This document summarizes research on determining temperatures, luminosities, and masses of the coldest known brown dwarfs. The key findings are:
1) Precise distances were measured for a sample of late-T and Y dwarfs using Spitzer Space Telescope astrometry, allowing accurate calculation of absolute fluxes, luminosities, and temperatures.
2) Y0 dwarfs were found to have temperatures of 400-450 K, significantly warmer than previous estimates, and masses of 5-20 times Jupiter's mass.
3) While having similar temperatures, Y dwarfs showed diverse spectral energy distributions, suggesting temperature alone does not determine spectra. Physical properties like gravity, clouds and chemistry also influence spectra.
Supermassive black holes in galaxy centres can grow by the accretion
of gas, liberating enormous amounts of energy that might
regulate star formation on galaxy-wide scales1â3
. The nature of
gaseous fuel reservoirs that power black hole growth is nevertheless
largely unconstrained by observations, and is instead routinely
simplified as a smooth, spherical inflow of very hot gas
in accordance with the Bondi solution4
. Recent theory5â7 and
simulations8â10 instead predict that accretion can be dominated by
a stochastic, clumpy distribution of very cold molecular clouds,
though unambiguous observational support for this prediction remains
elusive. Here we show observational evidence for a cold,
clumpy accretion flow toward a supermassive black hole fuel reservoir
in the nucleus of the Abell 2597 Brightest Cluster Galaxy
(BCG), a nearby (z = 0.0821) giant elliptical galaxy surrounded
by a dense halo of hot plasma11â13. Under the right conditions,
thermal instabilities can precipitate from this hot gas, producing a
rain of cold clouds that fall toward the galaxyâs centre14, sustaining
star formation amid a kiloparsec-scale molecular nebula that inhabits
its core15. New interferometric sub-millimetre observations
show that these cold clouds also fuel black hole accretion, revealing
âshadowsâ cast by molecular clouds as they move inward at ⌠300
km sâ1
toward the active supermassive black hole in the galaxy
centre, which serves as a bright backlight. Corroborating evidence
from prior observations16 of warmer atomic gas at extremely high
spatial resolution17, along with simple arguments based on geometry
and probability, indicates that these clouds are within the innermost
hundred parsecs of the black hole, and falling closer toward
it
Asteroseismic constraints on K giants make it possible to infer radii, masses and ages of tens
of thousands of field stars. Tests against independent estimates of these properties are however
scarce, especially in the metal-poor regime. Here, we report the detection of solar-like
oscillations in 8 stars belonging to the red-giant branch and red-horizontal branch of the globular
cluster M4. The detections were made in photometric observations from the K2 Mission
during its Campaign 2. Making use of independent constraints on the distance, we estimate
masses of the 8 stars by utilising different combinations of seismic and non-seismic inputs.
When introducing a correction to the ÎÎœ scaling relation as suggested by stellar models, for
RGB stars we find excellent agreement with the expected masses from isochrone fitting, and
with a distance modulus derived using independent methods. The offset with respect to independent
masses is lower, or comparable with, the uncertainties on the average RGB mass
(4 â 10%, depending on the combination of constraints used). Our results lend confidence to
asteroseismic masses in the metal poor regime. We note that a larger sample will be needed
to allow more stringent tests to be made of systematic uncertainties in all the observables
(both seismic and non-seismic), and to explore the properties of RHB stars, and of different
populations in the cluster.
We report the discovery of an optical Einstein Ring in the Sculptor constellation,
IAC J010127-334319, in the vicinity of the Sculptor Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy. It is
an almost complete ring ( 300âŠ) with a diameter of 4.5 arcsec. The discovery was
made serendipitously from inspecting Dark Energy Camera (DECam) archive imaging
data. Confirmation of the object nature has been obtained by deriving spectroscopic
redshifts for both components, lens and source, from observations at the 10.4 m Gran
Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC) with the spectrograph OSIRIS. The lens, a massive
early-type galaxy, has a redshift of z = 0.581 while the source is a starburst galaxy
with redshift of z = 1.165. The total enclosed mass that produces the lensing effect
has been estimated to be Mtot = (1.86 ± 0.23) · 1012Mâ.
Supermassive black holes in galaxy centres can grow by the accretion
of gas, liberating enormous amounts of energy that might
regulate star formation on galaxy-wide scales1â3
. The nature of
gaseous fuel reservoirs that power black hole growth is nevertheless
largely unconstrained by observations, and is instead routinely
simplified as a smooth, spherical inflow of very hot gas
in accordance with the Bondi solution4
. Recent theory5â7 and
simulations8â10 instead predict that accretion can be dominated by
a stochastic, clumpy distribution of very cold molecular clouds,
though unambiguous observational support for this prediction remains
elusive. Here we show observational evidence for a cold,
clumpy accretion flow toward a supermassive black hole fuel reservoir
in the nucleus of the Abell 2597 Brightest Cluster Galaxy
(BCG), a nearby (z = 0.0821) giant elliptical galaxy surrounded
by a dense halo of hot plasma11â13. Under the right conditions,
thermal instabilities can precipitate from this hot gas, producing a
rain of cold clouds that fall toward the galaxyâs centre14, sustaining
star formation amid a kiloparsec-scale molecular nebula that inhabits
its core15. New interferometric sub-millimetre observations
show that these cold clouds also fuel black hole accretion, revealing
âshadowsâ cast by molecular clouds as they move inward at ⌠300
km sâ1
toward the active supermassive black hole in the galaxy
centre, which serves as a bright backlight. Corroborating evidence
from prior observations16 of warmer atomic gas at extremely high
spatial resolution17, along with simple arguments based on geometry
and probability, indicates that these clouds are within the innermost
hundred parsecs of the black hole, and falling closer toward
it
Asteroseismic constraints on K giants make it possible to infer radii, masses and ages of tens
of thousands of field stars. Tests against independent estimates of these properties are however
scarce, especially in the metal-poor regime. Here, we report the detection of solar-like
oscillations in 8 stars belonging to the red-giant branch and red-horizontal branch of the globular
cluster M4. The detections were made in photometric observations from the K2 Mission
during its Campaign 2. Making use of independent constraints on the distance, we estimate
masses of the 8 stars by utilising different combinations of seismic and non-seismic inputs.
When introducing a correction to the ÎÎœ scaling relation as suggested by stellar models, for
RGB stars we find excellent agreement with the expected masses from isochrone fitting, and
with a distance modulus derived using independent methods. The offset with respect to independent
masses is lower, or comparable with, the uncertainties on the average RGB mass
(4 â 10%, depending on the combination of constraints used). Our results lend confidence to
asteroseismic masses in the metal poor regime. We note that a larger sample will be needed
to allow more stringent tests to be made of systematic uncertainties in all the observables
(both seismic and non-seismic), and to explore the properties of RHB stars, and of different
populations in the cluster.
We report the discovery of an optical Einstein Ring in the Sculptor constellation,
IAC J010127-334319, in the vicinity of the Sculptor Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy. It is
an almost complete ring ( 300âŠ) with a diameter of 4.5 arcsec. The discovery was
made serendipitously from inspecting Dark Energy Camera (DECam) archive imaging
data. Confirmation of the object nature has been obtained by deriving spectroscopic
redshifts for both components, lens and source, from observations at the 10.4 m Gran
Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC) with the spectrograph OSIRIS. The lens, a massive
early-type galaxy, has a redshift of z = 0.581 while the source is a starburst galaxy
with redshift of z = 1.165. The total enclosed mass that produces the lensing effect
has been estimated to be Mtot = (1.86 ± 0.23) · 1012Mâ.
Aims. We present the first public release of photometric redshifts, galaxy rest frame properties and associated magnification values
in the cluster and parallel pointings of the first two Frontier Fields, Abell-2744 and MACS-J0416. The released catalogues aim to
provide a reference for future investigations of extragalactic populations in these legacy fields: from lensed high-redshift galaxies to
cluster members themselves.
Methods.We exploit a multiwavelength catalogue, ranging from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to ground-based K and Spitzer IRAC,
which is specifically designed to enable detection and measurement of accurate fluxes in crowded cluster regions. The multiband
information is used to derive photometric redshifts and physical properties of sources detected either in the H-band image alone, or
from a stack of four WFC3 bands. To minimize systematics, median photometric redshifts are assembled from six dierent approaches
to photo-z estimates. Their reliability is assessed through a comparison with available spectroscopic samples. State-of-the-art lensing
models are used to derive magnification values on an object-by-object basis by taking into account sources positions and redshifts.
Results. We show that photometric redshifts reach a remarkable 3â5% accuracy. After accounting for magnification, the H-band
number counts are found to be in agreement at bright magnitudes with number counts from the CANDELS fields, while extending
the presently available samples to galaxies that, intrinsically, are as faint as H 32 33, thanks to strong gravitational lensing. The
Frontier Fields allow the galaxy stellar mass distribution to be probed, depending on magnification, at 0.5â1.5 dex lower masses with
respect to extragalactic wide fields, including sources at Mstar 107â108 M at z > 5. Similarly, they allow the detection of objects
with intrinsic star formation rates (SFRs) >1 dex lower than in the CANDELS fields reaching 0.1â1 M=yr at z 6â10.
