Search Publications
The Diverse Morphology, Stellar Population, and Black Hole Scaling Relations of the Host Galaxies of Nearby Quasars
Ho, Luis C.; Zhao, Dongyao; Kim, Minjin +3 more
We present rest-frame B and I imaging of 35 low-redshift ( $z\lt 0.5$ ) Palomar-Green quasars using the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3. We perform multicomponent two-dimensional image decomposition to separate the host galaxy from its bright active nucleus, characterize its morphology, and measure its photometric properties. Special ca…
The Extraordinary Outburst in the Massive Protostellar System NGC 6334 I-MM1: Strong Increase in Mid-Infrared Continuum Emission
Stecklum, B.; Dowell, C. D.; Hunter, T. R. +7 more
In recent years, dramatic outbursts have been identified toward massive protostars via infrared and millimeter dust continuum and molecular maser emission. The longest lived outburst (>6 yr) persists in NGC 6334 I-MM1, a deeply embedded object with no near-IR counterpart. Using FORCAST and HAWC+ on SOFIA, we have obtained the first mid-IR image…
The Star Formation History of Eridanus II: On the Role of Supernova Feedback in the Quenching of Ultrafaint Dwarf Galaxies
Salvadori, S.; Anderson, J.; Cignoni, M. +17 more
Eridanus II (Eri II) is an ultrafaint dwarf (UFD) galaxy (MV = -7.1) located at a distance close to the Milky Way virial radius. Early shallow color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) indicated that it possibly hosted an intermediate-age or even young stellar population, which is unusual for a galaxy of this mass. In this paper, we present new H…
Slow Cooling and Fast Reinflation for Hot Jupiters
Fortney, Jonathan J.; Huber, Daniel; Berger, Travis A. +2 more
The unexpectedly large radii of hot Jupiters are a longstanding mystery whose solution will provide important insights into their interior physics. Many potential solutions have been suggested, which make diverse predictions about the details of inflation. In particular, although any valid model must allow for maintaining large planetary radii, on…
A Sub-2% Distance to M31 from Photometrically Homogeneous Near-infrared Cepheid Period-Luminosity Relations Measured with the Hubble Space Telescope
Casertano, Stefano; Li, Siyang; Riess, Adam G. +3 more
We present period-luminosity relations (PLRs) for 55 Cepheids in M31 with periods ranging from 4 to 78 days observed with the Hubble Space Telescope using the same three-band photometric system recently used to calibrate their luminosities. Images were taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 in two optical filters (F555W and F814W) and one near-infrare…
Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Two Faint Dwarf Satellites of Nearby LMC Analogs from MADCASH
Forbes, Duncan A.; Romanowsky, Aaron J.; Strader, Jay +11 more
We present a deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging study of two dwarf galaxies in the halos of Local Volume Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) analogs. These dwarfs were discovered as part of our Subaru+Hyper Suprime-Cam MADCASH survey: MADCASH-1 is a satellite of NGC 2403 (D ∼ 3.2 Mpc), and MADCASH-2 is a previously unknown dwarf galaxy near NGC 42…
On the Correlation between Hot Jupiters and Stellar Clustering: High-eccentricity Migration Induced by Stellar Flybys
Rodet, Laetitia; Lai, Dong; Su, Yubo
A recent observational study suggests that the occurrence of hot Jupiters (HJs) around solar-type stars is correlated with stellar clustering. We study a new scenario for HJ formation, called "Flyby Induced High-e Migration," that may help explain this correlation. In this scenario, stellar flybys excite the eccentricity and inclination of an oute…
Quantifying Non-parametric Structure of High-redshift Galaxies with Deep Learning
Bamford, S. P.; Conselice, C. J.; Ferrari, F. +2 more
At high redshift, due to both observational limitations and the variety of galaxy morphologies in the early universe, measuring galaxy structure can be challenging. Non-parametric measurements such as the CAS system have thus become an important tool due to both their model-independent nature and their utility as a straightforward computational pr…
A Census of Blue Stragglers in Gaia DR2 Open Clusters as a Test of Population Synthesis and Mass Transfer Physics
Leiner, Emily M.; Geller, Aaron
We use photometry and proper motions from Gaia DR2 to determine the blue straggler star (BSS) populations of 16 old (1-10 Gyr), nearby (d < 3500 pc) open clusters. We find that the fractional number of BSS compared to red giant branch stars increases with age, starting near zero at 1 Gyr and flattening to ∼0.35 by 4 Gyr. Fitting stellar evoluti…
A Parametric Galactic Model toward the Galactic Bulge Based on Gaia and Microlensing Data
Bennett, David P.; Koshimoto, Naoki; Baba, Junichi
We developed a parametric Galactic model toward the Galactic bulge by fitting to spatial distributions of the Gaia DR2 disk velocity, VVV proper motion, BRAVA radial velocity, OGLE-III red clump star count, and OGLE-IV star count and microlens rate, optimized for use in microlensing studies. We include the asymmetric drift of Galactic disk stars a…