ABSTRACT
We present the integrated three-point shear correlation function iζ± – a higher order statistic of the cosmic shear field – which can be directly estimated in wide-area weak lensing surveys ...without measuring the full three-point shear correlation function, making this a practical and complementary tool to two-point statistics for weak lensing cosmology. We define it as the one-point aperture mass statistic Map measured at different locations on the shear field correlated with the corresponding local two-point shear correlation function ξ±. Building upon existing work on the integrated bispectrum of the weak lensing convergence field, we present a theoretical framework for computing the integrated three-point function in real space for any projected field within the flat-sky approximation and apply it to cosmic shear. Using analytical formulae for the non-linear matter power spectrum and bispectrum, we model iζ± and validate it on N-body simulations within the uncertainties expected from the sixth year cosmic shear data of the Dark Energy Survey. We also explore the Fisher information content of iζ± and perform a joint analysis with ξ± for two tomographic source redshift bins with realistic shape noise to analyse its power in constraining cosmological parameters. We find that the joint analysis of ξ± and iζ± has the potential to considerably improve parameter constraints from ξ± alone, and can be particularly useful in improving the figure of merit of the dynamical dark energy equation of state parameters from cosmic shear data.
Re-ionization of the intergalactic medium occurred in the early Universe at redshift z ≈ 6-11, following the formation of the first generation of stars. Those young galaxies (where the bulk of stars ...formed) at a cosmic age of less than about 500 million years (z ≲ 10) remain largely unexplored because they are at or beyond the sensitivity limits of existing large telescopes. Understanding the properties of these galaxies is critical to identifying the source of the radiation that re-ionized the intergalactic medium. Gravitational lensing by galaxy clusters allows the detection of high-redshift galaxies fainter than what otherwise could be found in the deepest images of the sky. Here we report multiband observations of the cluster MACS J1149+2223 that have revealed (with high probability) a gravitationally magnified galaxy from the early Universe, at a redshift of z = 9.6 ± 0.2 (that is, a cosmic age of 490 ± 15 million years, or 3.6 per cent of the age of the Universe). We estimate that it formed less than 200 million years after the Big Bang (at the 95 per cent confidence level), implying a formation redshift of ≲14. Given the small sky area that our observations cover, faint galaxies seem to be abundant at such a young cosmic age, suggesting that they may be the dominant source for the early re-ionization of the intergalactic medium.
Abstract
We reconstruct the two-dimensional (2D) matter distributions in 20 high-mass galaxy clusters selected from the CLASH survey by using the new approach of performing a joint weak gravitational ...lensing analysis of 2D shear and azimuthally averaged magnification measurements. This combination allows for a complete analysis of the field, effectively breaking the mass-sheet degeneracy. In a Bayesian framework, we simultaneously constrain the mass profile and morphology of each individual cluster, assuming an elliptical Navarro–Frenk–White halo characterized by the mass, concentration, projected axis ratio, and position angle (PA) of the projected major axis. We find that spherical mass estimates of the clusters from azimuthally averaged weak-lensing measurements in previous work are in excellent agreement with our results from a full 2D analysis. Combining all 20 clusters in our sample, we detect the elliptical shape of weak-lensing halos at the 5
σ
significance level within a scale of 2
. The median projected axis ratio is 0.67 ± 0.07 at a virial mass of
, which is in agreement with theoretical predictions from recent numerical simulations of the standard collisionless cold dark matter model. We also study misalignment statistics of the brightest cluster galaxy, X-ray, thermal Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect, and strong-lensing morphologies with respect to the weak-lensing signal. Among the three baryonic tracers studied here, we find that the X-ray morphology is best aligned with the weak-lensing mass distribution, with a median misalignment angle of
. We also conduct a stacked quadrupole shear analysis of the 20 clusters assuming that the X-ray major axis is aligned with that of the projected mass distribution. This yields a consistent axis ratio of 0.67 ± 0.10, suggesting again a tight alignment between the intracluster gas and dark matter.