Progress in a group of investigations designed
to discover some of the structural details in individual galaxies and in the
Metagalaxy is reported in the following pages.
(a) The first section is concerned with the distribution of cluster-type
Cepheids in high galactic latitude. To the 169 already known in latitudes,
greater than or equal to ± 20o
, the systematic variable star programme carried
on at Harvard has added 312, mostly fainter than magnitude 13-0. With
allowance for absorption and for uncertainties yet remaining in the mean
absolute magnitude of these stars, the thickness of the Milky Way, so far
as this type of star is concerned, is not less than twenty-five kiloparsecs ;
he extent of the Milky Way in its own plane, by the same criterion, is more
than thirty kiloparsecs, perhaps much more.
(b) The extent of the Milky Way in the anti-centre quadrant is considered
on the basis of classical and cluster-type Cepheids ; provisionally
it is found that the galactic system reaches to a distance of at least ten
kiloparsecs in longitude 150o
.
(r) More than six hundred new variables have been found in the Large
Magellanic Cloud and measured for position, ranges and median magnitudes ;
the frequency of periods is not unlike that for the classical Cepheids in the
galactic system ; the light curves also are comparable in all details. The
Magellanic Cepheids, like the galactic classical Cepheids, are concentrated
in regions of high star-density.
(d) Further study of the period-luminosity relation in the Large Magellanic
Cloud permits its revision and strengthening for the Cepheids of
highest absolute magnitude. An observed deviation from the relation
that had previously been found for the Small Cloud is probably to be
attributed to scale error in the magnitude system. No seriously disturbing
We use the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to
reduce the uncertainty in the local value of the Hubble constant from 3.3% to 2.4%.
The bulk of this improvement comes from new, near-infrared observations of Cepheid
variables in 11 host galaxies of recent type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), more than doubling
the sample of reliable SNe Ia having a Cepheid-calibrated distance to a total of 19; these
in turn leverage the magnitude-redshift relation based on 300 SNe Ia at z <0.15. All
19 hosts as well as the megamaser system NGC4258 have been observed with WFC3
in the optical and near-infrared, thus nullifying cross-instrument zeropoint errors in the
relative distance estimates from Cepheids. Other noteworthy improvements include a
33% reduction in the systematic uncertainty in the maser distance to NGC4258, a larger
sample of Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a more robust distance to
the LMC based on late-type detached eclipsing binaries (DEBs), HST observations of
Cepheids in M31, and new HST-based trigonometric parallaxes for Milky Way (MW)
Cepheids.
The first black hole seeds, formed when the Universe was younger than â 500Myr, are recognized
to play an important role for the growth of early (z â 7) super-massive black holes.
While progresses have been made in understanding their formation and growth, their observational
signatures remain largely unexplored. As a result, no detection of such sources has been
confirmed so far. Supported by numerical simulations, we present a novel photometric method
to identify black hole seed candidates in deep multi-wavelength surveys.We predict that these
highly-obscured sources are characterized by a steep spectrum in the infrared (1.6â4.5ÎŒm),
i.e. by very red colors. The method selects the only 2 objects with a robust X-ray detection
found in the CANDELS/GOODS-S survey with a photometric redshift z & 6. Fitting their
infrared spectra only with a stellar component would require unrealistic star formation rates
(& 2000M# yrâ1). To date, the selected objects represent the most promising black hole seed
candidates, possibly formed via the direct collapse black hole scenario, with predicted mass
> 105M#. While this result is based on the best photometric observations of high-z sources
available to date, additional progress is expected from spectroscopic and deeper X-ray data.
Upcoming observatories, like the JWST, will greatly expand the scope of this work.
Roth et al. (2014a) reported evidence for plumes of water venting from a southern high latitude
region on Europa â spectroscopic detection of off-limb line emission from the dissociation
products of water. Here, we present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) direct images of Europa in
the far ultraviolet (FUV) as it transited the smooth face of Jupiter, in order to measure absorption
from gas or aerosols beyond the Europa limb. Out of ten observations we found three in which
plume activity could be implicated. Two show statistically significant features at latitudes similar
to Roth et al., and the third, at a more equatorial location. We consider potential systematic
effects that might influence the statistical analysis and create artifacts, and are unable to find any
that can definitively explain the features, although there are reasons to be cautious. If the
apparent absorption features are real, the magnitude of implied outgassing is similar to that of the
Roth et al. feature, however the apparent activity appears more frequently in our data.
An increasing number of observations have shown that gaseous debris discs are not an
exception. However, until now we only knew of cases around A stars. Here we present the first
detection of 12CO (2-1) disc emission around an F star, HD 181327, obtained with ALMA
observations at 1.3 mm. The continuum and CO emission are resolved into an axisymmetric
disc with ring-like morphology. Using a Markov chain Monte Carlo method coupled with
radiative transfer calculations we study the dust and CO mass distribution. We find the dust is
distributed in a ring with a radius of 86:0 0:4 AU and a radial width of 23:2 1:0 AU. At
this frequency the ring radius is smaller than in the optical, revealing grain size segregation
expected due to radiation pressure. We also report on the detection of low level continuum
emission beyond the main ring out to 200 AU. We model the CO emission in the non-LTE
regime and we find that the CO is co-located with the dust, with a total CO gas mass ranging
between 1:2 10 6 M and 2:9 10 6 M, depending on the gas kinetic temperature and
collisional partners densities. The CO densities and location suggest a secondary origin, i.e.
released from icy planetesimals in the ring. We derive a CO cometary composition that is
consistent with Solar system comets. Due to the low gas densities it is unlikely that the gas is
shaping the dust distribution.
Inverse Compton cooling limits the brightness temperature of the radiating plasma to a maximum of
1011.5 K. Relativistic boosting can increase its observed value, but apparent brightness temperatures
much in excess of 1013 K are inaccessible using ground-based very long baseline interferometry (VLBI)
at any wavelength. We present observations of the quasar 3C 273, made with the space VLBI mission
RadioAstron on baselines up to 171,000 km, which directly reveal the presence of angular structure as
small as 26 ”as (2.7 light months) and brightness temperature in excess of 1013 K. These measurements
challenge our understanding of the non-thermal continuum emission in the vicinity of supermassive
black holes and require a much higher Doppler factor than what is determined from jet apparent
kinematics.
Keywords: galaxies: active â galaxies: jets â radio continuum: galaxies â techniques: interferometric
â quasars: individual (3C 273)
We report the discovery of a new Kepler transiting circumbinary planet (CBP).
This latest addition to the still-small family of CBPs defies the current trend of known
short-period planets orbiting near the stability limit of binary stars. Unlike the previous
discoveries, the planet revolving around the eclipsing binary system Kepler-1647 has
a very long orbital period ( 1100 days) and was at conjunction only twice during
the Kepler mission lifetime. Due to the singular configuration of the system, Kepler-
1647b is not only the longest-period transiting CBP at the time of writing, but also one
of the longest-period transiting planets. With a radius of 1:060:01 RJup it is also the
largest CBP to date. The planet produced three transits in the light-curve of Kepler-
1647 (one of them during an eclipse, creating a syzygy) and measurably perturbed the
times of the stellar eclipses, allowing us to measure its mass to be 1:520:65 MJup.
The planet revolves around an 11-day period eclipsing binary consisting of two Solarmass
stars on a slightly inclined, mildly eccentric (ebin = 0:16), spin-synchronized
orbit. Despite having an orbital period three times longer than Earthâs, Kepler-1647b is
in the conservative habitable zone of the binary star throughout its orbit.
Dynamical evidence accumulated over the
past 20 years has convinced astronomers that luminous matter
in a spiral galaxy constitutes no more than 10% of the mass of
a galaxy. An additional 90% is inferred by its gravitational
effect on luminous material. Here I review recent observations
concerning the distribution of luminous and nonluminous
matter in the Milky Way, in galaxies, and in galaxy clusters.
Observations of neutral hydrogen disks, some extending in
radius several times the optical disk, confirm that a massive
dark halo is a major component of virtually every spiral. A
recent surprise has been the discovery that stellar and gas
motions in ellipticals are enormously complex. To date, only for
a few spheroidal galaxies do the velocities extend far enough to
probe the outer mass distribution. But the diverse kinematics
of inner cores, peripheral to deducing the overall mass distribution,
offer additional evidence that ellipticals have acquired
gas-rich systems after initial formation. Dynamical results are
consistent with a low-density universe, in which the required
dark matter could be baryonic. On smallest scales of galaxies
[10 kiloparsec (kpc); H. = 50 kmsec'lmegaparsec'11 the
luminous matter constitutes only 1% of the closure density. On
scales greater than binary galaxies (i.e., .100 kpc) all systems
indicate a density -10% of the closure density, a density
consistent with the low baryon density in the universe. If
large-scale motions in the universe require a higher mass
density, these motions would constitute the first dynamical
evidence for nonbaryonic matter in a universe of higher
density.
