; Hwang, Ho Seong; Ibarra-Medel, Héctor J.; Ivans, Inese I.; Ivory, KeShawn; Jaehnig, Kurt; Jensen, Trey W.; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Jones, Amy; Jullo, Eric; Kallinger, T.; Kinemuchi, Karen; Kirkby, David; Klaene, Mark; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Kollmeier, Juna A.; Lacerna, Ivan; Lane, Richard R.; Lang, Dustin; Laurent, Pierre; Law, David R.; Leauthaud, Alexie; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; Li, Chen; Li, Cheng; Li, Niu; Li, Ran; Liang, Fu-Heng; Liang, Yu; Lima, Marcos; Lin, Lihwai; Lin, Lin; Lin, Yen-Ting; Liu, Chao; Long, Dan; Lucatello, Sara; MacDonald, Nicholas; MacLeod, Chelsea L.; Mackereth, J. Ted; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Geimba Maia, Marcio Antonio; Maiolino, Roberto; Majewski, Steven R.; Malanushenko, Olena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Dullius Mallmann, Nícolas; Manchado, Arturo; Maraston, Claudia; Marques-Chaves, Rui; Martinez Valpuesta, Inma; Masters, Karen L.; Mathur, Savita; McGreer, Ian D.; Merloni, Andrea; Merrifield, Michael R.; Meszáros, Szabolcs; Meza, Andres; Miglio, Andrea; Minchev, Ivan; Molaverdikhani, Karan; Montero-Dorta, Antonio D.; Mosser, Benoit; Muna, Demitri; Myers, Adam; Nair, Preethi; Nandra, Kirpal; Ness, Melissa; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; Nitschelm, Christian; O’Connell, Julia; Oravetz, Audrey; Oravetz, Daniel J.; Pace, Zachary; Padilla, Nelson; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John; Paris, Isabelle; Park, Changbom; Peacock, John A.; Peirani, Sebastien; Pellejero-Ibanez, Marcos; Penny, Samantha; Percival, Will J.; Percival, Jeffrey W.; Perez-Fournon, Ismael; Petitjean, Patrick; Pieri, Matthew; Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Pisani, Alice; Prada, Francisco; Prakash, Abhishek; Price-Jones, Natalie; Raddick, M. Jordan; Rahman, Mubdi; Raichoor, Anand; Barboza Rembold, Sandro; Reyna, A. M.; Rich, James; Richstein, Hannah; Ridl, Jethro; Riffel, Rogemar A.; Riffel, Rogério; Rix, Hans-Walter; Robin, Annie C.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Rodríguez-Torres, Sergio; Rodrigues, Thaíse S.; Roe, Natalie; Lopes, A. Roman; Román-Zúñiga, Carlos; Ross, Ashley J.; Rossi, Graziano; Ruan, John; Ruggeri, Rossana; Runnoe, Jessie C.; Salazar-Albornoz, Salvador; Salvato, Mara; Sanchez, Sebastian F.; Sanchez, Ariel G.; Sanchez-Gallego, José R.; Santiago, Basílio Xavier; Schiavon, Ricardo; Schimoia, Jaderson S.; Schlafly, Eddie; Schlegel, David J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Schönrich, Ralph; Schultheis, Mathias; Schwope, Axel; Seo, Hee-Jong; Serenelli, Aldo; Sesar, Branimir; Shao, Zhengyi; Shetrone, Matthew; Shull, Michael; Silva Aguirre, Victor; Skrutskie, M. F.; Slosar, Anže; Smith, Michael; Smith, Verne V.; Sobeck, Jennifer; Somers, Garrett; Souto, Diogo; Stark, David V.; Stassun, Keivan G.; Steinmetz, Matthias; Stello, Dennis; Storchi Bergmann, Thaisa; Strauss, Michael A.; Streblyanska, Alina; Stringfellow, Guy S.; Suarez, Genaro; Sun, Jing; Taghizadeh-Popp, Manuchehr; Tang, Baitian; Tao, Charling; Tayar, Jamie; Tembe, Mita; Thomas, Daniel; Tinker, Jeremy; Tojeiro, Rita; Tremonti, Christy; Troup, Nicholas; Trump, Jonathan R.; Unda-Sanzana, Eduardo; Valenzuela, O.; Van den Bosch, Remco; Vargas-Magaña, Mariana; Vazquez, Jose Alberto; Villanova, Sandro; Vivek, M.; Vogt, Nicole; Wake, David; Walterbos, Rene; Wang, Yuting; Wang, Enci; Weaver, Benjamin Alan; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Weinberg, David H.; Westfall, Kyle B.; Whelan, David G.; Wilcots, Eric; Wild, Vivienne; Williams, Rob A.; Wilson, John; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Wylezalek, Dominika; Xiao, Ting; Yan, Renbin; Yang, Meng; Ybarra, Jason E.; Yeche, Christophe; Yuan, Fang-Ting; Zakamska, Nadia; Zamora, Olga; Zasowski, Gail; Zhang, Kai; Zhao, Cheng; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zheng, Zheng; Zheng, Zheng; Zhou, Zhi-Min; Zhu, Guangtun; Zinn, Joel C.; Zou, Hu

2017-12-01

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) began observations in 2014 July. It pursues three core programs: the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2), Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA), and the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS). As well as its core program, eBOSS contains two major subprograms: the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) and the SPectroscopic IDentification of ERosita Sources (SPIDERS). This paper describes the first data release from SDSS-IV, Data Release 13 (DR13). DR13 makes publicly available the first 1390 spatially resolved integral field unit observations of nearby galaxies from MaNGA. It includes new observations from eBOSS, completing the Sloan Extended QUasar, Emission-line galaxy, Luminous red galaxy Survey (SEQUELS), which also targeted variability-selected objects and X-ray-selected objects. DR13 includes new reductions of the SDSS-III BOSS data, improving the spectrophotometric calibration and redshift classification, and new reductions of the SDSS-III APOGEE-1 data, improving stellar parameters for dwarf stars and cooler stars. DR13 provides more robust and precise photometric calibrations. Value-added target catalogs relevant for eBOSS, TDSS, and SPIDERS and an updated red-clump catalog for APOGEE are also available. This paper describes the location and format of the data and provides references to important technical papers. The SDSS web site, http://www.sdss.org, provides links to the data, tutorials, examples of data access, and extensive documentation of the reduction and analysis procedures. DR13 is the first of a scheduled set that will contain new data and analyses from the planned ∼6 yr operations of SDSS-IV.

THE ARECIBO LEGACY FAST ALFA SURVEY: THE GALAXY POPULATION DETECTED BY ALFALFA

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Huang, Shan; Haynes, Martha P.; Giovanelli, Riccardo [Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Space Sciences Building, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 (United States); Brinchmann, Jarle, E-mail: shan@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: haynes@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: riccardo@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: jarle@strw.leidenuniv.nl [Sterrewacht Leiden, Leiden University, NL-2300 RA Leiden (Netherlands)

2012-09-10

Making use of H I 21 cm line measurements from the ALFALFA survey ({alpha}.40) and photometry from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), we investigate the global scaling relations and fundamental planes linking stars and gas for a sample of 9417 common galaxies: the {alpha}.40-SDSS-GALEX sample. In addition to their H I properties derived from the ALFALFA data set, stellar masses (M{sub *}) and star formation rates (SFRs) are derived from fitting the UV-optical spectral energy distributions. 96% of the {alpha}.40-SDSS-GALEX galaxies belong to the blue cloud, with the average gas fraction f{sub HI} {identical_to} M{sub HI}/M{sub *} {approx} 1.5. A transition in star formation (SF) properties is found whereby below M{sub *} {approx} 10{sup 9.5} M{sub Sun }, the slope of the star-forming sequence changes, the dispersion in the specific star formation rate (SSFR) distribution increases, and the star formation efficiency (SFE) mildly increases with M{sub *}. The evolutionary track in the SSFR-M{sub *} diagram, as well as that in the color-magnitude diagram, is linked to the H I content; below this transition mass, the SF is regulated strongly by the H I. Comparison of H I and optically selected samples over the same restricted volume shows that the H I-selected population is less evolved and has overall higher SFR and SSFR at a given stellar mass, but lower SFE and extinction, suggesting either that a bottleneck exists in the H I-to-H{sub 2} conversion or that the process of SF in the very H I-dominated galaxies obeys an unusual, low-efficiency SF law. A trend is found that, for a given stellar mass, high gas fraction galaxies reside preferentially in dark matter halos with high spin parameters. Because it represents a full census of H I-bearing galaxies at z {approx} 0, the scaling relations and fundamental planes derived for the ALFALFA population can be used to assess the H I detection rate by future blind H I surveys and

THE ARECIBO METHANOL MASER GALACTIC PLANE SURVEY. III. DISTANCES AND LUMINOSITIES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pandian, J. D.; Menten, K. M.; Goldsmith, P. F.

2009-01-01

We derive kinematic distances to the 86 6.7 GHz methanol masers discovered in the Arecibo Methanol Maser Galactic Plane Survey. The systemic velocities of the sources were derived from 13 CO (J = 2-1), CS (J = 5-4), and NH 3 observations made with the ARO Submillimeter Telescope, the APEX telescope, and the Effelsberg 100 m telescope, respectively. Kinematic distance ambiguities were resolved using H I self-absorption with H I data from the VLA Galactic Plane Survey. We observe roughly three times as many sources at the far distance compared to the near distance. The vertical distribution of the sources has a scale height of ∼ 30 pc, and is much lower than that of the Galactic thin disk. We use the distances derived in this work to determine the luminosity function of 6.7 GHz maser emission. The luminosity function has a peak at approximately 10 -6 L sun . Assuming that this luminosity function applies, the methanol maser population in the Large Magellanic Cloud and M33 is at least 4 and 14 times smaller, respectively, than in our Galaxy.

SIGGMA: A SURVEY OF IONIZED GAS IN THE GALAXY, MADE WITH THE ARECIBO TELESCOPE

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Liu, B. [National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100012 (China); McIntyre, T. [University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131 (United States); Terzian, Y. [Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 (United States); Minchin, R. [Arecibo Observatory, HC03 Box 53995, Arecibo 00612, PR (United States); Anderson, L. [West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506 (United States); Churchwell, E. [University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706 (United States); Lebron, M. [University of Puerto Rico, P.O. Box 23323, 00931-3323, San Juan (Puerto Rico); Roshi, D. Anish [National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank and Charlottesville, VA 22903 (United States)

2013-10-01

A Survey of Ionized Gas in the Galaxy, made with the Arecibo telescope (SIGGMA), uses the Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFA) to fully sample the Galactic plane (30 Degree-Sign {<=} l {<=} 75 Degree-Sign and -2 Degree-Sign {<=} b {<=} 2 Degree-Sign ; 175 Degree-Sign {<=} l {<=} 207 Degree-Sign and -2 Degree-Sign {<=} b {<=} 1 Degree-Sign ) observable with the telescope in radio recombination lines (RRLs). Processed data sets are being produced in the form of data cubes of 2 Degree-Sign (along l) Multiplication-Sign 4 Degree-Sign (along b) Multiplication-Sign 151 (number of channels), archived and made public. The 151 channels cover a velocity range of 600 km s{sup -1} and the velocity resolution of the survey changes from 4.2 km s{sup -1} to 5.1 km s{sup -1} from the lowest frequency channel to the highest frequency channel. RRL maps with 3.'4 resolution and a line flux density sensitivity of {approx}0.5 mJy will enable us to identify new H II regions, measure their electron temperatures, study the physics of photodissociation regions with carbon RRLs, and investigate the origin of the extended low-density medium. Twelve Hn{alpha} lines fall within the 300 MHz bandpass of ALFA; they are resampled to a common velocity resolution to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) by a factor of three or more and preserve the line width. SIGGMA will produce the most sensitive fully sampled RRL survey to date. Here, we discuss the observing and data reduction techniques in detail. A test observation toward the H II region complex S255/S257 has detected Hn{alpha} and Cn{alpha} lines with S/N > 10.

Flood of September 22, 1998, in Arecibo and Utuado, Puerto Rico

Science.gov (United States)

Torres-Sierra, Heriberto

2002-01-01

Hurricane Georges made landfall on the southeastern part of Puerto Rico during September 21, 1998. Georges, with maximum sustained winds of 185 kilometers per hour and gusts to 240 kilometers per hour, produced 24-hour total rainfall amounts of 770 millimeters on the island's mountainous interior. Severe flooding affected almost half of the island's 78 municipios during September 21-22, 1998. The most affected municipios were Adjuntas, Aguada, Aguadilla, A?asco, Arecibo, Cayey, Ciales, Comerio, Barceloneta, Dorado, Jayuya, Manati, Mayaguez, Morovis, Orocovis, Patillas, Toa Alta, Toa Baja, and Utuado. The combination of strong winds, intense rainfall and severe flooding caused widespread property damages. More than 20,000 houses were destroyed and more than 100,000 houses sustained damage. Floodwaters and landslides destroyed or damaged many bridges and roads throughout the island. Records indicate that Hurricane Georges induced flood discharges in the Rio Grande de Arecibo Basin that were the largest on record. Floodwaters inundated urban and rural areas, affecting urban subdivisions, businesses, vehicles, bridges, roads, and high-tension electric power lines. To define the extent and depth of inundation, more than 280 high-water marks were identified and surveyed in Arecibo and Utuado. In addition estimates of flood magnitude and frequency were made at selected gaging stations, and flood profiles were developed for certain stream reaches. Flooding was most severe in the towns of Arecibo and Utuado. In Arecibo, the most affected communities were the rural area of San Francisco, the urban subdivisions of Martell, Nolla, and Arecibo Gardens, and the low-lying areas of downtown Arecibo. In these areas, the water depths ranged from 0.6 to 1.8 meters. In Utuado, floodwaters from the Rio Vivi and the Rio Grande de Arecibo inundated the downtown area affecting homes, public facilities, and businesses. In the urban subdivision of Jesus Maria Lago, the depth of flooding

The Formation of COINS: Equity and Inclusion in SDSS

Science.gov (United States)

Schmidt, Sarah J.; Sanchez-Gallego, Jose Ramon; Chanover, Nancy J.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Lucatello, Sara; Aragon-Salamanca, Alfonso; Belfiore, Francesco; Cherinka, Brian; Feuillet, Diane; Jones, Amy; Masters, Karen; Simmons, Audrey; Ross, Ashley; Stassun, Keivan G.; Tayar, Jamie

2017-01-01

In the era of large surveys, collaborations like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) are becoming a new normal for many scientists, and collaboration policies and climate have a considerable affect on scientific careers. As such, it is essential that collaborations actively strive to include all scientists regardless of gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, career stage, geographic location, economic background, social and cultural backgrounds, and all possible intersections thereof. We report on the formation and progress of the Committee On INclusiveness in the SDSS (COINS). COINS was formed to assess the SDSS-IV project and collaboration's climate and demographics, to recommend new policies or practices with regard to increasing inclusiveness, and to assist in the implementation of these new activities where necessary. We report on our current activities, which include ongoing support for the SDSS Research Experience for Undergraduates program, support for the SDSS Faculty and Student Teams initiative, administering and analyzing the SDSS demographic surveys, working towards collaboration meeting inclusiveness and accessibility, and adopting strategies for integrating and mentoring new members. We welcome input from SDSS members and non-members about how to work towards a more equitable and inclusive collaboration.

The Core Collapse Supernova Rate from the SDSS-II Supernova Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Taylor, Matt; Cinabro, David; Dilday, Ben; Galbany, Lluis; Gupta, Ravi R.; Kessler, R.; Marriner, John; Nichol, Robert C.; Richmond, Michael; Schneider, Donald P.; Sollerman, Jesper

2014-08-26

We use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II Supernova Survey (SDSS-II SNS) data to measure the volumetric core collapse supernova (CCSN) rate in the redshift range (0.03 < z < 0.09). Using a sample of 89 CCSN, we find a volume-averaged rate of 1.06 ± 0.19 × 10(–)(4)((h/0.7)(3)/(yr Mpc(3))) at a mean redshift of 0.072 ± 0.009. We measure the CCSN luminosity function from the data and consider the implications on the star formation history.

Overview of the SDSS-IV MaNGA Survey: Mapping nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bundy, Kevin; Bershady, Matthew A.; Law, David R.; Yan, Renbin; Drory, Niv; MacDonald, Nicholas; Wake, David A.; Cherinka, Brian; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Thomas, Daniel; Tremonti, Christy; Masters, Karen; Coccato, Lodovico; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Avila-Reese, Vladimir; Badenes, Carles; Falcón-Barroso, Jésus; Belfiore, Francesco; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Bland-Hawthorn, Joss; Blanton, Michael R.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Byler, Nell; Cappellari, Michele; Conroy, Charlie; Dutton, Aaron A.; Emsellem, Eric; Etherington, James; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; Fu, Hai; Gunn, James E.; Harding, Paul; Johnston, Evelyn J.; Kauffmann, Guinevere; Kinemuchi, Karen; Klaene, Mark A.; Knapen, Johan H.; Leauthaud, Alexie; Li, Cheng; Lin, Lihwai; Maiolino, Roberto; Malanushenko, Viktor; Malanushenko, Elena; Mao, Shude; Maraston, Claudia; McDermid, Richard M.; Merrifield, Michael R.; Nichol, Robert C.; Oravetz, Daniel; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John K.; Sanchez, Sebastian F.; Schlegel, David; Simmons, Audrey; Steele, Oliver; Steinmetz, Matthias; Thanjavur, Karun; Thompson, Benjamin A.; Tinker, Jeremy L.; van den Bosch, Remco C. E.; Westfall, Kyle B.; Wilkinson, David; Wright, Shelley; Xiao, Ting; Zhang, Kai

We present an overview of a new integral field spectroscopic survey called MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory), one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) that began on 2014 July 1. MaNGA will investigate the internal kinematic

Target Selection for the SDSS-III MARVELS Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Paegert, Martin; Stassun, Keivan G.; De Lee, Nathan; Pepper, Joshua; Fleming, Scott W.; Sivarani, Thirupathi; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Mack, Claude E., III; Dhital, Saurav; Hebb, Leslie; Ge, Jian

2015-06-01

We present the target selection process for the Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanets Large-area Survey (MARVELS), which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) III. MARVELS is a medium-resolution (R ∼ 11,000) multi-fiber spectrograph capable of obtaining radial velocities for 60 objects at a time in order to find brown dwarfs and giant planets. The survey was configured to target dwarf stars with effective temperatures approximately between 4500 and 6250 K. For the first 2 years MARVELS relied on low-resolution spectroscopic pre-observations to estimate the effective temperature and log (g) for candidate stars and then selected suitable dwarf stars from this pool. Ultimately, the pre-observation spectra proved ineffective at filtering out giant stars; many giants were incorrectly classified as dwarfs, resulting in a giant contamination rate of ∼30% for the first phase of the MARVELS survey. Thereafter, the survey instead applied a reduced proper motion cut to eliminate giants and used the Infrared Flux Method to estimate effective temperatures, using only extant photmetric and proper-motion catalog information. The target selection method introduced here may be useful for other surveys that need to rely on extant catalog data for selection of specific stellar populations.

Dusty WDs in the WISE all sky survey ∩ SDSS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Barber, Sara D.; Kilic, Mukremin; Gianninas, A. [Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, 440 W. Brooks St., Norman, OK 73019 (United States); Brown, Warren R., E-mail: barber@nhn.ou.edu [Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)

2014-05-10

A recent cross-correlation between the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 White Dwarf Catalog with the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) all-sky photometry at 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 μm performed by Debes et al. resulted in the discovery of 52 candidate dusty white dwarfs (WDs). However, the 6'' WISE beam allows for the possibility that many of the excesses exhibited by these WDs may be due to contamination from a nearby source. We present MMT+SAO Wide-Field InfraRed Camera J- and H-band imaging observations (0.''5-1.''5 point spread function) of 16 of these candidate dusty WDs and confirm that four have spectral energy distributions (SEDs) consistent with a dusty disk and are not accompanied by a nearby source contaminant. The remaining 12 WDs have contaminated WISE photometry and SEDs inconsistent with a dusty disk when the contaminating sources are not included in the photometry measurements. We find the frequency of disks around single WDs in the WISE ∩ SDSS sample to be 2.6%-4.1%. One of the four new dusty WDs has a mass of 1.04 M {sub ☉} (progenitor mass 5.4 M {sub ☉}) and its discovery offers the first confirmation that massive WDs (and their massive progenitor stars) host planetary systems.

SDSS-III: Massive Spectroscopic Surveys of the Distant Universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, and Extra-Solar Planetary Systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Eisenstein, Daniel J.; /Arizona U., Astron. Dept. - Steward Observ. /Harvard U., Phys. Dept.; Weinberg, David H.; /Ohio State U.; Agol, Eric; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Aihara, Hiroaki; /Tokyo U.; Prieto, Carlos Allende; /Laguna U., Tenerife; Anderson, Scott F.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Arns, James A.; /Michigan U.; Aubourg, Eric; /APC, Paris /DAPNIA, Saclay; Bailey, Stephen; /LBL, Berkeley; Balbinot, Eduardo; /Rio Grande do Sul U. /Rio de Janeiro Observ.; Barkhouser, Robert; /Johns Hopkins U. /Michigan State U.

2011-01-01

Building on the legacy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I and II), SDSS-III is a program of four spectroscopic surveys on three scientific themes: dark energy and cosmological parameters, the history and structure of the Milky Way, and the population of giant planets around other stars. The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) will measure redshifts of 1.5 million massive galaxies and Ly{alpha} forest spectra of 150,000 quasars, using the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature of large scale structure to obtain percent-level determinations of the distance scale and Hubble expansion rate at z < 0.7 and at z {approx} 2.5. SEGUE-2, a now-completed continuation of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration, measured medium-resolution (R = {lambda}/{Delta}{lambda} 1800) optical spectra of 118,000 stars in a variety of target categories, probing chemical evolution, stellar kinematics and substructure, and the mass profile of the dark matter halo from the solar neighborhood to distances of 100 kpc. APOGEE, the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment, will obtain high-resolution (R {approx} 30,000), high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N {ge} 100 per resolution element), H-band (1.51 {micro}m < {lambda} < 1.70 {micro}m) spectra of 10{sup 5} evolved, late-type stars, measuring separate abundances for {approx} 15 elements per star and creating the first high-precision spectroscopic survey of all Galactic stellar populations (bulge, bar, disks, halo) with a uniform set of stellar tracers and spectral diagnostics. The Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Large-area Survey (MARVELS) will monitor radial velocities of more than 8000 FGK stars with the sensitivity and cadence (10-40 m s{sup -1}, {approx} 24 visits per star) needed to detect giant planets with periods up to two years, providing an unprecedented data set for understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of giant planet systems. As of January 2011, SDSS-III has obtained

The SDSS-IV in 2015: Report of the Committee on the Participation of Women in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Lucatello, Sara; Aragon-Salamanca, Alfonso; Cherinka, Brian; Cunha, Katia M. L.; Gillespie, Bruce Andrew; Hagen, Alex; Jones, Amy; Kinemuchi, Karen; Lundgren, Britt; Myers, Adam D.; Roman, Alexandre; Zasowski, Gail; SDSS-IV Collaboration

2016-01-01

Given that many astronomers now participate in large international scientific collaborations, it is important to examine whether these structures foster a healthy scientific climate that is inclusive and diverse. The Committee on the Participation of Women in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (CPWS) was formed to evaluate the climate and demographics within the SDSS collaboration and to make recommendations for how best to establish the scientific and technical leadership team for SDSS-IV. Building on the work described in Lundgren et al. (2015), the CPWS conducted a demographic survey in Spring 2015 that included questions about career and leadership status, racial / ethnic identity, gender identity, identification with the LGBT community, disability, partnership status, and level of parental education. For example, 71% of survey respondents identify as male and 81% do not identify as a racial or ethnic minority at their current institution. This reflects the under-representation of women and men from minority groups (e.g., people of color in the United States) and women from majority groups (e.g., white women in the United States) in the field of astronomy. We have focused our analysis on the representation of scientists from these groups among the SDSS-IV leadership and the full collaboration. Our goal is to use these quantitative data to track the demographics of SDSS-IV membership and leadership over time as we work to assess and improve the climate of SDSS-IV.

Follow up observations of SDSS and CRTS candidate cataclysmic variables

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Szkody, Paula; Vasquez-Soltero, Stephanie [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, P.O. Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Everett, Mark E.; Silva, David R. [National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719 (United States); Howell, Steve B. [NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States); Landolt, Arlo U. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803 (United States); Bond, Howard E., E-mail: szkody@astro.washington.edu, E-mail: dsilva@noao.edu, E-mail: steve.b.howell@nasa.gov, E-mail: landolt@rouge.phys.lsu.edu, E-mail: heb11@psu.edu [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)

2014-10-01

We present photometry and spectroscopy of 11 and 35 potential cataclysmic variables, respectively, from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey, and vsnet alerts. The photometry results include quasi-periodic oscillations during the decline of V1363 Cyg, nightly accretion changes in the likely Polar (AM Herculis binary) SDSS J1344+20, eclipses in SDSS J2141+05 with an orbital period of 76 ± 2 minutes, and possible eclipses in SDSS J2158+09 at an orbital period near 100 minutes. Time-resolved spectra reveal short orbital periods near 80 minutes for SDSS J0206+20, 85 minutes for SDSS J1502+33, and near 100 minutes for CSS J0015+26, RXS J0150+37, SDSS J1132+62, SDSS J2154+15, and SDSS J2158+09. The prominent He II line and velocity amplitude of SDSS J2154+15 are consistent with a Polar nature for this object, while the absence of this line and a low velocity amplitude argue against this classification for RXS J0150+37. Single spectra of 10 objects were obtained near outburst and the rest near quiescence, confirming the dwarf novae nature of these objects.

The NSF Undergraduate ALFALFA Team: Partnering with Arecibo Observatory to Offer Undergraduate and Faculty Extragalactic Radio Astronomy Research Opportunities

Science.gov (United States)

Ribaudo, Joseph; Koopmann, Rebecca A.; Haynes, Martha P.; Balonek, Thomas J.; Cannon, John M.; Coble, Kimberly A.; Craig, David W.; Denn, Grant R.; Durbala, Adriana; Finn, Rose; Hallenbeck, Gregory L.; Hoffman, G. Lyle; Lebron, Mayra E.; Miller, Brendan P.; Crone-Odekon, Mary; O'Donoghue, Aileen A.; Olowin, Ronald Paul; Pantoja, Carmen; Pisano, Daniel J.; Rosenberg, Jessica L.; Troischt, Parker; Venkatesan, Aparna; Wilcots, Eric M.; ALFALFA Team

2017-01-01

The NSF-sponsored Undergraduate ALFALFA (Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA) Team (UAT) is a consortium of 20 institutions across the US and Puerto Rico, founded to promote undergraduate research and faculty development within the extragalactic ALFALFA HI blind survey project and follow-up programs. The objective of the UAT is to provide opportunities for its members to develop expertise in the technical aspects of observational radio spectroscopy, its associated data analysis, and the motivating science. Partnering with Arecibo Observatory, the UAT has worked with more than 280 undergraduates and 26 faculty to date, offering 8 workshops onsite at Arecibo (148 undergraduates), observing runs at Arecibo (69 undergraduates), remote observing runs on campus, undergraduate research projects based on Arecibo science (120 academic year and 185 summer projects), and presentation of results at national meetings such as the AAS (at AAS229: Ball et al., Collova et al., Davis et al., Miazzo et al., Ruvolo et al, Singer et al., Cannon et al., Craig et al., Koopmann et al., O'Donoghue et al.). 40% of the students and 45% of the faculty participants have been women and members of underrepresented groups. More than 90% of student alumni are attending graduate school and/or pursuing a career in STEM. 42% of those pursuing graduate degrees in Physics or Astronomy are women.In this presentation, we summarize the UAT program and the current research efforts of UAT members based on Arecibo science, including multiwavelength followup observations of ALFALFA sources, the UAT Collaborative Groups Project, the Survey of HI in Extremely Low-mass Dwarfs (SHIELD), and the Arecibo Pisces-Perseus Supercluster Survey (APPSS). This work has been supported by NSF grants AST-0724918/0902211, AST-075267/0903394, AST-0725380, AST-121105, and AST-1637339.

ALFABURST: a commensal search for fast radio bursts with Arecibo

Science.gov (United States)

Foster, Griffin; Karastergiou, Aris; Golpayegani, Golnoosh; Surnis, Mayuresh; Lorimer, Duncan R.; Chennamangalam, Jayanth; McLaughlin, Maura; Armour, Wes; Cobb, Jeff; MacMahon, David H. E.; Pei, Xin; Rajwade, Kaustubh; Siemion, Andrew P. V.; Werthimer, Dan; Williams, Chris J.

2018-03-01

ALFABURST has been searching for fast radio bursts (FRBs) commensally with other projects using the Arecibo L-band Feed Array receiver at the Arecibo Observatory since 2015 July. We describe the observing system and report on the non-detection of any FRBs from that time until 2017 August for a total observing time of 518 h. With current FRB rate models, along with measurements of telescope sensitivity and beam size, we estimate that this survey probed redshifts out to about 3.4 with an effective survey volume of around 600 000 Mpc3. Based on this, we would expect, at the 99 per cent confidence level, to see at most two FRBs. We discuss the implications of this non-detection in the context of results from other telescopes and the limitation of our search pipeline. During the survey, single pulses from 17 known pulsars were detected. We also report the discovery of a Galactic radio transient with a pulse width of 3 ms and dispersion measure of 281 pc cm-3, which was detected while the telescope was slewing between fields.

A Statistical Study of Brown Dwarf Companions from the SDSS-III MARVELS Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Grieves, Nolan; Ge, Jian; Thomas, Neil; Ma, Bo; De Lee, Nathan M.; Lee, Brian L.; Fleming, Scott W.; Sithajan, Sirinrat; Varosi, Frank; Liu, Jian; Zhao, Bo; Li, Rui; Agol, Eric; MARVELS Team

2016-01-01

We present 23 new Brown Dwarf (BD) candidates from the Multi-object APO Radial-Velocity Exoplanet Large-Area Survey (MARVELS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III). The BD candidates were selected from the processed MARVELS data using the latest University of Florida 2D pipeline, which shows significant improvement and reduction of systematic errors over the 1D pipeline results included in the SDSS Data Release 12. This sample is the largest BD yield from a single radial velocity survey. Of the 23 candidates, 18 are around main sequence stars and 5 are around giant stars. Given a giant contamination rate of ~24% for the MARVELS survey, we find a BD occurrence rate around main sequence stars of ~0.7%, which agrees with previous studies and confirms the BD desert, while the BD occurrence rate around the MARVELS giant stars is ~0.6%. Preliminary results show that our new candidates around solar type stars support a two population hypothesis, where BDs are divided at a mass of ~42.5 MJup. BDs less massive than 42.5 MJup have eccentricity distributions consistent with planet-planet scattering models, where BDs more massive than 42.5 MJup have both period and eccentricity distributions similar to that of stellar binaries. Special Brown Dwarf systems such as multiple BD systems and highly eccentric BDs will also be presented.

Type Ia supernova rate studies from the SDSS-II Supernova Study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dilday, Benjamin [Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)

2008-08-01

The author presents new measurements of the type Ia SN rate from the SDSS-II Supernova Survey. The SDSS-II Supernova Survey was carried out during the Fall months (Sept.-Nov.) of 2005-2007 and discovered ~ 500 spectroscopically confirmed SNe Ia with densely sampled (once every ~ 4 days), multi-color light curves. Additionally, the SDSS-II Supernova Survey has discovered several hundred SNe Ia candidates with well-measured light curves, but without spectroscopic confirmation of type. This total, achieved in 9 months of observing, represents ~ 15-20% of the total SNe Ia discovered worldwide since 1885. The author describes some technical details of the SN Survey observations and SN search algorithms that contributed to the extremely high-yield of discovered SNe and that are important as context for the SDSS-II Supernova Survey SN Ia rate measurements.

The SDSS Coadd: A Galaxy Photometric Redshift Catalog

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Reis, Ribamar R.R.; /Fermilab /Rio de Janeiro Federal U.; Soares-Santos, Marcelle; /Fermilab /Inst. Geo. Astron., Havana /Sao Paulo U.; Annis, James; /Fermilab; Dodelson, Scott; /Fermilab /Chicago U. /Chicago U., KICP; Hao, Jiangang; /Fermilab; Johnston, David; /Fermilab; Kubo, Jeffrey; /Fermilab; Lin, Huan; /Fermilab; Seo, Hee-Jong; /UC, Berkeley; Simet, Melanie; /Chicago U.

2011-11-01

We present and describe a catalog of galaxy photometric redshifts (photo-z's) for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Coadd Data. We use the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) technique to calculate photo-z's and the Nearest Neighbor Error (NNE) method to estimate photo-z errors for {approx} 13 million objects classified as galaxies in the coadd with r < 24.5. The photo-z and photo-z error estimators are trained and validated on a sample of {approx} 89, 000 galaxies that have SDSS photometry and spectroscopic redshifts measured by the SDSS Data Release 7 (DR7), the Canadian Network for Observational Cosmology Field Galaxy Survey (CNOC2), the Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe Data Release 3(DEEP2 DR3), the SDSS-III's Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), the Visible imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph - Very Large Telescope Deep Survey (VVDS) and the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey. For the best ANN methods we have tried, we find that 68% of the galaxies in the validation set have a photo-z error smaller than {sigma}{sub 68} = 0.036. After presenting our results and quality tests, we provide a short guide for users accessing the public data.

TWO LENSED z ≅ 3 LYMAN BREAK GALAXIES DISCOVERED IN THE SDSS GIANT ARCS SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koester, Benjamin P.; Gladders, Michael D.; Sharon, Keren; Wuyts, Eva; Bayliss, Matthew B.; Hennawi, Joseph F.; Rigby, J. R.; Dahle, Hakon

2010-01-01

We report the discovery of two strongly lensed z ∼ 3 Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) discovered as u-band dropouts as part of the SDSS Giant Arcs Survey (SGAS). The first, SGAS J122651.3+215220 at z = 2.9233, is lensed by one of several sub-clusters, SDSS J1226+2152, in a complex massive cluster at z = 0.43. Its (g, r, i) magnitudes are (21.14, 20.60, 20.51) which translate to surface brightnesses, μ g,r,i , of (23.78, 23.11, 22.81). The second, SGAS J152745.1+065219, is an LBG at z = 2.7593 lensed by the foreground SDSS J1527+0652 at z = 0.39, with (g, r, z) = (20.90, 20.52, 20.58) and μ g,r,z = (25.15, 24.52, 24.12). Moderate resolution spectroscopy confirms the redshifts suggested by photometric breaks and shows both absorption and emission features typical of LBGs. Lens mass models derived from combined imaging and spectroscopy reveal that SGAS J122651.3+215220 is a highly magnified source (M ≅ 40), while SGAS J152745.1+065219 is magnified by no more than M ≅ 15. Compared with LBG survey results, the luminosities and lensing-corrected magnitudes suggest that SGAS J122651.3+215220 is among the faintest ≅20% of LBGs in that sample. SGAS J152745.1+065219, on the other hand, has an unlensed r-band apparent magnitude similar to that of the 'Cosmic Eye', which places it near the mean of LBG survey results over similar redshifts.

Mass Functions of the Active Black Holes in Distant Quasars from the Large Bright Quasar Survey, the Bright Quasar Survey, and the Color-Selected Sample of the SDSS Fall Equatorial Stripe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vestergaard, Marianne; Osmer, Patrick S.

2009-01-01

We present mass functions of distant actively accreting supermassive black holes residing in luminous quasars discovered in the Large Bright Quasar Survey, the Bright Quasar Survey, and the Fall Equatorial Stripe of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The quasars cover a wide range of redshifts (0...... functions at similar redshifts based on the SDSS Data Release 3 quasar catalog presented by Vestergaard et al. We see clear evidence of cosmic downsizing in the comoving space density distribution of active black holes in the LBQS sample alone. In forthcoming papers, further analysis, comparison......, and discussion of these mass functions will be made with other existing black hole mass functions, notably that based on the SDSS DR3 quasar catalog. We present the relationships used to estimate the black hole mass based on the MgII emission line; the relations are calibrated to the Hbeta and CIV relations...

WISE PHOTOMETRY FOR 400 MILLION SDSS SOURCES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lang, Dustin; Hogg, David W.; Schlegel, David J.

2016-01-01

We present photometry of images from the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) of over 400 million sources detected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We use a “forced photometry” technique, using measured SDSS source positions, star–galaxy classification, and galaxy profiles to define the sources whose fluxes are to be measured in the WISE images. We perform photometry with The Tractor image modeling code, working on our “unWISE” coaddds and taking account of the WISE point-spread function and a noise model. The result is a measurement of the flux of each SDSS source in each WISE band. Many sources have little flux in the WISE bands, so often the measurements we report are consistent with zero given our uncertainties. However, for many sources we get 3σ or 4σ measurements; these sources would not be reported by the “official” WISE pipeline and will not appear in the WISE catalog, yet they can be highly informative for some scientific questions. In addition, these small-signal measurements can be used in stacking analyses at the catalog level. The forced photometry approach has the advantage that we measure a consistent set of sources between SDSS and WISE, taking advantage of the resolution and depth of the SDSS images to interpret the WISE images; objects that are resolved in SDSS but blended together in WISE still have accurate measurements in our photometry. Our results, and the code used to produce them, are publicly available at http://unwise.me

The WIRED Survey. 2; Infrared Excesses in the SDSS DR7 White Dwarf Catalog

Science.gov (United States)

Debes, John H.; Hoard, D. W.; Wachter, Stefanie; Leisawitz, David T.; Cohen, Martin

2011-01-01

With the launch of the Wide-field Infrar.ed Survey Explorer (WISE), a new era of detecting planetary debris and brown dwarfs (BDs) around white dwarfs (WDs) has begun with the WISE InfraRed Excesses around Degenerates (WIRED) Survey. The WIRED Survey is sensitive to substellar objects and dusty debris around WDs out to distances exceeding 100 pc, well beyond the completeness level of local WDs. In this paper, we present a cross-correlation of the preliminary Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 (DR7) WD catalog between the WISE, Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS), and SDSS DR7 photometric catalogs. From -18,000 input targets, there are WISE detections comprising 344 "naked" WDs (detection of the WD photosphere only), 1020 candidate WD+M dwarf binaries, 42 candidate WD+BD systems, 52 candidate WD+dust disk systems, and 69 targets with indeterminate infrared excess. We classified all of the detected targets through spectral energy distribution model fitting of the merged optical, near-IR, and WISE photometry. Some of these detections could be the result of contaminating sources within the large (approx. 6") WISE point-spread function; we make a preliminary estimate for the rates of contamination for our WD+BD and WD+disk candidates and provide notes for each target of interest. Each candidate presented here should be confirmed with higher angular resolution infrared imaging or infrared spectroscopy. We also present an overview of the observational characteristics of the detected WDs in the WISE photometric bands, including the relative frequencies of candidate WD+M, WD+BD, and WD+disk systems.

Galaxy pairs in the SDSS - XIII. The connection between enhanced star formation and molecular gas properties in galaxy mergers

Science.gov (United States)

Violino, Giulio; Ellison, Sara L.; Sargent, Mark; Coppin, Kristen E. K.; Scudder, Jillian M.; Mendel, Trevor J.; Saintonge, Amelie

2018-05-01

We investigate the connection between star formation and molecular gas properties in galaxy mergers at low redshift (z ≤ 0.06). The study we present is based on IRAM 30-m CO(1-0) observations of 11 galaxies with a close companion selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The pairs have mass ratios ≤4, projected separations rp ≤ 30 kpc and velocity separations ΔV ≤ 300 km s-1, and have been selected to exhibit enhanced specific star formation rates (sSFRs). We calculate molecular gas (H2) masses, assigning to each galaxy a physically motivated conversion factor αCO, and we derive molecular gas fractions and depletion times. We compare these quantities with those of isolated galaxies from the extended CO Legacy Data base for the GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey sample (xCOLDGASS; Saintonge et al.) with gas quantities computed in an identical way. Ours is the first study which directly compares the gas properties of galaxy pairs and those of a control sample of normal galaxies with rigorous control procedures and for which SFR and H2 masses have been estimated using the same method. We find that the galaxy pairs have shorter depletion times and an average molecular gas fraction enhancement of 0.4 dex compared to the mass matched control sample drawn from xCOLDGASS. However, the gas masses (and fractions) in galaxy pairs and their depletion times are consistent with those of non-mergers whose SFRs are similarly elevated. We conclude that both external interactions and internal processes may lead to molecular gas enhancement and decreased depletion times.

FOUR HIGHLY DISPERSED MILLISECOND PULSARS DISCOVERED IN THE ARECIBO PALFA GALACTIC PLANE SURVEY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Crawford, F. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Franklin and Marshall College, P.O. Box 3003, Lancaster, PA 17604 (United States); Stovall, K. [Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy, University of Texas at Brownsville, Brownsville, TX 78520 (United States); Lyne, A. G.; Stappers, B. W. [Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL (United Kingdom); Nice, D. J. [Department of Physics, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042 (United States); Stairs, I. H. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 (Canada); Lazarus, P. [Department of Physics, McGill University, 3600 University Street, Montreal, QC H3A 2T8 (Canada); Hessels, J. W. T. [ASTRON, The Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Postbus 2, 7990-AA Dwingeloo (Netherlands); Freire, P. C. C.; Champion, D. J.; Desvignes, G. [Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie, auf dem Huegel 69, D-53121 Bonn (Germany); Allen, B. [Albert-Einstein-Institut, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik, D-30167 Hannover (Germany); Bhat, N. D. R.; Camilo, F. [Center for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122 (Australia); Bogdanov, S. [Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 (United States); Brazier, A.; Chatterjee, S.; Cordes, J. M. [Astronomy Department, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 (United States); Cognard, I. [Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l' Environnement et de l' Espace, LPC2E, CNRS et Universite d' Orleans, and Station de radioastronomie de Nancay, Observatoire de Paris, F-18330 Nancay (France); Deneva, J. S., E-mail: fcrawfor@fandm.edu [Arecibo Observatory, HC3 Box 53995, Arecibo, PR 00612 (United States); and others

2012-09-20

We present the discovery and phase-coherent timing of four highly dispersed millisecond pulsars (MSPs) from the Arecibo PALFA Galactic plane survey: PSRs J1844+0115, J1850+0124, J1900+0308, and J1944+2236. Three of the four pulsars are in binary systems with low-mass companions, which are most likely white dwarfs, and which have orbital periods on the order of days. The fourth pulsar is isolated. All four pulsars have large dispersion measures (DM >100 pc cm{sup -3}), are distant ({approx}> 3.4 kpc), faint at 1.4 GHz ({approx}< 0.2 mJy), and are fully recycled (with spin periods P between 3.5 and 4.9 ms). The three binaries also have very small orbital eccentricities, as expected for tidally circularized, fully recycled systems with low-mass companions. These four pulsars have DM/P ratios that are among the highest values for field MSPs in the Galaxy. These discoveries bring the total number of confirmed MSPs from the PALFA survey to 15. The discovery of these MSPs illustrates the power of PALFA for finding weak, distant MSPs at low-Galactic latitudes. This is important for accurate estimates of the Galactic MSP population and for the number of MSPs that the Square Kilometer Array can be expected to detect.

A Precision Photometric Comparison between SDSS-II and CSP Type Ia Supernova Data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mosher, J.; Sako, M.; Corlies, L.

2012-01-01

Consistency between Carnegie Supernova Project (CSP) and SDSS-II Supernova Survey ugri measurements has been evaluated by comparing Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and CSP photometry for nine spectroscopically confirmed Type Ia supernova observed contemporaneously by both programs. The CSP data...

Selections from 2017: Mapping the Universe with SDSS-IV

Science.gov (United States)

Kohler, Susanna

2017-12-01

Editors note:In these last two weeks of 2017, well be looking at a few selections that we havent yet discussed on AAS Nova from among the most-downloaded paperspublished in AAS journals this year. The usual posting schedule will resume in January.Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant UniversePublished June2017Main takeaway:The incredibly prolific Sloan Digital Sky Survey has provided photometric observations of around 500 million objects and spectra for more than 3 million objects. The survey has now entered its fourth iteration, SDSS-IV, with the first public data release made in June 2016. A publication led by Michael Blanton (New York University) describes the facilities used for SDSS-IV, its science goals, and itsthree coreprograms.Why its interesting:Since data collection began in 2000, SDSS has been one of the premier surveysproviding imaging and spectroscopy for objects in both the near and distant universe.SDSS has measured spectra not only for the stars in our own Milky Way, but also for galaxies that lie more than 7 billion light-years distant making itan extremelyuseful and powerful tool for mapping our universe.What SDSS-IV is looking for:SDSS image of an example MaNGA target galaxy (left), with some of the many things we can learn about it shown in the right and bottom panels: stellar velocity dispersion, stellar mean velocity, stellar population age, metallicity, etc. [Blanton et al. 2017]SDSS-IV containsthree core programs:Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2)provides high-resolution near-infrared spectra of hundreds of thousands of Milky-Way stars with the goal ofimproving our understanding of the history of the Milky Way and of stellar astrophysics.Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA)obtains spatially resolved spectra for thousands of nearby galaxiesto better understand the evolutionary histories of galaxies and what regulates their star formation

THE SDSS-III BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY: QUASAR TARGET SELECTION FOR DATA RELEASE NINE

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ross, Nicholas P.; Kirkpatrick, Jessica A.; Carithers, William C.; Ho, Shirley [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Myers, Adam D. [Department of Astronomy, MC-221, University of Illinois, 1002 West Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801 (United States); Sheldon, Erin S. [Brookhaven National Laboratory, Blgd 510, Upton, NY 11375 (United States); Yeche, Christophe; Aubourg, Eric [CEA, Centre de Saclay, IRFU, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette (France); Strauss, Michael A.; Lee, Khee-Gan [Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States); Bovy, Jo; Blanton, Michael R.; Hogg, David W. [Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 (United States); Richards, Gordon T. [Department of Physics, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States); Brandt, W. N. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Croft, Rupert A. C. [Bruce and Astrid McWilliams Center for Cosmology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (United States); Da Silva, Robert [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States); Dawson, Kyle [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, UT (United States); Eisenstein, Daniel J. [Steward Observatory, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States); Hennawi, Joseph F., E-mail: npross@lbl.gov [Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astronomie, Konigstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg (Germany); and others

2012-03-01

The SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), a five-year spectroscopic survey of 10,000 deg{sup 2}, achieved first light in late 2009. One of the key goals of BOSS is to measure the signature of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) in the distribution of Ly{alpha} absorption from the spectra of a sample of {approx}150,000 z > 2.2 quasars. Along with measuring the angular diameter distance at z Almost-Equal-To 2.5, BOSS will provide the first direct measurement of the expansion rate of the universe at z > 2. One of the biggest challenges in achieving this goal is an efficient target selection algorithm for quasars in the redshift range 2.2 < z < 3.5, where their colors tend to overlap those of the far more numerous stars. During the first year of the BOSS survey, quasar target selection (QTS) methods were developed and tested to meet the requirement of delivering at least 15 quasars deg{sup -2} in this redshift range, with a goal of 20 out of 40 targets deg{sup -2} allocated to the quasar survey. To achieve these surface densities, the magnitude limit of the quasar targets was set at g {<=} 22.0 or r {<=} 21.85. While detection of the BAO signature in the distribution of Ly{alpha} absorption in quasar spectra does not require a uniform target selection algorithm, many other astrophysical studies do. We have therefore defined a uniformly selected subsample of 20 targets deg{sup -2}, for which the selection efficiency is just over 50% ({approx}10 z > 2.20 quasars deg{sup -2}). This 'CORE' subsample will be fixed for Years Two through Five of the survey. For the remaining 20 targets deg{sup -2}, we will continue to develop improved selection techniques, including the use of additional data sets beyond the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging data. In this paper, we describe the evolution and implementation of the BOSS QTS algorithms during the first two years of BOSS operations (through 2011 July), in support of the science investigations

Measurements of the Rate of Type Ia Supernovae at Redshift z < ~0.3 from the SDSS-II Supernova Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dilday, Benjamin; /Rutgers U., Piscataway /Chicago U. /KICP, Chicago; Smith, Mathew; /Cape Town U., Dept. Math. /Portsmouth U.; Bassett, Bruce; /Cape Town U., Dept. Math. /South African Astron. Observ.; Becker, Andrew; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Bender, Ralf; /Munich, Tech. U. /Munich U. Observ.; Castander, Francisco; /Barcelona, IEEC; Cinabro, David; /Wayne State U.; Filippenko, Alexei V.; /UC, Berkeley; Frieman, Joshua A.; /Chicago U. /Fermilab; Galbany, Lluis; /Barcelona, IFAE; Garnavich, Peter M.; /Notre Dame U. /Stockholm U., OKC /Stockholm U.

2010-01-01

We present a measurement of the volumetric Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) rate based on data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II (SDSS-II) Supernova Survey. The adopted sample of supernovae (SNe) includes 516 SNe Ia at redshift z {approx}< 0.3, of which 270 (52%) are spectroscopically identified as SNe Ia. The remaining 246 SNe Ia were identified through their light curves; 113 of these objects have spectroscopic redshifts from spectra of their host galaxy, and 133 have photometric redshifts estimated from the SN light curves. Based on consideration of 87 spectroscopically confirmed non-Ia SNe discovered by the SDSS-II SN Survey, we estimate that 2.04{sub -0.95}{sup +1.61}% of the photometric SNe Ia may be misidentified. The sample of SNe Ia used in this measurement represents an order of magnitude increase in the statistics for SN Ia rate measurements in the redshift range covered by the SDSS-II Supernova Survey. If we assume a SN Ia rate that is constant at low redshift (z < 0.15), then the SN observations can be used to infer a value of the SN rate of r{sub V} = (2.69{sub -0.30-0.01}{sup +0.34+0.21}) x 10{sup -5} SNe yr{sup -1} Mpc{sup -3} (H{sub 0}/(70 km s{sup -1} Mpc{sup -1})){sup 3} at a mean redshift of {approx} 0.12, based on 79 SNe Ia of which 72 are spectroscopically confirmed. However, the large sample of SNe Ia included in this study allows us to place constraints on the redshift dependence of the SN Ia rate based on the SDSS-II Supernova Survey data alone. Fitting a power-law model of the SN rate evolution, r{sub V} (z) = A{sub p} x ((1+z)/(1+z{sub 0})){sup {nu}}, over the redshift range 0.0 < z < 0.3 with z{sub 0} = 0.21, results in A{sub p} = (3.43{sub -0.15}{sup +0.15}) x 10{sup -5} SNe yr{sup -1} Mpc{sup -3} (H{sub 0}/(70 km s{sup -1} Mpc{sup -1})){sup 3} and {nu} = 2.04{sub -0.89}{sup +0.90}.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: Clusters of galaxies in SDSS-III (Wen+, 2012)

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Z. L.; Han, J. L.; Liu, F. S.

2012-06-01

Wen et al. (2009, Cat. J/ApJS/183/197) identified 39668 galaxy clusters from the SDSS DR6 by the discrimination of member galaxies of clusters using photometric redshifts of galaxies. Wen & Han (2011ApJ...734...68W) improved the method and successfully identified the high-redshift clusters from the deep fields of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) Wide survey, the CHFT Deep survey, the Cosmic Evolution Survey, and the Spitzer Wide-area InfraRed Extragalactic survey. Here, we follow and improve the algorithm to identify clusters from SDSS-III (SDSS Data Release 8; Aihara et al. 2011ApJS..193...29A, see Cat. II/306). (1 data file).

Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Calibration of redMaGiC Redshift Distributions in DES and SDSS from Cross-Correlations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cawthon, R.; et al.

2017-12-19

We present calibrations of the redshift distributions of redMaGiC galaxies in the Dark Energy Survey Year 1 (DES Y1) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR8 data. These results determine the priors of the redshift distribution of redMaGiC galaxies, which were used for galaxy clustering measurements and as lenses for galaxy-galaxy lensing measurements in DES Y1 cosmological analyses. We empirically determine the bias in redMaGiC photometric redshift estimates using angular cross-correlations with Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) galaxies. For DES, we calibrate a single parameter redshift bias in three photometric redshift bins: $z \\in[0.15,0.3]$, [0.3,0.45], and [0.45,0.6]. Our best fit results in each bin give photometric redshift biases of $|\\Delta z|<0.01$. To further test the redMaGiC algorithm, we apply our calibration procedure to SDSS redMaGiC galaxies, where the statistical precision of the cross-correlation measurement is much higher due to a greater overlap with BOSS galaxies. For SDSS, we also find best fit results of $|\\Delta z|<0.01$. We compare our results to other analyses of redMaGiC photometric redshifts.

GOALS, STRATEGIES AND FIRST DISCOVERIES OF AO327, THE ARECIBO ALL-SKY 327 MHz DRIFT PULSAR SURVEY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Deneva, J. S. [Arecibo Observatory, HC3 Box 53995, Arecibo, PR 00612 (United States); Stovall, K.; Martinez, J. G.; Jenet, F. [Center for Advanced Radio Astronomy, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Texas at Brownsville, Brownsville, TX 78520 (United States); McLaughlin, M. A.; Bates, S. D.; Bagchi, M. [Department of Physics, West Virginia University, 111 White Hall, Morgantown, WV 26506 (United States); Freire, P. C. C. [Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, D-53121 Bonn (Germany)

2013-09-20

We report initial results from AO327, a drift survey for pulsars with the Arecibo telescope at 327 MHz. The first phase of AO327 will cover the sky at declinations of –1° to 28°, excluding the region within 5° of the Galactic plane, where high scattering and dispersion make low-frequency surveys sub-optimal. We record data from a 57 MHz bandwidth with 1024 channels and 125 μs sampling time. The 60 s transit time through the AO327 beam means that the survey is sensitive to very tight relativistic binaries even with no acceleration searches. To date we have detected 44 known pulsars with periods ranging from 3 ms to 2.21 s and discovered 24 new pulsars. The new discoveries include 3 ms pulsars, three objects with periods of a few tens of milliseconds typical of young as well as mildly recycled pulsars, a nuller, and a rotating radio transient. Five of the new discoveries are in binary systems. The second phase of AO327 will cover the sky at declinations of 28°-38°. We compare the sensitivity and search volume of AO327 to the Green Bank North Celestial Cap survey and the GBT350 drift survey, both of which operate at 350 MHz.

The Data Reduction Pipeline for the SDSS-IV MaNGA IFU Galaxy Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Law, David R.; Cherinka, Brian; Yan, Renbin; Andrews, Brett H.; Bershady, Matthew A.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Blanton, Michael R.; Bolton, Adam S.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bundy, Kevin; Chen, Yanmei; Drory, Niv; D'Souza, Richard; Fu, Hai; Jones, Amy; Kauffmann, Guinevere; MacDonald, Nicholas; Masters, Karen L.; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Parejko, John K.; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Sánchez, Sebastian F.; Schlegel, David J.; Thomas, Daniel; Wake, David A.; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Westfall, Kyle B.; Zhang, Kai

2016-10-01

Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) is an optical fiber-bundle integral-field unit (IFU) spectroscopic survey that is one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV). With a spectral coverage of 3622-10354 Å and an average footprint of ˜500 arcsec2 per IFU the scientific data products derived from MaNGA will permit exploration of the internal structure of a statistically large sample of 10,000 low-redshift galaxies in unprecedented detail. Comprising 174 individually pluggable science and calibration IFUs with a near-constant data stream, MaNGA is expected to obtain ˜100 million raw-frame spectra and ˜10 million reduced galaxy spectra over the six-year lifetime of the survey. In this contribution, we describe the MaNGA Data Reduction Pipeline algorithms and centralized metadata framework that produce sky-subtracted spectrophotometrically calibrated spectra and rectified three-dimensional data cubes that combine individual dithered observations. For the 1390 galaxy data cubes released in Summer 2016 as part of SDSS-IV Data Release 13, we demonstrate that the MaNGA data have nearly Poisson-limited sky subtraction shortward of ˜8500 Å and reach a typical 10σ limiting continuum surface brightness μ = 23.5 AB arcsec-2 in a five-arcsecond-diameter aperture in the g-band. The wavelength calibration of the MaNGA data is accurate to 5 km s-1 rms, with a median spatial resolution of 2.54 arcsec FWHM (1.8 kpc at the median redshift of 0.037) and a median spectral resolution of σ = 72 km s-1.

THE DATA REDUCTION PIPELINE FOR THE SDSS-IV MaNGA IFU GALAXY SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Law, David R.; Cherinka, Brian; Yan, Renbin; Andrews, Brett H.; Bershady, Matthew A.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Blanton, Michael R.; Bolton, Adam S.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bundy, Kevin; Chen, Yanmei; Drory, Niv; D’Souza, Richard; Jones, Amy; Kauffmann, Guinevere; Fu, Hai

2016-01-01

Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) is an optical fiber-bundle integral-field unit (IFU) spectroscopic survey that is one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV). With a spectral coverage of 3622–10354 Å and an average footprint of ∼500 arcsec 2 per IFU the scientific data products derived from MaNGA will permit exploration of the internal structure of a statistically large sample of 10,000 low-redshift galaxies in unprecedented detail. Comprising 174 individually pluggable science and calibration IFUs with a near-constant data stream, MaNGA is expected to obtain ∼100 million raw-frame spectra and ∼10 million reduced galaxy spectra over the six-year lifetime of the survey. In this contribution, we describe the MaNGA Data Reduction Pipeline algorithms and centralized metadata framework that produce sky-subtracted spectrophotometrically calibrated spectra and rectified three-dimensional data cubes that combine individual dithered observations. For the 1390 galaxy data cubes released in Summer 2016 as part of SDSS-IV Data Release 13, we demonstrate that the MaNGA data have nearly Poisson-limited sky subtraction shortward of ∼8500 Å and reach a typical 10 σ limiting continuum surface brightness μ  = 23.5 AB arcsec −2 in a five-arcsecond-diameter aperture in the g -band. The wavelength calibration of the MaNGA data is accurate to 5 km s −1 rms, with a median spatial resolution of 2.54 arcsec FWHM (1.8 kpc at the median redshift of 0.037) and a median spectral resolution of σ  = 72 km s −1 .

The distributed development environment for SDSS software

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berman, E.; Gurbani, V.; Mackinnon, B.; Newberg, H. Nicinski, T.; Petravick, D.; Pordes, R.; Sergey, G.; Stoughton, C.; Lupton, R.

1994-04-01

The authors present an integrated science software development environment, code maintenance and support system for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) now being actively used throughout the collaboration

Cosmological parameters from SDSS and WMAP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tegmark, Max; Strauss, Michael A.; Bahcall, Neta A.; Schlegel, David; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Gunn, James E.; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Seljak, Uros; Ivezic, Zeljko; Knapp, Gillian R.; Lupton, Robert H.; Blanton, Michael R.; Scoccimarro, Roman; Hogg, David W.; Abazajian, Kevork; Xu Yongzhong; Dodelson, Scott; Sandvik, Havard; Wang Xiaomin; Jain, Bhuvnesh

2004-01-01

We measure cosmological parameters using the three-dimensional power spectrum P(k) from over 200 000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in combination with Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and other data. Our results are consistent with a 'vanilla' flat adiabatic cold dark matter model with a cosmological constant without tilt (n s =1), running tilt, tensor modes, or massive neutrinos. Adding SDSS information more than halves the WMAP-only error bars on some parameters, tightening 1σ constraints on the Hubble parameter from h≅0.74 -0.07 +0.18 to h≅0.70 -0.03 +0.04 , on the matter density from Ω m ≅0.25±0.10 to Ω m ≅0.30±0.04 (1σ) and on neutrino masses from 0 ≅16.3 -1.8 +2.3 Gyr to t 0 ≅14.1 -0.9 +1.0 Gyr by adding SDSS and SN Ia data. Including tensors, running tilt, neutrino mass and equation of state in the list of free parameters, many constraints are still quite weak, but future cosmological measurements from SDSS and other sources should allow these to be substantially tightened

PHOTOMETRIC TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA CANDIDATES FROM THE THREE-YEAR SDSS-II SN SURVEY DATA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sako, Masao; Connolly, Brian; Gladney, Larry; Bassett, Bruce; Dilday, Benjamin; Cambell, Heather; Lampeitl, Hubert; Nichol, Robert C.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Kessler, Richard; Marriner, John; Miquel, Ramon; Schneider, Donald P.; Smith, Mathew; Sollerman, Jesper

2011-01-01

We analyze the three-year Sloan Digital Sky Survey II (SDSS-II) Supernova (SN) Survey data and identify a sample of 1070 photometric Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) candidates based on their multiband light curve data. This sample consists of SN candidates with no spectroscopic confirmation, with a subset of 210 candidates having spectroscopic redshifts of their host galaxies measured while the remaining 860 candidates are purely photometric in their identification. We describe a method for estimating the efficiency and purity of photometric SN Ia classification when spectroscopic confirmation of only a limited sample is available, and demonstrate that SN Ia candidates from SDSS-II can be identified photometrically with ∼91% efficiency and with a contamination of ∼6%. Although this is the largest uniform sample of SN candidates to date for studying photometric identification, we find that a larger spectroscopic sample of contaminating sources is required to obtain a better characterization of the background events. A Hubble diagram using SN candidates with no spectroscopic confirmation, but with host galaxy spectroscopic redshifts, yields a distance modulus dispersion that is only ∼20%-40% larger than that of the spectroscopically confirmed SN Ia sample alone with no significant bias. A Hubble diagram with purely photometric classification and redshift-distance measurements, however, exhibits biases that require further investigation for precision cosmology.

Photometric type Ia supernova candidates from the three-year SDSS-II SN survey data

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sako, Masao; /Pennsylvania U.; Bassett, Bruce; /South African Astron. Observ. /Cape Town U., Dept. Math.; Connolly, Brian; /Pennsylvania U.; Dilday, Benjamin; /Las Cumbres Observ. /UC, Santa Barbara /Rutgers U., Piscataway; Cambell, Heather; /Portsmouth U., ICG; Frieman, Joshua A.; /Chicago U. /Chicago U., KICP /Fermilab; Gladney, Larry; /Pennsylvania U.; Kessler, Richard; /Chicago U. /Chicago U., KICP; Lampeitl, Hubert; /Portsmouth U., ICG; Marriner, John; /Fermilab; Miquel, Ramon; /Barcelona, IFAE /ICREA, Barcelona /Portsmouth U., ICG

2011-07-01

We analyze the three-year Sloan Digital Sky Survey II (SDSS-II) Supernova (SN) Survey data and identify a sample of 1070 photometric Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) candidates based on their multiband light curve data. This sample consists of SN candidates with no spectroscopic confirmation, with a subset of 210 candidates having spectroscopic redshifts of their host galaxies measured while the remaining 860 candidates are purely photometric in their identification. We describe a method for estimating the efficiency and purity of photometric SN Ia classification when spectroscopic confirmation of only a limited sample is available, and demonstrate that SN Ia candidates from SDSS-II can be identified photometrically with {approx}91% efficiency and with a contamination of {approx}6%. Although this is the largest uniform sample of SN candidates to date for studying photometric identification, we find that a larger spectroscopic sample of contaminating sources is required to obtain a better characterization of the background events. A Hubble diagram using SN candidates with no spectroscopic confirmation, but with host galaxy spectroscopic redshifts, yields a distance modulus dispersion that is only {approx}20%-40% larger than that of the spectroscopically confirmed SN Ia sample alone with no significant bias. A Hubble diagram with purely photometric classification and redshift-distance measurements, however, exhibits biases that require further investigation for precision cosmology.

TYPE II-P SUPERNOVAE FROM THE SDSS-II SUPERNOVA SURVEY AND THE STANDARDIZED CANDLE METHOD

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

D'Andrea, Chris B.; Sako, Masao; Dilday, Benjamin; Jha, Saurabh; Frieman, Joshua A.; Kessler, Richard; Holtzman, Jon; Konishi, Kohki; Yasuda, Naoki; Schneider, D. P.; Sollerman, Jesper; Wheeler, J. Craig; Cinabro, David; Nichol, Robert C.; Lampeitl, Hubert; Smith, Mathew; Atlee, David W.; Bassett, Bruce; Castander, Francisco J.; Goobar, Ariel

2010-01-01

We apply the Standardized Candle Method (SCM) for Type II Plateau supernovae (SNe II-P), which relates the velocity of the ejecta of a SN to its luminosity during the plateau, to 15 SNe II-P discovered over the three season run of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey. The redshifts of these SNe-0.027 0.01) as all of the current literature on the SCM combined. We find that the SDSS SNe have a very small intrinsic I-band dispersion (0.22 mag), which can be attributed to selection effects. When the SCM is applied to the combined SDSS-plus-literature set of SNe II-P, the dispersion increases to 0.29 mag, larger than the scatter for either set of SNe separately. We show that the standardization cannot be further improved by eliminating SNe with positive plateau decline rates, as proposed in Poznanski et al. We thoroughly examine all potential systematic effects and conclude that for the SCM to be useful for cosmology, the methods currently used to determine the Fe II velocity at day 50 must be improved, and spectral templates able to encompass the intrinsic variations of Type II-P SNe will be needed.

A Web-based Tool for SDSS and 2MASS Database Searches

Science.gov (United States)

Hendrickson, M. A.; Uomoto, A.; Golimowski, D. A.

We have developed a web site using HTML, Php, Python, and MySQL that extracts, processes, and displays data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS). The goal is to locate brown dwarf candidates in the SDSS database by looking at color cuts; however, this site could also be useful for targeted searches of other databases as well. MySQL databases are created from broad searches of SDSS and 2MASS data. Broad queries on the SDSS and 2MASS database servers are run weekly so that observers have the most up-to-date information from which to select candidates for observation. Observers can look at detailed information about specific objects including finding charts, images, and available spectra. In addition, updates from previous observations can be added by any collaborators; this format makes observational collaboration simple. Observers can also restrict the database search, just before or during an observing run, to select objects of special interest.

Mock Quasar-Lyman-α forest data-sets for the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bautista, Julian E.; Busca, Nicolas G. [APC, Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7, CNRS/IN2P3, CEA, Observatoire de Paris, 10, rue A. Domon and L. Duquet, Paris (France); Bailey, Stephen; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Schlegel, David [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA (United States); Pieri, Matthew M. [Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, LAM (Laboratoire d' Astrophysique de Marseille) UMR 7326, 38 rue Frédéric Joliot-Curie, 13388, Marseille (France); Miralda-Escudé, Jordi; Gontcho, Satya Gontcho A. [Institut de Ciències del Cosmos, Universitat de Barcelona/IEEC, 1 Martí i Franquès, Barcelona 08028, Catalonia (Spain); Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Rich, James; Goff, Jean Marc Le [CEA, Centre de Saclay, Irfu/SPP, D128, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette (France); Dawson, Kyle [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, 115 S 100 E, RM 201, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Feng, Yu; Ho, Shirley [McWilliams Center for Cosmology, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213 (United States); Ge, Jian [Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, 211 Bryant Space Science Center, Gainesville, FL 32611-2055 (United States); Noterdaeme, Pasquier; Pâris, Isabelle [Université Paris 6 et CNRS, Institut d' Astrophysique de Paris, 98bis blvd. Arago, 75014 Paris (France); Rossi, Graziano, E-mail: bautista@astro.utah.edu [Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Sejong University, 209 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, 143-747 (Korea, Republic of)

2015-05-01

We describe mock data-sets generated to simulate the high-redshift quasar sample in Data Release 11 (DR11) of the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). The mock spectra contain Lyα forest correlations useful for studying the 3D correlation function including Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO). They also include astrophysical effects such as quasar continuum diversity and high-density absorbers, instrumental effects such as noise and spectral resolution, as well as imperfections introduced by the SDSS pipeline treatment of the raw data. The Lyα forest BAO analysis of the BOSS collaboration, described in Delubac et al. 2014, has used these mock data-sets to develop and cross-check analysis procedures prior to performing the BAO analysis on real data, and for continued systematic cross checks. Tests presented here show that the simulations reproduce sufficiently well important characteristics of real spectra. These mock data-sets will be made available together with the data at the time of the Data Release 11.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: Quasars narrow absorption lines from SDSS (Chen+, 2015)

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Z.-F.; Gu, Q.-S.; Chen, Y.-M.; Cao, Y.

2017-11-01

The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS: Eisenstein et al. 2011AJ....142...72E; Paris et al. 2012, Cat. VII/269) is the main dark-time legacy survey of the third stage of the SDSS, which used the same 2.5-m telescope (Gunn et al. 2006AJ....131.2332G; Ross et al. 2012, J/ApJS/199/3) as the first and second stages of the SDSS (hereafter SDSS-I/II). SDSS-I/II spectra have a wavelength coverage from 3800-9200Å with a spectral resolution of 1800-2200 (e.g. York et al. 2000AJ....120.1579Y). BOSS spectra span a range from 3600-10500Å at a resolution of 1300-2500 (Paris et al. 2012, Cat. VII/269). During the first two years, BOSS detected 87822 quasars over an area of 3275 deg2, including 7932 quasars that were observed by SDSS-I/II as well. Quasars observed by both SDSS-I/II and BOSS provide a remarkable chance to study the variabilities of absorption lines in a large population. Throughout this work, we take the quasar emission redshifts provided by Hewett & Wild (2010, J/MNRAS/405/2302, http://das.sdss.org/va/HewettWilddr7qso_newz/) directly. (2 data files).

VizieR Online Data Catalog: The SDSS Photometric Catalogue, Release 12 (Alam+, 2015)

Science.gov (United States)

Alam, S.; et al.

2016-03-01

Data Release 12 (DR12) is the final data release of the SDSS-III, containing all SDSS observations through July 2014. It includes the complete dataset of the BOSS and APOGEE surveys, and also newly includes stellar radial velocity measurements from MARVELS. The principal changes from previous versions are summarized at http://www.sdss.org/dr12/whatsnew/ (1 data file).

THE DATA REDUCTION PIPELINE FOR THE SDSS-IV MaNGA IFU GALAXY SURVEY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Law, David R. [Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Cherinka, Brian [Center for Astrophysical Sciences, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Yan, Renbin [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, 505 Rose Street, Lexington, KY 40506-0055 (United States); Andrews, Brett H. [Department of Physics and Astronomy and PITT PACC, University of Pittsburgh, 3941 O’Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (United States); Bershady, Matthew A. [Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 475 N. Charter Street, Madison, WI 53706 (United States); Bizyaev, Dmitry [Apache Point Observatory, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM 88349 (United States); Blanc, Guillermo A. [Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, Camino del Observatorio 1515, Las Condes, Santiago (Chile); Blanton, Michael R. [Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 (United States); Bolton, Adam S.; Brownstein, Joel R. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, 115 S 1400 E, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Bundy, Kevin [Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the universe, Todai Institutes for Advanced Study, the University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, 277-8583 (Kavli IPMU, WPI) (Japan); Chen, Yanmei [School of Astronomy and Space Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093 (China); Drory, Niv [McDonald Observatory, Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, Austin, TX 78712-0259 (United States); D’Souza, Richard; Jones, Amy; Kauffmann, Guinevere [Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, D-85748 Garching (Germany); Fu, Hai, E-mail: dlaw@stsci.edu [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 (United States); and others

2016-10-01

Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) is an optical fiber-bundle integral-field unit (IFU) spectroscopic survey that is one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV). With a spectral coverage of 3622–10354 Å and an average footprint of ∼500 arcsec{sup 2} per IFU the scientific data products derived from MaNGA will permit exploration of the internal structure of a statistically large sample of 10,000 low-redshift galaxies in unprecedented detail. Comprising 174 individually pluggable science and calibration IFUs with a near-constant data stream, MaNGA is expected to obtain ∼100 million raw-frame spectra and ∼10 million reduced galaxy spectra over the six-year lifetime of the survey. In this contribution, we describe the MaNGA Data Reduction Pipeline algorithms and centralized metadata framework that produce sky-subtracted spectrophotometrically calibrated spectra and rectified three-dimensional data cubes that combine individual dithered observations. For the 1390 galaxy data cubes released in Summer 2016 as part of SDSS-IV Data Release 13, we demonstrate that the MaNGA data have nearly Poisson-limited sky subtraction shortward of ∼8500 Å and reach a typical 10 σ limiting continuum surface brightness μ  = 23.5 AB arcsec{sup −2} in a five-arcsecond-diameter aperture in the g -band. The wavelength calibration of the MaNGA data is accurate to 5 km s{sup −1} rms, with a median spatial resolution of 2.54 arcsec FWHM (1.8 kpc at the median redshift of 0.037) and a median spectral resolution of σ  = 72 km s{sup −1}.

NO CONFIRMED NEW ISOLATED NEUTRON STARS IN THE SDSS DATA RELEASE 4

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Agueeros, Marcel A.; Newsom, Emily R.; Posselt, Bettina; Anderson, Scott F.; Rosenfield, Philip; Homer, Lee; Haberl, Frank; Voges, Wolfgang; Margon, Bruce

2011-01-01

We report on follow-up observations of candidate X-ray-bright, radio-quiet isolated neutron stars (INSs) identified from correlations of the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 4 in Agueeros et al. We obtained Chandra X-ray Observatory exposures for 13 candidates in order to pinpoint the source of X-ray emission in optically blank RASS error circles. These observations eliminated 12 targets as good INS candidates. We discuss subsequent observations of the remaining candidate with XMM-Newton, the Gemini North Observatory, and the Apache Point Observatory. We identify this object as a likely extragalactic source with an unusually high log (f X /f opt ) ∼ 2.4. We also use an updated version of the population synthesis models of Popov et al. to estimate the number of RASS-detected INSs in the SDSS Data Release 7 footprint. We find that these models predict ∼3-4 INSs in the 11,000 deg 2 imaged by SDSS, which is consistent with the number of known INSs that fall within the survey footprint. In addition, our analysis of the four new INS candidates identified in the SDSS footprint implies that they are unlikely to be confirmed as INSs; together, these results suggest that new INSs are not likely to be found from further correlations of the RASS and SDSS.

Exploring the Milky Way halo with SDSS-II SN survey RR Lyrae stars

Science.gov (United States)

De Lee, Nathan

This thesis details the creation of a large catalog of RR Lyrae stars, their lightcurves, and their associated photometric and kinematic parameters. This catalog contains 421 RR Lyrae stars with 305 RRab and 116 RRc. Of these, 241 stars have stellar spectra taken with either the Blanco 4m RC spectrograph or the SDSS/SEGUE survey, and in some cases taken by both. From these spectra and photometric methods derived from them, an analysis is conducted of the RR lyrae's distribution, metallicity, kinematics, and photometric properties within the halo. All of these RR Lyrae originate from the SDSS-II Supernova Survey. The SDSS-II SN Survey covers a 2.5 degree equatorial stripe ranging from -60 to +60 degrees in RA. This corresponds to relatively high southern galactic latitudes in the anti-center direction. The full catalog ranges from g 0 magnitude 13 to 20 which covers a distance of 3 to 95 kpc from the sun. Using this sample, we explore the Oosterhoff dichotomy through the D log P method as a function of | Z | distance from the plane. This results in a clear division of the RRab stars into OoI and OoII groups at lower | Z |, but the population becomes dominated by OoI stars at higher | Z |. The idea of a dual halo is explored primarily in the context of radial velocity distributions as a function of | Z |. In particular, V gsr , the radial velocity in the galactic standard of rest, is used as a proxy for V [straight phi] , the cylindrical rotational velocity. This is then compared against a single halo model galaxy, which results in very similar V gsr histograms for both at low to medium | Z |. However, at high | Z | there is a clear separation into two distinct velocity groups for the data without a corresponding separation in the model, suggesting that at least a two-component model for the halo is necessary. The final part of the analysis involves [Fe/H] measurements from both spectra and photometric relations cut in both | Z | and radial velocity. In this case

THE LICK/SDSS LIBRARY. I. SYNTHETIC INDEX DEFINITION AND CALIBRATION

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Franchini, M.; Morossi, C.; Di Marcantonio, P.; Malagnini, M. L.; Chavez, M.

2010-01-01

A new synthetic library of spectral feature indices, Lick/Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), for stellar population studies is presented. Lick/SDSS is computed from synthetic spectra with resolving power R = 1800 to fully exploit the content of the spectroscopic SDSS-DR7 stellar database. The Lick/SDSS system is based on the Lick/IDS one complemented with a UV index in the wavelength region of Ca II H and K lines. The system is well suited to study α-element abundances in F, G, and K stars. The reliability of synthetic indices in reproducing the behaviors of observational ones with effective temperature, surface gravity, overall metallicity, and α-element abundances is tested by using empirical stellar libraries (ELODIE, INDO-U.S., and MILES) and the SDSS-DR7 spectroscopic database. The importance of using the same temperature scale in comparing theoretical and observational indices is discussed. The full consistency between Lick/SDSS and observational indices derived from the above mentioned stellar libraries is assessed. The comparison with indices computed from SDSS-DR7 spectra evidences good consistency for 'dwarf' stars and significant disagreement for 'giant' stars due to systematic overestimation of the stellar T eff by the SEGUE Stellar Parameter Pipeline.

After SDSS-IV: Pioneering Panoptic Spectroscopy

Science.gov (United States)

Kollmeier, Juna; AS4 Collaboration

2018-01-01

I will describe the current plans for a next generation sky survey that will begin After SDSS-IV --- AS4. AS4 will be an unprecedented all-sky spectroscopic survey of over six million objects. It is designed to decode the history of the Milky Way galaxy, trace the emergence of the chemical elements, reveal the inner workings of stars, the growth of black holes, and investigate the origin of planets. It will provide the most comprehensive all-sky spectroscopy to multiply the science from the Gaia, TESS and eROSITA missions. AS4 will also create a contiguous spectroscopic map of the interstellar gas in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies that is 1,000 times larger than the state of the art, uncovering the self-regulation mechanisms of Galactic ecosystems. It will pioneer systematic, spectroscopic monitoring across the whole sky, revealing changes on timescales from 20 minutes to 20 years. The project is now developing new hardware to build on the SDSS-IV infrastructure, designing the detailed survey strategy, and actively seeking to complete its consortium of institutional and individual members.

SETIBURST: A Robotic, Commensal, Realtime Multi-science Backend for the Arecibo Telescope

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chennamangalam, Jayanth; Karastergiou, Aris; Williams, Christopher [Astrophysics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH (United Kingdom); MacMahon, David; Cobb, Jeff; Siemion, Andrew P. V.; Gajjar, Vishal; Werthimer, Dan [Department of Astronomy, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Rajwade, Kaustubh; Lorimer, Duncan R.; McLaughlin, Maura A. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University, P.O. Box 6315, Morgantown, WV 26506 (United States); Armour, Wes, E-mail: jayanth@astro.ox.ac.uk [Oxford e-Research Centre, University of Oxford, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3QG (United Kingdom)

2017-02-01

Radio astronomy has traditionally depended on observatories allocating time to observers for exclusive use of their telescopes. The disadvantage of this scheme is that the data thus collected is rarely used for other astronomy applications, and in many cases, is unsuitable. For example, properly calibrated pulsar search data can, with some reduction, be used for spectral line surveys. A backend that supports plugging in multiple applications to a telescope to perform commensal data analysis will vastly increase the science throughput of the facility. In this paper, we present “SETIBURST,” a robotic, commensal, realtime multi-science backend for the 305 m Arecibo Telescope. The system uses the 1.4 GHz, seven-beam Arecibo L -band Feed Array (ALFA) receiver whenever it is operated. SETIBURST currently supports two applications: SERENDIP VI, a SETI spectrometer that is conducting a search for signs of technological life, and ALFABURST, a fast transient search system that is conducting a survey of fast radio bursts (FRBs). Based on the FRB event rate and the expected usage of ALFA, we expect 0–5 FRB detections over the coming year. SETIBURST also provides the option of plugging in more applications. We outline the motivation for our instrumentation scheme and the scientific motivation of the two surveys, along with their descriptions and related discussions.

SETIBURST: A Robotic, Commensal, Realtime Multi-science Backend for the Arecibo Telescope

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chennamangalam, Jayanth; Karastergiou, Aris; Williams, Christopher; MacMahon, David; Cobb, Jeff; Siemion, Andrew P. V.; Gajjar, Vishal; Werthimer, Dan; Rajwade, Kaustubh; Lorimer, Duncan R.; McLaughlin, Maura A.; Armour, Wes

2017-01-01

Radio astronomy has traditionally depended on observatories allocating time to observers for exclusive use of their telescopes. The disadvantage of this scheme is that the data thus collected is rarely used for other astronomy applications, and in many cases, is unsuitable. For example, properly calibrated pulsar search data can, with some reduction, be used for spectral line surveys. A backend that supports plugging in multiple applications to a telescope to perform commensal data analysis will vastly increase the science throughput of the facility. In this paper, we present “SETIBURST,” a robotic, commensal, realtime multi-science backend for the 305 m Arecibo Telescope. The system uses the 1.4 GHz, seven-beam Arecibo L -band Feed Array (ALFA) receiver whenever it is operated. SETIBURST currently supports two applications: SERENDIP VI, a SETI spectrometer that is conducting a search for signs of technological life, and ALFABURST, a fast transient search system that is conducting a survey of fast radio bursts (FRBs). Based on the FRB event rate and the expected usage of ALFA, we expect 0–5 FRB detections over the coming year. SETIBURST also provides the option of plugging in more applications. We outline the motivation for our instrumentation scheme and the scientific motivation of the two surveys, along with their descriptions and related discussions.

SETIBURST: A Robotic, Commensal, Realtime Multi-science Backend for the Arecibo Telescope

Science.gov (United States)

Chennamangalam, Jayanth; MacMahon, David; Cobb, Jeff; Karastergiou, Aris; Siemion, Andrew P. V.; Rajwade, Kaustubh; Armour, Wes; Gajjar, Vishal; Lorimer, Duncan R.; McLaughlin, Maura A.; Werthimer, Dan; Williams, Christopher

2017-02-01

Radio astronomy has traditionally depended on observatories allocating time to observers for exclusive use of their telescopes. The disadvantage of this scheme is that the data thus collected is rarely used for other astronomy applications, and in many cases, is unsuitable. For example, properly calibrated pulsar search data can, with some reduction, be used for spectral line surveys. A backend that supports plugging in multiple applications to a telescope to perform commensal data analysis will vastly increase the science throughput of the facility. In this paper, we present “SETIBURST,” a robotic, commensal, realtime multi-science backend for the 305 m Arecibo Telescope. The system uses the 1.4 GHz, seven-beam Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFA) receiver whenever it is operated. SETIBURST currently supports two applications: SERENDIP VI, a SETI spectrometer that is conducting a search for signs of technological life, and ALFABURST, a fast transient search system that is conducting a survey of fast radio bursts (FRBs). Based on the FRB event rate and the expected usage of ALFA, we expect 0-5 FRB detections over the coming year. SETIBURST also provides the option of plugging in more applications. We outline the motivation for our instrumentation scheme and the scientific motivation of the two surveys, along with their descriptions and related discussions.

