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LSST: From Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products
Aubourg, Éric; Strauss, Michael A.; Anderson, Scott F. +324 more
We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the solar system, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a large, wide-fiel…
Large Magellanic Cloud Cepheid Standards Provide a 1% Foundation for the Determination of the Hubble Constant and Stronger Evidence for Physics beyond ΛCDM
Casertano, Stefano; Riess, Adam G.; Yuan, Wenlong +2 more
We present an improved determination of the Hubble constant from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of 70 long-period Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). These were obtained with the same WFC3 photometric system used to measure extragalactic Cepheids in the hosts of SNe Ia. Gyroscopic control of HST was employed to reduce overhead…
Overview of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys
Castander, Francisco J.; Gaztanaga, Enrique; Bell, Eric F. +158 more
The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys (http://legacysurvey.org/) are a combination of three public projects (the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey, the Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey, and the Mayall z-band Legacy Survey) that will jointly image ≈14,000 deg2 of the extragalactic sky visible from the northern h…
Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Pulsating Variable Stars, Rotation, Convective Boundaries, and Energy Conservation
Smolec, R.; Dotter, Aaron; Zhang, Michael +14 more
We update the capabilities of the open-knowledge software instrument Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA). RSP is a new functionality in MESAstar that models the nonlinear radial stellar pulsations that characterize RR Lyrae, Cepheids, and other classes of variable stars. We significantly enhance numerical energy conservation cap…
A 3D Dust Map Based on Gaia, Pan-STARRS 1, and 2MASS
Speagle, Joshua S.; Zucker, Catherine; Finkbeiner, Douglas +2 more
We present a new three-dimensional map of dust reddening, based on Gaia parallaxes and stellar photometry from Pan-STARRS 1 and 2MASS. This map covers the sky north of a decl. of -30°, out to a distance of a few kiloparsecs. This new map contains three major improvements over our previous work. First, the inclusion of Gaia parallaxes dramatically …
The Zwicky Transient Facility: Data Processing, Products, and Archive
Cenko, S. Bradley; Riddle, Reed; Van Sistine, Angela +46 more
The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) is a new robotic time-domain survey currently in progress using the Palomar 48-inch Schmidt Telescope. ZTF uses a 47 square degree field with a 600 megapixel camera to scan the entire northern visible sky at rates of ∼3760 square degrees/hour to median depths of g ∼ 20.8 and r ∼ 20.6 mag (AB, 5σ in 30 sec). We d…
The Revised TESS Input Catalog and Candidate Target List
Torres, Guillermo; Barclay, Thomas; Ge, Jian +34 more
We describe the catalogs assembled and the algorithms used to populate the revised TESS Input Catalog (TIC), based on the incorporation of the Gaia second data release. We also describe a revised ranking system for prioritizing stars for 2 minute cadence observations, and we assemble a revised Candidate Target List (CTL) using that ranking. The TI…
The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. VIII. An Independent Determination of the Hubble Constant Based on the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
Madore, Barry F.; Freedman, Wendy L.; Beaton, Rachael L. +10 more
We present a new and independent determination of the local value of the Hubble constant based on a calibration of the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) applied to Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). We find a value of H 0 = 69.8 ± 0.8 (±1.1% stat) ± 1.7 (±2.4% sys) km s-1 Mpc-1. The TRGB method is both precise and accur…
A geometric distance measurement to the Galactic center black hole with 0.3% uncertainty
Förster Schreiber, N. M.; Genzel, R.; Sturm, E. +52 more
We present a 0.16% precise and 0.27% accurate determination of R0, the distance to the Galactic center. Our measurement uses the star S2 on its 16-year orbit around the massive black hole Sgr A* that we followed astrometrically and spectroscopically for 27 years. Since 2017, we added near-infrared interferometry with the VLTI beam combi…
A distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud that is precise to one per cent
Smolec, R.; Kudritzki, R. P.; Bresolin, F. +19 more
In the era of precision cosmology, it is essential to determine the Hubble constant empirically with an accuracy of one per cent or better1. At present, the uncertainty on this constant is dominated by the uncertainty in the calibration of the Cepheid period-luminosity relationship2,3 (also known as the Leavitt law). The Larg…