We report the detection of Ly emission at 9538A
in the Keck/DEIMOS and HST WFC3
G102 grism data from a triply-imaged galaxy at z = 6:846 0:001 behind galaxy cluster MACS
J2129.4 0741. Combining the emission line wavelength with broadband photometry, line ratio upper
limits, and lens modeling, we rule out the scenario that this emission line is [O II] at z = 1:57. After
accounting for magnication, we calculate the weighted average of the intrinsic Ly luminosity to be
1:31042 erg s 1 and Ly equivalent width to be 7415A. Its intrinsic UV absolute magnitude at
1600A
is 18:60:2 mag and stellar mass (1:50:3)107 M, making it one of the faintest (intrinsic
LUV 0:14 L
UV) galaxies with Ly detection at z 7 to date. Its stellar mass is in the typical range
for the galaxies thought to dominate the reionization photon budget at z & 7; the inferred Ly escape
fraction is high (& 10%), which could be common for sub-L z & 7 galaxies with Ly emission. This
galaxy oers a glimpse of the galaxy population that is thought to drive reionization, and it shows
that gravitational lensing is an important avenue to probe the sub-L galaxy population.
Supermassive black holes (SMBH) are essential for the production of jets in radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN). Theoretical
models based on (Blandford & Znajek 1977, MNRAS, 179, 433) extract the rotational energy from a Kerr black hole, which could
be the case for NGC1052, to launch these jets. This requires magnetic fields on the order of 103 G to 104 G. We imaged the vicinity
of the SMBH of the AGN NGC1052 with the Global Millimetre VLBI Array and found a bright and compact central feature that is
smaller than 1.9 light days (100 Schwarzschild radii) in radius. Interpreting this as a blend of the unresolved jet bases, we derive the
magnetic field at 1 Schwarzschild radius to lie between 200 G and 8:3 104 G consistent with Blandford & Znajek models.
Solar eruptions, known as Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), are
frequently observed on our Sun. Recent Kepler observations of super
ares
on G-type stars have implied that so called super-CMEs, possessing kinetic
energies 10 times of the most powerful CME event ever observed on the Sun,
could be produced with a frequency of 1 event per 800-2000 yr on solar-
like slowly rotating stars. We have performed a 3D time-dependent global
magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the magnetic interaction of such a CME
cloud with the Earth's magnetosphere. We calculated the global structure
of the perturbed magnetosphere and derive the latitude of the open-closed
magnetic eld boundary. We also estimated energy
uxes penetrating the
Earth's ionosphere and discuss the consequences of energetic particle
uxes
on biological systems on early Earth.
Using a radio-quiet subsample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectroscopic quasar
catalogue, spanning redshifts 0.5â3.5, we derive the mean millimetre and far-infrared
quasar spectral energy distributions (SEDs) via a stacking analysis of Atacama Cosmology
Telescope and Herschel-Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver data. We
constrain the form of the far-infrared emission and find 3Ïâ4Ï evidence for the thermal
Sunyaev-Zelâdovich (SZ) effect, characteristic of a hot ionized gas component with
thermal energy (6.2 ± 1.7) à 1060 erg. This amount of thermal energy is greater than
expected assuming only hot gas in virial equilibrium with the dark matter haloes of
(1 â 5) Ă 1012h
â1M that these systems are expected to occupy, though the highest
quasar mass estimates found in the literature could explain a large fraction of this
energy. Our measurements are consistent with quasars depositing up to (14.5±3.3) Ï
â1
8
per cent of their radiative energy into their circumgalactic environment if their typical
period of quasar activity is Ï8 Ă 108 yr. For high quasar host masses, ⌠1013h
â1M,
this percentage will be reduced. Furthermore, the uncertainty on this percentage is
only statistical and additional systematic uncertainties enter at the 40 per cent level.
The SEDs are dust dominated in all bands and we consider various models for dust
emission. While sufficiently complex dust models can obviate the SZ effect, the SZ
interpretation remains favoured at the 3Ïâ4Ï level for most models.
Planets orbiting close to hot stars experience intense extreme-ultraviolet radiation, potentially leading to
atmosphere evaporation and to thermal dissociation of molecules. However, this extreme regime remains
mainly unexplored due to observational challenges. Only a single known ultra-hot giant planet, KELT-9b,
receives enough ultraviolet radiation for molecular dissociation, with a day-side temperature of â 4, 600 K.
An alternative approach uses irradiated brown dwarfs as hot-Jupiter analogues. With atmospheres and radii
similar to those of giant planets, brown dwarfs orbiting close to hot Earth-sized white-dwarf stars can be
directly detected above the glare of the star. Here we report observations revealing an extremely irradiated
low-mass companion to the hot white dwarf WD0032â317. Our analysis indicates a day-side temperature
of â 8, 000 K, and a day-to-night temperature difference of â 6, 000 K. The amount of extreme-ultraviolet
radiation (with wavelengths 100â912 ËA) received byWD0032â317B is equivalent to that received by planets
orbiting close to stars as hot as a late B-type stars, and about 5, 600 times higher than that of KELT-9b. With
a mass of â 75 â 88 Jupiter masses, this near-hydrogen-burning-limit object is potentially one of the most
massive brown dwarfs known.
Planets orbiting close to hot stars experience intense extreme-ultraviolet
radiation, potentially leading to atmosphere evaporation and to thermal
dissociation of molecules. However, this extreme regime remains mainly
unexplored due to observational challenges. Only a single known ultra-hot
giant planet, KELT-9b, receives enough ultraviolet radiation for molecular
dissociation, with a day-side temperature of ~4,600 K. An alternative
approach uses irradiated brown dwarfs as hot-Jupiter analogues. With
atmospheres and radii similar to those of giant planets, brown dwarfs
orbiting close to hot Earth-sized white dwarf stars can be directly detected
above the glare of the star. Here we report observations revealing
an extremely irradiated low-mass companion to the hot white dwarf
WD 0032â317. Our analysis indicates a day-side temperature of ~8,000 K,
and a day-to-night temperature difference of ~6,000 K. The amount of
extreme-ultraviolet radiation (with wavelengths 100â912 â«) received by
WD 0032â317B is equivalent to that received by planets orbiting close to stars
as hot as late B-type stars, and about 5,600 times higher than that of KELT-9b.
With a mass of ~75â88 Jupiter masses, this near-hydrogen-burning-limit
object is potentially one of the most massive brown dwarfs known.
Aims. We present the first public release of photometric redshifts, galaxy rest frame properties and associated magnification values
in the cluster and parallel pointings of the first two Frontier Fields, Abell-2744 and MACS-J0416. The released catalogues aim to
provide a reference for future investigations of extragalactic populations in these legacy fields: from lensed high-redshift galaxies to
cluster members themselves.
Methods.We exploit a multiwavelength catalogue, ranging from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to ground-based K and Spitzer IRAC,
which is specifically designed to enable detection and measurement of accurate fluxes in crowded cluster regions. The multiband
information is used to derive photometric redshifts and physical properties of sources detected either in the H-band image alone, or
from a stack of four WFC3 bands. To minimize systematics, median photometric redshifts are assembled from six dierent approaches
to photo-z estimates. Their reliability is assessed through a comparison with available spectroscopic samples. State-of-the-art lensing
models are used to derive magnification values on an object-by-object basis by taking into account sources positions and redshifts.
Results. We show that photometric redshifts reach a remarkable 3â5% accuracy. After accounting for magnification, the H-band
number counts are found to be in agreement at bright magnitudes with number counts from the CANDELS fields, while extending
the presently available samples to galaxies that, intrinsically, are as faint as H 32 33, thanks to strong gravitational lensing. The
Frontier Fields allow the galaxy stellar mass distribution to be probed, depending on magnification, at 0.5â1.5 dex lower masses with
respect to extragalactic wide fields, including sources at Mstar 107â108 M at z > 5. Similarly, they allow the detection of objects
with intrinsic star formation rates (SFRs) >1 dex lower than in the CANDELS fields reaching 0.1â1 M=yr at z 6â10.
Progress in a group of investigations designed
to discover some of the structural details in individual galaxies and in the
Metagalaxy is reported in the following pages.
(a) The first section is concerned with the distribution of cluster-type
Cepheids in high galactic latitude. To the 169 already known in latitudes,
greater than or equal to ± 20o
, the systematic variable star programme carried
on at Harvard has added 312, mostly fainter than magnitude 13-0. With
allowance for absorption and for uncertainties yet remaining in the mean
absolute magnitude of these stars, the thickness of the Milky Way, so far
as this type of star is concerned, is not less than twenty-five kiloparsecs ;
he extent of the Milky Way in its own plane, by the same criterion, is more
than thirty kiloparsecs, perhaps much more.
(b) The extent of the Milky Way in the anti-centre quadrant is considered
on the basis of classical and cluster-type Cepheids ; provisionally
it is found that the galactic system reaches to a distance of at least ten
kiloparsecs in longitude 150o
.
(r) More than six hundred new variables have been found in the Large
Magellanic Cloud and measured for position, ranges and median magnitudes ;
the frequency of periods is not unlike that for the classical Cepheids in the
galactic system ; the light curves also are comparable in all details. The
Magellanic Cepheids, like the galactic classical Cepheids, are concentrated
in regions of high star-density.