SDSS QUASARS IN THE WISE PRELIMINARY DATA RELEASE AND QUASAR CANDIDATE SELECTION WITH OPTICAL/INFRARED COLORS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wu Xuebing; Hao Guoqiang; Jia Zhendong; Zhang Yanxia; Peng Nanbo

2012-01-01

We present a catalog of 37,842 quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7, which have counterparts within 6'' in the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) Preliminary Data Release. The overall WISE detection rate of the SDSS quasars is 86.7%, and it decreases to less than 50.0% when the quasar magnitude is fainter than i = 20.5. We derive the median color-redshift relations based on this SDSS-WISE quasar sample and apply them to estimate the photometric redshifts of the SDSS-WISE quasars. We find that by adding the WISE W1- and W2-band data to the SDSS photometry we can increase the photometric redshift reliability, defined as the percentage of sources with photometric and spectroscopic redshift difference less than 0.2, from 70.3% to 77.2%. We also obtain the samples of WISE-detected normal and late-type stars with SDSS spectroscopy, and present a criterion in the z – W1 versus g – z color-color diagram, z – W1 > 0.66(g – z) + 2.01, to separate quasars from stars. With this criterion we can recover 98.6% of 3089 radio-detected SDSS-WISE quasars with redshifts less than four and overcome the difficulty in selecting quasars with redshifts between 2.2 and 3 from SDSS photometric data alone. We also suggest another criterion involving the WISE color only, W1 – W2 > 0.57, to efficiently separate quasars with redshifts less than 3.2 from stars. In addition, we compile a catalog of 5614 SDSS quasars detected by both WISE and UKIDSS surveys and present their color-redshift relations in the optical and infrared bands. By using the SDSS ugriz, UKIDSS, YJHK, and WISE W1- and W2-band photometric data, we can efficiently select quasar candidates and increase the photometric redshift reliability up to 87.0%. We discuss the implications of our results on the future quasar surveys. An updated SDSS-WISE quasar catalog consisting of 101,853 quasars with the recently released WISE all-sky data is also provided.

THINK OUTSIDE THE COLOR BOX: PROBABILISTIC TARGET SELECTION AND THE SDSS-XDQSO QUASAR TARGETING CATALOG

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bovy, Jo; Hogg, David W.; Weaver, Benjamin A.; Hennawi, Joseph F.; Myers, Adam D.; Kirkpatrick, Jessica A.; Schlegel, David J.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Sheldon, Erin S.; McGreer, Ian D.; Schneider, Donald P.

2011-01-01

We present the SDSS-XDQSO quasar targeting catalog for efficient flux-based quasar target selection down to the faint limit of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) catalog, even at medium redshifts (2.5 ∼ 3.5) quasar probabilities for all 160,904,060 point sources with dereddened i-band magnitude between 17.75 and 22.45 mag in the 14,555 deg 2 of imaging from SDSS Data Release 8. The catalog can be used to define a uniformly selected and efficient low- or medium-redshift quasar survey, such as that needed for the SDSS-III's Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey project. We show that the XDQSO technique performs as well as the current best photometric quasar-selection technique at low redshift, and outperforms all other flux-based methods for selecting the medium-redshift quasars of our primary interest. We make code to reproduce the XDQSO quasar target selection publicly available.

Think Outside The Color Box: Probabilistic Target Selection And The SDSS-XDQSO Quasar Targeting Catalog

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bovy, J.; Sheldon, E.; Hennawi, J.F.; Hogg, D.W.; Myers, A.D.

2011-01-01

We present the SDSS-XDQSO quasar targeting catalog for efficient flux-based quasar target selection down to the faint limit of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) catalog, even at medium redshifts (2.5 ∼ 3.5) quasar probabilities for all 160,904,060 point sources with dereddened i-band magnitude between 17.75 and 22.45 mag in the 14,555 deg 2 of imaging from SDSS Data Release 8. The catalog can be used to define a uniformly selected and efficient low- or medium-redshift quasar survey, such as that needed for the SDSS-III's Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey project. We show that the XDQSO technique performs as well as the current best photometric quasar-selection technique at low redshift, and outperforms all other flux-based methods for selecting the medium-redshift quasars of our primary interest. We make code to reproduce the XDQSO quasar target selection publicly available.

GALEX-SDSS CATALOGS FOR STATISTICAL STUDIES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Budavari, Tamas; Heinis, Sebastien; Szalay, Alexander S.; Nieto-Santisteban, Maria; Bianchi, Luciana; Gupchup, Jayant; Shiao, Bernie; Smith, Myron; Chang Ruixiang; Kauffmann, Guinevere; Morrissey, Patrick; Wyder, Ted K.; Martin, D. Christopher; Barlow, Tom A.; Forster, Karl; Friedman, Peter G.; Schiminovich, David; Milliard, Bruno; Donas, Jose; Seibert, Mark

2009-01-01

We present a detailed study of the Galaxy Evolution Explorer's (GALEX) photometric catalogs with special focus on the statistical properties of the All-sky and Medium Imaging Surveys. We introduce the concept of primaries to resolve the issue of multiple detections and follow a geometric approach to define clean catalogs with well understood selection functions. We cross-identify the GALEX sources (GR2+3) with Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; DR6) observations, which indirectly provides an invaluable insight into the astrometric model of the UV sources and allows us to revise the band merging strategy. We derive the formal description of the GALEX footprints as well as their intersections with the SDSS coverage along with analytic calculations of their areal coverage. The crossmatch catalogs are made available for the public. We conclude by illustrating the implementation of typical selection criteria in SQL for catalog subsets geared toward statistical analyses, e.g., correlation and luminosity function studies.

The neutral thermosphere at Arecibo during geomagnetic storms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Burnside, R.G.; Tepley, C.A.; Sulzer, M.P.; Fuller-Rowell, T.J.; Torr, D.G.; Roble, R.G.

1991-01-01

Over the past five years, simultaneous incoherent scatter and optical observations have been obtained at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, during two major geomagnetic storms. The first storm the authors examine occurred during the World Day campaign of 12-16 January 1988, where on 14 January 1988, Kp values greater than 7 were recorded. An ion-energy balance calculation shows that atomic oxygen densities at a fixed height on 14 January 1988 were about twice as large as they were on the quiet days in this period. Simultaneous radar and Fabry-Perot interferometer observations were used to infer nightime O densities on 14-15 January 1988 that were about twice as large as on adjacent quiet nights. On this night, unusually high westward ion velocities were observed at Arecibo. The Fabry-Perot measurements show that the normal eastward flow of the neutral wind was reversed on this night. The second storm they examine occured on the night of 13-14 July 1985, when Kp values reached only 4+, but the ionosphere and thermosphere responded in a similar manner as they did in January 1988. On the nights of both 13-14 July 1985 and 14-15 January 1988, the electron densities observed at Arecibo were significantly higher than they were on nearby geomagnetically quiet nights. These results indicate that major storm effects in thermospheric winds and composition propagate to low latitudes and have a pronounced effect on the ionospheric structure over Arecibo

PHOTOMETRIC SUPERNOVA COSMOLOGY WITH BEAMS AND SDSS-II

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hlozek, Renee [Oxford Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3RH (United Kingdom); Kunz, Martin [Department de physique theorique, Universite de Geneve, 30, quai Ernest-Ansermet, CH-1211 Geneve 4 (Switzerland); Bassett, Bruce; Smith, Mat; Newling, James [African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, 68 Melrose Road, Muizenberg 7945 (South Africa); Varughese, Melvin [Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, Cape Town, 7700 (South Africa); Kessler, Rick; Frieman, Joshua [The Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, The University of Chicago, 933 East 56th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 (United States); Bernstein, Joseph P.; Kuhlmann, Steve; Marriner, John [Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439 (United States); Campbell, Heather; Lampeitl, Hubert; Nichol, Robert C. [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, Dennis Sciama Building Burnaby Road Portsmouth PO1 3FX (United Kingdom); Dilday, Ben [Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, 6740 Cortona Drive, Suite 102, Goleta, CA 93117 (United States); Falck, Bridget; Riess, Adam G. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Sako, Masao [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, 203 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States); Schneider, Donald P., E-mail: rhlozek@astro.princeton.edu [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)

2012-06-20

Supernova (SN) cosmology without spectroscopic confirmation is an exciting new frontier, which we address here with the Bayesian Estimation Applied to Multiple Species (BEAMS) algorithm and the full three years of data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II Supernova Survey (SDSS-II SN). BEAMS is a Bayesian framework for using data from multiple species in statistical inference when one has the probability that each data point belongs to a given species, corresponding in this context to different types of SNe with their probabilities derived from their multi-band light curves. We run the BEAMS algorithm on both Gaussian and more realistic SNANA simulations with of order 10{sup 4} SNe, testing the algorithm against various pitfalls one might expect in the new and somewhat uncharted territory of photometric SN cosmology. We compare the performance of BEAMS to that of both mock spectroscopic surveys and photometric samples that have been cut using typical selection criteria. The latter typically either are biased due to contamination or have significantly larger contours in the cosmological parameters due to small data sets. We then apply BEAMS to the 792 SDSS-II photometric SNe with host spectroscopic redshifts. In this case, BEAMS reduces the area of the {Omega}{sub m}, {Omega}{sub {Lambda}} contours by a factor of three relative to the case where only spectroscopically confirmed data are used (297 SNe). In the case of flatness, the constraints obtained on the matter density applying BEAMS to the photometric SDSS-II data are {Omega}{sup BEAMS}{sub m} = 0.194 {+-} 0.07. This illustrates the potential power of BEAMS for future large photometric SN surveys such as Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

PHOTOMETRIC SUPERNOVA COSMOLOGY WITH BEAMS AND SDSS-II

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hlozek, Renée; Kunz, Martin; Bassett, Bruce; Smith, Mat; Newling, James; Varughese, Melvin; Kessler, Rick; Frieman, Joshua; Bernstein, Joseph P.; Kuhlmann, Steve; Marriner, John; Campbell, Heather; Lampeitl, Hubert; Nichol, Robert C.; Dilday, Ben; Falck, Bridget; Riess, Adam G.; Sako, Masao; Schneider, Donald P.

2012-01-01

Supernova (SN) cosmology without spectroscopic confirmation is an exciting new frontier, which we address here with the Bayesian Estimation Applied to Multiple Species (BEAMS) algorithm and the full three years of data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II Supernova Survey (SDSS-II SN). BEAMS is a Bayesian framework for using data from multiple species in statistical inference when one has the probability that each data point belongs to a given species, corresponding in this context to different types of SNe with their probabilities derived from their multi-band light curves. We run the BEAMS algorithm on both Gaussian and more realistic SNANA simulations with of order 10 4 SNe, testing the algorithm against various pitfalls one might expect in the new and somewhat uncharted territory of photometric SN cosmology. We compare the performance of BEAMS to that of both mock spectroscopic surveys and photometric samples that have been cut using typical selection criteria. The latter typically either are biased due to contamination or have significantly larger contours in the cosmological parameters due to small data sets. We then apply BEAMS to the 792 SDSS-II photometric SNe with host spectroscopic redshifts. In this case, BEAMS reduces the area of the Ω m , Ω Λ contours by a factor of three relative to the case where only spectroscopically confirmed data are used (297 SNe). In the case of flatness, the constraints obtained on the matter density applying BEAMS to the photometric SDSS-II data are Ω BEAMS m = 0.194 ± 0.07. This illustrates the potential power of BEAMS for future large photometric SN surveys such as Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

OVERVIEW OF THE SDSS-IV MaNGA SURVEY: MAPPING NEARBY GALAXIES AT APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bundy, Kevin [Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), Todai Institutes for Advanced Study, the University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-8583 (Japan); Bershady, Matthew A.; Wake, David A.; Tremonti, Christy; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M. [Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 475 North Charter Street, Madison, WI 53706 (United States); Law, David R.; Cherinka, Brian [Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H4 (Canada); Yan, Renbin; Sánchez-Gallego, José R. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, 505 Rose Street, Lexington, KY 40506-0055 (United States); Drory, Niv [McDonald Observatory, Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, Austin, TX 78712-0259 (United States); MacDonald, Nicholas [Department of Astronomy, Box 351580, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Weijmans, Anne-Marie [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews KY16 9SS (United Kingdom); Thomas, Daniel; Masters, Karen; Coccato, Lodovico [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth (United Kingdom); Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD (United Kingdom); Avila-Reese, Vladimir [Instituto de Astronomia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, A.P. 70-264, 04510 Mexico D.F. (Mexico); Badenes, Carles [Department of Physics and Astronomy and Pittsburgh Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology Center (PITT PACC), University of Pittsburgh, 3941 OHara St, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (United States); Falcón-Barroso, Jésus [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain); Belfiore, Francesco [Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 19 J. J. Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE (United Kingdom); and others

2015-01-01

We present an overview of a new integral field spectroscopic survey called MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory), one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) that began on 2014 July 1. MaNGA will investigate the internal kinematic structure and composition of gas and stars in an unprecedented sample of 10,000 nearby galaxies. We summarize essential characteristics of the instrument and survey design in the context of MaNGA's key science goals and present prototype observations to demonstrate MaNGA's scientific potential. MaNGA employs dithered observations with 17 fiber-bundle integral field units that vary in diameter from 12'' (19 fibers) to 32'' (127 fibers). Two dual-channel spectrographs provide simultaneous wavelength coverage over 3600-10300 Å at R ∼ 2000. With a typical integration time of 3 hr, MaNGA reaches a target r-band signal-to-noise ratio of 4-8 (Å{sup –1} per 2'' fiber) at 23 AB mag arcsec{sup –2}, which is typical for the outskirts of MaNGA galaxies. Targets are selected with M {sub *} ≳ 10{sup 9} M {sub ☉} using SDSS-I redshifts and i-band luminosity to achieve uniform radial coverage in terms of the effective radius, an approximately flat distribution in stellar mass, and a sample spanning a wide range of environments. Analysis of our prototype observations demonstrates MaNGA's ability to probe gas ionization, shed light on recent star formation and quenching, enable dynamical modeling, decompose constituent components, and map the composition of stellar populations. MaNGA's spatially resolved spectra will enable an unprecedented study of the astrophysics of nearby galaxies in the coming 6 yr.

OVERVIEW OF THE SDSS-IV MaNGA SURVEY: MAPPING NEARBY GALAXIES AT APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bundy, Kevin; Bershady, Matthew A.; Wake, David A.; Tremonti, Christy; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Law, David R.; Cherinka, Brian; Yan, Renbin; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Drory, Niv; MacDonald, Nicholas; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Thomas, Daniel; Masters, Karen; Coccato, Lodovico; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Avila-Reese, Vladimir; Badenes, Carles; Falcón-Barroso, Jésus; Belfiore, Francesco

2015-01-01

We present an overview of a new integral field spectroscopic survey called MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory), one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) that began on 2014 July 1. MaNGA will investigate the internal kinematic structure and composition of gas and stars in an unprecedented sample of 10,000 nearby galaxies. We summarize essential characteristics of the instrument and survey design in the context of MaNGA's key science goals and present prototype observations to demonstrate MaNGA's scientific potential. MaNGA employs dithered observations with 17 fiber-bundle integral field units that vary in diameter from 12'' (19 fibers) to 32'' (127 fibers). Two dual-channel spectrographs provide simultaneous wavelength coverage over 3600-10300 Å at R ∼ 2000. With a typical integration time of 3 hr, MaNGA reaches a target r-band signal-to-noise ratio of 4-8 (Å –1 per 2'' fiber) at 23 AB mag arcsec –2 , which is typical for the outskirts of MaNGA galaxies. Targets are selected with M * ≳ 10 9 M ☉ using SDSS-I redshifts and i-band luminosity to achieve uniform radial coverage in terms of the effective radius, an approximately flat distribution in stellar mass, and a sample spanning a wide range of environments. Analysis of our prototype observations demonstrates MaNGA's ability to probe gas ionization, shed light on recent star formation and quenching, enable dynamical modeling, decompose constituent components, and map the composition of stellar populations. MaNGA's spatially resolved spectra will enable an unprecedented study of the astrophysics of nearby galaxies in the coming 6 yr

Evolution of the clustering of photometrically selected SDSS galaxies

OpenAIRE

Ross, Ashley; Percival, Will; Brunner, R.

2010-01-01

We measure the angular auto-correlation functions, ω(θ), of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) galaxies selected to have photometric redshifts 0.1 < z < 0.4 and absolute r-band magnitudes Mr < −21.2. We split these galaxies into five overlapping redshift shells of width 0.1 and measure ω(θ) in each subsample in order to investigate the evolution of SDSS galaxies. We find that the bias increases substantially with redshift – much more so than one would expect for a passively evolving sample. We u...

THE ARECIBO METHANOL MASER GALACTIC PLANE SURVEY. IV. ACCURATE ASTROMETRY AND SOURCE MORPHOLOGIES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pandian, J. D.; Momjian, E.; Xu, Y.; Menten, K. M.; Goldsmith, P. F.

2011-01-01

We present accurate absolute astrometry of 6.7 GHz methanol masers detected in the Arecibo Methanol Maser Galactic Plane Survey using MERLIN and the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA). We estimate the absolute astrometry to be accurate to better than 15 and 80 mas for the MERLIN and EVLA observations, respectively. We also derive the morphologies of the maser emission distributions for sources stronger than ∼1 Jy. The median spatial extent along the major axis of the regions showing maser emission is ∼775 AU. We find a majority of methanol maser morphologies to be complex with some sources previously determined to have regular morphologies in fact being embedded within larger structures. This suggests that some maser spots do not have a compact core, which leads to them being resolved in high angular resolution observations. This also casts doubt on interpretations of the origin of methanol maser emission solely based on source morphologies. We also investigate the association of methanol masers with mid-infrared emission and find very close correspondence between methanol masers and 24 μm point sources. This adds further credence to theoretical models that predict methanol masers to be pumped by warm dust emission and firmly reinforces the finding that Class II methanol masers are unambiguous tracers of embedded high-mass protostars.

GLOBULAR AND OPEN CLUSTERS OBSERVED BY SDSS/SEGUE: THE GIANT STARS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Morrison, Heather L.; Ma, Zhibo; Connor, Thomas; Schechtman-Rook, Andrew; Harding, Paul [Department of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106 (United States); Clem, James L. [Department of Physics, Grove City College, 100 Campus Dr., Grove City, PA 16127 (United States); An, Deokkeun [Department of Science Education, Ewha Womans University, Seoul 120-750 (Korea, Republic of); Casagrande, Luca [Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Mount Stromlo Observatory, The Australian National University, ACT 2611 (Australia); Rockosi, Constance [UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High St., Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States); Yanny, Brian [Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P.O. Box 500, Batavia IL 60510 (United States); Beers, Timothy C. [Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, 225 Nieuwland Science Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46656 (United States); Johnson, Jennifer A. [Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Schneider, Donald P., E-mail: hlm5@case.edu [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)

2016-01-15

We present griz observations for the clusters M92, M13 and NGC 6791 and gr photometry for M71, Be 29 and NGC 7789. In addition we present new membership identifications for all these clusters, which have been observed spectroscopically as calibrators for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)/SEGUE survey; this paper focuses in particular on the red giant branch stars in the clusters. In a number of cases, these giants were too bright to be observed in the normal SDSS survey operations, and we describe the procedure used to obtain spectra for these stars. For M71, we also present a new variable reddening map and a new fiducial for the gr giant branch. For NGC 7789, we derived a transformation from T{sub eff} to g–r for giants of near solar abundance, using IRFM T{sub eff} measures of stars with good ugriz  and 2MASS photometry and SEGUE spectra. The result of our analysis is a robust list of known cluster members with correctly dereddened and (if needed) transformed gr photometry for crucial calibration efforts for SDSS and SEGUE.

NEAR-INFRARED PHOTOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF 130,000 QUASARS: AN SDSS-UKIDSS-MATCHED CATALOG

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peth, Michael A.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Schneider, Donald P.

2011-01-01

We present a catalog of over 130,000 quasar candidates with near-infrared (NIR) photometric properties, with an areal coverage of approximately 1200 deg 2 . This is achieved by matching the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in the optical ugriz bands to the UKIRT Infrared Digital Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Large Area Survey (LAS) in the NIR YJHK bands. We match the ∼1 million SDSS DR6 Photometric Quasar catalog to Data Release 3 of the UKIDSS LAS (ULAS) and produce a catalog with 130,827 objects with detections in one or more NIR bands, of which 74,351 objects have optical and K-band detections and 42,133 objects have the full nine-band photometry. The majority (∼85%) of the SDSS objects were not matched simply because these were not covered by the ULAS. The positional standard deviation of the SDSS Quasar to ULAS matches is δ R.A. = 0.''1370 and δ decl. = 0.''1314. We find an absolute systematic astrometric offset between the SDSS Quasar catalog and the UKIDSS LAS, of |R.A. offset | = 0.''025 and |decl. offset | = 0.''040; we suggest the nature of this offset to be due to the matching of catalog, rather than image, level data. Our matched catalog has a surface density of ∼53 deg -2 for K ≤ 18.27 objects; tests using our matched catalog, along with data from the UKIDSS Deep Extragalactic Survey, imply that our limiting magnitude is i ∼ 20.6. Color-redshift diagrams, for the optical and NIR, show a close agreement between our matched catalog and recent quasar color models at redshift z ∼ 4.6, and very high, z > 5.7, redshift previously discovered quasars.

Abundance analysis of SDSS J134338.67+484426.6; an extremely metal-poor star from the MARVELS pre-survey

Science.gov (United States)

Susmitha Rani, A.; Sivarani, T.; Beers, T. C.; Fleming, S.; Mahadevan, S.; Ge, J.

2016-05-01

We present an elemental-abundance analysis of an extremely metal-poor (EMP; [Fe/H] <-3.0) star, SDSS J134338.67+484426.6, identified during the course of the Multi-object Apache Point Observatory Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey spectroscopic pre-survey of some 20 000 stars to identify suitable candidates for exoplanet searches. This star, with an apparent magnitude V = 12.14, is the lowest metallicity star found in the pre-survey, and is one of only ˜20 known EMP stars that are this bright or brighter. Our high-resolution spectroscopic analysis shows that this star is a subgiant with [Fe/H] = -3.42, having `normal' carbon and no enhancement of neutron-capture abundances. Strontium is underabundant, [Sr/Fe] = -0.47, but the derived lower limit on [Sr/Ba] indicates that Sr is likely enhanced relative to Ba. This star belongs to the sparsely populated class of α-poor EMP stars that exhibit low ratios of [Mg/Fe], [Si/Fe], and [Ca/Fe] compared to typical halo stars at similar metallicity. The observed variations in radial velocity from several epochs of (low- and high-resolution) spectroscopic follow-up indicate that SDSS J134338.67+484426.6 is a possible long-period binary. We also discuss the abundance trends in EMP stars for r-process elements, and compare with other magnesium-poor stars.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: Faint cataclysmic variables from SDSS (Woudt+, 2012)

Science.gov (United States)

Woudt, P. A.; Warner, B.; de Bude, D.; Macfarlane, S.; Schurch, M. P. E.; Zietsman, E.

2013-01-01

We present high-speed photometric observations of 20 faint cataclysmic variables (CVs) selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Catalina catalogues. Measurements are given of 15 new directly measured orbital periods, including four eclipsing dwarf novae (SDSS 0904+03, CSS 0826-00, CSS 1404-10 and CSS 1626-12), two new polars (CSS 0810+00 and CSS 1503-22) and two dwarf novae with superhumps in quiescence (CSS 0322+02 and CSS 0826-00). Whilst most of the dwarf novae presented here have periods below 2h, SDSS 0805+07 and SSS 0617-36 have relatively long orbital periods of 5.489 and 3.440h, respectively. The double-humped orbital modulations observed in SSS 0221-26, CSS 0345-01, CSS 1300+11 and CSS 1443-17 are typical of low-mass transfer rate dwarf novae. The white dwarf primary of SDSS 0919+08 is confirmed to have non-radial oscillations, and quasi-periodic oscillations were observed in the short-period dwarf nova CSS 1028-08 during outburst. We further report the detection of a new nova-like variable (SDSS 1519+06). The frequency distribution of orbital periods of CVs in the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey (CRTS) has a high peak near ~80min orbital period, independently confirming that found by Gansicke et al. (2009MNRAS.397.2170G) from SDSS sources. We also observe a marked correlation between the median in the orbital period distribution and the outburst class, in the sense that dwarf novae with a single observed outburst (over the 5-year baseline of the CRTS coverage) occur predominantly at shortest orbital period. (2 data files).

A PRECISION PHOTOMETRIC COMPARISON BETWEEN SDSS-II AND CSP TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA DATA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mosher, J.; Sako, M.; Corlies, L.; Folatelli, G.; Frieman, J.; Kessler, R.; Holtzman, J.; Jha, S. W.; Marriner, J.; Phillips, M. M.; Morrell, N.; Stritzinger, M.; Schneider, D. P.

2012-01-01

Consistency between Carnegie Supernova Project (CSP) and SDSS-II Supernova Survey ugri measurements has been evaluated by comparing Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and CSP photometry for nine spectroscopically confirmed Type Ia supernova observed contemporaneously by both programs. The CSP data were transformed into the SDSS photometric system. Sources of systematic uncertainty have been identified, quantified, and shown to be at or below the 0.023 mag level in all bands. When all photometry for a given band is combined, we find average magnitude differences of equal to or less than 0.011 mag in ugri, with rms scatter ranging from 0.043 to 0.077 mag. The u-band agreement is promising, with the caveat that only four of the nine supernovae are well observed in u and these four exhibit an 0.038 mag supernova-to-supernova scatter in this filter.

NEW DISCOVERIES FROM THE ARECIBO 327 MHz DRIFT PULSAR SURVEY RADIO TRANSIENT SEARCH

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Deneva, J. S. [National Research Council, resident at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 (United States); Stovall, K. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131 (United States); McLaughlin, M. A.; Bagchi, M.; Garver-Daniels, N. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506 (United States); Bates, S. D. [The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, 600113 (India); Freire, P. C. C.; Martinez, J. G. [Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn (Germany); Jenet, F. [Center for Advanced Radio Astronomy, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Texas at Brownsville, Brownsville, TX 78520 (United States)

2016-04-10

We present Clusterrank, a new algorithm for identifying dispersed astrophysical pulses. Such pulses are commonly detected from Galactic pulsars and rotating radio transients (RRATs), which are neutron stars with sporadic radio emission. More recently, isolated, highly dispersed pulses dubbed fast radio bursts (FRBs) have been identified as the potential signature of an extragalactic cataclysmic radio source distinct from pulsars and RRATs. Clusterrank helped us discover 14 pulsars and 8 RRATs in data from the Arecibo 327 MHz Drift Pulsar Survey (AO327). The new RRATs have DMs in the range 23.5–86.6 pc cm{sup −3} and periods in the range 0.172–3.901 s. The new pulsars have DMs in the range 23.6–133.3 pc cm{sup −3} and periods in the range 1.249–5.012 s, and include two nullers and a mode-switching object. We estimate an upper limit on the all-sky FRB rate of 10{sup 5} day{sup −1} for bursts with a width of 10 ms and flux density ≳83 mJy. The DMs of all new discoveries are consistent with a Galactic origin. In comparing statistics of the new RRATs with sources from the RRATalog, we find that both sets are drawn from the same period distribution. In contrast, we find that the period distribution of the new pulsars is different from the period distributions of canonical pulsars in the ATNF catalog or pulsars found in AO327 data by a periodicity search. This indicates that Clusterrank is a powerful complement to periodicity searches and uncovers a subset of the pulsar population that has so far been underrepresented in survey results and therefore in Galactic pulsar population models.

NEW DISCOVERIES FROM THE ARECIBO 327 MHz DRIFT PULSAR SURVEY RADIO TRANSIENT SEARCH

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Deneva, J. S.; Stovall, K.; McLaughlin, M. A.; Bagchi, M.; Garver-Daniels, N.; Bates, S. D.; Freire, P. C. C.; Martinez, J. G.; Jenet, F.

2016-01-01

We present Clusterrank, a new algorithm for identifying dispersed astrophysical pulses. Such pulses are commonly detected from Galactic pulsars and rotating radio transients (RRATs), which are neutron stars with sporadic radio emission. More recently, isolated, highly dispersed pulses dubbed fast radio bursts (FRBs) have been identified as the potential signature of an extragalactic cataclysmic radio source distinct from pulsars and RRATs. Clusterrank helped us discover 14 pulsars and 8 RRATs in data from the Arecibo 327 MHz Drift Pulsar Survey (AO327). The new RRATs have DMs in the range 23.5–86.6 pc cm −3 and periods in the range 0.172–3.901 s. The new pulsars have DMs in the range 23.6–133.3 pc cm −3 and periods in the range 1.249–5.012 s, and include two nullers and a mode-switching object. We estimate an upper limit on the all-sky FRB rate of 10 5  day −1 for bursts with a width of 10 ms and flux density ≳83 mJy. The DMs of all new discoveries are consistent with a Galactic origin. In comparing statistics of the new RRATs with sources from the RRATalog, we find that both sets are drawn from the same period distribution. In contrast, we find that the period distribution of the new pulsars is different from the period distributions of canonical pulsars in the ATNF catalog or pulsars found in AO327 data by a periodicity search. This indicates that Clusterrank is a powerful complement to periodicity searches and uncovers a subset of the pulsar population that has so far been underrepresented in survey results and therefore in Galactic pulsar population models

The SDSS-III APOGEE radial velocity survey of M dwarfs. I. Description of the survey and science goals

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Deshpande, R.; Bender, C. F.; Mahadevan, S.; Terrien, R. C.; Schneider, D. P.; Fleming, S. W. [Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Blake, C. H. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States); Carlberg, J. K. [Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5241 Broad Branch Road NW, Washington, DC 20015 (United States); Zasowski, G.; Hearty, F. [University of Virginia, 530 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22904 (United States); Crepp, J. [Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, 225 Nieuwland Science Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556 (United States); Rajpurohit, A. S.; Reylé, C. [Institut UTINAM, CNRS UMR 6213, Observatoire des Sciences de l' Univers THETA Franche-Comt é-Bourgogne, Université de Franche Comté, Observatoire de Besançon, BP 1615, F-25010 Besançon Cedex (France); Nidever, D. L. [Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (United States); Prieto, C. Allende; Hernández, J. [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain); Bizyaev, D. [Apache Point Observatory, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM 88349-0059 (United States); Ebelke, G. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas Christian University, TCU Box 298840, Fort Worth, TX 76129 (United States); Frinchaboy, P. M. [Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, 211 Bryant Space Science Center, Gainesville, FL 32611-2055 (United States); Ge, J. [Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); and others

2013-12-01

We are carrying out a large ancillary program with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, SDSS-III, using the fiber-fed multi-object near-infrared APOGEE spectrograph, to obtain high-resolution H-band spectra of more than 1200 M dwarfs. These observations will be used to measure spectroscopic rotational velocities, radial velocities, physical stellar parameters, and variability of the target stars. Here, we describe the target selection for this survey, as well as results from the first year of scientific observations based on spectra that will be publicly available in the SDSS-III DR10 data release. As part of this paper we present radial velocities and rotational velocities of over 200 M dwarfs, with a vsin i precision of ∼2 km s{sup –1} and a measurement floor at vsin i = 4 km s{sup –1}. This survey significantly increases the number of M dwarfs studied for rotational velocities and radial velocity variability (at ∼100-200 m s{sup –1}), and will inform and advance the target selection for planned radial velocity and photometric searches for low-mass exoplanets around M dwarfs, such as the Habitable Zone Planet Finder, CARMENES, and TESS. Multiple epochs of radial velocity observations enable us to identify short period binaries, and adaptive optics imaging of a subset of stars enables the detection of possible stellar companions at larger separations. The high-resolution APOGEE spectra, covering the entire H band, provide the opportunity to measure physical stellar parameters such as effective temperatures and metallicities for many of these stars. At the culmination of this survey, we will have obtained multi-epoch spectra and radial velocities for over 1400 stars spanning the spectral range M0-L0, providing the largest set of near-infrared M dwarf spectra at high resolution, and more than doubling the number of known spectroscopic vsin i values for M dwarfs. Furthermore, by modeling telluric lines to correct for small instrumental radial velocity shifts, we

MOTION VERIFIED RED STARS (MoVeRS): A CATALOG OF PROPER MOTION SELECTED LOW-MASS STARS FROM WISE, SDSS, AND 2MASS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Theissen, Christopher A.; West, Andrew A. [Department of Astronomy, Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 (United States); Dhital, Saurav, E-mail: ctheisse@bu.edu [Department of Physical Sciences, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, 600 South Clyde Morris Blvd., Daytona Beach, FL 32114 (United States)

2016-02-15

We present a photometric catalog of 8,735,004 proper motion selected low-mass stars (KML-spectral types) within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) footprint, from the combined SDSS Data Release 10 (DR10), Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) point-source catalog (PSC), and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) AllWISE catalog. Stars were selected using r − i, i − z, r − z, z − J, and z − W1 colors, and SDSS, WISE, and 2MASS astrometry was combined to compute proper motions. The resulting 3,518,150 stars were augmented with proper motions for 5,216,854 earlier type stars from the combined SDSS and United States Naval Observatory B1.0 catalog (USNO-B). We used SDSS+USNO-B proper motions to determine the best criteria for selecting a clean sample of stars. Only stars whose proper motions were greater than their 2σ uncertainty were included. Our Motion Verified Red Stars catalog is available through SDSS CasJobs and VizieR.

Bayesian analysis of the dynamic cosmic web in the SDSS galaxy survey

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Leclercq, Florent; Wandelt, Benjamin; Jasche, Jens

2015-01-01

Recent application of the Bayesian algorithm \\textsc(borg) to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) main sample galaxies resulted in the physical inference of the formation history of the observed large-scale structure from its origin to the present epoch. In this work, we use these inferences as inputs for a detailed probabilistic cosmic web-type analysis. To do so, we generate a large set of data-constrained realizations of the large-scale structure using a fast, fully non-linear gravitational model. We then perform a dynamic classification of the cosmic web into four distinct components (voids, sheets, filaments, and clusters) on the basis of the tidal field. Our inference framework automatically and self-consistently propagates typical observational uncertainties to web-type classification. As a result, this study produces accurate cosmographic classification of large-scale structure elements in the SDSS volume. By also providing the history of these structure maps, the approach allows an analysis of the origin and growth of the early traces of the cosmic web present in the initial density field and of the evolution of global quantities such as the volume and mass filling fractions of different structures. For the problem of web-type classification, the results described in this work constitute the first connection between theory and observations at non-linear scales including a physical model of structure formation and the demonstrated capability of uncertainty quantification. A connection between cosmology and information theory using real data also naturally emerges from our probabilistic approach. Our results constitute quantitative chrono-cosmography of the complex web-like patterns underlying the observed galaxy distribution

A DESCRIPTION OF QUASAR VARIABILITY MEASURED USING REPEATED SDSS AND POSS IMAGING

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

MacLeod, Chelsea L.; Ivezić, Željko; Becker, Andrew C.; Anderson, Scott F.; Sesar, Branimir; De Vries, Wim; Kochanek, Christopher S.; Kelly, Brandon C.; Lupton, Robert H.; Hall, Patrick B.; Richards, Gordon T.; Schneider, Donald P.

2012-01-01

We provide a quantitative description and statistical interpretation of the optical continuum variability of quasars. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has obtained repeated imaging in five UV-to-IR photometric bands for 33,881 spectroscopically confirmed quasars. About 10,000 quasars have an average of 60 observations in each band obtained over a decade along Stripe 82 (S82), whereas the remaining ∼25,000 have 2-3 observations due to scan overlaps. The observed time lags span the range from a day to almost 10 years, and constrain quasar variability at rest-frame time lags of up to 4 years, and at rest-frame wavelengths from 1000 Å to 6000 Å. We publicly release a user-friendly catalog of quasars from the SDSS Data Release 7 that have been observed at least twice in SDSS or once in both SDSS and the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey, and we use it to analyze the ensemble properties of quasar variability. Based on a damped random walk (DRW) model defined by a characteristic timescale and an asymptotic variability amplitude that scale with the luminosity, black hole mass, and rest wavelength for individual quasars calibrated in S82, we can fully explain the ensemble variability statistics of the non-S82 quasars such as the exponential distribution of large magnitude changes. All available data are consistent with the DRW model as a viable description of the optical continuum variability of quasars on timescales of ∼5-2000 days in the rest frame. We use these models to predict the incidence of quasar contamination in transient surveys such as those from the Palomar Transient Factory and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: SDSS-III/APOGEE. I. Be stars (Chojnowski+, 2015)

Science.gov (United States)

Chojnowski, S. D.; Whelan, D. G.; Wisniewski, J. P.; Majewski, S. R.; Hall, M.; Shetrone, M.; Beaton, R.; Burton, A.; Damke, G.; Eikenberry, S.; Hasselquist, S.; Holtzman, J. A.; Meszaros, S.; Nidever, D.; Schneider, D. P.; Wilson, J.; Zasowski, G.; Bizyaev, D.; Brewington, H.; Brinkmann, J.; Ebelke, G.; Frinchaboy, P. M.; Kinemuchi, K.; Malanushenko, E.; Malanushenko, V.; Marchante, M.; Oravetz, D.; Pan, K.; Simmons, A.

2015-01-01

The sample at hand consists of 238 B-type emission line (Be) stars that have been observed by APOGEE. The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) instrument is a 300 fiber, R~22500 spectrograph attached to the SDSS 2.5m telescope at Apache Point Observatory. APOGEE records a vacuum wavelength range of 15145-16955Å via an arrangement of three Teledyne H2RG 2048*2048 detectors. The detector layout consists of "blue," "green," and "red" detectors which cover 15145-15808Å, 15858-16433Å, and 16474-16955Å respectively, resulting in coverage gaps between 15808-15858Å and 16433-16474Å. The APOGEE survey uses the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS; cat. II/246) as a source catalog. Both proprietary and publicly available spectra are used and displayed in this paper. The publicly available spectra were included in SDSS data release 10 (DR10: pertains to APOGEE data taken prior to MJD=56112), and the full data set will be made publicly available in SDSS data release 12 (DR12: scheduled for 2014 December). Shortly after DR12, we intend to convert the ABE star spectra to the format accepted by the Be Star Spectra Database (BeSS; Neiner et al., 2011AJ....142..149N) and deposit them there, ensuring convenient public access. More details on DR10-released APOGEE data can be found on the SDSS-III website (http://www.sdss3.org/dr10/irspec/). (2 data files).

Panchromatic properties of 99 000 galaxies detected by SDSS, and (some by) ROSAT, GALEX, 2MASS, IRAS, GB6, FIRST, NVSS and WENSS surveys

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Obric, M.; Ivezic, Z.; Best, P. N.; Lupton, R. H.; Tremonti, C.; Brinchmann, J.; Agueeros, M. A.; Knapp, G. R.; Gunn, J. E.; Rockosi, C. M.; Schlegel, D.; Finkbeiner, D.; Gacesa, M.; Smolcic, V.; Anderson, S. F.; Voges, W.; Juric, M.; Siverd, R. J.; Steinhardt, W.; Jagoda, A. S.; Blanton, M. R.; Schneider, D. P.

2006-01-01

We discuss the panchromatic properties of 99 088 galaxies selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 1 'main' spectroscopic sample ( a flux-limited sample for 1360 deg(2)). These galaxies are positionally matched to sources detected by ROSAT, Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX),

The SDSS Discovery of a Strongly Lensed Post-Starburst Galaxy at z=0.766

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shin, Min-Su; Strauss, Michael A.; Oguri, Masamune; Inada, Naohisa; Falco, Emilio E.; Broadhurst, Tom; Gunn, James E.

2008-09-30

We present the first result of a survey for strong galaxy-galaxy lenses in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) images. SDSS J082728.70+223256.4 was selected as a lensing candidate using selection criteria based on the color and positions of objects in the SDSS photometric catalog. Follow-up imaging and spectroscopy showed this object to be a lensing system. The lensing galaxy is an elliptical at z = 0.349 in a galaxy cluster. The lensed galaxy has the spectrum of a post-starburst galaxy at z = 0.766. The lensing galaxy has an estimated mass of {approx} 1.2 x 10{sup 12} M{sub {circle_dot}} and the corresponding mass to light ratio in the B-band is {approx} 26 M{sub {circle_dot}}/L{sub {circle_dot}} inside 1.1 effective radii of the lensing galaxy. Our study shows how catalogs drawn from multi-band surveys can be used to find strong galaxy-galaxy lenses having multiple lens images. Our strong lensing candidate selection based on photometry-only catalogs will be useful in future multi-band imaging surveys such as SNAP and LSST.

SDSS Log Viewer: visual exploratory analysis of large-volume SQL log data

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Jian; Chen, Chaomei; Vogeley, Michael S.; Pan, Danny; Thakar, Ani; Raddick, Jordan

2012-01-01

User-generated Structured Query Language (SQL) queries are a rich source of information for database analysts, information scientists, and the end users of databases. In this study a group of scientists in astronomy and computer and information scientists work together to analyze a large volume of SQL log data generated by users of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data archive in order to better understand users' data seeking behavior. While statistical analysis of such logs is useful at aggregated levels, efficiently exploring specific patterns of queries is often a challenging task due to the typically large volume of the data, multivariate features, and data requirements specified in SQL queries. To enable and facilitate effective and efficient exploration of the SDSS log data, we designed an interactive visualization tool, called the SDSS Log Viewer, which integrates time series visualization, text visualization, and dynamic query techniques. We describe two analysis scenarios of visual exploration of SDSS log data, including understanding unusually high daily query traffic and modeling the types of data seeking behaviors of massive query generators. The two scenarios demonstrate that the SDSS Log Viewer provides a novel and potentially valuable approach to support these targeted tasks.

THE ARECIBO LEGACY FAST ALFA SURVEY: THE {alpha}.40 H I SOURCE CATALOG, ITS CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE DERIVATION OF THE H I MASS FUNCTION

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Haynes, Martha P.; Giovanelli, Riccardo; Martin, Ann M.; Adams, Elizabeth A. K.; Hallenbeck, Gregory; Huang Shan; Papastergis, Emmanouil, E-mail: haynes@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: riccardo@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: amartin@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: betsey@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: ghallenbeck@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: shan@astro.cornell.edu [Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Space Sciences Building, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 (United States); and others

2011-11-15

We present a current catalog of 21 cm H I line sources extracted from the Arecibo Legacy Fast Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFALFA) survey over {approx}2800 deg{sup 2} of sky: the {alpha}.40 catalog. Covering 40% of the final survey area, the {alpha}.40 catalog contains 15,855 sources in the regions 07{sup h}30{sup m} < R.A. < 16{sup h}30{sup m}, +04 Degree-Sign < decl. <+16 Degree-Sign , and +24 Degree-Sign < decl. <+28 Degree-Sign and 22{sup h} < R.A. < 03{sup h}, +14 Degree-Sign < decl. <+16 Degree-Sign , and +24 Degree-Sign < decl. < + 32 Degree-Sign . Of those, 15,041 are certainly extragalactic, yielding a source density of 5.3 galaxies per deg{sup 2}, a factor of 29 improvement over the catalog extracted from the H I Parkes All-Sky Survey. In addition to the source centroid positions, H I line flux densities, recessional velocities, and line widths, the catalog includes the coordinates of the most probable optical counterpart of each H I line detection, and a separate compilation provides a cross-match to identifications given in the photometric and spectroscopic catalogs associated with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7. Fewer than 2% of the extragalactic H I line sources cannot be identified with a feasible optical counterpart; some of those may be rare OH megamasers at 0.16 < z < 0.25. A detailed analysis is presented of the completeness, width-dependent sensitivity function and bias inherent of the {alpha}.40 catalog. The impact of survey selection, distance errors, current volume coverage, and local large-scale structure on the derivation of the H I mass function is assessed. While {alpha}.40 does not yet provide a completely representative sampling of cosmological volume, derivations of the H I mass function using future data releases from ALFALFA will further improve both statistical and systematic uncertainties.

Discovery of A Young L Dwarf Binary, SDSS J224953.47+004404.6AB

Science.gov (United States)

Allers, K. N.; Liu, Michael C.; Dupuy, Trent J.; Cushing, Michael C.

2010-05-01

We report discovery of a young 0farcs32 L dwarf binary, SDSS J2249+0044AB, found as the result of a Keck laser guide star adaptive optics imaging survey of young field brown dwarfs. Weak K I, Na I, and FeH features as well as strong VO absorption in the integrated-light J-band spectrum indicate a low surface gravity and hence young age for the system. From spatially resolved K-band spectra we determine spectral types of L3 ± 0.5 and L5 ± 1 for components A and B, respectively. SDSS J2249+0044A is spectrally very similar to G196-3B, an L3 companion to a young M2.5 field dwarf. Thus, we adopt 100 Myr (the age estimate of the G196-3 system) as the age of SDSS J2249+0044AB, but ages of 12-790 Myr are possible. By comparing our photometry to the absolute magnitudes of G196-3B, we estimate a distance to SDSS J2249+0044AB of 54 ± 16 pc and infer a projected separation of 17 ± 5 AU for the binary. Comparison of the luminosities to evolutionary models at an age of 100 Myr yields masses of 0.029 ± 0.006 and 0.022+0.006 -0.009 M sun for SDSS J2249+0044A and B, respectively. Over the possible ages of the system (12-790 Myr), the mass of SDSS J2249+0044A could range from 0.011 to 0.070 M sun and the mass of SDSS J2249+0044B could range from 0.009 to 0.065 M sun. Evolutionary models predict that either component could be burning deuterium, which could result in a mass ratio as low as 0.4, or alternatively, a reversal in the luminosities of the binary. We find a likely proper motion companion, GSC 00568-01752, which lies 48farcs9 away (a projected separation of 2600 AU) and has Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Two Micron All Sky Survey colors consistent with an early M dwarf. We calculate a photometric distance to GSC 00568-01752 of 53 ± 15 pc, in good agreement with our distance estimate for SDSS J2249+0044AB. The space motion of SDSS J2249+0044AB shows no obvious coincidence with known young moving groups, though radial velocity and parallax measurements are necessary to

A Comparison of Galaxy Bulge+Disk Decomposition Between Pan-STARRS and SDSS

Science.gov (United States)

Lokken, Martine Elena; McPartland, Conor; Sanders, David B.

2018-01-01

Measurements of the size and shape of bulges in galaxies provide key constraints for models of galaxy evolution. A comprehensive catalog of bulge measurements for Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR7 galaxies is currently available to the public. However, the Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) 3π survey now covers the same region with ~1-2 mag deeper photometry, a ~10-30% smaller PSF, and additional coverage in y-band. To test how much improvement in galaxy parameter measurements (e.g. bulge + disk) can be achieved using the new PS1 data, we make use of ultra-deep imaging data from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru Strategic Program (SSP). We fit bulge+disk models to images of 372 bright (mi SSP images shows a tighter correlation between PS1 and SSP measurements for both bulge and disk parameters. Bulge parameters, such as bulge-to-total fraction and bulge radius, show the strongest improvement. However, measurements of all parameters degrade for galaxies with total r-band magnitude below the SDSS spectroscopic limit, mr = 17.7. We plan to use the PS1 3π survey data to produce an updated catalog of bulge+disk decomposition measurements for the entire SDSS DR7 spectroscopic galaxy sample.

Cataclysmic Variables from SDSS I. The First Results

OpenAIRE

Szkody, P.; Anderson, S. F.; Agueros, M.; Covarrubias, R.; Bentz, M.; Hawley, S.; Margon, B.; Voges, W.; Henden, A.; Knapp, G. R.; Berk, D. E. Vanden; Rest, A.; Miknaitis, G.; Magnier, E.; Brinkmann, J.

2001-01-01

The commissioning year of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey has demonstrated that many cataclysmic variables have been missed in previous surveys with brighter limits. We report the identification of 22 cataclysmic variables, of which 19 are new discoveries and 3 are known systems (SW UMa, BH Lyn and Vir4). A compendium of positions, colors and characteristics of these systems obtained from the SDSS photometry and spectroscopy is presented along with data obtained during follow-up studies with the...

MULTI-WAVELENGTH CHARACTERIZATION OF STELLAR FLARES ON LOW-MASS STARS USING SDSS AND 2MASS TIME-DOMAIN SURVEYS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Davenport, James R. A.; Becker, Andrew C.; Kowalski, Adam F.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Schmidt, Sarah J.; Hilton, Eric J. [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Sesar, Branimir [Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States); Cutri, Roc, E-mail: jrad@astro.washington.edu [Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)

2012-03-20

We present the first rates of flares from M dwarf stars in both red optical and near-infrared (NIR) filters. We have studied {approx}50,000 M dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 area and 1321 M dwarfs from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) Calibration Scan Point Source Working Database that overlap SDSS imaging fields. We assign photometric spectral types from M0 to M6 using (r - i) and (i - z) colors for every star in our sample. Stripe 82 stars each have 50-100 epochs of data, while 2MASS Calibration stars have {approx}1900 epochs. From these data we estimate the observed rates and theoretical detection thresholds for flares in eight photometric bands as a function of spectral type. Optical flare rates are found to be in agreement with previous studies, while the frequency per hour of NIR flare detections is found to be more than two orders of magnitude lower. An excess of small-amplitude flux increases in all bands exhibits a power-law distribution, which we interpret as the result of flares below our detection thresholds. In order to investigate the recovery efficiency for flares in each filter, we extend a two-component flare model into the NIR. Quiescent M0-M6 spectral templates were used with the model to predict the photometric response of flares from u to K{sub s} . We determine that red optical filters are sensitive to flares with u-band amplitudes {approx}>2 mag, and NIR filters to flares with {Delta}u {approx}> 4.5 mag. Our model predicts that M0 stars have the best color contrast for J-band detections, but M4-M6 stars should yield the highest rate of NIR flares with amplitudes of {Delta}J {>=} 0.01 mag. Characterizing flare rates and photometric variations at longer wavelengths is important for predicting the signatures of M dwarf variability in next-generation surveys, and we discuss their impact on surveys such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

MULTI-WAVELENGTH CHARACTERIZATION OF STELLAR FLARES ON LOW-MASS STARS USING SDSS AND 2MASS TIME-DOMAIN SURVEYS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Davenport, James R. A.; Becker, Andrew C.; Kowalski, Adam F.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Schmidt, Sarah J.; Hilton, Eric J.; Sesar, Branimir; Cutri, Roc

2012-01-01

We present the first rates of flares from M dwarf stars in both red optical and near-infrared (NIR) filters. We have studied ∼50,000 M dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 area and 1321 M dwarfs from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) Calibration Scan Point Source Working Database that overlap SDSS imaging fields. We assign photometric spectral types from M0 to M6 using (r – i) and (i – z) colors for every star in our sample. Stripe 82 stars each have 50-100 epochs of data, while 2MASS Calibration stars have ∼1900 epochs. From these data we estimate the observed rates and theoretical detection thresholds for flares in eight photometric bands as a function of spectral type. Optical flare rates are found to be in agreement with previous studies, while the frequency per hour of NIR flare detections is found to be more than two orders of magnitude lower. An excess of small-amplitude flux increases in all bands exhibits a power-law distribution, which we interpret as the result of flares below our detection thresholds. In order to investigate the recovery efficiency for flares in each filter, we extend a two-component flare model into the NIR. Quiescent M0-M6 spectral templates were used with the model to predict the photometric response of flares from u to K s . We determine that red optical filters are sensitive to flares with u-band amplitudes ∼>2 mag, and NIR filters to flares with Δu ∼> 4.5 mag. Our model predicts that M0 stars have the best color contrast for J-band detections, but M4-M6 stars should yield the highest rate of NIR flares with amplitudes of ΔJ ≥ 0.01 mag. Characterizing flare rates and photometric variations at longer wavelengths is important for predicting the signatures of M dwarf variability in next-generation surveys, and we discuss their impact on surveys such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

CATACLYSMIC VARIABLES FROM SDSS. VII. THE SEVENTH YEAR (2006)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Szkody, Paula; Anderson, Scott F.; Hayden, Michael; Kronberg, Martin; McGurk, Rosalie; Riecken, Thomas; Schmidt, Gary D.; West, Andrew A.; Gaensicke, Boris T.; Gomez-Moran, Ada N.; Schwope, Axel D.; Schneider, Donald P.; Schreiber, Matthias R.

2009-01-01

Coordinates, magnitudes, and spectra are presented for 39 cataclysmic variables (CVs) found in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectra that were primarily obtained in 2006. Of these, 13 were CVs identified prior to the SDSS spectra (AK Cnc, GY Cnc, GO Com, ST LMi, NY Ser, MR Ser, QW Ser, EU UMa, IY UMa, HS1340+1524, RXJ1610.1+0352, Boo 1, Leo 5). Follow-up spectroscopic observations of seven systems (including one from year 2005 and another from year 2004) were obtained, resulting in estimates of the orbital periods for three objects. The new CVs include two candidates for high inclination, eclipsing systems, four new polars, and three systems whose spectra clearly reveal atmospheric absorption lines from the underlying white dwarf.

Arecibo, Puerto Rico Tsunami Forecast Grids for MOST Model

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Arecibo, Puerto Rico Forecast Model Grids provides bathymetric data strictly for tsunami inundation modeling with the Method of Splitting Tsunami (MOST) model....

Photometric Separation of Stellar Properties Using SDSS Filters

Science.gov (United States)

Lenz, Dawn D.; Newberg, Jo; Rosner, Robert; Richards, Gordon T.; Stoughton, Chris

1998-12-01

Using synthetic photometry of Kurucz model spectra, we explore the colors of stars as a function of temperature, metallicity, and surface gravity with Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) filters, u'g'r'i'z'. The synthetic colors show qualitative agreement with the few published observations in these filters. We find that the locus of synthetic stars is basically two-dimensional for 4500 advantageous to use more than two colors when determining stellar properties by color. Strategic observations in SDSS filters are required to resolve the source of a ~5% discrepancy between synthetic colors of Gunn-Stryker stars, Kurucz models, and external determinations of the metallicities and surface gravities. The synthetic star colors can be used to investigate the properties of any normal star and to construct analytic expressions for the photometric prediction of stellar properties in special cases.

Survey for C-Band High Spectral Lines with the Arecibo Telescope

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Wei Siang

High-mass stars have masses greater than 8 solar masses and are the main source of heavy elements such as iron in the interstellar medium. This type of stars form in giant molecular clouds. Studying the molecular environment in star-forming regions is crucial to understand the physical structure and conditions that lead to the formation of high-mass stars. This thesis presents observations conducted with the 305m Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico of twelve high-mass star forming regions. Every source was observed in multiple transitions of molecular species including CH, CH3OH, H2CS, and OH lines, and a radio recombination line. The observations were conducted with the C-Band High receiver of the Arecibo Telescope in the frequency range of 6.0 to 7.4GHz. The goals of the observations were to investigate the detectability of different molecular species (including new possible molecular masers) and obtain high sensitivity observations of the 6.7GHz CH3OH line to detect absorption and use it as a probe of the kinematics of the molecular material with respect to the ionized gas. Among the results of the observations, we report detection of 6.7GHz CH3OH masers toward nine regions, OH masers toward five sources, 6.7GHz CH3OH absorption toward four sources (including tentative detections), and detection of H2CS toward the star forming region G34.26+0.15. We also found a variable and recurrent 6.7GHz CH3OH maser in G45.12+0.13. The 6.7GHz CH 3OH and 6278.65MHz H2CS absorption lines were modeled using the radiative transfer code RADEX to investigate the physical conditions of the molecular clouds responsible for the absorption lines. Our analysis of the absorption lines supports the interpretation that the spectral lines are tracing molecular envelopes of HII regions. In the case of 6.7GHz CH 3OH absorption, our results and data from an extensive literature review indicate that absorption is rare, but that a population of 6.7GHz CH 3OH absorbers may be present at levels

SDSS DR7 WHITE DWARF CATALOG

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kleinman, S. J.; Nitta, A. [Gemini Observatory, 670 North A' ohoku Place, Hilo, HI 96720 (United States); Kepler, S. O.; Pelisoli, Ingrid; Pecanha, Viviane; Costa, J. E. S. [Instituto de Fisica, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS (Brazil); Koester, D. [Institut fuer Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, Universitaet Kiel, D-24098 Kiel (Germany); Krzesinski, J. [Mt. Suhora Observatory, Pedagogical University of Cracow, ul. Podchorazych 2, 30-084 Cracow (Poland); Dufour, P.; Lachapelle, F.-R.; Bergeron, P. [Departement de Physique, Universite de Montreal, C. P. 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7 (Canada); Yip, Ching-Wa [Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3701 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Harris, Hugh C. [United States Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station, 10391 West Naval Observatory Road, Flagstaff, AZ 86001-8521 (United States); Eisenstein, Daniel J. [Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, MS 20, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Althaus, L.; Corsico, A., E-mail: hch@nofs.navy.mil [Facultad de Ciencias Astronomicas y Geofisicas, Paseo del Bosque S/N, (1900) La Plata (Argentina)

2013-01-15

We present a new catalog of spectroscopically confirmed white dwarf stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 spectroscopic catalog. We find 20,407 white dwarf spectra, representing 19,712 stars, and provide atmospheric model fits to 14,120 DA and 1011 DB white dwarf spectra from 12,843 and 923 stars, respectively. These numbers represent more than a factor of two increase in the total number of white dwarf stars from the previous SDSS white dwarf catalogs based on DR4 data. Our distribution of subtypes varies from previous catalogs due to our more conservative, manual classifications of each star in our catalog, supplementing our automatic fits. In particular, we find a large number of magnetic white dwarf stars whose small Zeeman splittings mimic increased Stark broadening that would otherwise result in an overestimated log g if fit as a non-magnetic white dwarf. We calculate mean DA and DB masses for our clean, non-magnetic sample and find the DB mean mass is statistically larger than that for the DAs.

Prediction and Confirmation of V-type Asteroids Beyond 2.5 AU Based on SDSS Colors

Science.gov (United States)

Binzel, Richard P.; Masi, G.; Foglia, S.

2006-09-01

We apply a taxonomic classification system developed by Masi et al. (2006, submitted to Icarus) to identify C-, S-, and V-type asteroids present within the 3rd Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Moving Object Catalog (SDSS MOC3). The classifications deduced by Masi et al. for 43,000 asteroids using SDSS colors are based on the taxonomy of Bus (1999; MIT Ph.D. thesis). To link SDSS colors to the Bus taxonomy, Masi et al. (2006) use 149 objects measured in common by both SDSS and the Small Main-Belt Asteroid Spectroscopic Survey (SMASS) (Bus and Binzel 2002, Icarus 158, 106). We report results of direct testing of SDSS V-type classification predictions for six objects, where the tests were performed by visible wavelength spectroscopy (Lazzaro et al. 2004, Icarus 172, 179) and target of opportunity near-infrared spectroscopy obtained using the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF). Vesta-like spectra and a V-type taxonomy are confirmed for five of the six predicted V-type objects sampled. Most interestingly, the SDSS taxonomy correctly predicted the V-type spectral characteristics for asteroid (21238) 1995 WV7, a 6 km asteroid located far from Vesta across the 3:1 mean motion resonance at 2.54 AU. (Proper elements a,e,i: 2.54 AU, 0.14, and 10.8 deg.) Given the 2 km/sec ejection velocity required from Vesta to reach the current orbit, and the difficulty of migrating across the 3:1 resonance (at 2.5 AU) by a process such as Yarkovsky drift or via secular resonances (Carruba et al. 2005, Astron. Astrophys. 441, 819), asteroid 21238 may be a new candidate for a basaltic asteroid having no relationship to Vesta.

The Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sako, Masao; Bassett, Bruce; C. Becker, Andrew

2014-01-01

This paper describes the data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II) Supernova Survey conducted between 2005 and 2007. Light curves, spectra, classifications, and ancillary data are presented for 10,258 variable and transient sources discovered through repeat ugriz imaging of SDSS S...

On the fairness of the main galaxy sample of SDSS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Meng Kelai; Pan Jun; Feng Longlong; Ma Bin

2011-01-01

Flux-limited and volume-limited galaxy samples are constructed from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data releases DR4, DR6 and DR7 for statistical analysis. The two-point correlation functions ξ(s), monopole of three-point correlation functions ζ 0 , projected two-point correlation function w p and pairwise velocity dispersion σ 12 are measured to test if galaxy samples are fair for these statistics. We find that with the increment of sky coverage of subsequent data releases in SDSS, ξ(s) of the flux-limited sample is extremely robust and insensitive to local structures at low redshift. However, for volume-limited samples fainter than L* at large scales s > or approx. 10 h -1 Mpc, the deviation of ξ(s) from different SDSS data releases (DR7, DR6 and DR4) increases with the increment of absolute magnitude. The case of ζ 0 (s) is similar to that of ξ(s). In the weakly nonlinear regime, there is no agreement between ζ 0 of different data releases in all luminosity bins. Furthermore, w p of volume-limited samples of DR7 in luminosity bins fainter than -M r,0.1 = [18.5, 19.5] are significantly larger and σ 12 of the two faintest volume-limited samples of DR7 display a very different scale dependence than results from DR4 and DR6. Our findings call for caution in understanding clustering analysis results of SDSS faint galaxy samples and higher order statistics of SDSS volume-limited samples in the weakly nonlinear regime. The first zero-crossing points of ξ(s) from volume-limited samples are also investigated and discussed. (research papers)

CHARACTERIZING THE MID-INFRARED EXTRAGALACTIC SKY WITH WISE AND SDSS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yan Lin; Donoso, E.; Tsai, Chao-Wei; Cutri, R.; Jarrett, T.; Stern, D.; Assef, R. J.; Eisenhardt, P.; Blain, A. W.; Stanford, S. A.; Wright, E.; Bridge, C.; Riechers, D. A.

2013-01-01

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has completed its all-sky survey in four channels at 3.4-22 μm, detecting hundreds of millions of objects. We merge the WISE mid-infrared data with optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and provide a phenomenological characterization of WISE extragalactic sources. WISE is most sensitive at 3.4 μm (W1) and least sensitive at 22 μm (W4). The W1 band probes massive early-type galaxies out to z ∼> 1. This is more distant than SDSS identified early-type galaxies, consistent with the fact that 28% of 3.4 μm sources have faint or no r-band counterparts (r > 22.2). In contrast, 92%-95% of 12 μm and 22 μm sources have SDSS optical counterparts with r ≤ 22.2. WISE 3.4 μm detects 89.8% of the entire SDSS QSO catalog at S/N W1 >7σ, but only 18.9% at 22 μm with S/N W4 > 5σ. We show that WISE colors alone are effective in isolating stars (or local early-type galaxies), star-forming galaxies, and strong active galactic nuclei (AGNs)/QSOs at z ∼ 0.8 and W2 –2 . (2) Selection of dust-obscured, type-2 AGN/QSO candidates. We show that WISE W1 – W2 > 0.8, W2 6 (Vega) colors can be used to identify type-2 AGN candidates. The fraction of these type-2 AGN candidates is one-third of all WISE color-selected AGNs. (3) Selection of ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) at z ∼ 2 with extremely red colors, r – W4 > 14 or well-detected 22 μm sources lacking detections in the 3.4 and 4.6 μm bands. The surface density of z ∼ 2 ULIRG candidates selected with r – W4 > 14 is 0.9 ± 0.07 deg –2 at S/N W4 ≥ 5 (the corresponding, lowest flux density of 2.5 mJy), which is consistent with that inferred from smaller area Spitzer surveys. Optical spectroscopy of a small number of these high-redshift ULIRG candidates confirms our selection, and reveals a possible trend that optically fainter or r – W4 redder candidates are at higher redshifts.

The SDSS-III DR12 MARVELS radial velocity data release: the first data release from the multiple object Doppler exoplanet survey

Science.gov (United States)

Ge, Jian; Thomas, Neil B.; Li, Rui; Senan Seieroe Grieves, Nolan; Ma, Bo; de Lee, Nathan M.; Lee, Brian C.; Liu, Jian; Bolton, Adam S.; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Weaver, Benjamin; SDSS-Iii Marvels Team

2015-01-01

We present the first data release from the SDSS-III Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS) through the SDSS-III DR12. The data include 181,198 radial velocity (RV) measurements for a total of 5520 different FGK stars with V~7.6-12, of which more than 80% are dwarfs and subdwarfs while remainders are GK giants, among a total of 92 fields nearly randomly spread out over the entire northern sky taken with a 60-object MARVELS dispersed fixed-delay interferometer instrument over four years (2008-2012). There were 55 fields with a total of 3300 FGK stars which had 14 or more observations over about 2-year survey window. The median number of observations for these plates is 27 RV measurements. This represents the largest homogeneous sample of precision RV measurements of relatively bright stars. In this first released data, a total of 18 giant planet candidates, 16 brown dwarfs, and over 500 binaries with additional 96 targets having RV variability indicative of a giant planet companion are reported. The released data were produced by the MARVELS finalized 1D pipeline. We will also report preliminary statistical results from the MARVELS 2D data pipeline which has produced a median RV precision of ~30 m/s for stable stars.

A Study of E+A Galaxies Through SDSS-MaNGA Integral Field Spectroscopy

Science.gov (United States)

Wally, Muhammad; Weaver, Olivia A.; Anderson, Miguel Ricardo; Liu, Allen; Falcone, Julia; Wallack, Nicole Lisa; James, Olivia; Liu, Charles

2017-01-01

We outline the selection process and analysis of sixteen E+A galaxies observed by the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at the Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey as a part of the fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV). We present their Integral field spectroscopy and analyze their spatial distribution of stellar ages, metallicities and other stellar population properties. We can potentially study the variation in these properties as a function of redshift. This work was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation via the SDSS-IV Faculty and Student Team (FAST) initiative, ARC Agreement #SSP483 to the CUNY College of Staten Island. This work was also supported by grants to The American Museum of Natural History, and the CUNY College of Staten Island through The National Science Foundation.

THE z = 5 QUASAR LUMINOSITY FUNCTION FROM SDSS STRIPE 82

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McGreer, Ian D.; Fan Xiaohui; Jiang Linhua; Richards, Gordon T.; Strauss, Michael A.; Ross, Nicholas P.; White, Martin; Shen Yue; Schneider, Donald P.; Brandt, W. Niel; Myers, Adam D.; DeGraf, Colin; Glikman, Eilat; Ge Jian; Streblyanska, Alina

2013-01-01

We present a measurement of the Type I quasar luminosity function at z = 5 using a large sample of spectroscopically confirmed quasars selected from optical imaging data. We measure the bright end (M 1450 2 , then extend to lower luminosities (M 1450 2 of deep, coadded imaging in the SDSS Stripe 82 region (the celestial equator in the Southern Galactic Cap). The faint sample includes 14 quasars with spectra obtained as ancillary science targets in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, and 59 quasars observed at the MMT and Magellan telescopes. We construct a well-defined sample of 4.7 1450 * ∼-27). The bright-end slope is steep (β ∼ 1450 < –26) from z = 5 to z = 6 than from z = 4 to z = 5, suggesting a more rapid decline in quasar activity at high redshift than found in previous surveys. Our model for the quasar luminosity function predicts that quasars generate ∼30% of the ionizing photons required to keep hydrogen in the universe ionized at z = 5.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: The GALFA-HI survey data release 2 (Peek+, 2018)

Science.gov (United States)

Peek, J. E. G.; Babler, B. L.; Zheng, Y.; Clark, S. E.; Douglas, K. A.; Korpela, E. J.; Putman, M. E.; Stanimirovic, S.; Gibson, S. J.; Heiles, C.

2018-03-01

The GALFA-HI survey is conducted with the William E. Gordon Arecibo Observatory 305m telescope, located south of Arecibo Puerto Rico. This survey owes its name to the instrument with which it was conducted, the ALFA, a 7-beam array of heterodyne detectors, sensitive from 1225 to 1525MHz. The observational strategy of DR2 is one of the significant differences from DR1 (Peek+ 2011ApJS..194...20P); see section 2.2. Region North-1 was included in DR1, but otherwise all of the Arecibo HI data presented in this work are new. (3 data files).

THE LICK/SDSS LIBRARY. II. [Ca/Fe] AND [Mg/Fe] IN F, G, AND K STARS FROM SDSS-DR7

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Franchini, M.; Morossi, C.; Di Marcantonio, P.; Malagnini, M. L.; Chavez, M.

2011-01-01

We analyzed the spectra of 17,600 F, G, and K stars extracted from the seventh Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release (SDSS-DR7) database in order to derive ([α/Fe]), [Ca/Fe], and [Mg/Fe] ratios. Particular attention has been devoted to estimating homogeneous and self-consistent atmospheric parameter values, T eff , log g, and [Fe/H], by comparing synthetic and observational Lick/SDSS indices. We present results for the sub-sample of more than 4000 spectra whose overall quality allowed us to derive fairly accurate stellar atmospheric parameter values and, therefore, reliable abundance ratios. A Monte Carlo approach was adopted to evaluate both the errors in the observational Lick/SDSS indices and in the derived parameter estimates. The analysis of the trends of [Ca/Fe] and [Mg/Fe] versus [Fe/H] pointed out that (1) the [Ca/Fe] and [Mg/Fe] ratios increase with decreasing [Fe/H] with different slopes reaching maximum average levels of +0.25 and +0.40 dex at [Fe/H] ≅ -1.75, respectively; (2) our sample contains, at a given [Fe/H], stars characterized by significantly different amounts of α-enhancement, thus belonging to different Galactic populations; and (3) the analyzed sample shows a predominance of thick disk stars for [Fe/H] > - 0.5 and the presence of stars belonging to the h igh-αhalo population for -2.0 < [Fe/H] <-0.5.

Spectrophotometric Properties of E+A Galaxies in SDSS-IV MaNGA

Science.gov (United States)

Marinelli, Mariarosa; Dudley, Raymond; Edwards, Kay; Gonzalez, Andrea; Johnson, Amalya; Kerrison, Nicole; Melchert, Nancy; Ojanen, Winonah; Weaver, Olivia; Liu, Charles; SDSS-IV MaNGA

2018-01-01

Quenched post-starburst galaxies, or E+A galaxies, represent a unique and informative phase in the evolution of galaxies. We used a qualitative rubric-based methodology, informed by the literature, to manually select galaxies from the SDSS-IV IFU survey Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) using the single-fiber spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 8. Of the 2,812 galaxies observed so far in MaNGA, we found 39 galaxies meeting our criteria for E+A classification. Spectral energy distributions of these 39 galaxies from the far-UV to the mid-infrared demonstrate a heterogeneity in our sample emerging in the infrared, indicating many distinct paths to visually similar optical spectra. We used SDSS-IV MaNGA Pipe3D data products to analyze stellar population ages, and found that 34 galaxies exhibited stellar populations that were older at 1 effective radius than at the center of the galaxy. Given that our sample was manually chosen based on E+A markers in the single-fiber spectra aimed at the center of each galaxy, our E+A galaxies may have only experienced their significant starbursts in the central region, with a disk of quenched or quenching material further outward. This work was supported by grants AST-1460860 from the National Science Foundation and SDSS FAST/SSP-483 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to the CUNY College of Staten Island.

Deriving Stellar Masses for the ALFALFA α.100 Sample

Science.gov (United States)

Hess, Logan; Cornell 2017 Summer REU

2018-01-01

For this project, we explore different methods of deriving the stellar masses of galaxies in the ALFALFA (Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA) α.100 survey. In particular, we measure the effectiveness of SED (Spectral Energy Distribution) on the sample. SED fitting was preformed by MAGPHYS (Multi-wavelength Analysis of Galaxy Physical Properties), utilizing a wide range of photometry in the UV, optical, and IR bands. Photometry was taken from GALAX GR6/7 (UV), SDSS DR13 (optical), WISE All-Sky (near-IR), and Herschel PACS/SPIRE (far-IR). The efficiency of SED fitting increases with a broader range of photometry, however detection rates varied significantly across the different bands. Using a more “comprehensive” sample of galaxies, the GSWLC-A (GALAX, SDSS, WISE Legacy Catalog All-Sky Survey), we aimed to measure which combination of bands provided the largest sample return with the lowest amount of uncertainty, which could then be used to estimate the masses of the galaxies in the α.100 sample.

Report of the Committee on the Participation of Women in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Myers, Adam D.; Diamond-Stanic, Aleks; Gallagher, John S.; Gillespie, Bruce Andrew; Ho, Shirley; Kinemuchi, Karen; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; Tremonti, Christina A.; Zasowski, Gail; SDSS-III Collaboration, SDSS-IV Collaboration

2015-01-01

The Committee on the Participation of Women in the SDSS (CPWS) was formed by the SDSS to evaluate the gender climate within the collaboration. The CPWS seeks to foster gender balance in our collaboration by fielding concerns from our members and by recommending best practices for establishing the SDSS leadership team. An important aspect of the mission of the CPWS is to regularly assess gender diversity and inclusiveness within the SDSS. Against the backdrop of the transition from SDSS-III to SDSS-IV, the CPWS has been collecting data relevant to gender issues through interviews and surveys. In April, 2014, the CPWS surveyed 251 SDSS-IV members (~50% of active membership) regarding gender and leadership. Broad findings from this survey include that the male-to-female ratio in SDSS-IV is about 3:1 and that the male-to-female ratio among those that identify themselves as being in an SDSS-IV leadership role is also close to 3:1. About 35% of those surveyed self-identify as an SDSS-IV "leader," though we recognize the possibility that active stakeholders might be more likely to respond to a demographics survey. About 80% of those that self-identify as leaders consider their leadership role within SDSS-IV to be officially acknowledged, regardless of gender. The fraction of women in SDSS leadership roles appears to be a weak function of current job position in that 6 of 32 (19%) senior faculty that are SDSS leaders are women, compared to 4 of 13 (31%) postdocs. Similarly, the fraction of SDSS leaders who are women is highest (32%) amongst those leaders who received their PhDs 6-10 years ago, while the fraction of female leaders amongst other age demographics is somewhat lower (20%). Although these are small sample sizes, this hints at a trend where women are most likely to fill SDSS leadership roles at certain stages of their lives and careers. The CPWS intends to use this initial survey data to establish a baseline for tracking SDSS-IV demographics, and thus hopes to

PSR J1856+0245: Arecibo discovery of a young, energetic pulsar coincident with the TeV γ-ray source HESS J1857+026

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hessels, J.W.T.; Nice, D.J.; Gaensler, B.M.; Kaspi, V.M.; Lorimer, D.R.; Champion, D.J.; Lyne, A.G.; Kramer, M.; Cordes, J.M.; Freire, P.C.C.; Camilo, F.; Ransom, S.M.; Deneva, J.S.; Bhat, N.D.R.; Cognard, I.; Crawford, F.; Jenet, F.A.; Kasian, L.; Lazarus, P.; van Leeuwen, J.; McLaughlin, M.A.; Stairs, I.H.; Stappers, B.W.; Venkataraman, A.

2008-01-01

We present the discovery of the Vela-like radio pulsar J1856+0245 in the Arecibo PALFA survey. PSR J1856+0245 has a spin period of 81 ms, a characteristic age of 21 kyr, and a spin-down luminosity (E) over dot = 4.6 x 10(36) ergs s(-1). It is positionally coincident with the TeV gamma-ray source

THE SPITZER EXTRAGALACTIC REPRESENTATIVE VOLUME SURVEY: THE ENVIRONMENTS OF HIGH-z SDSS QUASI-STELLAR OBJECTS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Falder, J. T.; Stevens, J. A.; Jarvis, Matt J.; Bonfield, D. G.; Lacy, M.; Farrah, D.; Oliver, S.; Surace, J.; Mauduit, J.-C.; Vaccari, M.; Marchetti, L.; Gonzalez-Solares, E.; Afonso, J.; Cava, A.; Seymour, N.

2011-01-01

This paper presents a study of the environments of SDSS quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) in the Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey (SERVS). We concentrate on the high-redshift QSOs as these have not been studied in large numbers with data of this depth before. We use the IRAC 3.6-4.5 μm color of objects and ancillary r-band data to filter out as much foreground contamination as possible. This technique allows us to find a significant (>4σ) overdensity of galaxies around QSOs in a redshift bin centered on z ∼ 2.0 and an (>2σ) overdensity of galaxies around QSOs in a redshift bin centered on z ∼ 3.3. We compare our findings to the predictions of a semi-analytic galaxy formation model, based on the ΛCDM MILLENNIUM simulation, and find for both redshift bins that the model predictions match well the source density we have measured from the SERVS data.

CONNECTION BETWEEN THE CIRCUMGALACTIC MEDIUM AND THE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM OF GALAXIES: RESULTS FROM THE COS-GASS SURVEY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Borthakur, Sanchayeeta; Heckman, Timothy [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Tumlinson, Jason; Bordoloi, Rongmon; Thom, Christopher [Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Catinella, Barbara [Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122 (Australia); Schiminovich, David [Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 (United States); Davé, Romeel [University of the Western Cape, Bellville, Cape Town 7535 (South Africa); Kauffmann, Guinevere [Max-Planck Institut für Astrophysik, D-85741 Garching (Germany); Moran, Sean M. [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Saintonge, Amelie, E-mail: sanch@pha.jhu.edu [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, Gower Place, London WC1E 6BT (United Kingdom)

2015-11-01

We present a study exploring the nature and properties of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) and its connection to the atomic gas content in the interstellar medium (ISM) of galaxies as traced by the H i 21 cm line. Our sample includes 45 low-z (0.026–0.049) galaxies from the GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey (Galaxy Evolution Explorer/Arecibo/Sloan Digital Sky Survey). Their CGM was probed via absorption in the spectra of background quasi-stellar objects at impact parameters of 63–231 kpc. The spectra were obtained with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. We detected neutral hydrogen (Lyα absorption lines) in the CGM of 92% of the galaxies. We find that the radial profile of the CGM as traced by the Lyα equivalent width can be fit as an exponential with a scale length of roughly the virial radius of the dark matter halo. We found no correlation between the orientation of the sightline relative to the galaxy’s major axis and the Lyα equivalent width. The velocity spread of the circumgalactic gas is consistent with that seen in the atomic gas in the ISM. We find a strong correlation (99.8% confidence) between the gas fraction (M(H i)/M{sub ⋆}) and the impact-parameter-corrected Lyα equivalent width. This is stronger than the analogous correlation between corrected Lyα equivalent width and specific star formation rate (SFR)/M{sub ⋆} (97.5% confidence). These results imply a physical connection between the H i disk and the CGM, which is on scales an order of magnitude larger. This is consistent with the picture in which the H i disk is nourished by accretion of gas from the CGM.

THE SECOND ARECIBO SEARCH FOR 5 GHz RADIO FLARES FROM ULTRACOOL DWARFS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Route, Matthew; Wolszczan, Alexander, E-mail: alex@astro.psu.edu, E-mail: mroute@purdue.edu [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)

2016-10-20

We describe our second installment of the 4.75 GHz survey of ultracool dwarfs (UCDs) conducted with the Arecibo radio telescope, which has observed 27 such objects and resulted in the detection of sporadic flaring from the T6 dwarf, WISEPC J112254.73+255021.5. We also present follow-up observations of the first radio-emitting T dwarf, 2MASS J10475385+2124234, a tentatively identified radio-emitting L1 dwarf, 2MASS J1439284+192915, and the known radio-flaring source, 2MASS J13142039+132011 AB. Our new data indicate that 2MASS J1439284+192915 is not a radio-flaring source. The overall detection rate of our unbiased survey for radio-flaring UCDs is ∼5% for new sources, with a detection rate for each spectral class of ∼5%–10%. Evidently, radio luminosity of the UCDs does not appear to monotonically decline with spectral type from M7 dwarfs to giant planets, contradictory to theories of the magnetic field generation and the internal structure of these objects. Along with other, recently published results, our data exemplify the unique value of using radio surveys to reveal and study properties of substellar magnetic activity.

