Search Publications
The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey. XXIII. Fundamentals of Nuclear Star Clusters over Seven Decades in Galaxy Mass
Emsellem, Eric; Liu, Chengze; Cuillandre, Jean-Charles +25 more
Using deep, high-resolution optical imaging from the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey, we study the properties of nuclear star clusters (NSCs) in a sample of nearly 400 quiescent galaxies in the core of Virgo with stellar masses 105 ≲ {\text{}}{M}* /{\text{}}{M}⊙ ≲ 1012. The nucleation fraction reac…
The Atmospheric Circulation of Ultra-hot Jupiters
Tan, Xianyu; Komacek, Thaddeus D.
Recent observations of ultra-hot Jupiters with dayside temperatures in excess of 2500 K have found evidence for new physical processes at play in their atmospheres. In this work, we investigate the effects of the dissociation of molecular hydrogen and recombination of atomic hydrogen on the atmospheric circulation of ultra-hot Jupiters. To do so, …
The ice composition in the disk around V883 Ori revealed by its stellar outburst
Johnstone, Doug; Lee, Jeong-Eun; Aikawa, Yuri +6 more
Complex organic molecules (COMs), which are the seeds of prebiotic material and precursors of amino acids and sugars, form in the icy mantles of circumstellar dust grains1 but cannot be detected remotely unless they are heated and released to the gas phase. Around solar-mass stars, water and COMs only sublimate in the inner few uc(au) o…
Gaia Data Release 2 distances and peculiar velocities for Galactic black hole transients
Maccarone, Thomas J.; Gandhi, Poshak; Rao, Anjali +2 more
We report on a first census of Galactic black hole X-ray binary (BHXRB) properties with the second data release (DR2) of Gaia, focusing on dynamically confirmed and strong candidate BH transients. Gaia DR2 provides five-parameter astrometric solutions including position, parallax and proper motion for 11 out of a sample of 24 systems. Distance est…
The shape of the Galactic halo with Gaia DR2 RR Lyrae. Anatomy of an ancient major merger
Belokurov, Vasily; Iorio, Giuliano
We use the Gaia DR2 RR Lyrae sample to gain an uninterrupted view of the Galactic stellar halo. We dissect the available volume in slices parallel to the Milky Way's disc to show that within ∼30 kpc from the Galactic centre the halo is triaxial, with the longest axis misaligned by ∼70° with respect to the Galactic x-axis. This anatomical procedure…
Inferred Evidence for Dark Matter Kinematic Substructure with SDSS-Gaia
Belokurov, Vasily; Lisanti, Mariangela; Necib, Lina
We use the distribution of accreted stars in Sloan Digital Sky Survey-Gaia DR2 to demonstrate that a nontrivial fraction of the dark matter halo within galactocentric radii of 7.5-10 kpc and | z| > 2.5 {kpc} is in substructure and thus may not be in equilibrium. Using a mixture likelihood analysis, we separate the contributions of an old, isotr…
Core crystallization and pile-up in the cooling sequence of evolving white dwarfs
Hermes, J. J.; Gänsicke, Boris T.; Gentile Fusillo, Nicola Pietro +7 more
White dwarfs are stellar embers depleted of nuclear energy sources that cool over billions of years1. These stars, which are supported by electron degeneracy pressure, reach densities of 107 grams per cubic centimetre in their cores2. It has been predicted that a first-order phase transition occurs during white-dwa…
The KMOS3D Survey: Data Release and Final Survey Paper
Wuyts, E.; Lutz, D.; Wuyts, S. +28 more
We present the completed KMOS3D survey, an integral field spectroscopic survey of 739 {log}({M}\star /{M}⊙ )> 9 galaxies at 0.6 < z < 2.7 using the K-band Multi Object Spectrograph (KMOS) at the Very Large Telescope. The KMOS3D survey provides a population-wide census of kinematics, star formati…
Nonparametric Star Formation History Reconstruction with Gaussian Processes. I. Counting Major Episodes of Star Formation
Ferguson, Henry C.; Koekemoer, Anton M.; Somerville, Rachel S. +5 more
The star formation histories (SFHs) of galaxies contain imprints of the physical processes responsible for regulating star formation during galaxy growth and quenching. We improve the Dense Basis SFH reconstruction method of Iyer & Gawiser, introducing a nonparametric description of the SFH based on the lookback times at which a galaxy assembl…
The Anomalously Low (Sub)Millimeter Spectral Indices of Some Protoplanetary Disks May Be Explained By Dust Self-scattering
Liu, Hauyu Baobab
Previous (sub)millimeter observations have found that the spectral indices of dust emission from some young stellar objects are lower than that of the blackbody emission in the Rayleigh-Jeans limit (i.e., 2.0). In particular, the recent Atacama Large Millimeter Array observations have spatially resolved that the innermost regions of the protoplane…