(d) Further study of the period-luminosity relation in the Large Magellanic
Cloud permits its revision and strengthening for the Cepheids of
highest absolute magnitude. An observed deviation from the relation
that had previously been found for the Small Cloud is probably to be
attributed to scale error in the magnitude system. No seriously disturbing
We use the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to
reduce the uncertainty in the local value of the Hubble constant from 3.3% to 2.4%.
The bulk of this improvement comes from new, near-infrared observations of Cepheid
variables in 11 host galaxies of recent type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), more than doubling
the sample of reliable SNe Ia having a Cepheid-calibrated distance to a total of 19; these
in turn leverage the magnitude-redshift relation based on 300 SNe Ia at z <0.15. All
19 hosts as well as the megamaser system NGC4258 have been observed with WFC3
in the optical and near-infrared, thus nullifying cross-instrument zeropoint errors in the
relative distance estimates from Cepheids. Other noteworthy improvements include a
33% reduction in the systematic uncertainty in the maser distance to NGC4258, a larger
sample of Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a more robust distance to
the LMC based on late-type detached eclipsing binaries (DEBs), HST observations of
Cepheids in M31, and new HST-based trigonometric parallaxes for Milky Way (MW)
Cepheids.
The first black hole seeds, formed when the Universe was younger than â 500Myr, are recognized
to play an important role for the growth of early (z â 7) super-massive black holes.
While progresses have been made in understanding their formation and growth, their observational
signatures remain largely unexplored. As a result, no detection of such sources has been
confirmed so far. Supported by numerical simulations, we present a novel photometric method
to identify black hole seed candidates in deep multi-wavelength surveys.We predict that these
highly-obscured sources are characterized by a steep spectrum in the infrared (1.6â4.5ÎŒm),
i.e. by very red colors. The method selects the only 2 objects with a robust X-ray detection
found in the CANDELS/GOODS-S survey with a photometric redshift z & 6. Fitting their
infrared spectra only with a stellar component would require unrealistic star formation rates
(& 2000M# yrâ1). To date, the selected objects represent the most promising black hole seed
candidates, possibly formed via the direct collapse black hole scenario, with predicted mass
> 105M#. While this result is based on the best photometric observations of high-z sources
available to date, additional progress is expected from spectroscopic and deeper X-ray data.
Upcoming observatories, like the JWST, will greatly expand the scope of this work.
Roth et al. (2014a) reported evidence for plumes of water venting from a southern high latitude
region on Europa â spectroscopic detection of off-limb line emission from the dissociation
products of water. Here, we present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) direct images of Europa in
the far ultraviolet (FUV) as it transited the smooth face of Jupiter, in order to measure absorption
from gas or aerosols beyond the Europa limb. Out of ten observations we found three in which
plume activity could be implicated. Two show statistically significant features at latitudes similar
to Roth et al., and the third, at a more equatorial location. We consider potential systematic
effects that might influence the statistical analysis and create artifacts, and are unable to find any
that can definitively explain the features, although there are reasons to be cautious. If the
apparent absorption features are real, the magnitude of implied outgassing is similar to that of the
Roth et al. feature, however the apparent activity appears more frequently in our data.
An increasing number of observations have shown that gaseous debris discs are not an
exception. However, until now we only knew of cases around A stars. Here we present the first
detection of 12CO (2-1) disc emission around an F star, HD 181327, obtained with ALMA
observations at 1.3 mm. The continuum and CO emission are resolved into an axisymmetric
disc with ring-like morphology. Using a Markov chain Monte Carlo method coupled with
radiative transfer calculations we study the dust and CO mass distribution. We find the dust is
distributed in a ring with a radius of 86:0 0:4 AU and a radial width of 23:2 1:0 AU. At
this frequency the ring radius is smaller than in the optical, revealing grain size segregation
expected due to radiation pressure. We also report on the detection of low level continuum
emission beyond the main ring out to 200 AU. We model the CO emission in the non-LTE
regime and we find that the CO is co-located with the dust, with a total CO gas mass ranging
between 1:2 10 6 M and 2:9 10 6 M, depending on the gas kinetic temperature and
collisional partners densities. The CO densities and location suggest a secondary origin, i.e.
released from icy planetesimals in the ring. We derive a CO cometary composition that is
consistent with Solar system comets. Due to the low gas densities it is unlikely that the gas is
shaping the dust distribution.
Inverse Compton cooling limits the brightness temperature of the radiating plasma to a maximum of
1011.5 K. Relativistic boosting can increase its observed value, but apparent brightness temperatures
much in excess of 1013 K are inaccessible using ground-based very long baseline interferometry (VLBI)
at any wavelength. We present observations of the quasar 3C 273, made with the space VLBI mission
RadioAstron on baselines up to 171,000 km, which directly reveal the presence of angular structure as
small as 26 ”as (2.7 light months) and brightness temperature in excess of 1013 K. These measurements
challenge our understanding of the non-thermal continuum emission in the vicinity of supermassive
black holes and require a much higher Doppler factor than what is determined from jet apparent
kinematics.
Keywords: galaxies: active â galaxies: jets â radio continuum: galaxies â techniques: interferometric
â quasars: individual (3C 273)
We report the discovery of a new Kepler transiting circumbinary planet (CBP).
This latest addition to the still-small family of CBPs defies the current trend of known
short-period planets orbiting near the stability limit of binary stars. Unlike the previous
discoveries, the planet revolving around the eclipsing binary system Kepler-1647 has
a very long orbital period ( 1100 days) and was at conjunction only twice during
the Kepler mission lifetime. Due to the singular configuration of the system, Kepler-
1647b is not only the longest-period transiting CBP at the time of writing, but also one
of the longest-period transiting planets. With a radius of 1:060:01 RJup it is also the
largest CBP to date. The planet produced three transits in the light-curve of Kepler-
1647 (one of them during an eclipse, creating a syzygy) and measurably perturbed the
times of the stellar eclipses, allowing us to measure its mass to be 1:520:65 MJup.
The planet revolves around an 11-day period eclipsing binary consisting of two Solarmass
stars on a slightly inclined, mildly eccentric (ebin = 0:16), spin-synchronized
orbit. Despite having an orbital period three times longer than Earthâs, Kepler-1647b is
in the conservative habitable zone of the binary star throughout its orbit.
Dynamical evidence accumulated over the
past 20 years has convinced astronomers that luminous matter
in a spiral galaxy constitutes no more than 10% of the mass of
a galaxy. An additional 90% is inferred by its gravitational
effect on luminous material. Here I review recent observations
concerning the distribution of luminous and nonluminous
matter in the Milky Way, in galaxies, and in galaxy clusters.
Observations of neutral hydrogen disks, some extending in
radius several times the optical disk, confirm that a massive
dark halo is a major component of virtually every spiral. A
recent surprise has been the discovery that stellar and gas
motions in ellipticals are enormously complex. To date, only for
a few spheroidal galaxies do the velocities extend far enough to
probe the outer mass distribution. But the diverse kinematics
of inner cores, peripheral to deducing the overall mass distribution,
offer additional evidence that ellipticals have acquired
gas-rich systems after initial formation. Dynamical results are
consistent with a low-density universe, in which the required
dark matter could be baryonic. On smallest scales of galaxies
[10 kiloparsec (kpc); H. = 50 kmsec'lmegaparsec'11 the
luminous matter constitutes only 1% of the closure density. On
scales greater than binary galaxies (i.e., .100 kpc) all systems
indicate a density -10% of the closure density, a density
consistent with the low baryon density in the universe. If
large-scale motions in the universe require a higher mass
density, these motions would constitute the first dynamical
evidence for nonbaryonic matter in a universe of higher
density.
We report the detection of Ly emission at 9538A
in the Keck/DEIMOS and HST WFC3
G102 grism data from a triply-imaged galaxy at z = 6:846 0:001 behind galaxy cluster MACS
J2129.4 0741. Combining the emission line wavelength with broadband photometry, line ratio upper
limits, and lens modeling, we rule out the scenario that this emission line is [O II] at z = 1:57. After
accounting for magnication, we calculate the weighted average of the intrinsic Ly luminosity to be
1:31042 erg s 1 and Ly equivalent width to be 7415A. Its intrinsic UV absolute magnitude at
1600A
is 18:60:2 mag and stellar mass (1:50:3)107 M, making it one of the faintest (intrinsic
LUV 0:14 L
UV) galaxies with Ly detection at z 7 to date. Its stellar mass is in the typical range
for the galaxies thought to dominate the reionization photon budget at z & 7; the inferred Ly escape
fraction is high (& 10%), which could be common for sub-L z & 7 galaxies with Ly emission. This
galaxy oers a glimpse of the galaxy population that is thought to drive reionization, and it shows
that gravitational lensing is an important avenue to probe the sub-L galaxy population.