COMPARING H{alpha} AND H I SURVEYS AS MEANS TO A COMPLETE LOCAL GALAXY CATALOG IN THE ADVANCED LIGO/VIRGO ERA

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Metzger, Brian D. [Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Peyton Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08542 (United States); Kaplan, David L. [Physics Department, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53211 (United States); Berger, Edo, E-mail: bmetzger@astro.princeton.edu, E-mail: kaplan@uwm.edu, E-mail: eberger@cfa.harvard.edu [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)

2013-02-20

Identifying the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave (GW) sources detected by upcoming networks of advanced ground-based interferometers will be challenging, due in part to the large number of unrelated astrophysical transients within the {approx}10-100 deg{sup 2} sky localizations. A potential way to greatly reduce the number of such false positives is to limit detailed follow-up to only those candidates near galaxies within the GW sensitivity range of {approx}200 Mpc for binary neutron star mergers. Such a strategy is currently hindered by the fact that galaxy catalogs are grossly incomplete within this volume. Here, we compare two methods for completing the local galaxy catalog: (1) a narrowband H{alpha} imaging survey and (2) an H I emission line radio survey. Using H{alpha} fluxes, stellar masses (M {sub *}), and star formation rates (SFRs) from galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), combined with H I data from the GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey and the Herschel Reference Survey, we estimate that an H{alpha} survey with a luminosity sensitivity of L {sub H{alpha}} = 10{sup 40} erg s{sup -1} at 200 Mpc could achieve a completeness of f {sup H{alpha}} {sub SFR} Almost-Equal-To 75% with respect to total SFR, but only f{sub M* Star-Operator }{sup H{alpha}} approx. 33% with respect to M {sub *} (due to lack of sensitivity to early-type galaxies). These numbers are significantly lower than those achieved by an idealized spectroscopic survey due to the loss of H{alpha} flux resulting from resolving out nearby galaxies and the inability to correct for the underlying stellar continuum. An H I survey with sensitivity similar to the proposed WALLABY survey on ASKAP could achieve f{sub SFR}{sup H{sub I}} Almost-Equal-To 80% and f{sub M Star-Operator }{sup H{sub I}} Almost-Equal-To 50%, somewhat higher than that of the H{alpha} survey. Finally, both H{alpha} and H I surveys should achieve {approx}> 50% completeness with respect to the host galaxies of

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the Second Phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

Science.gov (United States)

Abolfathi, Bela; Aguado, D. S.; Aguilar, Gabriela; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Almeida, Andres; Tasnim Ananna, Tonima; Anders, Friedrich; Anderson, Scott F.; Andrews, Brett H.; Anguiano, Borja; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Argudo-Fernández, Maria; Armengaud, Eric; Ata, Metin; Aubourg, Eric; Avila-Reese, Vladimir; Badenes, Carles; Bailey, Stephen; Balland, Christophe; Barger, Kathleen A.; Barrera-Ballesteros, Jorge; Bartosz, Curtis; Bastien, Fabienne; Bates, Dominic; Baumgarten, Falk; Bautista, Julian; Beaton, Rachael; Beers, Timothy C.; Belfiore, Francesco; Bender, Chad F.; Bernardi, Mariangela; Bershady, Matthew A.; Beutler, Florian; Bird, Jonathan C.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Blanton, Michael R.; Blomqvist, Michael; Bolton, Adam S.; Boquien, Médéric; Borissova, Jura; Bovy, Jo; Andres Bradna Diaz, Christian; Nielsen Brandt, William; Brinkmann, Jonathan; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bundy, Kevin; Burgasser, Adam J.; Burtin, Etienne; Busca, Nicolás G.; Cañas, Caleb I.; Cano-Díaz, Mariana; Cappellari, Michele; Carrera, Ricardo; Casey, Andrew R.; Cervantes Sodi, Bernardo; Chen, Yanping; Cherinka, Brian; Chiappini, Cristina; Doohyun Choi, Peter; Chojnowski, Drew; Chuang, Chia-Hsun; Chung, Haeun; Clerc, Nicolas; Cohen, Roger E.; Comerford, Julia M.; Comparat, Johan; Correa do Nascimento, Janaina; da Costa, Luiz; Cousinou, Marie-Claude; Covey, Kevin; Crane, Jeffrey D.; Cruz-Gonzalez, Irene; Cunha, Katia; da Silva Ilha, Gabriele; Damke, Guillermo J.; Darling, Jeremy; Davidson, James W., Jr.; Dawson, Kyle; de Icaza Lizaola, Miguel Angel C.; de la Macorra, Axel; de la Torre, Sylvain; De Lee, Nathan; de Sainte Agathe, Victoria; Deconto Machado, Alice; Dell’Agli, Flavia; Delubac, Timothée; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Donor, John; José Downes, Juan; Drory, Niv; du Mas des Bourboux, Hélion; Duckworth, Christopher J.; Dwelly, Tom; Dyer, Jamie; Ebelke, Garrett; Davis Eigenbrot, Arthur; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Elsworth, Yvonne P.; Emsellem, Eric; Eracleous, Michael; Erfanianfar, Ghazaleh; Escoffier, Stephanie; Fan, Xiaohui; Fernández Alvar, Emma; Fernandez-Trincado, J. G.; Cirolini, Rafael Fernando; Feuillet, Diane; Finoguenov, Alexis; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Freischlad, Gordon; Frinchaboy, Peter; Fu, Hai; Gómez Maqueo Chew, Yilen; Galbany, Lluís; García Pérez, Ana E.; Garcia-Dias, R.; García-Hernández, D. A.; Garma Oehmichen, Luis Alberto; Gaulme, Patrick; Gelfand, Joseph; Gil-Marín, Héctor; Gillespie, Bruce A.; Goddard, Daniel; González Hernández, Jonay I.; Gonzalez-Perez, Violeta; Grabowski, Kathleen; Green, Paul J.; Grier, Catherine J.; Gueguen, Alain; Guo, Hong; Guy, Julien; Hagen, Alex; Hall, Patrick; Harding, Paul; Hasselquist, Sten; Hawley, Suzanne; Hayes, Christian R.; Hearty, Fred; Hekker, Saskia; Hernandez, Jesus; Hernandez Toledo, Hector; Hogg, David W.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Holtzman, Jon A.; Hou, Jiamin; Hsieh, Bau-Ching; Hunt, Jason A. S.; Hutchinson, Timothy A.; Hwang, Ho Seong; Jimenez Angel, Camilo Eduardo; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Jones, Amy; Jönsson, Henrik; Jullo, Eric; Sakil Khan, Fahim; Kinemuchi, Karen; Kirkby, David; Kirkpatrick, Charles C., IV; Kitaura, Francisco-Shu; Knapp, Gillian R.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Kollmeier, Juna A.; Lacerna, Ivan; Lane, Richard R.; Lang, Dustin; Law, David R.; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; Lee, Young-Bae; Li, Hongyu; Li, Cheng; Lian, Jianhui; Liang, Yu; Lima, Marcos; Lin, Lihwai; Long, Dan; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; Mackereth, J. Ted; MacLeod, Chelsea L.; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Geimba Maia, Marcio Antonio; Majewski, Steven; Manchado, Arturo; Maraston, Claudia; Mariappan, Vivek; Marques-Chaves, Rui; Masseron, Thomas; Masters, Karen L.; McDermid, Richard M.; McGreer, Ian D.; Melendez, Matthew; Meneses-Goytia, Sofia; Merloni, Andrea; Merrifield, Michael R.; Meszaros, Szabolcs; Meza, Andres; Minchev, Ivan; Minniti, Dante; Mueller, Eva-Maria; Muller-Sanchez, Francisco; Muna, Demitri; Muñoz, Ricardo R.; Myers, Adam D.; Nair, Preethi; Nandra, Kirpal; Ness, Melissa; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; Nitschelm, Christian; Noterdaeme, Pasquier; O’Connell, Julia; Oelkers, Ryan James; Oravetz, Audrey; Oravetz, Daniel; Aquino Ortíz, Erik; Osorio, Yeisson; Pace, Zach; Padilla, Nelson; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Alonso Palicio, Pedro; Pan, Hsi-An; Pan, Kaike; Parikh, Taniya; Pâris, Isabelle; Park, Changbom; Peirani, Sebastien; Pellejero-Ibanez, Marcos; Penny, Samantha; Percival, Will J.; Perez-Fournon, Ismael; Petitjean, Patrick; Pieri, Matthew M.; Pinsonneault, Marc; Pisani, Alice; Prada, Francisco; Prakash, Abhishek; Queiroz, Anna Bárbara de Andrade; Raddick, M. Jordan; Raichoor, Anand; Barboza Rembold, Sandro; Richstein, Hannah; Riffel, Rogemar A.; Riffel, Rogério; Rix, Hans-Walter; Robin, Annie C.; Rodríguez Torres, Sergio; Román-Zúñiga, Carlos; Ross, Ashley J.; Rossi, Graziano; Ruan, John; Ruggeri, Rossana; Ruiz, Jose; Salvato, Mara; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Sánchez, Sebastián F.; Sanchez Almeida, Jorge; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Santana Rojas, Felipe Antonio; Santiago, Basílio Xavier; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; Schimoia, Jaderson S.; Schlafly, Edward; Schlegel, David; Schneider, Donald P.; Schuster, William J.; Schwope, Axel; Seo, Hee-Jong; Serenelli, Aldo; Shen, Shiyin; Shen, Yue; Shetrone, Matthew; Shull, Michael; Silva Aguirre, Víctor; Simon, Joshua D.; Skrutskie, Mike; Slosar, Anže; Smethurst, Rebecca; Smith, Verne; Sobeck, Jennifer; Somers, Garrett; Souter, Barbara J.; Souto, Diogo; Spindler, Ashley; Stark, David V.; Stassun, Keivan; Steinmetz, Matthias; Stello, Dennis; Storchi-Bergmann, Thaisa; Streblyanska, Alina; Stringfellow, Guy S.; Suárez, Genaro; Sun, Jing; Szigeti, Laszlo; Taghizadeh-Popp, Manuchehr; Talbot, Michael S.; Tang, Baitian; Tao, Charling; Tayar, Jamie; Tembe, Mita; Teske, Johanna; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Thomas, Daniel; Tissera, Patricia; Tojeiro, Rita; Tremonti, Christy; Troup, Nicholas W.; Urry, Meg; Valenzuela, O.; van den Bosch, Remco; Vargas-González, Jaime; Vargas-Magaña, Mariana; Vazquez, Jose Alberto; Villanova, Sandro; Vogt, Nicole; Wake, David; Wang, Yuting; Weaver, Benjamin Alan; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Weinberg, David H.; Westfall, Kyle B.; Whelan, David G.; Wilcots, Eric; Wild, Vivienne; Williams, Rob A.; Wilson, John; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Wylezalek, Dominika; Xiao, Ting; Yan, Renbin; Yang, Meng; Ybarra, Jason E.; Yèche, Christophe; Zakamska, Nadia; Zamora, Olga; Zarrouk, Pauline; Zasowski, Gail; Zhang, Kai; Zhao, Cheng; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zheng, Zheng; Zheng, Zheng; Zhou, Zhi-Min; Zhu, Guangtun; Zinn, Joel C.; Zou, Hu

2018-04-01

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since 2014 July. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the 14th from SDSS overall (making this Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes the data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (2014–2016 July) public. Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey; the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data-driven machine-learning algorithm known as “The Cannon” and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from the SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS web site (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020 and will be followed by SDSS-V.

TRACING SAGITTARIUS STRUCTURE WITH SDSS AND SEGUE IMAGING AND SPECTROSCOPY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yanny, Brian; Newberg, Heidi Jo; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Lee, Young Sun; Beers, Timothy C.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Brewington, Howard; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Oravetz, Dan; Pan, Kaike; Simmons, Audrey; Snedden, Stephanie; Fiorentin, Paola Re; Harding, Paul

2009-01-01

We show that the Sagittarius dwarf tidal stream can be traced with very red K/M-giant stars, selected from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry. A subset of these stars are spectroscopically confirmed with SEGUE and SDSS spectra, and the distance scale of 2MASS and SDSS M giants is calibrated to the RR Lyrae distance scale. The absolute magnitude of the K/M-giant stars at the tip of the giant branch is M g 0 =-1.0. The line-of-sight velocities of the M giant and blue horizontal-branch (BHB) stars that are spatially coincident with the Sgr dwarf tidal stream are consistent with those of previous authors, reinforcing the need for new models that can explain all of the Sgr tidal debris stream observations. We estimate stellar densities along the tidal tails that can be used to help constrain future models. The K/M giant, BHB, and F-turnoff stars in the lower surface brightness tidal stream that is adjacent to the main leading Sgr dwarf tidal tail have velocities and metallicities that are similar to those of the stars in the leading tidal tail. The ratio of K/M giants to BHBs and BHBs to F-turnoff stars are also similar for both branches of the leading tidal tail. We show that there is an additional low-metallicity tidal stream near the Sgr trailing tidal tail.

Spectral Analysis, Synthesis, & Energy Distributions of Nearby E+A Galaxies Using SDSS-IV MaNGA

Science.gov (United States)

Weaver, Olivia A.; Anderson, Miguel Ricardo; Wally, Muhammad; James, Olivia; Falcone, Julia; Liu, Allen; Wallack, Nicole; Liu, Charles; SDSS Collaboration

2017-01-01

Utilizing data from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) Survey (MaNGA Product Launch-4, or MPL-4), of the latest generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV), we identified nine post-starburst (E+A) systems that lie within the Green Valley transition zone. We identify the E+A galaxies by their SDSS single fiber spectrum and u-r color, then confirmed their classification as post-starburst by coding/plotting methods and spectral synthesis codes (FIREFLY and PIPE3D), as well as with their Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) from 0.15 µm to 22 µm, using GALEX, SDSS, 2MASS, and WISE data. We produced maps of gaussian-fitted fluxes, equivalent widths, stellar velocities, metallicities and age. We also produced spectral line ratio diagrams to classify regions of stellar populations of the galaxies. We found that our sample of E+As retain their post-starburst properties across the entire galaxy, not just at their center. We detected matching a trend line in the ultraviolet and optical bands, consistent with the expected SEDs for an E+A galaxy, and also through the J, H and Ks bands, except for one object. We classified one of the nine galaxies as a luminous infrared galaxy, unusual for a post-starburst object. Our group seeks to further study stellar population properties, spectral energy distributions and quenching properties in E+A galaxies, and investigate their role in galaxy evolution as a whole. This work was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation via the SDSS-IV Faculty and Student Team (FAST) initiative, ARC Agreement #SSP483 to the CUNY College of Staten Island. This work was also supported by grants to The American Museum of Natural History, and the CUNY College of Staten Island through from National Science Foundation.

QUEST1 Variability Survey. III. Light Curve Catalog Update

Science.gov (United States)

Rengstorf, A. W.; Thompson, D. L.; Mufson, S. L.; Andrews, P.; Honeycutt, R. K.; Vivas, A. K.; Abad, C.; Adams, B.; Bailyn, C.; Baltay, C.; Bongiovanni, A.; Briceño, C.; Bruzual, G.; Coppi, P.; Della Prugna, F.; Emmet, W.; Ferrín, I.; Fuenmayor, F.; Gebhard, M.; Hernández, J.; Magris, G.; Musser, J.; Naranjo, O.; Oemler, A.; Rosenzweig, P.; Sabbey, C. N.; Sánchez, Ge.; Sánchez, Gu.; Schaefer, B.; Schenner, H.; Sinnott, J.; Snyder, J. A.; Sofia, S.; Stock, J.; van Altena, W.

2009-03-01

This paper reports an update to the QUEST1 (QUasar Equatorial Survey Team, Phase 1) Variability Survey (QVS) light curve catalog, which links QVS instrumental magnitude light curves to Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) objects and photometry. In the time since the original QVS catalog release, the overlap between publicly available SDSS data and QVS data has increased by 8% in sky coverage and 16,728 in number of matched objects. The astrometric matching and the treatment of SDSS masks have been refined for the updated catalog. We report on these improvements and present multiple bandpass light curves, global variability information, and matched SDSS photometry for 214,941 QUEST1 objects. Based on observations obtained at the Llano del Hato National Astronomical Observatory, operated by the Centro de Investigaciones de Astronomía for the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia of Venezuela.

Counts of low-Redshift SDSS quasar candidates

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zeljko Ivezic

2004-01-01

We analyze the counts of low-redshift quasar candidates selected using nine-epoch SDSS imaging data. The co-added catalogs are more than 1 mag deeper than single-epoch SDSS data, and allow the selection of low-redshift quasar candidates using UV-excess and also variability techniques. The counts of selected candidates are robustly determined down to g = 21.5. This is about 2 magnitudes deeper than the position of a change in the slope of the counts reported by Boyle (and others) (1990, 2000) for a sample selected by UV-excess, and questioned by Hawkins and Veron (1995), who utilized a variability-selected sample. Using SDSS data, we confirm a change in the slope of the counts for both UV-excess and variability selected samples, providing strong support for the Boyle (and others) results

Photometric properties of galaxies in the SDSS

Science.gov (United States)

Hogg, D. W.; Blanton, M.; SDSS Collaboration

2001-12-01

We analyze the number density distribution of galaxy properties in a sample of 8x 104 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, in the redshift range 0.02calculated for each galaxy. The photometry is of excellent quality; every galaxy has CCD imaging with signal-to-noise for the flux well above 100. The distribution of galaxies in the (six-dimensional) space spanned by four colors, central surface-brightness, and radial concentration is described and analyzed, with the following results: \\textsl{(1)} The galaxies occupy only a small part of the six-dimensional space. \\textsl{(2)} The distribution of galaxy number density in the space is a strong function of intrinsic galaxy luminosity. \\textsl{(3)} Elliptical (or early type) and spiral (or late type) galaxies are clearly separated in the space. The ratio of early-type to late-type galaxy contributions to the luminosity density of the Universe is computed, as a function of wavelength. At 1 {μm }, early-type galaxies dominate the luminosity density. \\textsl{(4)} Outliers in color tend to be lower surface-brightness galaxies. Funding for the SDSS has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the SDSS member institutions, NASA, NSF, DOE, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society. This research has been supported by the NYU Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

THE 5 GHz ARECIBO SEARCH FOR RADIO FLARES FROM ULTRACOOL DWARFS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Route, Matthew; Wolszczan, Alexander, E-mail: mroute@astro.psu.edu, E-mail: alex@astro.psu.edu [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)

2013-08-10

We present the results of a 4.75 GHz survey of 33 brown dwarfs and one young exoplanetary system for flaring radio emission, conducted with the 305 m Arecibo radio telescope. The goal of this program was to detect and characterize the magnetic fields of objects cooler than spectral type L3.5, the coolest brown dwarf detected prior to our survey. We have also attempted to detect flaring radio emission from the HR 8799 planetary system, guided by theoretical work indicating that hot, massive exoplanets may have strong magnetic fields capable of generating radio emission at GHz frequencies. We have detected and confirmed radio flares from the T6.5 dwarf 2MASS J10475385+2124234. This detection dramatically extends the temperature range over which brown dwarfs appear to be at least sporadic radio-emitters, from 1900 K (L3.5) down to 900 K (T6.5). It also demonstrates that the utility of radio detection as a unique tool to study the magnetic fields of substellar objects extends to the coolest dwarfs, and, plausibly to hot, massive exoplanets. We have also identified a single, 3.6{sigma} flare from the L1 dwarf, 2MASS J1439284+192915. This detection is tentative and requires confirmation by additional monitoring observations.

THE HALO OCCUPATION DISTRIBUTION OF SDSS QUASARS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Richardson, Jonathan; Chatterjee, Suchetana; Nagai, Daisuke; Zheng Zheng; Shen Yue

2012-01-01

We present an estimate of the projected two-point correlation function (2PCF) of quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) over the full range of one- and two-halo scales, 0.02 h –1 Mpc p –1 Mpc. This was achieved by combining data from SDSS DR7 on large scales and Hennawi et al. (with appropriate statistical corrections) on small scales. Our combined clustering sample is the largest spectroscopic quasar clustering sample to date, containing ∼48, 000 quasars in the redshift range 0.4 ∼ sat = (7.4 ± 1.4) × 10 –4 , be satellites in dark matter halos. At z ∼ 1.4, the median masses of the host halos of central and satellite quasars are constrained to be M cen = 4.1 +0.3 –0.4 × 10 12 h –1 M ☉ and M sat = 3.6 +0.8 –1.0 × 10 14 h –1 M ☉ , respectively. To investigate the redshift evolution of the quasar-halo relationship, we also perform HOD modeling of the projected 2PCF measured by Shen et al. for SDSS quasars with median redshift 3.2. We find tentative evidence for an increase in the mass scale of quasar host halos—the inferred median mass of halos hosting central quasars at z ∼ 3.2 is M cen = 14.1 +5.8 –6.9 × 10 12 h –1 M ☉ . The cutoff profiles of the mean occupation functions of central quasars reveal that quasar luminosity is more tightly correlated with halo mass at higher redshifts. The average quasar duty cycle around the median host halo mass is inferred to be f q = 7.3 +0.6 –1.5 × 10 –4 at z ∼ 1.4 and f q = 8.6 +20.4 –7.2 × 10 –2 at z ∼ 3.2. We discuss the implications of our results for quasar evolution and quasar-galaxy co-evolution.

Flying across Galaxy Clusters with Google Earth: additional imagery from SDSS co-added data

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hao, Jiangang; Annis, James; /Fermilab

2010-10-01

Galaxy clusters are spectacular. We provide a Google Earth compatible imagery for the deep co-added images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and make it a tool for examing galaxy clusters. Google Earth (in sky mode) provides a highly interactive environment for visualizing the sky. By encoding the galaxy cluster information into a kml/kmz file, one can use Google Earth as a tool for examining galaxy clusters and fly across them freely. However, the resolution of the images provided by Google Earth is not very high. This is partially because the major imagery google earth used is from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) (SDSS collaboration 2000) and the resolutions have been reduced to speed up the web transferring. To have higher resolution images, you need to add your own images in a way that Google Earth can understand. The SDSS co-added data are the co-addition of {approx}100 scans of images from SDSS stripe 82 (Annis et al. 2010). It provides the deepest images based on SDSS and reach as deep as about redshift 1.0. Based on the co-added images, we created color images in a way as described by Lupton et al. (2004) and convert the color images to Google Earth compatible images using wcs2kml (Brewer et al. 2007). The images are stored at a public server at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and can be accessed by the public. To view those images in Google Earth, you need to download a kmz file, which contains the links to the color images, and then open the kmz file with your Google Earth. To meet different needs for resolutions, we provide three kmz files corresponding to low, medium and high resolution images. We recommend the high resolution one as long as you have a broadband Internet connection, though you should choose to download any of them, depending on your own needs and Internet speed. After you open the downloaded kmz file with Google Earth (in sky mode), it takes about 5 minutes (depending on your Internet connection and the resolution of images you

Flying across Galaxy Clusters with Google Earth: additional imagery from SDSS co-added data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hao, Jiangang; Annis, James

2010-01-01

Galaxy clusters are spectacular. We provide a Google Earth compatible imagery for the deep co-added images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and make it a tool for examing galaxy clusters. Google Earth (in sky mode) provides a highly interactive environment for visualizing the sky. By encoding the galaxy cluster information into a kml/kmz file, one can use Google Earth as a tool for examining galaxy clusters and fly across them freely. However, the resolution of the images provided by Google Earth is not very high. This is partially because the major imagery google earth used is from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) (SDSS collaboration 2000) and the resolutions have been reduced to speed up the web transferring. To have higher resolution images, you need to add your own images in a way that Google Earth can understand. The SDSS co-added data are the co-addition of ∼100 scans of images from SDSS stripe 82 (Annis et al. 2010). It provides the deepest images based on SDSS and reach as deep as about redshift 1.0. Based on the co-added images, we created color images in a way as described by Lupton et al. (2004) and convert the color images to Google Earth compatible images using wcs2kml (Brewer et al. 2007). The images are stored at a public server at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and can be accessed by the public. To view those images in Google Earth, you need to download a kmz file, which contains the links to the color images, and then open the kmz file with your Google Earth. To meet different needs for resolutions, we provide three kmz files corresponding to low, medium and high resolution images. We recommend the high resolution one as long as you have a broadband Internet connection, though you should choose to download any of them, depending on your own needs and Internet speed. After you open the downloaded kmz file with Google Earth (in sky mode), it takes about 5 minutes (depending on your Internet connection and the resolution of images you want

A search for optical variability of type 2 quasars in SDSS stripe 82

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barth, Aaron J.; Carson, Daniel J.; Voevodkin, Alexey; Woźniak, Przemysław

2014-01-01

Hundreds of Type 2 quasars have been identified in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data, and there is substantial evidence that they are generally galaxies with highly obscured central engines, in accord with unified models for active galactic nuclei (AGNs). A straightforward expectation of unified models is that highly obscured Type 2 AGNs should show little or no optical variability on timescales of days to years. As a test of this prediction, we have carried out a search for variability in Type 2 quasars in SDSS Stripe 82 using difference-imaging photometry. Starting with the Type 2 AGN catalogs of Zakamska et al. and Reyes et al., we find evidence of significant g-band variability in 17 out of 173 objects for which light curves could be measured from the Stripe 82 data. To determine the nature of this variability, we obtained new Keck spectropolarimetry observations for seven of these variable AGNs. The Keck data show that these objects have low continuum polarizations (p ≲ 1% in most cases) and all seven have broad Hα and/or Mg II emission lines in their total (unpolarized) spectra, indicating that they should actually be classified as Type 1 AGNs. We conclude that the primary reason variability is found in the SDSS-selected Type 2 AGN samples is that these samples contain a small fraction of Type 1 AGNs as contaminants, and it is not necessary to invoke more exotic possible explanations such as a population of 'naked' or unobscured Type 2 quasars. Aside from misclassified Type 1 objects, the Type 2 quasars do not generally show detectable optical variability over the duration of the Stripe 82 survey.

Galaxy–Galaxy Weak-lensing Measurements from SDSS. I. Image Processing and Lensing Signals

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Luo, Wentao [Key Laboratory for Research in Galaxies and Cosmology, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Nandan Road 80, Shanghai 200030 (China); Yang, Xiaohu; Zhang, Jun; Tweed, Dylan [Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (United States); Fu, Liping; Shu, Chenggang [Shanghai Key Lab for Astrophysics, Shanghai Normal University, 100 Guilin Road, 200234, Shanghai (China); Mo, H. J. [Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003-9305 (United States); Bosch, Frank C. van den [Department of Astronomy, Yale University, P.O. Box 208101, New Haven, CT 06520-8101 (United States); Li, Ran [Key Laboratory for Computational Astrophysics, Partner Group of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100012 (China); Li, Nan [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637 (United States); Liu, Xiangkun; Pan, Chuzhong [Department of Astronomy, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Wang, Yiran [Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1002 W. Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801 (United States); Radovich, Mario, E-mail: walt@shao.ac.cn, E-mail: xyang@sjtu.edu.cn [INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Napoli, via Moiariello 16, I-80131 Napoli (Italy)

2017-02-10

We present our image processing pipeline that corrects the systematics introduced by the point-spread function (PSF). Using this pipeline, we processed Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR7 imaging data in r band and generated a galaxy catalog containing the shape information. Based on our shape measurements of the galaxy images from SDSS DR7, we extract the galaxy–galaxy (GG) lensing signals around foreground spectroscopic galaxies binned in different luminosities and stellar masses. We estimated the systematics, e.g., selection bias, PSF reconstruction bias, PSF dilution bias, shear responsivity bias, and noise rectification bias, which in total is between −9.1% and 20.8% at 2 σ levels. The overall GG lensing signals we measured are in good agreement with Mandelbaum et al. The reduced χ {sup 2} between the two measurements in different luminosity bins are from 0.43 to 0.83. Larger reduced χ {sup 2} from 0.60 to 1.87 are seen for different stellar mass bins, which is mainly caused by the different stellar mass estimator. The results in this paper with higher signal-to-noise ratio are due to the larger survey area than SDSS DR4, confirming that more luminous/massive galaxies bear stronger GG lensing signals. We divide the foreground galaxies into red/blue and star-forming/quenched subsamples and measure their GG lensing signals. We find that, at a specific stellar mass/luminosity, the red/quenched galaxies have stronger GG lensing signals than their counterparts, especially at large radii. These GG lensing signals can be used to probe the galaxy–halo mass relations and their environmental dependences in the halo occupation or conditional luminosity function framework.

Comments on the Redshift Distribution of 44,200 SDSS Quasars: Evidence for Predicted Preferred Redshifts?

OpenAIRE

Bell, M. B.

2004-01-01

A Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) source sample containing 44,200 quasar redshifts is examined. Although arguments have been put forth to explain some of the structure observed in the redshift distribution, it is argued here that this structure may just as easily be explained by the presence of previously predicted preferred redshifts.

A sample of galaxy pairs identified from the LAMOST spectral survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shen, Shi-Yin; Argudo-Fernández, Maria; Chen, Li; Feng, Shuai; Hou, Jin-Liang; Shao, Zheng-Yi; Chen, Xiao-Yan; Luo, A-Li; Wu, Hong; Yang, Hai-Feng; Yang, Ming; Hou, Yong-Hui; Wang, Yue-Fei; Jiang, Peng; Wang, Ting-Gui; Jing, Yi-Peng; Kong, Xu; Wang, Wen-Ting; Luo, Zhi-Jian; Wu, Xue-Bing

2016-01-01

A small fraction (< 10%) of the SDSS main galaxy (MG) sample has not been targeted with spectroscopy due to the effect of fiber collisions. These galaxies have been compiled into the input catalog of the LAMOST ExtraGAlactic Surveys and named the complementary galaxy sample. In this paper, we introduce this project and status of the spectroscopies associated with the complementary galaxies in the first two years of the LAMOST spectral survey (till Sep. of 2014). Moreover, we present a sample of 1102 galaxy pairs identified from the LAMOST complementary galaxies and SDSS MGs, which are defined as two members that have a projected distance smaller than 100 h −1 70 kpc and a recessional velocity difference smaller than 500 km s −1 . Compared with galaxy pairs that are only selected from SDSS, the LAMOST-SDSS pairs have the advantages of not being biased toward large separations and therefore act as a useful supplement in statistical studies of galaxy interaction and galaxy merging. (paper)

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Abolfathi, Bela; Aguado, D. S.; Aguilar, Gabriela

2018-01-01

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since 2014 July. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the 14th from SDSS overall (making this Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes the data taken by SDSS-IV in its firs...

A Survey of z>5.7 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fan, Xiaohui; Strauss, Michael A.; Richards, Gordon T.

2005-01-01

We present the discovery of seven quasars at z>5.7, selected from ~2000 deg^2 of multicolor imaging data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The new quasars have redshifts z from 5.79 to 6.13. Five are selected as part of a complete flux-limited sample in the SDSS Northern Galactic Cap; two...

New ultracool subdwarfs identified in large-scale surveys using Virtual Observatory tools. I. UKIDSS LAS DR5 vs. SDSS DR7

Science.gov (United States)

Lodieu, N.; Espinoza Contreras, M.; Zapatero Osorio, M. R.; Solano, E.; Aberasturi, M.; Martín, E. L.

2012-06-01

Aims: The aim of the project is to improve our knowledge of the low-mass and low-metallicity population to investigate the influence of metallicity on the stellar (and substellar) mass function. Methods: We present the results of a photometric and proper motion search aimed at discovering ultracool subdwarfs in large-scale surveys. We employed and combined the Fifth Data Release (DR5) of the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Large Area Survey (LAS) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 complemented with ancillary data from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS), the DEep Near-Infrared Survey (DENIS) and the SuperCOSMOS Sky Surveys (SSS). Results: The SDSS DR7 vs. UKIDSS LAS DR5 search returned a total of 32 ultracool subdwarf candidates, only two of which are recognised as a subdwarf in the literature. Twenty-seven candidates, including the two known ones, were followed-up spectroscopically in the optical between 600 and 1000 nm, thus covering strong spectral features indicative of low metallicity (e.g., CaH), 21 with the Very Large Telescope, one with the Nordic Optical Telescope, and five were extracted from the Sloan spectroscopic database to assess (or refute) their low-metal content. We confirm 20 candidates as subdwarfs, extreme subdwarfs, or ultra-subdwarfs with spectral types later than M5; this represents a success rate of ≥ 60%. Among those 20 new subdwarfs, we identify two early-L subdwarfs that are very likely located within 100 pc, which we propose as templates for future searches because they are the first examples of their subclass. Another seven sources are solar-metallicity M dwarfs with spectral types between M4 and M7 without Hα emission, suggesting that they are old M dwarfs. The remaining five candidates do not have spectroscopic follow-up yet; only one remains as a bona-fide ultracool subdwarf after revision of their proper motions. We assigned spectral types based on the current classification schemes and, when

Astronomical Surveys and Big Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mickaelian Areg M.

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Recent all-sky and large-area astronomical surveys and their catalogued data over the whole range of electromagnetic spectrum, from γ-rays to radio waves, are reviewed, including such as Fermi-GLAST and INTEGRAL in γ-ray, ROSAT, XMM and Chandra in X-ray, GALEX in UV, SDSS and several POSS I and POSS II-based catalogues (APM, MAPS, USNO, GSC in the optical range, 2MASS in NIR, WISE and AKARI IRC in MIR, IRAS and AKARI FIS in FIR, NVSS and FIRST in radio range, and many others, as well as the most important surveys giving optical images (DSS I and II, SDSS, etc., proper motions (Tycho, USNO, Gaia, variability (GCVS, NSVS, ASAS, Catalina, Pan-STARRS, and spectroscopic data (FBS, SBS, Case, HQS, HES, SDSS, CALIFA, GAMA. An overall understanding of the coverage along the whole wavelength range and comparisons between various surveys are given: galaxy redshift surveys, QSO/AGN, radio, Galactic structure, and Dark Energy surveys. Astronomy has entered the Big Data era, with Astrophysical Virtual Observatories and Computational Astrophysics playing an important role in using and analyzing big data for new discoveries.

Hazardous Waste Cleanup: Thermo King de Puerto Rico Incorporated in Arecibo, Puerto Rico

Science.gov (United States)

Thermo King de Puerto Rico, Inc. facility is located in the Zeno Gandia Industrial Area in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Major features of the facility include six buildings used for manufacturing and storage, a wastewater treatment plant, a hazardous waste and no

A topological analysis of large-scale structure, studied using the CMASS sample of SDSS-III

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Parihar, Prachi; Gott, J. Richard III; Vogeley, Michael S.; Choi, Yun-Young; Kim, Juhan; Kim, Sungsoo S.; Speare, Robert; Brownstein, Joel R.; Brinkmann, J.

2014-01-01

We study the three-dimensional genus topology of large-scale structure using the northern region of the CMASS Data Release 10 (DR10) sample of the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. We select galaxies with redshift 0.452 < z < 0.625 and with a stellar mass M stellar > 10 11.56 M ☉ . We study the topology at two smoothing lengths: R G = 21 h –1 Mpc and R G = 34 h –1 Mpc. The genus topology studied at the R G = 21 h –1 Mpc scale results in the highest genus amplitude observed to date. The CMASS sample yields a genus curve that is characteristic of one produced by Gaussian random phase initial conditions. The data thus support the standard model of inflation where random quantum fluctuations in the early universe produced Gaussian random phase initial conditions. Modest deviations in the observed genus from random phase are as expected from shot noise effects and the nonlinear evolution of structure. We suggest the use of a fitting formula motivated by perturbation theory to characterize the shift and asymmetries in the observed genus curve with a single parameter. We construct 54 mock SDSS CMASS surveys along the past light cone from the Horizon Run 3 (HR3) N-body simulations, where gravitationally bound dark matter subhalos are identified as the sites of galaxy formation. We study the genus topology of the HR3 mock surveys with the same geometry and sampling density as the observational sample and find the observed genus topology to be consistent with ΛCDM as simulated by the HR3 mock samples. We conclude that the topology of the large-scale structure in the SDSS CMASS sample is consistent with cosmological models having primordial Gaussian density fluctuations growing in accordance with general relativity to form galaxies in massive dark matter halos.

Histograms of Arecibo World Days Measurements and Linear-H Fits Between 1985 and 1995

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Melendez-Alvira, D

1998-01-01

This document presents histograms of linear-H model fits to electron density profiles measured with the incoherent scatter radar of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico during the World Days between 1985 and 1995...

Giant Planet Candidates, Brown Dwarfs, and Binaries from the SDSS-III MARVELS Planet Survey.

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, Neil; Ge, Jian; Li, Rui; de Lee, Nathan M.; Heslar, Michael; Ma, Bo; SDSS-Iii Marvels Team

2015-01-01

We report the discoveries of giant planet candidates, brown dwarfs, and binaries from the SDSS-III MARVELS survey. The finalized 1D pipeline has provided 18 giant planet candidates, 16 brown dwarfs, and over 500 binaries. An additional 96 targets having RV variability indicative of a giant planet companion are also reported for future investigation. These candidates are found using the advanced MARVELS 1D data pipeline developed at UF from scratch over the past three years. This pipeline carefully corrects most of the instrument effects (such as trace, slant, distortion, drifts and dispersion) and observation condition effects (such as illumination profile, fiber degradation, and tracking variations). The result is long-term RV precisions that approach the photon limits in many cases for the ~89,000 individual stellar observations. A 2D version of the pipeline that uses interferometric information is nearing completion and is demonstrating a reduction of errors to half the current levels. The 2D processing will be used to increase the robustness of the detections presented here and to find new candidates in RV regions not confidently detectable with the 1D pipeline. The MARVELS survey has produced the largest homogeneous RV measurements of 3300 V=7.6-12 FGK stars with a well defined cadence of 27 RV measurements over 2 years. The MARVELS RV data and other follow-up data (photometry, high contrast imaging, high resolution spectroscopy and RV measurements) will explore the diversity of giant planet companion formation and evolution around stars with a broad range in metallicity (Fe/H -1.5-0.5), mass ( 0.6-2.5M(sun)), and environment (thin disk and thick disk), and will help to address the key scientific questions identified for the MARVELS survey including, but not limited to: Do metal poor stars obey the same trends for planet occurrence as metal rich stars? What is the distribution of giant planets around intermediate-mass stars and binaries? Is the 'planet desert

DISCOVERY OF DRAMATIC OPTICAL VARIABILITY IN SDSS J1100+4421: A PECULIAR RADIO-LOUD NARROW-LINE SEYFERT 1 GALAXY?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tanaka, Masaomi [National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588 (Japan); Morokuma, Tomoki; Doi, Mamoru; Kikuchi, Yuki [Institute of Astronomy, School of Science, University of Tokyo, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0015 (Japan); Itoh, Ryosuke [Department of Physical Sciences, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8526 (Japan); Akitaya, Hiroshi; Tanaka, Yasuyuki T.; Kawabata, Koji S. [Hiroshima Astrophysical Science Center, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8526 (Japan); Tominaga, Nozomu [Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Konan University, Kobe, Hyogo 658-8501 (Japan); Saito, Yoshihiko; Kawai, Nobuyuki [Department of Physics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8551 (Japan); Stawarz, Łukasz [Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, JAXA, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-5210 (Japan); Gandhi, Poshak [Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham DH1-3LE (United Kingdom); Ali, Gamal; Essam, Ahmad; Hamed, Gamal [National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, Helwan, Cairo (Egypt); Aoki, Tsutomu [Kiso Observatory, Institute of Astronomy, School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Kiso, Nagano 397-0101 (Japan); Contreras, Carlos; Hsiao, Eric Y. [Carnegie Observatories, Las Campanas Observatory, Colina El Pino, Casilla 601 (Chile); Iwata, Ikuru, E-mail: masaomi.tanaka@nao.ac.jp [Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Hilo, HI 96720 (United States); and others

2014-10-01

We present our discovery of dramatic variability in SDSS J1100+4421 by the high-cadence transient survey Kiso Supernova Survey. The source brightened in the optical by at least a factor of three within about half a day. Spectroscopic observations suggest that this object is likely a narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy (NLS1) at z = 0.840, however, with unusually strong narrow emission lines. The estimated black hole mass of ∼10{sup 7} M {sub ☉} implies bolometric nuclear luminosity close to the Eddington limit. SDSS J1100+4421 is also extremely radio-loud, with a radio loudness parameter of R ≅ 4 × 10{sup 2}-3 × 10{sup 3}, which implies the presence of relativistic jets. Rapid and large-amplitude optical variability of the target, reminiscent of that found in a few radio- and γ-ray-loud NLS1s, is therefore produced most likely in a blazar-like core. The 1.4 GHz radio image of the source shows an extended structure with a linear size of about 100 kpc. If SDSS J1100+4421 is a genuine NLS1, as suggested here, this radio structure would then be the largest ever discovered in this type of active galaxies.

Redshift evolution of the dynamical properties of massive galaxies from SDSS-III/BOSS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Beifiori, Alessandra; Saglia, Roberto P.; Bender, Ralf; Senger, Robert; Thomas, Daniel; Maraston, Claudia; Steele, Oliver; Masters, Karen L.; Pforr, Janine; Tojeiro, Rita; Johansson, Jonas; Nichol, Robert C.; Chen, Yan-Mei; Wake, David; Bolton, Adam; Brownstein, Joel R.; Leauthaud, Alexie; Schneider, Donald P.; Skibba, Ramin; Pan, Kaike

2014-01-01

We study the redshift evolution of the dynamical properties of ∼180, 000 massive galaxies from SDSS-III/BOSS combined with a local early-type galaxy sample from SDSS-II in the redshift range 0.1 ≤ z ≤ 0.6. The typical stellar mass of this sample is M * ∼2 × 10 11 M ☉ . We analyze the evolution of the galaxy parameters effective radius, stellar velocity dispersion, and the dynamical to stellar mass ratio with redshift. As the effective radii of BOSS galaxies at these redshifts are not well resolved in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging we calibrate the SDSS size measurements with Hubble Space Telescope/COSMOS photometry for a sub-sample of galaxies. We further apply a correction for progenitor bias to build a sample which consists of a coeval, passively evolving population. Systematic errors due to size correction and the calculation of dynamical mass are assessed through Monte Carlo simulations. At fixed stellar or dynamical mass, we find moderate evolution in galaxy size and stellar velocity dispersion, in agreement with previous studies. We show that this results in a decrease of the dynamical to stellar mass ratio with redshift at >2σ significance. By combining our sample with high-redshift literature data, we find that this evolution of the dynamical to stellar mass ratio continues beyond z ∼ 0.7 up to z > 2 as M dyn /M * ∼(1 + z) –0.30±0.12 , further strengthening the evidence for an increase of M dyn /M * with cosmic time. This result is in line with recent predictions from galaxy formation simulations based on minor merger driven mass growth, in which the dark matter fraction within the half-light radius increases with cosmic time.

Redshift evolution of the dynamical properties of massive galaxies from SDSS-III/BOSS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Beifiori, Alessandra; Saglia, Roberto P.; Bender, Ralf; Senger, Robert [Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstraße, D-85748 Garching (Germany); Thomas, Daniel; Maraston, Claudia; Steele, Oliver; Masters, Karen L.; Pforr, Janine; Tojeiro, Rita; Johansson, Jonas; Nichol, Robert C. [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Dennis Sciama Building, Burnaby Road, Portsmouth PO1 3FX (United Kingdom); Chen, Yan-Mei; Wake, David [Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 475 N. Charter Street, Madison, WI 53706 (United States); Bolton, Adam; Brownstein, Joel R. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Leauthaud, Alexie [Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU), The University of Tokyo, Chiba 277-8582 (Japan); Schneider, Donald P. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Skibba, Ramin [Department of Physics, Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California, 9500 Gilman Drive, San Diego, CA 92093 (United States); Pan, Kaike, E-mail: beifiori@mpe.mpg.de [Apache Point Observatory, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM 88349-0059 (United States); and others

2014-07-10

We study the redshift evolution of the dynamical properties of ∼180, 000 massive galaxies from SDSS-III/BOSS combined with a local early-type galaxy sample from SDSS-II in the redshift range 0.1 ≤ z ≤ 0.6. The typical stellar mass of this sample is M{sub *} ∼2 × 10{sup 11} M{sub ☉}. We analyze the evolution of the galaxy parameters effective radius, stellar velocity dispersion, and the dynamical to stellar mass ratio with redshift. As the effective radii of BOSS galaxies at these redshifts are not well resolved in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging we calibrate the SDSS size measurements with Hubble Space Telescope/COSMOS photometry for a sub-sample of galaxies. We further apply a correction for progenitor bias to build a sample which consists of a coeval, passively evolving population. Systematic errors due to size correction and the calculation of dynamical mass are assessed through Monte Carlo simulations. At fixed stellar or dynamical mass, we find moderate evolution in galaxy size and stellar velocity dispersion, in agreement with previous studies. We show that this results in a decrease of the dynamical to stellar mass ratio with redshift at >2σ significance. By combining our sample with high-redshift literature data, we find that this evolution of the dynamical to stellar mass ratio continues beyond z ∼ 0.7 up to z > 2 as M{sub dyn}/M{sub *} ∼(1 + z){sup –0.30±0.12}, further strengthening the evidence for an increase of M{sub dyn}/M{sub *} with cosmic time. This result is in line with recent predictions from galaxy formation simulations based on minor merger driven mass growth, in which the dark matter fraction within the half-light radius increases with cosmic time.

Identification of SDSS J141324.27+530527.0 as a New “Changing-look” Quasar with a “Turn-on” Transition

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, J.; Xu, D. W.; Wei, J. Y.

2018-05-01

We report an identification of SDSS J141324+530527.0 (SBS 1411+533) at z = 0.456344 as a new “changing-look” quasar with a “turn-on” spectral type transition from Type-1.9/2 to Type-1 within a rest-frame timescale of 1–10 yr by a comparison of our new spectroscopic observation and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) archive database. The SDSS DR7 spectrum taken in 2003 is dominated by a starlight emission from host galaxy redward of the Balmer limit, and has a non-detectable broad Hβ line. The new spectrum taken by us on 2017 June 1 and the SDSS DR14 spectrum taken on 2017 May 29 indicate that the object has a typical quasar spectrum with a blue continuum and strong Balmer broad emission lines. In addition, an intermediate spectral type can be identified in the SDSS DR13 spectrum taken in 2015. The invariability of the line wing of Mg II λ2800 emission and timescale argument (the invariability of [O III]λ5007 line blue asymmetry) suggests that a variation of obscuration (an accelerating outflow) is not a favorable scenario. The timescale argument allows us to believe the type transition is possibly caused by either a viscous radial inflow or a disk instability around a ∼ (5{--}9)× {10}7 {M}ȯ black hole.

A multiwavelength survey of H I-excess galaxies with surprisingly inefficient star formation

Science.gov (United States)

Geréb, K.; Janowiecki, S.; Catinella, B.; Cortese, L.; Kilborn, V.

2018-05-01

We present the results of a multiwavelength survey of H I-excess galaxies, an intriguing population with large H I reservoirs associated with little current star formation. These galaxies have stellar masses M⋆ > 1010 M⊙, and were identified as outliers in the gas fraction versus NUV-r colour and stellar mass surface density scaling relations based on the GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey (GASS). We obtained H I interferometry with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, Keck optical long-slit spectroscopy, and deep optical imaging (where available) for four galaxies. Our analysis reveals multiple possible reasons for the H I excess in these systems. One galaxy, AGC 10111, shows an H I disc that is counter-rotating with respect to the stellar bulge, a clear indication of external origin of the gas. Another galaxy appears to host a Malin 1-type disc, where a large specific angular momentum has to be invoked to explain the extreme M_{H I}/M⋆ ratio of 166 per cent. The other two galaxies have early-type morphology with very high gas fractions. The lack of merger signatures (unsettled gas, stellar shells, and streams) in these systems suggests that these gas-rich discs have been built several Gyr ago, but it remains unclear how the gas reservoirs were assembled. Numerical simulations of large cosmological volumes are needed to gain insight into the formation of these rare and interesting systems.

The Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Sako, Masao; Bassett, Bruce; Becker, Andrew C.; Brown, Peter J.; Campbell, Heather; Wolf, Rachel; Cinabro, David; D’Andrea, Chris B.; Dawson, Kyle S.; DeJongh, Fritz; Depoy, Darren L.; Dilday, Ben; Doi, Mamoru; Filippenko, Alexei V.; Fischer, John A.; Foley, Ryan J.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Galbany, Lluis; Garnavich, Peter M.; Goobar, Ariel; Gupta, Ravi R.; Hill, Gary J.; Hayden, Brian T.; Hlozek, Renée; Holtzman, Jon A.; Hopp, Ulrich; Jha, Saurabh W.; Kessler, Richard; Kollatschny, Wolfram; Leloudas, Giorgos; Marriner, John; Marshall, Jennifer L.; Miquel, Ramon; Morokuma, Tomoki; Mosher, Jennifer; Nichol, Robert C.; Nordin, Jakob; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Östman, Linda; Prieto, Jose L.; Richmond, Michael; Romani, Roger W.; Sollerman, Jesper; Stritzinger, Max; Schneider, Donald P.; Smith, Mathew; Wheeler, J. Craig; Yasuda, Naoki; Zheng, Chen

2018-06-01

This paper describes the data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II) Supernova Survey conducted between 2005 and 2007. Light curves, spectra, classifications, and ancillary data are presented for 10,258 variable and transient sources discovered through repeat ugriz imaging of SDSS Stripe 82, a 300 deg2 area along the celestial equator. This data release is comprised of all transient sources brighter than r ≃ 22.5 mag with no history of variability prior to 2004. Dedicated spectroscopic observations were performed on a subset of 889 transients, as well as spectra for thousands of transient host galaxies using the SDSS-III BOSS spectrographs. Photometric classifications are provided for the candidates with good multi-color light curves that were not observed spectroscopically, using host galaxy redshift information when available. From these observations, 4607 transients are either spectroscopically confirmed, or likely to be, supernovae, making this the largest sample of supernova candidates ever compiled. We present a new method for SN host-galaxy identification and derive host-galaxy properties including stellar masses, star formation rates, and the average stellar population ages from our SDSS multi-band photometry. We derive SALT2 distance moduli for a total of 1364 SN Ia with spectroscopic redshifts as well as photometric redshifts for a further 624 purely photometric SN Ia candidates. Using the spectroscopically confirmed subset of the three-year SDSS-II SN Ia sample and assuming a flat ΛCDM cosmology, we determine Ω M = 0.315 ± 0.093 (statistical error only) and detect a non-zero cosmological constant at 5.7σ.

The Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sako, Masao; et al.

2014-01-14

This paper describes the data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II) Supernova Survey conducted between 2005 and 2007. Light curves, spectra, classifications, and ancillary data are presented for 10,258 variable and transient sources discovered through repeat ugriz imaging of SDSS Stripe 82, a 300 deg2 area along the celestial equator. This data release is comprised of all transient sources brighter than r~22.5 mag with no history of variability prior to 2004. Dedicated spectroscopic observations were performed on a subset of 889 transients, as well as spectra for thousands of transient host galaxies using the SDSS-III BOSS spectrographs. Photometric classifications are provided for the candidates with good multi-color light curves that were not observed spectroscopically. From these observations, 4607 transients are either spectroscopically confirmed, or likely to be, supernovae, making this the largest sample of supernova candidates ever compiled. We present a new method for SN host-galaxy identification and derive host-galaxy properties including stellar masses, star-formation rates, and the average stellar population ages from our SDSS multi-band photometry. We derive SALT2 distance moduli for a total of 1443 SN Ia with spectroscopic redshifts as well as photometric redshifts for a further 677 purely-photometric SN Ia candidates. Using the spectroscopically confirmed subset of the three-year SDSS-II SN Ia sample and assuming a flat Lambda-CDM cosmology, we determine Omega_M = 0.315 +/- 0.093 (statistical error only) and detect a non-zero cosmological constant at 5.7 sigmas.

H I-SELECTED GALAXIES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY. I. OPTICAL DATA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

West, Andrew A.; Garcia-Appadoo, Diego A.; Dalcanton, Julianne J.; Ivezic, Zeljko; Bentz, Misty C.; Disney, Mike J.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Brinkmann, J.

2010-01-01

We present the optical data for 195 H I-selected galaxies that fall within both the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Parkes Equatorial Survey (ES). The photometric quantities have been independently recomputed for our sample using a new photometric pipeline optimized for large galaxies, thus correcting for SDSS's limited reliability for automatic photometry of angularly large or low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies. We outline the magnitude of the uncertainty in the SDSS catalog-level photometry and derive a quantitative method for correcting the over-sky subtraction in the SDSS photometric pipeline. The main thrust of this paper is to present the ES/SDSS sample and discuss the methods behind the improved photometry, which will be used in future scientific analysis. We present the overall optical properties of the sample and briefly compare to a volume-limited, optically selected sample. Compared to the optically selected SDSS sample (in the similar volume), H I-selected galaxies are bluer and more luminous (fewer dwarf ellipticals and more star formation). However, compared to typical SDSS galaxy studies, which have their own selection effect, our sample is bluer, fainter, and less massive.

The fall of the Northern Unicorn: Tangential motions in the Galactic Anti-centre with SDSS and Gaia

OpenAIRE

de Boer, T. J. L.; Belokurov, V.; Koposov, S. E.

2017-01-01

We present the first detailed study of the behaviour of the stellar proper motion across the entire Galactic Anti-centre area visible in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data. We use recalibrated SDSS astrometry in combination with positions from {\\it Gaia} DR1 to provide tangential motion measurements with a systematic uncertainty $

Galaxy Clustering in Early SDSS Redshift Data

CERN Document Server

Zehavi, I.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Weinberg, David H.; Mo, Houjun J.; Anderson, Scott F.; Strauss, Michael A.; Annis, James; Bahcall, Neta A.; Bernardi, Mariangela; Briggs, John W.; Brinkmann, Jon; Burles, Scott; Carey, Larry; Castander, Francisco J.; Connolly, J.; Csabai, Istvan; Dalcanton, Julianne J.; Dodelson,Scott; Doi,Mamoru; Eisenstein, Daniel; Evans, Michael L.; Finkbeiner, Douglas P.; Friedman, Scott; Fukugita, Masataka; Gunn, James E.; Hennessy, Greg S.; Hindsley, Robert B.; Ivezic, Zeljko; Kent,Stephen; Knapp, Gillian R.; Kron, Richard; Kunszt, Peter; Lamb, Donald; French Leger, R.; Long, Daniel C.; Loveday, Jon.; Lupton, Robert H.; McKay, Timothy; Meiksin, Avery; Merrelli, Aronne; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Narayanan, Vijay; Newcomb, Matt; Nichol, Robert C.; Owen, Russell; Peoples, John; Pope, Adrian; Rockosi, Constance M.; Schlegel, David; Schneider, Donald P.; Scoccimarro, Roman; Sheth, Ravi K.; Siegmund, Walter; Smee, Stephen; Snir, Yehuda; Stebbins, Albert; Stoughton, Christopher; SubbaRao, Mark; Szalay, Alexander S.; Szapudi, Istvan; Tegmark, Max; Tucker, Douglas L.; Uomoto, Alan; Vanden Berk, Dan; Vogeley, Michael S.; Waddell,Patrick; Yanny, Brian; York, Donald G.; Zehavi, Idit; Blanton, Michael R.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Weinberg, David H.; Mo, Houjun J.; Strauss, Michael A.

2002-01-01

We present the first measurements of clustering in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) galaxy redshift survey. Our sample consists of 29,300 galaxies with redshifts 5,700 km/s < cz < 39,000 km/s, distributed in several long but narrow (2.5-5 degree) segments, covering 690 square degrees. For the full, flux-limited sample, the redshift-space correlation length is approximately 8 Mpc/h. The two-dimensional correlation function \\xi(r_p,\\pi) shows clear signatures of both the small-scale, ``fingers-of-God'' distortion caused by velocity dispersions in collapsed objects and the large-scale compression caused by coherent flows, though the latter cannot be measured with high precision in the present sample. The inferred real-space correlation function is well described by a power law, \\xi(r)=(r/6.1+/-0.2 Mpc/h)^{-1.75+/-0.03}, for 0.1 Mpc/h < r < 16 Mpc/h. The galaxy pairwise velocity dispersion is \\sigma_{12} ~ 600+/-100 km/s for projected separations 0.15 Mpc/h < r_p < 5 Mpc/h. When we divide the...

Halo substructure in the SDSS-Gaia catalogue: streams and clumps

Science.gov (United States)

Myeong, G. C.; Evans, N. W.; Belokurov, V.; Amorisco, N. C.; Koposov, S. E.

2018-04-01

We use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-Gaia Catalogue to identify six new pieces of halo substructure. SDSS-Gaia is an astrometric catalogue that exploits SDSS data release 9 to provide first epoch photometry for objects in the Gaia source catalogue. We use a version of the catalogue containing 245 316 stars with all phase-space coordinates within a heliocentric distance of ˜10 kpc. We devise a method to assess the significance of halo substructures based on their clustering in velocity space. The two most substantial structures are multiple wraps of a stream which has undergone considerable phase mixing (S1, with 94 members) and a kinematically cold stream (S2, with 61 members). The member stars of S1 have a median position of (X, Y, Z) = (8.12, -0.22, 2.75) kpc and a median metallicity of [Fe/H] = -1.78. The stars of S2 have median coordinates (X, Y, Z) = (8.66, 0.30, 0.77) kpc and a median metallicity of [Fe/H] = -1.91. They lie in velocity space close to some of the stars in the stream reported by Helmi et al. By modelling, we estimate that both structures had progenitors with virial masses ≈1010M⊙ and infall times ≳ 9 Gyr ago. Using abundance matching, these correspond to stellar masses between 106 and 107M⊙. These are somewhat larger than the masses inferred through the mass-metallicity relation by factors of 5 to 15. Additionally, we identify two further substructures (S3 and S4 with 55 and 40 members) and two clusters or moving group (C1 and C2 with 24 and 12) members. In all six cases, clustering in kinematics is found to correspond to clustering in both configuration space and metallicity, adding credence to the reliability of our detections.

The topside ionosphere above Arecibo at equinox during sunspot maximum

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bailey, G.J.

1980-01-01

The coupled time-dependent 0 + and H + continuity and momentum equations and 0 + , H + and electron heat balance equations are solved simultaneously within the L = 1.4 (Arecibo) magnetic flux tube between an altitude of 120 km and the equatorial plane. The results of the calculations are used in a study of the topside ionosphere above Arecibo at equinox during sunspot maximum. Magnetically quiet conditions are assumed. The results of the calculations show that the L = 1.4 magnetic flux tube becomes saturated from an arbitrary state within 2-3 days. During the day the ion content of the magnetic flux tube consists mainly of 0 + whereas 0 + and H + are both important during the night. There is an altitude region in the topside ionosphere during the day where ion-counterstreaming occurs with H + flowing downward and 0 + flowing upward. The conditions causing this ion-counterstreaming are discussed. There is a net chemical gain of H + at the higher altitudes. This H + diffuses both upwards and downwards whilst 0 + diffuses upwards from its solar e.u.v. production source which is most important at the lower altitudes. During the night the calculated 0 + and H + temperatures are very nearly equal whereas during the day there are occasions when the H + temperature exceeds the 0 - temperature by about 300 K. (author)

RADIO-SELECTED QUASARS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McGreer, Ian D.; Helfand, David J.; White, Richard L.

2009-01-01

We have conducted a pilot survey for z > 3.5 quasars by combining the FIRST radio survey with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). While SDSS already targets FIRST sources for spectroscopy as quasar candidates, our survey includes fainter quasars and greatly improves the discovery rate by using strict astrometric criteria for matching the radio and optical positions. Our method allows for selection of high-redshift quasars with less color bias than with optical selection, as using radio selection essentially eliminates stellar contamination. We report the results of spectroscopy for 45 candidates, including 29 quasars in the range 0.37 3.5. We compare quasars selected using radio and optical criteria, and find that radio-selected quasars have a much higher fraction of moderately reddened objects. We derive a radio-loud quasar luminosity function at 3.5 < z < 4.0, and find that it is in good agreement with expectations from prior SDSS results.

THE MULTI-OBJECT, FIBER-FED SPECTROGRAPHS FOR THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY AND THE BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Smee, Stephen A.; Barkhouser, Robert H.; Gunn, James E.; Carr, Michael A.; Lupton, Robert H.; Loomis, Craig; Uomoto, Alan; Roe, Natalie; Schlegel, David; Rockosi, Constance M.; Leger, French; Owen, Russell; Anderson, Lauren; Dawson, Kyle S.; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Brinkmann, Jon; Long, Dan; Honscheid, Klaus; Harding, Paul; Annis, James

2013-01-01

We present the design and performance of the multi-object fiber spectrographs for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and their upgrade for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Originally commissioned in Fall 1999 on the 2.5 m aperture Sloan Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, the spectrographs produced more than 1.5 million spectra for the SDSS and SDSS-II surveys, enabling a wide variety of Galactic and extra-galactic science including the first observation of baryon acoustic oscillations in 2005. The spectrographs were upgraded in 2009 and are currently in use for BOSS, the flagship survey of the third-generation SDSS-III project. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.35 million massive galaxies to redshift 0.7 and Lyα absorption of 160,000 high redshift quasars over 10,000 deg 2 of sky, making percent level measurements of the absolute cosmic distance scale of the universe and placing tight constraints on the equation of state of dark energy. The twin multi-object fiber spectrographs utilize a simple optical layout with reflective collimators, gratings, all-refractive cameras, and state-of-the-art CCD detectors to produce hundreds of spectra simultaneously in two channels over a bandpass covering the near-ultraviolet to the near-infrared, with a resolving power R = λ/FWHM ∼ 2000. Building on proven heritage, the spectrographs were upgraded for BOSS with volume-phase holographic gratings and modern CCD detectors, improving the peak throughput by nearly a factor of two, extending the bandpass to cover 360 nm < λ < 1000 nm, and increasing the number of fibers from 640 to 1000 per exposure. In this paper we describe the original SDSS spectrograph design and the upgrades implemented for BOSS, and document the predicted and measured performances

THE MULTI-OBJECT, FIBER-FED SPECTROGRAPHS FOR THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY AND THE BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Smee, Stephen A.; Barkhouser, Robert H. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Gunn, James E.; Carr, Michael A.; Lupton, Robert H.; Loomis, Craig [Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States); Uomoto, Alan [Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States); Roe, Natalie; Schlegel, David [Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Rockosi, Constance M. [UC Observatories and Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, 375 Interdisciplinary Sciences Building (ISB) Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States); Leger, French; Owen, Russell; Anderson, Lauren [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 09195 (United States); Dawson, Kyle S.; Olmstead, Matthew D. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Brinkmann, Jon; Long, Dan [Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM 88349 (United States); Honscheid, Klaus [Department of Physics and Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Harding, Paul [Department of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106 (United States); Annis, James, E-mail: smee@pha.jhu.edu [Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States); and others

2013-08-01

We present the design and performance of the multi-object fiber spectrographs for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and their upgrade for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Originally commissioned in Fall 1999 on the 2.5 m aperture Sloan Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, the spectrographs produced more than 1.5 million spectra for the SDSS and SDSS-II surveys, enabling a wide variety of Galactic and extra-galactic science including the first observation of baryon acoustic oscillations in 2005. The spectrographs were upgraded in 2009 and are currently in use for BOSS, the flagship survey of the third-generation SDSS-III project. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.35 million massive galaxies to redshift 0.7 and Ly{alpha} absorption of 160,000 high redshift quasars over 10,000 deg{sup 2} of sky, making percent level measurements of the absolute cosmic distance scale of the universe and placing tight constraints on the equation of state of dark energy. The twin multi-object fiber spectrographs utilize a simple optical layout with reflective collimators, gratings, all-refractive cameras, and state-of-the-art CCD detectors to produce hundreds of spectra simultaneously in two channels over a bandpass covering the near-ultraviolet to the near-infrared, with a resolving power R = {lambda}/FWHM {approx} 2000. Building on proven heritage, the spectrographs were upgraded for BOSS with volume-phase holographic gratings and modern CCD detectors, improving the peak throughput by nearly a factor of two, extending the bandpass to cover 360 nm < {lambda} < 1000 nm, and increasing the number of fibers from 640 to 1000 per exposure. In this paper we describe the original SDSS spectrograph design and the upgrades implemented for BOSS, and document the predicted and measured performances.

THE MULTI-OBJECT, FIBER-FED SPECTROGRAPHS FOR THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY AND THE BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Smee, Stephen A.; Gunn, James E.; Uomoto, Alan; Roe, Natalie; Schlegel, David; Rockosi, Constance M.; Carr, Michael A.; Leger, French; Dawson, Kyle S.; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Brinkmann, Jon; Owen, Russell; Barkhouser, Robert H.; Honscheid, Klaus; Harding, Paul; Long, Dan; Lupton, Robert H.; Loomis, Craig; Anderson, Lauren; Annis, James; Bernardi, Mariangela; Bhardwaj, Vaishali; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Bolton, Adam S.; Brewington, Howard; Briggs, John W.; Burles, Scott; Burns, James G.; Castander, Francisco Javier; Connolly, Andrew; Davenport, James R. A.; Ebelke, Garrett; Epps, Harland; Feldman, Paul D.; Friedman, Scott D.; Frieman, Joshua; Heckman, Timothy; Hull, Charles L.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Lawrence, David M.; Loveday, Jon; Mannery, Edward J.; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Merrelli, Aronne James; Muna, Demitri; Newman, Peter R.; Nichol, Robert C.; Oravetz, Daniel; Pan, Kaike; Pope, Adrian C.; Ricketts, Paul G.; Shelden, Alaina; Sandford, Dale; Siegmund, Walter; Simmons, Audrey; Smith, D. Shane; Snedden, Stephanie; Schneider, Donald P.; SubbaRao, Mark; Tremonti, Christy; Waddell, Patrick; York, Donald G.

2013-07-12

We present the design and performance of the multi-object fiber spectrographs for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and their upgrade for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Originally commissioned in Fall 1999 on the 2.5-m aperture Sloan Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, the spectrographs produced more than 1.5 million spectra for the SDSS and SDSS-II surveys, enabling a wide variety of Galactic and extra-galactic science including the first observation of baryon acoustic oscillations in 2005. The spectrographs were upgraded in 2009 and are currently in use for BOSS, the flagship survey of the third-generation SDSS-III project. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.35 million massive galaxies to redshift 0.7 and Lyman-alpha absorption of 160,000 high redshift quasars over 10,000 square degrees of sky, making percent level measurements of the absolute cosmic distance scale of the Universe and placing tight constraints on the equation of state of dark energy. The twin multi-object fiber spectrographs utilize a simple optical layout with reflective collimators, gratings, all-refractive cameras, and state-of-the-art CCD detectors to produce hundreds of spectra simultaneously in two channels over a bandpass covering the near ultraviolet to the near infrared, with a resolving power R = \\lambda/FWHM ~ 2000. Building on proven heritage, the spectrographs were upgraded for BOSS with volume-phase holographic gratings and modern CCD detectors, improving the peak throughput by nearly a factor of two, extending the bandpass to cover 360 < \\lambda < 1000 nm, and increasing the number of fibers from 640 to 1000 per exposure. In this paper we describe the original SDSS spectrograph design and the upgrades implemented for BOSS, and document the predicted and measured performances.

ESTIMATING PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS OF QUASARS VIA THE k-NEAREST NEIGHBOR APPROACH BASED ON LARGE SURVEY DATABASES

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang Yanxia; Ma He; Peng Nanbo; Zhao Yongheng [Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100012 Beijing (China); Wu Xuebing, E-mail: zyx@bao.ac.cn [Department of Astronomy, Peking University, 100871 Beijing (China)

2013-08-01

We apply one of the lazy learning methods, the k-nearest neighbor (kNN) algorithm, to estimate the photometric redshifts of quasars based on various data sets from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS), and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE; the SDSS sample, the SDSS-UKIDSS sample, the SDSS-WISE sample, and the SDSS-UKIDSS-WISE sample). The influence of the k value and different input patterns on the performance of kNN is discussed. kNN performs best when k is different with a special input pattern for a special data set. The best result belongs to the SDSS-UKIDSS-WISE sample. The experimental results generally show that the more information from more bands, the better performance of photometric redshift estimation with kNN. The results also demonstrate that kNN using multiband data can effectively solve the catastrophic failure of photometric redshift estimation, which is met by many machine learning methods. Compared with the performance of various other methods of estimating the photometric redshifts of quasars, kNN based on KD-Tree shows superiority, exhibiting the best accuracy.

ESTIMATING PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS OF QUASARS VIA THE k-NEAREST NEIGHBOR APPROACH BASED ON LARGE SURVEY DATABASES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang Yanxia; Ma He; Peng Nanbo; Zhao Yongheng; Wu Xuebing

2013-01-01

We apply one of the lazy learning methods, the k-nearest neighbor (kNN) algorithm, to estimate the photometric redshifts of quasars based on various data sets from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS), and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE; the SDSS sample, the SDSS-UKIDSS sample, the SDSS-WISE sample, and the SDSS-UKIDSS-WISE sample). The influence of the k value and different input patterns on the performance of kNN is discussed. kNN performs best when k is different with a special input pattern for a special data set. The best result belongs to the SDSS-UKIDSS-WISE sample. The experimental results generally show that the more information from more bands, the better performance of photometric redshift estimation with kNN. The results also demonstrate that kNN using multiband data can effectively solve the catastrophic failure of photometric redshift estimation, which is met by many machine learning methods. Compared with the performance of various other methods of estimating the photometric redshifts of quasars, kNN based on KD-Tree shows superiority, exhibiting the best accuracy.

SPECTROSCOPIC ORBITAL PERIODS FOR 29 CATACLYSMIC VARIABLES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Thorstensen, John R.; Taylor, Cynthia J.; Peters, Christopher S.; Skinner, Julie N. [Department of Physics and Astronomy 6127 Wilder Laboratory, Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 03755-3528 (United States); Southworth, John [Astrophysics Group Keele University Staffordshire ST5 5BG (United Kingdom); Gänsicke, Boris T. [Department of Physics University of Warwick Coventry CV4 7AL (United Kingdom)

2015-04-15

We report follow-up spectroscopy of 29 cataclysmic variables from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), 22 of which were discovered by SDSS and seven of which are previously known systems that were recovered in SDSS. The periods for 16 of these objects were included in the tabulation by Gänsicke et al. While most of the systems have periods less than 2 hr, only one has a period in the 80–86 minutes “spike” found by Gänsicke et al., and 11 have periods longer than 3 hr, indicating that the present sample is skewed toward longer-period, higher-luminosity objects. Seven of the objects have spectra resembling dwarf novae, but have apparently never been observed in outburst, suggesting that many cataclysmics with relatively low variability amplitude remain to be discovered. Some of the objects are notable. SDSS J07568+0858 and SDSS J08129+1911 were previously known to have deep eclipses; in addition to spectroscopy, we use archival data from the Catalina Real Time Transient Survey to refine their periods. We give a parallax-based distance of 195 (+54, −39) pc for LV Cnc (SDSS J09197+0857), which at P{sub orb} = 81 m has the shortest orbital period in our sample. SDSS J08091+3814 shows both the spectroscopic phase offset and phase-dependent absorption found in SW Sextantis stars. The average spectra of SDSS J08055+0720 and SDSS J16191+1351 show contributions from K-type secondaries, and SDSS J080440+0239 shows a contribution from an early M star. We use these to constrain the distances. SDSS J09459+2922 has characteristics typical of a magnetic system. SDSS11324+6249 may be a novalike variable, and if so, its orbital period (99 minutes) is unusually short for that subclass.

The sloan digital sky survey-II supernova survey

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Frieman, Joshua A.; Bassett, Bruce; Becker, Andrew

2008-01-01

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II) has embarked on a multi-year project to identify and measure light curves for intermediate-redshift (0.05 < z < 0.35) Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) using repeated five-band (ugriz) imaging over an area of 300 sq. deg. The survey region is a stripe 2.5° wide...

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of the Cool Brown Dwarf, SDSS 1624+00

Science.gov (United States)

Nakajima, Tadashi; Tsuji, Takashi; Maihara, Toshinori; Iwamuro, Fumihide; Motohara, Ken-taro; Taguchi, Tomoyuki; Hata, Ryuji; Tamura, Motohide; Yamashita, Takuya

2000-02-01

Using the Subaru Telescope, we have obtained multiple near-infrared spectra of the cool brown dwarf, SDSS 1624+00 (J162414.37+002915.8), in search of spectral variability in an 80 minute time span. We have found the suspected variability of water vapor absorption throughout the observations, which requires a confirmation with a longer time baseline. After coadding the spectra, we have obtained a high-quality spectrum covering from 1.05 to 1.8 mu m. There are three kinds of spectral indicators, the water vapor bands, methane band and K I lines at 1.243 and 1.252 mu m, which can be used to study the temperature and the presence of dust. We compare the spectra of SDSS 1624+00 and Gliese 229B, while paying special attention to these indicators. The shallower water vapor absorption of SDSS 1624+00 indicates that it is warmer and/or dustier. The shallower methane absorption suggests that SDSS 1624+00 is warmer. We interpret the deeper K I lines in SDSS 1624+00 as being the result of its higher temperature. With the help of model spectra, we conclude that SDSS 1624+00 is warmer and dustier than Gliese 229B. For the first time in a cool brown dwarf, a finite flux is seen at the bottom of the water vapor band between 1.34 and 1.42 mu m, which means that the 1.4 mu m band of water can be completely observed from the ground.

Discovery of four gravitational lensing systems by clusters in the SDSS DR6

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wen Zhonglue; Han Jinlin; Xu Xiangyang; Jiang Yunying; Guo Zhiqing; Wang Pengfei; Liu Fengshan

2009-01-01

We report the discovery of 4 strong gravitational lensing systems by visual inspections of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey images of galaxy clusters in Data Release 6 (SDSS DR6). Two of the four systems show Einstein rings while the others show tangential giant arcs. These arcs or rings have large angular separations (> 8) from the bright central galaxies and show bluer color compared with the red cluster galaxies. In addition, we found 5 probable and 4 possible lenses by galaxy clusters. (letters)

Properties of optically selected BL Lacertae candidates from the SDSS

Science.gov (United States)

Kügler, S. D.; Nilsson, K.; Heidt, J.; Esser, J.; Schultz, T.

2014-09-01

Context. Deep optical surveys open the avenue for finding large numbers of BL Lac objects that are hard to identify because they lack the unique properties classifying them as such. While radio or X-ray surveys typically reveal dozens of sources, recent compilations based on optical criteria alone have increased the number of BL Lac candidates considerably. However, these compilations are subject to biases and may contain a substantial number of contaminating sources. Aims: In this paper we extend our analysis of 182 optically selected BL Lac object candidates from the SDSS with respect to an earlier study. The main goal is to determine the number of bona fide BL Lac objects in this sample. Methods: We examine their variability characteristics, determine their broad-band radio-UV spectral energy distributions (SEDs), and search for the presence of a host galaxy. In addition we present new optical spectra for 27 targets with improved signal-to-noise ratio with respect to the SDSS spectra. Results: At least 59% of our targets have shown variability between SDSS DR2 and our observations by more than 0.1-0.27 mag depending on the telescope used. A host galaxy was detected in 36% of our targets. The host galaxy type and luminosities are consistent with earlier studies of BL Lac host galaxies. Simple fits to broad-band SEDs for 104 targets of our sample derived synchrotron peak frequencies between 13.5 ≤ log 10(νpeak) ≤ 16 with a peak at log 10 ~ 14.5. Our new optical spectra do not reveal any new redshift for any of our objects. Thus the sample contains a large number of bona fide BL Lac objects and seems to contain a substantial fraction of intermediate-frequency peaked BL Lacs. Based on observations collected with the NTT on La Silla (Chile) operated by the European Southern Observatory under proposal 082.B-0133.Based on observations collected at the Centro Astronómico Hispano Alemán (CAHA), operated jointly by the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie and the

Constraint on neutrino masses from SDSS-III/BOSS Ly$\\alpha$ forest and other cosmological probes

CERN Document Server

Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Lesgourgues, Julien; Rossi, Graziano; Borde, Arnaud; Viel, Matteo; Aubourg, Eric; Kirkby, David; LeGoff, Jean-Marc; Rich, James; Roe, Natalie; Ross, Nicholas P.; Schneider, Donald P.; Weinberg, David

2015-02-27

We present constraints on the parameters of the $\\Lambda$CDM cosmological model in the presence of massive neutrinos, using the one-dimensional Ly$\\alpha$ forest power spectrum obtained with the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) by Palanque-Delabrouille et al. (2013), complemented by additional cosmological probes. The interpretation of the measured Ly$\\alpha$ spectrum is done using a second-order Taylor expansion of the simulated power spectrum. BOSS Ly$\\alpha$ data alone provide better bounds than previous Ly$\\alpha$ results, but are still poorly constraining, especially for the sum of neutrino masses $\\sum m_\

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog V. Seventh Data Release

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schneider, Donald P.; /Penn State U.; Richards, Gordon T.; /Drexel U.; Hall, Patrick B.; /York U., Canada; Strauss, Michael A.; /Princeton U. Observ.; Anderson, Scott F.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Boroson, Todd A.; /Kitt Peak Observ.; Ross, Nicholas P.; /Penn State U.; Shen, Yue; /Princeton U. Observ.; Brandt, W.N.; /Penn State U.; Fan, Xiaohui; /Arizona U., Astron. Dept. - Steward Observ.; Inada, Naohisa; /Wako, RIKEN /Southampton U. /Heidelberg, Max Planck Inst. Astron.

2010-04-01

We present the fifth edition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Catalog, which is based upon the SDSS Seventh Data Release. The catalog, which contains 105,783 spectroscopically confirmed quasars, represents the conclusion of the SDSS-I and SDSS-II quasar survey. The catalog consists of the SDSS objects that have luminosities larger than M{sub i} = -22.0 (in a cosmology with H{sub 0} = 70 km s{sup -1} Mpc{sup -1}, {Omega}{sub M} = 0.3, and {Omega}{sub {Lambda}} = 0.7), have at least one emission line with FWHM larger than 1000 km s{sup -1} or have interesting/complex absorption features, are fainter than i {approx} 15.0, and have highly reliable redshifts. The catalog covers an area of {approx} 9380 deg{sup 2}. The quasar redshifts range from 0.065 to 5.46, with a median value of 1.49; the catalog includes 1248 quasars at redshifts greater than 4, of which 56 are at redshifts greater than 5. The catalog contains 9210 quasars with i < 18; slightly over half of the entries have i < 19. For each object the catalog presents positions accurate to better than 0.1-inch rms per coordinate, five-band (ugriz) CCD-based photometry with typical accuracy of 0.03 mag, and information on the morphology and selection method. The catalog also contains radio, near-infrared, and X-ray emission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area surveys. The calibrated digital spectra cover the wavelength region 3800-9200 {angstrom} at a spectral resolution of {approx_equal} 2000; the spectra can be retrieved from the SDSS public database using the information provided in the catalog. Over 96% of the objects in the catalog were discovered by the SDSS. We also include a supplemental list of an additional 207 quasars with SDSS spectra whose archive photometric information is incomplete.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: Tully-Fisher relation for SDSS galaxies (Reyes+, 2011)

Science.gov (United States)

Reyes, R.; Mandelbaum, R.; Gunn, J. E.; Pizagno, J.; Lackner, C. N.

2012-05-01

In this paper, we derive scaling relations between photometric observable quantities and disc galaxy rotation velocity Vrot or Tully-Fisher relations (TFRs). Our methodology is dictated by our purpose of obtaining purely photometric, minimal-scatter estimators of Vrot applicable to large galaxy samples from imaging surveys. To achieve this goal, we have constructed a sample of 189 disc galaxies at redshifts z<0.1 with long-slit Hα spectroscopy from Pizagno et al. (2007, Cat. J/AJ/134/945) and new observations. By construction, this sample is a fair subsample of a large, well-defined parent disc sample of ~170000 galaxies selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS DR7). (4 data files).

ACOUSTIC SCALE FROM THE ANGULAR POWER SPECTRA OF SDSS-III DR8 PHOTOMETRIC LUMINOUS GALAXIES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seo, Hee-Jong; Ho, Shirley; White, Martin; Reid, Beth; Schlegel, David J.; Cuesta, Antonio J.; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Ross, Ashley J.; Percival, Will J.; Nichol, Robert C.; Saito, Shun; De Putter, Roland; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Xu Xiaoying; Skibba, Ramin; Schneider, Donald P.; Verde, Licia; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Brewington, Howard; Brinkmann, J.

2012-01-01

We measure the acoustic scale from the angular power spectra of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) Data Release 8 imaging catalog that includes 872, 921 galaxies over ∼10,000 deg 2 between 0.45 A (z)/r s = 9.212 +0.416 – 0 .404 at z = 0.54, and therefore D A (z) = 1411 ± 65 Mpc at z = 0.54; the result is fairly independent of assumptions on the underlying cosmology. Our measurement of angular diameter distance D A (z) is 1.4σ higher than what is expected for the concordance ΛCDM, in accordance to the trend of other spectroscopic BAO measurements for z ∼> 0.35. We report constraints on cosmological parameters from our measurement in combination with the WMAP7 data and the previous spectroscopic BAO measurements of SDSS and WiggleZ. We refer to our companion papers (Ho et al.; de Putter et al.) for investigations on information of the full power spectrum.

MASS AND ENVIRONMENT AS DRIVERS OF GALAXY EVOLUTION IN SDSS AND zCOSMOS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE SCHECHTER FUNCTION

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Peng, Ying-Jie; Lilly, Simon J.; Kovac, Katarina; Bolzonella, Micol; Pozzetti, Lucia; Renzini, Alvio; Zamorani, Gianni; Ilbert, Olivier; Knobel, Christian; Iovino, Angela; Maier, Christian; Cucciati, Olga; Tasca, Lidia; Carollo, C. Marcella; Silverman, John; Kampczyk, Pawel; De Ravel, Loic; Sanders, David; Scoville, Nicholas; Contini, Thierry; Mainieri, Vincenzo; Scodeggio, Marco; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Le Fevre, Olivier; Bardelli, Sandro; Bongiorno, Angela; Caputi, Karina; Coppa, Graziano; de la Torre, Sylvain; Franzetti, Paolo; Garilli, Bianca; Lamareille, Fabrice; Le Borgne, Jean-Francois; Le Brun, Vincent; Mignoli, Marco; Montero, Enrique Perez; Pello, Roser; Ricciardelli, Elena; Tanaka, Masayuki; Tresse, Laurence; Vergani, Daniela; Welikala, Niraj; Zucca, Elena; Oesch, Pascal; Abbas, Ummi; Barnes, Luke; Bordoloi, Rongmon; Bottini, Dario; Cappi, Alberto; Cassata, Paolo; Cimatti, Andrea; Fumana, Marco; Hasinger, Gunther; Koekemoer, Anton; Leauthaud, Alexei; Maccagni, Dario; Marinoni, Christian; McCracken, Henry; Memeo, Pierdomenico; Meneux, Baptiste; Nair, Preethi; Porciani, Cristiano; Presotto, Valentina; Scaramella, Roberto

2010-01-01

We explore the simple inter-relationships between mass, star formation rate, and environment in the SDSS, zCOSMOS, and other deep surveys. We take a purely empirical approach in identifying those features of galaxy evolution that are demanded by the data and then explore the analytic consequences of

VizieR Online Data Catalog: UV counterparts in HI clouds using ALFA surveys (Donovan+, 2015)

Science.gov (United States)

Donovan Meyer, J.; Peek, J. E. G.; Putman, M.; Grcevich, J.

2017-10-01

GALFA-HI is a survey of Galactic HI conducted with the ALFA seven-beam feed array on the 305 m Arecibo antenna. The survey has both high spatial (FWHM~4') and velocity (0.18 km/s) resolution over 13000 (7520 in DR1) degrees2 of sky between -650 and 650 km/s. Details of the observations and data reduction can be found in Peek et al. (2011ApJS..194...20P). The ALFALFA HI-line survey, now 40% complete, also uses the Arecibo Observatory and its seven-beam feed array to detect potential dwarf galaxies in the vicinity of the Milky Way. The survey, which covers over 7000 (2800 in α.40) deg2 of sky out to 18000 km/s, has the sensitivity to detect 105 Mȯ clouds with 20 km/s linewidths at a distance of 1 Mpc. (2 data files).

The Intrinsic Shape of Galaxies in SDSS/Galaxy Zoo

OpenAIRE

Rodríguez, Silvio; Padilla, Nelson D.

2013-01-01

By modelling the axis ratio distribution of SDSS DR8 galaxies we find the intrinsic 3D shapes of spirals and ellipticals. We use morphological information from the Galaxy Zoo project and assume a non-parametric distribution intrinsic of shapes, while taking into account dust extinction. We measure the dust extinction of the full sample of spiral galaxies and find a smaller value than previous estimations, with an edge-on extinction of $E_0 = 0.284^{+0.015}_{-0.026}$ in the SDSS r band. We als...

The 3D Power Spectrum from Angular Clustering of Galaxies in Early SDSS Data

CERN Document Server

Dodelson, Scott; Tegmark, Max; Scranton, Ryan; Budavari, Tamas; Connolly, Andrew; Csabai, Istvan; Eisenstein, Daniel; Frieman, Joshua A.; Gunn, James E.; Hui, Lam; Jain, Bhuvnesh; Johnston, David; Kent, Stephen M.; Loveday, Jon; Nichol, Robert C.; O'Connell, Liam; Scoccimarro, Roman; Sheth, Ravi K.; Stebbins, Albert; Strauss, Michael A.; Szalay, Alexander S.; Szapudi, Istvan; Vogeley, Michael S.; Zehavi, Idit; Annis, James; Bahcall, Neta A.; Brinkman, Jon; Doi, Mamoru; Fukugita, Masataka; Hennessy, Greg; Ivezic, Zeljko; Knapp, Gillian R.; Kunszt, Peter; Lamb, Don Q.; Lee, Brian C.; Lupton, Robert H.; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Peoples, John; Pier, Jeffrey R.; Rockosi, Constance; Schlegel, David; Stoughton, Christopher; Tucker, Douglas L.; Yanny, Brian; York, Donald G.; Dodelson, Scott; Narayanan, Vijay K.; Tegmark, Max; Scranton, Ryan; Budavari, Tamas; Connolly, Andrew; Csabai, Istvan; Eisenstein, Daniel; Frieman, Joshua A.; Gunn, James E.; Hui, Lam; Jain, Bhuvnesh; Johnston, David; Kent, Stephen; Loveday, Jon; Nichol, Robert C.; Connell, Liam O'; Scoccimarro, Roman; Sheth, Ravi K.; Stebbins, Albert; Strauss, Michael A.; Szalay, Alexander S.; Szapudi, Istv\\'an; Vogeley, Michael S.; Zehavi, Idit

2001-01-01

Early photometric data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) contain angular positions for 1.5 million galaxies. In companion papers, the angular correlation function $w(\\theta)$ and 2D power spectrum $C_l$ of these galaxies are presented. Here we invert Limber's equation to extract the 3D power spectrum from the angular results. We accomplish this using an estimate of $dn/dz$, the redshift distribution of galaxies in four different magnitude slices in the SDSS photometric catalog. The resulting 3D power spectrum estimates from $w(\\theta)$ and $C_l$ agree with each other and with previous estimates over a range in wavenumbers $0.03 < k/{\\rm h Mpc}^{-1} < 1$. The galaxies in the faintest magnitude bin ($21 < \\rstar < 22$, which have median redshift $z_m=0.43$) are less clustered than the galaxies in the brightest magnitude bin ($18 < \\rstar < 19$ with $z_m=0.17$), especially on scales where nonlinearities are important. The derived power spectrum agrees with that of Szalay et al. (2001) wh...

