Search Publications
A Contact Binary Misclassified as an Ellipsoidal Variable: Complications for Detached Black Hole Searches
Strader, Jay; Bahramian, Arash; Orosz, Jerome A. +3 more
Identifying sources exhibiting ellipsoidal variability in large photometric surveys is becoming a promising method to search for candidate detached black holes (BHs) in binaries. This technique aims to exploit the orbital-phase-dependent modulation in optical photometry caused by the BH distorting the shape of the luminous star to constrain the ma…
Simulating Self-lensing and Eclipsing Signals due to Detached Compact Objects in the TESS Light Curves
Afshordi, Niayesh; Sajadian, Sedighe
A fraction of Galactic stars have compact companions that could be white dwarfs (WDs), neutron stars (NSs), or stellar-mass black holes (SBHs). In a detached and edge-on binary system including a main-sequence star and a compact object (denoted by WD main-sequence (WDMS), NS main-sequence (NSMS), and SBH main-sequence (BHMS) systems), the stellar …
Interstellar Polarization Survey. IV. Characterizing the Magnetic Field Strength and Turbulent Dispersion Using Optical Starlight Polarization in the Diffuse Interstellar Medium
Magalhães, A. M.; Kawabata, Koji S.; Rodrigues, C. V. +5 more
Angular dispersion functions are typically used to estimate the fluctuations in polarization angle around the mean magnetic field orientation in dense regions, such as molecular clouds. The technique provides accurate turbulent-to-regular magnetic field ratios, , which are often underestimated by the classic Davis–Chandrasekhar–Fermi method. We as…
The DECam Ecliptic Exploration Project (DEEP). VII. The Strengths of Three Superfast Rotating Main-belt Asteroids from a Preliminary Search of DEEP Data
Adams, Fred C.; Valdes, Francisco; Jurić, Mario +19 more
Superfast rotators (SFRs) are small solar system objects that rotate faster than generally possible for a cohesionless rubble pile. Their rotational characteristics allow us to make inferences about their interior structure and composition. Here, we present the methods and results from a preliminary search for SFRs in the DECam Ecliptic Exploratio…
Candidate Main-belt Asteroids for Surface Heterogeneity
Hasegawa, Sunao; Marsset, Michaël; Bus, Schelte J. +10 more
Large terrestrial bodies in our solar system like the Earth, Mars, Mercury, and the Moon exhibit geologically complex surfaces with compositional heterogeneity. From past studies using large telescopes and spacecraft, it was shown that asteroids with diameters larger than 100 km also show surface heterogeneity at hemispheric scales, while on small…
Unveiling Subarcsecond Multiplicity in the Pleiades with Gaia Multicolor Photometry
Chulkov, Dmitry
The list of 409 probable cluster members down to G = 15mag (m ≳ 0.5M ⊙) is compiled for the two degree radius of the Pleiades, based on astrometric data from Gaia DR3 and the PPMXL catalog, along with several radial velocity surveys, including APOGEE and LAMOST. This approach allows for the inclusion of binary stars with unre…
Serendipitous Archival Observations of a New Ultradistant Comet C/2019 E3 (ATLAS)
Weryk, Robert; Hui, Man-To; Micheli, Marco +2 more
We identified a new ultradistant comet C/2019 E3 (ATLAS) exhibiting preperihelion cometary activity at heliocentric distances ≳20 au, making it the fourth member of this population after C/2010 U3 (Boattini), C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli–Bernstein), and C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS). From serendipitous archival data, we conducted analyses of the…
Probing the Relationship Between Early Star Formation and CO in the Dwarf Irregular Galaxy WLM with JWST
Windhorst, Rogier A.; Elmegreen, Bruce G.; Rubio, Monica +5 more
Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte (WLM) is a Local Group dwarf irregular (dIrr) galaxy with a metallicity 13% of solar. At 1 Mpc, the relative isolation of WLM provides a unique opportunity to investigate the internal mechanisms of star formation at low metallicities. The earliest stages of star formation in larger spirals occur in embedded clusters within mo…
The Milky Way Bulge Extra-tidal Star Survey: BH 261 (AL 3)
Clarkson, William I.; Kunder, Andrea; Johnson, Christian I. +19 more
The Milky Way Bulge extra-tidal star survey is a spectroscopic survey with the goal of identifying stripped globular cluster stars from inner Galaxy clusters. In this way, an indication of the fraction of metal-poor bulge stars that originated from globular clusters can be determined. We observed and analyzed stars in and around BH 261, an underst…
Exploring NGC 2345: A Comprehensive Study of a Young Open Cluster through Photometric and Kinematic Analysis
Belwal, Kuldeep; Bisht, D.; Bisht, Mohit Singh +5 more
We conducted a photometric and kinematic analysis of the young open cluster NGC 2345 using CCD UBV data from 2 m Himalayan Chandra Telescope, Gaia Data Release 3, Two Micron All-Sky Survey, and the Photometric All-Sky Survey data sets. We found 1732 most probable cluster members with membership probability higher than 70%. The fundamental and stru…