Supermassive black holes (SMBH) are essential for the production of jets in radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN). Theoretical
models based on (Blandford & Znajek 1977, MNRAS, 179, 433) extract the rotational energy from a Kerr black hole, which could
be the case for NGC1052, to launch these jets. This requires magnetic fields on the order of 103 G to 104 G. We imaged the vicinity
of the SMBH of the AGN NGC1052 with the Global Millimetre VLBI Array and found a bright and compact central feature that is
smaller than 1.9 light days (100 Schwarzschild radii) in radius. Interpreting this as a blend of the unresolved jet bases, we derive the
magnetic field at 1 Schwarzschild radius to lie between 200 G and 8:3 104 G consistent with Blandford & Znajek models.
Solar eruptions, known as Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), are
frequently observed on our Sun. Recent Kepler observations of super
ares
on G-type stars have implied that so called super-CMEs, possessing kinetic
energies 10 times of the most powerful CME event ever observed on the Sun,
could be produced with a frequency of 1 event per 800-2000 yr on solar-
like slowly rotating stars. We have performed a 3D time-dependent global
magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the magnetic interaction of such a CME
cloud with the Earth's magnetosphere. We calculated the global structure
of the perturbed magnetosphere and derive the latitude of the open-closed
magnetic eld boundary. We also estimated energy
uxes penetrating the
Earth's ionosphere and discuss the consequences of energetic particle
uxes
on biological systems on early Earth.
Using a radio-quiet subsample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectroscopic quasar
catalogue, spanning redshifts 0.5â3.5, we derive the mean millimetre and far-infrared
quasar spectral energy distributions (SEDs) via a stacking analysis of Atacama Cosmology
Telescope and Herschel-Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver data. We
constrain the form of the far-infrared emission and find 3Ïâ4Ï evidence for the thermal
Sunyaev-Zelâdovich (SZ) effect, characteristic of a hot ionized gas component with
thermal energy (6.2 ± 1.7) à 1060 erg. This amount of thermal energy is greater than
expected assuming only hot gas in virial equilibrium with the dark matter haloes of
(1 â 5) Ă 1012h
â1M that these systems are expected to occupy, though the highest
quasar mass estimates found in the literature could explain a large fraction of this
energy. Our measurements are consistent with quasars depositing up to (14.5±3.3) Ï
â1
8
per cent of their radiative energy into their circumgalactic environment if their typical
period of quasar activity is Ï8 Ă 108 yr. For high quasar host masses, ⌠1013h
â1M,
this percentage will be reduced. Furthermore, the uncertainty on this percentage is
only statistical and additional systematic uncertainties enter at the 40 per cent level.
The SEDs are dust dominated in all bands and we consider various models for dust
emission. While sufficiently complex dust models can obviate the SZ effect, the SZ
interpretation remains favoured at the 3Ïâ4Ï level for most models.
Planets orbiting close to hot stars experience intense extreme-ultraviolet radiation, potentially leading to
atmosphere evaporation and to thermal dissociation of molecules. However, this extreme regime remains
mainly unexplored due to observational challenges. Only a single known ultra-hot giant planet, KELT-9b,
receives enough ultraviolet radiation for molecular dissociation, with a day-side temperature of â 4, 600 K.
An alternative approach uses irradiated brown dwarfs as hot-Jupiter analogues. With atmospheres and radii
similar to those of giant planets, brown dwarfs orbiting close to hot Earth-sized white-dwarf stars can be
directly detected above the glare of the star. Here we report observations revealing an extremely irradiated
low-mass companion to the hot white dwarf WD0032â317. Our analysis indicates a day-side temperature
of â 8, 000 K, and a day-to-night temperature difference of â 6, 000 K. The amount of extreme-ultraviolet
radiation (with wavelengths 100â912 ËA) received byWD0032â317B is equivalent to that received by planets
orbiting close to stars as hot as a late B-type stars, and about 5, 600 times higher than that of KELT-9b. With
a mass of â 75 â 88 Jupiter masses, this near-hydrogen-burning-limit object is potentially one of the most
massive brown dwarfs known.
Planets orbiting close to hot stars experience intense extreme-ultraviolet
radiation, potentially leading to atmosphere evaporation and to thermal
dissociation of molecules. However, this extreme regime remains mainly
unexplored due to observational challenges. Only a single known ultra-hot
giant planet, KELT-9b, receives enough ultraviolet radiation for molecular
dissociation, with a day-side temperature of ~4,600 K. An alternative
approach uses irradiated brown dwarfs as hot-Jupiter analogues. With
atmospheres and radii similar to those of giant planets, brown dwarfs
orbiting close to hot Earth-sized white dwarf stars can be directly detected
above the glare of the star. Here we report observations revealing
an extremely irradiated low-mass companion to the hot white dwarf
WD 0032â317. Our analysis indicates a day-side temperature of ~8,000 K,
and a day-to-night temperature difference of ~6,000 K. The amount of
extreme-ultraviolet radiation (with wavelengths 100â912 â«) received by
WD 0032â317B is equivalent to that received by planets orbiting close to stars
as hot as late B-type stars, and about 5,600 times higher than that of KELT-9b.
With a mass of ~75â88 Jupiter masses, this near-hydrogen-burning-limit
object is potentially one of the most massive brown dwarfs known.
A unique feature of Plutoâs large satellite Charon is its dark red
northern polar cap1. Similar colours on Plutoâs surface have been
attributed2 to tholin-like organic macromolecules produced by
energetic radiation processing of hydrocarbons. The polar location
on Charon implicates the temperature extremes that result from
Charonâs high obliquity and long seasons in the production of this
material. The escape of Plutoâs atmosphere provides a potential
feedstock for a complex chemistry3,4. Gas from Pluto that is
transiently cold-trapped and processed at Charonâs winter pole was
proposed1,2 as an explanation for the dark coloration on the basis
of an image of Charonâs northern hemisphere, but not modelled
quantitatively. Here we report images of the southern hemisphere
illuminated by Pluto-shine and also images taken during the
approach phase that show the northern polar cap over a range of
longitudes. We model the surface thermal environment on Charon
and the supply and temporary cold-trapping of material escaping
from Pluto, as well as the photolytic processing of this material
into more complex and less volatile molecules while cold-trapped.
The model results are consistent with the proposed mechanism for
producing the observed colour pattern on Charon.
Close binary systems often show linear polarization varying
over the binary period, usually attributed to light scattered
from electrons in circumstellar clouds1â3
. One of the brightest
close binary systems is Spica (alpha Virginis) consisting of
two B-type stars orbiting with a period of just over four days.
Past observations of Spica have shown low polarization with
no evidence for variability4â6. Here we report new high-precision polarization observations of Spica that show variation
with an amplitude of about 200 parts per million. By including
polarized radiative transfer in a binary star model, we show
that the phase-dependent polarization is mainly due to light
reflected from the primary component of the binary system
off the secondary component and vice versa. The stars reflect
only a few per cent of the incident light, but the reflected light
is very highly polarized. The polarization results show that the
binary orbit is clockwise and the position angle of the line of
nodes is 130.4°â±â6.8°, in agreement with intensity interferometer results7
. We suggest that reflected light polarization
may be much more important in binary systems than has previously been recognized and may be a way of detecting previously unrecognized close binaries.
Since volcanic activity was first discovered on Io from Voyager images in 1979, changes
on Ioâs surface have been monitored from both spacecraft and ground-based telescopes.
Here, we present the highest spatial resolution images of Io ever obtained from a groundbased telescope. These images, acquired by the SHARK-VIS instrument on the Large
Binocular Telescope, show evidence of a major resurfacing event on Ioâs trailing hemisphere. When compared to the most recent spacecraft images, the SHARK-VIS images
show that a plume deposit from a powerful eruption at Pillan Patera has covered part
of the long-lived Pele plume deposit. Although this type of resurfacing event may be common on Io, few have been detected due to the rarity of spacecraft visits and the previously low spatial resolution available from Earth-based telescopes. The SHARK-VIS instrument ushers in a new era of high resolution imaging of Ioâs surface using adaptive
optics at visible wavelengths.
We characterize the earliest galaxy population in the JADES Origins Field (JOF), the deepest
imaging field observed with JWST. We make use of the ancillary Hubble optical images (5 filters
spanning 0.4â0.9”m) and novel JWST images with 14 filters spanning 0.8â5”m, including 7 mediumband filters, and reaching total exposure times of up to 46 hours per filter. We combine all our data
at > 2.3”m to construct an ultradeep image, reaching as deep as â 31.4 AB mag in the stack and
30.3-31.0 AB mag (5Ï, r = 0.1â circular aperture) in individual filters. We measure photometric
redshifts and use robust selection criteria to identify a sample of eight galaxy candidates at redshifts
z = 11.5 â 15. These objects show compact half-light radii of R1/2 ⌠50 â 200pc, stellar masses of
Mâ ⌠107â108Mâ, and star-formation rates of SFR ⌠0.1â1 Mâ yrâ1
. Our search finds no candidates
at 15 < z < 20, placing upper limits at these redshifts. We develop a forward modeling approach to
infer the properties of the evolving luminosity function without binning in redshift or luminosity that
marginalizes over the photometric redshift uncertainty of our candidate galaxies and incorporates the
impact of non-detections. We find a z = 12 luminosity function in good agreement with prior results,
and that the luminosity function normalization and UV luminosity density decline by a factor of ⌠2.5
from z = 12 to z = 14. We discuss the possible implications of our results in the context of theoretical
models for evolution of the dark matter halo mass function.