Strong chromatic microlensing in HE0047–1756 and SDSS1155+6346

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rojas, K.; Motta, V. [Instituto de Física y Astronomía, Universidad de Valparaíso, Avda. Gran Bretaña 1111, Playa Ancha, Valparaíso 2360102 (Chile); Mediavilla, E. [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Avda. Vía Lactea s/n, La Laguna, E-38200 Tenerife (Spain); Falco, E. [Whipple Observatory, Smithsonian Institution, 670 Mt. Hopkins Road, PO Box 6369, Amado, AZ 85645 (United States); Jiménez-Vicente, J. [Departamento de Física Teórica y del Cosmos, Universidad de Granada, Campus de Fuentenueva, E-18071 Granada (Spain); Muñoz, J. A., E-mail: karina.rojas@uv.cl, E-mail: veronica.motta@uv.cl, E-mail: emg@iac.es, E-mail: falco@cfa.harvard.edu, E-mail: jjimenez@ugr.es, E-mail: jmunoz@uv.es [Departamento de Astronomía y Astrofísica, Universidad de Valencia, Burjassot, E-46100 Valencia (Spain)

2014-12-10

We use spectra of the double-lensed quasars HE0047–1756 and SDSS1155+6346 to study their unresolved structure through the impact of microlensing. There is no significant evidence of microlensing in the emission line profiles except for the Lyα line of SDSS1155+6346, which shows strong differences in the shapes for images A and B. However, the continuum of the B image spectrum in SDSS1155+6346 is strongly contaminated by the lens galaxy, and these differences should be considered with caution. Using the flux ratios of the emission lines for image pairs as a baseline to remove macro-magnification and extinction, we have detected strong chromatic microlensing in the continuum measured by CASTLES (www.cfa.harvard.edu/castles/) in both lens systems, with amplitudes 0.09(λ16000) ≲ |Δm| ≲ 0.8(λ5439) for HE0047–1756, and 0.2(λ16000) ≲ |Δm| ≲ 0.8(λ5439) for SDSS1155+6346. Using magnification maps to simulate microlensing and modeling the accretion disk as a Gaussian source (I ∝ exp(–R {sup 2}/2r {sub s}{sup 2})) of size r {sub s} ∝ λ {sup p}, we find r {sub s} = 2.5{sub −1.4}{sup +3.0} √(M/0.3M{sub ⊙}) lt-day and p = 2.3 ± 0.8 at the rest frame for λ = 2045 for HE0047–1756 (log prior) and r {sub s} = 5.5{sub −3.3}{sup +8.2} √(M/0.3M{sub ⊙}) lt-day and p = 1.5 ± 0.6 at the rest frame of λ = 1398 for SDSS1155+6346 (log prior). Contrary to other studied lens systems, the chromaticity detected in HE0047–1756 and SDSS1155+6346 is large enough to fulfill the thin disk prediction. The inferred sizes, however, are very large compared to the predictions of this model, especially in the case of SDSS1155+6346.

The Prevalence of Ionized Gas Outflow Signatures in SDSS-IV MaNGA Active Galactic Nuclei

Science.gov (United States)

Flores, Anthony M.; Wylezalek, Dominika; Zakamska, Nadia

2018-01-01

Actively accreting supermassive black holes (AGN) can have a variety of effects on their host galaxies, from generating large regions of hot, photoionized gas, to driving AGN feedback in the form of galaxy wide outflows that may affect the evolution of the galaxy over time by quenching their star formation and by thus setting limits to the total mass of their host galaxy. The focus of this work is to assess the prevalence of AGN-driven outflows in low-redshift AGN of moderate power using IFU observations of 2778 galaxies available through SDSS-IV MaNGA.SDSS-IV MaNGA is an optical spectroscopic IFU survey which will have obtained spatially resolved spectroscopic observations of ~10,000 galaxies at z ≤ 0.1 and with stellar masses >10^9 solar masses over the next three years, allowing us to describe the kinematic properties of a large galaxy sample across different spatial regions.We have re-mapped the kinematics of the [O III] emission line to account for asymmetries and secondary kinematic components in the emission line brought on by potential AGN-driven outflows. Using all galaxies currently in the MaNGA survey, we implement a new fitting procedure to help determine the prevalence of these secondary components. Specifically, we use the non-parametric W80 value as a proxy for velocity dispersion, which we expect to be affected especially in the case of asymmetries and broadening of the emission lines. Separating these galaxies into two samples of independently identified AGN candidates and non-AGN, I will show that broad secondary components are twice as common in MaNGA-selected AGN compared to galaxies in MaNGA not classified as AGN. Moreover, when the underlying distribution of W80 values are compared between samples, I will show that the differences in these distributions are statistically significant. This demonstrates that large IFU survey like SDSS-IV MaNGA will uncover many previously unknown AGN and AGN feedback signatures. Outflows and feedback from low

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Fourteenth data release

Science.gov (United States)

Pâris, Isabelle; Petitjean, Patrick; Aubourg, Éric; Myers, Adam D.; Streblyanska, Alina; Lyke, Brad W.; Anderson, Scott F.; Armengaud, Éric; Bautista, Julian; Blanton, Michael R.; Blomqvist, Michael; Brinkmann, Jonathan; Brownstein, Joel R.; Brandt, William Nielsen; Burtin, Étienne; Dawson, Kyle; de la Torre, Sylvain; Georgakakis, Antonis; Gil-Marín, Héctor; Green, Paul J.; Hall, Patrick B.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; LaMassa, Stephanie M.; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; MacLeod, Chelsea; Mariappan, Vivek; McGreer, Ian D.; Merloni, Andrea; Noterdaeme, Pasquier; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Percival, Will J.; Ross, Ashley J.; Rossi, Graziano; Schneider, Donald P.; Seo, Hee-Jong; Tojeiro, Rita; Weaver, Benjamin A.; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Yèche, Christophe; Zarrouk, Pauline; Zhao, Gong-Bo

2018-05-01

We present the data release 14 Quasar catalog (DR14Q) from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV). This catalog includes all SDSS-IV/eBOSS objects that were spectroscopically targeted as quasar candidates and that are confirmed as quasars via a new automated procedure combined with a partial visual inspection of spectra, have luminosities Mi [z = 2] < -20.5 (in a Λ CDM cosmology with H0 = 70 km s-1 Mpc-1, Ω M =0.3, and Ω Λ = 0.7), and either display at least one emission line with a full width at half maximum larger than 500 km s-1 or, if not, have interesting/complex absorption features. The catalog also includes previously spectroscopically-confirmed quasars from SDSS-I, II, and III. The catalog contains 526 356 quasars (144 046 are new discoveries since the beginning of SDSS-IV) detected over 9376 deg2 (2044 deg2 having new spectroscopic data available) with robust identification and redshift measured by a combination of principal component eigenspectra. The catalog is estimated to have about 0.5% contamination. Redshifts are provided for the Mg II emission line. The catalog identifies 21 877 broad absorption line quasars and lists their characteristics. For each object, the catalog presents five-band (u, g, r, i, z) CCD-based photometry with typical accuracy of 0.03 mag. The catalog also contains X-ray, ultraviolet, near-infrared, and radio emission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area surveys. The calibrated digital spectra, covering the wavelength region 3610-10 140 Å at a spectral resolution in the range 1300 < R < 2500, can be retrieved from the SDSS Science Archiver Server. http://www.sdss.org/dr14/algorithms/qso_catalog

THE ARECIBO LEGACY FAST ALFA SURVEY. IX. THE LEO REGION H I CATALOG, GROUP MEMBERSHIP, AND THE H I MASS FUNCTION FOR THE LEO I GROUP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stierwalt, Sabrina; Haynes, Martha P.; Giovanelli, Riccardo; Martin, Ann M.; Kent, Brian R.; Saintonge, Amelie; Karachentsev, Igor D.; Karachentseva, Valentina E.

2009-01-01

We present the catalog of H I sources extracted from the ongoing Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) extragalactic H I line survey, found within the sky region bounded by 9 h 36 m h 36 m and +08 0 0 . The H I catalog presented here for this 118 deg 2 region is combined with the ones derived from surrounding regions also covered by the ALFALFA survey to examine the large-scale structure in the complex Leo region. Because of the combination of wide sky coverage and superior sensitivity, spatial and spectral resolution, the ALFALFA H I catalog of the Leo region improves significantly on the numbers of low H I mass sources as compared with those found in previous H I surveys. The H I mass function of the Leo I group presented here is dominated by low-mass objects: 45 of the 65 Leo I members have M H I 8 M-odot, yielding tight constraints on the low-mass slope of the Leo I H I mass function. The best-fit slope is α ≅ -1.41 + 0.2 - 0.1. A direct comparison between the ALFALFA H I line detections and an optical search of the Leo I region proves the advantage of the ALFALFA strategy in finding low-mass, gas-rich dwarfs. These results suggest the existence of a significant population of low surface brightness, gas-rich, yet still very low H I mass galaxies, and may reflect the same type of morphological segregation as is seen in the Local Group. While the low-mass end slope of the Leo I H I mass function is steeper than that determined for luminosity functions of the group, the slope still falls short of the values predicted by simulations of structure formation in the lambda cold dark matter paradigm.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: Gaia-PS1-SDSS (GPS1) proper motion catalog (Tian+, 2017)

Science.gov (United States)

Tian, H.-J.; Gupta, P.; Sesar, B.; Rix, H.-W.; Martin, N. F.; Liu, C.; Goldman, B.; Platais, I.; Kudritzki, R.-P.; Waters, C. Z.

2018-02-01

In order to construct proper motions, we analyze and model catalog positions from four different imaging surveys, as discussed below. Gaia DR1 is based on observations collected between 2014 July 25 and 2015 September 16. PS1 observations were collected between 2010 and 2014. The SDSS DR9 data used here were obtained in the years between 2000 and 2008. The images from 2MASS were taken between 1997 and 2001. (1 data file).

IMPROVED BACKGROUND SUBTRACTION FOR THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY IMAGES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Blanton, Michael R.; Kazin, Eyal; Muna, Demitri; Weaver, Benjamin A.; Price-Whelan, Adrian

2011-01-01

We describe a procedure for background subtracting Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging that improves the resulting detection and photometry of large galaxies on the sky. Within each SDSS drift scan run, we mask out detected sources and then fit a smooth function to the variation of the sky background. This procedure has been applied to all SDSS-III Data Release 8 images, and the results are available as part of that data set. We have tested the effect of our background subtraction on the photometry of large galaxies by inserting fake galaxies into the raw pixels, reanalyzing the data, and measuring them after background subtraction. Our technique results in no size-dependent bias in galaxy fluxes up to half-light radii r 50 ∼ 100 arcsec; in contrast, for galaxies of that size the standard SDSS photometric catalog underestimates fluxes by about 1.5 mag. Our results represent a substantial improvement over the standard SDSS catalog results and should form the basis of any analysis of nearby galaxies using the SDSS imaging data.

X-RAY-EMITTING STARS IDENTIFIED FROM THE ROSAT ALL-SKY SURVEY AND THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Agueeros, Marcel A.; Newsom, Emily R.; Anderson, Scott F.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Silvestri, Nicole M.; Szkody, Paula; Covey, Kevin R.; Posselt, Bettina; Margon, Bruce; Voges, Wolfgang

2009-01-01

The ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS) was the first imaging X-ray survey of the entire sky. Combining the RASS Bright and Faint Source Catalogs yields an average of about three X-ray sources per square degree. However, while X-ray source counterparts are known to range from distant quasars to nearby M dwarfs, the RASS data alone are often insufficient to determine the nature of an X-ray source. As a result, large-scale follow-up programs are required to construct samples of known X-ray emitters. We use optical data produced by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to identify 709 stellar X-ray emitters cataloged in the RASS and falling within the SDSS Data Release 1 footprint. Most of these are bright stars with coronal X-ray emission unsuitable for SDSS spectroscopy, which is designed for fainter objects (g > 15 [mag]). Instead, we use SDSS photometry, correlations with the Two Micron All Sky Survey and other catalogs, and spectroscopy from the Apache Point Observatory 3.5 m telescope to identify these stellar X-ray counterparts. Our sample of 707 X-ray-emitting F, G, K, and M stars is one of the largest X-ray-selected samples of such stars. We derive distances to these stars using photometric parallax relations appropriate for dwarfs on the main sequence, and use these distances to calculate L X . We also identify a previously unknown cataclysmic variable (CV) as a RASS counterpart. Separately, we use correlations of the RASS and the SDSS spectroscopic catalogs of CVs and white dwarfs (WDs) to study the properties of these rarer X-ray-emitting stars. We examine the relationship between (f X /f g ) and the equivalent width of the Hβ emission line for 46 X-ray-emitting CVs and discuss tentative classifications for a subset based on these quantities. We identify 17 new X-ray-emitting DA (hydrogen) WDs, of which three are newly identified WDs. We report on follow-up observations of three candidate cool X-ray-emitting WDs (one DA and two DB (helium) WDs); we have not

DISCLOSING THE RADIO LOUDNESS DISTRIBUTION DICHOTOMY IN QUASARS: AN UNBIASED MONTE CARLO APPROACH APPLIED TO THE SDSS-FIRST QUASAR SAMPLE

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Balokovic, M. [Department of Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States); Smolcic, V. [Argelander-Institut fuer Astronomie, Auf dem Hugel 71, D-53121 Bonn (Germany); Ivezic, Z. [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Zamorani, G. [INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, via Ranzani 1, I-40127 Bologna (Italy); Schinnerer, E. [Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astronomie, Koenigstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg (Germany); Kelly, B. C. [Department of Physics, Broida Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 (United States)

2012-11-01

We investigate the dichotomy in the radio loudness distribution of quasars by modeling their radio emission and various selection effects using a Monte Carlo approach. The existence of two physically distinct quasar populations, the radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars, is controversial and over the last decade a bimodal distribution of radio loudness of quasars has been both affirmed and disputed. We model the quasar radio luminosity distribution with simple unimodal and bimodal distribution functions. The resulting simulated samples are compared to a fiducial sample of 8300 quasars drawn from the SDSS DR7 Quasar Catalog and combined with radio observations from the FIRST survey. Our results indicate that the SDSS-FIRST sample is best described by a radio loudness distribution which consists of two components, with (12 {+-} 1)% of sources in the radio-loud component. On the other hand, the evidence for a local minimum in the loudness distribution (bimodality) is not strong and we find that previous claims for its existence were probably affected by the incompleteness of the FIRST survey close to its faint limit. We also investigate the redshift and luminosity dependence of the radio loudness distribution and find tentative evidence that at high redshift radio-loud quasars were rarer, on average louder, and exhibited a smaller range in radio loudness. In agreement with other recent work, we conclude that the SDSS-FIRST sample strongly suggests that the radio loudness distribution of quasars is not a universal function, and that more complex models than presented here are needed to fully explain available observations.

DISCLOSING THE RADIO LOUDNESS DISTRIBUTION DICHOTOMY IN QUASARS: AN UNBIASED MONTE CARLO APPROACH APPLIED TO THE SDSS-FIRST QUASAR SAMPLE

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baloković, M.; Smolčić, V.; Ivezić, Ž.; Zamorani, G.; Schinnerer, E.; Kelly, B. C.

2012-01-01

We investigate the dichotomy in the radio loudness distribution of quasars by modeling their radio emission and various selection effects using a Monte Carlo approach. The existence of two physically distinct quasar populations, the radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars, is controversial and over the last decade a bimodal distribution of radio loudness of quasars has been both affirmed and disputed. We model the quasar radio luminosity distribution with simple unimodal and bimodal distribution functions. The resulting simulated samples are compared to a fiducial sample of 8300 quasars drawn from the SDSS DR7 Quasar Catalog and combined with radio observations from the FIRST survey. Our results indicate that the SDSS-FIRST sample is best described by a radio loudness distribution which consists of two components, with (12 ± 1)% of sources in the radio-loud component. On the other hand, the evidence for a local minimum in the loudness distribution (bimodality) is not strong and we find that previous claims for its existence were probably affected by the incompleteness of the FIRST survey close to its faint limit. We also investigate the redshift and luminosity dependence of the radio loudness distribution and find tentative evidence that at high redshift radio-loud quasars were rarer, on average louder, and exhibited a smaller range in radio loudness. In agreement with other recent work, we conclude that the SDSS-FIRST sample strongly suggests that the radio loudness distribution of quasars is not a universal function, and that more complex models than presented here are needed to fully explain available observations.

The SOAR Gravitational Arc Survey – I. Survey overview and photometric catalogues

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Furlanetto, Cristina; Santiago, Basílio X.; Makler, Martín; Cypriano, Eduardo S.; Caminha, Gabriel B.; Pereira, Maria E. S.; Neto, Angelo Fausti; Estrada, Juan; Lin, Huan; Hao, Jiangang; McKay, Timothy A.; da Costa, Luiz N.; Maia, Marcio A. G.

2013-04-11

We present the first results of the SOAR (Southern Astrophysical Research) Gravitational Arc Survey (SOGRAS). The survey imaged 47 clusters in two redshift intervals centered at $z=0.27$ and $z=0.55$, targeting the richest clusters in each interval. Images were obtained in the $g'$, $r'$ and $i'$ bands using the SOAR Optical Imager (SOI), with a median seeing of 0.83, 0.76 and 0.71 arcsec, respectively, in these filters. Most of the survey clusters are located within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 region and all of them are in the SDSS footprint. Photometric calibration was therefore performed using SDSS stars located in our SOI fields. We reached for galaxies in all fields the detection limits of $g \\sim 23.5$, $r \\sim 23$ and $i \\sim 22.5$ for a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) = 3. As a by-product of the image processing, we generated a source catalogue with 19760 entries, the vast majority of which are galaxies, where we list their positions, magnitudes and shape parameters. We compared our galaxy shape measurements to those of local galaxies and concluded that they were not strongly affected by seeing. From the catalogue data, we are able to identify a red sequence of galaxies in most clusters in the lower $z$ range. We found 16 gravitational arc candidates around 8 clusters in our sample. They tend to be bluer than the central galaxies in the lensing cluster. A preliminary analysis indicates that $\\sim 10%$ of the clusters have arcs around them, with a possible indication of a larger efficiency associated to the high-$z$ systems when compared to the low-$z$ ones. Deeper follow-up images with Gemini strengthen the case for the strong lensing nature of the candidates found in this survey.

Pruning The ELM Survey: Characterizing Candidate Low-mass White Dwarfs through Photometric Variability

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bell, Keaton J.; Winget, D. E.; Montgomery, M. H.; Castanheira, B. G.; Vanderbosch, Z.; Winget, K. I. [Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 (United States); Gianninas, A.; Kilic, Mukremin [Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019 (United States); Hermes, J. J. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 (United States); Brown, Warren R., E-mail: keatonb@astro.as.utexas.edu [Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)

2017-02-01

We assess the photometric variability of nine stars with spectroscopic T {sub eff} and log g values from the ELM Survey that locates them near the empirical extremely low-mass (ELM) white dwarf instability strip. We discover three new pulsating stars: SDSS J135512.34+195645.4, SDSS J173521.69+213440.6, and SDSS J213907.42+222708.9. However, these are among the few ELM Survey objects that do not show radial velocity (RV) variations that confirm the binary nature expected of helium-core white dwarfs. The dominant 4.31 hr pulsation in SDSS J135512.34+195645.4 far exceeds the theoretical cut-off for surface reflection in a white dwarf, and this target is likely a high-amplitude δ Scuti pulsator with an overestimated surface gravity. We estimate the probability to be less than 0.0008 that the lack of measured RV variations in four of eight other pulsating candidate ELM white dwarfs could be due to low orbital inclination. Two other targets exhibit variability as photometric binaries. Partial coverage of the 19.342 hr orbit of WD J030818.19+514011.5 reveals deep eclipses that imply a primary radius >0.4 R {sub ⊙}—too large to be consistent with an ELM white dwarf. The only object for which our time series photometry adds support to ELM white dwarf classification is SDSS J105435.78−212155.9, which has consistent signatures of Doppler beaming and ellipsoidal variations. We conclude that the ELM Survey contains multiple false positives from another stellar population at T {sub eff}≲9000 K, possibly related to the sdA stars recently reported from SDSS spectra.

Millijansky radio variability in SDSS stripe 82

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hodge, J. A.; Becker, R. H. [University of California, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616 (United States); White, R. L. [Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Richards, G. T., E-mail: hodge@mpia.de [Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States)

2013-06-01

We report on a blind survey for extragalactic radio variability that was carried out by comparing two epochs of data from the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty centimeters survey with a third epoch from a new 1.4 GHz survey of SDSS Stripe 82. The three epochs are spaced seven years apart and have an overlapping area of 60 deg{sup 2}. We uncover 89 variable sources down to the millijansky level, 75 of which are newly identified, and we find no evidence for transient phenomena. This new sample of variable sources allows us to infer an upper limit to the mean characteristic timescale of active galactic nucleus radio variability of 14 yr. We find that only 1% of extragalactic sources have fractional variability f {sub var} > 3, while 44% of Galactic sources vary by this much. The variable sample contains a larger fraction of quasars than a comparable non-variable control sample, though the majority of the variable sources appear to be extended galaxies in the optical. This implies that either quasars are not the dominant contributor to the variability of the sample, or that the deep optical data allow us to detect the host galaxies of some low-z quasars. We use the new, higher resolution data to report on the morphology of the variable sources. Finally, we show that the fraction of sources that are variable remains constant or increases at low flux densities. This may imply that next generation radio surveys with telescopes like Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder and MeerKAT will see a constant or even increasing fraction of variable sources down into the sub-millijansky regime.

Radio Recombination Line Surveys of the inner Galactic Plane: SIGGMA and GDIGS

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Bin; Anderson, Loren Dean; Luisi, Matteo; Balser, Dana; Bania, Thomas; Wenger, Trey; Haffner, Lawrence Matthew; Minchin, Robert; Roshi, Anish; Churchwell, Edward; Terzian, Yervant; McIntyre, Travis; Lebron, Mayra; SIGGMA team, GDIGS team

2018-01-01

Ionized gas is one of the primary components of the interstellar medium (ISM) and plays a crucial role in star formation and galaxy evolution. Radio recombination lines (RRLs) can directly trace ionized gas in HII regions and warm ionized medium (WIM) without being affected by interstellar extinction. Single-dish telescopes like Arecibo Observatory and the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) are sensitive to low surface brightness emission, and are therefore powerful tools for the study of HII regions and the WIM. We report here on two large surveys of RRL emission: The Survey of Ionized Gas in the Galaxy, Made with the Arecibo telescope (SIGGMA) and the GBT Diffuse Ionized Gas Survey (GDIGS). These are the first large-scale fully-sampled RRL surveys, and together cover nearly the entire first quadrant of the Galactic plane at ~arcmin spatial resolution (l = -5 - 32 deg. for GDIGS and l = 32 - 70 deg. for SIGGMA). SIGGMA is performed with the Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFA) receiver, whose bandpass covers twelve hydrogen alpha lines from H163α to H174α. By stacking the α-lines and smoothing to 4 km/s velocity resolution, the final SIGGMA spectra have a mean rms level of ~0.65 mJy per beam. The GDIGS data were taken with the GBT C-band receiver and the VEGAS backend and include RRLs from H95α to H117α, and when stacked and smoothed to 5 km/s resolution achieve 1 mJy per beam rms. Here, we report on early analysis of the SIGGMA and GDIGS data, and present first scientific results.

SDSS J090152.05+624342.6: A NEW “OVERLAPPING-TROUGH” FeLoBAL QUASAR AT Z ~ 2

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, Jing; Xu, Dawei; Wei, Jianyan, E-mail: wj@bao.ac.cn [Key Laboratory of Space Astronomy and Technology, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing (China); School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing (China)

2017-11-22

We here report an identification of SDSS J090152.04+624342.6 as a new “overlapping-trough” iron low-ionization broad absorption line quasar at redshift of z ~ 2.1. No strong variation of the broad absorption lines can be revealed through the two spectra taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey with a time interval of ~6 yr. Further optical and infrared spectroscopic study on this object is suggested.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey COADD: 275 deg2 of deep Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging on stripe 82

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Annis, James; Soares-Santos, Marcelle; Dodelson, Scott; Hao, Jiangang; Jester, Sebastian; Johnston, David E.; Kubo, Jeffrey M.; Lampeitl, Hubert; Lin, Huan; Miknaitis, Gajus; Yanny, Brian; Strauss, Michael A.; Gunn, James E.; Lupton, Robert H.; Becker, Andrew C.; Ivezić, Željko; Fan, Xiaohui; Jiang, Linhua; Seo, Hee-Jong; Simet, Melanie

2014-01-01

We present details of the construction and characterization of the coaddition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 ugriz imaging data. This survey consists of 275 deg 2 of repeated scanning by the SDSS camera over –50° ≤ α ≤ 60° and –1.°25 ≤ δ ≤ +1.°25 centered on the Celestial Equator. Each piece of sky has ∼20 runs contributing and thus reaches ∼2 mag fainter than the SDSS single pass data, i.e., to r ∼ 23.5 for galaxies. We discuss the image processing of the coaddition, the modeling of the point-spread function (PSF), the calibration, and the production of standard SDSS catalogs. The data have an r-band median seeing of 1.''1 and are calibrated to ≤1%. Star color-color, number counts, and PSF size versus modeled size plots show that the modeling of the PSF is good enough for precision five-band photometry. Structure in the PSF model versus magnitude plot indicates minor PSF modeling errors, leading to misclassification of stars as galaxies, as verified using VVDS spectroscopy. There are a variety of uses for this wide-angle deep imaging data, including galactic structure, photometric redshift computation, cluster finding and cross wavelength measurements, weak lensing cluster mass calibrations, and cosmic shear measurements.

Photometric variability in a warm, strongly magnetic DQ white dwarf, SDSS J103655.39+652252.2

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Williams, Kurtis A. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A and M University-Commerce, P.O. Box 3011, Commerce, TX 75429 (United States); Winget, D. E.; Montgomery, M. H.; Hermes, J. J.; Falcon, Ross E.; Winget, K. I. [Department of Astronomy, University of Texas, 1 University Station C1400, Austin, TX 78712 (United States); Dufour, Patrick [Département de Physique, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, QC H3C 3J7 (Canada); Kepler, S. O. [Departamento de Astronomia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Bento Gonçalves 9500 Porto Alegre 91501-970, RS (Brazil); Bolte, Michael [UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California, 1156 High St., Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States); Rubin, Kate H. R. [Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg (Germany); Liebert, James, E-mail: Kurtis.Williams@tamuc.edu, E-mail: jamesliebert@gmail.com [Emeritus, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 N. Cherry Ave., Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States)

2013-06-01

We present the discovery of photometric variability in the DQ white dwarf SDSS J103655.39+652252.2 (SDSS J1036+6522). Time-series photometry reveals a coherent monoperiodic modulation at a period of 1115.64751(67) s with an amplitude 0.442% ± 0.024%; no other periodic modulations are observed with amplitudes ≳ 0.13%. The period, amplitude, and phase of this modulation are constant within errors over 16 months. The spectrum of SDSS J1036+6522 shows magnetic splitting of carbon lines, and we use Paschen-Back formalism to develop a grid of model atmospheres for mixed carbon and helium atmospheres. Our models, while reliant on several simplistic assumptions, nevertheless match the major spectral and photometric properties of the star with a self-consistent set of parameters: T {sub eff} ≈ 15, 500 K, log g ≈ 9, log (C/He) = –1.0, and a mean magnetic field strength of 3.0 ± 0.2 MG. The temperature and abundances strongly suggest that SDSS J1036+6522 is a transition object between the hot, carbon-dominated DQs and the cool, helium-dominated DQs. The variability of SDSS J1036+6522 has characteristics similar to those of the variable hot carbon-atmosphere white dwarfs (DQVs), however, its temperature is significantly cooler. The pulse profile of SDSS J1036+6522 is nearly sinusoidal, in contrast with the significantly asymmetric pulse shapes of the known magnetic DQVs. If the variability in SDSS J1036+6522 is due to the same mechanism as other DQVs, then the pulse shape is not a definitive diagnostic on the absence of a strong magnetic field in DQVs. It remains unclear whether the root cause of the variability in SDSS J1036+6522 and the other hot DQVs is the same.

Photometric variability in a warm, strongly magnetic DQ white dwarf, SDSS J103655.39+652252.2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Williams, Kurtis A.; Winget, D. E.; Montgomery, M. H.; Hermes, J. J.; Falcon, Ross E.; Winget, K. I.; Dufour, Patrick; Kepler, S. O.; Bolte, Michael; Rubin, Kate H. R.; Liebert, James

2013-01-01

We present the discovery of photometric variability in the DQ white dwarf SDSS J103655.39+652252.2 (SDSS J1036+6522). Time-series photometry reveals a coherent monoperiodic modulation at a period of 1115.64751(67) s with an amplitude 0.442% ± 0.024%; no other periodic modulations are observed with amplitudes ≳ 0.13%. The period, amplitude, and phase of this modulation are constant within errors over 16 months. The spectrum of SDSS J1036+6522 shows magnetic splitting of carbon lines, and we use Paschen-Back formalism to develop a grid of model atmospheres for mixed carbon and helium atmospheres. Our models, while reliant on several simplistic assumptions, nevertheless match the major spectral and photometric properties of the star with a self-consistent set of parameters: T eff ≈ 15, 500 K, log g ≈ 9, log (C/He) = –1.0, and a mean magnetic field strength of 3.0 ± 0.2 MG. The temperature and abundances strongly suggest that SDSS J1036+6522 is a transition object between the hot, carbon-dominated DQs and the cool, helium-dominated DQs. The variability of SDSS J1036+6522 has characteristics similar to those of the variable hot carbon-atmosphere white dwarfs (DQVs), however, its temperature is significantly cooler. The pulse profile of SDSS J1036+6522 is nearly sinusoidal, in contrast with the significantly asymmetric pulse shapes of the known magnetic DQVs. If the variability in SDSS J1036+6522 is due to the same mechanism as other DQVs, then the pulse shape is not a definitive diagnostic on the absence of a strong magnetic field in DQVs. It remains unclear whether the root cause of the variability in SDSS J1036+6522 and the other hot DQVs is the same.

CATACLYSMIC VARIABLES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY. VIII. THE FINAL YEAR (2007–2008)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Szkody, Paula; Anderson, Scott F.; Brooks, Keira; Kronberg, Martin; Riecken, Thomas; Gänsicke, Boris T.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Schmidt, Gary D.; Schneider, Donald P.; Agüeros, Marcel A.; Gomez-Moran, Ada N.; Schwope, Axel D.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Schreiber, Matthias R.

2011-01-01

This paper completes the series of cataclysmic variables (CVs) identified from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) I/II. The coordinates, magnitudes, and spectra of 33 CVs are presented. Among the 33 are eight systems known prior to SDSS (CT Ser, DO Leo, HK Leo, IR Com, V849 Her, V405 Peg, PG1230+226, and HS0943+1404), as well as nine objects recently found through various photometric surveys. Among the systems identified since the SDSS are two polar candidates, two intermediate polar candidates, and one candidate for containing a pulsating white dwarf. Our follow-up data have confirmed a polar candidate from Paper VII and determined tentative periods for three of the newly identified CVs. A complete summary table of the 285 CVs with spectra from SDSS I/II is presented as well as a link to an online table of all known CVs from both photometry and spectroscopy that will continue to be updated as future data appear.

DOES A DIFFERENTIATED, CARBONATE-RICH, ROCKY OBJECT POLLUTE THE WHITE DWARF SDSS J104341.53+085558.2?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Melis, Carl [Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California, San Diego, CA 92093-0424 (United States); Dufour, P., E-mail: cmelis@ucsd.edu [Institut de Recherche sur les Exoplanètes (iREx), Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC H3C 3J7 (Canada)

2017-01-01

We present spectroscopic observations of the dust- and gas-enshrouded, polluted, single white dwarf star SDSS J104341.53+085558.2 (hereafter SDSS J1043+0855). Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph far-ultraviolet spectra combined with deep Keck HIRES optical spectroscopy reveal the elements C, O, Mg, Al, Si, P, S, Ca, Fe, and Ni and enable useful limits for Sc, Ti, V, Cr, and Mn in the photosphere of SDSS J1043+0855. From this suite of elements we determine that the parent body being accreted by SDSS J1043+0855 is similar to the silicate Moon or the outer layers of Earth in that it is rocky and iron-poor. Combining this with comparison to other heavily polluted white dwarf stars, we are able to identify the material being accreted by SDSS J1043+0855 as likely to have come from the outermost layers of a differentiated object. Furthermore, we present evidence that some polluted white dwarfs (including SDSS J1043+0855) allow us to examine the structure of differentiated extrasolar rocky bodies. Enhanced levels of carbon in the body polluting SDSS J1043+0855 relative to the Earth–Moon system can be explained with a model where a significant amount of the accreted rocky minerals took the form of carbonates; specifically, through this model the accreted material could be up to 9% calcium-carbonate by mass.

CHARACTERIZATION OF SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY STELLAR PHOTOMETRY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fukugita, Masataka; Yasuda, Naoki; Doi, Mamoru; Gunn, James E.; York, Donald G.

2011-01-01

We study the photometric properties of stars in the data archive of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the prime aim being to understand the photometric calibration over the entire data set. It is confirmed that the photometric calibration of point sources is accurately on the system defined by the SDSS standard stars. We have also confirmed that the photometric synthesis of the SDSS spectrophotometric data gives broadband fluxes that agree with the photometry with errors of no more than 0.04 mag and little systematic tilt with wavelength. This verifies that the response functions of the 2.5 m telescope system are well characterized. We locate stars in the SDSS photometric system, so that stars can roughly be classified into spectral classes from the color information. We show how metallicity and surface gravity affect colors, and that stars contained in the SDSS general catalog, plotted in color space, show a distribution that matches well with what is anticipated from the variations of metallicity and surface gravity. The color-color plots are perfectly consistent among the three samples-stars in the SDSS general catalog, SDSS standard stars, and spectrophotometric stars of Gunn and Stryker-especially when some considerations are taken into account of the differences (primarily metallicity) of the samples. We show that the g - r-inverse temperature relation is tight and can be used as a good estimator of the effective temperature of stars over a fairly wide range of effective temperatures. We also confirm that the colors of G2V stars in the SDSS photometric system match well with the Sun.

CALIBRATIONS OF ATMOSPHERIC PARAMETERS OBTAINED FROM THE FIRST YEAR OF SDSS-III APOGEE OBSERVATIONS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mészáros, Sz.; Allende Prieto, C. [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain); Holtzman, J. [New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003 (United States); García Pérez, A. E.; Chojnowski, S. D.; Hearty, F. R.; Majewski, S. R. [Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4325 (United States); Schiavon, R. P. [Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Egerton Wharf, Birkenhead, Wirral CH41 1LD (United Kingdom); Basu, S. [Department of Astronomy, Yale University, P.O. Box 208101, New Haven, CT 06520-8101 (United States); Bizyaev, D. [Apache Point Observatory, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM 88349-0059 (United States); Chaplin, W. J.; Elsworth, Y. [University of Birmingham, School of Physics and Astronomy, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT (United Kingdom); Cunha, K. [Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States); Epstein, C.; Johnson, J. A. [Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Frinchaboy, P. M. [Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX 76129 (United States); García, R. A. [Laboratoire AIM, CEA/DSM-CNRS-Université Paris Diderot, IRFU/SAp, Centre de Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex (France); Hekker, S. [Astronomical Institute ' ' Anton Pannekoek' ' , University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam (Netherlands); Kallinger, T. [Institute for Astronomy, University of Vienna, Türkenschanzstrasse 17, A-1180 Vienna (Austria); Koesterke, L. [Texas Advanced Computing Center, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78759 (United States); and others

2013-11-01

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) is a three-year survey that is collecting 10{sup 5} high-resolution spectra in the near-IR across multiple Galactic populations. To derive stellar parameters and chemical compositions from this massive data set, the APOGEE Stellar Parameters and Chemical Abundances Pipeline (ASPCAP) has been developed. Here, we describe empirical calibrations of stellar parameters presented in the first SDSS-III APOGEE data release (DR10). These calibrations were enabled by observations of 559 stars in 20 globular and open clusters. The cluster observations were supplemented by observations of stars in NASA's Kepler field that have well determined surface gravities from asteroseismic analysis. We discuss the accuracy and precision of the derived stellar parameters, considering especially effective temperature, surface gravity, and metallicity; we also briefly discuss the derived results for the abundances of the α-elements, carbon, and nitrogen. Overall, we find that ASPCAP achieves reasonably accurate results for temperature and metallicity, but suffers from systematic errors in surface gravity. We derive calibration relations that bring the raw ASPCAP results into better agreement with independently determined stellar parameters. The internal scatter of ASPCAP parameters within clusters suggests that metallicities are measured with a precision better than 0.1 dex, effective temperatures better than 150 K, and surface gravities better than 0.2 dex. The understanding provided by the clusters and Kepler giants on the current accuracy and precision will be invaluable for future improvements of the pipeline.

RED RUNAWAYS II: LOW-MASS HILLS STARS IN SDSS STRIPE 82

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Yanqiong; Smith, Martin C. [Key Laboratory of Galaxies and Cosmology, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 80 Nandan Road, Shanghai 200030 (China); Carlin, Jeffrey L., E-mail: zhangyq@shao.ac.cn, E-mail: msmith@shao.ac.cn [Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy (United States)

2016-11-20

Stars ejected from the Galactic Center can be used to place important constraints on the Milky Way potential. Since existing hypervelocity stars are too distant to accurately determine orbits, we have conducted a search for nearby candidates using full three-dimensional velocities. Since the efficacy of such studies is often hampered by deficiencies in proper motion catalogs, we have chosen to utilize the reliable, high-precision Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 proper motion catalog. Although we do not find any candidates which have velocities in excess of the escape speed, we identify 226 stars on orbits that are consistent with Galactic Center ejection. This number is significantly larger than what we would expect for halo stars on radial orbits and cannot be explained by disk or bulge contamination. If we restrict ourselves to metal-rich stars, we find 29 candidates with [Fe/H] > −0.8 dex and 10 with [Fe/H] > −0.6 dex. Their metallicities are more consistent with what we expect for bulge ejecta, and so we believe these candidates are especially deserving of further study. We have supplemented this sample using our own radial velocities, developing an algorithm to use proper motions for optimizing candidate selection. This technique provides considerable improvement on the blind spectroscopic sample of SDSS, being able to identify candidates with an efficiency around 20 times better than a blind search.

RED RUNAWAYS II: LOW-MASS HILLS STARS IN SDSS STRIPE 82

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Yanqiong; Smith, Martin C.; Carlin, Jeffrey L.

2016-01-01

Stars ejected from the Galactic Center can be used to place important constraints on the Milky Way potential. Since existing hypervelocity stars are too distant to accurately determine orbits, we have conducted a search for nearby candidates using full three-dimensional velocities. Since the efficacy of such studies is often hampered by deficiencies in proper motion catalogs, we have chosen to utilize the reliable, high-precision Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 proper motion catalog. Although we do not find any candidates which have velocities in excess of the escape speed, we identify 226 stars on orbits that are consistent with Galactic Center ejection. This number is significantly larger than what we would expect for halo stars on radial orbits and cannot be explained by disk or bulge contamination. If we restrict ourselves to metal-rich stars, we find 29 candidates with [Fe/H] > −0.8 dex and 10 with [Fe/H] > −0.6 dex. Their metallicities are more consistent with what we expect for bulge ejecta, and so we believe these candidates are especially deserving of further study. We have supplemented this sample using our own radial velocities, developing an algorithm to use proper motions for optimizing candidate selection. This technique provides considerable improvement on the blind spectroscopic sample of SDSS, being able to identify candidates with an efficiency around 20 times better than a blind search.

THE EFFECT OF HOST GALAXIES ON TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE IN THE SDSS-II SUPERNOVA SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lampeitl, Hubert; Smith, Mathew; Nichol, Robert C.; Bassett, Bruce; Cinabro, David; Dilday, Benjamin; Jha, Saurabh W.; Foley, Ryan J.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Garnavich, Peter M.; Goobar, Ariel; Nordin, Jakob; Im, Myungshin; Marriner, John; Miquel, Ramon; Oestman, Linda; Riess, Adam G.; Sako, Masao; Schneider, Donald P.; Sollerman, Jesper

2010-01-01

We present an analysis of the host galaxy dependences of Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) from the full three year sample of the SDSS-II Supernova Survey. We re-discover, to high significance, the strong correlation between host galaxy type and the width of the observed SN light curve, i.e., fainter, quickly declining SNe Ia favor passive host galaxies, while brighter, slowly declining Ia's favor star-forming galaxies. We also find evidence (at between 2σ and 3σ) that SNe Ia are ≅0.1 ± 0.04 mag brighter in passive host galaxies than in star-forming hosts, after the SN Ia light curves have been standardized using the light-curve shape and color variations. This difference in brightness is present in both the SALT2 and MCLS2k2 light-curve fitting methodologies. We see evidence for differences in the SN Ia color relationship between passive and star-forming host galaxies, e.g., for the MLCS2k2 technique, we see that SNe Ia in passive hosts favor a dust law of R V = 1.0 ± 0.2, while SNe Ia in star-forming hosts require R V = 1.8 +0.2 -0.4 . The significance of these trends depends on the range of SN colors considered. We demonstrate that these effects can be parameterized using the stellar mass of the host galaxy (with a confidence of >4σ) and including this extra parameter provides a better statistical fit to our data. Our results suggest that future cosmological analyses of SN Ia samples should include host galaxy information.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey Photometric Calibration Revisited

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marriner, John

2012-01-01

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey calibration is revisited to obtain the most accurate photometric calibration. A small but significant error is found in the flat-fielding of the Photometric telescope used for calibration. Two SDSS star catalogs are compared and the average difference in magnitude as a function of right ascension and declination exhibits small systematic errors in relative calibration. The photometric transformation from the SDSS Photometric Telescope to the 2.5 m telescope is recomputed and compared to synthetic magnitudes computed from measured filter bandpasses.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey Photometric Calibration Revisited

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Marriner, John; /Fermilab

2012-06-29

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey calibration is revisited to obtain the most accurate photometric calibration. A small but significant error is found in the flat-fielding of the Photometric telescope used for calibration. Two SDSS star catalogs are compared and the average difference in magnitude as a function of right ascension and declination exhibits small systematic errors in relative calibration. The photometric transformation from the SDSS Photometric Telescope to the 2.5 m telescope is recomputed and compared to synthetic magnitudes computed from measured filter bandpasses.

Mining the SDSS SkyServer SQL queries log

Science.gov (United States)

Hirota, Vitor M.; Santos, Rafael; Raddick, Jordan; Thakar, Ani

2016-05-01

SkyServer, the Internet portal for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) astronomic catalog, provides a set of tools that allows data access for astronomers and scientific education. One of SkyServer data access interfaces allows users to enter ad-hoc SQL statements to query the catalog. SkyServer also presents some template queries that can be used as basis for more complex queries. This interface has logged over 330 million queries submitted since 2001. It is expected that analysis of this data can be used to investigate usage patterns, identify potential new classes of queries, find similar queries, etc. and to shed some light on how users interact with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data and how scientists have adopted the new paradigm of e-Science, which could in turn lead to enhancements on the user interfaces and experience in general. In this paper we review some approaches to SQL query mining, apply the traditional techniques used in the literature and present lessons learned, namely, that the general text mining approach for feature extraction and clustering does not seem to be adequate for this type of data, and, most importantly, we find that this type of analysis can result in very different queries being clustered together.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Performance and Lessons Learned from the First Two Years of Operations

Science.gov (United States)

Boroski, William N.; Gunn, James E.; Kron, Richard G.; Peoples, John, Jr.

2002-12-01

Over a 5-year observing period, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will acquire data to construct a digital 5-color photometric map of the Northern Galactic sky to about 23rd magnitude, and a correspondingly large and homogeneous spectroscopic survey. The SDSS is in a unique class of projects, in that all aspects of the SDSS infrastructure, from the telescopes and instruments, to software and operations staffing, were designed and assembled specifically to conduct this Survey. To ensure success, observing operations are run in production mode and performance metrics are used to measure progress over time. The methodology of preparing the performance baseline plan, and an assessment of Survey progress after two full years of operation, are reviewed and some lessons learned discussed. In particular, the SDSS has benefited greatly by asking peers in the field to participate in external reviews that periodically assess performance and offer independent, fresh views of potential areas of concerns. Additionally, difficulties caused by the absence of an experienced systems-engineering staff during the final phase of construction and commissioning are reviewed. The challenges of building a production machine out of complex and state-of-the-art sub-systems cannot be overstated. In the case of the SDSS, insufficient systems engineering led to problems meeting initial image quality requirements, primarily because of problems with the thermal performance of the telescope and its environment. A concerted campaign to deal with these issues was successful, but that success came rather later than we would have liked. The improvements made to address the situation, and the resulting increase in operational performance, are discussed.

THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY QUASAR LENS SEARCH. IV. STATISTICAL LENS SAMPLE FROM THE FIFTH DATA RELEASE

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Inada, Naohisa; Oguri, Masamune; Shin, Min-Su; Kayo, Issha; Fukugita, Masataka; Strauss, Michael A.; Gott, J. Richard; Hennawi, Joseph F.; Morokuma, Tomoki; Becker, Robert H.; Gregg, Michael D.; White, Richard L.; Kochanek, Christopher S.; Chiu, Kuenley; Johnston, David E.; Clocchiatti, Alejandro; Richards, Gordon T.; Schneider, Donald P.; Frieman, Joshua A.

2010-01-01

We present the second report of our systematic search for strongly lensed quasars from the data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). From extensive follow-up observations of 136 candidate objects, we find 36 lenses in the full sample of 77,429 spectroscopically confirmed quasars in the SDSS Data Release 5. We then define a complete sample of 19 lenses, including 11 from our previous search in the SDSS Data Release 3, from the sample of 36,287 quasars with i Λ = 0.84 +0.06 -0.08 (stat.) +0.09 -0.07 (syst.) assuming a flat universe, which is in good agreement with other cosmological observations. We also report the discoveries of seven binary quasars with separations ranging from 1.''1 to 16.''6, which are identified in the course of our lens survey. This study concludes the construction of our statistical lens sample in the full SDSS-I data set.

Two-dimensional Topology of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Hoyle, Fiona; Vogeley, Michael S.; Gott, J. Richard, III; Blanton, Michael; Tegmark, Max; Weinberg, David H.; Bahcall, N.; Brinkmann, J.; York, D.

2002-12-01

We present the topology of a volume-limited sample of 11,884 galaxies, selected from an apparent magnitude limited sample of over 100,000 galaxies observed as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The data currently cover three main regions on the sky: one in the Galactic north and one in the south, both at zero degrees declination, and one area in the north at higher declination. Each of these areas covers a wide range of survey longitude but a narrow range of survey latitude, allowing the two-dimensional genus to be measured. The genus curves of the SDSS subsamples are similar, after appropriately normalizing these measurements for the different areas. We sum the genus curves from the three areas to obtain the total genus curve of the SDSS. The total curve has a shape similar to the genus curve derived from mock catalogs drawn from the Hubble volume ΛCDM simulation and is similar to that of a Gaussian random field. Likewise, comparison with the genus of the Two-Degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey, after normalization for the difference in area, reveals remarkable similarity in the topology of these samples. We test for the effects of galaxy-type segregation by splitting the SDSS data into thirds, based on the u*-r* colors of the galaxies, and measure the genus of the reddest and bluest subsamples. This red/blue split in u*-r* is essentially a split by morphology, as explained by Strateva and coworkers. We find that the genus curve for the reddest galaxies exhibits a ``meatball'' shift of the topology-reflecting the concentration of red galaxies in high-density regions-compared to the bluest galaxies and the full sample, in agreement with predictions from simulations.

XMM-NEWTON AND OPTICAL OBSERVATIONS OF CATACLYSMIC VARIABLES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hilton, Eric J.; Szkody, Paula; Mukadam, Anjum; Henden, Arne; Dillon, William; Schmidt, Gary D.

2009-01-01

We report on XMM-Newton and optical results for six cataclysmic variables that were selected from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectra because they showed strong He II emission lines, indicative of being candidates for containing white dwarfs with strong magnetic fields. While high X-ray background rates prevented optimum results, we are able to confirm SDSS J233325.92+152222.1 as an intermediate polar from its strong pulse signature at 21 minutes and its obscured hard X-ray spectrum. Ground-based circular polarization and photometric observations were also able to confirm SDSS J142256.31 - 022108.1 as a polar with a period near 4 hr. Photometry of SDSS J083751.00+383012.5 and SDSS J093214.82+495054.7 solidifies the orbital period of the former as 3.18 hr and confirms the latter as a high-inclination system with deep eclipses.

Broadband Photometric Reverberation Mapping Analysis on SDSS-RM and Stripe 82 Quasars

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Haowen; Yang, Qian; Wu, Xue-Bing

2018-02-01

We modified the broadband photometric reverberation mapping (PRM) code, JAVELIN, and tested the availability to get broad-line region time delays that are consistent with the spectroscopic reverberation mapping (SRM) project SDSS-RM. The broadband light curves of SDSS-RM quasars produced by convolution with the system transmission curves were used in the test. We found that under similar sampling conditions (evenly and frequently sampled), the key factor determining whether the broadband PRM code can yield lags consistent with the SRM project is the flux ratio of the broad emission line to the reference continuum, which is in line with the previous findings. We further found a critical line-to-continuum flux ratio, about 6%, above which the mean of the ratios between the lags from PRM and SRM becomes closer to unity, and the scatter is pronouncedly reduced. We also tested our code on a subset of SDSS Stripe 82 quasars, and found that our program tends to give biased lag estimations due to the observation gaps when the R-L relation prior in Markov Chain Monte Carlo is discarded. The performance of the damped random walk (DRW) model and the power-law (PL) structure function model on broadband PRM were compared. We found that given both SDSS-RM-like or Stripe 82-like light curves, the DRW model performs better in carrying out broadband PRM than the PL model.

ACOUSTIC SCALE FROM THE ANGULAR POWER SPECTRA OF SDSS-III DR8 PHOTOMETRIC LUMINOUS GALAXIES

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Seo, Hee-Jong [Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, LBL and Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Ho, Shirley; White, Martin; Reid, Beth; Schlegel, David J. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Cuesta, Antonio J.; Padmanabhan, Nikhil [Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511 (United States); Ross, Ashley J.; Percival, Will J.; Nichol, Robert C. [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, Dennis Sciama Building, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3FX (United Kingdom); Saito, Shun [Department of Astronomy, 601 Campbell Hall, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); De Putter, Roland [Instituto de Fisica Corpuscular, Valencia (Spain); Eisenstein, Daniel J. [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, MS 20, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Xu Xiaoying; Skibba, Ramin [Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States); Schneider, Donald P. [Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Verde, Licia [Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats, Barcelona (Spain); Bizyaev, Dmitry; Brewington, Howard; Brinkmann, J. [Apache Point Observatory, 2001 Apache Point Road, Sunspot, NM 88349 (United States); and others

2012-12-10

We measure the acoustic scale from the angular power spectra of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) Data Release 8 imaging catalog that includes 872, 921 galaxies over {approx}10,000 deg{sup 2} between 0.45 < z < 0.65. The extensive spectroscopic training set of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey luminous galaxies allows precise estimates of the true redshift distributions of galaxies in our imaging catalog. Utilizing the redshift distribution information, we build templates and fit to the power spectra of the data, which are measured in our companion paper, to derive the location of Baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) while marginalizing over many free parameters to exclude nearly all of the non-BAO signal. We derive the ratio of the angular diameter distance to the sound horizon scale D{sub A} (z)/r{sub s} = 9.212{sup +0.416}{sub -{sub 0.404}} at z = 0.54, and therefore D{sub A} (z) = 1411 {+-} 65 Mpc at z = 0.54; the result is fairly independent of assumptions on the underlying cosmology. Our measurement of angular diameter distance D{sub A} (z) is 1.4{sigma} higher than what is expected for the concordance {Lambda}CDM, in accordance to the trend of other spectroscopic BAO measurements for z {approx}> 0.35. We report constraints on cosmological parameters from our measurement in combination with the WMAP7 data and the previous spectroscopic BAO measurements of SDSS and WiggleZ. We refer to our companion papers (Ho et al.; de Putter et al.) for investigations on information of the full power spectrum.

E+A Galaxy Properties and Post-Starburst Galaxy Evolution Data through SDSS-IV MaNGA and Illustris: A Co-Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Ojanen, Winonah; Dudley, Raymond; Edwards, Kay; Gonzalez, Andrea; Johnson, Amalya; Kerrison, Nicole; Marinelli, Mariarosa; Melchert, Nancy; Liu, Charles; Sloan Collaboration, SDSS-IV MaNGA

2018-01-01

E+A galaxies (Elliptical + A-type stars) are post-starburst galaxies that have experienced a sudden quenching phase. Using previous research methods, 39 candidates out of 2,812 galaxies observed, or 1.4%, were selected from the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey. We then identified morphological characteristics of the 39 galaxies including stellar kinematics, Gini coefficient, gas density and distribution and stellar ages. To study the origin of how E+A galaxies evolved to their present state, galaxy simulation data from the Illustris simulation was utilized to identify similar quenched post-starburst candidates. Seven post-starburst candidates were identified through star formation rate histories of Illustris simulated galaxies. The evolution of these galaxies is studied from 0 to 13.8 billion years ago to identify what caused the starburst and quenching of the Illustris candidates. Similar morphological characteristics of Illustris post-starburst candidates are pulled from before, during, and post-starburst and compared to the same morphological characteristics of the E+A galaxies from SDSS-IV MaNGA. The characteristics and properties of the Illustris galaxies are used to identify the possible evolutionary histories of the observed E+A galaxies. This work was supported by grants AST-1460860 from the National Science Foundation and SDSS FAST/SSP-483 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to the CUNY College of Staten Island.

SDSS IV MaNGA - Properties of AGN Host Galaxies

Science.gov (United States)

Sánchez, S. F.; Avila-Reese, V.; Hernandez-Toledo, H.; Cortes-Suárez, E.; Rodríguez-Puebla, A.; Ibarra-Medel, H.; Cano-Díaz, M.; Barrera-Ballesteros, J. K.; Negrete, C. A.; Calette, A. R.; de Lorenzo-Cáceres, A.; Ortega-Minakata, R. A.; Aquino, E.; Valenzuela, O.; Clemente, J. C.; Storchi-Bergmann, T.; Riffel, R.; Schimoia, J.; Riffel, R. A.; Rembold, S. B.; Brownstein, J. R.; Pan, K.; Yates, R.; Mallmann, N.; Bitsakis, T.

2018-04-01

We present the characterization of the main properties of a sample of 98 AGN host galaxies, both type-II and type-I, in comparison with those of ≍2700 non-active galaxies observed by the MaNGA survey. We found that AGN hosts are morphologically early-type or early-spirals. AGN hosts are, on average, more massive, more compact, more centrally peaked and more pressure-supported systems. They are located in the intermediate/transition region between starforming and non-star-forming galaxies (i.e., the so-called green valley). We consider that they are in the process of halting/quenching the star formation. The analysis of the radial distributions of different properties shows that the quenching happens from inside-out involving both a decrease of the effciency of the star formation and a deficit of molecular gas. The data-products of the current analysis are distributed as a Value Added Catalog within the SDSS-DR14.

VIRIAL BLACK HOLE MASS ESTIMATES FOR 280,000 AGNs FROM THE SDSS BROADBAND PHOTOMETRY AND SINGLE-EPOCH SPECTRA

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Kozłowski, Szymon, E-mail: simkoz@astrouw.edu.pl [Warsaw University Observatory, Al. Ujazdowskie, 4 00-478 Warszawa (Poland)

2017-01-01

We use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Data Release 12 (DR12Q), containing nearly 300,000 active galactic nuclei (AGNs), to calculate the monochromatic luminosities at 5100, 3000, and 1350 Å, derived from the broadband extinction-corrected SDSS magnitudes. After matching these sources to their counterparts from the SDSS Quasar Data Release 7 (DR7Q), we find very high correlations between our luminosities and DR7Q spectra-based luminosities with minute mean offsets (∼0.01 dex) and dispersions of differences of 0.11, 0.10, and 0.12 dex, respectively, across a luminosity range of 2.5 dex. We then estimate the black hole (BH) masses of the AGNs using the broad line region radius–disk luminosity relations and the FWHM of the Mg ii and C iv emission lines, to provide a catalog of 283,033 virial BH mass estimates (132,451 for Mg ii, 213,071 for C iv, and 62,489 for both) along with the estimates of the bolometric luminosity and Eddington ratio for 0.1 <  z  < 5.5 and for roughly a quarter of the sky covered by SDSS. The BH mass estimates from Mg ii turned out to be closely matched to the ones from DR7Q with a dispersion of differences of 0.34 dex across a BH mass range of ∼2 dex. We uncovered a bias in the derived C iv FWHMs from DR12Q as compared to DR7Q, which we correct empirically. The C iv BH mass estimates should be used with caution because the C iv line is known to cause problems in the estimation of BH mass from single-epoch spectra. Finally, after the FWHM correction, the AGN BH mass estimates from C iv closely match the DR7Q ones (with a dispersion of 0.28 dex), and more importantly the Mg ii and C iv BH masses agree internally with a mean offset of 0.07 dex and a dispersion of 0.39 dex.

PRECIOUS METALS IN SDSS QUASAR SPECTRA. I. TRACKING THE EVOLUTION OF STRONG, 1.5 < z < 4.5 C IV ABSORBERS WITH THOUSANDS OF SYSTEMS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cooksey, Kathy L.; Kao, Melodie M.; Simcoe, Robert A.; O'Meara, John M.; Prochaska, J. Xavier

2013-01-01

We have vastly increased the C IV statistics at intermediate redshift by surveying the thousands of quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data-Release 7. We visually verified over 16,000 C IV systems with 1.46 r ≈ 0.6 Å. We analyzed the sample as a whole and in 10 small redshift bins with approximately 1500 doublets each. The equivalent width frequency distributions f(W r ) were well modeled by an exponential, with little evolution in shape. In contrast with previous studies that modeled the frequency distribution as a single power law, the fitted exponential gives a finite mass density for the C IV ions. The comoving line density dN CIV /dX evolved smoothly with redshift, increasing by a factor of 2.37 ± 0.09 from z = 4.55-1.96, then plateauing at dN CIV /dX∼0.34 for z = 1.96-1.46. Comparing our SDSS sample with z 5 (infrared) surveys, we see an approximately 10-fold increase in dN CIV /dX over z ≈ 6 → 0, for W r ≥ 0.6 Å. This suggests a monotonic and significant increase in the enrichment of gas outside galaxies over the 12 Gyr lifetime of the universe.

Mesospheric Na Variability and Dependence on Geomagnetic and Solar Activity over Arecibo

Science.gov (United States)

Jain, K.; Raizada, S.; Brum, C. G. M.

2017-12-01

The Sodium (Na) resonance lidars located at the Arecibo Observatory offer an excellent opportunity to study the mesosphere/lower thermosphere(MLT) region. Different metals like Fe, Mg, Na, K, Ca and their ions are deposited in the 80 - 120 km altitude range due to the ablation of meteors caused by frictional heating during their entry into the Earth's atmosphere. We present an investigation of the neutral mesospheric Na atom layers over Arecibo. Data on the Na concentrations was collected using a resonance lidar tuned to the of Na wavelength at 589 nm. This wavelength is achieved with a dye-laser pumped by the second harmonic (532 nm) generated from a state-of-the-art commercial Nd:YAG laser. The backscattered signal is received on a 0.8 m (diameter) Cassegrain telescope. The study is based on this data acquired from 1998-2017 and its relation to variations in geomagnetic and solar conditions. We also investigate seasonal and long term trends in the data. The nightly-averaged altitude profiles were modeled as Gaussian curves. From this modeled data we obtain parameters such as the peak, abundance, centroid and width of the main Na layer. Preliminary results show that the Na abundance is more sensitive to changes in geomagnetic and solar variations as compared to the width and centroid height. The seasonal variation exhibits higher peak densities during the local summer and has a secondary maximum during the winter [as shown in the attached figure]. Our analysis demonstrates a decrease in the peak and the abundance of Na atoms with the increase of solar and geomagnetic activity.

THE CLUSTERING OF GALAXIES IN THE SDSS-III BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY: LUMINOSITY AND COLOR DEPENDENCE AND REDSHIFT EVOLUTION

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Guo Hong; Zehavi, Idit [Department of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University, OH 44106 (United States); Zheng Zheng [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, UT 84112 (United States); Weinberg, David H. [Department of Astronomy and CCAPP, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Berlind, Andreas A. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235 (United States); Blanton, Michael [Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, New York University, New York, NY 10003 (United States); Chen Yanmei [Department of Astronomy, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093 (China); Eisenstein, Daniel J.; McBride, Cameron K. [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Ho, Shirley; Ross, Nicholas P. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Kazin, Eyal [Center for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, P.O. Box 218, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122 (Australia); Manera, Marc; Maraston, Claudia; Percival, Will J.; Ross, Ashley J.; Samushia, Lado [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, Dennis Sciama Building, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, PO1 3FX (United Kingdom); Nuza, Sebastian E. [Leibniz-Institut fuer Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, D-14482 Potsdam (Germany); Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Parejko, John K. [Department of Physics, Yale University, 260 Whitney Ave, New Haven, CT 06520 (United States); and others

2013-04-20

We measure the luminosity and color dependence and the redshift evolution of galaxy clustering in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Ninth Data Release. We focus on the projected two-point correlation function (2PCF) of subsets of its CMASS sample, which includes about 260,000 galaxies over {approx}3300 deg{sup 2} in the redshift range 0.43 < z < 0.7. To minimize the selection effect on galaxy clustering, we construct well-defined luminosity and color subsamples by carefully accounting for the CMASS galaxy selection cuts. The 2PCF of the whole CMASS sample, if approximated by a power-law, has a correlation length of r{sub 0} = 7.93 {+-} 0.06 h {sup -1} Mpc and an index of {gamma} = 1.85 {+-} 0.01. Clear dependences on galaxy luminosity and color are found for the projected 2PCF in all redshift bins, with more luminous and redder galaxies generally exhibiting stronger clustering and steeper 2PCF. The color dependence is also clearly seen for galaxies within the red sequence, consistent with the behavior of SDSS-II main sample galaxies at lower redshifts. At a given luminosity (k + e corrected), no significant evolution of the projected 2PCFs with redshift is detected for red sequence galaxies. We also construct galaxy samples of fixed number density at different redshifts, using redshift-dependent magnitude thresholds. The clustering of these galaxies in the CMASS redshift range is found to be consistent with that predicted by passive evolution. Our measurements of the luminosity and color dependence and redshift evolution of galaxy clustering will allow for detailed modeling of the relation between galaxies and dark matter halos and new constraints on galaxy formation and evolution.

SDSS J1254+0846: A BINARY QUASAR CAUGHT IN THE ACT OF MERGING

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Green, Paul J.; Cox, Thomas J.; Aldcroft, Thomas L.; Myers, Adam D.; Barkhouse, Wayne A.; Mulchaey, John S.; Bennert, Vardha N.

2010-01-01

We present the first luminous, spatially resolved binary quasar that clearly inhabits an ongoing galaxy merger. SDSS J125455.09+084653.9 and SDSS J125454.87+084652.1 (SDSS J1254+0846 hereafter) are two luminous z = 0.44 radio-quiet quasars, with a radial velocity difference of just 215 km s -1 , separated on the sky by 21 kpc in a disturbed host galaxy merger showing obvious tidal tails. The pair was targeted as part of a complete sample of binary quasar candidates with small transverse separations drawn from SDSS DR6 photometry. We present follow-up optical imaging which shows broad, symmetrical tidal arm features spanning some 75 kpc at the quasars' redshift. Previously, the triggering of two quasars during a merger had only been hypothesized but our observations provide strong evidence of such an event. SDSS J1254+0846, as a face-on, pre-coalescence merger hosting two luminous quasars separated by a few dozen kpc, provides a unique opportunity to probe quasar activity in an ongoing gas-rich merger. Numerical modeling suggests that the system consists of two massive disk galaxies prograde to their mutual orbit, caught during the first passage of an active merger. This demonstrates rapid black hole growth during the early stages of a merger between galaxies with pre-existing bulges. Neither of the two luminous nuclei show significant intrinsic absorption by gas or dust in our optical or X-ray observations, illustrating that not all merging quasars will be in an obscured, ultraluminous phase. We find that the Eddington ratio for the fainter component B is rather normal, while for the A component L/L Edd is quite (>3σ) high compared to quasars of similar luminosity and redshift, possibly evidence for strong merger-triggered accretion. More such mergers should be identifiable at higher redshifts using binary quasars as tracers.

THE TIME DOMAIN SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY: VARIABLE SELECTION AND ANTICIPATED RESULTS

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Morganson, Eric; Green, Paul J. [Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Anderson, Scott F.; Ruan, John J. [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Myers, Adam D. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071 (United States); Eracleous, Michael; Brandt, William Nielsen [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Kelly, Brandon [Department of Physics, Broida Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9530 (United States); Badenes, Carlos [Department of Physics and Astronomy and Pittsburgh Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology Center (PITT PACC), University of Pittsburgh, 3941 O’Hara St, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (United States); Bañados, Eduardo [Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg (Germany); Blanton, Michael R. [Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 (United States); Bershady, Matthew A. [Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin, 475 N. Charter St., Madison, WI 53706 (United States); Borissova, Jura [Instituto de Física y Astronomía, Universidad de Valparaíso, Av. Gran Bretaña 1111, Playa Ancha, Casilla 5030, and Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS), Santiago (Chile); Burgett, William S. [GMTO Corp, Suite 300, 251 S. Lake Ave, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States); Chambers, Kenneth, E-mail: emorganson@cfa.harvard.edu [Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822 (United States); and others

2015-06-20

We present the selection algorithm and anticipated results for the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS). TDSS is an Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-IV Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) subproject that will provide initial identification spectra of approximately 220,000 luminosity-variable objects (variable stars and active galactic nuclei across 7500 deg{sup 2} selected from a combination of SDSS and multi-epoch Pan-STARRS1 photometry. TDSS will be the largest spectroscopic survey to explicitly target variable objects, avoiding pre-selection on the basis of colors or detailed modeling of specific variability characteristics. Kernel Density Estimate analysis of our target population performed on SDSS Stripe 82 data suggests our target sample will be 95% pure (meaning 95% of objects we select have genuine luminosity variability of a few magnitudes or more). Our final spectroscopic sample will contain roughly 135,000 quasars and 85,000 stellar variables, approximately 4000 of which will be RR Lyrae stars which may be used as outer Milky Way probes. The variability-selected quasar population has a smoother redshift distribution than a color-selected sample, and variability measurements similar to those we develop here may be used to make more uniform quasar samples in large surveys. The stellar variable targets are distributed fairly uniformly across color space, indicating that TDSS will obtain spectra for a wide variety of stellar variables including pulsating variables, stars with significant chromospheric activity, cataclysmic variables, and eclipsing binaries. TDSS will serve as a pathfinder mission to identify and characterize the multitude of variable objects that will be detected photometrically in even larger variability surveys such as Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

Results from a Pilot REU Program: Exploring the Cosmos Using Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data

Science.gov (United States)

Chanover, Nancy J.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Holtzman, Jon A.

2017-01-01

In the Summer of 2016 we conducted a 10-week pilot Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program aimed at increasing the participation of underrepresented minority undergraduate students in research using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This program utilized a distributed REU model, whereby students worked with SDSS scientists on exciting research projects while serving as members of a geographically distributed research community. The format of this REU is similar to that of the SDSS collaboration itself, and since this collaboration structure has become a model for the next generation of large scale astronomical surveys, the students participating in the SDSS REU received early exposure and familiarity with this approach to collaborative scientific research. The SDSS REU also provided the participants with a low-risk opportunity to audition for graduate schools and to explore opportunities afforded by a career as a research scientist. The six student participants were placed at SDSS REU host sites at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Portsmouth. Their research projects covered a broad range of topics related to stars, galaxies, and quasars, all making use of SDSS data. At the start of the summer the REU students participated in a week-long Boot Camp at NMSU, which served as a program orientation, an introduction to skills relevant to their research projects, and an opportunity for team-building and cohort-forming. To foster a sense of community among our distributed students throughout the summer, we conducted a weekly online meeting for all students in the program via virtual meeting tools. These virtual group meetings served two purposes: as a weekly check-in to find out how their projects were progressing, and to conduct professional development seminars on topics of interest and relevance to the REU participants. We discuss the outcomes of this

Fast Radio Burst Discovered in the Arecibo Pulsar ALFA Survey

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Spitler, L.G.; Cordes, J.M.; Hessels, J.W.T.; Lorimer, D.R.; McLaughlin, M.A.; Chatterjee, S.; Crawford, F.; Deneva, J.S.; Kaspi, V.M.; Wharton, R.S.; Allen, B.; Bogdanov, S.; Brazier, A.; Camilo, F.; Freire, P.C.C.; Jenet, F.A.; Karako-Argaman, C.; Knispel, B.; Lazarus, P.; Lee, K.J.; van Leeuwen, J.; Lynch, R.; Ransom, S.M.; Scholz, P.; Siemens, X.; Stairs, I.H.; Stovall, K.; Swiggum, J.K.; Venkataraman, A.; Zhu, W.W.; Aulbert, C.; Fehrmann, H.

2014-01-01

Recent work has exploited pulsar survey data to identify temporally isolated, millisecond-duration radio bursts with large dispersion measures (DMs). These bursts have been interpreted as arising from a population of extragalactic sources, in which case they would provide unprecedented opportunities

Characterizing Sky Spectra Using SDSS BOSS Data

Science.gov (United States)

Florez, Lina Maria; Strauss, Michael A.

2018-01-01

In the optical/near-infrared spectra gathered by a ground-based telescope observing very faint sources, the strengths of the emission lines due to the Earth’s atmosphere can be many times larger than the fluxes of the sources we are interested in. Thus the limiting factor in faint-object spectroscopy is the degree to which systematics in the sky subtraction can be minimized. Longwards of 6000 Angstroms, the night-sky spectrum is dominated by multiple vibrational/rotational transitions of the OH radical from our upper atmosphere. While the wavelengths of these lines are the same in each sky spectrum, their relative strengths vary considerably as a function of time and position on the sky. The better we can model their strengths, the better we can hope to subtract them off. We expect that the strength of lines from common upper energy levels will be correlated with one another. We used flux-calibrated sky spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (SDSS BOSS) to explore these correlations. Our aim is to use these correlations for creating improved sky subtraction algorithms for the Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope. When PFS starts gathering data in 2019, it will be the most powerful multi-object spectrograph in the world. Since PFS will be gathering data on sources as faint as 24th magnitude and fainter, it's of upmost importance to be able to accurately measure and subtract sky spectra from the data that we receive.

THE VERY SHORT PERIOD M DWARF BINARY SDSS J001641-000925

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Davenport, James R. A.; Becker, Andrew C.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Gunning, Heather C.; Munshi, Ferah A.; Albright, Meagan [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); West, Andrew A. [Astronomy Department, Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 (United States); Bochanski, John J. [Astronomy and Astrophysics Department, Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Holtzman, Jon [Department of Astronomy, New Mexico State University, Box 30001, Las Cruces, NM 88003 (United States); Hilton, Eric J., E-mail: jrad@astro.washington.edu [Department of Geology and Geophysics and Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822 (United States)

2013-02-10

We present follow-up observations and analysis of the recently discovered short period low-mass eclipsing binary, SDSS J001641-000925. With an orbital period of 0.19856 days, this system has one of the shortest known periods for an M dwarf binary system. Medium-resolution spectroscopy and multi-band photometry for the system are presented. Markov Chain Monte Carlo modeling of the light curves and radial velocities yields estimated masses for the stars of M {sub 1} = 0.54 {+-} 0.07 M {sub Sun} and M {sub 2} = 0.34 {+-} 0.04 M {sub Sun }, and radii of R {sub 1} = 0.68 {+-} 0.03 R {sub Sun} and R {sub 2} = 0.58 {+-} 0.03 R {sub Sun }, respectively. This solution places both components above the critical Roche overfill limit, providing strong evidence that SDSS J001641-000925 is the first verified M-dwarf contact binary system. Within the follow-up spectroscopy we find signatures of non-solid body rotation velocities, which we interpret as evidence for mass transfer or loss within the system. In addition, our photometry samples the system over nine years, and we find strong evidence for period decay at the rate of P-dot {approx} 8 s yr{sup -1}. Both of these signatures raise the intriguing possibility that the system is in over-contact, and actively losing angular momentum, likely through mass loss. This places SDSS J001641-000925 as not just the first M-dwarf over-contact binary, but one of the few systems of any spectral type known to be actively undergoing coalescence. Further study of SDSS J001641-000925 is ongoing to verify the nature of the system, which may prove to be a unique astrophysical laboratory.

HOMOGENEOUS UGRIZ PHOTOMETRY FOR ACS VIRGO CLUSTER SURVEY GALAXIES: A NON-PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS FROM SDSS IMAGING

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Chin-Wei; Cote, Patrick; Ferrarese, Laura; West, Andrew A.; Peng, Eric W.

2010-01-01

We present photometric and structural parameters for 100 ACS Virgo Cluster Survey (ACSVCS) galaxies based on homogeneous, multi-wavelength (ugriz), wide-field SDSS (DR5) imaging. These early-type galaxies, which trace out the red sequence in the Virgo Cluster, span a factor of nearly ∼10 3 in g-band luminosity. We describe an automated pipeline that generates background-subtracted mosaic images, masks field sources and measures mean shapes, total magnitudes, effective radii, and effective surface brightnesses using a model-independent approach. A parametric analysis of the surface brightness profiles is also carried out to obtain Sersic-based structural parameters and mean galaxy colors. We compare the galaxy parameters to those in the literature, including those from the ACSVCS, finding good agreement in most cases, although the sizes of the brightest, and most extended, galaxies are found to be most uncertain and model dependent. Our photometry provides an external measurement of the random errors on total magnitudes from the widely used Virgo Cluster Catalog, which we estimate to be σ(B T )∼ 0.13 mag for the brightest galaxies, rising to ∼ 0.3 mag for galaxies at the faint end of our sample (B T ∼ 16). The distribution of axial ratios of low-mass ( d warf ) galaxies bears a strong resemblance to the one observed for the higher-mass ( g iant ) galaxies. The global structural parameters for the full galaxy sample-profile shape, effective radius, and mean surface brightness-are found to vary smoothly and systematically as a function of luminosity, with unmistakable evidence for changes in structural homology along the red sequence. As noted in previous studies, the ugriz galaxy colors show a nonlinear but smooth variation over a ∼7 mag range in absolute magnitude, with an enhanced scatter for the faintest systems that is likely the signature of their more diverse star formation histories.

Seasonal variability and descent of mid-latitude sporadic E layers at Arecibo

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. Christakis

2009-03-01

Full Text Available Sporadic E layers (Es follow regular daily patterns in variability and altitude descent, which are determined primarily by the vertical tidal wind shears in the lower thermosphere. In the present study a large set of sporadic E layer incoherent scatter radar (ISR measurements are analyzed. These were made at Arecibo (Geog. Lat. ~18° N; Magnetic Dip ~50° over many years with ISR runs lasting from several hours to several days, covering evenly all seasons. A new methodology is applied, in which both weak and strong layers are clearly traced by using the vertical electron density gradient as a function of altitude and time. Taking a time base equal to the 24-h local day, statistics were obtained on the seasonal behavior of the diurnal and semidiurnal tidal variability and altitude descent patterns of sporadic E at Arecibo. The diurnal tide, most likely the S(1,1 tide with a vertical wavelength around 25 km, controls fully the formation and descent of the metallic Es layers at low altitudes below 110 km. At higher altitudes, there are two prevailing layers formed presumably by vertical wind shears associated mainly with semidiurnal tides. These include: 1 a daytime layer starting at ~130 km around midday and descending down to 105 km by local midnight, and 2 a less frequent and weaker nighttime layer which starts prior to midnight at ~130 km, descending downwards at somewhat faster rate to reach 110 km by sunrise. The diurnal and semidiurnal-like pattern prevails, with some differences, in all seasons. The differences in occurrence, strength and descending speeds between the daytime and nighttime upper layers are not well understood from the present data alone and require further study.

SDSS-IV MaNGA: the spectroscopic discovery of strongly lensed galaxies

Science.gov (United States)

Talbot, Michael S.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bolton, Adam S.; Bundy, Kevin; Andrews, Brett H.; Cherinka, Brian; Collett, Thomas E.; More, Anupreeta; More, Surhud; Sonnenfeld, Alessandro; Vegetti, Simona; Wake, David A.; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Westfall, Kyle B.

2018-06-01

We present a catalogue of 38 spectroscopically detected strong galaxy-galaxy gravitational lens candidates identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV). We were able to simulate narrow-band images for eight of them demonstrating evidence of multiple images. Two of our systems are compound lens candidates, each with two background source-planes. One of these compound systems shows clear lensing features in the narrow-band image. Our sample is based on 2812 galaxies observed by the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) integral field unit (IFU). This Spectroscopic Identification of Lensing Objects (SILO) survey extends the methodology of the Sloan Lens ACS Survey (SLACS) and BOSS Emission-Line Survey (BELLS) to lower redshift and multiple IFU spectra. We searched ˜1.5 million spectra, of which 3065 contained multiple high signal-to-noise ratio background emission-lines or a resolved [O II] doublet, that are included in this catalogue. Upon manual inspection, we discovered regions with multiple spectra containing background emission-lines at the same redshift, providing evidence of a common source-plane geometry which was not possible in previous SLACS and BELLS discovery programs. We estimate more than half of our candidates have an Einstein radius ≳ 1.7 arcsec, which is significantly greater than seen in SLACS and BELLS. These larger Einstein radii produce more extended images of the background galaxy increasing the probability that a background emission-line will enter one of the IFU spectroscopic fibres, making detection more likely.

Radar detectability studies of slow and small zodiacal dust cloud particles. I. The case of Arecibo 430 MHz meteor head echo observations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Janches, D.; Plane, J. M. C.; Feng, W.; Nesvorný, D.; Vokrouhlický, D.; Nicolls, M. J.

2014-01-01

Recent model development of the Zodiacal Dust Cloud (ZDC) argues that the incoming flux of meteoric material into the Earth's upper atmosphere is mostly undetected by radars because they cannot detect small extraterrestrial particles entering the atmosphere at low velocities due to the relatively small production of electrons. In this paper, we present a new methodology utilizing meteor head echo radar observations that aims to constrain the ZDC physical model by ground-based measurements. In particular, for this work, we focus on Arecibo 430 MHz observations since this is the most sensitive radar utilized for this type of observations to date. For this, we integrate and employ existing comprehensive models of meteoroid ablation, ionization, and radar detection to enable accurate interpretation of radar observations and show that reasonable agreement in the hourly rates is found between model predictions and Arecibo observations when (1) we invoke the lower limit of the model predicted flux (∼16 t d –1 ) and (2) we estimate the ionization probability of ablating metal atoms using laboratory measurements of the ionization cross sections of high-speed metal atom beams, resulting in values up to two orders of magnitude lower than the extensively utilized figure reported by Jones for low-speed meteors. However, even at this lower limit, the model overpredicts the slow portion of the Arecibo radial velocity distributions by a factor of three, suggesting that the model requires some revision.

Radar detectability studies of slow and small zodiacal dust cloud particles. I. The case of Arecibo 430 MHz meteor head echo observations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Janches, D. [Space Weather Laboratory, Mail Code 674, GSFC/NASA, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States); Plane, J. M. C.; Feng, W. [School of Chemistry, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT (United Kingdom); Nesvorný, D. [SouthWest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302 (United States); Vokrouhlický, D. [Institute of Astronomy, Charles University, Prague (Czech Republic); Nicolls, M. J., E-mail: diego.janches@nasa.gov, E-mail: j.m.c.plane@leeds.ac.uk, E-mail: w.feng@leeds.ac.uk, E-mail: davidn@boulder.swri.edu, E-mail: vokrouhl@cesnet.cz, E-mail: Michael.Nicolls@sri.com [SRI International, Menlo Park, CA 94025 (United States)

2014-11-20

Recent model development of the Zodiacal Dust Cloud (ZDC) argues that the incoming flux of meteoric material into the Earth's upper atmosphere is mostly undetected by radars because they cannot detect small extraterrestrial particles entering the atmosphere at low velocities due to the relatively small production of electrons. In this paper, we present a new methodology utilizing meteor head echo radar observations that aims to constrain the ZDC physical model by ground-based measurements. In particular, for this work, we focus on Arecibo 430 MHz observations since this is the most sensitive radar utilized for this type of observations to date. For this, we integrate and employ existing comprehensive models of meteoroid ablation, ionization, and radar detection to enable accurate interpretation of radar observations and show that reasonable agreement in the hourly rates is found between model predictions and Arecibo observations when (1) we invoke the lower limit of the model predicted flux (∼16 t d{sup –1}) and (2) we estimate the ionization probability of ablating metal atoms using laboratory measurements of the ionization cross sections of high-speed metal atom beams, resulting in values up to two orders of magnitude lower than the extensively utilized figure reported by Jones for low-speed meteors. However, even at this lower limit, the model overpredicts the slow portion of the Arecibo radial velocity distributions by a factor of three, suggesting that the model requires some revision.

Radar Detectability Studies of Slow and Small Zodiacal Dust Cloud Particles: I. The Case of Arecibo 430 MHz Meteor Head Echo Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Janches, D.; Plane, J. M. C.; Nesvorny, D.; Feng, W.; Vokrouhlicky, D.; Nicolls, M. J.

2014-01-01

Recent model development of the Zodiacal Dust Cloud (ZDC) model (Nesvorny et al. 2010, 2011b) argue that the incoming flux of meteoric material into the Earth's upper atmosphere is mostly undetected by radars because they cannot detect small extraterrestrial particles entering the atmosphere at low velocities due to the relatively small production of electrons. In this paper we present a new methodology utilizing meteor head echo radar observations that aims to constrain the ZDC physical model by ground-based measurements. In particular, for this work, we focus on Arecibo 430 MHz observations since this is the most sensitive radar utilized for this type of observations to date. For this, we integrate and employ existing comprehensive models of meteoroid ablation, ionization and radar detection to enable accurate interpretation of radar observations and show that reasonable agreement in the hourly rates is found between model predictions and Arecibo observations when: 1) we invoke the lower limit of the model predicted flux (approximately 16 t/d) and 2) we estimate the ionization probability of ablating metal atoms using laboratory measurements of the ionization cross sections of high speed metal atom beams, resulting in values up to two orders of magnitude lower than the extensively utilized figure reported by Jones (1997) for low speeds meteors. However, even at this lower limit the model over predicts the slow portion of the Arecibo radial velocity distributions by a factor of 3, suggesting the model requires some revision.

Radar investigations of near-Earth asteroids at Arecibo and Goldstone

Science.gov (United States)

Brozovic, M.; Nolan, M.; Benner, L.; Busch, M.; Howell, E.; Taylor, P.; Springmann, A.; Giorgini, J.; Margot, J.; Magri, C.; Sheppard, M.; Naidu, S.

