Search Publications

Reverse engineering the Milky Way
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa245 Bibcode: 2020MNRAS.493..847F

Forbes, Duncan A.

The ages, metallicities, alpha-elements, and integrals of motion of globular clusters (GCs) accreted by the Milky Way from disrupted satellites remain largely unchanged over time. Here we have used these conserved properties in combination to assign 76 GCs to five progenitor satellite galaxies - one of which we dub the Koala dwarf galaxy. We fit a…

2020 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gaia 135
When Do Stalled Stars Resume Spinning Down? Advancing Gyrochronology with Ruprecht 147
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/abbf58 Bibcode: 2020ApJ...904..140C

Torres, Guillermo; Vanderburg, Andrew; Latham, David W. +17 more

Recent measurements of rotation periods ( ${P}_{\mathrm{rot}}$ ) in the benchmark open clusters Praesepe (670 Myr), NGC 6811 (1 Gyr), and NGC 752 (1.4 Gyr) demonstrate that, after converging onto a tight sequence of slowly rotating stars in mass-period space, stars temporarily stop spinning down. These data also show that the duration of this epoc…

2020 The Astrophysical Journal
Gaia 135
The Destruction and Recreation of the X-Ray Corona in a Changing-look Active Galactic Nucleus
DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab91a1 Bibcode: 2020ApJ...898L...1R

Altamirano, D.; Fabian, A. C.; Gandhi, P. +16 more

We present the drastic transformation of the X-ray properties of the active galactic nucleus (AGN) 1ES 1927+654, following a changing-look event. After the optical/ultraviolet outburst the power-law component, produced in the X-ray corona, disappeared, and the spectrum of 1ES 1927+65 instead became dominated by a blackbody component (kT ∼ 80-120 e…

2020 The Astrophysical Journal
XMM-Newton 135
A Galactic-scale gas wave in the solar neighbourhood
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1874-z Bibcode: 2020Natur.578..237A

Meingast, Stefan; Alves, João; Speagle, Joshua S. +6 more

For the past 150 years, the prevailing view of the local interstellar medium has been based on a peculiarity known as the Gould Belt1-4, an expanding ring of young stars, gas and dust, tilted about 20 degrees to the Galactic plane. However, the physical relationship between local gas clouds has remained unknown because the accuracy in d…

2020 Nature
Gaia 134
An excess of small-scale gravitational lenses observed in galaxy clusters
DOI: 10.1126/science.aax5164 Bibcode: 2020Sci...369.1347M

Grillo, Claudio; Rosati, Piero; Meneghetti, Massimo +11 more

Cold dark matter (CDM) constitutes most of the matter in the Universe. The interplay between dark and luminous matter in dense cosmic environments, such as galaxy clusters, is studied theoretically using cosmological simulations. Observations of gravitational lensing are used to characterize the properties of substructures—the small-scale distribu…

2020 Science
eHST 134
Constraining the thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch phase with resolved stellar populations in the Large Magellanic Cloud
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa2565 Bibcode: 2020MNRAS.498.3283P

Boyer, Martha L.; Girardi, Léo; de Grijs, Richard +18 more

Reliable models of the thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch (TP-AGB) phase are of critical importance across astrophysics, including our interpretation of the spectral energy distribution of galaxies, cosmic dust production, and enrichment of the interstellar medium. With the aim of improving sets of stellar isochrones that include a detailed…

2020 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gaia 134
The Sixth Data Release of the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE). I. Survey Description, Spectra, and Radial Velocities
DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/ab9ab9 Bibcode: 2020AJ....160...82S

Grebel, Eva K.; Chaplin, William J.; Steinmetz, Matthias +60 more

The Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) is a magnitude-limited (9 < I < 12) spectroscopic survey of Galactic stars randomly selected in Earth's southern hemisphere. The RAVE medium-resolution spectra (R ∼ 7500) cover the Ca-triplet region (8410-8795 Å). The sixth and final data release (DR6) is based on 518,387 observations of 451,783 unique s…

2020 The Astronomical Journal
Gaia 133
ALMA uncovers the [C II] emission and warm dust continuum in a z = 8.31 Lyman break galaxy
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa509 Bibcode: 2020MNRAS.493.4294B

Shibuya, Takatoshi; Inoue, Akio K.; Hashimoto, Takuya +15 more

We report on the detection of the [C II] 157.7 µm emission from the Lyman break galaxy (LBG) MACS0416_Y1 at z = 8.3113, by using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The luminosity ratio of [O III] 88 µm (from previous campaigns) to [C II] is 9.3 ± 2.6, indicative of hard interstellar radiation fields and/or a low c…

2020 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
eHST 132
Texas Spectroscopic Search for Lyα Emission at the End of Reionization. III. The Lyα Equivalent-width Distribution and Ionized Structures at z > 7
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/abbd44 Bibcode: 2020ApJ...904..144J

Papovich, Casey; Finkelstein, Steven L.; Dickinson, Mark +11 more

Lyα emission from galaxies can be utilized to characterize the ionization state in the intergalactic medium (IGM). We report our search for Lyα emission at z > 7 using a comprehensive Keck/MOSFIRE near-infrared spectroscopic data set, as part of the Texas Spectroscopic Search for Lyα Emission at the End of Reionization Survey. We analyze data f…

2020 The Astrophysical Journal
eHST 132
Resolving nearby dust clouds
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202038169 Bibcode: 2020A&A...639A.138L

Enßlin, T. A.; Leike, R. H.; Glatzle, M.


Aims: Mapping the interstellar medium in 3D provides a wealth of insights into its inner working. The Milky Way is the only galaxy for which detailed 3D mapping can be achieved in principle. In this paper, we reconstruct the dust density in and around the local super-bubble.
Methods: The combined data from surveys such as Gaia, 2MASS, PA…

2020 Astronomy and Astrophysics
Gaia 131