The return of a sample of near-surface atmosphere from Mars would facilitate answers to several first-order science questions surrounding the formation and evolution of the planet. One of the important aspects of terrestrial planet formation in general is the role that primary atmospheres played in influencing the chemistry and structure of the planets and their antecedents. Studies of the martian atmosphere can be used to investigate the role of a primary atmosphere in its history. Atmosphere samples would also inform our understanding of the near-surface chemistry of the planet, and ultimately the prospects for life. High-precision isotopic analyses of constituent gases are needed to address these questions, requiring that the analyses are made on returned samples rather than in situ.
Recent discoveries of Earth-sized planets transiting nearby M dwarfs have made it possible to characterize the
atmospheres of terrestrial planets via follow-up spectroscopic observations. However, the number of such planets
receiving low insolation is still small, limiting our ability to understand the diversity of the atmospheric
composition and climates of temperate terrestrial planets. We report the discovery of an Earth-sized planet
transiting the nearby (12 pc) inactive M3.0 dwarf Gliese 12 (TOI-6251) with an orbital period (Porb) of 12.76 days.
The planet, Gliese 12 b, was initially identified as a candidate with an ambiguous Porb from TESS data. We
confirmed the transit signal and Porb using ground-based photometry with MuSCAT2 and MuSCAT3, and
validated the planetary nature of the signal using high-resolution images from Gemini/NIRI and Keck/NIRC2 as
well as radial velocity (RV) measurements from the InfraRed Doppler instrument on the Subaru 8.2 m telescope
and from CARMENES on the CAHA 3.5 m telescope. X-ray observations with XMM-Newton showed the host
star is inactive, with an X-ray-to-bolometric luminosity ratio of log 5.7 L L X bol » - . Joint analysis of the light
curves and RV measurements revealed that Gliese 12 b has a radius of 0.96 ± 0.05 Râ,a3Ï mass upper limit of
3.9 Mâ, and an equilibrium temperature of 315 ± 6 K assuming zero albedo. The transmission spectroscopy metric
(TSM) value of Gliese 12 b is close to the TSM values of the TRAPPIST-1 planets, adding Gliese 12 b to the small
list of potentially terrestrial, temperate planets amenable to atmospheric characterization with JWST.
We report on the discovery of Gliese 12 b, the nearest transiting temperate, Earth-sized planet found to date. Gliese 12 is a
bright (V = 12.6 mag, K = 7.8 mag) metal-poor M4V star only 12.162 ± 0.005 pc away from the Solar system with one of the
lowest stellar activity levels known for M-dwarfs. A planet candidate was detected by TESS based on only 3 transits in sectors
42, 43, and 57, with an ambiguity in the orbital period due to observational gaps. We performed follow-up transit observations
with CHEOPS and ground-based photometry with MINERVA-Australis, SPECULOOS, and Purple Mountain Observatory,
as well as further TESS observations in sector 70. We statistically validate Gliese 12 b as a planet with an orbital period of
12.76144 ± 0.00006 d and a radius of 1.0 ± 0.1 Râ, resulting in an equilibrium temperature of âŒ315 K. Gliese 12 b has excellent
future prospects for precise mass measurement, which may inform how planetary internal structure is affected by the stellar
compositional environment. Gliese 12 b also represents one of the best targets to study whether Earth-like planets orbiting cool
stars can retain their atmospheres, a crucial step to advance our understanding of habitability on Earth and across the galaxy.
Within the uncertainties of involved astronomical and biological parameters, the Drake Equation
typically predicts that there should be many exoplanets in our galaxy hosting active, communicative
civilizations (ACCs). These optimistic calculations are however not supported by evidence, which is
often referred to as the Fermi Paradox. Here, we elaborate on this long-standing enigma by showing
the importance of planetary tectonic style for biological evolution. We summarize growing evidence
that a prolonged transition from Mesoproterozoic active single lid tectonics (1.6 to 1.0 Ga) to modern
plate tectonics occurred in the Neoproterozoic Era (1.0 to 0.541 Ga), which dramatically accelerated
emergence and evolution of complex species. We further suggest that both continents and oceans
are required for ACCs because early evolution of simple life must happen in water but late evolution
of advanced life capable of creating technology must happen on land. We resolve the Fermi Paradox
(1) by adding two additional terms to the Drake Equation: foc
(the fraction of habitable exoplanets
with significant continents and oceans) and fpt
(the fraction of habitable exoplanets with significant
continents and oceans that have had plate tectonics operating for at least 0.5 Ga); and (2) by
demonstrating that the product of foc
and fpt
is very small (< 0.00003â0.002). We propose that the lack
of evidence for ACCs reflects the scarcity of long-lived plate tectonics and/or continents and oceans on
exoplanets with primitive life.
Hadean zircons provide a potential record of Earth's earliest subduction 4.3 billion years ago. Itremains enigmatic how subduction could be initiated so soon after the presumably Moonâforming giant impact(MGI). Earlier studies found an increase in Earth's coreâmantle boundary (CMB) temperature due to theaccumulation of the impactor's core, and our recent work shows Earth's lower mantle remains largely solid, withsome of the impactor's mantle potentially surviving as the large lowâshear velocity provinces (LLSVPs). Here,we show that a hot postâimpact CMB drives the initiation of strong mantle plumes that can induce subductioninitiation âŒ200 Myr after the MGI. 2D and 3D thermomechanical computations show that a high CMBtemperature is the primary factor triggering early subduction, with enrichment of heatâproducing elements inLLSVPs as another potential factor. The models link the earliest subduction to the MGI with implications forunderstanding the diverse tectonic regimes of rocky planets.
Mammals have dominated Earth for approximately 55 Myr thanks to their
adaptations and resilience to warming and cooling during the Cenozoic. All
life will eventually perish in a runaway greenhouse once absorbed solar
radiation exceeds the emission of thermal radiation in several billions of
years. However, conditions rendering the Earth naturally inhospitable to
mammals may develop sooner because of long-term processes linked to
plate tectonics (short-term perturbations are not considered here). In
~250 Myr, all continents will converge to form Earthâs next supercontinent,
Pangea Ultima. A natural consequence of the creation and decay of Pangea
Ultima will be extremes in pCO2 due to changes in volcanic rifting and
outgassing. Here we show that increased pCO2, solar energy (Fâš;
approximately +2.5% W mâ2 greater than today) and continentality (larger
range in temperatures away from the ocean) lead to increasing warming
hostile to mammalian life. We assess their impact on mammalian
physiological limits (dry bulb, wet bulb and Humidex heat stress indicators)
as well as a planetary habitability index. Given mammalsâ continued survival,
predicted background pCO2 levels of 410â816 ppm combined with increased
Fâš will probably lead to a climate tipping point and their mass extinction.
The results also highlight how global landmass configuration, pCO2 and Fâš
play a critical role in planetary habitability.
The recently reported observation of VFTS 243 is the first example of a massive black-hole binary
system with negligible binary interaction following black-hole formation. The black-hole mass (â10Mâ)
and near-circular orbit (e â 0.02) of VFTS 243 suggest that the progenitor star experienced complete
collapse, with energy-momentum being lost predominantly through neutrinos. VFTS 243 enables us to
constrain the natal kick and neutrino-emission asymmetry during black-hole formation. At 68% confidence
level, the natal kick velocity (mass decrement) is âČ10 km=s (âČ1.0Mâ), with a full probability distribution
that peaks when â0.3Mâ were ejected, presumably in neutrinos, and the black hole experienced a natal
kick of 4 km=s. The neutrino-emission asymmetry is âČ4%, with best fit values of âŒ0â0.2%. Such a small
neutrino natal kick accompanying black-hole formation is in agreement with theoretical predictions.
In this work, we assess the potential detectability of solar panels made of silicon on an Earth-like
exoplanet as a potential technosignature. Silicon-based photovoltaic cells have high reflectance in the
UV-VIS and in the near-IR, within the wavelength range of a space-based flagship mission concept
like the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). Assuming that only solar energy is used to provide
the 2022 human energy needs with a land cover of ⌠2.4%, and projecting the future energy demand
assuming various growth-rate scenarios, we assess the detectability with an 8 m HWO-like telescope.
Assuming the most favorable viewing orientation, and focusing on the strong absorption edge in the
ultraviolet-to-visible (0.34 â 0.52 ”m), we find that several 100s of hours of observation time is needed
to reach a SNR of 5 for an Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star at 10pc, even with a solar panel
coverage of ⌠23% land coverage of a future Earth. We discuss the necessity of concepts like Kardeshev
Type I/II civilizations and Dyson spheres, which would aim to harness vast amounts of energy. Even
with much larger populations than today, the total energy use of human civilization would be orders of
magnitude below the threshold for causing direct thermal heating or reaching the scale of a Kardashev
Type I civilization. Any extraterrrestrial civilization that likewise achieves sustainable population
levels may also find a limit on its need to expand, which suggests that a galaxy-spanning civilization
as imagined in the Fermi paradox may not exist.