ABSTRACT
We exploit deep integral-field spectroscopic observations with KMOS/Very Large Telescope of 240 star-forming disks at
to dynamically constrain their mass budget. Our sample consists of ...massive (
) galaxies with sizes
. By contrasting the observed velocity and dispersion profiles with dynamical models, we find that on average the stellar content contributes
of the total dynamical mass, with a significant spread among galaxies (68th percentile range
). Including molecular gas as inferred from CO- and dust-based scaling relations, the estimated baryonic mass adds up to
of the total for the typical galaxy in our sample, reaching
at
. We conclude that baryons make up most of the mass within the disk regions of high-redshift star-forming disk galaxies, with typical disks at
being strongly baryon-dominated within
R
e
. Substantial object-to-object variations in both stellar and baryonic mass fractions are observed among the galaxies in our sample, larger than what can be accounted for by the formal uncertainties in their respective measurements. In both cases, the mass fractions correlate most strongly with measures of surface density. High-
galaxies feature stellar mass fractions closer to unity, and systems with high inferred gas or baryonic surface densities leave less room for additional mass components other than stars and molecular gas. Our findings can be interpreted as more extended disks probing further (and more compact disks probing less far) into the dark matter halos that host them.
We have selected a sample of 11 massive clusters of galaxies observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in order to study the impact of the dynamical state on the intracluster light (ICL) fraction, the ...ratio of total integrated ICL to the total galaxy member light. With the exception of the Bullet cluster, the sample is drawn from the Cluster Lensing and Supernova Survey and the Frontier Fields program, containing five relaxed and six merging clusters. The ICL fraction is calculated in three optical filters using the CHEFs ICL estimator, a robust and accurate algorithm free of a priori assumptions. We find that the ICL fraction in the three bands is, on average, higher for the merging clusters, ranging between ∼7% and 23%, compared with the ∼2%-11% found for the relaxed systems. We observe a nearly constant value (within the error bars) in the ICL fraction of the regular clusters at the three wavelengths considered, which would indicate that the colors of the ICL and the cluster galaxies are, on average, coincident and, thus, so are their stellar populations. However, we find a higher ICL fraction in the F606W filter for the merging clusters, consistent with an excess of lower-metallicity/younger stars in the ICL, which could have migrated violently from the outskirts of the infalling galaxies during the merger event.
We present a catalog of 25 definite and 11 probable strong galaxy-galaxy gravitational lens systems with lens redshifts 0.4 z 0.7, discovered spectroscopically by the presence of higher-redshift ...emission lines within the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) of luminous galaxies, and confirmed with high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of 44 candidates. Our survey extends the methodology of the Sloan Lens Advanced Camera for Surveys survey (SLACS) to higher redshift. We describe the details of the BOSS spectroscopic candidate detections, our HST ACS image processing and analysis methods, and our strong gravitational lens modeling procedure. We report BOSS spectroscopic parameters and ACS photometric parameters for all candidates, and mass-distribution parameters for the best-fit singular isothermal ellipsoid models of definite lenses. Our sample to date was selected using only the first six months of BOSS survey-quality spectroscopic data. The full five-year BOSS database should produce a sample of several hundred strong galaxy-galaxy lenses and in combination with SLACS lenses at lower redshift, strongly constrain the redshift evolution of the structure of elliptical, bulge-dominated galaxies as a function of luminosity, stellar mass, and rest-frame color, thereby providing a powerful test for competing theories of galaxy formation and evolution.
A subset of ultraluminous X-ray sources (those with luminosities of less than 10(40) erg s(-1); ref. 1) are thought to be powered by the accretion of gas onto black holes with masses of ∼5-20M cicled ...dot, probably by means of an accretion disk. The X-ray and radio emission are coupled in such Galactic sources; the radio emission originates in a relativistic jet thought to be launched from the innermost regions near the black hole, with the most powerful emission occurring when the rate of infalling matter approaches a theoretical maximum (the Eddington limit). Only four such maximal sources are known in the Milky Way, and the absorption of soft X-rays in the interstellar medium hinders the determination of the causal sequence of events that leads to the ejection of the jet. Here we report radio and X-ray observations of a bright new X-ray source in the nearby galaxy M 31, whose peak luminosity exceeded 10(39) erg s(-1). The radio luminosity is extremely high and shows variability on a timescale of tens of minutes, arguing that the source is highly compact and powered by accretion close to the Eddington limit onto a black hole of stellar mass. Continued radio and X-ray monitoring of such sources should reveal the causal relationship between the accretion flow and the powerful jet emission.