2014-07-01

Radar observations are a powerful technique to study near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). The Arecibo and Goldstone planetary radars can provide delay-Doppler images that can directly resolve surface features such as concavities, hills, ridges, and boulders. Goldstone's 3.75-m resolution capability is invaluable when attempting to image NEAs with diameters smaller than 50 m. To date, over 430 near-Earth asteroids and 136 main-belt asteroids have been observed with radar. 80 % of the radar-detected NEAs have been observed within the last 10 years. The radar detection rate in the last three years has tripled relative to the average in the previous decade due to an increase in funding and greater scheduling flexibility. Currently, ˜400 observing hours per year at Goldstone and ˜600 observing hours per year at Arecibo are devoted to observing asteroids. We strive to observe all strong and moderately strong imaging targets, Yarkovsky drift candidates, NEOWISE targets, asteroids with very low perihelia that can be used to measure solar oblateness, and as many other detectable asteroids as resources allow. We also regularly attempt to observe any asteroid that is flagged by the Near-Earth Object Human Spaceflight Accessible Targets Study (NHATS) list (http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/nhats/). To date, we have observed more than 60 NHATS objects at Arecibo and Goldstone. In the past three years, ˜1/3 of the detected asteroids were targets of opportunity (TOOs), some of which we observed within 24 h from when the discoveries were announced. Many TOOs are small, rapidly moving objects that are detectable by radar only within few lunar distances. Radar astrometry is particularly important for these asteroids because they are too faint to be followed for long with optical telescopes. A radar-range measurement often secures their orbit for decades or centuries, where otherwise the object would be lost and require rediscovery. In one of the extreme cases, two delay and two Doppler

MARVELS-1b: A SHORT-PERIOD, BROWN DWARF DESERT CANDIDATE FROM THE SDSS-III MARVELS PLANET SEARCH

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Brian L.; Ge Jian; Fleming, Scott W.; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Sivarani, Thirupathi; Stassun, Keivan G.; Gary, Bruce; Pepper, Joshua; Gaudi, B. Scott; Eastman, Jason D.; Siverd, Robert J.; Barnes, Rory; Laws, Chris; Wisniewski, John P.; Wright, Jason; Ghezzi, Luan; Ogando, Ricardo L. C.; Maia, Marcio A. G.; Da Costa, Luiz Nicolaci; Porto de Mello, G. F.

2011-01-01

We present a new short-period brown dwarf (BD) candidate around the star TYC 1240-00945-1. This candidate was discovered in the first year of the Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanets Large-area Survey (MARVELS), which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) III, and we designate the BD as MARVELS-1b. MARVELS uses the technique of dispersed fixed-delay interferometery to simultaneously obtain radial velocity (RV) measurements for 60 objects per field using a single, custom-built instrument that is fiber fed from the SDSS 2.5 m telescope. From our 20 RV measurements spread over a ∼370 day time baseline, we derive a Keplerian orbital fit with semi-amplitude K = 2.533 ± 0.025 km s -1 , period P = 5.8953 ± 0.0004 days, and eccentricity consistent with circular. Independent follow-up RV data confirm the orbit. Adopting a mass of 1.37 ± 0.11 M sun for the slightly evolved F9 host star, we infer that the companion has a minimum mass of 28.0 ± 1.5 M Jup , a semimajor axis 0.071 ± 0.002 AU assuming an edge-on orbit, and is probably tidally synchronized. We find no evidence for coherent intrinsic variability of the host star at the period of the companion at levels greater than a few millimagnitudes. The companion has an a priori transit probability of ∼14%. Although we find no evidence for transits, we cannot definitively rule them out for companion radii ∼ Jup .

Cosmological Constraints From SDSS MaxBCG Cluster Abundances

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rozo, Eduardo; Wechsler, Risa H.; KICP, Chicago; Koester, Benjamin P.; McKay, Timothy A.; Evrard, August E.; Johnston, David; Sheldon, Erin S.; Annis, James; Frieman, Joshua A.

2007-01-01

We perform a maximum likelihood analysis of the cluster abundance measured in the SDSS using the maxBCG cluster finding algorithm. Our analysis is aimed at constraining the power spectrum normalization σ 8 , and assumes flat cosmologies with a scale invariant spectrum, massless neutrinos, and CMB and supernova priors (Omega) m h 2 = 0.128 ± 0.01 and h = 0.72 ± 0.05 respectively. Following the method described in the companion paper Rozo et al. (2007), we derive σ 8 = 0.92 ± 0.10 (1σ) after marginalizing over all major systematic uncertainties. We place strong lower limits on the normalization, σ 8 > 0.76 (95% CL) (> 0.68 at 99% CL). We also find that our analysis favors relatively low values for the slope of the Halo Occupation Distribution (HOD), α = 0.83 ± 0.06. The uncertainties of these determinations will substantially improve upon completion of an ongoing campaign to estimate dynamical, weak lensing, and X-ray cluster masses in the SDSS maxBCG cluster sample

Position-dependent correlation function from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Data Release 10 CMASS sample

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chiang, Chi-Ting; Wagner, Christian; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Schmidt, Fabian; Komatsu, Eiichiro

2015-01-01

We report on the first measurement of the three-point function with the position-dependent correlation function from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Data Release 10 CMASS sample. This new observable measures the correlation between two-point functions of galaxy pairs within different subvolumes, ξ-circumflex (ř,ř L ), where ř L is the location of a subvolume, and the corresponding mean overdensities, δ-bar (ř L ). This correlation, which we call the 'integrated three-point function', iζ(r)≡(ξ-circumflex (ř,ř L )δ-bar (ř L )), measures a three-point function of two short- and one long-wavelength modes, and is generated by nonlinear gravitational evolution and possibly also by the physics of inflation. The iζ(r) measured from the BOSS data lies within the scatter of those from the mock galaxy catalogs in redshift space, yielding a ten-percent-level determination of the amplitude of iζ(r). The tree-level perturbation theory in redshift space predicts how this amplitude depends on the linear and quadratic nonlinear galaxy bias parameters (b 1 and b 2 ), as well as on the amplitude and linear growth rate of matter fluctuations (σ 8 and f). Combining iζ(r) with the constraints on b 1σ 8 and fσ 8 from the global two-point correlation function and that on σ 8 from the weak lensing signal of BOSS galaxies, we measure b 2 =0.41±0.41 (68% C.L.) assuming standard perturbation theory at the tree level and the local bias model

The intrinsic shape of galaxies in SDSS/Galaxy Zoo

Science.gov (United States)

Rodríguez, Silvio; Padilla, Nelson D.

2013-09-01

By modelling the axis ratio distribution of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 8 galaxies, we find the intrinsic 3D shapes of spirals and ellipticals. We use morphological information from the Galaxy Zoo project and assume a non-parametric distribution intrinsic of shapes, while taking into account dust extinction. We measure the dust extinction of the full sample of spiral galaxies and find a smaller value than previous estimations, with an edge-on extinction of E_0 = 0.284^{+0.015}_{-0.026} in the SDSS r band. We also find that the distribution of minor to major axis ratio has a mean value of 0.267 ± 0.009, slightly larger than previous estimates mainly due to the lower extinction used; the same affects the circularity of galactic discs, which are found to be less round in shape than in previous studies, with a mean ellipticity of 0.215 ± 0.013. For elliptical galaxies, we find that the minor to major axis ratio, with a mean value of 0.584 ± 0.006, is larger than previous estimations due to the removal of spiral interlopers present in samples with morphological information from photometric profiles. These interlopers are removed when selecting ellipticals using Galaxy Zoo data. We find that the intrinsic shapes of galaxies and their dust extinction vary with absolute magnitude, colour and physical size. We find that bright elliptical galaxies are more spherical than faint ones, a trend that is also present with galaxy size, and that there is no dependence of elliptical galaxy shape with colour. For spiral galaxies, we find that the reddest ones have higher dust extinction as expected, due to the fact that this reddening is mainly due to dust. We also find that the thickness of discs increases with luminosity and size, and that brighter, smaller and redder galaxies have less round discs.

THE BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY OF SDSS-III

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dawson, Kyle S.; Ahn, Christopher P.; Bolton, Adam S.; Schlegel, David J.; Bailey, Stephen; Anderson, Scott F.; Bhardwaj, Vaishali; Aubourg, Éric; Bautista, Julian E.; Barkhouser, Robert H.; Beifiori, Alessandra; Berlind, Andreas A.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Brewington, Howard; Blake, Cullen H.; Blanton, Michael R.; Blomqvist, Michael; Borde, Arnaud; Bovy, Jo; Brandt, W. N.

2013-01-01

The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) is designed to measure the scale of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the clustering of matter over a larger volume than the combined efforts of all previous spectroscopic surveys of large-scale structure. BOSS uses 1.5 million luminous galaxies as faint as i = 19.9 over 10,000 deg 2 to measure BAO to redshifts z A to an accuracy of 1.0% at redshifts z = 0.3 and z = 0.57 and measurements of H(z) to 1.8% and 1.7% at the same redshifts. Forecasts for Lyα forest constraints predict a measurement of an overall dilation factor that scales the highly degenerate D A (z) and H –1 (z) parameters to an accuracy of 1.9% at z ∼ 2.5 when the survey is complete. Here, we provide an overview of the selection of spectroscopic targets, planning of observations, and analysis of data and data quality of BOSS.

An approach to the analysis of SDSS spectroscopic outliers based on self-organizing maps. Designing the outlier analysis software package for the next Gaia survey

Science.gov (United States)

Fustes, D.; Manteiga, M.; Dafonte, C.; Arcay, B.; Ulla, A.; Smith, K.; Borrachero, R.; Sordo, R.

2013-11-01

Aims: A new method applied to the segmentation and further analysis of the outliers resulting from the classification of astronomical objects in large databases is discussed. The method is being used in the framework of the Gaia satellite Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) activities to prepare automated software tools that will be used to derive basic astrophysical information that is to be included in final Gaia archive. Methods: Our algorithm has been tested by means of simulated Gaia spectrophotometry, which is based on SDSS observations and theoretical spectral libraries covering a wide sample of astronomical objects. Self-organizing maps networks are used to organize the information in clusters of objects, as homogeneously as possible according to their spectral energy distributions, and to project them onto a 2D grid where the data structure can be visualized. Results: We demonstrate the usefulness of the method by analyzing the spectra that were rejected by the SDSS spectroscopic classification pipeline and thus classified as "UNKNOWN". First, our method can help distinguish between astrophysical objects and instrumental artifacts. Additionally, the application of our algorithm to SDSS objects of unknown nature has allowed us to identify classes of objects with similar astrophysical natures. In addition, the method allows for the potential discovery of hundreds of new objects, such as white dwarfs and quasars. Therefore, the proposed method is shown to be very promising for data exploration and knowledge discovery in very large astronomical databases, such as the archive from the upcoming Gaia mission.

Luminosity-Environment Relation in the Lowz Sample of the SDSS-III

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Deng Xin-Fa

2016-06-01

Full Text Available In this work, we examine the environmental dependence of the u-, g-, r-, i- and z-band luminosities in the LOWZ sample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 10 (SDSS DR10. To decrease the radial selection effect, we divide the LOWZ sample into subsamples with a redshift bin size of Δz = 0.01 and analyze the environmental dependence of luminosities for these subsamples in each redshift bin. It is found that all five band luminosities of the LOWZ galaxy sample in the redshift region z=0.16–0.23 show substantial correlation with the local environment, especially in the redshift bins 0.19–0.20 and 0.20–0.21. The environmental dependence of all five band luminosities in the LOWZ galaxy sample becomes weak with increasing redshift, like the one in the apparent-magnitude limited Main galaxy sample.

A Subaru galaxy redshift survey: WFMOS survey

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Takada, M

2008-01-01

A planned galaxy redshift survey with the Subaru 8.2m telescope, the WFMOS survey, offers a unique opportunity for probing detailed properties of large-scale structure formation in the expanding universe by measuring clustering strength of galaxy distribution as a function of distance scale and redshift. In particular, the precise measurement of the galaxy power spectrum, combined with the cosmic microwave background experiments, allows us to obtain stringent constraints on or even determine absolute mass scales of the Big-Bang relic neutrinos as the neutrinos imprint characteristic scale- and redshift-dependent modifications onto the galaxy power spectrum shape. Here we describe the basic concept of how the galaxy clustering measurement can be used to explore the neutrino masses, with particular emphasis on advantages of the WFMOS survey over the existing low-redshift surveys such as SDSS

Update on the SDSS-III MARVELS data pipeline development

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Rui; Ge, J.; Thomas, N. B.; Petersen, E.; Wang, J.; Ma, B.; Sithajan, S.; Shi, J.; Ouyang, Y.; Chen, Y.

2014-01-01

MARVELS (Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey), as one of the four surveys in the SDSS-III program, has monitored over 3,300 stars during 2008-2012, with each being visited an average of 26 times over a 2-year window. Although the early data pipeline was able to detect over 20 brown dwarf candidates and several hundreds of binaries, no giant planet candidates have been reliably identified due to its large systematic errors. Learning from past data pipeline lessons, we re-designed the entire pipeline to handle various types of systematic effects caused by the instrument (such as trace, slant, distortion, drifts and dispersion) and observation condition changes (such as illumination profile and continuum). We also introduced several advanced methods to precisely extract the RV signals. To date, we have achieved a long term RMS RV measurement error of 14 m/s for HIP-14810 (one of our reference stars) after removal of the known planet signal based on previous HIRES RV measurement. This new 1-D data pipeline has been used to robustly identify four giant planet candidates within the small fraction of the survey data that has been processed (Thomas et al. this meeting). The team is currently working hard to optimize the pipeline, especially the 2-D interference-fringe RV extraction, where early results show a 1.5 times improvement over the 1-D data pipeline. We are quickly approaching the survey baseline performance requirement of 10-35 m/s RMS for 8-12 solar type stars. With this fine-tuned pipeline and the soon to be processed plates of data, we expect to discover many more giant planet candidates and make a large statistical impact to the exoplanet study.

Exploring the SDSS Data Set with Linked Scatter Plots. I. EMP, CEMP, and CV Stars

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Carbon, Duane F.; Henze, Christopher; Nelson, Bron C., E-mail: Duane.F.Carbon@nasa.gov [NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility, Moffett Field, CA, 94035-1000 (United States)

2017-02-01

We present the results of a search for extremely metal-poor (EMP), carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP), and cataclysmic variable (CV) stars using a new exploration tool based on linked scatter plots (LSPs). Our approach is especially designed to work with very large spectrum data sets such as the SDSS, LAMOST, RAVE, and Gaia data sets, and it can be applied to stellar, galaxy, and quasar spectra. As a demonstration, we conduct our search using the SDSS DR10 data set. We first created a 3326-dimensional phase space containing nearly 2 billion measures of the strengths of over 1600 spectral features in 569,738 SDSS stars. These measures capture essentially all the stellar atomic and molecular species visible at the resolution of SDSS spectra. We show how LSPs can be used to quickly isolate and examine interesting portions of this phase space. To illustrate, we use LSPs coupled with cuts in selected portions of phase space to extract EMP stars, CEMP stars, and CV stars. We present identifications for 59 previously unrecognized candidate EMP stars and 11 previously unrecognized candidate CEMP stars. We also call attention to 2 candidate He ii emission CV stars found by the LSP approach that have not yet been discussed in the literature.

PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFT PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS FOR GALAXIES IN THE SDSS DR8

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sheldon, Erin S.; Cunha, Carlos E.; Mandelbaum, Rachel; Brinkmann, J.; Weaver, Benjamin A.

2012-01-01

We present redshift probability distributions for galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 8 imaging data. We used the nearest-neighbor weighting algorithm to derive the ensemble redshift distribution N(z), and individual redshift probability distributions P(z) for galaxies with r < 21.8 and u < 29.0. As part of this technique, we calculated weights for a set of training galaxies with known redshifts such that their density distribution in five-dimensional color-magnitude space was proportional to that of the photometry-only sample, producing a nearly fair sample in that space. We estimated the ensemble N(z) of the photometric sample by constructing a weighted histogram of the training-set redshifts. We derived P(z)'s for individual objects by using training-set objects from the local color-magnitude space around each photometric object. Using the P(z) for each galaxy can reduce the statistical error in measurements that depend on the redshifts of individual galaxies. The spectroscopic training sample is substantially larger than that used for the DR7 release. The newly added PRIMUS catalog is now the most important training set used in this analysis by a wide margin. We expect the primary sources of error in the N(z) reconstruction to be sample variance and spectroscopic failures: The training sets are drawn from relatively small volumes of space, and some samples have large incompleteness. Using simulations we estimated the uncertainty in N(z) due to sample variance at a given redshift to be ∼10%-15%. The uncertainty on calculations incorporating N(z) or P(z) depends on how they are used; we discuss the case of weak lensing measurements. The P(z) catalog is publicly available from the SDSS Web site.

xCOLD GASS: The Complete IRAM 30 m Legacy Survey of Molecular Gas for Galaxy Evolution Studies

Science.gov (United States)

Saintonge, Amélie; Catinella, Barbara; Tacconi, Linda J.; Kauffmann, Guinevere; Genzel, Reinhard; Cortese, Luca; Davé, Romeel; Fletcher, Thomas J.; Graciá-Carpio, Javier; Kramer, Carsten; Heckman, Timothy M.; Janowiecki, Steven; Lutz, Katharina; Rosario, David; Schiminovich, David; Schuster, Karl; Wang, Jing; Wuyts, Stijn; Borthakur, Sanchayeeta; Lamperti, Isabella; Roberts-Borsani, Guido W.

2017-12-01

We introduce xCOLD GASS, a legacy survey providing a census of molecular gas in the local universe. Building on the original COLD GASS survey, we present here the full sample of 532 galaxies with CO (1–0) measurements from the IRAM 30 m telescope. The sample is mass-selected in the redshift interval 0.01 {10}9 {M}ȯ . The CO (1–0) flux measurements are complemented by observations of the CO (2–1) line with both the IRAM 30 m and APEX telescopes, H I observations from Arecibo, and photometry from SDSS, WISE, and GALEX. Combining the IRAM and APEX data, we find that the ratio of CO (2–1) to CO (1–0) luminosity for integrated measurements is {r}21=0.79+/- 0.03, with no systematic variations across the sample. The CO (1–0) luminosity function is constructed and best fit with a Schechter function with parameters {L}{CO}* =(7.77+/- 2.11)× {10}9 {{K}} {km} {{{s}}}-1 {{pc}}2, {φ }* =(9.84+/- 5.41)× {10}-4 {{Mpc}}-3, and α =-1.19+/- 0.05. With the sample now complete down to stellar masses of 109 {M}ȯ , we are able to extend our study of gas scaling relations and confirm that both molecular gas fractions ({f}{{{H}}2}) and depletion timescale ({t}{dep}({{{H}}}2)) vary with specific star formation rate (or offset from the star formation main sequence) much more strongly than they depend on stellar mass. Comparing the xCOLD GASS results with outputs from hydrodynamic and semianalytic models, we highlight the constraining power of cold gas scaling relations on models of galaxy formation.

We’re Working On It: Transferring the Sloan Digital Sky Survey from Laboratory to Library

OpenAIRE

Sands, Ashley E.; Borgman, Christine L.; Traweek, Sharon; Wynholds, Laura A.

2014-01-01

This article reports on the transfer of a massive scientific dataset from a national laboratory to a university library, and from one kind of workforce to another. We use the transfer of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) archive to examine the emergence of a new workforce for scientific research data management. Many individuals with diverse educational backgrounds and domain experience are involved in SDSS data management: domain scientists, computer scientists, software and systems engin...

THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY QUASAR LENS SEARCH. V. FINAL CATALOG FROM THE SEVENTH DATA RELEASE

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Inada, Naohisa; Oguri, Masamune; Kayo, Issha; Fukugita, Masataka; Shin, Min-Su; Strauss, Michael A.; Bahcall, Neta A.; Morokuma, Tomoki; Rusu, Cristian E.; Kochanek, Christopher S.; Richards, Gordon T.; Schneider, Donald P.; York, Donald G.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Hall, Patrick B.; White, Richard L.

2012-01-01

We present the final statistical sample of lensed quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Lens Search (SQLS). The well-defined statistical lens sample consists of 26 lensed quasars brighter than i = 19.1 and in the redshift range of 0.6 < z < 2.2 selected from 50,826 spectroscopically confirmed quasars in the SDSS Data Release 7 (DR7), where we restrict the image separation range to 1'' < θ < 20'' and the i-band magnitude differences in two images to be smaller than 1.25 mag. The SDSS DR7 quasar catalog also contains 36 additional lenses identified with various techniques. In addition to these lensed quasars, we have identified 81 pairs of quasars from follow-up spectroscopy, 26 of which are physically associated binary quasars. The statistical lens sample covers a wide range of image separations, redshifts, and magnitudes, and therefore is suitable for systematic studies of cosmological parameters and surveys of the structure and evolution of galaxies and quasars.

GALAXY ZOO MORPHOLOGY AND PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Way, M. J.

2011-01-01

It has recently been demonstrated that one can accurately derive galaxy morphology from particular primary and secondary isophotal shape estimates in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging catalog. This was accomplished by applying Machine Learning techniques to the Galaxy Zoo morphology catalog. Using the broad bandpass photometry of the SDSS in combination with precise knowledge of galaxy morphology should help in estimating more accurate photometric redshifts for galaxies. Using the Galaxy Zoo separation for spirals and ellipticals in combination with SDSS photometry we attempt to calculate photometric redshifts. In the best case we find that the root-mean-square error for luminous red galaxies classified as ellipticals is as low as 0.0118. Given these promising results we believe better photometric redshift estimates for all galaxies in the SDSS (∼350 million) will be feasible if researchers can also leverage their derived morphologies via Machine Learning. These initial results look to be promising for those interested in estimating weak lensing, baryonic acoustic oscillation, and other fields dependent upon accurate photometric redshifts.

The fall of the Northern Unicorn: tangential motions in the Galactic anticentre with SDSS and Gaia

Science.gov (United States)

de Boer, T. J. L.; Belokurov, V.; Koposov, S. E.

2018-01-01

We present the first detailed study of the behaviour of the stellar proper motion across the entire Galactic anticentre area visible in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data. We use recalibrated SDSS astrometry in combination with positions from Gaia DR1 to provide tangential motion measurements with a systematic uncertainty <5 km s-1 for the Main Sequence stars at the distance of the Monoceros Ring. We demonstrate that Monoceros members rotate around the Galaxy with azimuthal speeds of ∼230 km s-1, only slightly lower than that of the Sun. Additionally, both vertical and azimuthal components of their motion are shown to vary considerably but gradually as a function of Galactic longitude and latitude. The stellar overdensity in the anti-centre region can be split into two components, the narrow, stream-like ACS and the smooth Ring. According to our analysis, these two structures show very similar but clearly distinct kinematic trends, which can be summarized as follows: the amplitude of the velocity variation in vϕ and vz in the ACS is higher compared to the Ring, whose velocity gradients appear to be flatter. Currently, no model available can explain the entirety of the data in this area of the sky. However, the new accurate kinematic map introduced here should provide strong constraints on the genesis of the Monoceros Ring and the associated substructure.

Space Density Of Optically-Selected Type II Quasars From The SDSS

Science.gov (United States)

Reyes, Reinabelle; Zakamska, N. L.; Strauss, M. A.; Green, J.; Krolik, J. H.; Shen, Y.; Richards, G. T.

2007-12-01

Type II quasars are luminous Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) whose central regions are obscured by large amounts of gas and dust. In this poster, we present a catalog of 887 type II quasars with redshifts z<0.83 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), selected based on their emission lines, and derive the 1/Vmax [OIII] 5007 luminosity function from this sample. Since some objects may not be included in the sample because they lack strong emission lines, the derived luminosity function is only a lower limit. We also derive the [OIII] 5007 luminosity function for a sample of type I (broad-line) quasars in the same redshift range. Taking [OIII] 5007 luminosity as a tracer of intrinsic luminosity in both type I and type II quasars, we obtain lower limits to the type II quasar fraction as a function of [OIII] 5007 luminosity, from L[OIII] = 108.3 to 1010 Lsun, which roughly correspond to bolometric luminosities of 1044 to 1046 erg/s.

A CROSS-MATCH OF 2MASS AND SDSS. II. PECULIAR L DWARFS, UNRESOLVED BINARIES, AND THE SPACE DENSITY OF T DWARF SECONDARIES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Geissler, Kerstin; Metchev, Stanimir; Kirkpatrick, J. Davy; Berriman, G. Bruce; Looper, Dagny

2011-01-01

We present the completion of a program to cross-correlate the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 1 (SDSS DR1) and Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) Point Source Catalog in search for extremely red L and T dwarfs. The program was initiated by Metchev and collaborators, who presented the findings on all newly identified T dwarfs in SDSS DR1 and estimated the space density of isolated T0-T8 dwarfs in the solar neighborhood. In the current work, we present most of the L dwarf discoveries. Our red-sensitive (z - J ≥ 2.75 mag) cross-match proves to be efficient in detecting peculiarly red L dwarfs, adding two new ones, including one of the reddest known L dwarfs. Our search also nets a new peculiarly blue L7 dwarf and, surprisingly, two M8 dwarfs. We further broaden our analysis to detect unresolved binary L or T dwarfs through spectral template fitting to all L and T dwarfs presented here and in the earlier work by Metchev and collaborators. We identify nine probable binaries, six of which are new and eight harbor likely T dwarf secondaries. We combine this result with current knowledge of the mass ratio distribution and frequency of substellar companions to estimate an overall space density of 0.005-0.05 pc -3 for individual T0-T8 dwarfs.

Precious metals in SDSS quasar spectra. II. Tracking the evolution of strong, 0.4 < z < 2.3 Mg II absorbers with thousands of systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seyffert, Eduardo N.; Simcoe, Robert A.; Cooksey, Kathy L.; O'Meara, John M.; Kao, Melodie M.; Prochaska, J. Xavier

2013-01-01

We have performed an analysis of over 34,000 Mg II doublets at 0.36 < z < 2.29 in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 quasar spectra; the catalog, advanced data products, and tools for analysis are publicly available. The catalog was divided into 14 small redshift bins with roughly 2500 doublets in each and from Monte Carlo simulations, we estimate 50% completeness at rest equivalent width W r ≈ 0.8 Å. The equivalent width frequency distribution is described well by an exponential model at all redshifts, and the distribution becomes flatter with increasing redshift, i.e., there are more strong systems relative to weak ones. Direct comparison with previous SDSS Mg II surveys reveals that we recover at least 70% of the doublets in these other catalogs, in addition to detecting thousands of new systems. We discuss how these surveys came by their different results, which qualitatively agree but because of the very small uncertainties, differ by a statistically significant amount. The estimated physical cross section of Mg II-absorbing galaxy halos increased approximately threefold from z = 0.4 to z = 2.3, while the W r ≥ 1 Å absorber line density, dN MgII /dX, grew by roughly 45%. Finally, we explore the different evolution of various absorber populations—damped Lyα absorbers, Lyman limit systems, strong C IV absorbers, and strong and weaker Mg II systems—across cosmic time (0 < z < 6).

The Sloan Lens ACS Survey. I. A large spectroscopically selected sample of massive early-type lens galaxies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bolton, AS; Burles, S; Koopmans, LVE; Treu, T; Moustakas, LA

2006-01-01

The Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) Survey is an efficient Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Snapshot imaging survey for new galaxy-scale strong gravitational lenses. The targeted lens candidates are selected spectroscopically from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) database of galaxy spectra for having multiple

Multi-fractal analysis and lacunarity spectrum of the dark matter haloes in the SDSS-DR7

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chacón-Cardona, C.A.; Casas-Miranda, R.A.; Muñoz-Cuartas, J.C.

2016-01-01

Highlights: • We analysed the dark matter in Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. • From the initial sample with 412,468 galaxies, 339,505 dark matter haloes were used. • We found the multifractal and the lacunarity spectrum as radial distance function. • The dark matter set did not achieve at the physical dimension of the space. - Abstract: The dark matter halo distribution of the nearby universe is used to study the fractal behaviour in the proximate universe. The data, which is based on four volume-limited galaxy samples was obtained by Muñoz-Cuartas and Mueller (2012) from the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-DR7). In order to know the fractal behaviour of the observed universe, from the initial sample which contains 412,468 galaxies and 339,505 dark matter haloes were used as input for the fractal calculations. Using this data we use the sliding-window technique for the dark matter distribution and compute the multi-fractal dimension and the lacunarity spectrum and use it to study its dependence on radial distance in every sample. The transition to homogeneity is not observed in the dark matter halo distribution obtained from the SDSS-DR7 volume-limited galaxy samples; in its place the dark matter halo distribution exhibits a persistent multi-fractal behaviour where the measured dimension does not arrive at the value of the physical dimension of the space, for all structure parameter values of the analysed set, at least up to radial distances of the ordered from 165 Mpc/h from the available centres of each sample. Our results and their implications are discussed in the context of the formation of large-scale structures in the universe.

Simultaneous measurements of HF-enhanced plasma waves and artificial field-aligned irregularities at Arecibo

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Noble, S.T.; Djuth, F.T.

1990-01-01

Two radar systems with beams intersecting in the HF-modified F region were used to simultaneously measure HF-enhanced plasma lines (HFPLs) and artificial geomagnetic field-aligned irregularities (AFAIs). The Arecibo 430-MHz radar was used for the HFPL observations, and a portable 49.92-MHz backscatter radar was deployed on the island of Guadeloupe to monitor the AFAIs. The experiment was desgined to examine the degree to which HF-induced plasma turbulence influences the development of AFAIs. When the HF beam is stepped up in power, sustained HFPLs and AFAIs are first observed at the same HF power level, indicating that ponderomotively driven instabilities may be involved in the early time development of AFAIs. As the HF power is increased, the HFPL backscatter power begins to saturate at ∼70 MW effective radiated power (ERP). However, the backscatter from AFAIs is linearly dependent on HF power, even at the highest (120 MW ERP) HF power levels available at Arecibo. This suggests that additional processes may contribute to the development of AFAIs. For example, ponderomotively driven instabilities may give rise to weak geomagnetic field-aligned irregularities that are subsequently driven unstable by processes excited near the upper hybrid resonance. It is also likely that AFAIs greatly impact the development of HF-induced plasma turbulence at late times (>1 s) following HF turn-on. Once the ionosphere is preconditioned by high-power HF modifications, AFAIs and HFPLs can be simultaneously sustained at a much lower HF power level than that needed to originally excite them. The nature of the preconditioning process is currently not well understood. New theoretical initiatives are clearly needed to guide future experimental activity in this area

A Gemini snapshot survey for double degenerates

Science.gov (United States)

Kilic, Mukremin; Brown, Warren R.; Gianninas, A.; Curd, Brandon; Bell, Keaton J.; Allende Prieto, Carlos

2017-11-01

We present the results from a Gemini snapshot radial-velocity survey of 44 low-mass white-dwarf candidates selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectroscopy. To find sub-hour orbital period binary systems, our time-series spectroscopy had cadences of 2-8 min over a period of 20-30 min. Through follow-up observations at Gemini and the MMT, we identify four double-degenerate binary systems with periods ranging from 53 min to 7 h. The shortest period system, SDSS J123549.88+154319.3, was recently identified as a sub-hour period detached binary by Breedt and collaborators. Here, we refine the orbital and physical parameters of this system. High-speed and time-domain survey photometry observations do not reveal eclipses or other photometric effects in any of our targets. We compare the period distribution of these four systems with the orbital period distribution of known double white dwarfs; the median period decreases from 0.64 to 0.24 d for M = 0.3-0.5 M⊙ to M < 0.3 M⊙ white dwarfs. However, we do not find a statistically significant correlation between the orbital period and white-dwarf mass.

CLUSTER LENSING PROFILES DERIVED FROM A REDSHIFT ENHANCEMENT OF MAGNIFIED BOSS-SURVEY GALAXIES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Coupon, Jean; Umetsu, Keiichi; Broadhurst, Tom

2013-01-01

We report the first detection of a redshift-depth enhancement of background galaxies magnified by foreground clusters. Using 300,000 BOSS survey galaxies with accurate spectroscopic redshifts, we measure their mean redshift depth behind four large samples of optically selected clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) surveys, totaling 5000-15,000 clusters. A clear trend of increasing mean redshift toward the cluster centers is found, averaged over each of the four cluster samples. In addition, we find similar but noisier behavior for an independent X-ray sample of 158 clusters lying in the foreground of the current BOSS sky area. By adopting the mass-richness relationships appropriate for each survey, we compare our results with theoretical predictions for each of the four SDSS cluster catalogs. The radial form of this redshift enhancement is well fitted by a richness-to-mass weighted composite Navarro-Frenk-White profile with an effective mass ranging between M 200 ∼ 1.4-1.8 × 10 14 M ☉ for the optically detected cluster samples, and M 200 ∼ 5.0 × 10 14 M ☉ for the X-ray sample. This lensing detection helps to establish the credibility of these SDSS cluster surveys, and provides a normalization for their respective mass-richness relations. In the context of the upcoming bigBOSS, Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph, and EUCLID-NISP spectroscopic surveys, this method represents an independent means of deriving the masses of cluster samples for examining the cosmological evolution, and provides a relatively clean consistency check of weak-lensing measurements, free from the systematic limitations of shear calibration

A Multi-Survey Approach to White Dwarf Discovery

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-01

LSPM-North), the Two Micron All Sky Survey ( 2MASS ), and the USNO-B1.0 catalog, we use a succession of methods to isolate white dwarf (WD) candidates...including SDSS, the Two Micron All Sky Survey ( 2MASS ; Skrutskie et al. 2006), USNO-B1.0 (Monet et al. 2003), and the proper motion survey of Lépine & Shara...Shara Proper Motion North Catalog (LSPM-North), the Two Micron All Sky Survey ( 2MASS ), and the USNO-B1.0 catalog, we use a succession of methods to

redMaPPer. I. Algorithm and SDSS DR8 catalog

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rykoff, E. S.; Rozo, E.; Reddick, R.; Wechsler, R. H. [SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025 (United States); Busha, M. T. [Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Zürich, 8057 Zürich (Switzerland); Cunha, C. E. [Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305 (United States); Finoguenov, A. [Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, FI-00014 Helsinki (Finland); Evrard, A.; Koester, B. P. [Physics Department, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (United States); Hao, J.; Nord, B. [Center for Particle Astrophysics, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States); Leauthaud, A. [Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-8583 (Japan); Pierre, M.; Sadibekova, T. [Service d' Astrophysique, CEA Saclay, F-91191 Gif sur Yvette Cedex (France); Sheldon, E. S. [Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973 (United States)

2014-04-20

We describe redMaPPer, a new red sequence cluster finder specifically designed to make optimal use of ongoing and near-future large photometric surveys. The algorithm has multiple attractive features: (1) it can iteratively self-train the red sequence model based on a minimal spectroscopic training sample, an important feature for high-redshift surveys. (2) It can handle complex masks with varying depth. (3) It produces cluster-appropriate random points to enable large-scale structure studies. (4) All clusters are assigned a full redshift probability distribution P(z). (5) Similarly, clusters can have multiple candidate central galaxies, each with corresponding centering probabilities. (6) The algorithm is parallel and numerically efficient: it can run a Dark Energy Survey-like catalog in ∼500 CPU hours. (7) The algorithm exhibits excellent photometric redshift performance, the richness estimates are tightly correlated with external mass proxies, and the completeness and purity of the corresponding catalogs are superb. We apply the redMaPPer algorithm to ∼10, 000 deg{sup 2} of SDSS DR8 data and present the resulting catalog of ∼25,000 clusters over the redshift range z in [0.08, 0.55]. The redMaPPer photometric redshifts are nearly Gaussian, with a scatter σ {sub z} ≈ 0.006 at z ≈ 0.1, increasing to σ {sub z} ≈ 0.02 at z ≈ 0.5 due to increased photometric noise near the survey limit. The median value for |Δz|/(1 + z) for the full sample is 0.006. The incidence of projection effects is low (≤5%). Detailed performance comparisons of the redMaPPer DR8 cluster catalog to X-ray and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich catalogs are presented in a companion paper.

Angular momentum-large-scale structure alignments in ΛCDM models and the SDSS

Science.gov (United States)

Paz, Dante J.; Stasyszyn, Federico; Padilla, Nelson D.

2008-09-01

We study the alignments between the angular momentum of individual objects and the large-scale structure in cosmological numerical simulations and real data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Data Release 6 (SDSS-DR6). To this end, we measure anisotropies in the two point cross-correlation function around simulated haloes and observed galaxies, studying separately the one- and two-halo regimes. The alignment of the angular momentum of dark-matter haloes in Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) simulations is found to be dependent on scale and halo mass. At large distances (two-halo regime), the spins of high-mass haloes are preferentially oriented in the direction perpendicular to the distribution of matter; lower mass systems show a weaker trend that may even reverse to show an angular momentum in the plane of the matter distribution. In the one-halo term regime, the angular momentum is aligned in the direction perpendicular to the matter distribution; the effect is stronger than for the one-halo term and increases for higher mass systems. On the observational side, we focus our study on galaxies in the SDSS-DR6 with elongated apparent shapes, and study alignments with respect to the major semi-axis. We study five samples of edge-on galaxies; the full SDSS-DR6 edge-on sample, bright galaxies, faint galaxies, red galaxies and blue galaxies (the latter two consisting mainly of ellipticals and spirals, respectively). Using the two-halo term of the projected correlation function, we find an excess of structure in the direction of the major semi-axis for all samples; the red sample shows the highest alignment (2.7 +/- 0.8per cent) and indicates that the angular momentum of flattened spheroidals tends to be perpendicular to the large-scale structure. These results are in qualitative agreement with the numerical simulation results indicating that the angular momentum of galaxies could be built up as in the Tidal Torque scenario. The one-halo term only shows a significant alignment

An Improved Photometric Calibration of the Sloan Digital SkySurvey Imaging Data

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Schlegel, David J.; Finkbeiner, Douglas P.; Barentine, J.C.; Blanton, Michael R.; Brewington, Howard J.; Gunn, JamesE.; Harvanek, Michael; Hogg, David W.; Ivezic, Zeljko; Johnston, David; Kent, Stephen M.; Kleinman, S.J.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Krzesinski, Jurek; Long, Dan; Neilsen Jr., Eric H.; Nitta, Atsuko; Loomis, Craig; Lupton,Robert H.; Roweis, Sam; Snedden, Stephanie A.; Strauss, Michael A.; Tucker, Douglas L.

2007-09-30

We present an algorithm to photometrically calibrate widefield optical imaging surveys, that simultaneously solves for thecalibration parameters and relative stellar fluxes using overlappingobservations. The algorithm decouples the problem of "relative"calibrations from that of "absolute" calibrations; the absolutecalibration is reduced to determining a few numbers for the entiresurvey. We pay special attention to the spatial structure of thecalibration errors, allowing one to isolate particular error modes indownstream analyses. Applying this to the SloanDigital Sky Survey imagingdata, we achieve ~;1 percent relative calibration errors across 8500sq.deg/ in griz; the errors are ~;2 percent for the u band. These errorsare dominated by unmodelled atmospheric variations at Apache PointObservatory. These calibrations, dubbed ubercalibration, are now publicwith SDSS Data Release 6, and will be a part of subsequent SDSS datareleases.

A hot white dwarf luminosity function from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Krzesinski, J.; Kleinman, S. J.; Nitta, A.; Hügelmeyer, S.; Dreizler, S.; Liebert, J.; Harris, H.

2009-12-01

Aims. We present a hot white dwarf (WD) luminosity function (LF) using data taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 4. We present and discuss a combined LF, along with separate DA and non-DA as LFs. We explore the completeness of our LFs and interpret a sudden drop in the non-DA LF near 2 M_bol as a transition of the non-DA WD atmosphere into the DA one during WD evolution. Our LF extends roughly between -0.5 T_eff > ˜25 000 K. Our LF should now be useful for estimates of recent star formation and for studies of neutrino and other potential particle emission losses in hot WDs. Methods: To create a sample whose completeness can be characterized fully, we used stars whose spectra were obtained via the SDSS's “hot standard” target selection criteria. The hot standard stars were purposefully targeted to a high level of completeness by the SDSS for calibration purposes. We are fortunate that many of them are hot white dwarfs stars. We further limited the sample to stars with fitted temperatures exceeding 23 500 K and log{g} > 7.0. We determined stellar distances for our sample based on their absolute SDSS g filter magnitudes, derived from WD stellar atmosphere model fits to the SDSS stellar spectra. Results: We compared our LF with those of other researchers where overlap occurs; however, our LFs are unique in their extension to the most luminous/hottest WDs. The cool end of our LF connects with the hot end of previously determined SDSS WD LFs and agreement here is quite good. It is also good with previous non-SDSS WD LFs. We note distinct differences between the DA and non-DA LFs and discuss the reliability of the DA LF at its hot end. We have extended the range of luminosities covered in the most recent WD LFs. The SDSS sample is understood quite well and its exploration should contribute to a number of new insights into early white dwarf evolution.

Does SEGUE/SDSS indicate a dual galactic halo?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schönrich, Ralph; Asplund, Martin; Casagrande, Luca

2014-01-01

We re-examine recent claims of observational evidence for a dual Galactic halo in SEGUE/SDSS data, and trace them back to improper error treatment and neglect of selection effects. In particular, the detection of a vertical abundance gradient in the halo can be explained as a metallicity bias in distance. A similar bias and the impact of disk contamination affect the sample of blue horizontal branch stars. These examples highlight why non-volume complete samples require forward modeling from theoretical models or extensive bias-corrections. We also show how observational uncertainties produce the specific non-Gaussianity in the observed azimuthal velocity distribution of halo stars, which can be erroneously identified as two Gaussian components. A single kinematic component yields an excellent fit to the observed data, when we model the measurement process including distance uncertainties. Furthermore, we show that sample differences in proper motion space are the direct consequence of kinematic cuts and are enhanced when distance estimates are less accurate. Thus, their presence is neither proof of a separate population nor a measure of reliability for the applied distances. We conclude that currently there is no evidence from SEGUE/SDSS that would favor a dual Galactic halo over a single halo that is full of substructure.

A Survey of Metal Lines at High Redshift. II. SDSS Absorption Line Studies—O VI Line Density, Space Density, and Gas Metallicity at z abs ~ 3.0

Science.gov (United States)

Frank, S.; Mathur, S.; Pieri, M.; York, D. G.

2010-09-01

We have analyzed a large data set of O VI absorber candidates found in the spectra of 3702 Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasars, focusing on a subsample of 387 active galactic nuclei sight lines with an average S/N >=5.0, allowing for the detection of absorbers above a rest-frame equivalent width limit of W r >= 0.19 Å for the O VI 1032 Å component. Accounting for random interlopers mimicking an O VI doublet, we derive for the first time a secure lower limit for the redshift number density ΔN/Δz for redshifts z abs >= 2.8. With extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we quantify the losses of absorbers due to blending with the ubiquitous Lyα forest lines and estimate the success rate of retrieving each individual candidate as a function of its redshift, the emission redshift of the quasar, the strength of the absorber, and the measured signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the spectrum by modeling typical Lyman forest spectra. These correction factors allow us to derive the "incompleteness and S/N-corrected" redshift number densities of O VI absorbers: ΔN O VI,c /Δzc (2.8 secure lower limit for the contribution of O VI to the closure mass density at the redshifts probed here: ΩO VI (2.8 = 1.9 × 10-8 h -1. We show that the strong lines we probe account for over 65% of the mass in the O VI absorbers; the weak absorbers, while dominant in line number density, do not contribute significantly to the mass density. Making a conservative assumption about the ionization fraction, {O VI}/{O}, and adopting the Anders & Grevesse solar abundance values, we derive the mean metallicity of the gas probed in our search: ζ(2.8 = 3.6 × 10-4 h, in good agreement with other studies. These results demonstrate that large spectroscopic data sets such as SDSS can play an important role in QSO absorption line studies, in spite of the relatively low resolution.

A SURVEY OF METAL LINES AT HIGH REDSHIFT. II. SDSS ABSORPTION LINE STUDIES-O VI LINE DENSITY, SPACE DENSITY, AND GAS METALLICITY AT zabs ∼ 3.0

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Frank, S.; Mathur, S.; Pieri, M.; York, D. G.

2010-01-01

We have analyzed a large data set of O VI absorber candidates found in the spectra of 3702 Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasars, focusing on a subsample of 387 active galactic nuclei sight lines with an average S/N ≥5.0, allowing for the detection of absorbers above a rest-frame equivalent width limit of W r ≥ 0.19 A for the O VI 1032 A component. Accounting for random interlopers mimicking an O VI doublet, we derive for the first time a secure lower limit for the redshift number density ΔN/Δz for redshifts z abs ≥ 2.8. With extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we quantify the losses of absorbers due to blending with the ubiquitous Lyα forest lines and estimate the success rate of retrieving each individual candidate as a function of its redshift, the emission redshift of the quasar, the strength of the absorber, and the measured signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the spectrum by modeling typical Lyman forest spectra. These correction factors allow us to derive the 'incompleteness and S/N-corrected' redshift number densities of O VI absorbers: ΔN O V I,c /Δz c (2.8 O V I,c /Δz c (3.2 O V I,c /Δz c (3.6 O V I (2.8 -8 h -1 . We show that the strong lines we probe account for over 65% of the mass in the O VI absorbers; the weak absorbers, while dominant in line number density, do not contribute significantly to the mass density. Making a conservative assumption about the ionization fraction, O VI /O, and adopting the Anders and Grevesse solar abundance values, we derive the mean metallicity of the gas probed in our search: ζ(2.8 -4 h, in good agreement with other studies. These results demonstrate that large spectroscopic data sets such as SDSS can play an important role in QSO absorption line studies, in spite of the relatively low resolution.

THE BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY OF SDSS-III

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dawson, Kyle S.; Ahn, Christopher P.; Bolton, Adam S. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Schlegel, David J.; Bailey, Stephen [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Anderson, Scott F.; Bhardwaj, Vaishali [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Aubourg, Eric; Bautista, Julian E. [APC, University of Paris Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3, CEA/IRFU, Observatoire de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cite (France); Barkhouser, Robert H. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Beifiori, Alessandra [Max-Planck-Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse, D-85748 Garching (Germany); Berlind, Andreas A. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, VU Station 1807, Nashville, TN 37235 (United States); Bizyaev, Dmitry; Brewington, Howard [Apache Point Observatory, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM 88349 (United States); Blake, Cullen H. [Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States); Blanton, Michael R. [Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 (United States); Blomqvist, Michael [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697 (United States); Borde, Arnaud [CEA, Centre de Saclay, Irfu/SPP, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette (France); Bovy, Jo [Institute for Advanced Study, Einstein Drive, Princeton, NJ 08540 (United States); Brandt, W. N., E-mail: kdawson@astro.utah.edu [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); and others

2013-01-01

The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) is designed to measure the scale of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the clustering of matter over a larger volume than the combined efforts of all previous spectroscopic surveys of large-scale structure. BOSS uses 1.5 million luminous galaxies as faint as i = 19.9 over 10,000 deg{sup 2} to measure BAO to redshifts z < 0.7. Observations of neutral hydrogen in the Ly{alpha} forest in more than 150,000 quasar spectra (g < 22) will constrain BAO over the redshift range 2.15 < z < 3.5. Early results from BOSS include the first detection of the large-scale three-dimensional clustering of the Ly{alpha} forest and a strong detection from the Data Release 9 data set of the BAO in the clustering of massive galaxies at an effective redshift z = 0.57. We project that BOSS will yield measurements of the angular diameter distance d{sub A} to an accuracy of 1.0% at redshifts z = 0.3 and z = 0.57 and measurements of H(z) to 1.8% and 1.7% at the same redshifts. Forecasts for Ly{alpha} forest constraints predict a measurement of an overall dilation factor that scales the highly degenerate D{sub A} (z) and H {sup -1}(z) parameters to an accuracy of 1.9% at z {approx} 2.5 when the survey is complete. Here, we provide an overview of the selection of spectroscopic targets, planning of observations, and analysis of data and data quality of BOSS.

THE SLACS SURVEY. VIII. THE RELATION BETWEEN ENVIRONMENT AND INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Treu, Tommaso; Gavazzi, Raphael; Gorecki, Alexia; Marshall, Philip J.; Koopmans, Leon V. E.; Bolton, Adam S.; Moustakas, Leonidas A.; Burles, Scott

2009-01-01

We study the relation between the internal structure of early-type galaxies and their environment using 70 strong gravitational lenses from the SLACS Survey. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) database is used to determine two measures of overdensity of galaxies around each lens-the projected

New ultra metal-poor stars from SDSS: follow-up GTC medium-resolution spectroscopy

Science.gov (United States)

Aguado, D. S.; Allende Prieto, C.; González Hernández, J. I.; Rebolo, R.; Caffau, E.

2017-07-01

Context. The first generation of stars formed in the Galaxy left behind the chemical signatures of their nucleosynthesis in the interstellar medium, visible today in the atmospheres of low-mass stars that formed afterwards. Sampling the chemistry of those low-mass provides insight into the first stars. Aims: We aim to increase the samples of stars with extremely low metal abundances, identifying ultra metal-poor stars from spectra with modest spectral resolution and signal-to-noise ratio (S/N). Achieving this goal involves deriving reliable metallicities and carbon abundances from such spectra. Methods: We carry out follow-up observations of faint, V > 19, metal-poor candidates selected from SDSS spectroscopy and observed with the Optical System for Imaging and low-Intermediate-Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy (OSIRIS) at GTC. The SDSS and follow-up OSIRIS spectra were analyzed using the FERRE code to derive effective temperatures, surface gravities, metallicities and carbon abundances. In addition, a well-known extremely metal-poor star has been included in our sample to calibrate the analysis methodology. Results: We observed and analyzed five metal-poor candidates from modest-quality SDSS spectra. All stars in our sample have been confirmed as extremely metal-poor stars, in the [Fe/H] Palma. Programme ID GTC2E-16A and ID GTC65-16B.

First-Year Spectroscopy for the SDSS-II Supernova Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zheng, Chen; Romani, Roger W.; Sako, Masao; Marriner, John; Bassett, Bruce; Becker, Andrew; Choi, Changsu; Cinabro, David; DeJongh, Fritz; Depoy, Darren L.; Dilday, Ben; Doi, Mamoru; Frieman, Joshua A.; Garnavich, Peter M.; Hogan, Craig J.; Holtzman, Jon; Im, Myungshin; Jha, Saurabh; Kessler, Richard; Konishi, Kohki; Lampeitl, Hubert

2008-03-25

This paper presents spectroscopy of supernovae discovered in the first season of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey. This program searches for and measures multi-band light curves of supernovae in the redshift range z = 0.05-0.4, complementing existing surveys at lower and higher redshifts. Our goal is to better characterize the supernova population, with a particular focus on SNe Ia, improving their utility as cosmological distance indicators and as probes of dark energy. Our supernova spectroscopy program features rapid-response observations using telescopes of a range of apertures, and provides confirmation of the supernova and host-galaxy types as well as precise redshifts. We describe here the target identification and prioritization, data reduction, redshift measurement, and classification of 129 SNe Ia, 16 spectroscopically probable SNe Ia, 7 SNe Ib/c, and 11 SNe II from the first season. We also describe our efforts to measure and remove the substantial host galaxy contamination existing in the majority of our SN spectra.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: Solar-type stars from SDSS-III MARVELS. VI. HD 87646 (Ma+, 2016)

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, B.; Ge, J.; Wolszczan, A.; Muterspaugh, M. W.; Lee, B.; Henry, G. W.; Schneider, D. P.; Martin, E. L.; Niedzielski, A.; Xie, J.; Fleming, S. W.; Thomas, N.; Williamson, M.; Zhu, Z.; Agol, E.; Bizyaev, D.; da Costa, L. N.; Jiang, P.; Fiorenzano, A. F. M.; Hernandez, J. I. G.; Guo, P.; Grieves, N.; Li, R.; Liu, J.; Mahadevan, S.; Mazeh, T.; Nguyen, D. C.; Paegert, M.; Sithajan, S.; Stassun, K.; Thirupathi, S.; van Eyken, J. C.; Wan, X.; Wang, J.; Wisniewski, J. P.; Zhao, B.; Zucker, S.

2016-11-01

We have obtained a total of 16 observations of HD87646 using the W.M. Keck Exoplanet Tracker (KeckET) from 2006 December to 2007 June. The radial velocities obtained are listed in Table1. The KeckET instrument was constructed in 2005 August-2006 February with support from the Keck Foundation. It was coupled with a wide field Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescope (SDSS) and used for the pilot Multi-Object APO RV Exoplanet Large-Area Survey (MARVELS). This is the sixth paper in this series, examining the low-mass companions around solar-type stars from the SDSS-III MARVELS survey (Wisniewski et al. 2012, Cat. J/AJ/143/107; Fleming et al. 2012AJ....144...72F; Ma et al. 2013AJ....145...20M; Jiang et al. 2013AJ....146...65J; De Lee et al. 2013AJ....145..155D). The KeckET instrument consists of eight subsystems-a multi-object fiber feed, an iodine cell, a fixed-delay interferometer system, a slit, a collimator, a grating, a camera, and a 4k*4k CCD detector. In addition, it contains four auxiliary subsystems: the interferometer control, an instrument calibration system, a photon flux monitoring system, and a thermal probe and control system. The instrument is fed with 60 fibers with 200μm core diameters, which are coupled to 180μm core diameter short fibers from the SDSS telescope, corresponding to 3arcsec on the sky at f/5. The resolving power for the spectrograph is R=5100, and the wavelength coverage is ~900Å, centered at 5400Å. KeckET has one spectrograph and one 4k*4k CCD camera that captures one of the two interferometer outputs, and has a 5.5% detection efficiency from the telescope to the detector without the iodine cell under the typical APO seeing conditions (~1.5arcsec seeing). The CCD camera records fringing spectra from 59 objects in a single exposure. Subsequent observations were performed using the Exoplanet Tracker (ET) instrument at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO). Initial follow-up was performed in 2007 November. Additional data points were

The Arecibo Observatory Space Academy

Science.gov (United States)

Rodriguez-Ford, Linda A.; Fernanda Zambrano Marin, Luisa; Aponte Hernandez, Betzaida; Soto, Sujeily; Rivera-Valentin, Edgard G.

2016-10-01

The Arecibo Observatory Space Academy (AOSA) is an intense fifteen-week pre-college research program for qualified high school students residing in Puerto Rico, which includes ten days for hands-on, on site research activities. Our mission is to prepare students for their professional careers by allowing them to receive an independent and collaborative research experience on topics related to the multidisciplinary field of space science. Our objectives are to (1) supplement the student's STEM education via inquiry-based learning and indirect teaching methods, (2) immerse students in an ESL environment, further developing their verbal and written presentation skills, and (3) foster in every student an interest in the STEM fields by harnessing their natural curiosity and knowledge in order to further develop their critical thinking and investigation skills. Students interested in participating in the program go through an application, interview and trial period before being offered admission. They are welcomed as candidates the first weeks, and later become cadets while experiencing designing, proposing, and conducting research projects focusing in fields like Physics, Astronomy, Geology, Chemistry, and Engineering. Each individual is evaluated with program compatibility based on peer interaction, preparation, participation, and contribution to class, group dynamics, attitude, challenges, and inquiry. This helps to ensure that specialized attention can be given to students who demonstrate a dedication and desire to learn. Deciding how to proceed in the face of setbacks and unexpected problems is central to the learning experience. At the end of the semester, students present their research to the program mentors, peers, and scientific staff. This year, AOSA students also focused on science communication and were trained by NASA's FameLab. Students additionally presented their research at this year's International Space Development Conference (ISDC), which was held in

Type Ia Supernova Properties as a Function of the Distance to the Host Galaxy in the SDSS-II SN Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Galbany, Lluis [Institut de Fisica d' Altes Energies (IFAE), Barcelona (Spain); et al.

2012-08-20

We use type-Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) discovered by the SDSS-II SN Survey to search for dependencies between SN Ia properties and the projected distance to the host galaxy center, using the distance as a proxy for local galaxy properties (local star-formation rate, local metallicity, etc.). The sample consists of almost 200 spectroscopically or photometrically confirmed SNe Ia at redshifts below 0.25. The sample is split into two groups depending on the morphology of the host galaxy. We fit light-curves using both MLCS2k2 and SALT2, and determine color (AV, c) and light-curve shape (delta, x1) parameters for each SN Ia, as well as its residual in the Hubble diagram. We then correlate these parameters with both the physical and the normalized distances to the center of the host galaxy and look for trends in the mean values and scatters of these parameters with increasing distance. The most significant (at the 4-sigma level) finding is that the average fitted AV from MLCS2k2 and c from SALT2 decrease with the projected distance for SNe Ia in spiral galaxies. We also find indications that SNe in elliptical galaxies tend to have narrower light-curves if they explode at larger distances, although this may be due to selection effects in our sample. We do not find strong correlations between the residuals of the distance moduli with respect to the Hubble flow and the galactocentric distances, which indicates a limited correlation between SN magnitudes after standardization and local host metallicity.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog. 3. Third data release

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schneider, Donald P.; Hall, Patrick B.; Richards, Gordon T.; Vanden Berk, Daniel E.; Anderson, Scott F.; Fan, Xiao-Hui; Jester, Sebastian; Stoughton, Chris; Strauss,; SubbaRao, Mark; Brandt, W.N.; Gunn, James E.; Yanny, Brian; Bahcall, Neta A.; Barentine, J.C.; Blanton, Michael R.; Boroski, William N.; Brewington, Howard J.; Brinkmann, J.; Brunner, Robert; Csabai, Istvan; /Penn State U., Astron. Astrophys. /York U., Canada /Princeton U. Observ. /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept. /Arizona U.,

2005-03-01

We present the third edition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Catalog. The catalog consists of the 46,420 objects in the SDSS Third Data Release that have luminosities larger than M{sub i} = -22 (in a cosmology with H{sub 0} = 70 km s{sup -1} Mpc{sup -1}, {Omega}{sub M} = 0.3, and {Omega}{sub {Lambda}} = 0.7), have at least one emission line with FWHM larger than 1000 km s{sup -1} or are unambiguously broad absorption line quasars, are fainter than i = 15.0, and have highly reliable redshifts. The area covered by the catalog is {approx} 4188 deg{sup 2}. The quasar redshifts range from 0.08 to 5.41, with a median value of 1.47; the high-redshift sample includes 520 quasars at redshifts greater than four, of which 17 are at redshifts greater than five. For each object the catalog presents positions accurate to better than 0.2'' rms per coordinate, five-band (ugriz) CCD-based photometry with typical accuracy of 0.03 mag, and information on the morphology and selection method. The catalog also contains radio, near-infrared, and X-ray emission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area surveys. The calibrated digital spectra cover the wavelength region 3800-9200 at a spectral resolution of {approx} 2000; the spectra can be retrieved from the public database using the information provided in the catalog. A total of 44,221 objects in the catalog were discovered by the SDSS; 28,400 of the SDSS discoveries are reported here for the first time.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant Universe

Science.gov (United States)

Blanton, Michael R.; Bershady, Matthew A.; Abolfathi, Bela; Albareti, Franco D.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Almeida, Andres; Alonso-García, Javier; Anders, Friedrich; Anderson, Scott F.; Andrews, Brett; Aquino-Ortíz, Erik; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Argudo-Fernández, Maria; Armengaud, Eric; Aubourg, Eric; Avila-Reese, Vladimir; Badenes, Carles; Bailey, Stephen; Barger, Kathleen A.; Barrera-Ballesteros, Jorge; Bartosz, Curtis; Bates, Dominic; Baumgarten, Falk; Bautista, Julian; Beaton, Rachael; Beers, Timothy C.; Belfiore, Francesco; Bender, Chad F.; Berlind, Andreas A.; Bernardi, Mariangela; Beutler, Florian; Bird, Jonathan C.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Blomqvist, Michael; Bolton, Adam S.; Boquien, Médéric; Borissova, Jura; van den Bosch, Remco; Bovy, Jo; Brandt, William N.; Brinkmann, Jonathan; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bundy, Kevin; Burgasser, Adam J.; Burtin, Etienne; Busca, Nicolás G.; Cappellari, Michele; Delgado Carigi, Maria Leticia; Carlberg, Joleen K.; Carnero Rosell, Aurelio; Carrera, Ricardo; Chanover, Nancy J.; Cherinka, Brian; Cheung, Edmond; Gómez Maqueo Chew, Yilen; Chiappini, Cristina; Doohyun Choi, Peter; Chojnowski, Drew; Chuang, Chia-Hsun; Chung, Haeun; Cirolini, Rafael Fernando; Clerc, Nicolas; Cohen, Roger E.; Comparat, Johan; da Costa, Luiz; Cousinou, Marie-Claude; Covey, Kevin; Crane, Jeffrey D.; Croft, Rupert A. C.; Cruz-Gonzalez, Irene; Garrido Cuadra, Daniel; Cunha, Katia; Damke, Guillermo J.; Darling, Jeremy; Davies, Roger; Dawson, Kyle; de la Macorra, Axel; Dell'Agli, Flavia; De Lee, Nathan; Delubac, Timothée; Di Mille, Francesco; Diamond-Stanic, Aleks; Cano-Díaz, Mariana; Donor, John; Downes, Juan José; Drory, Niv; du Mas des Bourboux, Hélion; Duckworth, Christopher J.; Dwelly, Tom; Dyer, Jamie; Ebelke, Garrett; Eigenbrot, Arthur D.; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Emsellem, Eric; Eracleous, Mike; Escoffier, Stephanie; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Fernández-Alvar, Emma; Fernandez-Trincado, J. G.; Feuillet, Diane K.; Finoguenov, Alexis; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Fredrickson, Alexander; Freischlad, Gordon; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; Fuentes, Carla E.; Galbany, Lluís; Garcia-Dias, R.; García-Hernández, D. A.; Gaulme, Patrick; Geisler, Doug; Gelfand, Joseph D.; Gil-Marín, Héctor; Gillespie, Bruce A.; Goddard, Daniel; Gonzalez-Perez, Violeta; Grabowski, Kathleen; Green, Paul J.; Grier, Catherine J.; Gunn, James E.; Guo, Hong; Guy, Julien; Hagen, Alex; Hahn, ChangHoon; Hall, Matthew; Harding, Paul; Hasselquist, Sten; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Hearty, Fred; Gonzalez Hernández, Jonay I.; Ho, Shirley; Hogg, David W.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Holtzman, Jon A.; Holzer, Parker H.; Huehnerhoff, Joseph; Hutchinson, Timothy A.; Hwang, Ho Seong; Ibarra-Medel, Héctor J.; da Silva Ilha, Gabriele; Ivans, Inese I.; Ivory, KeShawn; Jackson, Kelly; Jensen, Trey W.; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Jones, Amy; Jönsson, Henrik; Jullo, Eric; Kamble, Vikrant; Kinemuchi, Karen; Kirkby, David; Kitaura, Francisco-Shu; Klaene, Mark; Knapp, Gillian R.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Kollmeier, Juna A.; Lacerna, Ivan; Lane, Richard R.; Lang, Dustin; Law, David R.; Lazarz, Daniel; Lee, Youngbae; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; Liang, Fu-Heng; Li, Cheng; Li, Hongyu; Lian, Jianhui; Lima, Marcos; Lin, Lihwai; Lin, Yen-Ting; Bertran de Lis, Sara; Liu, Chao; de Icaza Lizaola, Miguel Angel C.; Long, Dan; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; MacDonald, Nicholas K.; Deconto Machado, Alice; MacLeod, Chelsea L.; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Geimba Maia, Marcio Antonio; Maiolino, Roberto; Majewski, Steven R.; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Manchado, Arturo; Mao, Shude; Maraston, Claudia; Marques-Chaves, Rui; Masseron, Thomas; Masters, Karen L.; McBride, Cameron K.; McDermid, Richard M.; McGrath, Brianne; McGreer, Ian D.; Medina Peña, Nicolás; Melendez, Matthew; Merloni, Andrea; Merrifield, Michael R.; Meszaros, Szabolcs; Meza, Andres; Minchev, Ivan; Minniti, Dante; Miyaji, Takamitsu; More, Surhud; Mulchaey, John; Müller-Sánchez, Francisco; Muna, Demitri; Munoz, Ricardo R.; Myers, Adam D.; Nair, Preethi; Nandra, Kirpal; Correa do Nascimento, Janaina; Negrete, Alenka; Ness, Melissa; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; Nitschelm, Christian; Ntelis, Pierros; O'Connell, Julia E.; Oelkers, Ryan J.; Oravetz, Audrey; Oravetz, Daniel; Pace, Zach; Padilla, Nelson; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Alonso Palicio, Pedro; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John K.; Parikh, Taniya; Pâris, Isabelle; Park, Changbom; Patten, Alim Y.; Peirani, Sebastien; Pellejero-Ibanez, Marcos; Penny, Samantha; Percival, Will J.; Perez-Fournon, Ismael; Petitjean, Patrick; Pieri, Matthew M.; Pinsonneault, Marc; Pisani, Alice; Poleski, Radosław; Prada, Francisco; Prakash, Abhishek; Queiroz, Anna Bárbara de Andrade; Raddick, M. Jordan; Raichoor, Anand; Barboza Rembold, Sandro; Richstein, Hannah; Riffel, Rogemar A.; Riffel, Rogério; Rix, Hans-Walter; Robin, Annie C.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Rodríguez-Torres, Sergio; Roman-Lopes, A.; Román-Zúñiga, Carlos; Rosado, Margarita; Ross, Ashley J.; Rossi, Graziano; Ruan, John; Ruggeri, Rossana; Rykoff, Eli S.; Salazar-Albornoz, Salvador; Salvato, Mara; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Aguado, D. S.; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Santana, Felipe A.; Santiago, Basílio Xavier; Sayres, Conor; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; da Silva Schimoia, Jaderson; Schlafly, Edward F.; Schlegel, David J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Schultheis, Mathias; Schuster, William J.; Schwope, Axel; Seo, Hee-Jong; Shao, Zhengyi; Shen, Shiyin; Shetrone, Matthew; Shull, Michael; Simon, Joshua D.; Skinner, Danielle; Skrutskie, M. F.; Slosar, Anže; Smith, Verne V.; Sobeck, Jennifer S.; Sobreira, Flavia; Somers, Garrett; Souto, Diogo; Stark, David V.; Stassun, Keivan; Stauffer, Fritz; Steinmetz, Matthias; Storchi-Bergmann, Thaisa; Streblyanska, Alina; Stringfellow, Guy S.; Suárez, Genaro; Sun, Jing; Suzuki, Nao; Szigeti, Laszlo; Taghizadeh-Popp, Manuchehr; Tang, Baitian; Tao, Charling; Tayar, Jamie; Tembe, Mita; Teske, Johanna; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Thomas, Daniel; Thompson, Benjamin A.; Tinker, Jeremy L.; Tissera, Patricia; Tojeiro, Rita; Hernandez Toledo, Hector; de la Torre, Sylvain; Tremonti, Christy; Troup, Nicholas W.; Valenzuela, Octavio; Martinez Valpuesta, Inma; Vargas-González, Jaime; Vargas-Magaña, Mariana; Vazquez, Jose Alberto; Villanova, Sandro; Vivek, M.; Vogt, Nicole; Wake, David; Walterbos, Rene; Wang, Yuting; Weaver, Benjamin Alan; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Weinberg, David H.; Westfall, Kyle B.; Whelan, David G.; Wild, Vivienne; Wilson, John; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Wylezalek, Dominika; Xiao, Ting; Yan, Renbin; Yang, Meng; Ybarra, Jason E.; Yèche, Christophe; Zakamska, Nadia; Zamora, Olga; Zarrouk, Pauline; Zasowski, Gail; Zhang, Kai; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zheng, Zheng; Zheng, Zheng; Zhou, Xu; Zhou, Zhi-Min; Zhu, Guangtun B.; Zoccali, Manuela; Zou, Hu

2017-07-01

We describe the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV), a project encompassing three major spectroscopic programs. The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is observing hundreds of thousands of Milky Way stars at high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratios in the near-infrared. The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopy for thousands of nearby galaxies (median z˜ 0.03). The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) is mapping the galaxy, quasar, and neutral gas distributions between z˜ 0.6 and 3.5 to constrain cosmology using baryon acoustic oscillations, redshift space distortions, and the shape of the power spectrum. Within eBOSS, we are conducting two major subprograms: the SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources (SPIDERS), investigating X-ray AGNs and galaxies in X-ray clusters, and the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS), obtaining spectra of variable sources. All programs use the 2.5 m Sloan Foundation Telescope at the Apache Point Observatory; observations there began in Summer 2014. APOGEE-2 also operates a second near-infrared spectrograph at the 2.5 m du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, with observations beginning in early 2017. Observations at both facilities are scheduled to continue through 2020. In keeping with previous SDSS policy, SDSS-IV provides regularly scheduled public data releases; the first one, Data Release 13, was made available in 2016 July.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search. IV. Statistical Lens Sample from the Fifth Data Release

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Inada, Naohisa; /Wako, RIKEN /Tokyo U., ICEPP; Oguri, Masamune; /Natl. Astron. Observ. of Japan /Stanford U., Phys. Dept.; Shin, Min-Su; /Michigan U. /Princeton U. Observ.; Kayo, Issha; /Tokyo U., ICRR; Strauss, Michael A.; /Princeton U. Observ.; Hennawi, Joseph F.; /UC, Berkeley /Heidelberg, Max Planck Inst. Astron.; Morokuma, Tomoki; /Natl. Astron. Observ. of Japan; Becker, Robert H.; /LLNL, Livermore /UC, Davis; White, Richard L.; /Baltimore, Space Telescope Sci.; Kochanek, Christopher S.; /Ohio State U.; Gregg, Michael D.; /LLNL, Livermore /UC, Davis /Exeter U.

2010-05-01

We present the second report of our systematic search for strongly lensed quasars from the data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). From extensive follow-up observations of 136 candidate objects, we find 36 lenses in the full sample of 77,429 spectroscopically confirmed quasars in the SDSS Data Release 5. We then define a complete sample of 19 lenses, including 11 from our previous search in the SDSS Data Release 3, from the sample of 36,287 quasars with i < 19.1 in the redshift range 0.6 < z < 2.2, where we require the lenses to have image separations of 1 < {theta} < 20 and i-band magnitude differences between the two images smaller than 1.25 mag. Among the 19 lensed quasars, 3 have quadruple-image configurations, while the remaining 16 show double images. This lens sample constrains the cosmological constant to be {Omega}{sub {Lambda}} = 0.84{sub -0.08}{sup +0.06}(stat.){sub -0.07}{sup + 0.09}(syst.) assuming a flat universe, which is in good agreement with other cosmological observations. We also report the discoveries of 7 binary quasars with separations ranging from 1.1 to 16.6, which are identified in the course of our lens survey. This study concludes the construction of our statistical lens sample in the full SDSS-I data set.

SDSS-IV MaNGA: faint quenched galaxies - I. Sample selection and evidence for environmental quenching

Science.gov (United States)

Penny, Samantha J.; Masters, Karen L.; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Westfall, Kyle B.; Bershady, Matthew A.; Bundy, Kevin; Drory, Niv; Falcón-Barroso, Jesús; Law, David; Nichol, Robert C.; Thomas, Daniel; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Brownstein, Joel R.; Freischlad, Gordon; Gaulme, Patrick; Grabowski, Katie; Kinemuchi, Karen; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Oravetz, Daniel; Roman-Lopes, Alexandre; Pan, Kaike; Simmons, Audrey; Wake, David A.

2016-11-01

Using kinematic maps from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey, we reveal that the majority of low-mass quenched galaxies exhibit coherent rotation in their stellar kinematics. Our sample includes all 39 quenched low-mass galaxies observed in the first year of MaNGA. The galaxies are selected with Mr > -19.1, stellar masses 109 M⊙ 1.9. They lie on the size-magnitude and σ-luminosity relations for previously studied dwarf galaxies. Just six (15 ± 5.7 per cent) are found to have rotation speeds ve, rot 5 × 1010 M⊙), supporting the hypothesis that galaxy-galaxy or galaxy-group interactions quench star formation in low-mass galaxies. The local bright galaxy density for our sample is ρproj = 8.2 ± 2.0 Mpc-2, compared to ρproj = 2.1 ± 0.4 Mpc-2 for a star-forming comparison sample, confirming that the quenched low-mass galaxies are preferentially found in higher density environments.

A Uniformly Selected Sample of Low-mass Black Holes in Seyfert 1 Galaxies. II. The SDSS DR7 Sample

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, He-Yang; Yuan, Weimin; Dong, Xiao-Bo; Zhou, Hongyan; Liu, Wen-Juan

2018-04-01

A new sample of 204 low-mass black holes (LMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is presented with black hole masses in the range of (1–20) × 105 M ⊙. The AGNs are selected through a systematic search among galaxies in the Seventh Data Release (DR7) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and careful analyses of their optical spectra and precise measurement of spectral parameters. Combining them with our previous sample selected from SDSS DR4 makes it the largest LMBH sample so far, totaling over 500 objects. Some of the statistical properties of the combined LMBH AGN sample are briefly discussed in the context of exploring the low-mass end of the AGN population. Their X-ray luminosities follow the extension of the previously known correlation with the [O III] luminosity. The effective optical-to-X-ray spectral indices α OX, albeit with a large scatter, are broadly consistent with the extension of the relation with the near-UV luminosity L 2500 Å. Interestingly, a correlation of α OX with black hole mass is also found, with α OX being statistically flatter (stronger X-ray relative to optical) for lower black hole masses. Only 26 objects, mostly radio loud, were detected in radio at 20 cm in the FIRST survey, giving a radio-loud fraction of 4%. The host galaxies of LMBHs have stellar masses in the range of 108.8–1012.4 M ⊙ and optical colors typical of Sbc spirals. They are dominated by young stellar populations that seem to have undergone continuous star formation history.

Discovery of two gravitationally lensed quasars with image separations of 3 arcseconds from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Oguri, Masamune; Inada, Naohisa; Hennawi, Joseph F.; Richards, Gordon T.; Johnston, David E.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Pindor, Bartosz; Strauss, Michael A.; Brunner, Robert; Becker, Robert H.; Castander, Francisco J.; Gregg, Michael D.; Hall, Patrick B.; Rix, Hans-Walter; Schneider, Donald P.; Bahcall, Neta A.; Brinkmann, Jonathan; York, Donald G.

2004-11-01

We report the discovery of two doubly-imaged quasars, SDSS J100128.61+502756.9 and SDSS J120629.65+433217.6, at redshifts of 1.838 and 1.789 and with image separations of 2.86'' and 2.90'', respectively. The objects were selected as lens candidates from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Based on the identical nature of the spectra of the two quasars in each pair and the identification of the lens galaxies, we conclude that the objects are gravitational lenses. The lenses are complicated; in both systems there are several galaxies in the fields very close to the quasars, in addition to the lens galaxies themselves. The lens modeling implies that these nearby galaxies contribute significantly to the lens potentials. On larger scales, we have detected an enhancement in the galaxy density near SDSS J100128.61+502756.9. The number of lenses with image separation of {approx} 3'' in the SDSS already exceeds the prediction of simple theoretical models based on the standard Lambda-dominated cosmology and observed velocity function of galaxies.

COMMENT ON THE BLACK HOLE RECOIL CANDIDATE QUASAR SDSS J092712.65+294344.0

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shields, G. A.; Bonning, E. W.; Salviander, S.

2009-01-01

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasar J092712.65+294344.0 has been proposed as a candidate for a supermassive black hole (∼10 8.8 M sun ) ejected at high speed from the host galactic nucleus by gravitational radiation recoil, or alternatively for a supermassive black hole binary. This is based on a blueshift of 2650 km s -1 of the broad emission lines ('b-system') relative to the narrow emission lines ('r-system') presumed to reflect the galaxy velocity. New observations with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) confirm the essential features of the spectrum. We note a third redshift system, characterized by weak, narrow emission lines of [O III] and [O II] at an intermediate velocity 900 km s -1 redward of the broad-line velocity ('i-system'). A composite spectrum of SDSS QSOs similar to J0927+2943 illustrates the feasibility of detecting the calcium K absorption line in spectra of sufficient quality. The i-system may represent the QSO host galaxy or a companion. Photoionization requires the black hole to be ∼3 kpc from the r-system emitting gas, implying that we are observing the system only 10 6 yr after the recoil event and contributing to the low probability of observing such a system. The HET observations give an upper limit of 10 km s -1 per year on the rate of change of the velocity difference between the r- and b-systems, constraining the orbital phase in the binary model. These considerations and the presence of a cluster of galaxies apparently containing J0927+2943 favor the idea that this system represents a superposition of two active galactic nuclei.

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) Quasar Survey: Quasar Properties from Data Release Two and Three

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, X. Y.; Wu, Xue-Bing; Ai, Y. L.; Yang, J. Y.; Yang, Q.; Wang, F.; Zhang, Y. X.; Luo, A. L.; Xu, H.; Yuan, H. L.; Zhang, J. N.; Wang, M. X.; Wang, L. L.; Li, Y. B.; Zuo, F.; Hou, W.; Guo, Y. X.; Kong, X.; Chen, X. Y.; Wu, Y.; Yang, H. F.; Yang, M.

2018-05-01

This is the second installment for the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) Quasar Survey, which includes quasars observed from 2013 September to 2015 June. There are 9024 confirmed quasars in DR2 and 10911 in DR3. After cross-match with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasar catalogs and NED, 12126 quasars are discovered independently. Among them, 2225 quasars were released by SDSS DR12 QSO catalog in 2014 after we finalized the survey candidates. 1801 sources were identified by SDSS DR14 as QSOs. The remaining 8100 quasars are considered as newly founded, and among them, 6887 quasars can be given reliable emission line measurements and the estimated black hole masses. Quasars found in LAMOST are mostly located at low-to-moderate redshifts, with a mean value of 1.5. The highest redshift observed in DR2 and DR3 is 5. We applied emission line measurements to Hα, Hβ, Mg II, and C IV. We deduced the monochromatic continuum luminosities using photometry data, and estimated the virial black hole masses for the newly discovered quasars. Results are compiled into a quasar catalog, which will be available online.

WHITE-DWARF-MAIN-SEQUENCE BINARIES IDENTIFIED FROM THE LAMOST PILOT SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ren Juanjuan; Luo Ali; Li Yinbi; Wei Peng; Zhao Jingkun; Zhao Yongheng; Song Yihan; Zhao Gang

2013-01-01

We present a set of white-dwarf-main-sequence (WDMS) binaries identified spectroscopically from the Large sky Area Multi-Object fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST, also called the Guo Shou Jing Telescope) pilot survey. We develop a color selection criteria based on what is so far the largest and most complete Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR7 WDMS binary catalog and identify 28 WDMS binaries within the LAMOST pilot survey. The primaries in our binary sample are mostly DA white dwarfs except for one DB white dwarf. We derive the stellar atmospheric parameters, masses, and radii for the two components of 10 of our binaries. We also provide cooling ages for the white dwarf primaries as well as the spectral types for the companion stars of these 10 WDMS binaries. These binaries tend to contain hot white dwarfs and early-type companions. Through cross-identification, we note that nine binaries in our sample have been published in the SDSS DR7 WDMS binary catalog. Nineteen spectroscopic WDMS binaries identified by the LAMOST pilot survey are new. Using the 3σ radial velocity variation as a criterion, we find two post-common-envelope binary candidates from our WDMS binary sample

The Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping (OCCAM) Survey: Current Status

Science.gov (United States)

Frinchaboy, Peter; O'Connell, Julia; Donor, John; Cunha, Katia; Thompson, Benjamin; Melendez, Matthew; Shetrone, Matthew; Zasowski, Gail; Majewski, Steven R.; APOGEE TEAM

2018-01-01

The Open Cluster Chemical Analysis and Mapping (OCCAM) survey aims to produce a comprehensive, uniform, infrared-based data set forhundreds of open clusters, and constrain key Galactic dynamical and chemical parameters using the SDSS/APOGEE survey and follow-up from the McDonald Observatory Otto Struve 2.1-m telescope and Sandiford Cass Echelle Spectrograph (R ~ 60,000). We report on multi-element radial abundance gradients obtained from a sample of over 30 disk open clusters. The APOGEE chemical abundances were derived automatically by the ASPCAP pipeline and these are part of the SDSS IV Data Release 14, optical follow-up were analyzed using equivalent width analysis and spectral synthesis. We present the current open cluster sample that spans a significant range in age allowing exploration of the evolution of the Galactic abundance gradients. This work is supported by an NSF AAG grants AST-1311835 & AST-1715662.

Spectral Variability of Quasar SDSS J030639.57+000343.1 ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

variability of emission lines and continuum luminosity. In this paper, we present the results of SDSS J030639.57 +000343.1. We found a strong anticorrelation between the continuum luminosity at 5100 Å and the spec- tral index, implying a bluer-when-brighter trend. The luminosity of the broad Hα line is in proportion to the ...

A SURVEY FOR NEW MEMBERS OF THE TAURUS STAR-FORMING REGION WITH THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Luhman, K. L.; Mamajek, E. E.; Shukla, S. J.; Loutrel, N. P.

2017-01-01

Previous studies have found that ∼1 deg 2 fields surrounding the stellar aggregates in the Taurus star-forming region exhibit a surplus of solar-mass stars relative to denser clusters like IC 348 and the Orion Nebula Cluster. To test whether this difference reflects mass segregation in Taurus or a variation in the initial mass function, we have performed a survey for members of Taurus across a large field (∼40 deg 2 ) that was imaged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We obtained optical and near-infrared spectra of candidate members identified with those images and the Two Micron All Sky Survey, as well as miscellaneous candidates that were selected with several other diagnostics of membership. We have classified 22 of the candidates as new members of Taurus, which includes one of the coolest known members (M9.75). Our updated census of members within the SDSS field shows a surplus of solar-mass stars relative to clusters, although it is less pronounced than in the smaller fields toward the stellar aggregates that were surveyed for previously measured mass functions in Taurus. In addition to spectra of our new members, we include in our study near-IR spectra of roughly half of the known members of Taurus, which are used to refine their spectral types and extinctions. We also present an updated set of near-IR standard spectra for classifying young stars and brown dwarfs at M and L types.

A SURVEY FOR NEW MEMBERS OF THE TAURUS STAR-FORMING REGION WITH THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Luhman, K. L. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Mamajek, E. E. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627 (United States); Shukla, S. J. [Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA (United Kingdom); Loutrel, N. P., E-mail: kluhman@astro.psu.edu [eXtreme Gravity Institute, Department of Physics, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59715 (United States)

2017-01-01

Previous studies have found that ∼1 deg{sup 2} fields surrounding the stellar aggregates in the Taurus star-forming region exhibit a surplus of solar-mass stars relative to denser clusters like IC 348 and the Orion Nebula Cluster. To test whether this difference reflects mass segregation in Taurus or a variation in the initial mass function, we have performed a survey for members of Taurus across a large field (∼40 deg{sup 2}) that was imaged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We obtained optical and near-infrared spectra of candidate members identified with those images and the Two Micron All Sky Survey, as well as miscellaneous candidates that were selected with several other diagnostics of membership. We have classified 22 of the candidates as new members of Taurus, which includes one of the coolest known members (M9.75). Our updated census of members within the SDSS field shows a surplus of solar-mass stars relative to clusters, although it is less pronounced than in the smaller fields toward the stellar aggregates that were surveyed for previously measured mass functions in Taurus. In addition to spectra of our new members, we include in our study near-IR spectra of roughly half of the known members of Taurus, which are used to refine their spectral types and extinctions. We also present an updated set of near-IR standard spectra for classifying young stars and brown dwarfs at M and L types.