Recent observations of galaxy clusters and groups with misalignments between their central AGN jets
and X-ray cavities, or with multiple misaligned cavities, have raised concerns about the jet â bubble
connection in cooling cores, and the processes responsible for jet realignment. To investigate the
frequency and causes of such misalignments, we construct a sample of 16 cool core galaxy clusters and
groups. Using VLBA radio data we measure the parsec-scale position angle of the jets, and compare
it with the position angle of the X-ray cavities detected in Chandra data. Using the overall sample
and selected subsets, we consistently find that there is a 30% â 38% chance to find a misalignment
larger than âΚ = 45⊠when observing a cluster/group with a detected jet and at least one cavity. We
determine that projection may account for an apparently large âΚ only in a fraction of objects (âŒ35%),
and given that gas dynamical disturbances (as sloshing) are found in both aligned and misaligned
systems, we exclude environmental perturbation as the main driver of cavity â jet misalignment.
Moreover, we find that large misalignments (up to ⌠90âŠ
) are favored over smaller ones (45⊠†âΚ â€
70âŠ
), and that the change in jet direction can occur on timescales between one and a few tens of Myr.
We conclude that misalignments are more likely related to actual reorientation of the jet axis, and we
discuss several engine-based mechanisms that may cause these dramatic changes.
The magnetic dynamo cycle of the Sun features a distinct pattern: a propagating
region of sunspot emergence appears around 30° latitude and vanishes near the
equator every 11 years (ref. 1). Moreover, longitudinal flows called torsional oscillations
closely shadow sunspot migration, undoubtedly sharing a common cause2. Contrary
to theories suggesting deep origins of these phenomena, helioseismology pinpoints
low-latitude torsional oscillations to the outer 5â10% of the Sun, the near-surface
shear layer3,4. Within this zone, inwardly increasing differential rotation coupled with
a poloidal magnetic field strongly implicates the magneto-rotational instability5,6,
prominent in accretion-disk theory and observed in laboratory experiments7.
Together, these two facts prompt the general question: whether the solar dynamo is
possibly a near-surface instability. Here we report strong affirmative evidence in stark
contrast to traditional models8 focusing on the deeper tachocline. Simple analytic
estimates show that the near-surface magneto-rotational instability better explains
the spatiotemporal scales of the torsional oscillations and inferred subsurface
magnetic field amplitudes9. State-of-the-art numerical simulations corroborate these
estimates and reproduce hemispherical magnetic current helicity laws10. The dynamo
resulting from a well-understood near-surface phenomenon improves prospects
for accurate predictions of full magnetic cycles and space weather, affecting the
electromagnetic infrastructure of Earth.
In the Nice model of solar system formation, Uranus and Neptune undergo an orbital upheaval,
sweeping through a planetesimal disk. The region of the disk from which material is accreted by
the ice giants during this phase of their evolution has not previously been identified. We perform
direct N-body orbital simulations of the four giant planets to determine the amount and origin of solid
accretion during this orbital upheaval. We find that the ice giants undergo an extreme bombardment
event, with collision rates as much as âŒ3 per hour assuming km-sized planetesimals, increasing the
total planet mass by up to âŒ0.35%. In all cases, the initially outermost ice giant experiences the
largest total enhancement. We determine that for some plausible planetesimal properties, the resulting
atmospheric enrichment could potentially produce sufficient latent heat to alter the planetary cooling
timescale according to existing models. Our findings suggest that substantial accretion during this
phase of planetary evolution may have been sufficient to impact the atmospheric composition and
thermal evolution of the ice giants, motivating future work on the fate of deposited solid material.
The highest priority recommendation of the Astro2020 Decadal Survey for space-based astronomy
was the construction of an observatory capable of characterizing habitable worlds. In this paper series
we explore the detectability of and interference from exomoons and exorings serendipitously observed
with the proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) as it seeks to characterize exoplanets, starting
in this manuscript with Earth-Moon analog mutual events. Unlike transits, which only occur in systems
viewed near edge-on, shadow (i.e., solar eclipse) and lunar eclipse mutual events occur in almost every
star-planet-moon system. The cadence of these events can vary widely from âŒyearly to multiple events
per day, as was the case in our younger Earth-Moon system. Leveraging previous space-based (EPOXI)
lightcurves of a Moon transit and performance predictions from the LUVOIR-B concept, we derive
the detectability of Moon analogs with HWO. We determine that Earth-Moon analogs are detectable
with observation of âŒ2-20 mutual events for systems within 10 pc, and larger moons should remain
detectable out to 20 pc. We explore the extent to which exomoon mutual events can mimic planet
features and weather. We find that HWO wavelength coverage in the near-IR, specifically in the 1.4 ”m
water band where large moons can outshine their host planet, will aid in differentiating exomoon signals
from exoplanet variability. Finally, we predict that exomoons formed through collision processes akin
to our Moon are more likely to be detected in younger systems, where shorter orbital periods and
favorable geometry enhance the probability and frequency of mutual events.
Mars is a particularly attractive candidate among known astronomical objects
to potentially host life. Results from space exploration missions have provided
insights into Martian geochemistry that indicate oxychlorine species, particularly perchlorate, are ubiquitous features of the Martian geochemical landscape. Perchlorate presents potential obstacles for known forms of life due to
its toxicity. However, it can also provide potential benefits, such as producing
brines by deliquescence, like those thought to exist on present-day Mars. Here
we show perchlorate brines support folding and catalysis of functional RNAs,
while inactivating representative protein enzymes. Additionally, we show
perchlorate and other oxychlorine species enable ribozyme functions,
including homeostasis-like regulatory behavior and ribozyme-catalyzed
chlorination of organic molecules. We suggest nucleic acids are uniquely wellsuited to hypersaline Martian environments. Furthermore, Martian near- or
subsurface oxychlorine brines, and brines found in potential lifeforms, could
provide a unique niche for biomolecular evolution.
The thermal continuum emission observed from accreting black holes across X-ray bands has the potential to be leveraged as a
powerful probe of the mass and spin of the central black hole. The vast majority of existing âcontinuum fittingâ models neglect
emission sourced at and within the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) of the black hole. Numerical simulations, however,
find non-zero emission sourced from these regions. In this work, we extend existing techniques by including the emission
sourced from within the plunging region, utilizing new analytical models that reproduce the properties of numerical accretion
simulations. We show that in general the neglected intra-ISCO emission produces a hot-and-small quasi-blackbody component,
but can also produce a weak power-law tail for more extreme parameter regions. A similar hot-and-small blackbody component
has been added in by hand in an ad hoc manner to previous analyses of X-ray binary spectra. We show that the X-ray spectrum
of MAXI J1820+070 in a soft-state outburst is extremely well described by a full Kerr black hole disc, while conventional
models that neglect intra-ISCO emission are unable to reproduce the data. We believe this represents the first robust detection of
intra-ISCO emission in the literature, and allows additional constraints to be placed on the MAXI J1820 + 070 black hole spin
which must be low aâą < 0.5 to allow a detectable intra-ISCO region. Emission from within the ISCO is the dominant emission
component in the MAXI J1820 + 070 spectrum between 6 and 10 keV, highlighting the necessity of including this region. Our
continuum fitting model is made publicly available.
Studying the escaping atmospheres of highly irradiated exoplanets is critical for understanding the physical
mechanisms that shape the demographics of close-in planets. A number of planetary outflows have been observed
as excess H/He absorption during/after transit. Such an outflow has been observed for WASP-69b by multiple
groups that disagree on the geometry and velocity structure of the outflow. Here, we report the detection of this
planetâs outflow using Keck/NIRSPEC for the first time. We observed the outflow 1.28 hr after egress until the
target set, demonstrating the outflow extends at least 5.8 Ă 105 km or 7.5 Rp This detection is significantly longer
than previous observations, which report an outflow extending âŒ2.2 planet radii just 1 yr prior. The outflow is
blueshifted by â23 km sâ1 in the planetary rest frame. We estimate a current mass-loss rate of 1 Mâ Gyrâ1
. Our
observations are most consistent with an outflow that is strongly sculpted by ram pressure from the stellar wind.
However, potential variability in the outflow could be due to time-varying interactions with the stellar wind or
differences in instrumental precision.
Using deep archival observations from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, we present an analysis of
linear X-ray-emitting features located within the southern portion of the Galactic center chimney,
and oriented orthogonal to the Galactic plane, centered at coordinates l = 0.08âŠ
, b = â1.42âŠ
. The
surface brightness and hardness ratio patterns are suggestive of a cylindrical morphology which may
have been produced by a plasma outflow channel extending from the Galactic center. Our fits of the
featureâs spectra favor a complex two-component model consisting of thermal and recombining plasma
components, possibly a sign of shock compression or heating of the interstellar medium by outflowing
material. Assuming a recombining plasma scenario, we further estimate the cooling timescale of this
plasma to be on the order of a few hundred to thousands of years, leading us to speculate that a
sequence of accretion events onto the Galactic Black Hole may be a plausible quasi-continuous energy
source to sustain the observed morphology
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Â
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Â
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
Generative AI Deep Dive: Advancing from Proof of Concept to ProductionAggregage
Â
Join Maher Hanafi, VP of Engineering at Betterworks, in this new session where he'll share a practical framework to transform Gen AI prototypes into impactful products! He'll delve into the complexities of data collection and management, model selection and optimization, and ensuring security, scalability, and responsible use.
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
Â
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
Â
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties â USA
Expansion of bot farms â how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks â Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
Welcome to the first live UiPath Community Day Dubai! Join us for this unique occasion to meet our local and global UiPath Community and leaders. You will get a full view of the MEA region's automation landscape and the AI Powered automation technology capabilities of UiPath. Also, hosted by our local partners Marc Ellis, you will enjoy a half-day packed with industry insights and automation peers networking.
đ Curious on our agenda? Wait no more!
10:00 Welcome note - UiPath Community in Dubai
Lovely Sinha, UiPath Community Chapter Leader, UiPath MVPx3, Hyper-automation Consultant, First Abu Dhabi Bank
10:20 A UiPath cross-region MEA overview
Ashraf El Zarka, VP and Managing Director MEA, UiPath
10:35: Customer Success Journey
Deepthi Deepak, Head of Intelligent Automation CoE, First Abu Dhabi Bank
11:15 The UiPath approach to GenAI with our three principles: improve accuracy, supercharge productivity, and automate more
Boris Krumrey, Global VP, Automation Innovation, UiPath
12:15 To discover how Marc Ellis leverages tech-driven solutions in recruitment and managed services.
Brendan Lingam, Director of Sales and Business Development, Marc Ellis
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
Â
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Pushing the limits of ePRTC: 100ns holdover for 100 daysAdtran
Â
At WSTS 2024, Alon Stern explored the topic of parametric holdover and explained how recent research findings can be implemented in real-world PNT networks to achieve 100 nanoseconds of accuracy for up to 100 days.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Â
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
Â
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
1. ReportsÂ
One major goal in astrophysics is to extend previous successes in the
characterization and modeling of stellar atmospheres to the much cooler
atmospheres of extrasolar planets. A key pathway is the identification of
free-floating objects that not only share common temperatures with
exoplanets but that also share common masses and thus surface gravities.
In recent years, searches for ever colder free-floating brown dwarfs-
objects with masses below the hydrogen-fusing mass limit-have steadily
pushed the census of the solar neighborhood to ever lower masses and
finally perhaps into the planetary-mass regime ( 13 Jupiter masses).<
The detection of large samples of brown dwarfs at the beginning of
the last decade ushered in two, now widely accepted, spectral types de-
noted by the letters âLâ and âTâ that extend the canonical OBAFGKM
scheme for classifying stars that had stood untouched for nearly a centu-
ry. Over the last two years, candidates for a âYâ spectral class have been
uncovered in binary surveys (1, 2) and in all-sky imaging data from
WISE, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (3). The primary criterion
adopted to trigger this class has been the appearance of ammonia (NH3)
absorption in near-infrared (1-2.5 ÎŒm) spectra.
Y dwarfs probe colder atmospheric physics than before, with puta-
tive effective temperatures as low as Teff 300 K and masses of â 5-20
Jupiter masses (3). If found orbiting a star, a Y dwarf would likely be
considered a gas-giant planet. However, these estimated properties of Y
dwarfs are speculative given the uncertainty in their temperatures, ages,
and luminosities. Temperatures have only been estimated from model
atmospheres that use incomplete molecular line lists and simple prescrip-
tions for complex processes like nonequilibrium chemistry and conden-
sate formation.
An independent approach for determining temperatures is to com-
bine bolometric luminosities (Lbol) with evolutionary model-predicted
radii (R ) and apply the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, Teff ⥠(4ÏÏR 2
/Lbol)â1/4
.
Recent observations of transiting substellar objects generally support
evolutionary model radius predictions over a wide range of masses (4â
6). Although many may not be ideal test cases, since they may have
formed via core accretion or have been intensely irradiated, variations in
radii are expected to be relatively small and not strongly influence our
resulting temperatures given the weak
dependence on radius (Teff R â1/2
).
Therefore, the key measurements need-
ed to determine temperatures via lumi-
nosity are accurate distances to Y
dwarfs, along with a method for com-
puting Lbol from multi-wavelength pho-
tometry.
Trigonometric parallaxes provide
the only direct means of measuring
distances to stars. A starâs distance is
inversely proportional to the amplitude
of its apparent periodic motion on the
sky relative to more distant background
stars, which is due to the Earthâs orbital
motion around the Sun. The amplitude
of this effect is small, 0.1 arcseconds
for a star at 10 parsec, and thus measur-
ing parallaxes requires long-term, pre-
cise position measurements. We have
been using the Infrared Array Camera
(IRAC) on board the Spitzer Space
Telescope to obtain such astrometry of
late-T and Y dwarfs from 2011-2012.
Spitzer currently trails the Earth by â 2
months in its solar orbit, and keeping its
solar shield directed at the Sun forces
the telescope to observe stars near par-
allax maximum. By maintaining a cold temperature Spitzer can obtain
sensitive images in the thermal mid-infrared, where Y dwarfs emit most
of their flux, giving it an advantage over ground-based near-infrared
observations of Y dwarfs. We also use an improved correction for the
nonlinear optical distortion of Spitzer/IRAC that enables 10Ă smaller
residual errors than the correction used by the standard data pipeline,
allowing us to unlock the precision astrometric capabilities of Spitzer.
Distances, Luminosities, and
Temperatures of the Coldest Known
Substellar Objects
Trent J. Dupuy1
and Adam L. Kraus1,2
1
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
2
Astronomy
epartment, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C1400, Austin, TX 78712, USA.D
Corresponding author. E-mail: tdupuy@cfa.harvard.edu
The coolest known brown dwarfs are our best analogs to extrasolar gas-giant
planets. The prolific detections of such cold substellar objects in the past two years
has spurred intensive followup, but the lack of accurate distances is a key gap in
our understanding. We present a large sample of precise distances based on
homogeneous mid-infrared astrometry that robustly establish absolute fluxes,
luminosities, and temperatures. The coolest brown dwarfs have temperatures of 400
to 450 kelvin and masses â5 to 20Ă that of Jupiter, showing they bridge the gap
between hotter brown dwarfs and gas-giant planets. At these extremes, spectral
energy distributions no longer follow a simple correspondence with temperature,
suggesting an increasing role of other physical parameters such as surface gravity,
vertical mixing, clouds, and metallicity.
By combining our parallaxes (Table S1, Fig. S1) with photometry
from the literature (7â9), we have determined absolute magnitudes in the
near-infrared YJHK bands (â 1.0-2.4 ÎŒm) and Spitzerâs mid-infrared
bands at 3.6 ÎŒm and 4.5 ÎŒm (Table S2, Fig. 1, Fig. 2). For each spectral
type bin, we computed the weighted mean absolute magnitude as well as
upper/lower limits on the amount of intrinsic scatter in the magnitudes
(Table S3).
Objects classified as normal Y0 dwarfs are â2 magnitudes (â6Ă)
fainter in the near-infrared compared to the latest type T dwarfs, yet they
generally share very similar colors. The most notable exception is that
the YâJ colors become much bluer for Y dwarfs (9), which we find is
due to flux at â1.25 ÎŒm dropping by 5Ă while flux at â 1.05 ÎŒm only
drops by 2.5Ă. This behavior is consistent with prior speculation that Y
dwarfs may be so cool that the alkali atoms that dominate absorption at
blue wavelengths for warmer brown dwarfs finally become locked into
molecules like Na2S and KCl, thereby reducing the opacity at 1.05 ÎŒm
relative to 1.25 ÎŒm (10). The appearance of such molecules could result
in the return of substantial condensate clouds (11) and corresponding
variability/weather.
In contrast to their near-infrared behavior, Y dwarfs show remarka-
ble diversity in their mid-infrared colors. Even though they are only â2Ă
fainter than the latest T dwarfs at these wavelengths, they range from the
same color as late-T dwarfs to much redder (â0.8 magnitudes). One of
the reddest objects is WISEP J1405+5534, which has been typed as âY0
peculiar?â because its H-band spectral peak is shifted 60 Ă redder than
the Y0 standard WISEP J1738+2732 (3). We find that WISEP
J1405+5534 in fact has a very similar temperature to other Y0 dwarfs
(Table S5) indicating that its unusual spectrum is due to another physical
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6. Fig. 1. Color-magnitude diagrams for
all objects with spectral types T8 and
later that have direct distance
measurements. Data points are color
coded according to spectral type, with
open/white points indicating that no
spectra are available. Small gray points
are earlier type field brown dwarfs.
Near-infrared photometry is on the
Mauna Kea Observatory (MKO)
system.
Fig. 2. Absolute magnitude as a function of spectral type for near-infrared and mid-infrared bandpasses.
Objects typed as peculiar are shown as open white symbols. Objects with very uncertain distances are plotted
with smaller gray symbols. