Search Publications
Evolution of the physical properties of dust and cometary dust activity from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko measured in situ by Rosetta/COSIMA
Altobelli, Nicolas; Langevin, Yves; Fischer, Henning +9 more
The Cometary Secondary Ion Mass Analyzer (COSIMA) collects dust particles in the coma of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, images them with a resolution of 14 µm × 14 µm, and measures their composition via time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry. The particles are collected on targets exposed to the cometary flux for periods ranging fr…
H0LiCOW. VI. Testing the fidelity of lensed quasar host galaxy reconstruction
Treu, Tommaso; Marshall, Philip J.; Sonnenfeld, Alessandro +11 more
The empirical correlation between the mass of a supermassive black hole (M_BH) and its host galaxy properties is widely considered to be an evidence of their co-evolution. A powerful way to test the co-evolution scenario and learn about the feedback processes linking galaxies and nuclear activity is to measure these correlations as a function of r…
Constraints on the structure of hot exozodiacal dust belts
Kirchschlager, Florian; Krivov, Alexander V.; Wolf, Sebastian +2 more
Recent interferometric surveys of nearby main-sequence stars show a faint but significant near-infrared excess in roughly two dozen systems, I.e. around 10-30 per cent of stars surveyed. This excess is attributed to dust located in the immediate vicinity of the star, the origin of which is highly debated. We used previously published interferometr…
Near-infrared variability study of the central 2.3 × 2.3 arcmin2 of the Galactic Centre - II. Identification of RR Lyrae stars in the Milky Way nuclear star cluster
Morris, Mark R.; Williams, Benjamin F.; Rich, R. Michael +8 more
Because of strong and spatially highly variable interstellar extinction and extreme source crowding, the faint (K ≥ 15) stellar population in the Milky Way's nuclear star cluster is still poorly studied. RR Lyrae stars provide us with a tool to estimate the mass of the oldest, relative dim stellar population. Recently, we analysed <italic>&l…
Asteroseismic masses of retired planet-hosting A-stars using SONG
Huber, Daniel; Bedding, Timothy R.; Stello, Dennis +9 more
To better understand how planets form, it is important to study planet occurrence rates as a function of stellar mass. However, estimating masses of field stars is often difficult. Over the past decade, a controversy has arisen about the inferred occurrence rate of gas-giant planets around evolved intermediate-mass stars - the so-called 'retired A…
The merger remnant NGC 3610 and its globular cluster system: a large-scale study
Bassino, Lilia P.; Caso, Juan P.
We present a photometric study of the prototype merger remnant NGC 3610 and its globular cluster (GC) system, based on new Gemini/GMOS and Advanced Camera for Surveys/Hubble Space Telescope archival images. Thanks to the large field of view of our GMOS data, larger than previous studies, we are able to detect a 'classical' bimodal GC colour distri…
Extremely late photometry of the nearby SN 2011fe
Spyromilio, J.; Fransson, C.; Jerkstrand, A. +6 more
Type Ia supernovae are widely accepted to be the outcomes of thermonuclear explosions in white dwarf stars. However, many details of these explosions remain uncertain (e.g. the mass, ignition mechanism and flame speed). Theory predicts that at very late times (beyond 1000 d) it might be possible to distinguish between explosion models. Few very ne…
Quantifying the (X/peanut)-shaped structure of the Milky Way - new constraints on the bar geometry
Ciambur, Bogdan C.; Bland-Hawthorn, Joss; Graham, Alister W.
The nature, size and orientation of the Milky Way's bar and `bulge' have been the subject of conflicting interpretations in the literature. Here, we present a novel approach to inferring the properties of the long bar, which extends beyond the inner `bulge', by using information encoded in the Galaxy's X/peanut (X/P)-shaped structure. We perform a…
What planetary nebulae can tell us about jets in core collapse supernovae
Soker, Noam; Bear, Ealeal
We compare the morphology of the core collapse supernova remnant (CCSNR) W49B with the morphology of many planetary nebulae (PNe), and deduce the orientation of the jets that shaped this CCSNR and estimate their energy. We find morphological features that are shared by some PNe and by the CCSNR W49B. In PNe these features, such as a barrel-shaped …
The dust environment of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: results from Monte Carlo dust tail modelling applied to a large ground-based observation data set
Della Corte, Vincenzo; Lara, Luisa M.; Moreno, Fernando +6 more
We present an extensive data set of ground-based observations and models of the dust environment of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko covering a large portion of the orbital arc from about 4.5 au pre-perihelion through 3.0 au post-perihelion, acquired during the current orbit. In addition, we have also applied the model to a dust trail image acquire…