A TARGETED SEARCH FOR PECULIARLY RED L AND T DWARFS IN SDSS, 2MASS, AND WISE: DISCOVERY OF A POSSIBLE L7 MEMBER OF THE TW HYDRAE ASSOCIATION

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kellogg, Kendra; Metchev, Stanimir [Western University, Centre for Planetary and Space Exploration, 1151 Richmond St, London, ON N6A 3K7 (Canada); Geißler, Kerstin; Hicks, Shannon [Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11790 (United States); Kirkpatrick, J. Davy [Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, Mail Code 100-22, California Institute of Technology, 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States); Kurtev, Radostin, E-mail: kkellogg@uwo.ca, E-mail: smetchev@uwo.ca [Instituto de Física y Astronomía, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Ave. Gran Bretaña 1111, Playa Ancha, Casilla 53, Valparaíso (Chile)

2015-12-15

We present the first results from a targeted search for brown dwarfs with unusual red colors indicative of peculiar atmospheric characteristics. These include objects with low surface gravities or with unusual dust content or cloud properties. From a positional cross-match of SDSS, 2MASS, and WISE, we have identified 40 candidate peculiar early-L to early-T dwarfs that are either new objects or have not been identified as peculiar through prior spectroscopy. Using low-resolution spectra, we confirm that 10 of the candidates are either peculiar or potential L/T binaries. With a J − K{sub s} color of 2.62 ± 0.15 mag, one of the new objects—the L7 dwarf 2MASS J11193254–1137466—is among the reddest field dwarfs currently known. Its proper motion and photometric parallax indicate that it is a possible member of the TW Hydrae moving group. If confirmed, it would be the lowest-mass (5–6 M{sub Jup}) free-floating member. We also report a new T dwarf, 2MASS J22153705+2110554, that was previously overlooked in the SDSS footprint. These new discoveries demonstrate that despite the considerable scrutiny already devoted to the SDSS and 2MASS surveys, our exploration of these data sets is not yet complete.

A TARGETED SEARCH FOR PECULIARLY RED L AND T DWARFS IN SDSS, 2MASS, AND WISE: DISCOVERY OF A POSSIBLE L7 MEMBER OF THE TW HYDRAE ASSOCIATION

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kellogg, Kendra; Metchev, Stanimir; Geißler, Kerstin; Hicks, Shannon; Kirkpatrick, J. Davy; Kurtev, Radostin

2015-01-01

We present the first results from a targeted search for brown dwarfs with unusual red colors indicative of peculiar atmospheric characteristics. These include objects with low surface gravities or with unusual dust content or cloud properties. From a positional cross-match of SDSS, 2MASS, and WISE, we have identified 40 candidate peculiar early-L to early-T dwarfs that are either new objects or have not been identified as peculiar through prior spectroscopy. Using low-resolution spectra, we confirm that 10 of the candidates are either peculiar or potential L/T binaries. With a J − K s color of 2.62 ± 0.15 mag, one of the new objects—the L7 dwarf 2MASS J11193254–1137466—is among the reddest field dwarfs currently known. Its proper motion and photometric parallax indicate that it is a possible member of the TW Hydrae moving group. If confirmed, it would be the lowest-mass (5–6 M Jup ) free-floating member. We also report a new T dwarf, 2MASS J22153705+2110554, that was previously overlooked in the SDSS footprint. These new discoveries demonstrate that despite the considerable scrutiny already devoted to the SDSS and 2MASS surveys, our exploration of these data sets is not yet complete

Swift observations of SDSS J141118.31+481257.6 during superoutburst

Science.gov (United States)

Rivera Sandoval, L. E.; Maccarone, T.

2018-06-01

We report on follow-up Swift observations of the AM CVn-type binary SDSS J141118.31+481257.6 (ATEL #11668, #11672). Based on ground based photometry, the re-brightening previous to the current superoutburst was reported on 2018-June-1 (https://www.aavso.org/aavso-alert-notice-636).

SDSS J2222+2745: A GRAVITATIONALLY LENSED SEXTUPLE QUASAR WITH A MAXIMUM IMAGE SEPARATION OF 15.''1 DISCOVERED IN THE SLOAN GIANT ARCS SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dahle, H.; Groeneboom, N.; Gladders, M. D.; Abramson, L. E.; Sharon, K.; Bayliss, M. B.; Wuyts, E.; Koester, B. P.; Brinckmann, T. E.; Kristensen, M. T.; Lindholmer, M. O.; Nielsen, A.; Krogager, J.-K.; Fynbo, J. P. U.

2013-01-01

We report the discovery of a unique gravitational lens system, SDSS J2222+2745, producing five spectroscopically confirmed images of a z s = 2.82 quasar lensed by a foreground galaxy cluster at z l = 0.49. We also present photometric and spectroscopic evidence for a sixth lensed image of the same quasar. The maximum separation between the quasar images is 15.''1. Both the large image separations and the high image multiplicity are in themselves rare among known lensed quasars, and observing the combination of these two factors is an exceptionally unlikely occurrence in present data sets. This is only the third known case of a quasar lensed by a cluster, and the only one with six images. The lens system was discovered in the course of the Sloan Giant Arcs Survey, in which we identify candidate lenses in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and target these for follow-up and verification with the 2.56 m Nordic Optical Telescope. Multi-band photometry obtained over multiple epochs from 2011 September to 2012 September reveals significant variability at the ∼10%-30% level in some of the quasar images, indicating that measurements of the relative time delay between quasar images will be feasible. In this lens system, we also identify a bright (g = 21.5) giant arc corresponding to a strongly lensed background galaxy at z s = 2.30. We fit parametric models of the lens system, constrained by the redshift and positions of the quasar images and the redshift and position of the giant arc. The predicted time delays between different pairs of quasar images range from ∼100 days to ∼6 yr

The Southern HII Region Discovery Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Wenger, Trey; Miller Dickey, John; Jordan, Christopher; Bania, Thomas M.; Balser, Dana S.; Dawson, Joanne; Anderson, Loren D.; Armentrout, William P.; McClure-Griffiths, Naomi

2016-01-01

HII regions are zones of ionized gas surrounding recently formed high-mass (OB-type) stars. They are among the brightest objects in the sky at radio wavelengths. HII regions provide a useful tool in constraining the Galactic morphological structure, chemical structure, and star formation rate. We describe the Southern HII Region Discovery Survey (SHRDS), an Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) survey that discovered ~80 new HII regions (so far) in the Galactic longitude range 230 degrees to 360 degrees. This project is an extension of the Green Bank Telescope HII Region Discovery Survey (GBT HRDS), Arecibo HRDS, and GBT Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) HRDS, which together discovered ~800 new HII regions in the Galactic longitude range -20 degrees to 270 degrees. Similar to those surveys, candidate HII regions were chosen from 20 micron emission (from WISE) coincident with 10 micron (WISE) and 20 cm (SGPS) emission. By using the ATCA to detect radio continuum and radio recombination line emission from a subset of these candidates, we have added to the population of known Galactic HII regions.

The Very Short Period M Dwarf Binary SDSS J001641-000925

Science.gov (United States)

Davenport, James R. A.; Becker, Andrew C.; West, Andrew A.; Bochanski, John J.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Holtzman, Jon; Gunning, Heather C.; Hilton, Eric J.; Munshi, Ferah A.; Albright, Meagan

2013-02-01

We present follow-up observations and analysis of the recently discovered short period low-mass eclipsing binary, SDSS J001641-000925. With an orbital period of 0.19856 days, this system has one of the shortest known periods for an M dwarf binary system. Medium-resolution spectroscopy and multi-band photometry for the system are presented. Markov Chain Monte Carlo modeling of the light curves and radial velocities yields estimated masses for the stars of M 1 = 0.54 ± 0.07 M ⊙ and M 2 = 0.34 ± 0.04 M ⊙, and radii of R 1 = 0.68 ± 0.03 R ⊙ and R 2 = 0.58 ± 0.03 R ⊙, respectively. This solution places both components above the critical Roche overfill limit, providing strong evidence that SDSS J001641-000925 is the first verified M-dwarf contact binary system. Within the follow-up spectroscopy we find signatures of non-solid body rotation velocities, which we interpret as evidence for mass transfer or loss within the system. In addition, our photometry samples the system over nine years, and we find strong evidence for period decay at the rate of \\dot{P}\\sim 8 s yr-1. Both of these signatures raise the intriguing possibility that the system is in over-contact, and actively losing angular momentum, likely through mass loss. This places SDSS J001641-000925 as not just the first M-dwarf over-contact binary, but one of the few systems of any spectral type known to be actively undergoing coalescence. Further study of SDSS J001641-000925 is ongoing to verify the nature of the system, which may prove to be a unique astrophysical laboratory. Based on observations obtained with the Apache Point Observatory 3.5 m telescope, which is owned and operated by the Astrophysical Research Consortium. This paper includes data gathered with the 6.5 m Magellan Telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. Support for the design and construction of the Magellan Echellette Spectrograph was received from the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the

THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY REVERBERATION MAPPING PROJECT: TECHNICAL OVERVIEW

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shen, Yue [Carnegie Observatories, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States); Brandt, W. N. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Dawson, Kyle S. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, 115 South 1400 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Hall, Patrick B. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 (Canada); McGreer, Ian D.; Fan, Xiaohui [Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0065 (United States); Anderson, Scott F. [Astronomy Department, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Chen, Yuguang [Department of Astronomy, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Denney, Kelly D. [Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Eftekharzadeh, Sarah [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, 1000 East University Avenue, Laramie, WY 82071 (United States); Gao, Yang [Department of Engineering Physics and Center for Astrophysics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084 (China); Green, Paul J. [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Greene, Jenny E. [Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States); Ho, Luis C. [Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Horne, Keith [SUPA Physics/Astronomy, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews KY16 9SS (United Kingdom); Jiang, Linhua [School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1504 (United States); Kelly, Brandon C. [Department of Physics, Broida Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93107 (United States); and others

2015-01-01

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project is a dedicated multi-object RM experiment that has spectroscopically monitored a sample of 849 broad-line quasars in a single 7 deg{sup 2} field with the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey spectrograph. The RM quasar sample is flux-limited to i {sub psf} = 21.7 mag, and covers a redshift range of 0.1 < z < 4.5 without any other cuts on quasar properties. Optical spectroscopy was performed during 2014 January-July dark/gray time, with an average cadence of ∼4 days, totaling more than 30 epochs. Supporting photometric monitoring in the g and i bands was conducted at multiple facilities including the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) and the Steward Observatory Bok telescope in 2014, with a cadence of ∼2 days and covering all lunar phases. The RM field (R.A., decl. = 14:14:49.00, +53:05:00.0) lies within the CFHT-LS W3 field, and coincides with the Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) Medium Deep Field MD07, with three prior years of multi-band PS1 light curves. The SDSS-RM six month baseline program aims to detect time lags between the quasar continuum and broad line region (BLR) variability on timescales of up to several months (in the observed frame) for ∼10% of the sample, and to anchor the time baseline for continued monitoring in the future to detect lags on longer timescales and at higher redshift. SDSS-RM is the first major program to systematically explore the potential of RM for broad-line quasars at z > 0.3, and will investigate the prospects of RM with all major broad lines covered in optical spectroscopy. SDSS-RM will provide guidance on future multi-object RM campaigns on larger scales, and is aiming to deliver more than tens of BLR lag detections for a homogeneous sample of quasars. We describe the motivation, design, and implementation of this program, and outline the science impact expected from the resulting data for RM and general quasar science.

THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY REVERBERATION MAPPING PROJECT: TECHNICAL OVERVIEW

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shen, Yue; Brandt, W. N.; Dawson, Kyle S.; Hall, Patrick B.; McGreer, Ian D.; Fan, Xiaohui; Anderson, Scott F.; Chen, Yuguang; Denney, Kelly D.; Eftekharzadeh, Sarah; Gao, Yang; Green, Paul J.; Greene, Jenny E.; Ho, Luis C.; Horne, Keith; Jiang, Linhua; Kelly, Brandon C.

2015-01-01

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project is a dedicated multi-object RM experiment that has spectroscopically monitored a sample of 849 broad-line quasars in a single 7 deg 2 field with the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey spectrograph. The RM quasar sample is flux-limited to i psf = 21.7 mag, and covers a redshift range of 0.1 < z < 4.5 without any other cuts on quasar properties. Optical spectroscopy was performed during 2014 January-July dark/gray time, with an average cadence of ∼4 days, totaling more than 30 epochs. Supporting photometric monitoring in the g and i bands was conducted at multiple facilities including the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) and the Steward Observatory Bok telescope in 2014, with a cadence of ∼2 days and covering all lunar phases. The RM field (R.A., decl. = 14:14:49.00, +53:05:00.0) lies within the CFHT-LS W3 field, and coincides with the Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) Medium Deep Field MD07, with three prior years of multi-band PS1 light curves. The SDSS-RM six month baseline program aims to detect time lags between the quasar continuum and broad line region (BLR) variability on timescales of up to several months (in the observed frame) for ∼10% of the sample, and to anchor the time baseline for continued monitoring in the future to detect lags on longer timescales and at higher redshift. SDSS-RM is the first major program to systematically explore the potential of RM for broad-line quasars at z > 0.3, and will investigate the prospects of RM with all major broad lines covered in optical spectroscopy. SDSS-RM will provide guidance on future multi-object RM campaigns on larger scales, and is aiming to deliver more than tens of BLR lag detections for a homogeneous sample of quasars. We describe the motivation, design, and implementation of this program, and outline the science impact expected from the resulting data for RM and general quasar science

THE CLUSTERING OF ALFALFA GALAXIES: DEPENDENCE ON H I MASS, RELATIONSHIP WITH OPTICAL SAMPLES, AND CLUES OF HOST HALO PROPERTIES

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Papastergis, Emmanouil; Giovanelli, Riccardo; Haynes, Martha P.; Jones, Michael G. [Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Space Sciences Building, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 (United States); Rodríguez-Puebla, Aldo, E-mail: papastergis@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: riccardo@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: haynes@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: jonesmg@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: apuebla@astro.unam.mx [Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, A. P. 70-264, 04510 México, D.F. (Mexico)

2013-10-10

We use a sample of ≈6000 galaxies detected by the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) 21 cm survey to measure the clustering properties of H I-selected galaxies. We find no convincing evidence for a dependence of clustering on galactic atomic hydrogen (H I) mass, over the range M{sub H{sub I}} ≈ 10{sup 8.5}-10{sup 10.5} M{sub ☉}. We show that previously reported results of weaker clustering for low H I mass galaxies are probably due to finite-volume effects. In addition, we compare the clustering of ALFALFA galaxies with optically selected samples drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We find that H I-selected galaxies cluster more weakly than even relatively optically faint galaxies, when no color selection is applied. Conversely, when SDSS galaxies are split based on their color, we find that the correlation function of blue optical galaxies is practically indistinguishable from that of H I-selected galaxies. At the same time, SDSS galaxies with red colors are found to cluster significantly more than H I-selected galaxies, a fact that is evident in both the projected as well as the full two-dimensional correlation function. A cross-correlation analysis further reveals that gas-rich galaxies 'avoid' being located within ≈3 Mpc of optical galaxies with red colors. Next, we consider the clustering properties of halo samples selected from the Bolshoi ΛCDM simulation. A comparison with the clustering of ALFALFA galaxies suggests that galactic H I mass is not tightly related to host halo mass and that a sizable fraction of subhalos do not host H I galaxies. Lastly, we find that we can recover fairly well the correlation function of H I galaxies by just excluding halos with low spin parameter. This finding lends support to the hypothesis that halo spin plays a key role in determining the gas content of galaxies.

Discovery and first models of the quadruply lensed quasar SDSS J1433+6007

Science.gov (United States)

Agnello, Adriano; Grillo, Claudio; Jones, Tucker; Treu, Tommaso; Bonamigo, Mario; Suyu, Sherry H.

2018-03-01

We report the discovery of the quadruply lensed quasar SDSS J1433+6007 (RA = 14:33:22.8, Dec. = +60:07:13.44), mined in the SDSS DR12 photometric catalogues using a novel outlier-selection technique, without prior spectroscopic or ultraviolet excess information. Discovery data obtained at the Nordic Optical Telescope (La Palma) show nearly identical quasar spectra at zs = 2.737 ± 0.003 and four quasar images in a fold configuration, one of which sits on a blue arc, with maximum separation 3.6 arcsec. The deflector redshift is zl = 0.407 ± 0.002, from Keck-ESI spectra. We describe the selection procedure, discovery and follow-up, image positions and BVRi magnitudes, and first results and forecasts from lens model fit to the relative image positions.

TOPOLOGY OF LUMINOUS RED GALAXIES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choi, Yun-Young; Kim, Juhan; Rossi, Graziano; Kim, Sungsoo S.; Lee, Jeong-Eun

2013-01-01

We present measurements of the genus topology of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 catalog, with unprecedented statistical significance. To estimate the uncertainties in the measured genus, we construct 81 mock SDSS LRG surveys along the past light cone from Horizon Run 3, one of the largest N-body simulations to date, which evolved 7210 3 particles in a 10,815 h –1  Mpc box. After carefully modeling and removing all known systematic effects due to finite pixel size, survey boundary, radial and angular selection functions, shot noise, and galaxy biasing, we find that the observed genus amplitude reaches 272 at a 22 h –1  Mpc smoothing scale, with an uncertainty of 4.2%; the estimated error fully incorporates cosmic variance. This is the most accurate constraint on the genus amplitude to date and significantly improves on our previous results. In particular, the shape of the genus curve agrees very well with the mean topology of the SDSS LRG mock surveys in a Λ cold dark matter universe. However, comparison with simulations also shows small deviations of the observed genus curve from the theoretical expectation for Gaussian initial conditions. While these discrepancies are mainly driven by known systematic effects such as shot noise and redshift-space distortions, they do contain important cosmological information on the physical effects connected with galaxy formation, gravitational evolution, and primordial non-Gaussianity. We address the key role played by systematics on the genus curve and show how to accurately correct for their effects to recover the topology of the underlying matter. A future work will provide an interpretation of these deviations in the context of the local model of non-Gaussianity

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog. 4. Fifth Data Release

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schneider, Donald P.; Hall, Patrick B.; Richards, Gordon T.; Strauss, Michael A.; Vanden Berk, Daniel E.; Anderson, Scott F.; Brandt, W.N.; Fan, Xiao-Hui; Jester,; Gray, Jim; Gunn, James E.; /Penn State U., Astron. Astrophys. /York U., Canada /Johns Hopkins U. /Princeton U. Observ. /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept. /Arizona

2007-04-01

We present the fourth edition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Catalog. The catalog contains 77,429 objects; this is an increase of over 30,000 entries since the previous edition. The catalog consists of the objects in the SDSS Fifth Data Release that have luminosities larger than M{sub i} = -22.0 (in a cosmology with H{sub 0} = 70 km s{sup -1} Mpc{sup -1}, {Omega}{sub M} = 0.3, and {Omega}{sub {Lambda}} = 0.7), have at least one emission line with FWHM larger than 1000 km s{sup -1} or have interesting/complex absorption features, are fainter than i {approx} 15.0, and have highly reliable redshifts. The area covered by the catalog is {approx} 5740 deg{sup 2}. The quasar redshifts range from 0.08 to 5.41, with a median value of 1.48; the catalog includes 891 quasars at redshifts greater than four, of which 36 are at redshifts greater than five. Approximately half of the catalog quasars have i < 19; nearly all have i < 21. For each object the catalog presents positions accurate to better than 0.2-minutes rms per coordinate, five-band (ugriz) CCD-based photometry with typical accuracy of 0.03 mag, and information on the morphology and selection method. The catalog also contains basic radio, near-infrared, and X-ray emission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area surveys. The calibrated digital spectra cover the wavelength region 3800-9200 {angstrom} at a spectral resolution of {approx_equal} 2000; the spectra can be retrieved from the public database using the information provided in the catalog. The average SDSS colors of quasars as a function of redshift, derived from the catalog entries, are presented in tabular form. Approximately 96% of the objects in the catalog were discovered by the SDSS.

Distant clusters of galaxies in the 2XMM/SDSS footprint: follow-up observations with the LBT

Science.gov (United States)

Rabitz, A.; Lamer, G.; Schwope, A.; Takey, A.

2017-11-01

Context. Galaxy clusters at high redshift are important to test cosmological models and models for the growth of structure. They are difficult to find in wide-angle optical surveys, however, leaving dedicated follow-up of X-ray selected candidates as one promising identification route. Aims: We aim to increase the number of galaxy clusters beyond the SDSS-limit, z 0.75. Methods: We compiled a list of extended X-ray sources from the 2XMMp catalogue within the footprint of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Fields without optical counterpart were selected for further investigation. Deep optical imaging and follow-up spectroscopy were obtained with the Large Binocular Telescope, Arizona (LBT), of those candidates not known to the literature. Results: From initially 19 candidates, selected by visually screening X-ray images of 478 XMM-Newton observations and the corresponding SDSS images, 6 clusters were found in the literature. Imaging data through r,z filters were obtained for the remaining candidates, and 7 were chosen for multi-object (MOS) spectroscopy. Spectroscopic redshifts, optical magnitudes, and X-ray parameters (flux, temperature, and luminosity) are presented for the clusters with spectroscopic redshifts. The distant clusters studied here constitute one additional redshift bin for studies of the LX-T relation, which does not seem to evolve from high to low redshifts. Conclusions: The selection method of distant galaxy clusters presented here was highly successful. It is based solely on archival optical (SDSS) and X-ray (XMM-Newton) data. Out of 19 selected candidates, 6 of the 7 candidates selected for spectroscopic follow-up were verified as distant clusters, a further candidate is most likely a group of galaxies at z 1.21. Out of the remaining 12 candidates, 6 were known previously as galaxy clusters, one object is a likely X-ray emission from an AGN radio jet, and for 5 we see no clear evidence for them to be high-redshift galaxy clusters. Based on

HI-bearing Ultra Diffuse Galaxies in the ALFALFA Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Leisman, Lukas; Janowiecki, Steven; Jones, Michael G.; ALFALFA Almost Darks Team

2018-01-01

The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (Arecibo L-band Feed Array) extragalactic HI survey, with over 30,000 high significance extragalactic sources, is well positioned to locate gas-bearing, low surface brightness sources missed by optical detection algorithms. We investigate the nature of a population of HI-bearing sources in ALFALFA with properties similar to "ultra-diffuse" galaxies (UDGs): galaxies with stellar masses of dwarf galaxies, but radii of L* galaxies. These "HI-bearing ultra-diffuse" sources (HUDS) constitute a small, but pertinent, fraction of the dwarf-mass galaxies in ALFALFA. They are bluer and have more irregular morphologies than the optically-selected UDGs found in clusters, and they appear to be gas-rich for their stellar mass, indicating low star formation efficiency. To illuminate potential explanations for the extreme properties of these sources we explore their environments and estimate their halo properties. We conclude that environmental mechanism are unlikely the cause of HUDS' properties, as they exist in environments equivalent to that of the other ALFALFA sources of similar HI-masses, however, we do find some suggestion that these HUDS may reside in high spin parameter halos, a potential explanation for their "ultra-diffuse" nature.

Mass Models and Environment of the New Quadruply Lensed Quasar SDSS J1330+1810

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Oguri, Masamune; Inada, Naohisa; Blackburne, Jeffrey A.; Shin, Min-Su; Kayo, Issha; Strauss, Michael A.; Schneider, Donald P.; York, Donald G.

2008-09-09

We present the discovery of a new quadruply lensed quasar. The lens system, SDSS J1330+1810 at z{sub s} = 1.393, was identified as a lens candidate from the spectroscopic sample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Optical and near-infrared images clearly show four quasar images with a maximum image separation of 1.76 inch, as well as a bright lensing galaxy. We measure a redshift of the lensing galaxy of z{sub 1} = 0.373 from absorption features in the spectrum. We find a foreground group of galaxies at z = 0.31 centred {approx} 120 inch southwest of the lens system. Simple mass models fit the data quite well, including the flux ratios between images, although the lens galaxy appears to be {approx} 1 mag brighter than expected by the Faber-Jackson relation. Our mass modeling suggests that shear from nearby structure is affecting the lens potential.

TESTING STELLAR POPULATION SYNTHESIS MODELS WITH SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY COLORS OF M31's GLOBULAR CLUSTERS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peacock, Mark B.; Zepf, Stephen E.; Maccarone, Thomas J.; Kundu, Arunav

2011-01-01

Accurate stellar population synthesis models are vital in understanding the properties and formation histories of galaxies. In order to calibrate and test the reliability of these models, they are often compared with observations of star clusters. However, relatively little work has compared these models in the ugriz filters, despite the recent widespread use of this filter set. In this paper, we compare the integrated colors of globular clusters in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with those predicted from commonly used simple stellar population (SSP) models. The colors are based on SDSS observations of M31's clusters and provide the largest population of star clusters with accurate photometry available from the survey. As such, it is a unique sample with which to compare SSP models with SDSS observations. From this work, we identify a significant offset between the SSP models and the clusters' g - r colors, with the models predicting colors which are too red by g - r ∼ 0.1. This finding is consistent with previous observations of luminous red galaxies in the SDSS, which show a similar discrepancy. The identification of this offset in globular clusters suggests that it is very unlikely to be due to a minority population of young stars. The recently updated SSP model of Maraston and Stroembaeck better represents the observed g - r colors. This model is based on the empirical MILES stellar library, rather than theoretical libraries, suggesting an explanation for the g - r discrepancy.

The Slogan Great Wall from the SDSS Data Release 4

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Deng Xin-Fa; He Ji-Zhou; Luo Cheng-Hong; Wu Ping; Tang Xiao-Xun; He Cong-Gen

2007-01-01

Using the MAIN galaxy data from the SDSS Data Release 4 (SDSS4), we further study the Sloan Great Wall by three-dimensional cluster analysis. Because the basic properties of Main galaxies change with redshift, we select 50942 Main galaxies having the same redshift region (0.07 ≤ z ≤ 0.09) as the Sloan Great Wall from the Main galaxy sample, and construct our SubMain sample. From the SubMain sample, 2013 isolated galaxies are identified at dimensionless radius r = 1.4. We perform the comparative studies of galaxy properties among the Sloan Great Wall, isolated galaxies and the SubMain sample in different redshift bins. It turns out that the statistical properties of luminosities and sizes of galaxies for the Sloan Great Wall, isolated galaxies and the SubMain sample are almost the same, the proportion of early-type isolated galaxies is relatively low. We also d that mean color of member galaxies of the Sloan Great Wall is redder than that of isolated galaxies. These results indicate that some properties of galaxies may be closely correlated with the environment or clustering. (author)

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Status and prospects

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Loveday, J.; SDSS Collaboration

1996-05-01

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is a project to definitively map {pi} steradians of the local Universe. An array of CCD detectors used in drift-scan mode will digitally image the sky in five passbands to a limiting magnitude of r{prime} {approximately} 23. Selected from the imaging survey, 10{sup 6} galaxies and 10{sup 5} quasars will be observed spectroscopically. I describe the current status of the survey, which is due to begin observations early in 1997, and its prospects for constraining models for dark matter in the Universe. 8 refs., 7 figs.

SLoWPoKES-II: 100,000 WIDE BINARIES IDENTIFIED IN SDSS WITHOUT PROPER MOTIONS

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Dhital, Saurav [Department of Physical Sciences, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, 600 South Clyde Morris Blvd., Daytona Beach, FL 32114 (United States); West, Andrew A.; Schluns, Kyle J.; Massey, Angela P. [Department of Astronomy, Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 (United States); Stassun, Keivan G., E-mail: dhitals@erau.edu [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, 6301 Stevenson Center, Nashville, TN, 37235 (United States)

2015-08-15

We present the Sloan Low-mass Wide Pairs of Kinematically Equivalent Stars (SLoWPoKES)-II catalog of low-mass visual binaries identified from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) by matching photometric distances. The candidate pairs are vetted by comparing the stellar information. The candidate pairs are vetted by comparing the stellar density at their respective Galactic positions to Monte Carlo realizations of a simulated Milky Way. In this way, we are able to identify large numbers of bona fide wide binaries without the need for proper motions. Here, 105,537 visual binaries with angular separations of ∼1–20″ were identified, each with a probability of chance alignment of ≤5%. This is the largest catalog of bona fide wide binaries to date, and it contains a diversity of systems—in mass, mass ratios, binary separations, metallicity, and evolutionary states—that should facilitate follow-up studies to characterize the properties of M dwarfs and white dwarfs. There is a subtle but definitive suggestion of multiple populations in the physical separation distribution, supporting earlier findings. We suggest that wide binaries are composed of multiple populations, most likely representing different formation modes. There are 141 M7 or later wide binary candidates, representing a seven-fold increase over the number currently known. These binaries are too wide to have been formed via the ejection mechanism. Finally, we found that 6% of spectroscopically confirmed M dwarfs are not included in the SDSS STAR catalog; they are misclassified as extended sources due to the presence of a nearby or partially resolved companion. The SLoWPoKES-II catalog is publicly available to the entire community on the World Wide Web via the Filtergraph data visualization portal.

ULTRALUMINOUS INFRARED GALAXIES IN THE WISE AND SDSS SURVEYS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Su, Shanshan; Kong, Xu; Li, Jinrong; Fang, Guanwen

2013-01-01

In this paper, we present a large catalog of 419 Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs), carefully selected from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mid-infrared data and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey eighth data release, and classify them into three subsamples, based on their emission line properties: H II-like ULIRGs, Seyfert 2 ULIRGs, and composite ULIRGs. We apply our new efficient spectral synthesis technique, which is based on mean field approach to Bayesian independent component analysis (MF-ICA) method, to the galaxy integrated spectra. We also analyze the stellar population properties, including percentage contribution, stellar age, and stellar mass, for these three types of ULIRGs, and explore the evolution among them. We find no significant difference between the properties of stellar populations in ULIRGs with or without active galactic nucleus components. Our results suggest that there is no evolutionary link among these three type ULIRGs

GENUS STATISTICS USING THE DELAUNAY TESSELLATION FIELD ESTIMATION METHOD. I. TESTS WITH THE MILLENNIUM SIMULATION AND THE SDSS DR7

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang Youcai; Yang Xiaohu; Springel, Volker

2010-01-01

We study the topology of cosmic large-scale structure through the genus statistics, using galaxy catalogs generated from the Millennium Simulation and observational data from the latest Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release (SDSS DR7). We introduce a new method for constructing galaxy density fields and for measuring the genus statistics of its isodensity surfaces. It is based on a Delaunay tessellation field estimation (DTFE) technique that allows the definition of a piece-wise continuous density field and the exact computation of the topology of its polygonal isodensity contours, without introducing any free numerical parameter. Besides this new approach, we also employ the traditional approaches of smoothing the galaxy distribution with a Gaussian of fixed width, or by adaptively smoothing with a kernel that encloses a constant number of neighboring galaxies. Our results show that the Delaunay-based method extracts the largest amount of topological information. Unlike the traditional approach for genus statistics, it is able to discriminate between the different theoretical galaxy catalogs analyzed here, both in real space and in redshift space, even though they are based on the same underlying simulation model. In particular, the DTFE approach detects with high confidence a discrepancy of one of the semi-analytic models studied here compared with the SDSS data, while the other models are found to be consistent.

The Southern HII Region Discovery Survey: The Bright Catalog

Science.gov (United States)

Wenger, Trey V.; Dickey, John M.; Jordan, Christopher H.; Balser, Dana; Armentrout, William Paul; Anderson, Loren; Bania, Thomas; Dawson, Joanne; McClure-Griffiths, Naomi M.; Shea, Jeanine

2018-01-01

HII regions, the zones of ionized gas surrounding recently formed high-mass stars, are the archetypical tracers of Galactic structure. The census of Galactic HII regions in the Southern sky is vastly incomplete due to a lack of sensitive radio recombination line (RRL) surveys. The Southern HII Region Discovery Survey (SHRDS) is a 900-hour Australia Telescope Compact Array cm-wavelength RRL and continuum emission survey of hundreds of third and fourth quadrant Galactic HII region candidates. These candidates are identified in the Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) Catalog of Galactic HII Regions based on coincident 10 micron (WISE) and 20 cm (Southern Galactic Plane Survey) emission. The SHRDS is an extension of HII Region Discovery Surveys in the Northern sky with the Green Bank Telescope and Arecibo Telescope which discovered ~800 new HII regions. In the first 500 hours of the SHRDS, we targeted the 249 brightest HII region candidates and 33 previously known HII regions. We discuss the data reduction, analysis, and preliminary results from this first stage of the survey.

The Binary Dwarf Carbon Star SDSS J125017.90+252427.6

Science.gov (United States)

Margon, Bruce; Kupfer, Thomas; Burdge, Kevin; Prince, Thomas A.; Kulkarni, Shrinivas R.; Shupe, David L.

2018-03-01

Although dwarf carbon (dC) stars are universally thought to be binaries in order to explain the presence of C 2 in their spectra while still near main-sequence luminosity, direct observational evidence for their binarity is remarkably scarce. Here, we report the detection of a 2.92 day periodicity in both the photometry and radial velocity of SDSS J125017.90+252427.6, an r = 16.4 dC star. This is the first photometric binary dC, and only the second dC spectroscopic binary. The relative phase of the photometric period to the spectroscopic observations suggests that the photometric variations are a reflection effect due to heating from an unseen companion. The observed radial velocity amplitude of the dC component (K = 98.8 ± 10.7 km s‑1) is consistent with a white dwarf companion, presumably the evolved star that earlier donated the carbon to the dC, although substantial orbital evolution must have occurred. Large synoptic photometric surveys such as the Palomar Transient Factory, which was used for this work, may prove useful for identifying binaries among the shorter-period dC stars.

Meteoroid velocity distribution derived from head echo data collected at Arecibo during regular world day observations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. P. Sulzer

2004-01-01

Full Text Available We report the observation and analysis of ionization flashes associated with the decay of meteoroids (so-called head echos detected by the Arecibo 430 MHz radar during regular ionospheric observations in the spring and autumn equinoxes. These two periods allow pointing well-above and nearly-into the ecliptic plane at dawn when the event rate maximizes. The observation of many thousands of events allows a statistical interpretation of the results, which show that there is a strong tendency for the observed meteoroids to come from the apex as has been previously reported (Chau and Woodman, 2004. The velocity distributions agree with Janches et al. (2003a when they are directly comparable, but the azimuth scan used in these observations allows a new perspective. We have constructed a simple statistical model which takes meteor velocities as input and gives radar line of sight velocities as output. The intent is to explain the fastest part of the velocity distribution. Since the speeds interpreted from the measurements are distributed fairly narrowly about nearly 60 km s-1, double the speed of the earth in its orbit, is consistent with the interpretation that many of the meteoroids seen by the Arecibo radar are moving in orbits about the sun with similar parameters as the earth, but in the retrograde direction. However, it is the directional information obtained from the beam-swinging radar experiment and the speed that together provide the evidence for this interpretation. Some aspects of the measured velocity distributions suggest that this is not a complete description even for the fast part of the distribution, and it certainly says nothing about the slow part first described in Janches et al. (2003a. Furthermore, we cannot conclude anything about the entire dust population since there are probably selection effects that restrict the observations to a subset of the population.

High-precision 2MASS JHK{sub s} light curves and other data for RR Lyrae star SDSS J015450 + 001501: Strong constraints for nonlinear pulsation models

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Szabó, Róbert; Ivezić, Željko; Kiss, László L.; Kolláth, Zoltán [Konkoly Observatory, MTA CSFK, Konkoly Thege Miklós út 15-17, H-1121 Budapest (Hungary); Jones, Lynne; Becker, Andrew C.; Davenport, James R. A. [Astronomy Department, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195-1580 (United States); Sesar, Branimir [Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States); Cutri, Roc M., E-mail: rszabo@konkoly.hu [Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)

2014-01-01

We present and discuss an extensive data set for the non-Blazhko ab-type RR Lyrae star SDSS J015450+001501, including optical Sloan Digital Sky Survey ugriz light curves and spectroscopic data, LINEAR and Catalina Sky Survey unfiltered optical light curves, and infrared Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) JHK{sub s} and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer W1 and W2 light curves. Most notable is that light curves obtained by 2MASS include close to 9000 photometric measures collected over 3.3 yr and provide an exceedingly precise view of near-infrared variability. These data demonstrate that static atmosphere models are insufficient to explain multiband photometric light-curve behavior and present strong constraints for nonlinear pulsation models for RR Lyrae stars. It is a challenge to modelers to produce theoretical light curves that can explain data presented here, which we make publicly available.

A MEASUREMENT OF THE RATE OF TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE IN GALAXY CLUSTERS FROM THE SDSS-II SUPERNOVA SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dilday, Benjamin; Jha, Saurabh W.; Bassett, Bruce; Becker, Andrew; Bender, Ralf; Hopp, Ulrich; Castander, Francisco; Cinabro, David; Frieman, Joshua A.; Galbany, LluIs; Miquel, Ramon; Garnavich, Peter; Goobar, Ariel; Ihara, Yutaka; Kessler, Richard; Lampeitl, Hubert; Nichol, Robert C.; Marriner, John; Molla, Mercedes

2010-01-01

We present measurements of the Type Ia supernova (SN) rate in galaxy clusters based on data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II) Supernova Survey. The cluster SN Ia rate is determined from 9 SN events in a set of 71 C4 clusters at z ≤ 0.17 and 27 SN events in 492 maxBCG clusters at 0.1 ≤ z ≤ 0.3. We find values for the cluster SN Ia rate of (0.37 +0.17+0.01 -0.12-0.01 ) SNur h 2 and (0.55 +0.13+0.02 -0.11-0.01 ) SNur h 2 (SNux = 10 -12 L -1 xsun yr -1 ) in C4 and maxBCG clusters, respectively, where the quoted errors are statistical and systematic, respectively. The SN rate for early-type galaxies is found to be (0.31 +0.18+0.01 -0.12-0.01 ) SNur h 2 and (0.49 +0.15+0.02 -0.11-0.01 ) SNur h 2 in C4 and maxBCG clusters, respectively. The SN rate for the brightest cluster galaxies (BCG) is found to be (2.04 +1.99+0.07 -1.11-0.04 ) SNur h 2 and (0.36 +0.84+0.01 -0.30-0.01 ) SNur h 2 in C4 and maxBCG clusters, respectively. The ratio of the SN Ia rate in cluster early-type galaxies to that of the SN Ia rate in field early-type galaxies is 1.94 +1.31+0.043 -0.91-0.015 and 3.02 +1.31+0.062 -1.03-0.048 , for C4 and maxBCG clusters, respectively. The SN rate in galaxy clusters as a function of redshift, which probes the late time SN Ia delay distribution, shows only weak dependence on redshift. Combining our current measurements with previous measurements, we fit the cluster SN Ia rate data to a linear function of redshift, and find r L = [(0.49 +0.15 -0.14 )+(0.91 +0.85 -0.81 ) x z] SNuB h 2 . A comparison of the radial distribution of SNe in cluster to field early-type galaxies shows possible evidence for an enhancement of the SN rate in the cores of cluster early-type galaxies. With an observation of at most three hostless, intra-cluster SNe Ia, we estimate the fraction of cluster SNe that are hostless to be (9.4 +8.3 -5.1 )%.

Cosmological parameter analysis including SDSS Lyα forest and galaxy bias: Constraints on the primordial spectrum of fluctuations, neutrino mass, and dark energy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seljak, Uros; Makarov, Alexey; McDonald, Patrick; Anderson, Scott F.; Bahcall, Neta A.; Cen, Renyue; Gunn, James E.; Lupton, Robert H.; Schlegel, David J.; Brinkmann, J.; Burles, Scott; Doi, Mamoru; Ivezic, Zeljko; Kent, Stephen; Loveday, Jon; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Nichol, Robert C.; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Schneider, Donald P.; Berk, Daniel E. Vanden

2005-01-01

We combine the constraints from the recent Lyα forest analysis of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the SDSS galaxy bias analysis with previous constraints from SDSS galaxy clustering, the latest supernovae, and 1st year WMAP cosmic microwave background anisotropies. We find significant improvements on all of the cosmological parameters compared to previous constraints, which highlights the importance of combining Lyα forest constraints with other probes. Combining WMAP and the Lyα forest we find for the primordial slope n s =0.98±0.02. We see no evidence of running, dn/dlnk=-0.003±0.010, a factor of 3 improvement over previous constraints. We also find no evidence of tensors, r 2 model is within the 2-sigma contour, V∝φ 4 is outside the 3-sigma contour. For the amplitude we find σ 8 =0.90±0.03 from the Lyα forest and WMAP alone. We find no evidence of neutrino mass: for the case of 3 massive neutrino families with an inflationary prior, eV and the mass of lightest neutrino is m 1 ν λ =0.72±0.02, w(z=0.3)=-0.98 -0.12 +0.10 , the latter changing to w(z=0.3)=-0.92 -0.10 +0.09 if tensors are allowed. We find no evidence for variation of the equation of state with redshift, w(z=1)=-1.03 -0.28 +0.21 . These results rely on the current understanding of the Lyα forest and other probes, which need to be explored further both observationally and theoretically, but extensive tests reveal no evidence of inconsistency among different data sets used here

An application of MC-SDSS for water supply management during a drought crisis.

Science.gov (United States)

Jeihouni, Mehrdad; Toomanian, Ara; Alavipanah, Seyed Kazem; Shahabi, Mahmoud; Bazdar, Saba

2015-07-01

Climate change influences many countries' rainfall patterns and temperatures. In Iran, population growth has increased water demands. Tabriz is the capital of East Azerbaijan province, in northwestern Iran. A large proportion of the water required for this city is supplied from dams; thus, it is important to find alternatives to supply water for this city, which is the largest industrial city in northwestern Iran. In this paper, the groundwater quality was assessed using 70 wells in Tabriz Township. This work seeks to define the spatial distribution of groundwater quality parameters such as chloride, electrical conductivity (EC), pH, hardness, and sulfate using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and geostatistics; map groundwater quality for drinking purposes employing multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM), such as the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and fuzzy logic, in the study area; and develop an Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) for managing a water crisis in the region. The map produced by the AHP is more accurate than the map produced using fuzzy logic because in the AHP, priorities were assigned to each parameter based on the weights given by water quality experts. The final map indicates that the groundwater quality increases from the north to the south and from the west to the east within the study area. During critical conditions, the groundwater quality maps and the presented SDSS core can be utilized by East Azerbaijan Regional Water Company to develop an SDSS to drill new wells or to select existing wells to supply drinking water to Tabriz City.

The dark side of galaxy colour: evidence from new SDSS measurements of galaxy clustering and lensing

Science.gov (United States)

Hearin, Andrew P.; Watson, Douglas F.; Becker, Matthew R.; Reyes, Reinabelle; Berlind, Andreas A.; Zentner, Andrew R.

2014-10-01

The age-matching model has recently been shown to predict correctly the luminosity L and g - r colour of galaxies residing within dark matter haloes. The central tenet of the model is intuitive: older haloes tend to host galaxies with older stellar populations. In this paper, we demonstrate that age matching also correctly predicts the g - r colour trends exhibited in a wide variety of statistics of the galaxy distribution for stellar mass M* threshold samples. In particular, we present new Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) measurements of galaxy clustering and the galaxy-galaxy lensing signal ΔΣ as a function of M* and g - r colour, and show that age matching exhibits remarkable agreement with these and other statistics of low-redshift galaxies. In so doing, we also demonstrate good agreement between the galaxy-galaxy lensing observed by SDSS and the ΔΣ signal predicted by abundance matching, a new success of this model. We describe how age matching is a specific example of a larger class of conditional abundance matching models (CAM), a theoretical framework we introduce here for the first time. CAM provides a general formalism to study correlations at fixed mass between any galaxy property and any halo property. The striking success of our simple implementation of CAM suggests that this technique has the potential to describe the same set of data as alternative models, but with a dramatic reduction in the required number of parameters. CAM achieves this reduction by exploiting the capability of contemporary N-body simulations to determine dark matter halo properties other than mass alone, which distinguishes our model from conventional approaches to the galaxy-halo connection.

The catalog of edge-on disk galaxies from SDSS. I. The catalog and the structural parameters of stellar disks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bizyaev, D. V. [Apache Point Observatory and New Mexico State University, Sunspot, NM, 88349 (United States); Kautsch, S. J. [Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314 (United States); Mosenkov, A. V. [Central Astronomical Observatory of RAS (Russian Federation); Reshetnikov, V. P.; Sotnikova, N. Ya.; Yablokova, N. V. [St. Petersburg State University (Russian Federation); Hillyer, R. W. [Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA 23606 (United States)

2014-05-20

We present a catalog of true edge-on disk galaxies automatically selected from the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). A visual inspection of the g, r, and i images of about 15,000 galaxies allowed us to split the initial sample of edge-on galaxy candidates into 4768 (31.8% of the initial sample) genuine edge-on galaxies, 8350 (55.7%) non-edge-on galaxies, and 1865 (12.5%) edge-on galaxies not suitable for simple automatic analysis because these objects either show signs of interaction and warps, or nearby bright stars project on it. We added more candidate galaxies from RFGC, EFIGI, RC3, and Galaxy Zoo catalogs found in the SDSS footprints. Our final sample consists of 5747 genuine edge-on galaxies. We estimate the structural parameters of the stellar disks (the stellar disk thickness, radial scale length, and central surface brightness) in the galaxies by analyzing photometric profiles in each of the g, r, and i images. We also perform simplified three-dimensional modeling of the light distribution in the stellar disks of edge-on galaxies from our sample. Our large sample is intended to be used for studying scaling relations in the stellar disks and bulges and for estimating parameters of the thick disks in different types of galaxies via the image stacking. In this paper, we present the sample selection procedure and general description of the sample.

Primordial non-Gaussianity from LAMOST surveys

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gong Yan; Wang Xin; Chen Xuelei; Zheng Zheng

2010-01-01

The primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) in the matter density perturbation is a very powerful probe of the physics of the very early Universe. The local PNG can induce a distinct scale-dependent bias on the large scale structure distribution of galaxies and quasars, which could be used for constraining it. We study the detection limits of PNG from the surveys of the LAMOST telescope. The cases of the main galaxy survey, the luminous red galaxy (LRG) survey, and the quasar survey of different magnitude limits are considered. We find that the Main1 sample (i.e. the main galaxy survey which is one magnitude deeper than the SDSS main galaxy survey, or r NL are |f NL | NL | NL | is between 50 and 103, depending on the magnitude limit of the survey. With Planck-like priors on cosmological parameters, the quasar survey with g NL | < 43 (2σ). We also discuss the possibility of further tightening the constraint by using the relative bias method proposed by Seljak.

Interstellar extinction from photometric surveys: application to four high-latitude areas

Science.gov (United States)

Malkov, Oleg; Karpov, Sergey; Kilpio, Elena; Sichevsky, Sergey; Chulkov, Dmitry; Dluzhnevskaya, Olga; Kovaleva, Dana; Kniazev, Alexei; Mickaelian, Areg; Mironov, Alexey; Murthy, Jayant; Sytov, Alexey; Zhao, Gang; Zhukov, Aleksandr

2018-04-01

Information on interstellar extinction and dust properties may be obtained from modern large photometric surveys data. Virtual Observatory facilities allow users to make a fast and correct cross-identification of objects from various surveys. It yields a multicolor photometry data on detected objects and makes it possible to estimate stellar parameters and calculate interstellar extinction. A 3D extinction map then can be constructed. The method was applied to 2MASS, SDSS, GALEX and UKIDSS surveys. Results for several high-latitude areas are obtained, compared with independent sources and discussed here.

Interstellar extinction from photometric surveys: application to four high-latitude areas

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Malkov Oleg

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Information on interstellar extinction and dust properties may be obtained from modern large photometric surveys data. Virtual Observatory facilities allow users to make a fast and correct cross-identification of objects from various surveys. It yields a multicolor photometry data on detected objects and makes it possible to estimate stellar parameters and calculate interstellar extinction. A 3D extinction map then can be constructed. The method was applied to 2MASS, SDSS, GALEX and UKIDSS surveys. Results for several high-latitude areas are obtained, compared with independent sources and discussed here.

Upgrading the Arecibo Potassium Lidar Receiver for Meridional Wind Measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Piccone, A. N.; Lautenbach, J.

2017-12-01

Lidar can be used to measure a plethora of variables: temperature, density of metals, and wind. This REU project is focused on the set up of a semi steerable telescope that will allow the measurement of meridional wind in the mesosphere (80-105 km) with Arecibo Observatory's potassium resonance lidar. This includes the basic design concept of a steering system that is able to turn the telescope to a maximum of 40°, alignment of the mirror with the telescope frame to find the correct focusing, and the triggering and programming of a CCD camera. The CCD camera's purpose is twofold: looking though the telescope and matching the stars in the field of view with a star map to accurately calibrate the steering system and determining the laser beam properties and position. Using LabVIEW, the frames from the CCD camera can be analyzed to identify the most intense pixel in the image (and therefore the brightest point in the laser beam or stars) by plotting average pixel values per row and column and locating the peaks of these plots. The location of this pixel can then be plotted, determining the jitter in the laser and position within the field of view of the telescope.

xGASS: total cold gas scaling relations and molecular-to-atomic gas ratios of galaxies in the local Universe

Science.gov (United States)

Catinella, Barbara; Saintonge, Amélie; Janowiecki, Steven; Cortese, Luca; Davé, Romeel; Lemonias, Jenna J.; Cooper, Andrew P.; Schiminovich, David; Hummels, Cameron B.; Fabello, Silvia; Geréb, Katinka; Kilborn, Virginia; Wang, Jing

2018-05-01

We present the extended GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey (xGASS), a gas fraction-limited census of the atomic hydrogen (H I) gas content of 1179 galaxies selected only by stellar mass (M⋆ = 109-1011.5 M⊙) and redshift (0.01 new Arecibo observations of 208 galaxies, for which we release catalogues and H I spectra. In addition to extending the GASS H I scaling relations by one decade in stellar mass, we quantify total (atomic+molecular) cold gas fractions and molecular-to-atomic gas mass ratios, Rmol, for the subset of 477 galaxies observed with the IRAM 30 m telescope. We find that atomic gas fractions keep increasing with decreasing stellar mass, with no sign of a plateau down to log M⋆/M⊙ = 9. Total gas reservoirs remain H I-dominated across our full stellar mass range, hence total gas fraction scaling relations closely resemble atomic ones, but with a scatter that strongly correlates with Rmol, especially at fixed specific star formation rate. On average, Rmol weakly increases with stellar mass and stellar surface density μ⋆, but individual values vary by almost two orders of magnitude at fixed M⋆ or μ⋆. We show that, for galaxies on the star-forming sequence, variations of Rmol are mostly driven by changes of the H I reservoirs, with a clear dependence on μ⋆. Establishing if galaxy mass or structure plays the most important role in regulating the cold gas content of galaxies requires an accurate separation of bulge and disc components for the study of gas scaling relations.

CLUSTERING OF SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY III PHOTOMETRIC LUMINOUS GALAXIES: THE MEASUREMENT, SYSTEMATICS, AND COSMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ho, Shirley; White, Martin; Schlegel, David J.; Seljak, Uros; Reid, Beth; Cuesta, Antonio; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Seo, Hee-Jong; De Putter, Roland; Ross, Ashley J.; Percival, Will J.; Saito, Shun; Schlafly, Eddie; Hernández-Monteagudo, Carlos; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Blanton, Michael; Skibba, Ramin; Schneider, Don; Mena, Olga; Viel, Matteo

2012-01-01

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) surveyed 14,555 deg 2 , and delivered over a trillion pixels of imaging data. We present a study of galaxy clustering using 900,000 luminous galaxies with photometric redshifts, spanning between z = 0.45 and z = 0.65, constructed from the SDSS using methods described in Ross et al. This data set spans 11,000 deg 2 and probes a volume of 3 h –3 Gpc 3 , making it the largest volume ever used for galaxy clustering measurements. We describe in detail the construction of the survey window function and various systematics affecting our measurement. With such a large volume, high-precision cosmological constraints can be obtained given careful control and understanding of the observational systematics. We present a novel treatment of the observational systematics and its applications to the clustering signals from the data set. In this paper, we measure the angular clustering using an optimal quadratic estimator at four redshift slices with an accuracy of ∼15%, with a bin size of δ l = 10 on scales of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs; at l ∼ 40-400). We also apply corrections to the power spectra due to systematics and derive cosmological constraints using the full shape of the power spectra. For a flat ΛCDM model, when combined with cosmic microwave background Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7 (WMAP7) and H 0 constraints from using 600 Cepheids observed by Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3; HST), we find Ω Λ = 0.73 ± 0.019 and H 0 to be 70.5 ± 1.6 s –1 Mpc –1 km. For an open ΛCDM model, when combined with WMAP7 + HST, we find Ω K = 0.0035 ± 0.0054, improved over WMAP7+HST alone by 40%. For a wCDM model, when combined with WMAP7+HST+SN, we find w = –1.071 ± 0.078, and H 0 to be 71.3 ± 1.7 s –1 Mpc –1 km, which is competitive with the latest large-scale structure constraints from large spectroscopic surveys such as the SDSS Data Release 7 (DR7) and WiggleZ. We also find that systematic-corrected power

SDSS J14584479+3720215: A BENCHMARK JHK{sub S} BLAZAR LIGHT CURVE FROM THE 2MASS CALIBRATION SCANS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Davenport, James R. A.; Ruan, John J.; Becker, Andrew C. [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Macleod, Chelsea L. [Physics Department, The United States Naval Academy, 572c Holloway Road, Annapolis, MD 21402 (United States); Cutri, Roc M., E-mail: jrad@astro.washington.edu [Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)

2015-04-10

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are well-known to exhibit flux variability across a wide range of wavelength regimes, but the precise origin of the variability at different wavelengths remains unclear. To investigate the relatively unexplored near-IR (NIR) variability of the most luminous AGNs, we conduct a search for variability using well sampled JHK{sub s}-band light curves from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) calibration fields. Our sample includes 27 known quasars with an average of 924 epochs of observation over three years, as well as one spectroscopically confirmed blazar (SDSS J14584479+3720215) with 1972 epochs of data. This is the best-sampled NIR photometric blazar light curve to date, and it exhibits correlated, stochastic variability that we characterize with continuous auto-regressive moving average (CARMA) models. None of the other 26 known quasars had detectable variability in the 2MASS bands above the photometric uncertainty. A blind search of the 2MASS calibration field light curves for active galactic nucleus (AGN) candidates based on fitting CARMA(1,0) models (damped-random walk) uncovered only seven candidates. All seven were young stellar objects within the ρ Ophiuchus star forming region, five with previous X-ray detections. A significant γ-ray detection (5σ) for the known blazar using 4.5 yr of Fermi photon data is also found. We suggest that strong NIR variability of blazars, such as seen for SDSS J14584479+3720215, can be used as an efficient method of identifying previously unidentified γ-ray blazars, with low contamination from other AGNs.

The Pristine survey - I. Mining the Galaxy for the most metal-poor stars

Science.gov (United States)

Starkenburg, Else; Martin, Nicolas; Youakim, Kris; Aguado, David S.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Arentsen, Anke; Bernard, Edouard J.; Bonifacio, Piercarlo; Caffau, Elisabetta; Carlberg, Raymond G.; Côté, Patrick; Fouesneau, Morgan; François, Patrick; Franke, Oliver; González Hernández, Jonay I.; Gwyn, Stephen D. J.; Hill, Vanessa; Ibata, Rodrigo A.; Jablonka, Pascale; Longeard, Nicolas; McConnachie, Alan W.; Navarro, Julio F.; Sánchez-Janssen, Rubén; Tolstoy, Eline; Venn, Kim A.

2017-11-01

We present the Pristine survey, a new narrow-band photometric survey focused on the metallicity-sensitive Ca H&K lines and conducted in the Northern hemisphere with the wide-field imager MegaCam on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. This paper reviews our overall survey strategy and discusses the data processing and metallicity calibration. Additionally we review the application of these data to the main aims of the survey, which are to gather a large sample of the most metal-poor stars in the Galaxy, to further characterize the faintest Milky Way satellites, and to map the (metal-poor) substructure in the Galactic halo. The current Pristine footprint comprises over 1000 deg2 in the Galactic halo ranging from b ˜ 30° to ˜78° and covers many known stellar substructures. We demonstrate that, for Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) stellar objects, we can calibrate the photometry at the 0.02-mag level. The comparison with existing spectroscopic metallicities from SDSS/Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) and Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope shows that, when combined with SDSS broad-band g and I photometry, we can use the CaHK photometry to infer photometric metallicities with an accuracy of ˜0.2 dex from [Fe/H] = -0.5 down to the extremely metal-poor regime ([Fe/H] < -3.0). After the removal of various contaminants, we can efficiently select metal-poor stars and build a very complete sample with high purity. The success rate of uncovering [Fe/H]SEGUE < -3.0 stars among [Fe/H]Pristine < -3.0 selected stars is 24 per cent, and 85 per cent of the remaining candidates are still very metal poor ([Fe/H]<-2.0). We further demonstrate that Pristine is well suited to identify the very rare and pristine Galactic stars with [Fe/H] < -4.0, which can teach us valuable lessons about the early Universe.

Searching for modified gravity with baryon oscillations: From SDSS to wide field multiobject spectroscopy (WFMOS)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yamamoto, Kazuhiro; Bassett, Bruce A.; Nichol, Robert C.; Suto, Yasushi; Yahata, Kazuhiro

2006-01-01

We discuss how the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) signatures in the galaxy power spectrum can distinguish between modified gravity and the cosmological constant as the source of cosmic acceleration. To this end we consider a model characterized by a parameter n, which corresponds to the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (DGP) model if n=2 and reduces to the standard spatially flat cosmological constant concordance model for n equal to infinity. We find that the different expansion histories of the modified gravity models systematically shifts the peak positions of BAO. A preliminary analysis using the current SDSS luminous red galaxy (LRG) sample indicates that the original DGP model is disfavored unless the matter density parameter exceeds 0.3. The constraints will be strongly tightened with future spectroscopic samples of galaxies at high redshifts. We demonstrate that WFMOS, in collaboration with other surveys such as Planck, will powerfully constrain modified gravity alternatives to dark energy as the explanation of cosmic acceleration

Planck/SDSS Cluster Mass and Gas Scaling Relations for a Volume-Complete redMaPPer Sample

Science.gov (United States)

Jimeno, Pablo; Diego, Jose M.; Broadhurst, Tom; De Martino, I.; Lazkoz, Ruth

2018-04-01

Using Planck satellite data, we construct Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) gas pressure profiles for a large, volume-complete sample of optically selected clusters. We have defined a sample of over 8,000 redMaPPer clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), within the volume-complete redshift region 0.100 trend towards larger break radius with increasing cluster mass. Our SZ-based masses fall ˜16% below the mass-richness relations from weak lensing, in a similar fashion as the "hydrostatic bias" related with X-ray derived masses. Finally, we derive a tight Y500-M500 relation over a wide range of cluster mass, with a power law slope equal to 1.70 ± 0.07, that agrees well with the independent slope obtained by the Planck team with an SZ-selected cluster sample, but extends to lower masses with higher precision.

Driftscan surveys in the 21 cm line with the Arecibo and Nancay telescopes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Briggs, FH; Sorar, E; KraanKorteweg, RC; vanDriel, W

Driftscan methods are highly efficient, stable techniques for conducting extragalactic surveys in the 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen. Holding the telescope still while the beam scans the sky at the sidereal rate produces exceptionally stable spectral baselines, increased stability for RFI signals,

VARIATIONS OF ABSORPTION TROUGHS IN THE QUASAR SDSS J125216.58+052737.7

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chen, Zhi-Fu [School of Astronomy and Space Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093 (China); Qin, Yi-Ping, E-mail: zhichenfu@126.com [Department of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering, Baise University, Baise 533000 (China)

2015-01-20

In this work, we analyze the spectra of quasar J125216.58+052737.7 (z {sub em} = 1.9035) which was observed by SDSS-I/II on 2003 January 30 and by BOSS on 2011 April 2. Both the continuum and the absorption spectra of this quasar show obvious variations between the two epochs. In the SDSS-I/II spectrum, we detect 8 C IV λλ1548,1551 absorption systems, which are detected at z {sub abs} = 1.9098, 1.8948, 1.8841, 1.8770, 1.8732, 1.8635, 1.8154, and 1.7359, respectively, and one Mg II λλ2796,2803 absorption system at z {sub abs} = 0.9912. Among these absorption systems, two C IV λλ1548,1551 absorption systems at z {sub abs} = 1.9098 and 1.7359 and the Mg II λλ2796,2803 absorption system are imprinted on the BOSS spectrum as well, and have similar absorption strengths when compared to those measured from the SDSS-I/II spectrum. Three C IV λλ1548,1551 absorption systems at z {sub abs} = 1.8948, 1.8841, and 1.8770 are also detected in the BOSS spectrum, while their absorption strengths are much weaker than those measured from the SDSS-I/II spectrum; three systems at z {sub abs} = 1.8732, 1.8635, and 1.8154 disappeared from the BOSS spectrum. Based on the variability analysis, the absorption systems that disappeared and weakened are likely to be intrinsic to the quasar. If these intrinsic absorption gases are blown away from the central region of the quasar, with respect to the quasar system, the absorption systems that disappeared would have separation velocities of 3147 kms{sup –1}, 4161 km s{sup –1}, and 9241 km s{sup –1}, while the absorption systems that weakened would have separation velocities of 900 km s{sup –1}, 2011 km s{sup –1}, and 2751 km s{sup –1}. Well-coordinated variations of the six C IV λλ1548,1551 absorption systems that disappeared and weakened, occurring on a timescale of 1026.7 days at the quasar rest frame, can be interpreted as a result of global changes in the ionization state of the absorbing gas.

SDSS-IV MaNGA: evidence of the importance of AGN feedback in low-mass galaxies

Science.gov (United States)

Penny, Samantha J.; Masters, Karen L.; Smethurst, Rebecca; Nichol, Robert C.; Krawczyk, Coleman M.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Greene, Olivia; Liu, Charles; Marinelli, Mariarosa; Rembold, Sandro B.; Riffel, Rogemar A.; Ilha, Gabriele da Silva; Wylezalek, Dominika; Andrews, Brett H.; Bundy, Kevin; Drory, Niv; Oravetz, Daniel; Pan, Kaike

2018-05-01

We present new evidence for AGN feedback in a subset of 69 quenched low-mass galaxies (M⋆ ≲ 5 × 109 M⊙, Mr > -19) selected from the first 2 yr of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-IV Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (SDSS-IV MaNGA) survey. The majority (85 per cent) of these quenched galaxies appear to reside in a group environment. We find six galaxies in our sample that appear to have an active AGN that is preventing on-going star formation; this is the first time such a feedback mechanism has been observed in this mass range. Interestingly, five of these six galaxies have an ionized gas component that is kinematically offset from their stellar component, suggesting the gas is either recently accreted or outflowing. We hypothesize these six galaxies are low-mass equivalents to the `red geysers' observed in more massive galaxies. Of the other 63 galaxies in the sample, we find 8 do appear for have some low level, residual star formation, or emission from hot, evolved stars. The remaining galaxies in our sample have no detectable ionized gas emission throughout their structures, consistent with them being quenched. This work shows the potential for understanding the detailed physical properties of dwarf galaxies through spatially resolved spectroscopy.

A high-resolution atlas of composite Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxy spectra

Science.gov (United States)

Dobos, László; Csabai, István.; Yip, Ching-Wa; Budavári, Tamás.; Wild, Vivienne; Szalay, Alexander S.

2012-02-01

In this work we present an atlas of composite spectra of galaxies based on the data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS DR7). Galaxies are classified by colour, nuclear activity and star formation activity to calculate average spectra of high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) and resolution (? at Δλ= 1 Å), using an algorithm that is robust against outliers. Besides composite spectra, we also compute the first five principal components of the distributions in each galaxy class to characterize the nature of variations of individual spectra around the averages. The continua of the composite spectra are fitted with BC03 stellar population synthesis models to extend the wavelength coverage beyond the coverage of the SDSS spectrographs. Common derived parameters of the composites are also calculated: integrated colours in the most popular filter systems, line-strength measurements and continuum absorption indices (including Lick indices). These derived parameters are compared with the distributions of parameters of individual galaxies, and it is shown on many examples that the composites of the atlas cover much of the parameter space spanned by SDSS galaxies. By co-adding thousands of spectra, a total integration time of several months can be reached, which results in extremely low noise composites. The variations in redshift not only allow for extending the spectral coverage bluewards to the original wavelength limit of the SDSS spectrographs, but also make higher spectral resolution achievable. The composite spectrum atlas is available online at .

The Effects of Halo Assembly Bias on Self-Calibration in Galaxy Cluster Surveys

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wu, Hao-Yi; Rozo, Eduardo; Wechsler, Risa H.

2008-08-07

Self-calibration techniques for analyzing galaxy cluster counts utilize the abundance and the clustering amplitude of dark matter halos. These properties simultaneously constrain cosmological parameters and the cluster observable-mass relation. It was recently discovered that the clustering amplitude of halos depends not only on the halo mass, but also on various secondary variables, such as the halo formation time and the concentration; these dependences are collectively termed 'assembly bias'. Applying modified Fisher matrix formalism, we explore whether these secondary variables have a significant impact on the study of dark energy properties using the self-calibration technique in current (SDSS) and the near future (DES, SPT, and LSST) cluster surveys. The impact of the secondary dependence is determined by (1) the scatter in the observable-mass relation and (2) the correlation between observable and secondary variables. We find that for optical surveys, the secondary dependence does not significantly influence an SDSS-like survey; however, it may affect a DES-like survey (given the high scatter currently expected from optical clusters) and an LSST-like survey (even for low scatter values and low correlations). For an SZ survey such as SPT, the impact of secondary dependence is insignificant if the scatter is 20% or lower but can be enhanced by the potential high scatter values introduced by a highly-correlated background. Accurate modeling of the assembly bias is necessary for cluster self-calibration in the era of precision cosmology.

Quasar feedback in the early Universe : The case of SDSS J1148+5251

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Valiante, Rosa; Schneider, Raffaella; Maiolino, Roberto; Salvadori, Stefania; Bianchi, Simone

2012-01-01

Galaxy-scale gas outflows triggered by active galactic nuclei have been proposed as a key physical process to regulate the co-evolution of nuclear black holes and their host galaxies. The recent detection of a massive gas outflow in one of the most distant quasars, SDSS J1148+5251 at z = 6.4,

Quasar feedback in the early Universe: the case of SDSS J1148+5251

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Valiante, Rosa; Schneider, Raffaella; Maiolino, Roberto; Salvadori, Stefania; Bianchi, Simone

2012-01-01

Galaxy-scale gas outflows triggered by active galactic nuclei have been proposed as a key physical process to regulate the co-evolution of nuclear black holes and their host galaxies. The recent detection of a massive gas outflow in one of the most distant quasars, SDSS J1148+5251 at z= 6.4,

A Measurement of the Rate of Type Ia Supernovae in Galaxy Clusters from the SDSS-II Supernova Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dilday, Benjamin; /Rutgers U., Piscataway /Chicago U. /KICP, Chicago; Bassett, Bruce; /Cape Town U., Dept. Math. /South African Astron. Observ.; Becker, Andrew; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Bender, Ralf; /Munich, Tech. U. /Munich U. Observ.; Castander, Francisco; /Barcelona, IEEC; Cinabro, David; /Wayne State U.; Frieman, Joshua A.; /Chicago U. /Fermilab; Galbany, Lluis; /Barcelona, IFAE; Garnavich, Peter; /Notre Dame U.; Goobar, Ariel; /Stockholm U., OKC /Stockholm U.; Hopp, Ulrich; /Munich, Tech. U. /Munich U. Observ. /Tokyo U.

2010-03-01

We present measurements of the Type Ia supernova (SN) rate in galaxy clusters based on data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II) Supernova Survey. The cluster SN Ia rate is determined from 9 SN events in a set of 71 C4 clusters at z {le} 0.17 and 27 SN events in 492 maxBCG clusters at 0.1 {le} z {le} 0.3. We find values for the cluster SN Ia rate of (0.37{sub -0.12-0.01}{sup +0.17+0.01}) SNur h{sup 2} and (0.55{sub -0.11-0.01}{sup +0.13+0.02}) SNur h{sup 2} (SNux = 10{sup -12}L{sub x{circle_dot}}{sup -1} yr{sup -1}) in C4 and maxBCG clusters, respectively, where the quoted errors are statistical and systematic, respectively. The SN rate for early-type galaxies is found to be (0.31{sub -0.12-0.01}{sup +0.18+0.01}) SNur h{sup 2} and (0.49{sub -0.11-0.01}{sup +0.15+0.02}) SNur h{sup 2} in C4 and maxBCG clusters, respectively. The SN rate for the brightest cluster galaxies (BCG) is found to be (2.04{sub -1.11-0.04}{sup +1.99+0.07}) SNur h{sup 2} and (0.36{sub -0.30-0.01}{sup +0.84+0.01}) SNur h{sup 2} in C4 and maxBCG clusters, respectively. The ratio of the SN Ia rate in cluster early-type galaxies to that of the SN Ia rate in field early-type galaxies is 1.94{sub -0.91-0.015}{sup +1.31+0.043} and 3.02{sub -1.03-0.048}{sup +1.31+0.062}, for C4 and maxBCG clusters, respectively. The SN rate in galaxy clusters as a function of redshift, which probes the late time SN Ia delay distribution, shows only weak dependence on redshift. Combining our current measurements with previous measurements, we fit the cluster SN Ia rate data to a linear function of redshift, and find r{sub L} = [(0.49{sub -0.14}{sup +0.15}) + (0.91{sub -0.81}{sup +0.85}) x z] SNuB h{sup 2}. A comparison of the radial distribution of SNe in cluster to field early-type galaxies shows possible evidence for an enhancement of the SN rate in the cores of cluster early-type galaxies. With an observation of at most 3 hostless, intra-cluster SNe Ia, we estimate the fraction of cluster SNe that are

THE MILKY WAY TOMOGRAPHY WITH SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY. IV. DISSECTING DUST

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berry, Michael; Ivezić, Željko; Brooks, Keira J.; Gibson, Robert R.; Jones, Lynne; Yoachim, Peter; Krughoff, Simon; Connolly, Andrew J.; Loebman, Sarah; Sesar, Branimir; Jurić, Mario; Schlafly, Edward F.; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Bellovary, Jillian; Vrbanec, Dijana; Beers, Timothy C.; Schneider, Donald P.; Kimball, Amy; Bond, Nicholas A.; Schlegel, David

2012-01-01

We use Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry of 73 million stars to simultaneously constrain best-fit main-sequence stellar spectral energy distribution (SED) and amount of dust extinction along the line of sight toward each star. Using a subsample of 23 million stars with Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) photometry, whose addition enables more robust results, we show that SDSS photometry alone is sufficient to break degeneracies between intrinsic stellar color and dust amount when the shape of extinction curve is fixed. When using both SDSS and 2MASS photometry, the ratio of the total to selective absorption, R V , can be determined with an uncertainty of about 0.1 for most stars in high-extinction regions. These fits enable detailed studies of the dust properties and its spatial distribution, and of the stellar spatial distribution at low Galactic latitudes (|b| V = 3.0 ± 0.1(random)±0.1 (systematic) over most of the high-latitude sky. At low Galactic latitudes (|b| V and find that R V = 3.1 cannot be ruled out in any of the 10 SEGUE stripes at a precision level of ∼0.1-0.2. Our best estimate for the intrinsic scatter of R V in the regions probed by SEGUE stripes is ∼0.2. We introduce a method for efficient selection of candidate red giant stars in the disk, dubbed 'dusty parallax relation', which utilizes a correlation between distance and the extinction along the line of sight. We make these best-fit parameters, as well as all the input SDSS and 2MASS data, publicly available in a user-friendly format. These data can be used for studies of stellar number density distribution, the distribution of dust properties, for selecting sources whose SED differs from SEDs for high-latitude main-sequence stars, and for estimating distances to dust clouds and, in turn, to molecular gas clouds.

Superestructuras en el universo: caracterización e identificación en el catálgo SDSS-DR7

Science.gov (United States)

Luparello, H. E.; Lares, M.; García Lambas, D.; Padilla, N.

Superclusters are the largest gravitationally bound systems in the Universe. These structures are not presently virialized, so the application of theoreti- cal arguments in their identification is not straightforward. Luparello et al., (2011) present an identification method and establish the values of the pa- rameters in order to ensure that superstructures in the present Universe will evolve into virialized structures. In this work we define and characterize the largest structures in the Universe, in the framework of the cosmological model CDM. We briefly describe the Future Virialized Structures (FVS) identification method applied to the seventh data release of the Sloan Dig- ital Sky Survey (SDSS-DR7, Abazajian et al., 2009) in the redshift range 0.04 < z < 0.12 and present the main properties of the FVS catalogue. FULL TEXT IN SPANISH

Dynamical Black Hole Masses of BL Lac Objects from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Plotkin, Richard M.; Markoff, Sera; Trager, Scott C.; Anderson, Scott F.

2012-01-01

We measure black hole masses for 71 BL Lac objects from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with redshifts out to z ∼ 0.4. We perform spectral decompositions of their nuclei from their host galaxies and measure their stellar velocity dispersions. Black hole masses are then derived from the black

The BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS)

Science.gov (United States)

Koss, Michael

2017-08-01

We present the Swift BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS) and discus the first four papers. The catalog represents an unprecedented census of hard-X-ray selected AGN in the local universe, with ~90% of sources at zpast studies. Consistent with previous surveys, we find an increase in the fraction of un-obscured (type 1) AGN, as measured from broad Hbeta and Halpha, with increasing 14-195 keV and 2-10 keV luminosity. We find the FWHM of the emission lines to show broad agreement with the X-ray obscuration measurements. Compared to narrow line AGN in the SDSS, the X-ray selected AGN in our sample with emission lines have a larger fraction of dustier galaxies suggesting these types of galaxies are missed in optical AGN surveys using emission line diagnostics.

A GMBCG GALAXY CLUSTER CATALOG OF 55,424 RICH CLUSTERS FROM SDSS DR7

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hao Jiangang; Annis, James; Johnston, David E.; McKay, Timothy A.; Evrard, August; Siegel, Seth R.; Gerdes, David; Koester, Benjamin P.; Rykoff, Eli S.; Rozo, Eduardo; Wechsler, Risa H.; Busha, Michael; Becker, Matthew; Sheldon, Erin

2010-01-01

We present a large catalog of optically selected galaxy clusters from the application of a new Gaussian Mixture Brightest Cluster Galaxy (GMBCG) algorithm to SDSS Data Release 7 data. The algorithm detects clusters by identifying the red-sequence plus brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) feature, which is unique for galaxy clusters and does not exist among field galaxies. Red-sequence clustering in color space is detected using an Error Corrected Gaussian Mixture Model. We run GMBCG on 8240 deg 2 of photometric data from SDSS DR7 to assemble the largest ever optical galaxy cluster catalog, consisting of over 55,000 rich clusters across the redshift range from 0.1 < z < 0.55. We present Monte Carlo tests of completeness and purity and perform cross-matching with X-ray clusters and with the maxBCG sample at low redshift. These tests indicate high completeness and purity across the full redshift range for clusters with 15 or more members.

A GMBCG galaxy cluster catalog of 55,880 rich clusters from SDSS DR7

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hao, Jiangang; McKay, Timothy A.; Koester, Benjamin P.; Rykoff, Eli S.; Rozo, Eduardo; Annis, James; Wechsler, Risa H.; Evrard, August; Siegel, Seth R.; Becker, Matthew; Busha, Michael; /Fermilab /Michigan U. /Chicago U., Astron. Astrophys. Ctr. /UC, Santa Barbara /KICP, Chicago /KIPAC, Menlo Park /SLAC /Caltech /Brookhaven

2010-08-01

We present a large catalog of optically selected galaxy clusters from the application of a new Gaussian Mixture Brightest Cluster Galaxy (GMBCG) algorithm to SDSS Data Release 7 data. The algorithm detects clusters by identifying the red sequence plus Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG) feature, which is unique for galaxy clusters and does not exist among field galaxies. Red sequence clustering in color space is detected using an Error Corrected Gaussian Mixture Model. We run GMBCG on 8240 square degrees of photometric data from SDSS DR7 to assemble the largest ever optical galaxy cluster catalog, consisting of over 55,000 rich clusters across the redshift range from 0.1 < z < 0.55. We present Monte Carlo tests of completeness and purity and perform cross-matching with X-ray clusters and with the maxBCG sample at low redshift. These tests indicate high completeness and purity across the full redshift range for clusters with 15 or more members.

J0023+0307: A Mega Metal-poor Dwarf Star from SDSS/BOSS

Science.gov (United States)

Aguado, David S.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; González Hernández, Jonay I.; Rebolo, Rafael

2018-02-01

Only a handful of stars have been identified with an iron abundance [Fe/H] support from theoretical modeling, as the result of a top-heavy initial mass function. With zero or very low metal abundance limiting radiative cooling, the formation of low-mass stars could be inhibited. Currently, the star SDSS J1029+1729 sets the potential metallicity threshold for the formation of low-mass stars at {log}Z/{Z}ȯ ∼ -5. In our quest to push down the metallicity threshold we have identified SDSS J0023+0307, a primitive star with T eff = 6188 ± 84 K, and {log}g=4.9+/- 0.5, an upper limit [Fe/H] < ‑6.6, and a carbon abundance A(C) < 6.3. We find J0023+0307 to be one of the two most iron-poor stars known, and it exhibits less carbon that most of the stars at [Fe/H] < ‑5. Based on observations made with William Herschel Telescope (WHT) and the Gran Telescopio de Canarias (GTC), at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, in La Palma.

Chemo-orbital evidence from SDSS/SEGUE G dwarf stars for a mixed origin of the Galactic thick disk

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

van de Ven G.

2012-02-01

Full Text Available About 13,000 G dwarf within 7SDSS/SEGUE spectroscopic survey are used to study the origin of the Milky Way thick disk. Combining [α/Fe] and [Fe/H] measurements with six-dimensional position-velocity parameters, we find that the sample is composed of two distinct stellar populations. The metal-rich population encompasses the thin disk with α-deficient stars and smoothly extends into a thick disk with α-enhanced stars, consistent with an in-situ formation through radial migration. On the other hand, the metal-poor population with enhanced α-abundance, higher scale height, and disperse kinematical properties, is difficult to explain with radial migration but might have originated from gas-rich mergers. The thick disk of the Milky Way seems to have a mixed origin.

Scope's face-lift pulls deep space in view

CERN Multimedia

Belsie, L

2002-01-01

Starting in roughly two years, a massive survey of the night sky will begin at Arecibo Observatory in north central Puerto Rico. Previously, most of the research has come from individuals or small teams of scientists, using the telescope for their allotted time. For the new survey, multiple teams, involving hundreds of scientists with varied research interests, will share the torrent of data from Arecibo's receivers (1 page).

Afforest sDSS: a metamodel based spatial decision support system for afforestation of agricultural land

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gilliams, S.; Orshoven, van J.; Muys, B.; Kros, J.; Heil, G.W.; Deursen, van W.

2005-01-01

The concept and structure of the Spatial Decision Support System AFFOREST sDSS dealing with environmental performance (EP) of afforestation on agricultural land in northwestern Europe, is presented. EP is defined in terms of three environmental impact categories: (1) carbon sequestration (2)

STELLAR, GAS, AND DARK MATTER CONTENT OF BARRED GALAXIES

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cervantes Sodi, Bernardo, E-mail: b.cervantes@crya.unam.mx [Instituto de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Morelia, A.P. 3-72, C.P. 58089 Michoacán, México (Mexico)

2017-01-20

We select a sample of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS-DR7) where galaxies are classified, through visual inspection, as hosting strong bars, weak bars, or as unbarred galaxies, and make use of H i mass and kinematic information from the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA survey catalog, to study the stellar, atomic gas, and dark matter content of barred disk galaxies. We find, in agreement with previous studies, that the bar fraction increases with increasing stellar mass. A similar trend is found with total baryonic mass, although the dependence is not as strong as with stellar mass, due to the contribution of gas. The bar fraction shows a decrease with increasing gas mass fraction. This anticorrelation between the likelihood of a galaxy hosting a bar with the gas richness of the galaxy results from the inhibiting effect the gas has in the formation of bars. We also find that for massive galaxies with stellar masses larger than 10{sup 10} M {sub ⊙}, at fixed stellar mass, the bar fraction decreases with increasing global halo mass (i.e., halo mass measured up to a radius of the order of the H i disk extent).

CLUSTERING OF SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY III PHOTOMETRIC LUMINOUS GALAXIES: THE MEASUREMENT, SYSTEMATICS, AND COSMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ho, Shirley; White, Martin; Schlegel, David J.; Seljak, Uros; Reid, Beth [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Rd, MS 50R-5045, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Cuesta, Antonio; Padmanabhan, Nikhil [Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511 (United States); Seo, Hee-Jong [Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, LBL and Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); De Putter, Roland [ICC, University of Barcelona (IEEC-UB), Marti i Franques 1, E-08028 Barcelona (Spain); Ross, Ashley J.; Percival, Will J. [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, Dennis Sciama Building, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3FX (United Kingdom); Saito, Shun [Department of Astronomy, University of California Berkeley, CA (United States); Schlafly, Eddie [Department of Astronomy, Harvard University, 60 Garden St. MS 20, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Hernandez-Monteagudo, Carlos [Centro de Estudios de Fisica del Cosmos de Aragon (CEFCA), Plaza de San Juan 1, planta 2, E-44001 Teruel (Spain); Sanchez, Ariel G. [Max-Planck-Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse 1, D-85748 Garching (Germany); Blanton, Michael [Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 (United States); Skibba, Ramin [Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States); Schneider, Don [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Mena, Olga [Instituto de Fisica Corpuscular, Universidad de Valencia-CSIC (Spain); Viel, Matteo, E-mail: cwho@lbl.gov [INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via G. B. Tiepolo 11, I-34131 Trieste (Italy); and others

2012-12-10

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) surveyed 14,555 deg{sup 2}, and delivered over a trillion pixels of imaging data. We present a study of galaxy clustering using 900,000 luminous galaxies with photometric redshifts, spanning between z = 0.45 and z = 0.65, constructed from the SDSS using methods described in Ross et al. This data set spans 11,000 deg{sup 2} and probes a volume of 3 h {sup -3} Gpc{sup 3}, making it the largest volume ever used for galaxy clustering measurements. We describe in detail the construction of the survey window function and various systematics affecting our measurement. With such a large volume, high-precision cosmological constraints can be obtained given careful control and understanding of the observational systematics. We present a novel treatment of the observational systematics and its applications to the clustering signals from the data set. In this paper, we measure the angular clustering using an optimal quadratic estimator at four redshift slices with an accuracy of {approx}15%, with a bin size of {delta}{sub l} = 10 on scales of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs; at l {approx} 40-400). We also apply corrections to the power spectra due to systematics and derive cosmological constraints using the full shape of the power spectra. For a flat {Lambda}CDM model, when combined with cosmic microwave background Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7 (WMAP7) and H{sub 0} constraints from using 600 Cepheids observed by Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3; HST), we find {Omega}{sub {Lambda}} = 0.73 {+-} 0.019 and H{sub 0} to be 70.5 {+-} 1.6 s{sup -1} Mpc{sup -1} km. For an open {Lambda}CDM model, when combined with WMAP7 + HST, we find {Omega}{sub K} = 0.0035 {+-} 0.0054, improved over WMAP7+HST alone by 40%. For a wCDM model, when combined with WMAP7+HST+SN, we find w = -1.071 {+-} 0.078, and H{sub 0} to be 71.3 {+-} 1.7 s{sup -1} Mpc{sup -1} km, which is competitive with the latest large-scale structure constraints from large spectroscopic

THE HIGH A{sub V} Quasar Survey: Reddened Quasi-Stellar Objects selected from optical/near-infrared photometry. II

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Krogager, J.-K.; Fynbo, J. P. U.; Vestergaard, M. [Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø (Denmark); Geier, S. [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain); Venemans, B. P. [Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg (Germany); Ledoux, C. [European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Córdova 3107, Vitacura, Casilla 19001, Santiago 19 (Chile); Møller, P. [European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschildstrasse 2, D-85748 Garching bei München (Germany); Noterdaeme, P. [Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS-UPMC, UMR7095, 98bis bd Arago, F-75014 Paris (France); Kangas, T.; Pursimo, T.; Smirnova, O. [Nordic Optical Telescope, Apartado 474, E-38700 Santa Cruz de La Palma (Spain); Saturni, F. G. [Tuorla Observatory, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Turku, Väisäläntie 20, 21500 Piikkiö (Finland)

2015-03-15

Quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) whose spectral energy distributions (SEDs) are reddened by dust either in their host galaxies or in intervening absorber galaxies are to a large degree missed by optical color selection criteria like the ones used by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). To overcome this bias against red QSOs, we employ a combined optical and near-infrared (near-IR) color selection. In this paper, we present a spectroscopic follow-up campaign of a sample of red candidate QSOs which were selected from the SDSS and the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS). The spectroscopic data and SDSS/UKIDSS photometry are supplemented by mid-infrared photometry from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. In our sample of 159 candidates, 154 (97%) are confirmed to be QSOs. We use a statistical algorithm to identify sightlines with plausible intervening absorption systems and identify nine such cases assuming dust in the absorber similar to Large Magellanic Cloud sightlines. We find absorption systems toward 30 QSOs, 2 of which are consistent with the best-fit absorber redshift from the statistical modeling. Furthermore, we observe a broad range in SED properties of the QSOs as probed by the rest-frame 2 μm flux. We find QSOs with a strong excess as well as QSOs with a large deficit at rest-frame 2 μm relative to a QSO template. Potential solutions to these discrepancies are discussed. Overall, our study demonstrates the high efficiency of the optical/near-IR selection of red QSOs.

Texas Urban Triangle : pilot study to implement a spatial decision support system (SDSS) for sustainable mobility.

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-01

This project addressed sustainable transportation in the Texas Urban Triangle (TUT) by conducting a pilot : project at the county scale. The project tested and developed the multi-attribute Spatial Decision Support : System (SDSS) developed in 2009 u...

The sloan lens acs survey. II. Stellar populations and internal structure of early-type lens galaxies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Treu, Tommaso; Koopmans, Léon V.; Bolton, Adam S.; Burles, Scott; Moustakas, Leonidas A.

2006-01-01

We use HST images to derive effective radii and effective surface brightnesses of 15 early-type (E+S0) lens galaxies identified by the SLACS Survey. Our measurements are combined with stellar velocity dispersions from the SDSS database to investigate for the first time the distribution of lens

THE REDSHIFT EVOLUTION OF OXYGEN AND NITROGEN ABUNDANCES IN EMISSION-LINE SDSS GALAXIES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Thuan, Trinh X.; Pilyugin, Leonid S.; Zinchenko, Igor A.

2010-01-01

The oxygen and nitrogen abundance evolutions with redshift and galaxy stellar mass in emission-line galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) are investigated. This is the first such study for nitrogen abundances, and it provides an additional constraint for the study of the chemical evolution of galaxies. We have devised a criterion to recognize and exclude from consideration active galactic nuclei and star-forming galaxies with large errors in the line flux measurements. To select star-forming galaxies with accurate line fluxes measurements, we require that, for each galaxy, the nitrogen abundances derived with various calibrations based on different emission lines agree. Using this selection criterion, subsamples of star-forming SDSS galaxies have been extracted from catalogs of the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics/Johns Hopkins University group. We found that the galaxies of highest masses, those with masses ∼>10 11.2 M sun , have not been enriched in both oxygen and nitrogen over the last ∼3 Gyr: they have formed their stars in the so distant past that these have returned their nucleosynthesis products to the interstellar medium before z = 0.25. The galaxies in the mass range from ∼10 11.0 M sun to ∼10 11.2 M sun do not show an appreciable enrichment in oxygen, but do show some enrichment in nitrogen: they also formed their stars before z = 0.25 but later in comparison to the galaxies of highest masses; these stars have not returned nitrogen to the interstellar medium before z = 0.25 because they have not had enough time to evolve. This suggests that stars with lifetimes of 2-3 Gyr, in the 1.5-2 M sun mass range, contribute to the nitrogen production. Finally, galaxies with masses ∼ 11 M sun show enrichment in both oxygen and nitrogen during the last 3 Gyr: they have undergone appreciable star formation and have converted up to ∼20% of their mass into stars over this period. Both oxygen and nitrogen enrichments increase with decreasing

GALAXIES IN FILAMENTS HAVE MORE SATELLITES: THE INFLUENCE OF THE COSMIC WEB ON THE SATELLITE LUMINOSITY FUNCTION IN THE SDSS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guo, Quan; Libeskind, N. I.; Tempel, E.

2015-01-01

We investigate whether the satellite luminosity function (LF) of primary galaxies identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) depends on whether the host galaxy is in a filament or not. Isolated primary galaxies are identified in the SDSS spectroscopic sample, and potential satellites (that are up to four magnitudes fainter than their hosts) are searched for in the much deeper photometric sample. Filaments are constructed from the galaxy distribution by the Bisous process. Isolated primary galaxies are divided into two subsamples: those in filaments and those not in filaments. We examine the stacked mean satellite LF of both the filament and nonfilament samples and find that, on average, the satellite LF of galaxies in filaments is significantly higher than those of galaxies not in filaments. The filamentary environment can increase the abundance of the brightest satellites (M sat. < M prim. + 2.0) by a factor of ∼2 compared with nonfilament isolated galaxies. This result is independent of the primary galaxy magnitude, although the satellite LF of galaxies in the faintest magnitude bin is too noisy to determine if such a dependence exists. Because our filaments are extracted from a spectroscopic flux-limited sample, we consider the possibility that the difference in satellite LF is due to a redshift, color, or environmental bias, finding these to be insufficient to explain our result. The dependence of the satellite LF on the cosmic web suggests that the filamentary environment may have a strong effect on the efficiency of galaxy formation

GALAXIES IN FILAMENTS HAVE MORE SATELLITES: THE INFLUENCE OF THE COSMIC WEB ON THE SATELLITE LUMINOSITY FUNCTION IN THE SDSS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Guo, Quan; Libeskind, N. I. [Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, D-14482 Potsdam (Germany); Tempel, E., E-mail: qguo@aip.de [Tartu Observatory, Observatooriumi 1, 61602 Tõravere (Estonia)

2015-02-20

We investigate whether the satellite luminosity function (LF) of primary galaxies identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) depends on whether the host galaxy is in a filament or not. Isolated primary galaxies are identified in the SDSS spectroscopic sample, and potential satellites (that are up to four magnitudes fainter than their hosts) are searched for in the much deeper photometric sample. Filaments are constructed from the galaxy distribution by the Bisous process. Isolated primary galaxies are divided into two subsamples: those in filaments and those not in filaments. We examine the stacked mean satellite LF of both the filament and nonfilament samples and find that, on average, the satellite LF of galaxies in filaments is significantly higher than those of galaxies not in filaments. The filamentary environment can increase the abundance of the brightest satellites (M {sub sat.} < M {sub prim.} + 2.0) by a factor of ∼2 compared with nonfilament isolated galaxies. This result is independent of the primary galaxy magnitude, although the satellite LF of galaxies in the faintest magnitude bin is too noisy to determine if such a dependence exists. Because our filaments are extracted from a spectroscopic flux-limited sample, we consider the possibility that the difference in satellite LF is due to a redshift, color, or environmental bias, finding these to be insufficient to explain our result. The dependence of the satellite LF on the cosmic web suggests that the filamentary environment may have a strong effect on the efficiency of galaxy formation.

H I SHELLS AND SUPERSHELLS IN THE I-GALFA H I 21 cm LINE SURVEY. I. FAST-EXPANDING H I SHELLS ASSOCIATED WITH SUPERNOVA REMNANTS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Park, G.; Koo, B.-C. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742 (Korea, Republic of); Gibson, S. J.; Newton, J. H. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101 (United States); Kang, J.-H.; Lane, D. C.; Douglas, K. A. [Arecibo Observatory, HC 3 Box 53995, Arecibo, PR 00612 (United States); Peek, J. E. G. [Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 (United States); Korpela, E. J. [Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Heiles, C., E-mail: koo@astro.snu.ac.kr [Radio Astronomy Lab, UC Berkeley, 601 Campbell Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)

2013-11-01

We search for fast-expanding H I shells associated with Galactic supernova remnants (SNRs) in the longitude range l ≈ 32° to 77° using 21 cm line data from the Inner-Galaxy Arecibo L-band Feed Array (I-GALFA) H I survey. Among the 39 known Galactic SNRs in this region, we find such H I shells in 4 SNRs: W44, G54.4-0.3, W51C, and CTB 80. All four were previously identified in low-resolution surveys, and three of those (excluding G54.4-0.3) were previously studied with the Arecibo telescope. A remarkable new result, however, is the detection of H I emission at both very high positive and negative velocities in W44 from the receding and approaching parts of the H I expanding shell, respectively. This is the first detection of both sides of an expanding shell associated with an SNR in H I 21 cm emission. The high-resolution I-GALFA survey data also reveal a prominent expanding H I shell with high circular symmetry associated with G54.4-0.3. We explore the physical characteristics of four SNRs and discuss what differentiates them from other SNRs in the survey area. We conclude that these four SNRs are likely the remnants of core-collapse supernovae interacting with a relatively dense (∼> 1 cm{sup –3}) ambient medium, and we discuss the visibility of SNRs in the H I 21 cm line.

Constraints on the Mass–Richness Relation from the Abundance and Weak Lensing of SDSS Clusters

Science.gov (United States)

Murata, Ryoma; Nishimichi, Takahiro; Takada, Masahiro; Miyatake, Hironao; Shirasaki, Masato; More, Surhud; Takahashi, Ryuichi; Osato, Ken

2018-02-01

We constrain the scaling relation between optical richness (λ) and halo mass (M) for a sample of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) red-sequence Matched-filter Probabilistic Percolation (redMaPPer) galaxy clusters within the context of the Planck cosmological model. We use a forward modeling approach where we model the probability distribution of optical richness for a given mass, P({ln}λ | M). To model the abundance and the stacked lensing profiles, we use an emulator specifically built to interpolate the halo mass function and the stacked lensing profile for an arbitrary set of halo mass and redshift, which is calibrated based on a suite of high-resolution N-body simulations. We apply our method to 8312 SDSS redMaPPer clusters with 20 ≤ λ ≤ 100 and 0.10 ≤ z λ ≤ 0.33 and show that the lognormal distribution model for P(λ | M), with four free parameters, well reproduces the measured abundances and lensing profiles simultaneously. The constraints are characterized by the mean relation, (M)=A+B{ln}(M/{M}pivot}), with A={3.207}-0.046+0.044 and B={0.993}-0.055+0.041 (68% CL), where the pivot mass scale M pivot = 3 × 1014 h ‑1 M ⊙, and the scatter {σ }lnλ | M}={σ }0+q{ln}(M/{M}pivot}) with {σ }0={0.456}-0.039+0.047 and q=-{0.169}-0.026+0.035. We find that a large scatter in halo masses is required at the lowest-richness bins (20 ≤ λ ≲ 30) in order to reproduce the measurements. Without such a large scatter, the model prediction for the lensing profiles tends to overestimate the measured amplitudes. This might imply a possible contamination of intrinsically low-richness clusters due to the projection effects. Such a low-mass halo contribution is significantly reduced when applying our method to the sample of 30 ≤ λ ≤ 100.

A Search for Nontoroidal Topological Lensing in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog

Science.gov (United States)

Fujii, Hirokazu; Yoshii, Yuzuru

2013-08-01

Flat space models with multiply connected topology, which have compact dimensions, are tested against the distribution of high-redshift (z >= 4) quasars of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). When the compact dimensions are smaller in size than the observed universe, topological lensing occurs, in which multiple images of single objects (ghost images) are observed. We improve on the recently introduced method to identify ghost images by means of four-point statistics. Our method is valid for any of the 17 multiply connected flat models, including nontoroidal ones that are compacted by screw motions or glide reflection. Applying the method to the data revealed one possible case of topological lensing caused by sixth-turn screw motion, however, it is consistent with the simply connected model by this test alone. Moreover, simulations suggest that we cannot exclude the other space models despite the absence of their signatures. This uncertainty mainly originates from the patchy coverage of SDSS in the south Galactic cap, and this situation will be improved by future wide-field spectroscopic surveys.

A SEARCH FOR NONTOROIDAL TOPOLOGICAL LENSING IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY QUASAR CATALOG

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fujii, Hirokazu; Yoshii, Yuzuru

2013-01-01

Flat space models with multiply connected topology, which have compact dimensions, are tested against the distribution of high-redshift (z ≥ 4) quasars of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). When the compact dimensions are smaller in size than the observed universe, topological lensing occurs, in which multiple images of single objects (ghost images) are observed. We improve on the recently introduced method to identify ghost images by means of four-point statistics. Our method is valid for any of the 17 multiply connected flat models, including nontoroidal ones that are compacted by screw motions or glide reflection. Applying the method to the data revealed one possible case of topological lensing caused by sixth-turn screw motion, however, it is consistent with the simply connected model by this test alone. Moreover, simulations suggest that we cannot exclude the other space models despite the absence of their signatures. This uncertainty mainly originates from the patchy coverage of SDSS in the south Galactic cap, and this situation will be improved by future wide-field spectroscopic surveys

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82 Imaging Data: Depth-Optimized Co-adds Over 300 deg$^2$ in Five Filters

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jiang, Linhua; Fan, Xiaohui; Bian, Fuyan; McGreer, Ian D.; Strauss, Michael A.; Annis, James; Buck, Zoë; Green, Richard; Hodge, Jacqueline A.; Myers, Adam D.; Rafiee, Alireza; Richards, Gordon

2014-06-25

We present and release co-added images of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82. Stripe 82 covers an area of ~300 deg(2) on the celestial equator, and has been repeatedly scanned 70-90 times in the ugriz bands by the SDSS imaging survey. By making use of all available data in the SDSS archive, our co-added images are optimized for depth. Input single-epoch frames were properly processed and weighted based on seeing, sky transparency, and background noise before co-addition. The resultant products are co-added science images and their associated weight images that record relative weights at individual pixels. The depths of the co-adds, measured as the 5σ detection limits of the aperture (3.''2 diameter) magnitudes for point sources, are roughly 23.9, 25.1, 24.6, 24.1, and 22.8 AB magnitudes in the five bands, respectively. They are 1.9-2.2 mag deeper than the best SDSS single-epoch data. The co-added images have good image quality, with an average point-spread function FWHM of ~1'' in the r, i, and z bands. We also release object catalogs that were made with SExtractor. These co-added products have many potential uses for studies of galaxies, quasars, and Galactic structure. We further present and release near-IR J-band images that cover ~90 deg(2) of Stripe 82. These images were obtained using the NEWFIRM camera on the NOAO 4 m Mayall telescope, and have a depth of about 20.0-20.5 Vega magnitudes (also 5σ detection limits for point sources).

The Halo Boundary of Galaxy Clusters in the SDSS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Baxter, Eric; Jain, Bhuvnesh; Sheth, Ravi K. [Center for Particle Cosmology, Department of Physics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States); Chang, Chihway; Kravtsov, Andrey [Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 (United States); Adhikari, Susmita; Dalal, Neal [Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61801 (United States); More, Surhud [Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa-shi, Chiba, 277-8583 (Japan); Rozo, Eduardo [Department of Physics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States); Rykoff, Eli, E-mail: ebax@sas.upenn.edu [Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, P.O. Box 2450, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 (United States)

2017-05-20

Analytical models and simulations predict a rapid decline in the halo density profile associated with the transition from the “infalling” regime outside the halo to the “collapsed” regime within the halo. Using data from SDSS, we explore evidence for such a feature in the density profiles of galaxy clusters using several different approaches. We first estimate the steepening of the outer galaxy density profile around clusters, finding evidence for truncation of the halo profile. Next, we measure the galaxy density profile around clusters using two sets of galaxies selected on color. We find evidence of an abrupt change in galaxy colors that coincides with the location of the steepening of the density profile. Since galaxies that have completed orbits within the cluster are more likely to be quenched of star formation and thus appear redder, this abrupt change in galaxy color can be associated with the transition from single-stream to multi-stream regimes. We also use a standard model comparison approach to measure evidence for a “splashback”-like feature, but find that this approach is very sensitive to modeling assumptions. Finally, we perform measurements using an independent cluster catalog to test for potential systematic errors associated with cluster selection. We identify several avenues for future work: improved understanding of the small-scale galaxy profile, lensing measurements, identification of proxies for the halo accretion rate, and other tests. With upcoming data from the DES, KiDS, and HSC surveys, we can expect significant improvements in the study of halo boundaries.

The Halo Boundary of Galaxy Clusters in the SDSS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baxter, Eric; Jain, Bhuvnesh; Sheth, Ravi K.; Chang, Chihway; Kravtsov, Andrey; Adhikari, Susmita; Dalal, Neal; More, Surhud; Rozo, Eduardo; Rykoff, Eli

2017-01-01

Analytical models and simulations predict a rapid decline in the halo density profile associated with the transition from the “infalling” regime outside the halo to the “collapsed” regime within the halo. Using data from SDSS, we explore evidence for such a feature in the density profiles of galaxy clusters using several different approaches. We first estimate the steepening of the outer galaxy density profile around clusters, finding evidence for truncation of the halo profile. Next, we measure the galaxy density profile around clusters using two sets of galaxies selected on color. We find evidence of an abrupt change in galaxy colors that coincides with the location of the steepening of the density profile. Since galaxies that have completed orbits within the cluster are more likely to be quenched of star formation and thus appear redder, this abrupt change in galaxy color can be associated with the transition from single-stream to multi-stream regimes. We also use a standard model comparison approach to measure evidence for a “splashback”-like feature, but find that this approach is very sensitive to modeling assumptions. Finally, we perform measurements using an independent cluster catalog to test for potential systematic errors associated with cluster selection. We identify several avenues for future work: improved understanding of the small-scale galaxy profile, lensing measurements, identification of proxies for the halo accretion rate, and other tests. With upcoming data from the DES, KiDS, and HSC surveys, we can expect significant improvements in the study of halo boundaries.

Carbon-enhanced Metal-poor Stars in SDSS/SEGUE. I. Carbon Abundance Estimation and Frequency of CEMP Stars

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Young Sun [NMSU, Las Cruces; Beers, Timothy C. [Michigan State U., JINA; Masseron, Thomas [Brussels U.; Plez, Bertrand [U. Montpellier 2, LUPM; Rockosi, Constance M. [Lick Observ.; Sobeck, Jennifer [Chicago U.; Yanny, Brian [Fermilab; Lucatello, Sara [Padua Observ.; Sivarani, Thirupathi [Bangalore, Indian Inst. Astrophys.; Placco, Vinicius M. [Sao Paulo U., IAG; Carollo, Daniela [Macquarie U.

2013-10-17

We describe a method for the determination of stellar [C/Fe] abundance ratios using low-resolution (R = 2000) stellar spectra from the SDSS and SEGUE. By means of a star-by-star comparison with a set of SDSS/SEGUE spectra with available estimates of [C/Fe] based on published high-resolution analyses, we demonstrate that we can measure [C/Fe] from SDSS/SEGUE spectra with S/N > 15 to a precision better than 0.35 dex. Using the measured carbon-to-iron abundance ratios obtained by this technique, we derive the frequency of carbon-enhanced stars ([C/Fe] > +0.7) as a function of [Fe/H], for both the SDSS/SEGUE stars and other samples from the literature. We find that the differential frequency slowly rises from almost zero to about 14% at [Fe/H] ~ -2.4, followed by a sudden increase, by about a factor of three, to 39% from [Fe/H] ~ -2.4 to [Fe/H] ~ -3.7. We also examine how the cumulative frequency of CEMP stars varies across different luminosity classes. The giant sample exhibits a cumulative CEMP frequency of 32% for [Fe/H] < -2.5, 31% for [Fe/H] < -3.0, and 33% for [Fe/H] < -3.5. For the main-sequence turnoff stars, we obtain a lower cumulative CEMP frequency, around 10% for [Fe/H] < -2.5. The dwarf population displays a large change in the cumulative frequency for CEMP stars below [Fe/H] = -2.5, jumping from 15% for [Fe/H] < -2.5 to about 75% for [Fe/H] < -3.0. When we impose a restriction with respect to distance from the Galactic mid-plane (|Z| < 5 kpc), the frequency of the CEMP giants does not increase at low metallicity ([Fe/H] < -2.5), but rather, decreases, due to the dilution of C-rich material in stars that have undergone mixing with CNO-processed material from their interiors. The frequency of CEMP stars near the main-sequence turnoff, which are not expected to have experienced mixing, increases for [Fe/H] < -3.0. [abridged

EVOLUTION IN THE H I GAS CONTENT OF GALAXY GROUPS: PRE-PROCESSING AND MASS ASSEMBLY IN THE CURRENT EPOCH

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hess, Kelley M. [Astrophysics, Cosmology and Gravity Centre (ACGC), Department of Astronomy, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701 (South Africa); Wilcots, Eric M., E-mail: hess@ast.uct.ac.za, E-mail: ewilcots@astro.wisc.edu [Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706 (United States)

2013-11-01

We present an analysis of the neutral hydrogen (H I) content and distribution of galaxies in groups as a function of their parent dark matter halo mass. The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA survey α.40 data release allows us, for the first time, to study the H I properties of over 740 galaxy groups in the volume of sky common to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and ALFALFA surveys. We assigned ALFALFA H I detections a group membership based on an existing magnitude/volume-limited SDSS Data Release 7 group/cluster catalog. Additionally, we assigned group ''proximity' membership to H I detected objects whose optical counterpart falls below the limiting optical magnitude—thereby not contributing substantially to the estimate of the group stellar mass, but significantly to the total group H I mass. We find that only 25% of the H I detected galaxies reside in groups or clusters, in contrast to approximately half of all optically detected galaxies. Further, we plot the relative positions of optical and H I detections in groups as a function of parent dark matter halo mass to reveal strong evidence that H I is being processed in galaxies as a result of the group environment: as optical membership increases, groups become increasingly deficient of H I rich galaxies at their center and the H I distribution of galaxies in the most massive groups starts to resemble the distribution observed in comparatively more extreme cluster environments. We find that the lowest H I mass objects lose their gas first as they are processed in the group environment, and it is evident that the infall of gas rich objects is important to the continuing growth of large scale structure at the present epoch, replenishing the neutral gas supply of groups. Finally, we compare our results to those of cosmological simulations and find that current models cannot simultaneously predict the H I selected halo occupation distribution for both low and high mass halos.

The SDSS-IV MaNGA Sample: Design, Optimization, and Usage Considerations

Science.gov (United States)

Wake, David A.; Bundy, Kevin; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Yan, Renbin; Blanton, Michael R.; Bershady, Matthew A.; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Drory, Niv; Jones, Amy; Kauffmann, Guinevere; Law, David R.; Li, Cheng; MacDonald, Nicholas; Masters, Karen; Thomas, Daniel; Tinker, Jeremy; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Brownstein, Joel R.

2017-09-01

We describe the sample design for the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey and present the final properties of the main samples along with important considerations for using these samples for science. Our target selection criteria were developed while simultaneously optimizing the size distribution of the MaNGA integral field units (IFUs), the IFU allocation strategy, and the target density to produce a survey defined in terms of maximizing signal-to-noise ratio, spatial resolution, and sample size. Our selection strategy makes use of redshift limits that only depend on I-band absolute magnitude (M I ), or, for a small subset of our sample, M I and color (NUV - I). Such a strategy ensures that all galaxies span the same range in angular size irrespective of luminosity and are therefore covered evenly by the adopted range of IFU sizes. We define three samples: the Primary and Secondary samples are selected to have a flat number density with respect to M I and are targeted to have spectroscopic coverage to 1.5 and 2.5 effective radii (R e ), respectively. The Color-Enhanced supplement increases the number of galaxies in the low-density regions of color-magnitude space by extending the redshift limits of the Primary sample in the appropriate color bins. The samples cover the stellar mass range 5× {10}8≤slant {M}* ≤slant 3× {10}11 {M}⊙ {h}-2 and are sampled at median physical resolutions of 1.37 and 2.5 kpc for the Primary and Secondary samples, respectively. We provide weights that will statistically correct for our luminosity and color-dependent selection function and IFU allocation strategy, thus correcting the observed sample to a volume-limited sample.

Comparison of some properties of star forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei between two BOSS galaxy samples from SDSS DR9

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Deng Xin-Fa

2014-01-01

Using the LOWZ and CMASS samples of the ninth data release (DR9) from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), I investigate properties of star forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The CMASS sample seriously suffers from the radial selection effect, even within the redshift 0.44 ≤ z ≤ 0.6, which will likely lead to statistical conclusions in the CMASS sample being less robust. In the LOWZ sample, the fraction of star-forming galaxies is nearly constant from the least dense regime to the densest regime; the AGN fraction is also insensitive to the local environment. In addition, I note that in the LOWZ sample, the distributions of stellar mass and stellar velocity dispersion for star forming galaxies and AGNs are nearly the same

The Stellar Kinematics of E+A Galaxies in SDSS IV-MaNGA

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, Amalya; Dudley, Raymond; Edwards, Kay; Gonzalez, Andrea; Kerrison, Nicole; Marinelli, Mariarosa; Melchert, Nancy; Ojanen, Winonah; Liu, Charles; SDSS-IV MaNGA

2018-01-01

E+A galaxies, hypothesized to be “transition” galaxies between the blue cloud and the red sequence, are valuable sources for studying the evolution of galaxies. Using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey, a large scale integral field spectroscopic survey of nearby galaxies from 3600 to 10300 Å, we identifed galaxies that exhibitted E+A characteristics within their optical spectra. We analyzed the 2,812 galaxies thus far observed by MaNGA to identify those that showed evidence of a starburst about 1 billion years ago, followed by cessation of star formation and quenching of the galaxy. Through this process we identifed 39 E+A galaxies by directly looking at the optical spectra and ensuring they exhibited the necessary properties of an E+A spectra, including a strong break at the 4000 Å mark, little to no Hα emission and absorption through the Balmer series, and a blue slope of the continuum past ~5000 Å as the flux decreases. We analyzed the stellar kinematics of these galaxies to determine whether or not they were fast or slow rotators, a proposed indicator of a major merger in their recent past. Using Voronoi binned graphs from the MaNGA Marvin database, we measured their stellar rotation curves in order to more clearly show the range of velocities within the galaxies. Among our 39 E+A candidates, all but two exhibited significant, orderly rotation across the galaxy, and 29 out of 39 of our galaxies show rotation faster than 30 km/s. With the caveat that our selection process was biased toward galaxies with orderly rotation, this prevalence of rotation challenges the belief that all E+A galaxies are created from major mergers. This work was supported by grants AST-1460860 from the National Science Foundation and SDSS FAST/SSP-483 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to the CUNY College of Staten Island.

Arecibo and Goldstone radar images of near-Earth Asteroid (469896) 2005 WC1

Science.gov (United States)

Lawrence, Kenneth J.; Benner, Lance A. M.; Brozovic, Marina; Ostro, Steven J.; Jao, Joseph S.; Giorgini, Jon D.; Slade, Martin A.; Jurgens, Raymond F.; Nolan, Michael C.; Howell, Ellen S.; Taylor, Patrick A.

2018-01-01

We report radar observations of near-Earth asteroid (469896) 2005 WC1 that were obtained at Arecibo (2380 MHz, 13 cm) and Goldstone (8560 MHz, 3.5 cm) on 2005 December 14-15 during the asteroid's approach within 0.020 au The asteroid was a strong radar target. Delay-Doppler images with resolutions as fine as 15 m/pixel were obtained with 2 samples per baud giving a correlated pixel resolution of 7.5 m. The radar images reveal an angular object with 100 m-scale surface facets, radar-dark regions, and an estimated diameter of 400 ± 50 m. The rotation of the facets in the images gives a rotation period of ∼2.6 h that is consistent with the estimated period of 2.582 h ± 0.002 h from optical lightcurves reported by Miles (private communication). 2005 WC1 has a circular polarization ratio of 1.12 ± 0.05 that is one of the highest values known, suggesting a structurally-complex near-surface at centimeter to decimeter spatial scales. It is the first asteroid known with an extremely high circular polarization ratio, relatively low optical albedo, and high radar albedo.

High-Speed Ultracam Colorimetry of the Subdwarf B Star SDSS J171722.08+58055.8

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Aerts, C.C.; Jeffery, C.S.; Dhillon, V.S.; Marsh, T.R.; Groot, P.J.

2006-01-01

We present high-speed multicolour photometry of the faint sub-dwarf B star SDSS J171722.08+58055.8 (m_B=16.7mag), which was recently discovered to be pulsating. The data were obtained during two consecutive nights in 2004 August using the three-channel photometer Ultracam attached to the

TIMING OF 29 PULSARS DISCOVERED IN THE PALFA SURVEY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lyne, A. G.; Stappers, B. W. [Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophys., School of Phys. and Astr., Univ. of Manchester, Manch., M13 9PL (United Kingdom); Bogdanov, S. [Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia Univ., New York, NY 10027 (United States); Ferdman, R. D.; Kaspi, V. M.; Lynch, R. [Dept. of Physics and McGill Space Institute, McGill Univ., Montreal, QC H3A 2T8 (Canada); Freire, P. C. C.; Lazarus, P. [Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, D-53121 Bonn (Germany); Knispel, B.; Allen, B. [Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik, D-30167 Hannover (Germany); Brazier, A.; Chatterjee, S.; Cordes, J. M. [Dept. of Astronomy, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY 14853 (United States); Camilo, F. [SKA South Africa, Pinelands, 7405 (South Africa); Cardoso, F. [Physics Dept., Univ. of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, 3135 N. Maryland Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53211 (United States); Crawford, F. [Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604-3003 (United States); Deneva, J. S. [National Research Council, resident at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 (United States); Hessels, J. W. T.; Leeuwen, J. van [ASTRON, The Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Postbus 2, 7990 AA, Dwingeloo (Netherlands); Jenet, F. A. [Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy, Univ. Texas—Brownsville, TX 78520 (United States); and others

2017-01-10

We report on the discovery and timing observations of 29 distant long-period pulsars found in the ongoing Arecibo L-band Feed Array pulsar survey. Following discovery with the Arecibo Telescope, confirmation and timing observations of these pulsars over several years at Jodrell Bank Observatory have yielded high-precision positions and measurements of rotation and radiation properties. We have used multi-frequency data to measure the interstellar scattering properties of some of these pulsars. Most of the pulsars have properties that mirror those of the previously known pulsar population, although four show some notable characteristics. PSRs J1907+0631 and J1925+1720 are young and are associated with supernova remnants or plerionic nebulae: J1907+0631 lies close to the center of SNR G40.5−0.5, while J1925+1720 is coincident with a high-energy Fermi γ -ray source. One pulsar, J1932+1500, is in a surprisingly eccentric, 199 day binary orbit with a companion having a minimum mass of 0.33 M {sub ⊙}. Several of the sources exhibit timing noise, and two, PSRs J0611+1436 and J1907+0631, have both suffered large glitches, but with very different post-glitch rotation properties. In particular, the rotational period of PSR J0611+1436 will not recover to its pre-glitch value for about 12 years, a far greater recovery timescale than seen following any other large glitches.

Do galaxy global relationships emerge from local ones? The SDSS IV MaNGA surface mass density-metallicity relation

Science.gov (United States)

Barrera-Ballesteros, Jorge K.; Heckman, Timothy M.; Zhu, Guangtun B.; Zakamska, Nadia L.; Sánchez, Sebastian F.; Law, David; Wake, David; Green, Jenny E.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Oravetz, Daniel; Simmons, Audrey; Malanushenko, Elena; Pan, Kaike; Roman Lopes, Alexandre; Lane, Richard R.

2016-12-01

We present the stellar surface mass density versus gas metallicity (Σ*-Z) relation for more than 500 000 spatially resolved star-forming resolution elements (spaxels) from a sample of 653 disc galaxies included in the SDSS IV MaNGA survey. We find a tight relation between these local properties, with higher metallicities as the surface density increases. This relation extends over three orders of magnitude in the surface mass density and a factor of 4 in metallicity. We show that this local relationship can simultaneously reproduce two well-known properties of disc galaxies: their global mass-metallicity relationship and their radial metallicity gradients. We also find that the Σ*-Z relation is largely independent of the galaxy's total stellar mass and specific star formation rate (sSFR), except at low stellar mass and high sSFR. These results suggest that in the present-day universe local properties play a key role in determining the gas-phase metallicity in typical disc galaxies.

SPIDERS: selection of spectroscopic targets using AGN candidates detected in all-sky X-ray surveys

Science.gov (United States)

Dwelly, T.; Salvato, M.; Merloni, A.; Brusa, M.; Buchner, J.; Anderson, S. F.; Boller, Th.; Brandt, W. N.; Budavári, T.; Clerc, N.; Coffey, D.; Del Moro, A.; Georgakakis, A.; Green, P. J.; Jin, C.; Menzel, M.-L.; Myers, A. D.; Nandra, K.; Nichol, R. C.; Ridl, J.; Schwope, A. D.; Simm, T.

2017-07-01

SPIDERS (SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources) is a Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) survey running in parallel to the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) cosmology project. SPIDERS will obtain optical spectroscopy for large numbers of X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) and galaxy cluster members detected in wide-area eROSITA, XMM-Newton and ROSAT surveys. We describe the methods used to choose spectroscopic targets for two sub-programmes of SPIDERS X-ray selected AGN candidates detected in the ROSAT All Sky and the XMM-Newton Slew surveys. We have exploited a Bayesian cross-matching algorithm, guided by priors based on mid-IR colour-magnitude information from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer survey, to select the most probable optical counterpart to each X-ray detection. We empirically demonstrate the high fidelity of our counterpart selection method using a reference sample of bright well-localized X-ray sources collated from XMM-Newton, Chandra and Swift-XRT serendipitous catalogues, and also by examining blank-sky locations. We describe the down-selection steps which resulted in the final set of SPIDERS-AGN targets put forward for spectroscopy within the eBOSS/TDSS/SPIDERS survey, and present catalogues of these targets. We also present catalogues of ˜12 000 ROSAT and ˜1500 XMM-Newton Slew survey sources that have existing optical spectroscopy from SDSS-DR12, including the results of our visual inspections. On completion of the SPIDERS programme, we expect to have collected homogeneous spectroscopic redshift information over a footprint of ˜7500 deg2 for >85 per cent of the ROSAT and XMM-Newton Slew survey sources having optical counterparts in the magnitude range 17 < r < 22.5, producing a large and highly complete sample of bright X-ray-selected AGN suitable for statistical studies of AGN evolution and clustering.

Modeling the optical radiation of the precataclysmic variable SDSS J212531-010745

Science.gov (United States)

Shimansky, V. V.; Borisov, N. V.; Nurtdinova, D. N.; Solovyeva, Yu. N.; Sakhibullin, N. A.; Spiridonova, O. I.

2015-03-01

Optical observations are analyzed to derive a set of basic parameters for the precataclysmic variable star SDSS J212531-010745, whose primary is a PG1159-type star. Spectroscopic and multiband photometric observations of the star were performed in 2008-2011 with the 6-m telescope and the Zeiss-1000 telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory. The shape of the binary's orbital light curves is nearly sinusoidal, with the amplitude increasing with wavelength from Δ m = 0.40 m in the B band to Δ m = 0.73 m in the R band. The spectra contain absorption lines of HeII and neutral atoms, along with HI, HeI, CII, MgII, FeII emission lines, whose intensity increases synchronously with the brightness of the system. The optical radiation from SDSS J212531-010745 has a composite nature, corresponding to a model for a pre-cataclysmic variable with strong reflection effects. Cross-correlation techniques are used to measure the radial velocities and derive the component masses. Numerical modeling of the binary's light curves, radial velocities, and spectra is performed, and a complete set of parameters determined. Considerable abundance anomalies (to 1 dex) were detected for the secondary. The primary's characteristics correspond to the evolutionary predictions for DAO dwarfs with masses M ≈ 0.5 M ⊙, and the secondary's characteristics to low-mass, main-sequence stars with the solar metallicity.

Galactic neutral hydrogen emission-absorption observations from Arecibo

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dickey, J.M.; Salpeter, E.E.; Terzian, Y.

1978-01-01

We have observed the interstellar medium in the directions of 27 extragalactic sources at high and intermediate galactic latitudes (vertical-barb/sup ii/vertical-bar>5 0 ) at 21 cm wavelength with the upgraded Arecibo telescope (HPBW=3'.2, gainapprox.6 K Jy -1 ). The small beam greatly reduces the uncertainty in the derived on-source emission profile and increases confidence that it corresponds to the same material as the absorption spectrum. Each region has been observed for approximately 2 hours to tetect optical depths as low as 10 -2 in most cases. The data allow the derivation of optical depths, harmonic mean spin temperatures, and column densities for the neutral hydrogen as a function of velocity in the range -200 -1 (LSR) with resolution as fine as 0.25 km s -1 . Spin temperatures as high as 1000 K are evident with a significant fraction of the neutral hydrogen still hotter. The cooler material is distributed over all temperatures from 30 K to at least 800 K. At latitudes below vertical-barb/sup ii/vertical-bar 0 values for the harmonic mean temperature T/sub spin/ in the range 100 K to 300 K are most common.We have detected 66 separate absorption features, tentatively associated with neutral hydrogen clouds, with central temperatures ranging from 30 to 500 K. These features conform well to the relationship T/sub spin/=45(1-e/sup -tau/)/sup -0.5/ (K), over a broad range of values of the optical depth. The velocity distribution of these clouds shows a significant negative-velocity ''tail'' at high and intermediate latitudes. The mean square velocity of the clouds seems to depend on optical depth: v/sub rms/ is greater (approx.11 km s -1 ) for the optically thin clouds (tau -1 ). High-negative-velocity emission (v -1 ) has been detected in six directions; in two of these corresponding absorption features are evident, indicating cool neutral material

AN IMPROVED SPECTROSCOPIC ANALYSIS OF DA WHITE DWARFS FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY DATA RELEASE 4

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tremblay, P.-E.; Bergeron, P.; Gianninas, A.

2011-01-01

We present an improved spectroscopic and photometric analysis of hydrogen-line DA white dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 (SDSS DR4) based on model atmospheres that include improved Stark broadening profiles with non-ideal gas effects. We also perform a careful visual inspection of all spectroscopic fits with high signal-to-noise ratios (S/Ns > 12) and present improved atmospheric parameters (T eff and log g) for each white dwarf. Through a comparison of spectroscopic and photometric temperatures, we report the discovery of 35 DA+DB/DC double degenerate candidates and two helium-rich DA stars. We also determine that a cutoff at S/N = 15 optimizes the size and quality of the sample for computing the mean mass of DA white dwarfs, for which we report a value of 0.613 M sun . We compare our results to previous analyses of the SDSS DR4 and find a good agreement if we account for the shift produced by the improved Stark profiles. Finally, the properties of DA white dwarfs in the SDSS are weighed against those of the Villanova White Dwarf Catalog sample of Gianninas et al. We find systematically lower masses (by about 3% on average), a difference that we trace back to the data reduction procedure of the SDSS. We conclude that a better understanding of these differences will be important to determine the absolute temperature scale and mean mass of DA white dwarfs.

Particle Sizes in the Coma of Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková from Arecibo Radar Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Springmann, Alessondra; Howell, Ellen S.; Harmon, John K.; Lejoly, Cassandra; Rivera-Valentin, Edgard G.; Virkki, Anne; Zambrano-Marin, Luisa F.; Taylor, Patrick A.; Harris, Walter M.; Mueller, Beatrice E. A.; Samarasinha, Nalin H.; Rodriguez Sanchez-Vahamonde, Carolina

2017-10-01

Radar observations of cometary comae can provide information about not only the cross-section of the coma, but also constraints on the particle sizes comprising the coma. Harmon et al. (2011) described analysis of radar observations of comet 103P/Hartley 2 to constrain the sizes of its coma particles, as well as modeling to analyze the particle velocity distribution in the coma and orientation with respect to the sun. Arecibo Observatory planetary radar system observations of comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková were obtained 9-16 February 2017 by transmitting a continuous wave of polarized radio waves at the comet. By examining the polarization ratios of the returned signal (whether it has the same sense or opposite sense of the transmitted signal), we can look for non-zero same sense polarization signal. Detectable same sense signal indicates the presence of particles with sizes larger than the Rayleigh transition size criteria, a = λ/2π ≈ 2 cm (for the Arecibo wavelength of 12.6 cm).The observations show strong opposite sense signal return from the comet nucleus, as well as a larger ‘skirt’ of surrounding grains in the coma. Preliminary analysis of this data indicates at least a weak same sense polarized signal, implying a population of grains larger than 2 cm in the coma. The sizes of particles in the coma, compared with the area of the coma, can help us constrain the minimum mass for particles at the Rayleigh size limit in the 45P coma. Further, a detectable grain halo of large particles around 45P would imply significant lofting of grains from the comet nucleus.ReferencesHarmon, John K., et al. "Radar observations of comet 103P/Hartley 2." The Astrophysical Journal Letters 734.1 (2011): L2.

National Survey of Workplaces Handling and Manufacturing Nanomaterials, Exposure to and Health Effects of Nanomaterials, and Evaluation of Nanomaterial Safety Data Sheets

Science.gov (United States)

2016-01-01

A national survey on workplace environment nanomaterial handling and manufacturing was conducted in 2014. Workplaces relevant to nanomaterials were in the order of TiO2 (91), SiO2 (88), carbon black (84), Ag (35), Al2O3 (35), ZnO (34), Pb (33), and CeO2 (31). The survey results indicated that the number of workplaces handling or manufacturing nanomaterials was 340 (0.27% of total 126,846) workplaces. The number of nanomaterials used and products was 546 (1.60 per company) and 583 (1.71 per company), respectively. For most workplaces, the results on exposure to hazardous particulate materials, including nanomaterials, were below current OELs, yet a few workplaces were above the action level. As regards the health status of workers, 9 workers were diagnosed with a suspected respiratory occupational disease, where 7 were recommended for regular follow-up health monitoring. 125 safety data sheets (SDSs) were collected from the nanomaterial-relevant workplaces and evaluated for their completeness and reliability. Only 4 CNT SDSs (3.2%) included the term nanomaterial, while most nanomaterial SDSs were not regularly updated and lacked hazard information. When taken together, the current analysis provides valuable national-level information on the exposure and health status of workers that can guide the next policy steps for nanomaterial management in the workplace. PMID:27556041

Digital Game-Based Learning to Encourage Secondary Students to Purse STEM Related Careers Using Arecibo Observatory

Science.gov (United States)

Ortiz-Correa, Z. M.; Lautenbach, J.; Franco-Diaz, E.; Raizada, S.; Ghosh, T.; Rivera-Valentín, E.; Ortiz, A.

2017-12-01

This project was developed to encourage secondary students to pursue STEM related careers through exposure to the interdisciplinary nature of the Arecibo Observatory (AO) in Puerto Rico. The idea for this project was initiated due to the NSF-funded Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Summer Program. The AO RET summer program allows teaching faculty from public schools to collaborate with scientist on their ongoing research or instrument development projects at the AO for five weeks. Subsequently, the research is disseminated among secondary students through several workshops and hands-on activities. Through the workshops and hands-on activities underrepresented secondary students will learn about the research conducted at the AO to study Earth's upper atmosphere, asteroids and other Solar System bodies, as well as stars and galaxies beyond. Afterwards, students will develop virtual worlds simulating the different AO facilities (Lidar Laboratory, Radio Telescope, Planetary Radar System, HF Facility, Visitor Center, among others) and showing their functions using digital game-based learning.

An X-Ray/SDSS Sample: Observational Characterization of The Outflowing Gas

Science.gov (United States)

Perna, Michele; Brusa, M.; Lanzuisi, G.; Mignoli, M.

2016-10-01

Powerful ionised AGN-driven outflows, commonly detected both locally and at high redshift, are invoked to contribute to the co-evolution of SMBH and galaxies through feedback phenomena. Our recent works (Brusa+2015; 2016; Perna+2015a,b) have shown that the XMM-COSMOS targets with evidence of outflows collected so far ( 10 sources) appear to be associated with low X-ray kbol corrections (Lbol /LX ˜ 18), in spite of their spread in obscuration, in the locations on the SFR-Mstar diagram, in their radio emission. A higher statistical significance is required to validate a connection between outflow phenomena and a X-ray loudness. Moreover, in order to validate their binding nature to the galaxy fate, it is crucial to correctly determine the outflow energetics. This requires time consuming integral field spectroscopic (IFS) observations, which are, at present, mostly limited to high luminosity objectsThe study of SDSS data offers a complementary strategy to IFS efforts. I will present physical and demographic characterization of the AGN-galaxy system during the feedback phase obtained studying a sample of 500 X-ray/SDSS AGNs, at zdispersion) and X-ray properties (intrinsic X-ray luminosity, obscuration and X-ray kbol correction), to determine what drives ionised winds. Several diagnostic line ratios have been used to infer the physical properties of the ionised outflowing gas. The knowledge of these properties can reduce the actual uncertainties in the outflow energetics by a factor of ten, pointing to improve our understanding of the AGN outflow phenomenon and its impact on galaxy evolution.

Discovery of three strongly lensed quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, P. R.; Agnello, A.; Treu, T.; Abramson, L. E.; Anguita, T.; Apostolovski, Y.; Chen, G. C.-F.; Fassnacht, C. D.; Hsueh, J. W.; Lemaux, B. C.; Motta, V.; Oldham, L.; Rojas, K.; Rusu, C. E.; Shajib, A. J.; Wang, X.

2018-06-01

We present the discovery of three quasar lenses in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, selected using two novel photometry-based selection techniques. The J0941+0518 system, with two point sources separated by 5.46 arcsec on either side of a galaxy, has source and lens redshifts 1.54 and 0.343. Images of J2257+2349 show two point sources separated by 1.67 arcsec on either side of an E/S0 galaxy. The extracted spectra show two images of the same quasar at zs = 2.10. SDSS J1640+1045 has two quasar spectra at zs = 1.70 and fits to the SDSS and Pan-STARRS images confirm the presence of a galaxy between the two point sources. We observed 56 photometrically selected lens candidates in this follow-up campaign, confirming three new lenses, re-discovering one known lens, and ruling out 36 candidates, with 16 still inconclusive. This initial campaign demonstrates the power of purely photometric selection techniques in finding lensed quasars.

The Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping (OCCAM) Survey: Detailed Age and Abundance Gradients using DR12

Science.gov (United States)

Frinchaboy, Peter M.; Thompson, Benjamin A.; O'Connell, Julia; Meyer, Brianne; Donor, John; Majewski, Steven R.; Holtzman, Jon A.; Zasowski, Gail; Beers, Timothy C.; Beaton, Rachael; Cunha, Katia M. L.; Hearty, Fred; Nidever, David L.; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; Smith, Verne V.; Hayden, Michael R.

2015-01-01

We present detailed abundance results for Galactic open clusters as part of the Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping (OCCAM) Survey, which is based primarily on data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey/ Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment. Using 100 open clusters from the uniformly observed complete SDSS-III/APOGEE-1 DR12 dataset, we present age and multi-element abundance gradients for the disk of the Milky Way.This work is supported by an NSF AAG grant AST-1311835.

A RADIO SEARCH FOR PULSAR COMPANIONS TO SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY LOW-MASS WHITE DWARFS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Agueeros, Marcel A.; Camilo, Fernando; Silvestri, Nicole M.; Anderson, Scott F.; Kleinman, S. J.; Liebert, James W.

2009-01-01

We have conducted a search for pulsar companions to 15 low-mass white dwarfs (LMWDs; M sun ) at 820 MHz with the NRAO Green Bank Telescope (GBT). These LMWDs were spectroscopically identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and do not show the photometric excess or spectroscopic signature associated with a companion in their discovery data. However, LMWDs are believed to evolve in binary systems and to have either a more massive white dwarf (WD) or a neutron star (NS) as a companion. Indeed, evolutionary models of low-mass X-ray binaries, the precursors of millisecond pulsars (MSPs), produce significant numbers of LMWDs, suggesting that the SDSS LMWDs may have NS companions. No convincing pulsar signal is detected in our data. This is consistent with the findings of van Leeuwen et al., who conducted a GBT search for radio pulsations at 340 MHz from unseen companions to eight SDSS WDs (five are still considered LMWDs; the three others are now classified as 'ordinary' WDs). We discuss the constraints our nondetections place on the probability P MSP that the companion to a given LMWD is a radio pulsar in the context of the luminosity and acceleration limits of our search; we find that P MSP +4 -2 %.

Semidiurnal tide in the E region from incoherent scatter measurements at Arecibo

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wand, R.H.

1976-01-01

A five-pulse technique was implemented for the 430 MHz incoherent scatter radar at Arecibo Observatory (18.3 0 N) to explore the detailed thermal structure of the E region from 105 to 130 km with an altitude resolution of 3 km. Five days of measurements in Sept-Oct 1970 showed long-period temperature fluctuations having a downward phase progression. The temperature oscillations are interpreted as manifestations of a semidiurnal tide which is quite stable over a 12-day period, together with a superimposed spectrum of shorter-period gravity waves which are randomly phased from day to day. The semidiurnal tide increased to a maximum amplitude of 17 percent of the mean temperature near 115 km and decreased above this altitude as dissipative effects became important. The vertical wavelength, deduced from the altitude variation of semidiurnal tidal phase, showed a smooth increase from about 20 km at an altitude of 109 km to about 50 km at an altitude of 127 km. No ready interpretation of the observed tidal characteristics was possible in terms of present theories for the semidiurnal tide. Altitude profiles of mean daytime temperature and ion-neutral collision frequency were also obtained from the measurements. The mean temperature gradient between 115 and 130 km was 15 K/km, which is somewhat larger than that given by current atmospheric models

First results from the Penn State Allsky Imager at the Arecibo Observatory

Science.gov (United States)

Seker, I.; Mathews, J. D.; Wiig, J.; Gutierrez, P. F.; Friedman, J. S.; Tepley, C. A.

2007-03-01

The Penn State Allsky imager (PSASI), a user-owned-public-access (UOPA) instrument installed at Arecibo Observatory (AO: 18.3°N, 66.75°W; altitude: 350 m a.s.l.; L = 1.43 at 300 km; dip angle: 46°; geomagnetic coordinates: 29°N, 5.5°E), is a CCD-based high-resolution allsky optical imager that has been collecting ionospheric airglow data at night since May 2003. The computer controlled six-position filter wheel is equipped with three filters at 630 nm (red), 557.7 nm (green), and 777.4 nm (near-IR), respectively, which correspond to ionosphere-related oxygen emissions. The imager data, taken for more than 3.5 years now, is being used to study various ionospheric processes, such as mapped equatorial spread-F plumes, E-region gravity waves, among other, in conjunction with the AO incoherent scatter radar (ISR), mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) metals lidar, and other instruments, including microbarographs. Data availability and quality as well as specific airglow events on both small/large time/spatial scales are examined, categorized, and made freely available at a data-server website. Our goal here is to briefly review the airglow science enabled by allsky imaging at AO, to describe the instrument and the data-collection methodology, and to present some of the significant results, including airglow events that correspond to ISR results.

Ensemble Properties of Comets in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Solontoi, Michael; /Adler Planetarium, Chicago; Ivezic, Zeljko; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Juric, Mario; /Harvard Coll. Observ.; Becker, Andrew C.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Jones, Lynne; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; West, Andrew A.; /Boston U.; Kent, Steve; /Fermilab; Lupton, Robert H.; /Princeton U. Observ.; Claire, Mark; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Knapp, Gillian R.; /Princeton U. Observ.; Quinn, Tom; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept. /Princeton U. Observ.

2012-02-01

We present the ensemble properties of 31 comets (27 resolved and 4 unresolved) observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This sample of comets represents about 1 comet per 10 million SDSS photometric objects. Five-band (u, g, r, i, z) photometry is used to determine the comets colors, sizes, surface brightness profiles, and rates of dust production in terms of the Afp formalism. We find that the cumulative luminosity function for the Jupiter Family Comets in our sample is well fit by a power law of the form N(

We’re Working On It: Transferring the Sloan Digital Sky Survey from Laboratory to Library

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ashley E. Sands

2014-10-01

Full Text Available This article reports on the transfer of a massive scientific dataset from a national laboratory to a university library, and from one kind of workforce to another. We use the transfer of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS archive to examine the emergence of a new workforce for scientific research data management. Many individuals with diverse educational backgrounds and domain experience are involved in SDSS data management: domain scientists, computer scientists, software and systems engineers, programmers, and librarians. These types of positions have been described using terms such as research technologist, data scientist, e-science professional, data curator, and more. The findings reported here are based on semi-structured interviews, ethnographic participant observation, and archival studies from 2011-2013. The library staff conducting the data storage and archiving of the SDSS archive faced two performance problems. The preservation specialist and the system administrator worked together closely to discover and implement solutions to the slow data transfer and verification processes. The team overcame these slow-downs by problem solving, working in a team, and writing code. The library team lacked the astronomy domain knowledge necessary to meet some of their preservation and curation goals. The case study reveals the variety of expertise, experience, and individuals essential to the SDSS data management process. A variety of backgrounds and educational histories emerge in the data managers studied. Teamwork is necessary to bring disparate expertise together, especially between those with technical and domain education. The findings have implications for data management education, policy and relevant stakeholders. This article is part of continuing research on Knowledge Infrastructures.

Evidence of Primordial Clustering around the QSO SDSS J1030+0524 at z=6.28

Science.gov (United States)

Stiavelli, M.; Djorgovski, S. G.; Pavlovsky, C.; Scarlata, C.; Stern, D.; Mahabal, A.; Thompson, D.; Dickinson, M.; Panagia, N.; Meylan, G.

2005-03-01

We present tentative evidence of primordial clustering, manifested as an excess of color-selected objects in the field of the QSO SDSS J1030+0524 at redshift z=6.28. We have selected objects red in i775-z850 on the basis of Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys imaging of a field centered on the QSO. Compared to data at comparable depth obtained by the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, we find an excess of objects with i775-z850>=1.5 in the QSO field. The significance of the detection is estimated to be ~97% on the basis of the counts alone and increases to 99.4% if one takes into account the color distribution. If confirmed, this would represent the highest redshift example of galaxy clustering and would have implications on models for the growth of structure. Bias-driven clustering of first luminous objects forming in the highest peaks of the primordial density field is expected in most models of early structure formation. The redshift of one of the candidates has been found to be z=5.970 by our spectroscopy with the Keck I Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer, confirming the validity of our color selection. Based, in part, on data obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership between the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and NASA, and was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation.

H i in Virgo’s “Red and Dead” Dwarf Ellipticals—A Tidal Tail and Central Star Formation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hallenbeck, Gregory; Koopmann, Rebecca [Union College, Department of Physics and Astronomy, 807 Union Street, Schenectady NY 12308 (United States); Giovanelli, Riccardo; Haynes, Martha P.; Leisman, Lukas [Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science (CCAPS), Space Sciences Building, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 (United States); Huang, Shan [CCPP, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 (United States); Papastergis, Emmanouil, E-mail: hallenbg@union.edu, E-mail: koopmanr@union.edu, E-mail: riccardo@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: haynes@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: leisman@astro.cornell.edu, E-mail: shan.huang@nyu.edu, E-mail: papastergis@astro.rug.nl [Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen, Landleven 12, Groningen NL-9747AD (Netherlands)

2017-08-01

We investigate a sample of three dwarf elliptical galaxies in the Virgo Cluster that have significant reservoirs of H i. We present deep optical imaging (from CFHT and KPNO), H i spectra (Arecibo), and resolved H i imaging (VLA) of this sample. These observations confirm their H i content and optical morphologies, and indicate that the gas is unlikely to be recently accreted. The sample has more in common with dwarf transitionals, though dwarf transitionals are generally lower in stellar mass and gas fraction. VCC 190 has an H i tidal tail from a recent encounter with the massive spiral galaxy NGC 4224. In VCC 611, blue star-forming features are observed that were not seen by shallower SDSS imaging.

Test of Gravity on Large Scales with Weak Gravitational Lensing and Clustering Measurements of SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies

Science.gov (United States)

Reyes, Reinabelle; Mandelbaum, R.; Seljak, U.; Gunn, J.; Lombriser, L.

2009-01-01

We perform a test of gravity on large scales (5-50 Mpc/h) using 70,000 luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR7 with redshifts 0.16surveys such as LSST, for which a very high signal-to-noise measurement will be possible.

Separate Ways: The Mass–Metallicity Relation Does Not Strongly Correlate with Star Formation Rate in SDSS-IV MaNGA Galaxies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barrera-Ballesteros, J. K.; Heckman, T.; Sánchez, S. F.; Blanc, G. A.

2017-01-01

We present the integrated stellar mass–metallicity relation (MZR) for more than 1700 galaxies included in the integral field area SDSS-IV MaNGA survey. The spatially resolved data allow us to determine the metallicity at the same physical scale (effective radius, R eff ) using a heterogeneous set of 10 abundance calibrators. In addition to scale factors, the shape of the MZR is similar for all calibrators, consistent with those reported previously using single-fiber and integral field spectroscopy. We compare the residuals of this relation against the star formation rate (SFR) and specific SFR (sSFR). We do not find a strong secondary relation of the MZR with either SFR or sSFR for any of the calibrators, in contrast with previous single-fiber spectroscopic studies. Our results agree with a scenario in which metal enrichment happens at local scales, with global outflows playing a secondary role in shaping the chemistry of galaxies and cold-gas inflows regulating the stellar formation.

Separate Ways: The Mass-Metallicity Relation Does Not Strongly Correlate with Star Formation Rate in SDSS-IV MaNGA Galaxies

Science.gov (United States)

Barrera-Ballesteros, J. K.; Sánchez, S. F.; Heckman, T.; Blanc, G. A.; The MaNGA Team

2017-07-01

We present the integrated stellar mass-metallicity relation (MZR) for more than 1700 galaxies included in the integral field area SDSS-IV MaNGA survey. The spatially resolved data allow us to determine the metallicity at the same physical scale (effective radius, R eff) using a heterogeneous set of 10 abundance calibrators. In addition to scale factors, the shape of the MZR is similar for all calibrators, consistent with those reported previously using single-fiber and integral field spectroscopy. We compare the residuals of this relation against the star formation rate (SFR) and specific SFR (sSFR). We do not find a strong secondary relation of the MZR with either SFR or sSFR for any of the calibrators, in contrast with previous single-fiber spectroscopic studies. Our results agree with a scenario in which metal enrichment happens at local scales, with global outflows playing a secondary role in shaping the chemistry of galaxies and cold-gas inflows regulating the stellar formation.

Separate Ways: The Mass–Metallicity Relation Does Not Strongly Correlate with Star Formation Rate in SDSS-IV MaNGA Galaxies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Barrera-Ballesteros, J. K.; Heckman, T. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg Center, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Sánchez, S. F. [Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, A.P. 70-264, 04510 México, D.F., México (Mexico); Blanc, G. A., E-mail: jbarrer3@jhu.edu [Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, 813 Santa Barbara St, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States); Collaboration: MaNGA Team

2017-07-20

We present the integrated stellar mass–metallicity relation (MZR) for more than 1700 galaxies included in the integral field area SDSS-IV MaNGA survey. The spatially resolved data allow us to determine the metallicity at the same physical scale (effective radius, R {sub eff}) using a heterogeneous set of 10 abundance calibrators. In addition to scale factors, the shape of the MZR is similar for all calibrators, consistent with those reported previously using single-fiber and integral field spectroscopy. We compare the residuals of this relation against the star formation rate (SFR) and specific SFR (sSFR). We do not find a strong secondary relation of the MZR with either SFR or sSFR for any of the calibrators, in contrast with previous single-fiber spectroscopic studies. Our results agree with a scenario in which metal enrichment happens at local scales, with global outflows playing a secondary role in shaping the chemistry of galaxies and cold-gas inflows regulating the stellar formation.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey: Technical Summary

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Frieman, Joshua A.; /Fermilab /KICP, Chicago /Chicago U., Astron. Astrophys. Ctr.; Bassett, Bruce; /Cape Town U. /South African Astron. Observ.; Becker, Andrew; /Washington; Choi, Changsu; /Seoul Natl. U.; Cinabro, David; /Wayne State U.; DeJongh, Don Frederic; /Fermilab; Depoy, Darren L.; /Ohio State U.; Doi, Mamoru; /Tokyo U.; Garnavich, Peter M.; /Notre Dame U.; Hogan, Craig J.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Holtzman, Jon; /New Mexico State U.; Im, Myungshin; /Seoul Natl. U.; Jha, Saurabh; /Stanford U., Phys. Dept.; Konishi, Kohki; /Tokyo U.; Lampeitl, Hubert; /Baltimore, Space Telescope Sci.; Marriner, John; /Fermilab; Marshall, Jennifer L.; /Ohio State U.; McGinnis,; /Fermilab; Miknaitis, Gajus; /Fermilab; Nichol, Robert C.; /Portsmouth U.; Prieto, Jose Luis; /Ohio State U. /Rochester Inst. Tech. /Stanford U., Phys. Dept. /Pennsylvania U.

2007-09-14

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II) has embarked on a multi-year project to identify and measure light curves for intermediate-redshift (0.05 < z < 0.35) Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) using repeated five-band (ugriz) imaging over an area of 300 sq. deg. The survey region is a stripe 2.5 degrees wide centered on the celestial equator in the Southern Galactic Cap that has been imaged numerous times in earlier years, enabling construction of a deep reference image for discovery of new objects. Supernova imaging observations are being acquired between 1 September and 30 November of 2005-7. During the first two seasons, each region was imaged on average every five nights. Spectroscopic follow-up observations to determine supernova type and redshift are carried out on a large number of telescopes. In its first two three-month seasons, the survey has discovered and measured light curves for 327 spectroscopically confirmed SNe Ia, 30 probable SNe Ia, 14 confirmed SNe Ib/c, 32 confirmed SNe II, plus a large number of photometrically identified SNe Ia, 94 of which have host-galaxy spectra taken so far. This paper provides an overview of the project and briefly describes the observations completed during the first two seasons of operation.

Hα3: an Hα imaging survey of HI selected galaxies from ALFALFA. II. Star formation properties of galaxies in the Virgo cluster and surroundings

Science.gov (United States)

Gavazzi, G.; Fumagalli, M.; Fossati, M.; Galardo, V.; Grossetti, F.; Boselli, A.; Giovanelli, R.; Haynes, M. P.

2013-05-01

Context. We present the analysis of Hα3, an Hα narrow-band imaging follow-up survey of 409 galaxies selected from the HI Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA Survey (ALFALFA) in the Local Supercluster, including the Virgo cluster, in the region 11h advantage of Hα3, which provides the complete census of the recent massive star formation rate (SFR) in HI-rich galaxies in the local Universe and of ancillary optical data from SDSS we explore the relations between the stellar mass, the HI mass, and the current, massive SFR of nearby galaxies in the Virgo cluster. We compare these with those of isolated galaxies in the Local Supercluster, and we investigate the role of the environment in shaping the star formation properties of galaxies at the present cosmological epoch. Methods: By using the Hα hydrogen recombination line as a tracer of recent star formation, we investigated the relationships between atomic neutral gas and newly formed stars in different environments (cluster and field), for many morphological types (spirals and dwarfs), and over a wide range of stellar masses (107.5 to 1011.5 M⊙). To quantify the degree of environmental perturbation, we adopted an updated calibration of the HI deficiency parameter which we used to divide the sample into three classes: unperturbed galaxies (DefHI ≤ 0.3), perturbed galaxies (0.3 model. Once considered as a whole, the Virgo cluster is effective in removing neutral hydrogen from galaxies, and this perturbation is strong enough to appreciably reduce the SFR of its entire galaxy population. Conclusions: An estimate of the present infall rate of 300-400 galaxies per Gyr in the Virgo cluster is obtained from the number of existing HI-rich late-type systems, assuming 200-300 Myr as the time scale for HI ablation. If the infall process has been acting at a constant rate, this would imply that the Virgo cluster has formed approximately 2 Gyr ago, consistently with the idea that Virgo is in a young state of dynamical evolution. Based

Latitudinal and seasonal variability of the micrometeor input function: A study using model predictions and observations from Arecibo and PFISR

Science.gov (United States)

Fentzke, J. T.; Janches, D.; Sparks, J. J.

2009-05-01

In this work, we use a semi-empirical model of the micrometeor input function (MIF) together with meteor head-echo observations obtained with two high power and large aperture (HPLA) radars, the 430 MHz Arecibo Observatory (AO) radar in Puerto Rico (18°N, 67°W) and the 450 MHz Poker flat incoherent scatter radar (PFISR) in Alaska (65°N, 147°W), to study the seasonal and geographical dependence of the meteoric flux in the upper atmosphere. The model, recently developed by Janches et al. [2006a. Modeling the global micrometeor input function in the upper atmosphere observed by high power and large aperture radars. Journal of Geophysical Research 111] and Fentzke and Janches [2008. A semi-empirical model of the contribution from sporadic meteoroid sources on the meteor input function observed at arecibo. Journal of Geophysical Research (Space Physics) 113 (A03304)], includes an initial mass flux that is provided by the six known meteor sources (i.e. orbital families of dust) as well as detailed modeling of meteoroid atmospheric entry and ablation physics. In addition, we use a simple ionization model to treat radar sensitivity issues by defining minimum electron volume density production thresholds required in the meteor head-echo plasma for detection. This simplified approach works well because we use observations from two radars with similar frequencies, but different sensitivities and locations. This methodology allows us to explore the initial input of particles and how it manifests in different parts of the MLT as observed by these instruments without the need to invoke more sophisticated plasma models, which are under current development. The comparisons between model predictions and radar observations show excellent agreement between diurnal, seasonal, and latitudinal variability of the detected meteor rate and radial velocity distributions, allowing us to understand how individual meteoroid populations contribute to the overall flux at a particular

Swift observations of SDSS J141118.31+481257.6 during its first detected outburst

Science.gov (United States)

Sandoval, L. E. Rivera; Maccarone, T.

2018-05-01

We report Swift observations of the AM CVn-type system SDSS J141118.31+481257.6 (RA=14:11:18.31, Dec=+48:12:57.6) during its first ever recorded outburst. The system was detected by Tadashi Kojima on 2018-May-20 with a V magnitude of 12.6 +- 0.2 (http://ooruri.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/mailarchive/vsnet-alert/22176), an increase of 7 mags compared to any previous measurement in the same filter.

GNIRS-DQS: A Gemini Near Infrared Spectrograph Distant Quasar Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Matthews, Brandon; Shemmer, Ohad; Brotherton, Michael S.; Andruchow, Ileana; Boroson, Todd A.; Brandt, W. Niel; Cellone, Sergio; Ferrero, Gabriel; Gallagher, Sarah; Green, Richard F.; Hennawi, Joseph F.; Lira, Paulina; Myers, Adam D.; Plotkin, Richard; Richards, Gordon T.; Runnoe, Jessie; Schneider, Donald P.; Shen, Yue; Strauss, Michael A.; Willott, Chris J.; Wills, Beverley J.

2018-06-01

We describe an ongoing three-year Gemini survey, launched in 2017, that will obtain near-infrared spectroscopy of 416 Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasars between redshifts of 1.5 and 3.5 in the ~1.0-2.5 μm band. These spectra will cover critical diagnostic emission lines, such as Mg II, Hβ, and [O III], in each source. This project will more than double the existing inventory of near-infrared spectra of luminous quasars at these redshifts, including the era of fast quasar growth. Additional rest frame ultraviolet coverage of at least the C IV emission line is provided by the SDSS spectrum of each source. We will utilize the spectroscopic inventory to determine the most accurate and precise quasar black hole masses, accretion rates, and redshifts, and use the results to derive improved prescriptions for UV-based proxies for these parameters. The improved redshifts will establish velocities of quasar outflows that interact with the host galaxies, and will help constrain how imprecise distance estimates bias quasar clustering measurements. Furthermore, our measurements will facilitate a more complete understanding of how the rest-frame UV-optical spectral properties depend on redshift and luminosity, and test whether the physical properties of the quasar central engine evolve over cosmic time. We will make our data immediately available to the public, provide reduced spectra via a dedicated website, and produce a catalog of measurements and fundamental quasar properties.

THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY CO-ADD: CROSS-CORRELATION WEAK LENSING AND TOMOGRAPHY OF GALAXY CLUSTERS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Simet, Melanie; Dodelson, Scott; Kubo, Jeffrey M.; Annis, James T.; Hao Jiangang; Johnston, David; Lin, Huan; Soares-Santos, Marcelle; Reis, Ribamar R. R.; Seo, Hee-Jong

2012-01-01

The shapes of distant galaxies are sheared by intervening galaxy clusters. We examine this effect in Stripe 82, a 275 deg 2 region observed multiple times in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and co-added to achieve greater depth. We obtain a mass-richness calibration that is similar to other SDSS analyses, demonstrating that the co-addition process did not adversely affect the lensing signal. We also propose a new parameterization of the effect of tomography on the cluster lensing signal which does not require binning in redshift, and we show that using this parameterization we can detect tomography for stacked clusters at varying redshifts. Finally, due to the sensitivity of the tomographic detection to accurately marginalize over the effect of the cluster mass, we show that tomography at low redshift (where dependence on exact cosmological models is weak) can be used to constrain mass profiles in clusters.

THE SEGUE STELLAR PARAMETER PIPELINE. V. ESTIMATION OF ALPHA-ELEMENT ABUNDANCE RATIOS FROM LOW-RESOLUTION SDSS/SEGUE STELLAR SPECTRA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Young Sun; Beers, Timothy C.; Prieto, Carlos Allende; Lai, David K.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Morrison, Heather L.; Johnson, Jennifer A.; An, Deokkeun; Sivarani, Thirupathi; Yanny, Brian

2011-01-01

We present a method for the determination of [α/Fe] ratios from low-resolution (R = 2000) SDSS/SEGUE stellar spectra. By means of a star-by-star comparison with degraded spectra from the ELODIE spectral library and with a set of moderately high-resolution (R = 15, 000) and medium-resolution (R = 6000) spectra of SDSS/SEGUE stars, we demonstrate that we are able to measure [α/Fe] from SDSS/SEGUE spectra (with S/N>20/1) to a precision of better than 0.1 dex, for stars with atmospheric parameters in the range T eff = [4500, 7000] K, log g = [1.5, 5.0], and [Fe/H] = [-1.4, +0.3], over the range [α/Fe] = [-0.1, +0.6]. For stars with [Fe/H] 25/1). Over the full temperature range considered, the lowest metallicity star for which a confident estimate of [α/Fe] can be obtained from our approach is [Fe/H] ∼-2.5; preliminary tests indicate that a metallicity limit as low as [Fe/H] ∼-3.0 may apply to cooler stars. As a further validation of this approach, weighted averages of [α/Fe] obtained for SEGUE spectra of likely member stars of Galactic globular clusters (M15, M13, and M71) and open clusters (NGC 2420, M67, and NGC 6791) exhibit good agreement with the values of [α/Fe] from previous studies. The results of the comparison with NGC 6791 imply that the metallicity range for the method may extend to ∼+0.5.

THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY CO-ADD: A GALAXY PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFT CATALOG

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Reis, Ribamar R. R.; Soares-Santos, Marcelle; Annis, James; Dodelson, Scott; Hao Jiangang; Johnston, David; Kubo, Jeffrey; Lin Huan; Seo, Hee-Jong; Simet, Melanie

2012-01-01

We present and describe a catalog of galaxy photometric redshifts (photo-z) for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Co-add Data. We use the artificial neural network (ANN) technique to calculate the photo-z and the nearest neighbor error method to estimate photo-z errors for ∼13 million objects classified as galaxies in the co-add with r 68 = 0.031. After presenting our results and quality tests, we provide a short guide for users accessing the public data.

A deep proper motion catalog within the Sloan digital sky survey footprint

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Munn, Jeffrey A.; Harris, Hugh C.; Tilleman, Trudy M.; Hippel, Ted von; Kilic, Mukremin; Liebert, James W.; Williams, Kurtis A.; DeGenarro, Steven; Jeffery, Elizabeth

2014-01-01

A new proper motion catalog is presented, combining the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with second epoch observations in the r band within a portion of the SDSS imaging footprint. The new observations were obtained with the 90prime camera on the Steward Observatory Bok 90 inch telescope, and the Array Camera on the U.S. Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station, 1.3 m telescope. The catalog covers 1098 square degrees to r = 22.0, an additional 1521 square degrees to r = 20.9, plus a further 488 square degrees of lesser quality data. Statistical errors in the proper motions range from 5 mas year −1 at the bright end to 15 mas year −1 at the faint end, for a typical epoch difference of six years. Systematic errors are estimated to be roughly 1 mas year −1 for the Array Camera data, and as much as 2–4 mas year −1 for the 90prime data (though typically less). The catalog also includes a second epoch of r band photometry.

A deep proper motion catalog within the Sloan digital sky survey footprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Munn, Jeffrey A.; Harris, Hugh C.; Tilleman, Trudy M. [US Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station, 10391 West Naval Observatory Road, Flagstaff, AZ 86005-8521 (United States); Hippel, Ted von [Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Physical Sciences, 600 South Clyde Morris Boulevard Daytona Beach, FL 32114-3900 (United States); Kilic, Mukremin [University of Oklahoma, Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, 440 West Brooks Street, Norman, OK 73019 (United States); Liebert, James W. [University of Arizona, Steward Observatory, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States); Williams, Kurtis A. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A and M University-Commerce, P.O. Box 3011, Commerce, TX 75429 (United States); DeGenarro, Steven [Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C1400, Austin, TX 78712-0259 (United States); Jeffery, Elizabeth, E-mail: jam@nofs.navy.mil, E-mail: hch@nofs.navy.mil, E-mail: trudy@nofs.navy.mil, E-mail: ted.vonhippel@erau.edu, E-mail: kilic@ou.edu, E-mail: jamesliebert@gmail.com, E-mail: kurtis.williams@tamuc.edu, E-mail: studiofortytwo@yahoo.com, E-mail: ejeffery@byu.edu [BYU Department of Physics and Astronomy, N283 ESC, Provo, UT 84602 (United States)

2014-12-01

A new proper motion catalog is presented, combining the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with second epoch observations in the r band within a portion of the SDSS imaging footprint. The new observations were obtained with the 90prime camera on the Steward Observatory Bok 90 inch telescope, and the Array Camera on the U.S. Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station, 1.3 m telescope. The catalog covers 1098 square degrees to r = 22.0, an additional 1521 square degrees to r = 20.9, plus a further 488 square degrees of lesser quality data. Statistical errors in the proper motions range from 5 mas year{sup −1} at the bright end to 15 mas year{sup −1} at the faint end, for a typical epoch difference of six years. Systematic errors are estimated to be roughly 1 mas year{sup −1} for the Array Camera data, and as much as 2–4 mas year{sup −1} for the 90prime data (though typically less). The catalog also includes a second epoch of r band photometry.

Preliminary results from the Arecibo Heating Experiment (HEX): HF to GNSS

Science.gov (United States)

Jackson-Booth, N.; Penney, R.; Bernhardt, P. A.; Martin, P. L.; Buckland, R.; Morton-Orr, T.; Nossa, E.; Buckland, R.

2017-12-01

The ionosphere is subject to many solar and terrestrial influences that can generate disturbances, causing degradation to modern communication and navigational systems. Whilst the disturbances are normally caused by natural phenomena such as hurricanes, earthquakes and solar storms; they can also be generated by artificially modifying the ionosphere. Artificial Ionospheric Modification (AIM) attempts to alter a small region of the ionosphere in order to perturb the RF propagation environment. This can be achieved through injecting the ionosphere with aerosols, chemicals or radio signals. The effects of any such modification can be detected through the deployment of sensors, including ground based high-frequency (HF) sounders and dual-band Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers. HF sounders allow measurements of the bottom-side of the ionosphere. GNSS receivers offer a convenient means of obtaining information about the ionosphere, including ionospheric disturbances through changes in the derived total electron content information. The Heating EXperiment (HEX), which took place in March and May 2017, was designed to further our understanding of the phenomena caused by artificially heating a small region of the ionosphere, using the Arecibo facility in Puerto Rico. This was achieved by utilizing a HF measurement experiment spread between Texas and Trinidad and the deployment of a small scale travelling ionospheric disturbance (TID) network near the heater. The TID network comprised three GNSS receivers along baselines of approximately 4 km, located 20 km north of the heater. This paper presents preliminary results from the HEX campaign, including evidence of heating-induced disturbances enhancing propagation between Virginia and Trinidad. The implications of generated irregularities on GNSS will also be discussed.

An Arecibo Search for Pulsars and Transient Sources in M33

Science.gov (United States)

Bhat, N. D. R.; Cordes, J. M.; Cox, P. J.; Deneva, J. S.; Hankins, T. H.; Lazio, T. J. W.; McLaughlin, M. A.

2011-05-01

We report on a systematic and sensitive search for pulsars and transient sources in the nearby spiral galaxy M33, conducted at 1.4 GHz with the Arecibo telescope's seven-beam receiver system, ALFA. Data were searched for both periodic and aperiodic sources, up to 1000 pc cm-3 in dispersion measure and on timescales from ~50 μs to several seconds. The galaxy was sampled with 12 ALFA pointings, or 84 pixels in total, each of which was searched for 2-3 hr. We describe the observations, search methodologies, and analysis strategies applicable to multibeam systems, and comment on the data quality and statistics of spurious events that arise due to radio frequency interference. While these searches have not led to any conclusive signals of periodic or transient nature that originate in the galaxy, they illustrate some of the underlying challenges and difficulties in such searches and the efficacy of simultaneous multiple beams in the analysis of search output. The implied limits are lsim5 μJy Mpc2 in luminosity (at 1400 MHz) for periodic sources in M33 with duty cycles lsim5%. For short-duration transient signals (with pulse widths lsim100 μs ), the limiting peak flux density is 100 mJy, which would correspond to a 5σ detection of bright giant pulses (~20 kJy) from Crab-like pulsars if located at the distance of M33. We discuss the implications of our null results for various source populations within the galaxy and comment on the future prospects to conduct even more sensitive searches with the upcoming next-generation instruments including the Square Kilometer Array and its pathfinders.

AN ARECIBO SEARCH FOR PULSARS AND TRANSIENT SOURCES IN M33

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bhat, N. D. R.; Cox, P. J.; Cordes, J. M.; Deneva, J. S.; Hankins, T. H.; Lazio, T. J. W.; McLaughlin, M. A.

2011-01-01

We report on a systematic and sensitive search for pulsars and transient sources in the nearby spiral galaxy M33, conducted at 1.4 GHz with the Arecibo telescope's seven-beam receiver system, ALFA. Data were searched for both periodic and aperiodic sources, up to 1000 pc cm -3 in dispersion measure and on timescales from ∼50 μs to several seconds. The galaxy was sampled with 12 ALFA pointings, or 84 pixels in total, each of which was searched for 2-3 hr. We describe the observations, search methodologies, and analysis strategies applicable to multibeam systems, and comment on the data quality and statistics of spurious events that arise due to radio frequency interference. While these searches have not led to any conclusive signals of periodic or transient nature that originate in the galaxy, they illustrate some of the underlying challenges and difficulties in such searches and the efficacy of simultaneous multiple beams in the analysis of search output. The implied limits are ∼ 2 in luminosity (at 1400 MHz) for periodic sources in M33 with duty cycles ∼<5%. For short-duration transient signals (with pulse widths ∼<100 μs ), the limiting peak flux density is 100 mJy, which would correspond to a 5σ detection of bright giant pulses (∼20 kJy) from Crab-like pulsars if located at the distance of M33. We discuss the implications of our null results for various source populations within the galaxy and comment on the future prospects to conduct even more sensitive searches with the upcoming next-generation instruments including the Square Kilometer Array and its pathfinders.

On the SW Sex-type eclipsing cataclysmic variable SDSS0756+0858

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tovmassian, Gagik; Hernandez, Mercedes Stephania; González-Buitrago, Diego; Zharikov, Sergey; García-Díaz, Maria Teresa, E-mail: gag@astro.unam.mx [Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Apdo. Postal 877, Ensenada, Baja California 22800 (Mexico)

2014-03-01

We conducted a spectroscopic and photometric study of SDSS J075653.11+085831. X-ray observations were also attempted. We determined the orbital period of this binary system to be 3.29 hr. It is a deep eclipsing system, whose spectra show mostly single-peaked, Balmer emission lines and a rather intense He II line. There is also the presence of faint (often double-peaked) He I emission lines as well as several absorption lines, Mg I being the most prominent. All of these features point toward the affiliation of this object with the growing number of SW Sex-type objects. We developed a phenomenological model of an SW Sex system to reproduce the observed photometric and spectral features.

On the SW Sex-type eclipsing cataclysmic variable SDSS0756+0858

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tovmassian, Gagik; Hernandez, Mercedes Stephania; González-Buitrago, Diego; Zharikov, Sergey; García-Díaz, Maria Teresa

2014-01-01

We conducted a spectroscopic and photometric study of SDSS J075653.11+085831. X-ray observations were also attempted. We determined the orbital period of this binary system to be 3.29 hr. It is a deep eclipsing system, whose spectra show mostly single-peaked, Balmer emission lines and a rather intense He II line. There is also the presence of faint (often double-peaked) He I emission lines as well as several absorption lines, Mg I being the most prominent. All of these features point toward the affiliation of this object with the growing number of SW Sex-type objects. We developed a phenomenological model of an SW Sex system to reproduce the observed photometric and spectral features.

The Arecibo Galaxy Environment Survey - VIII. Discovery of an isolated dwarf galaxy in the Local Volume

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Taylor, Rhys; Minchin, R.F.; Herbst, H.; Smith, R.

2014-01-01

Roč. 442, č. 1 (2014), L46-L50 ISSN 0035-8711 Institutional support: RVO:67985815 Keywords : surveys * galaxies * distances and redshifts Subject RIV: BN - Astronomy, Celestial Mechanics, Astrophysics OBOR OECD: Astronomy (including astrophysics,space science) Impact factor: 5.107, year: 2014

SDSS-IV MaNGA: stellar population gradients as a function of galaxy environment

Science.gov (United States)

Goddard, D.; Thomas, D.; Maraston, C.; Westfall, K.; Etherington, J.; Riffel, R.; Mallmann, N. D.; Zheng, Z.; Argudo-Fernández, M.; Bershady, M.; Bundy, K.; Drory, N.; Law, D.; Yan, R.; Wake, D.; Weijmans, A.; Bizyaev, D.; Brownstein, J.; Lane, R. R.; Maiolino, R.; Masters, K.; Merrifield, M.; Nitschelm, C.; Pan, K.; Roman-Lopes, A.; Storchi-Bergmann, T.

2017-02-01

We study the internal radial gradients of stellar population properties within 1.5 Re and analyse the impact of galaxy environment. We use a representative sample of 721 galaxies with masses ranging between 109 M⊙ and 1011.5 M⊙ from the SDSS-IV survey MaNGA. We split this sample by morphology into early-type and late-type galaxies. Using the full spectral fitting code FIREFLY, we derive the light and mass-weighted stellar population properties, age and metallicity, and calculate the gradients of these properties. We use three independent methods to quantify galaxy environment, namely the Nth nearest neighbour, the tidal strength parameter Q and distinguish between central and satellite galaxies. In our analysis, we find that early-type galaxies generally exhibit shallow light-weighted age gradients in agreement with the literature and mass-weighted median age gradients tend to be slightly positive. Late-type galaxies, instead, have negative light-weighted age gradients. We detect negative metallicity gradients in both early- and late-type galaxies that correlate with galaxy mass, with the gradients being steeper and the correlation with mass being stronger in late-types. We find, however, that stellar population gradients, for both morphological classifications, have no significant correlation with galaxy environment for all three characterizations of environment. Our results suggest that galaxy mass is the main driver of stellar population gradients in both early and late-type galaxies, and any environmental dependence, if present at all, must be very subtle.

THE STELLAR METALLICITY DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION OF THE GALACTIC HALO FROM SDSS PHOTOMETRY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

An, Deokkeun; Beers, Timothy C.; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Lee, Young Sun; Bovy, Jo; Ivezić, Željko; Carollo, Daniela; Newby, Matthew

2013-01-01

We explore the stellar metallicity distribution function of the Galactic halo based on SDSS ugriz photometry. A set of stellar isochrones is calibrated using observations of several star clusters and validated by comparisons with medium-resolution spectroscopic values over a wide range of metal abundance. We estimate distances and metallicities for individual main-sequence stars in the multiply scanned SDSS Stripe 82, at heliocentric distances in the range 5-8 kpc and |b| > 35°, and find that the in situ photometric metallicity distribution has a shape that matches that of the kinematically selected local halo stars from Ryan and Norris. We also examine independent kinematic information from proper-motion measurements for high Galactic latitude stars in our sample. We find that stars with retrograde rotation in the rest frame of the Galaxy are generally more metal poor than those exhibiting prograde rotation, which is consistent with earlier arguments by Carollo et al. that the halo system comprises at least two spatially overlapping components with differing metallicity, kinematics, and spatial distributions. The observed photometric metallicity distribution and that of Ryan and Norris can be described by a simple chemical evolution model by Hartwick (or by a single Gaussian distribution); however, the suggestive metallicity-kinematic correlation contradicts the basic assumption in this model that the Milky Way halo consists primarily of a single stellar population. When the observed metallicity distribution is deconvolved using two Gaussian components with peaks at [Fe/H] ≈ –1.7 and –2.3, the metal-poor component accounts for ∼20%-35% of the entire halo population in this distance range.

Genus Topology of Structure in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Model Testing

Science.gov (United States)

Gott, J. Richard, III; Hambrick, D. Clay; Vogeley, Michael S.; Kim, Juhan; Park, Changbom; Choi, Yun-Young; Cen, Renyue; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Nagamine, Kentaro

2008-03-01

We measure the three-dimensional topology of large-scale structure in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This allows the genus statistic to be measured with unprecedented statistical accuracy. The sample size is now sufficiently large to allow the topology to be an important tool for testing galaxy formation models. For comparison, we make mock SDSS samples using several state-of-the-art N-body simulations: the Millennium run of Springel et al. (10 billion particles), the Kim & Park CDM models (1.1 billion particles), and the Cen & Ostriker hydrodynamic code models (8.6 billion cell hydro mesh). Each of these simulations uses a different method for modeling galaxy formation. The SDSS data show a genus curve that is broadly characteristic of that produced by Gaussian random-phase initial conditions. Thus, the data strongly support the standard model of inflation where Gaussian random-phase initial conditions are produced by random quantum fluctuations in the early universe. But on top of this general shape there are measurable differences produced by nonlinear gravitational effects and biasing connected with galaxy formation. The N-body simulations have been tuned to reproduce the power spectrum and multiplicity function but not topology, so topology is an acid test for these models. The data show a "meatball" shift (only partly due to the Sloan Great Wall of galaxies) that differs at the 2.5 σ level from the results of the Millenium run and the Kim & Park dark halo models, even including the effects of cosmic variance.

SDSS-IV MaNGA IFS GALAXY SURVEY—SURVEY DESIGN, EXECUTION, AND INITIAL DATA QUALITY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yan, Renbin; Zhang, Kai; Bundy, Kevin; Law, David R.; Bershady, Matthew A.; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Andrews, Brett; Cherinka, Brian; Drory, Niv; MacDonald, Nicholas; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Thomas, Daniel; Westfall, Kyle B.; Wake, David A.; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Belfiore, Francesco

2016-01-01

The MaNGA Survey (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) is one of three core programs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV. It is obtaining integral field spectroscopy for 10,000 nearby galaxies at a spectral resolution of R  ∼ 2000 from 3622 to 10354 Å. The design of the survey is driven by a set of science requirements on the precision of estimates of the following properties: star formation rate surface density, gas metallicity, stellar population age, metallicity, and abundance ratio, and their gradients; stellar and gas kinematics; and enclosed gravitational mass as a function of radius. We describe how these science requirements set the depth of the observations and dictate sample selection. The majority of targeted galaxies are selected to ensure uniform spatial coverage in units of effective radius (R e ) while maximizing spatial resolution. About two-thirds of the sample is covered out to 1.5 R e (Primary sample), and one-third of the sample is covered to 2.5 R e (Secondary sample). We describe the survey execution with details that would be useful in the design of similar future surveys. We also present statistics on the achieved data quality, specifically the point-spread function, sampling uniformity, spectral resolution, sky subtraction, and flux calibration. For our Primary sample, the median r -band signal-to-noise ratio is ∼70 per 1.4 Å pixel for spectra stacked between 1 R e and 1.5 R e . Measurements of various galaxy properties from the first-year data show that we are meeting or exceeding the defined requirements for the majority of our science goals.

SDSS-IV MaNGA IFS Galaxy Survey—Survey Design, Execution, and Initial Data Quality

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Renbin; Bundy, Kevin; Law, David R.; Bershady, Matthew A.; Andrews, Brett; Cherinka, Brian; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Drory, Niv; MacDonald, Nicholas; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Thomas, Daniel; Wake, David A.; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Westfall, Kyle B.; Zhang, Kai; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Belfiore, Francesco; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Blanton, Michael R.; Brownstein, Joel; Cappellari, Michele; D'Souza, Richard; Emsellem, Eric; Fu, Hai; Gaulme, Patrick; Graham, Mark T.; Goddard, Daniel; Gunn, James E.; Harding, Paul; Jones, Amy; Kinemuchi, Karen; Li, Cheng; Li, Hongyu; Maiolino, Roberto; Mao, Shude; Maraston, Claudia; Masters, Karen; Merrifield, Michael R.; Oravetz, Daniel; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John K.; Sanchez, Sebastian F.; Schlegel, David; Simmons, Audrey; Thanjavur, Karun; Tinker, Jeremy; Tremonti, Christy; van den Bosch, Remco; Zheng, Zheng

2016-12-01

The MaNGA Survey (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) is one of three core programs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV. It is obtaining integral field spectroscopy for 10,000 nearby galaxies at a spectral resolution of R ˜ 2000 from 3622 to 10354 Å. The design of the survey is driven by a set of science requirements on the precision of estimates of the following properties: star formation rate surface density, gas metallicity, stellar population age, metallicity, and abundance ratio, and their gradients; stellar and gas kinematics; and enclosed gravitational mass as a function of radius. We describe how these science requirements set the depth of the observations and dictate sample selection. The majority of targeted galaxies are selected to ensure uniform spatial coverage in units of effective radius (R e ) while maximizing spatial resolution. About two-thirds of the sample is covered out to 1.5R e (Primary sample), and one-third of the sample is covered to 2.5R e (Secondary sample). We describe the survey execution with details that would be useful in the design of similar future surveys. We also present statistics on the achieved data quality, specifically the point-spread function, sampling uniformity, spectral resolution, sky subtraction, and flux calibration. For our Primary sample, the median r-band signal-to-noise ratio is ˜70 per 1.4 Å pixel for spectra stacked between 1R e and 1.5R e . Measurements of various galaxy properties from the first-year data show that we are meeting or exceeding the defined requirements for the majority of our science goals.

Understanding the faint red galaxy population using large-scale clustering measurements from SDSS DR7

OpenAIRE

Ross, Ashley; Tojeiro, Rita; Percival, Will

2011-01-01

We use data from the SDSS to investigate the evolution of the large-scale galaxy bias as a function of luminosity for red galaxies. We carefully consider correlation functions of galaxies selected from both photometric and spectroscopic data, and cross-correlations between them, to obtain multiple measurements of the large-scale bias. We find, for our most robust analyses, a strong increase in bias with luminosity for the most luminous galaxies, an intermediate regime where bias does not evol...

GROUP FINDING IN THE STELLAR HALO USING PHOTOMETRIC SURVEYS: CURRENT SENSITIVITY AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sharma, Sanjib; Johnston, Kathryn V.; Majewski, Steven R.; Bullock, James; Munoz, Ricardo R.

2011-01-01

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) provided the first deep and global photometric catalogs of stars in our halo and not only clearly mapped its structure but also demonstrated the ubiquity of substructure within it. Future surveys promise to push such catalogs to ever increasing depths and larger numbers of stars. This paper examines what can be learned from current and future photometric databases using group-finding techniques. We compare groups recovered from a sample of M-giants from 2MASS with those found in synthetic surveys of simulated ΛCDM stellar halos that were built entirely from satellite accretion events and demonstrate broad consistency between the properties of the two sets. We also find that these recovered groups are likely to represent the majority of high-luminosity (L > 5 x 10 6 L sun ) satellites accreted within the last 10 Gyr and on orbits with apocenters within 100 kpc. However, the sensitivity of the M-giant survey to accretion events that were either ancient from low-luminosity objects or those on radial orbits is limited because of the low number of stars, bias toward high-metallicity stars, and the shallow depth (distance explored only out to 100 kpc from the Sun). We examine the extent to which these limitations are addressed by current and future surveys, in particular catalogs of main-sequence turnoff (MSTO) stars from SDSS and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), and of RR Lyrae stars from LSST or PanSTARRS. The MSTO and RR Lyrae surveys are more sensitive to low-luminosity events (L ∼ 10 5 L sun or less) than the 2MASS M-giant sample. Additionally, RR Lyrae surveys, with superior depth, are also good at detecting events on highly eccentric orbits whose debris tends to lie beyond 100 kpc. When combined we expect these photometric surveys to provide a comprehensive picture of the last 10 Gyr of Galactic accretion. Events older than this are too phase mixed to be discovered. Pushing

SDSS-IV MaNGA IFS GALAXY SURVEY—SURVEY DESIGN, EXECUTION, AND INITIAL DATA QUALITY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yan, Renbin; Zhang, Kai [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, 505 Rose Street, Lexington, KY 40506-0057 (United States); Bundy, Kevin [Kavli IPMU (WPI), UTIAS, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583 (Japan); Law, David R. [Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Bershady, Matthew A.; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M. [Department of Astronomy, University of Winsconsin-Madison, 475 N. Charter Street, Madison, WI 53706-1582 (United States); Andrews, Brett [Department of Physics and Astronomy and Pittsburgh Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology Center (PITT PACC), University of Pittsburgh, 3941 OHara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (United States); Cherinka, Brian [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg Center, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Drory, Niv [McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, Austin, TX 78712-0259 (United States); MacDonald, Nicholas; Sánchez-Gallego, José R. [Department of Astronomy, Box 351580, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Thomas, Daniel; Westfall, Kyle B. [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth (United Kingdom); Wake, David A. [Department of Physical Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA (United Kingdom); Weijmans, Anne-Marie [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews KY16 9SS (United Kingdom); Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD (United Kingdom); Belfiore, Francesco, E-mail: yanrenbin@uky.edu [Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 19 J. J. Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE (United Kingdom); and others

2016-12-01

The MaNGA Survey (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) is one of three core programs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV. It is obtaining integral field spectroscopy for 10,000 nearby galaxies at a spectral resolution of R  ∼ 2000 from 3622 to 10354 Å. The design of the survey is driven by a set of science requirements on the precision of estimates of the following properties: star formation rate surface density, gas metallicity, stellar population age, metallicity, and abundance ratio, and their gradients; stellar and gas kinematics; and enclosed gravitational mass as a function of radius. We describe how these science requirements set the depth of the observations and dictate sample selection. The majority of targeted galaxies are selected to ensure uniform spatial coverage in units of effective radius (R{sub e}) while maximizing spatial resolution. About two-thirds of the sample is covered out to 1.5 R{sub e} (Primary sample), and one-third of the sample is covered to 2.5 R{sub e} (Secondary sample). We describe the survey execution with details that would be useful in the design of similar future surveys. We also present statistics on the achieved data quality, specifically the point-spread function, sampling uniformity, spectral resolution, sky subtraction, and flux calibration. For our Primary sample, the median r -band signal-to-noise ratio is ∼70 per 1.4 Å pixel for spectra stacked between 1 R{sub e} and 1.5 R{sub e}. Measurements of various galaxy properties from the first-year data show that we are meeting or exceeding the defined requirements for the majority of our science goals.

AGN Accretion Physics in the Time Domain: Survey Cadences, Stochastic Analysis, and Physical Interpretations

Science.gov (United States)

Moreno, Jackeline; Vogeley, Michael S.; Richards, Gordon; O'Brien, John T.; Kasliwal, Vishal

2018-01-01

We present rigorous testing of survey cadences (K2, SDSS, CRTS, & Pan-STARRS) for quasar variability science using a magnetohydrodynamics synthetic lightcurve and the canonical lightcurve from Kepler, Zw 229.15. We explain where the state of the art is in regards to physical interpretations of stochastic models (CARMA) applied to AGN variability. Quasar variability offers a time domain approach of probing accretion physics at the SMBH scale. Evidence shows that the strongest amplitude changes in the brightness of AGN occur on long timescales ranging from months to hundreds of days. These global behaviors can be constrained by survey data despite low sampling resolution. CARMA processes provide a flexible family of models used to interpolate between data points, predict future observations and describe behaviors in a lightcurve. This is accomplished by decomposing a signal into rise and decay timescales, frequencies for cyclic behavior and shock amplitudes. Characteristic timescales may point to length-scales over which a physical process operates such as turbulent eddies, warping or hotspots due to local thermal instabilities. We present the distribution of SDSS Stripe 82 quasars in CARMA parameters space that pass our cadence tests and also explain how the Damped Harmonic Oscillator model, CARMA(2,1), reduces to the Damped Random Walk, CARMA(1,0), given the data in a specific region of the parameter space.

ARECIBO MULTI-EPOCH H I ABSORPTION MEASUREMENTS AGAINST PULSARS: TINY-SCALE ATOMIC STRUCTURE

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stanimirovic, S.; Weisberg, J. M.; Pei, Z.; Tuttle, K.; Green, J. T.

2010-01-01

We present results from multi-epoch neutral hydrogen (H I) absorption observations of six bright pulsars with the Arecibo telescope. Moving through the interstellar medium (ISM) with transverse velocities of 10-150 AU yr -1 , these pulsars have swept across 1-200 AU over the course of our experiment, allowing us to probe the existence and properties of the tiny-scale atomic structure (TSAS) in the cold neutral medium (CNM). While most of the observed pulsars show no significant change in their H I absorption spectra, we have identified at least two clear TSAS-induced opacity variations in the direction of B1929+10. These observations require strong spatial inhomogeneities in either the TSAS clouds' physical properties themselves or else in the clouds' galactic distribution. While TSAS is occasionally detected on spatial scales down to 10 AU, it is too rare to be characterized by a spectrum of turbulent CNM fluctuations on scales of 10 1 -10 3 AU, as previously suggested by some work. In the direction of B1929+10, an apparent correlation between TSAS and interstellar clouds inside the warm Local Bubble (LB) indicates that TSAS may be tracing the fragmentation of the LB wall via hydrodynamic instabilities. While similar fragmentation events occur frequently throughout the ISM, the warm medium surrounding these cold cloudlets induces a natural selection effect wherein small TSAS clouds evaporate quickly and are rare, while large clouds survive longer and become a general property of the ISM.

Dependence of the clustering properties of galaxies on stellar velocity dispersion in the Main galaxy sample of SDSS DR10

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Xin-Fa; Song, Jun; Chen, Yi-Qing; Jiang, Peng; Ding, Ying-Ping

2014-08-01

Using two volume-limited Main galaxy samples of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 10 (SDSS DR10), we investigate the dependence of the clustering properties of galaxies on stellar velocity dispersion by cluster analysis. It is found that in the luminous volume-limited Main galaxy sample, except at r=1.2, richer and larger systems can be more easily formed in the large stellar velocity dispersion subsample, while in the faint volume-limited Main galaxy sample, at r≥0.9, an opposite trend is observed. According to statistical analyses of the multiplicity functions, we conclude in two volume-limited Main galaxy samples: small stellar velocity dispersion galaxies preferentially form isolated galaxies, close pairs and small group, while large stellar velocity dispersion galaxies preferentially inhabit the dense groups and clusters. However, we note the difference between two volume-limited Main galaxy samples: in the faint volume-limited Main galaxy sample, at r≥0.9, the small stellar velocity dispersion subsample has a higher proportion of galaxies in superclusters ( n≥200) than the large stellar velocity dispersion subsample.

E+A galaxies in the SDSS. Stellar population and morphology

Science.gov (United States)

Leiva, R.; Galaz, G.

2014-10-01

Galaxies with E+A spectrum have deep Balmer absorption and no H_{α} and [OII] emission. This suggest recent star formation and the lack of ongoing star formation. With an E+A sample from the SDSS DR 7 (Aihara et al. 2011) we study the morphology with Galaxy Zoo 1 data and the star formation history fitting models from Bruzual & Charlot (2003). We found an underpopulation of spiral and disk like galaxies and an overpopulation of interacting galaxies, the last seems consistent with the scenario where, at low z, the interaction mechanism is responsible for at least part of the E+A galaxies. The star formation history (SFH) fits most of the spectra indicating an increased star formation around 2 Gyr in the past. Additional parameters like dust internal extinction need to be included to improve the fitting.

Distribution Of Maximal Luminosity Of Galaxies In The Sloan Digital Sky Survey

CERN Document Server

Regós, E; Rácz, Z; Taghizadeh, M; Ozogany, K

2010-01-01

Extreme value statistics (EVS) is applied to the pixelized distribution of galaxy luminosities in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We analyze the DR6 Main Galaxy Sample (MGS), divided into red and blue subsamples, as well as the Luminous Red Galaxy Sample (LRGS). A non-parametric comparison of the EVS of the luminosities with the Fisher-Tippett-Gumbel distribution (limit distribution for independent variables distributed by the Press-Schechter law) indicates a good agreement provided uncertainties arising both from the finite size of the samples and from the sample size distribution are accounted for.

The sloan digital sky Survey-II supernova survey: search algorithm and follow-up observations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sako, Masao [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, 209 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States); Bassett, Bruce [Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701 (South Africa); Becker, Andrew; Hogan, Craig J. [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Cinabro, David [Department of Physics, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202 (United States); DeJongh, Fritz; Frieman, Joshua A.; Marriner, John; Miknaitis, Gajus [Center for Particle Astrophysics, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States); Depoy, D. L.; Prieto, Jose Luis [Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1173 (United States); Dilday, Ben; Kessler, Richard [Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, The University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue Chicago, IL 60637 (United States); Doi, Mamoru [Institute of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo 2-21-1, Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0015 (Japan); Garnavich, Peter M. [University of Notre Dame, 225 Nieuwland Science, Notre Dame, IN 46556-5670 (United States); Holtzman, Jon [Department of Astronomy, MSC 4500, New Mexico State University, P.O. Box 30001, Las Cruces, NM 88003 (United States); Jha, Saurabh [Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, P.O. Box 20450, MS29, Stanford, CA 94309 (United States); Konishi, Kohki [Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo, 5-1-5, Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba, 277-8582 (Japan); Lampeitl, Hubert [Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Nichol, Robert C. [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, Mercantile House, Hampshire Terrace, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 2EG (United Kingdom); and others

2008-01-01

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey has identified a large number of new transient sources in a 300 deg{sup 2} region along the celestial equator during its first two seasons of a three-season campaign. Multi-band (ugriz) light curves were measured for most of the sources, which include solar system objects, galactic variable stars, active galactic nuclei, supernovae (SNe), and other astronomical transients. The imaging survey is augmented by an extensive spectroscopic follow-up program to identify SNe, measure their redshifts, and study the physical conditions of the explosions and their environment through spectroscopic diagnostics. During the survey, light curves are rapidly evaluated to provide an initial photometric type of the SNe, and a selected sample of sources are targeted for spectroscopic observations. In the first two seasons, 476 sources were selected for spectroscopic observations, of which 403 were identified as SNe. For the type Ia SNe, the main driver for the survey, our photometric typing and targeting efficiency is 90%. Only 6% of the photometric SN Ia candidates were spectroscopically classified as non-SN Ia instead, and the remaining 4% resulted in low signal-to-noise, unclassified spectra. This paper describes the search algorithm and the software, and the real-time processing of the SDSS imaging data. We also present the details of the supernova candidate selection procedures and strategies for follow-up spectroscopic and imaging observations of the discovered sources.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey:Search Algorithm and Follow-up Observations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sako, Masao; /Pennsylvania U. /KIPAC, Menlo Park; Bassett, Bruce; /Cape Town U. /South African Astron. Observ.; Becker, Andrew; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Cinabro, David; /Wayne State U.; DeJongh, Don Frederic; /Fermilab; Depoy, D.L.; /Ohio State U.; Doi, Mamoru; /Tokyo U.; Garnavich, Peter M.; /Notre Dame U.; Craig, Hogan, J.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Holtzman, Jon; /New Mexico State U.; Jha, Saurabh; /Stanford U., Phys. Dept.; Konishi, Kohki; /Tokyo U.; Lampeitl, Hubert; /Baltimore, Space; Marriner, John; /Fermilab; Miknaitis, Gajus; /Fermilab; Nichol, Robert C.; /Portsmouth U.; Prieto, Jose Luis; /Ohio State U.; Richmond, Michael W.; /Rochester Inst.; Schneider, Donald P.; /Penn State U., Astron. Astrophys.; Smith, Mathew; /Portsmouth U.; SubbaRao, Mark; /Chicago U. /Tokyo U. /Tokyo U. /South African Astron. Observ. /Tokyo

2007-09-14

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey has identified a large number of new transient sources in a 300 deg2 region along the celestial equator during its first two seasons of a three-season campaign. Multi-band (ugriz) light curves were measured for most of the sources, which include solar system objects, Galactic variable stars, active galactic nuclei, supernovae (SNe), and other astronomical transients. The imaging survey is augmented by an extensive spectroscopic follow-up program to identify SNe, measure their redshifts, and study the physical conditions of the explosions and their environment through spectroscopic diagnostics. During the survey, light curves are rapidly evaluated to provide an initial photometric type of the SNe, and a selected sample of sources are targeted for spectroscopic observations. In the first two seasons, 476 sources were selected for spectroscopic observations, of which 403 were identified as SNe. For the Type Ia SNe, the main driver for the Survey, our photometric typing and targeting efficiency is 90%. Only 6% of the photometric SN Ia candidates were spectroscopically classified as non-SN Ia instead, and the remaining 4% resulted in low signal-to-noise, unclassified spectra. This paper describes the search algorithm and the software, and the real-time processing of the SDSS imaging data. We also present the details of the supernova candidate selection procedures and strategies for follow-up spectroscopic and imaging observations of the discovered sources.

A SEARCH FOR DISK-GALAXY LENSES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Feron, Chloe; Hjorth, Jens; Samsing, Johan; McKean, John P.

2009-01-01

We present the first automated spectroscopic search for disk-galaxy lenses, using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) database. We follow up eight gravitational lens candidates, selected among a sample of ∼40,000 candidate massive disk galaxies, using a combination of ground-based imaging and long-slit spectroscopy. We confirm two gravitational lens systems: one probable disk galaxy and one probable S0 galaxy. The remaining systems are four promising disk-galaxy lens candidates, as well as two probable gravitational lenses whose lens galaxy might be an S0 galaxy. The redshifts of the lenses are z lens ∼ 0.1. The redshift range of the background sources is z source ∼ 0.3-0.7. The systems presented here are (confirmed or candidate) galaxy-galaxy lensing systems, that is, systems where the multiple images are faint and extended, allowing an accurate determination of the lens galaxy mass and light distributions without contamination from the background galaxy. Moreover, the low redshift of the (confirmed or candidates) lens galaxies is favorable for measuring rotation points to complement the lensing study. We estimate the rest-frame total mass-to-light ratio within the Einstein radius for the two confirmed lenses: we find M tot /L I = 5.4 ± 1.5 within 3.9 ± 0.9 kpc for SDSS J081230.30+543650.9 and M tot /L I = 1.5 ± 0.9 within 1.4 ± 0.8 kpc for SDSS J145543.55+530441.2 (all in solar units). Hubble Space Telescope or adaptive optics imaging is needed to further study the systems.

SPATIAL ANISOTROPY OF GALAXY KINEMATICS IN SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY GALAXY CLUSTERS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Skielboe, Andreas; Wojtak, Radosław; Pedersen, Kristian; Rozo, Eduardo; Rykoff, Eli S.

2012-01-01

Measurements of galaxy cluster kinematics are important in understanding the dynamical state and evolution of clusters of galaxies, as well as constraining cosmological models. While it is well established that clusters exhibit non-spherical geometries, evident in the distribution of galaxies on the sky, azimuthal variations of galaxy kinematics within clusters have yet to be observed. Here we measure the azimuthal dependence of the line-of-sight velocity dispersion profile in a stacked sample of 1743 galaxy clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The clusters are drawn from the SDSS DR8 redMaPPer catalog. We find that the line-of-sight velocity dispersion of galaxies lying along the major axis of the central galaxy is larger than those that lie along the minor axis. This is the first observational detection of anisotropic kinematics of galaxies in clusters. We show that the result is consistent with predictions from numerical simulations. Furthermore, we find that the degree of projected anisotropy is strongly dependent on the line-of-sight orientation of the galaxy cluster, opening new possibilities for assessing systematics in optical cluster finding.

Non-LTE spectral analyses of the lately discovered DB-gap white dwarfs from the SDSS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huegelmeyer, S D; Dreizler, S

2009-01-01

For a long time, no hydrogen-deficient white dwarfs have been known that have effective temperature between 30 kK and eff < 45 kK (Eisenstein et al. 2006). It has been shown for DO white dwarfs that the relaxation of LTE is necessary to account for non local effects in the atmosphere caused by the intense radiation field. Therefore, we calculated a non-LTE model grid and re-analysed the aforementioned set of SDSS spectra. Our results confirm the existence of DB-gap white dwarfs.

Satellites of radio AGN in SDSS: Insights into agn triggering and feedback

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pace, Cameron; Salim, Samir, E-mail: cjpace@indiana.edu, E-mail: salims@indiana.edu [Indiana University, Department of Astronomy, Swain Hall West 319, Bloomington, IN 47405-7105 (United States)

2014-04-10

We study the effects of radio jets on galaxies in their vicinity (satellites) and the role of satellites in triggering radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The study compares the aggregate properties of satellites of a sample of 7220 radio AGNs at z < 0.3 (identified by Best and Heckman from the SDSS and NVSS+FIRST surveys) to the satellites of a control sample of radio-quiet galaxies, which are matched in redshift, color, luminosity, and axis ratio, as well as by environment type: field galaxies, cluster members, and brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). Remarkably, we find that radio AGNs exhibit on average a 50% excess (17σ significance) in the number of satellites within 100 kpc even though the cluster membership was controlled (e.g., radio BCGs have more satellites than radio-quiet BCGs, etc.). Satellite excess is not confirmed for high-excitation sources, which are only 2% of radio AGN. Extra satellites may be responsible for raising the probability for hot gas AGN accretion via tidal effects or may otherwise enhance the intensity or duration of the radio-emitting phase. Furthermore, we find that the incidence of radio AGNs among potential hosts (massive ellipticals) is similar for field galaxies and for non-BCG cluster members, suggesting that AGN fueling depends primarily on conditions in the host halo rather than the parent, cluster halo. Regarding feedback, we find that radio AGNs, either high or low excitation, have no detectable effect on star formation in their satellites, as neither induced star formation nor star formation quenching is present in more than ∼1% of radio AGN.

Satellites of radio AGN in SDSS: Insights into agn triggering and feedback

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pace, Cameron; Salim, Samir

2014-01-01

We study the effects of radio jets on galaxies in their vicinity (satellites) and the role of satellites in triggering radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The study compares the aggregate properties of satellites of a sample of 7220 radio AGNs at z < 0.3 (identified by Best and Heckman from the SDSS and NVSS+FIRST surveys) to the satellites of a control sample of radio-quiet galaxies, which are matched in redshift, color, luminosity, and axis ratio, as well as by environment type: field galaxies, cluster members, and brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). Remarkably, we find that radio AGNs exhibit on average a 50% excess (17σ significance) in the number of satellites within 100 kpc even though the cluster membership was controlled (e.g., radio BCGs have more satellites than radio-quiet BCGs, etc.). Satellite excess is not confirmed for high-excitation sources, which are only 2% of radio AGN. Extra satellites may be responsible for raising the probability for hot gas AGN accretion via tidal effects or may otherwise enhance the intensity or duration of the radio-emitting phase. Furthermore, we find that the incidence of radio AGNs among potential hosts (massive ellipticals) is similar for field galaxies and for non-BCG cluster members, suggesting that AGN fueling depends primarily on conditions in the host halo rather than the parent, cluster halo. Regarding feedback, we find that radio AGNs, either high or low excitation, have no detectable effect on star formation in their satellites, as neither induced star formation nor star formation quenching is present in more than ∼1% of radio AGN.

The Local Dark Matter Density from SDSS-SEGUE G-dwarfs

Science.gov (United States)

Sivertsson, S.; Silverwood, H.; Read, J. I.; Bertone, G.; Steger, P.

2018-04-01

We derive the local dark matter density by applying the integrated Jeans equation method from Silverwood et al. (2016) to SDSS-SEGUE G-dwarf data processed and presented by Büdenbender et al. (2015).. We use the MULTINEST Bayesian nested sampling software to fit a model for the baryon distribution, dark matter and tracer stars, including a model for the `tilt term' that couples the vertical and radial motions, to the data. The α-young population from Büdenbender et al. (2015) yields the most reliable result of ρ _dm= 0.46^{+0.07}_{-0.08} {GeV cm}^{-3}= 0.012^{+0.002}_{-0.002} M_⊙ pc^{-3}. Our analyses yield inconsistent results for the α-young and α-old data, pointing to problems in the tilt term and its modelling, the data itself, the assumption of a flat rotation curve, or the effects of disequilibria.

The C4 clustering algorithm: Clusters of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Miller, Christopher J.; Nichol, Robert; Reichart, Dan; Wechsler, Risa H.; Evrard, August; Annis, James; McKay, Timothy; Bahcall, Neta; Bernardi, Mariangela; Boehringer,; Connolly, Andrew; Goto, Tomo; Kniazev, Alexie; Lamb, Donald; Postman, Marc; Schneider, Donald; Sheth, Ravi; Voges, Wolfgang; /Cerro-Tololo InterAmerican Obs. /Portsmouth U.,

2005-03-01

We present the ''C4 Cluster Catalog'', a new sample of 748 clusters of galaxies identified in the spectroscopic sample of the Second Data Release (DR2) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The C4 cluster-finding algorithm identifies clusters as overdensities in a seven-dimensional position and color space, thus minimizing projection effects that have plagued previous optical cluster selection. The present C4 catalog covers {approx}2600 square degrees of sky and ranges in redshift from z = 0.02 to z = 0.17. The mean cluster membership is 36 galaxies (with redshifts) brighter than r = 17.7, but the catalog includes a range of systems, from groups containing 10 members to massive clusters with over 200 cluster members with redshifts. The catalog provides a large number of measured cluster properties including sky location, mean redshift, galaxy membership, summed r-band optical luminosity (L{sub r}), velocity dispersion, as well as quantitative measures of substructure and the surrounding large-scale environment. We use new, multi-color mock SDSS galaxy catalogs, empirically constructed from the {Lambda}CDM Hubble Volume (HV) Sky Survey output, to investigate the sensitivity of the C4 catalog to the various algorithm parameters (detection threshold, choice of passbands and search aperture), as well as to quantify the purity and completeness of the C4 cluster catalog. These mock catalogs indicate that the C4 catalog is {approx_equal}90% complete and 95% pure above M{sub 200} = 1 x 10{sup 14} h{sup -1}M{sub {circle_dot}} and within 0.03 {le} z {le} 0.12. Using the SDSS DR2 data, we show that the C4 algorithm finds 98% of X-ray identified clusters and 90% of Abell clusters within 0.03 {le} z {le} 0.12. Using the mock galaxy catalogs and the full HV dark matter simulations, we show that the L{sub r} of a cluster is a more robust estimator of the halo mass (M{sub 200}) than the galaxy line-of-sight velocity dispersion or the richness of the cluster

The Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping (OCCAM) Survey: Optical Extension for Neutron Capture Elements

Science.gov (United States)

Melendez, Matthew; O'Connell, Julia; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; Donor, John; Cunha, Katia M. L.; Shetrone, Matthew D.; Majewski, Steven R.; Zasowski, Gail; Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Roman-Lopes, Alexandre; Stassun, Keivan G.; APOGEE Team

2017-01-01

The Open Cluster Chemical Abundance & Mapping (OCCAM) survey is a systematic survey of Galactic open clusters using data primarily from the SDSS-III/APOGEE-1 survey. However, neutron capture elements are very limited in the IR region covered by APOGEE. In an effort to fully study detailed Galactic chemical evolution, we are conducting a high resolution (R~60,000) spectroscopic abundance analysis of neutron capture elements for OCCAM clusters in the optical regime to complement the APOGEE results. As part of this effort, we present Ba II, La II, Ce II and Eu II results for a few open clusters without previous abundance measurements using data obtained at McDonald Observatory with the 2.1m Otto Struve telescope and Sandiford Echelle Spectrograph.This work is supported by an NSF AAG grant AST-1311835.

The Undergraduate ALFALFA Team: A Model for Involving Undergraduates in Major Legacy Astronomy Research

Science.gov (United States)

Troischt, Parker; Koopmann, Rebecca A.; Haynes, Martha P.; Higdon, Sarah; Balonek, Thomas J.; Cannon, John M.; Coble, Kimberly A.; Craig, David; Durbala, Adriana; Finn, Rose; Hoffman, G. Lyle; Kornreich, David A.; Lebron, Mayra E.; Crone-Odekon, Mary; O'Donoghue, Aileen A.; Olowin, Ronald Paul; Pantoja, Carmen; Rosenberg, Jessica L.; Venkatesan, Aparna; Wilcots, Eric M.; Alfalfa Team

2015-01-01

The NSF-sponsored Undergraduate ALFALFA (Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA) Team (UAT) is a consortium of 19 institutions founded to promote undergraduate research and faculty development within the extragalactic ALFALFA HI blind survey project and follow-up programs. The collaborative nature of the UAT allows faculty and students from a wide ​range of public and private colleges and especially those with small astronomy programs to develop scholarly collaborations. Components of the program include an annual undergraduate workshop at Arecibo Observatory, observing runs at Arecibo, computer infrastructure, summer and academic year research projects, and dissemination at national meetings (e.g., Alfvin et al., Martens et al., Sanders et al., this meeting). Through this model, faculty and students are learning how science is accomplished in a large collaboration while contributing to the scientific goals of a major legacy survey. In the 7 years of the program, 23 faculty and more than 220 undergraduate students have participated at a significant level. 40% of them have been women and members of underrepresented groups. Faculty, many of whom were new to the collaboration and had expertise in other fields, contribute their diverse sets of skills to ALFALFA ​related projects via observing, data reduction, collaborative research, and research with students. 142 undergraduate students have attended the annual workshops at Arecibo Observatory, interacting with faculty, graduate students, their peers, and Arecibo staff in lectures, group activities, tours, and observing runs. Team faculty have supervised 131 summer research projects and 94 academic year (e.g., senior thesis) projects. 62 students have traveled to Arecibo Observatory for observing runs and 46 have presented their results at national meetings. 93% of alumni are attending graduate school and/or pursuing a career in STEM. Half of those pursuing graduate degrees in Physics or Astronomy are women. This work has been

Golden gravitational lensing systems from the Sloan Lens ACS Survey - II. SDSS J1430+4105: a precise inner total mass profile from lensing alone

Science.gov (United States)

Eichner, Thomas; Seitz, Stella; Bauer, Anne

2012-12-01

We study the Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) survey strong-lensing system SDSS J1430+4105 at zl = 0.285. The lensed source (zs = 0.575) of this system has a complex morphology with several subcomponents. Its subcomponents span a radial range from 4 to 10 kpc in the plane of the lens. Therefore, we can constrain the slope of the total projected mass profile around the Einstein radius from lensing alone. We measure a density profile that is slightly but not significantly shallower than isothermal at the Einstein radius. We decompose the mass of the lensing galaxy into a de Vaucouleurs component to trace the stars and an additional dark component. The spread of multiple-image components over a large radial range also allows us to determine the amplitude of the de Vaucouleurs and dark matter components separately. We get a mass-to-light ratio of M de Vauc LB ≈ (5.5±1.5) M⊙L⊙,B and a dark matter fraction within the Einstein radius of ≈20 to 40 per cent. Modelling the star formation history assuming composite stellar populations at solar metallicity to the galaxy's photometry yields a mass-to-light ratio of M, salp LB ≈ 4.0-1.3+0.6 M⊙L⊙,B and M, chab LB ≈ 2.3-0.8+0.3 M⊙L⊙,B for Salpeter and Chabrier initial mass functions, respectively. Hence, the mass-to-light ratio derived from lensing is more Salpeter like, in agreement with results for massive Coma galaxies and other nearby massive early-type galaxies. We examine the consequences of the galaxy group in which the lensing galaxy is embedded, showing that it has little influence on the mass-to-light ratio obtained for the de Vaucouleurs component of the lensing galaxy. Finally, we decompose the projected, azimuthally averaged 2D density distribution of the de Vaucouleurs and dark matter components of the lensing signal into spherically averaged 3D density profiles. We can show that the 3D dark and luminous matter density within the Einstein radius (REin ≈ 0.6 Reff) of this SLACS galaxy is similar to the

Investigating Mercury's South Polar Deposits: Arecibo Radar Observations and High-Resolution Determination of Illumination Conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Chabot, Nancy L.; Shread, Evangela E.; Harmon, John K.

2018-02-01

There is strong evidence that Mercury's polar deposits are water ice hosted in permanently shadowed regions. In this study, we present new Arecibo radar observations of Mercury's south pole, which reveal numerous radar-bright deposits and substantially increase the radar imaging coverage. We also use images from MESSENGER's full mission to determine the illumination conditions of Mercury's south polar region at the same spatial resolution as the north polar region, enabling comparisons between the two poles. The area of radar-bright deposits in Mercury's south is roughly double that found in the north, consistent with the larger permanently shadowed area in the older, cratered terrain at the south relative to the younger smooth plains at the north. Radar-bright features are strongly associated with regions of permanent shadow at both poles, consistent with water ice being the dominant component of the deposits. However, both of Mercury's polar regions show that roughly 50% of permanently shadowed regions lack radar-bright deposits, despite some of these locations having thermal environments that are conducive to the presence of water ice. The observed uneven distribution of water ice among Mercury's polar cold traps may suggest that the source of Mercury's water ice was not a steady, regular process but rather that the source was an episodic event, such as a recent, large impact on the innermost planet.

Bistatic Radar Observations of the Moon Using Mini-RF on LRO and the Arecibo Observatory

Science.gov (United States)

Patterson, G. W.; Stickle, A. M.; Turner, F. S.; Jensen, J. R.; Bussey, D. B. J.; Spudis, P.; Espiritu, R. C.; Schulze, R. C.; Yocky, D. A.; Wahl, D. E.;

The Eighth Data Release Of The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data From SDSS-3

Science.gov (United States)

2011-04-01

of galaxies (Strauss et al. 2002; Eisenstein et al. 2001), quasars (Richards et al. 2002b), stars (Yanny et al. 2009), and other objects are selected...interlocking surveys; it is described in detail in a companion paper ( Eisenstein et al. 2011). In brief, these surveys are as follows. 1. SEGUE-2. This...algorithms were refined in various ways, as detailed in C. Rockosi et al. (2011, in preparation; see also Eisenstein et al. 2011). We summarize the

A Type II Supernova Hubble diagram from the CSP-I, SDSS-II, and SNLS surveys

OpenAIRE

de Jaeger, T.; González-Gaitán, S.; Hamuy, M.; Galbany, L.; Anderson, J. P.; Phillips, M. M.; Stritzinger, M. D.; Carlberg, R. G.; Sullivan, M.; Gutiérrez, C. P.; Hook, I. M.; Howell, D. Andrew; Hsiao, E. Y.; Kuncarayakti, H.; Ruhlmann-Kleider, V.

2016-01-01

The coming era of large photometric wide-field surveys will increase the detection rate of supernovae by orders of magnitude. Such numbers will restrict spectroscopic follow-up in the vast majority of cases, and hence new methods based solely on photometric data must be developed. Here, we construct a complete Hubble diagram of Type II supernovae (SNe II) combining data from three different samples: the Carnegie Supernova Project-I, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II SN, and th...

Single-field inflation constraints from CMB and SDSS data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Finelli, Fabio; Hamann, Jan; Leach, Samuel M.; Lesgourgues, Julien

2010-01-01

We present constraints on canonical single-field inflation derived from WMAP five year, ACBAR, QUAD, BICEP data combined with the halo power spectrum from SDSS LRG7. Models with a non-scale-invariant spectrum and a red tilt n S S = 1, tensor-to-scalar ratio r = 0) at high significance. Assuming no running of the spectral indices, we derive constraints on the parameters (n S , r) and compare our results with the predictions of simple inflationary models. The marginalised credible intervals read n S = 0.962 +0.028 −0.026 and r 2 ≅ 5.8, allowing inflationary stages producing a sizable negative running −0.063 +0.061 −0.049 and larger tensor-scalar ratio r < 0.33 at the 95% c.l. This requires large values of the third derivative of the inflaton potential within the observable range. We derive bounds on this derivative under the assumption that the inflaton potential can be approximated as a third order polynomial within the observable range

Single-field inflation constraints from CMB and SDSS data

CERN Document Server

Finelli, Fabio; Leach, Samuel M; Lesgourgues, Julien

2010-01-01

We present constraints on canonical single-field inflation derived from WMAP five year, ACBAR, QUAD, BICEP data combined with the halo power spectrum from SDSS LRG7. Models with a non-scale-invariant spectrum and a red tilt n_s < 1 are now preferred over the Harrison-Zel'dovich model (n_s = 1, tensor-to-scalar ratio r = 0) at high significance. Assuming no running of the spectral indices, we derive constraints on the parameters (n_s, r) and compare our results with the predictions of simple inflationary models. The marginalised credible intervals read n_s = 0.962^{+0.028}_{-0.026} and r < 0.17 (at 95% confidence level). Interestingly, the 68% c.l. contours favour mainly models with a convex potential in the observable region, but the quadratic potential model remains inside the 95% c.l. contours. We demonstrate that these results are robust to changes in the datasets considered and in the theoretical assumptions made. We then consider a non-vanishing running of the spectral indices by employing differen...

M DWARF FLARES FROM TIME-RESOLVED SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY SPECTRA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hilton, Eric J.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Kowalski, Adam F.; West, Andrew A.

2010-01-01

We have identified 63 flares on M dwarfs from the individual component spectra in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) using a novel measurement of emission-line strength called the Flare Line Index. Each of the ∼38,000 M dwarfs in the SDSS low-mass star spectroscopic sample of West et al. was observed several times (usually 3-5) in exposures that were typically 9-25 minutes in duration. Our criteria allowed us to identify flares that exhibit very strong Hα and Hβ emission-line strength and/or significant variability in those lines throughout the course of the exposures. The flares we identified have characteristics consistent with flares observed by classical spectroscopic monitoring. The flare duty cycle for the objects in our sample is found to increase from 0.02% for early M dwarfs to 3% for late M dwarfs. We find that the flare duty cycle is larger in the population near the Galactic plane and that the flare stars are more spatially restricted than the magnetically active but non-flaring stars. This suggests that flare frequency may be related to stellar age (younger stars are more likely to flare) and that the flare stars are younger than the mean active population.

Galaxy morphologies in the era of big-data surveys

Science.gov (United States)

Huertas-Company, M.

Galaxy morphology is a first-order descriptor of a galaxy and a useful proxy to identify physical processes. The 100 years old Hubble fork describes the structural diversity of galaxies in the local universe. Unveiling the origins of this galaxy zoology is a key challenge in galaxy evolution. In this review talk, I first summarized some key advances in our understanding of the morphological evolution of galaxies from z ~ 0 to z ~ 3, thank you in particular to the SDSS and HST legacies. In the second part, I focused on the classification techniques. With the emergence in the last years of large surveys the samples of study have increased by several orders of magnitude going from a few tens to several millions of objects. This trend will clearly continue in the next decade with coming surveys/missions such as EUCLID and WFIRST. While galaxy classification is still a required step in any survey, visual inspection of galaxies is becoming prohibitively time-consuming. Under these circumstances, the techniques used to estimate galaxy morphologies need to be updated.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Composite Lags at z ≤ 1

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Jennifer; Shen, Yue; Horne, Keith; Brandt, W. N.; Greene, Jenny E.; Grier, C. J.; Ho, Luis C.; Kochanek, Chris; Schneider, Donald P.; Trump, Jonathan R.; Dawson, Kyle S.; Pan, Kaike; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Oravetz, Daniel; Simmons, Audrey; Malanushenko, Elena

2017-09-01

We present composite broad-line region (BLR) reverberation mapping lag measurements for Hα, Hβ, He II λ4686, and Mg II for a sample of 144, z ≲ 1 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. Using only the 32-epoch spectroscopic light curves in the first six-month season of SDSS-RM observations, we compile correlation function measurements for individual objects and then coadd them to allow the measurement of the average lags for our sample at mean redshifts of 0.4 (for Hα) and ˜0.65 (for the other lines). At similar quasar luminosities and redshifts, the sample-averaged lag decreases in the order of Mg II, Hα, Hβ, and He II. This decrease in lags is accompanied by an increase in the mean line width of the four lines, and is roughly consistent with the virialized motion for BLR gas in photoionization equilibrium. These are among the first RM measurements of stratified BLR structure at z > 0.3. Dividing our sample by luminosity, Hα shows clear evidence of increasing lags with luminosity, consistent with the expectation from the measured BLR size-luminosity relation based on Hβ. The other three lines do not show a clear luminosity trend in their average lags due to the limited dynamic range of luminosity probed and the poor average correlation signals in the divided samples, a situation that will be improved with the incorporation of additional photometric and spectroscopic data from SDSS-RM. We discuss the utility and caveats of composite lag measurements for large statistical quasar samples with reverberation mapping data.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Composite Lags at z ≤ 1

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Li, Jennifer; Shen, Yue [Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801 (United States); Horne, Keith [SUPA Physics/Astronomy, Univ. of St. Andrews, St. Andrews KY16 9SS (United Kingdom); Brandt, W. N.; Grier, C. J.; Schneider, Donald P. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802 (United States); Greene, Jenny E. [Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States); Ho, Luis C. [Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Kochanek, Chris [Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Trump, Jonathan R. [Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, 2152 Hillside Road, Unit 3046, Storrs, CT 06269 (United States); Dawson, Kyle S. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Pan, Kaike; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Oravetz, Daniel; Simmons, Audrey; Malanushenko, Elena [Apache Point Observatory and New Mexico State University, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM, 88349-0059 (United States)

2017-09-01

We present composite broad-line region (BLR) reverberation mapping lag measurements for H α , H β , He ii λ 4686, and Mg ii for a sample of 144, z ≲ 1 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. Using only the 32-epoch spectroscopic light curves in the first six-month season of SDSS-RM observations, we compile correlation function measurements for individual objects and then coadd them to allow the measurement of the average lags for our sample at mean redshifts of 0.4 (for H α ) and ∼0.65 (for the other lines). At similar quasar luminosities and redshifts, the sample-averaged lag decreases in the order of Mg ii, H α , H β , and He ii. This decrease in lags is accompanied by an increase in the mean line width of the four lines, and is roughly consistent with the virialized motion for BLR gas in photoionization equilibrium. These are among the first RM measurements of stratified BLR structure at z > 0.3. Dividing our sample by luminosity, H α shows clear evidence of increasing lags with luminosity, consistent with the expectation from the measured BLR size–luminosity relation based on H β . The other three lines do not show a clear luminosity trend in their average lags due to the limited dynamic range of luminosity probed and the poor average correlation signals in the divided samples, a situation that will be improved with the incorporation of additional photometric and spectroscopic data from SDSS-RM. We discuss the utility and caveats of composite lag measurements for large statistical quasar samples with reverberation mapping data.

Investigations of Short-Timescale Outflow Variability in Quasars of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Hemler, Zachary; Grier, Catherine; Brandt, William; Hall, Patrick; Schneider, Donald; Shen, Yue; Fernandez-Trincado, Jose; SDSS-RM Collaboration

2018-01-01

Quasar outflows are hypothesized to regulate the growth of a quasar's host galaxy and the supermassive black hole (SMBH) itself. Thus, understanding the physics of these outflows is imperative to understanding galactic evolution. The physical properties of these outflows, such as density, radial distance from the SMBH, and kinetic energy can be investigated by measuring both the strength and shape variability of broad absorption lines (BALs) in quasar spectra. However, the accuracy of physical properties calculated using BAL variability methods is limited by the time resolution of the observations. Recent spectral data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping program (SDSS-RM) provides a novel opportunity to investigate the short-term BAL variability of many quasars at many epochs. The SDSS-RM program took many epochs of spectra for a large sample of quasars over a period of several years, many of which exhibit BALs. The median rest-frame time resolution of these observations is roughly 2 days, in contrast to previous large-sample studies, which typically have time spacing on the order of hundred of days. We are using the SDSS-RM dataset to conduct a BAL variability study that will further constrain outflow properties and provide significant insights into the variability mechanisms of quasar outflows. We are searching for variability in BALs on timescales of less than 2 days among our sample of 22 quasars and determining whether this behavior is common among quasars. We are also investigating the general short-term (less than 10 days) variability characteristics of the entire sample. We will present preliminary results from this study and the possible implications to our understanding of quasar outflows.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Composite Lags at z ≤ 1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, Jennifer; Shen, Yue; Horne, Keith; Brandt, W. N.; Grier, C. J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Greene, Jenny E.; Ho, Luis C.; Kochanek, Chris; Trump, Jonathan R.; Dawson, Kyle S.; Pan, Kaike; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Oravetz, Daniel; Simmons, Audrey; Malanushenko, Elena

2017-01-01

We present composite broad-line region (BLR) reverberation mapping lag measurements for H α , H β , He ii λ 4686, and Mg ii for a sample of 144, z ≲ 1 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. Using only the 32-epoch spectroscopic light curves in the first six-month season of SDSS-RM observations, we compile correlation function measurements for individual objects and then coadd them to allow the measurement of the average lags for our sample at mean redshifts of 0.4 (for H α ) and ∼0.65 (for the other lines). At similar quasar luminosities and redshifts, the sample-averaged lag decreases in the order of Mg ii, H α , H β , and He ii. This decrease in lags is accompanied by an increase in the mean line width of the four lines, and is roughly consistent with the virialized motion for BLR gas in photoionization equilibrium. These are among the first RM measurements of stratified BLR structure at z > 0.3. Dividing our sample by luminosity, H α shows clear evidence of increasing lags with luminosity, consistent with the expectation from the measured BLR size–luminosity relation based on H β . The other three lines do not show a clear luminosity trend in their average lags due to the limited dynamic range of luminosity probed and the poor average correlation signals in the divided samples, a situation that will be improved with the incorporation of additional photometric and spectroscopic data from SDSS-RM. We discuss the utility and caveats of composite lag measurements for large statistical quasar samples with reverberation mapping data.

A large sample of Kohonen selected E+A (post-starburst) galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Meusinger, H.; Brünecke, J.; Schalldach, P.; in der Au, A.

2017-01-01

Context. The galaxy population in the contemporary Universe is characterised by a clear bimodality, blue galaxies with significant ongoing star formation and red galaxies with only a little. The migration between the blue and the red cloud of galaxies is an issue of active research. Post starburst (PSB) galaxies are thought to be observed in the short-lived transition phase. Aims: We aim to create a large sample of local PSB galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to study their characteristic properties, particularly morphological features indicative of gravitational distortions and indications for active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Another aim is to present a tool set for an efficient search in a large database of SDSS spectra based on Kohonen self-organising maps (SOMs). Methods: We computed a huge Kohonen SOM for ∼106 spectra from SDSS data release 7. The SOM is made fully available, in combination with an interactive user interface, for the astronomical community. We selected a large sample of PSB galaxies taking advantage of the clustering behaviour of the SOM. The morphologies of both PSB galaxies and randomly selected galaxies from a comparison sample in SDSS Stripe 82 (S82) were inspected on deep co-added SDSS images to search for indications of gravitational distortions. We used the Portsmouth galaxy property computations to study the evolutionary stage of the PSB galaxies and archival multi-wavelength data to search for hidden AGNs. Results: We compiled a catalogue of 2665 PSB galaxies with redshifts z 3 Å and z cloud, in agreement with the idea that PSB galaxies represent the transitioning phase between actively and passively evolving galaxies. The relative frequency of distorted PSB galaxies is at least 57% for EW(Hδ) > 5 Å, significantly higher than in the comparison sample. The search for AGNs based on conventional selection criteria in the radio and MIR results in a low AGN fraction of ∼2-3%. We confirm an MIR excess in the mean SED of

The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey. XXVIII. Characterization of the Galactic White Dwarf Population

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fantin, Nicholas J. [Department of Physics and Astronomy,University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8P 1A1 (Canada); Côté, Patrick; Gwyn, S. D. J.; Ferrarese, Laura; McConnachie, Alan [National Research Council of Canada, Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Program, 5071 W. Saanich Road, Victoria, BC, V9E 2E7 (Canada); Hanes, David A. [Queen’s University, Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy, Kingston, Ontario (Canada); Bianchi, Luciana [Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Cuillandre, Jean-Charles [CEA/IRFU/SAp, Laboratoire AIM Paris-Saclay, CNRS/INSU, Université Paris Diderot, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex (France); Starkenburg, Else, E-mail: nfantin@uvic.ca [Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, D-14482 Potsdam (Germany)

2017-07-01

We use three different techniques to identify hundreds of white dwarf (WD) candidates in the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey (NGVS) based on photometry from the NGVS and GUViCS, and proper motions derived from the NGVS and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Photometric distances for these candidates are calculated using theoretical color–absolute magnitude relations, while effective temperatures are measured by fitting their spectral energy distributions. Disk and halo WD candidates are separated using a tangential velocity cut of 200 km s{sup −1} in a reduced proper motion diagram, which leads to a sample of six halo WD candidates. Cooling ages, calculated for an assumed WD mass of 0.6 M {sub ⊙}, range between 60 Myr and 6 Gyr, although these estimates depend sensitively on the adopted mass. Luminosity functions for the disk and halo subsamples are constructed and compared to previous results from the SDSS and SuperCOSMOS survey. We compute a number density of (2.81 ± 0.52) × 10{sup −3} pc{sup −3} for the disk WD population—consistent with previous measurements. We find (7.85 ± 4.55) × 10{sup −6} pc{sup −3} for the halo, or 0.3% of the disk. Observed stellar counts are also compared to predictions made by the TRILEGAL and Besançon stellar population synthesis models. The comparison suggests that the TRILEGAL model overpredicts the total number of WDs. The WD counts predicted by the Besançon model agree with the observations, although a discrepancy arises when comparing the predicted and observed halo WD populations; the difference is likely due to the WD masses in the adopted model halo.

An HI selected sample of galaxies : The HI mass function and the surface brightness distribution

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zwaan, M; Briggs, F; Sprayberry, D

Results from the Arecibo HI Strip Survey, an unbiased extragalactic HI survey, combined with optical and 21 cm follow-up observations, determine the HI mass function and the cosmological mass density of HI at the present epoch. Both are consistent with earlier estimates, computed for the population

SYSTEMATIC SEARCH FOR EXTREMELY METAL-POOR GALAXIES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Morales-Luis, A. B.; Sanchez Almeida, J.; Aguerri, J. A. L.; Munoz-Tunon, C., E-mail: abml@iac.es, E-mail: jos@iac.es, E-mail: cmt@iac.es, E-mail: jalfonso@iac.es [Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain)

2011-12-10

We carry out a systematic search for extremely metal-poor (XMP) galaxies in the spectroscopic sample of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data release 7 (DR7). The XMP candidates are found by classifying all the galaxies according to the form of their spectra in a region 80 A wide around H{alpha}. Due to the data size, the method requires an automatic classification algorithm. We use k-means. Our systematic search renders 32 galaxies having negligible [N II] lines, as expected in XMP galaxy spectra. Twenty-one of them have been previously identified as XMP galaxies in the literature-the remaining 11 are new. This was established after a thorough bibliographic search that yielded only some 130 galaxies known to have an oxygen metallicity 10 times smaller than the Sun (explicitly, with 12 + log (O/H) {<=} 7.65). XMP galaxies are rare; they represent 0.01% of the galaxies with emission lines in SDSS/DR7. Although the final metallicity estimate of all candidates remains pending, strong-line empirical calibrations indicate a metallicity about one-tenth solar, with the oxygen metallicity of the 21 known targets being 12 + log (O/H) {approx_equal} 7.61 {+-} 0.19. Since the SDSS catalog is limited in apparent magnitude, we have been able to estimate the volume number density of XMP galaxies in the local universe, which turns out to be (1.32 {+-} 0.23) Multiplication-Sign 10{sup -4} Mpc{sup -3}. The XMP galaxies constitute 0.1% of the galaxies in the local volume, or {approx}0.2% considering only emission-line galaxies. All but four of our candidates are blue compact dwarf galaxies, and 24 of them have either cometary shape or are formed by chained knots.

A strange dwarf scenario for the formation of the peculiar double white dwarf binary SDSS J125733.63+542850.5

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Long; Chen, Wen-Cong; Li, Xiang-Dong

2018-05-01

The Hubble Space Telescope observation of the double white dwarf (WD) binary SDSS J125733.63+542850.5 reveals that the massive WD has a surface gravity log g1 ˜ 8.7 (which implies a mass of M1 ˜ 1.06 M⊙) and an effective temperature T1 ˜ 13 000 K, while the effective temperature of the low-mass WD (M2 dwarf (SD) scenario to explain the formation of this double WD binary. We assume that the massive WD is a SD originating from a phase transition (PT) in a ˜1.1 M⊙ WD, which has experienced accretion and spin-down processes. Its high effective temperature could arise from the heating process during the PT. Our simulations suggest that the progenitor of SDSS J125733.63+542850.5 can be a binary system consisting of a 0.65 M⊙ WD and a 1.5 M⊙ main-sequence star in a 1.492 d orbit. Especially, the secondary star (i.e. the progenitor of the low-mass WD) is likely to have an ultra-low metallicity of Z = 0.0001.

On the limitations of statistical absorption studies with the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys I-III

Science.gov (United States)

Lan, Ting-Wen; Ménard, Brice; Baron, Dalya; Johnson, Sean; Poznanski, Dovi; Prochaska, J. Xavier; O'Meara, John M.

2018-04-01

We investigate the limitations of statistical absorption measurements with the SDSS optical spectroscopic surveys. We show that changes in the data reduction strategy throughout different data releases have led to a better accuracy at long wavelengths, in particular for sky line subtraction, but a degradation at short wavelengths with the emergence of systematic spectral features with an amplitude of about one percent. We show that these features originate from inaccuracy in the fitting of modeled F-star spectra used for flux calibration. The best-fit models for those stars are found to systematically over-estimate the strength of metal lines and under-estimate that of Lithium. We also identify the existence of artifacts due to masking and interpolation procedures at the wavelengths of the hydrogen Balmer series leading to the existence of artificial Balmer α absorption in all SDSS optical spectra. All these effects occur in the rest-frame of the standard stars and therefore present Galactic longitude variations due to the rotation of the Galaxy. We demonstrate that the detection of certain weak absorption lines reported in the literature are solely due to calibration effects. Finally, we discuss new strategies to mitigate these issues.

Cosmological parameter constraints from galaxy-galaxy lensing and galaxy clustering with the SDSS DR7

Science.gov (United States)

Mandelbaum, Rachel; Slosar, Anže; Baldauf, Tobias; Seljak, Uroš; Hirata, Christopher M.; Nakajima, Reiko; Reyes, Reinabelle; Smith, Robert E.

2013-06-01

Recent studies have shown that the cross-correlation coefficient between galaxies and dark matter is very close to unity on scales outside a few virial radii of galaxy haloes, independent of the details of how galaxies populate dark matter haloes. This finding makes it possible to determine the dark matter clustering from measurements of galaxy-galaxy weak lensing and galaxy clustering. We present new cosmological parameter constraints based on large-scale measurements of spectroscopic galaxy samples from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data release 7. We generalize the approach of Baldauf et al. to remove small-scale information (below 2 and 4 h-1 Mpc for lensing and clustering measurements, respectively), where the cross-correlation coefficient differs from unity. We derive constraints for three galaxy samples covering 7131 deg2, containing 69 150, 62 150 and 35 088 galaxies with mean redshifts of 0.11, 0.28 and 0.40. We clearly detect scale-dependent galaxy bias for the more luminous galaxy samples, at a level consistent with theoretical expectations. When we vary both σ8 and Ωm (and marginalize over non-linear galaxy bias) in a flat Λ cold dark matter model, the best-constrained quantity is σ8(Ωm/0.25)0.57 = 0.80 ± 0.05 (1σ, stat. + sys.), where statistical and systematic errors (photometric redshift and shear calibration) have comparable contributions, and we have fixed ns = 0.96 and h = 0.7. These strong constraints on the matter clustering suggest that this method is competitive with cosmic shear in current data, while having very complementary and in some ways less serious systematics. We therefore expect that this method will play a prominent role in future weak lensing surveys. When we combine these data with Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7-year (WMAP7) cosmic microwave background (CMB) data, constraints on σ8, Ωm, H0, wde and ∑mν become 30-80 per cent tighter than with CMB data alone, since our data break several parameter

Estimation of 557.7 nm Emission Altitude using Co-located Lidars and Photometers over Arecibo

Science.gov (United States)

Franco, E.; Raizada, S.; Lautenbach, J.; Brum, C. G. M.

2017-12-01

Airglow at 557.7 nm (green line emission) is generated through the Barth mechanism in the E-region altitude and is sometimes associated with red line (630.0 nm) originating at F-region altitudes. Photons at 557.7 nm are produced through the quenching of excited atomic oxygen atoms, O(1S), while 630.0 nm results through the de-excitation of O(1D) atoms. Even though, the contribution of the green line from F-region is negligible and the significant component comes from the mesosphere, this uncertainty gives rise to a question related to its precise altitude. Previous studies have shown that perturbations generated by atmospheric gravity Waves (GWs) alter the airglow intensity and can be used for studying dynamics of the region where it originates. The uncertainty in the emission altitude of green line can be resolved by using co-located lidars, which provide altitude resolved metal densities. At Arecibo, the resonance lidars tuned to Na and K resonance wavelengths at 589 nm and 770 nm can be used in conjunction with simultaneous measurements from green line photometer to resolve this issue. Both photometer and lidars have narrow field of view as compared to airglow imagers, and hence provide an added advantage that these instruments sample same GW spectrum. Hence, correlation between density perturbations inferred from lidars and airglow intensity perturbations can shed light on the exact altitude of green line emission.

Cosmological Constraints from the SDSS maxBCG Cluster Catalog

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rozo, Eduardo; /CCAPP; Wechsler, Risa H.; /KIPAC, Menlo Park /SLAC; Rykoff, Eli S.; /UC, Santa Barbara; Annis, James T.; /Fermilab; Becker, Matthew R.; /Chicago U. /KICP, Chicago; Evrard, August E.; /Michigan U. /Michigan U., MCTP; Frieman, Joshua A.; /Fermilab /KICP, Chicago /Chicago U.; Hansen, Sarah M.; /UC, Santa Cruz; Hao, Jia; /Michigan U.; Johnston, David E.; /Northwestern U.; Koester, Benjamin P.; /KICP, Chicago /Chicago U.; McKay, Timothy A.; /Michigan U. /Michigan U., MCTP; Sheldon, Erin S.; /Brookhaven; Weinberg, David H.; /CCAPP /Ohio State U.

2009-08-03

We use the abundance and weak lensing mass measurements of the SDSS maxBCG cluster catalog to simultaneously constrain cosmology and the richness-mass relation of the clusters. Assuming a flat {Lambda}CDM cosmology, we find {sigma}{sub 8}({Omega}{sub m}/0.25){sup 0.41} = 0.832 {+-} 0.033 after marginalization over all systematics. In common with previous studies, our error budget is dominated by systematic uncertainties, the primary two being the absolute mass scale of the weak lensing masses of the maxBCG clusters, and uncertainty in the scatter of the richness-mass relation. Our constraints are fully consistent with the WMAP five-year data, and in a joint analysis we find {sigma}{sub 8} = 0.807 {+-} 0.020 and {Omega}{sub m} = 0.265 {+-} 0.016, an improvement of nearly a factor of two relative to WMAP5 alone. Our results are also in excellent agreement with and comparable in precision to the latest cosmological constraints from X-ray cluster abundances. The remarkable consistency among these results demonstrates that cluster abundance constraints are not only tight but also robust, and highlight the power of optically-selected cluster samples to produce precision constraints on cosmological parameters.

A PRECISION MULTI-BAND TWO-EPOCH PHOTOMETRIC CATALOG OF 44 MILLION SOURCES IN THE NORTHERN SKY FROM A COMBINATION OF THE USNO-B AND SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY CATALOGS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Madsen, G. J.; Gaensler, B. M.

2013-01-01

A key science driver for the next generation of wide-field optical and radio surveys is the exploration of the time variable sky. These surveys will have unprecedented sensitivity and areal coverage, but will be limited in their ability to detect variability on time scales longer than the lifetime of the surveys. We present a new precision, multi-epoch photometric catalog that spans 60 yr by combining the US Naval Observatory-B (USNO-B) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 9 (DR9) catalogs. We recalibrate the photometry of the original USNO-B catalog and create a catalog with two epochs of photometry in up to five different bands for 43,647,887 optical point sources that lie in the DR9 footprint of the northern sky. The recalibrated objects span a magnitude range 14 ≲ m ≲ 20 and are accurate to ≈0.1 mag. We minimize the presence of spurious objects and those with inaccurate magnitudes by identifying and removing several sources of systematic errors in the two originating catalogs, with a focus on spurious objects that exhibit large apparent magnitude variations. After accounting for these effects, we find ≈250,000 stars and quasars that show significant (≥4σ) changes in brightness between the USNO-B and SDSS DR9 epochs. We discuss the historical value of the catalog and its application to the study of long time scale, large amplitude variable stars and quasars

NO NEUTRON STAR COMPANION TO THE LOWEST MASS SDSS WHITE DWARF

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Agueeros, Marcel A.; Camilo, Fernando; Heinke, Craig; Kilic, Mukremin; Anderson, Scott F.; Silvestri, Nicole M.; Freire, Paulo; Kleinman, Scot J.; Liebert, James W.

2009-01-01

SDSS J091709.55+463821.8 (hereafter J0917+4638) is the lowest surface gravity white dwarf (WD) currently known, with log g = 5.55 ± 0.05 (M ∼ 0.17 M sun ). Such low-mass white dwarfs (LMWDs) are believed to originate in binaries that evolve into WD/WD or WD/neutron star (NS) systems. An optical search for J0917+4638's companion showed that it must be a compact object with a mass ≥0.28 M sun . Here we report on Green Bank Telescope 820 MHz and XMM-Newton X-ray observations of J0917+4638 intended to uncover a potential NS companion to the LMWD. No convincing pulsar signal is detected in our radio data. Our X-ray observation also failed to detect X-ray emission from J0917+4638's companion, while we would have detected any of the millisecond radio pulsars in 47 Tuc. We conclude that the companion is almost certainly another WD.

THE 31 DEG{sup 2} RELEASE OF THE STRIPE 82 X-RAY SURVEY: THE POINT SOURCE CATALOG

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

LaMassa, Stephanie M.; Urry, C. Megan; Ananna, Tonima; Civano, Francesca; Marchesi, Stefano; Pecoraro, Robert [Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics Department, P.O. Box 208120, New Haven, CT 06520 (United States); Cappelluti, Nico; Comastri, Andrea; Brusa, Marcella [INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, via Ranzani 1, I-40127 Bologna (Italy); Böhringer, Hans; Chon, Gayoung [Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, D-85748 Garching (Germany); Glikman, Eilat [Department of Physics, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753 (United States); Richards, Gordon [Department of Physics, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States); Cardamone, Carie [Department of Math and Science, Wheelock College, 200 Riverway, Boston, MA 02215 (United States); Farrah, Duncan [Department of Physics MC 0435, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 850 West Campus Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24061 (United States); Gilfanov, Marat [Max-Planck Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, Postfach 1317, D-85741 Garching (Germany); Green, Paul [Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Komossa, S. [Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, D-53121 Bonn (Germany); Lira, Paulina [Departamento de Astronomia, Universidad de Chile, Camino del Observatorio 1515, Santiago (Chile); Makler, Martin [Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas, Rua Dr Xavier Sigaud 150, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 22290-180 (Brazil); and others

2016-02-01

We release the next installment of the Stripe 82 X-ray survey point-source catalog, which currently covers 31.3 deg{sup 2} of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 Legacy field. In total, 6181 unique X-ray sources are significantly detected with XMM-Newton (>5σ) and Chandra (>4.5σ). This catalog release includes data from XMM-Newton cycle AO 13, which approximately doubled the Stripe 82X survey area. The flux limits of the Stripe 82X survey are 8.7 × 10{sup −16} erg s{sup −1} cm{sup −2}, 4.7 × 10{sup −15} erg s{sup −1} cm{sup −2}, and 2.1 × 10{sup −15} erg s{sup −1} cm{sup −2} in the soft (0.5–2 keV), hard (2–10 keV), and full bands (0.5–10 keV), respectively, with approximate half-area survey flux limits of 5.4 × 10{sup −15} erg s{sup −1} cm{sup −2}, 2.9 × 10{sup −14} erg s{sup −1} cm{sup −2}, and 1.7 × 10{sup −14} erg s{sup −1} cm{sup −2}. We matched the X-ray source lists to available multi-wavelength catalogs, including updated matches to the previous release of the Stripe 82X survey; 88% of the sample is matched to a multi-wavelength counterpart. Due to the wide area of Stripe 82X and rich ancillary multi-wavelength data, including coadded SDSS photometry, mid-infrared WISE coverage, near-infrared coverage from UKIDSS and VISTA Hemisphere Survey, ultraviolet coverage from GALEX, radio coverage from FIRST, and far-infrared coverage from Herschel, as well as existing ∼30% optical spectroscopic completeness, we are beginning to uncover rare objects, such as obscured high-luminosity active galactic nuclei at high-redshift. The Stripe 82X point source catalog is a valuable data set for constraining how this population grows and evolves, as well as for studying how they interact with the galaxies in which they live.

A SYSTEMATIC SEARCH FOR MASSIVE BLACK HOLE BINARIES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY SPECTROSCOPIC SAMPLE

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tsalmantza, P.; Decarli, R.; Hogg, David W.; Dotti, M.

2011-01-01

We present the results of a systematic search for massive black hole binaries in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectroscopic database. We focus on bound binaries, under the assumption that one of the black holes is active. In this framework, the broad lines associated with the accreting black hole are expected to show systematic velocity shifts with respect to the narrow lines, which trace the rest frame of the galaxy. For a sample of 54,586 quasars and 3929 galaxies at redshifts 0.1 < z < 1.5, we brute-force model each spectrum as a mixture of two quasars at two different redshifts. The spectral model is a data-driven dimensionality reduction of the SDSS quasar spectra based on a matrix factorization. We identified 32 objects with peculiar spectra. Nine of them can be interpreted as black hole binaries. This doubles the number of known black hole binary candidates. We also report on the discovery of a new class of extreme double-peaked emitters with exceptionally broad and faint Balmer lines. For all the interesting sources, we present detailed analysis of the spectra and discuss possible interpretations.

Pristine Survey : High-Resolution Spectral Analyses of New Metal-poor Stars

Science.gov (United States)

Venn, Kim; Starkenburg, Else; Martin, Nicolas; Kielty, Collin; Youakim, Kris; Arnetsen, Anke

2018-06-01

The Pristine survey (Starkenburg et al. 2017) is a new and very successful metal-poor star survey. Combining high-quality narrow-band CaHK CFHT/MegaCam photometry with existing broadband photometry from SDSS, then very metal-poor stars have been found as confirmed from low-resolution spectroscopy (Youakim et al. 2017). Furthermore, we have extended this survey towards the Galactic bulge in a pilot program to test the capabilities in the highly crowded and (inhomogeneously) extincted bulge (Arentsen et al. 2018). High resolution spectral follow-up analyses have been initiated at the CFHT with Espadons (Vevolution or changes in the IMF, e.g., carbon enrichment, high [alpha/Fe] ratios vs alpha-challenged stars, and details in the neutron capture element ratios. While these early studies are being carried out using classical model atmospheres and synthetic spectral fitting (Venn et al. 2017, 2018), we are also exploring the use of a neural network for the fast, efficient, and precise determination of these stellar parameters and chemical abundances (e.g., StarNet, Fabbro et al. 2018).

ASPECT: A spectra clustering tool for exploration of large spectral surveys

Science.gov (United States)

in der Au, A.; Meusinger, H.; Schalldach, P. F.; Newholm, M.

2012-11-01

Context. Analysing the empirical output from large surveys is an important challenge in contemporary science. Difficulties arise, in particular, when the database is huge and the properties of the object types to be selected are poorly constrained a priori. Aims: We present the novel, semi-automated clustering tool ASPECT for analysing voluminous archives of spectra. Methods: The heart of the program is a neural network in the form of a Kohonen self-organizing map. The resulting map is designed as an icon map suitable for the inspection by eye. The visual analysis is supported by the option to blend in individual object properties such as redshift, apparent magnitude, or signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, the package provides several tools for the selection of special spectral types, e.g. local difference maps which reflect the deviations of all spectra from one given input spectrum (real or artificial). Results: ASPECT is able to produce a two-dimensional topological map of a huge number of spectra. The software package enables the user to browse and navigate through a huge data pool and helps them to gain an insight into underlying relationships between the spectra and other physical properties and to get the big picture of the entire data set. We demonstrate the capability of ASPECT by clustering the entire data pool of ~6 × 105 spectra from the Data Release 4 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). To illustrate the results regarding quality and completeness we track objects from existing catalogues of quasars and carbon stars, respectively, and connect the SDSS spectra with morphological information from the GalaxyZoo project. Code is only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/547/A115

SpS1-Preparing for the harvest from large infrared surveys

Science.gov (United States)

Padgett, Deborah L.

2010-11-01

During the past decade, there has been a revolution in the availability of multi-wavelength astronomical surveys. From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS), astronomical research based on publicly accessible datasets is becoming standard practice in the community. Beginning with the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) mission, infrared surveys have played a critical role in stellar astronomy by identifying cool and dusty stars worthy of spectroscopic characterization. IRAS' four photometric bands at 12, 25, 60, and 100 μm were ideal for detecting dusty circumstellar material. All-sky surveys like IRAS reveal the brightest members of each class of rare objects, optimizing their follow-up strategy. The case of debris disks around main sequence stars demonstrates this utility. IRAS detected dust disks around four nearby stars, Beta Pictoris, Fomalhaut, Epsilon Eridani, and Vega. The “Fabulous Four” remain the best studied debris disks, despite hundreds of additional examples discovered by the Spitzer Space Telescope. In the nearly 30 years since IRAS was launched, its highly reliable catalog of just 250000 sources, modest by modern standards, with arcminute scale resolution and 0.3 - 1 Jy sensitivity, has generated over 10,000 references in ADS. This is a success story by any measure.

Candidate isolated neutron stars and other optically blank x-ray fields identified from the rosat all-sky and sloan digital sky surveys

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Agueros, Marcel A.; Anderson, Scott F.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Margon, Bruce; /Baltimore, Space Telescope Sci.; Haberl, Frank; Voges, Wolfgang; /Garching,; Annis, James; /Fermilab; Schneider, Donald P.; /Penn State U., Astron. Astrophys.; Brinkmann, Jonathan; /Apache Point Observ.

2005-11-01

Only seven radio-quiet isolated neutron stars (INSs) emitting thermal X rays are known, a sample that has yet to definitively address such fundamental issues as the equation of state of degenerate neutron matter. We describe a selection algorithm based on a cross-correlation of the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) that identifies X-ray error circles devoid of plausible optical counterparts to the SDSS g {approx} 22 magnitudes limit. We quantitatively characterize these error circles as optically blank; they may host INSs or other similarly exotic X-ray sources such as radio-quiet BL Lacs, obscured AGN, etc. Our search is an order of magnitude more selective than previous searches for optically blank RASS error circles, and excludes the 99.9% of error circles that contain more common X-ray-emitting subclasses. We find 11 candidates, nine of which are new. While our search is designed to find the best INS candidates and not to produce a complete list of INSs in the RASS, it is reassuring that our number of candidates is consistent with predictions from INS population models. Further X-ray observations will obtain pinpoint positions and determine whether these sources are entirely optically blank at g {approx} 22, supporting the presence of likely isolated neutron stars and perhaps enabling detailed follow-up studies of neutron star physics.

Lens Model and Time Delay Predictions for the Sextuply Lensed Quasar SDSS J2222+2745*

Science.gov (United States)

Sharon, Keren; Bayliss, Matthew B.; Dahle, Hakon; Florian, Michael K.; Gladders, Michael D.; Johnson, Traci L.; Paterno-Mahler, Rachel; Rigby, Jane R.; Whitaker, Katherine E.; Wuyts, Eva

2017-01-01

SDSS J2222+2745 is a galaxy cluster at z = 0.49, strongly lensing a quasar at z = 2.805 into six widely separated images. In recent Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the field, we identify additional multiply lensed galaxies and confirm the sixth quasar image that was identified by Dahle et al. We used the Gemini-North telescope to measure a spectroscopic redshift of z = 4.56 of one of the lensed galaxies. These data are used to refine the lens model of SDSS J2222+2745, compute the time delay and magnifications of the lensed quasar images, and reconstruct the source image of the quasar host and a lensed galaxy at z = 2.3. This galaxy also appears in absorption in our Gemini spectra of the lensed quasar, at a projected distance of 34 kpc. Our model is in agreement with the recent time delay measurements of Dahle et al., who found T(sub AB) = 47.7 +/- 6.0 days and T(sub AC) = 722 +/- 24 days. We use the observed time delays to further constrain the model, and find that the model-predicted time delays of the three faint images of the quasar are T(sub AD) = 502+/- 68 days, T( sub AE) = 611 +/- 75 days, and T(sub AF) = 415 +/- 72 days. We have initiated a follow-up campaign to measure these time delays with Gemini North. Finally, we present initial results from an X-ray monitoring program with Swift, indicating the presence of hard X-ray emission from the lensed quasar, as well as extended X-ray emission from the cluster itself, which is consistent with the lensing mass measurement and the cluster velocity dispersion.

LENS MODEL AND TIME DELAY PREDICTIONS FOR THE SEXTUPLY LENSED QUASAR SDSS J2222+2745

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sharon, Keren; Johnson, Traci L.; Paterno-Mahler, Rachel [Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, 1085 S. University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (United States); Bayliss, Matthew B. [Colby College, 5800 Mayflower Hill, Waterville, 04901, Maine (United States); Dahle, Håkon [Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1029, Blindern, NO-0315 Oslo (Norway); Florian, Michael K.; Gladders, Michael D. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637 (United States); Rigby, Jane R. [Astrophysics Science Division, Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States); Whitaker, Katherine E. [Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003 (United States); Wuyts, Eva, E-mail: kerens@umich.edu [Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstr. 1, D-85741 Garching (Germany)

2017-01-20

SDSS J2222+2745 is a galaxy cluster at z = 0.49, strongly lensing a quasar at z = 2.805 into six widely separated images. In recent Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the field, we identify additional multiply lensed galaxies and confirm the sixth quasar image that was identified by Dahle et al. We used the Gemini-North telescope to measure a spectroscopic redshift of z = 4.56 of one of the lensed galaxies. These data are used to refine the lens model of SDSS J2222+2745, compute the time delay and magnifications of the lensed quasar images, and reconstruct the source image of the quasar host and a lensed galaxy at z = 2.3. This galaxy also appears in absorption in our Gemini spectra of the lensed quasar, at a projected distance of 34 kpc. Our model is in agreement with the recent time delay measurements of Dahle et al., who found τ {sub AB} = 47.7 ± 6.0 days and τ {sub AC} = −722 ± 24 days. We use the observed time delays to further constrain the model, and find that the model-predicted time delays of the three faint images of the quasar are τ {sub AD} = 502 ± 68 days, τ {sub AE} = 611 ± 75 days, and τ {sub AF} = 415 ± 72 days. We have initiated a follow-up campaign to measure these time delays with Gemini North. Finally, we present initial results from an X-ray monitoring program with Swift , indicating the presence of hard X-ray emission from the lensed quasar, as well as extended X-ray emission from the cluster itself, which is consistent with the lensing mass measurement and the cluster velocity dispersion.

A catalogue of clusters of galaxies identified from all sky surveys of 2MASS, WISE, and SuperCOSMOS

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Z. L.; Han, J. L.; Yang, F.

2018-03-01

We identify 47 600 clusters of galaxies from photometric data of Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), and SuperCOSMOS, among which 26 125 clusters are recognized for the first time and mostly in the sky outside the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) area. About 90 per cent of massive clusters of M500 > 3 × 1014 M⊙ in the redshift range of 0.025 < z < 0.3 have been detected from such survey data, and the detection rate drops down to 50 per cent for clusters with a mass of M500 ˜ 1 × 1014 M⊙. Monte Carlo simulations show that the false detection rate for the whole cluster sample is less than 5 per cent. By cross-matching with ROSAT and XMM-Newton sources, we get 779 new X-ray cluster candidates which have X-ray counterparts within a projected offset of 0.2 Mpc.