ABSTRACT We developed an algorithm to find and characterize gravitationally lensed galaxies (arcs) to perform a comparison of the observed and simulated arc abundance. Observations are from the ...Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH). Simulated CLASH images are created using the MOKA package and also clusters selected from the high-resolution, hydrodynamical simulations, MUSIC, over the same mass and redshift range as the CLASH sample. The algorithm's arc elongation accuracy, completeness, and false positive rate are determined and used to compute an estimate of the true arc abundance. We derive a lensing efficiency of 4 1 arcs (with length ≥6″ and length-to-width ratio ≥7) per cluster for the X-ray-selected CLASH sample, 4 1 arcs per cluster for the MOKA-simulated sample, and 3 1 arcs per cluster for the MUSIC-simulated sample. The observed and simulated arc statistics are in full agreement. We measure the photometric redshifts of all detected arcs and find a median redshift zs = 1.9 with 33% of the detected arcs having zs > 3. We find that the arc abundance does not depend strongly on the source redshift distribution but is sensitive to the mass distribution of the dark matter halos (e.g., the c-M relation). Our results show that consistency between the observed and simulated distributions of lensed arc sizes and axial ratios can be achieved by using cluster-lensing simulations that are carefully matched to the selection criteria used in the observations.
We present the largest Cepheid sample in M31 based on the complete Pan-STARRS1 survey of Andromeda (PAndromeda) in the rP1, iP1, and gP1 bands. We find 2686 Cepheids with 1662 fundamental-mode ...Cepheids, 307 first-overtone Cepheids, 278 type II Cepheids, and 439 Cepheids with undetermined Cepheid type. Using the method developed by Kodric et al., we identify Cepheids by using a three-dimensional parameter space of Fourier parameters of the Cepheid light curves combined with a color cut and other selection criteria. This is an unbiased approach to identify Cepheids and results in a homogeneous Cepheid sample. The period-luminosity relations obtained for our sample have smaller dispersions than in our previous work. We find a broken slope that we previously observed with HST data in Kodric et al., albeit with a lower significance.
In this work, we analyze the mass distribution of MACSJ1206.2-0847, particularly focusing on the halo properties of its cluster members. The cluster appears relaxed in its X-ray emission, but has a ...significant amount of intracluster light that is not centrally concentrated, suggesting that galaxy-scale interactions are still ongoing despite the overall relaxed state. The cluster lenses 12 background galaxies into multiple images and one galaxy at z = 1.033 into a giant arc and its counterimage. The multiple image positions and the surface brightness (SFB) distribution of the arc, which is bent around several cluster members, are sensitive to the cluster galaxy halo properties. We model the cluster mass distribution with a Navarro-Frenk-White profile and the galaxy halos with two parameters for the mass normalization and the extent of a reference halo assuming scalings with their observed near-infrared light. We match the multiple image positions at an rms level of 0".85 and can reconstruct the SFB distribution of the arc in several filters to a remarkable accuracy based on this cluster model. The length scale where the enclosed galaxy halo mass is best constrained is about 5 effective radii-a scale in between those accessible to dynamical and field strong-lensing mass estimates on the one hand and galaxy-galaxy weak-lensing results on the other hand. The velocity dispersion and halo size of a galaxy with m sub(160W, AB) = 19.2 and M sub(B, Vega) = -20.7 are sigma = 150 km s super(-1) and r approx = 26 + or - 6 kpc, respectively, indicating that the halos of the cluster galaxies are tidally stripped. We also reconstruct the unlensed source, which is smaller by a factor of ~5.8 in area, demonstrating the increase in morphological information due to lensing. We conclude that this galaxy likely has star-forming spiral arms with a red (older) central component.
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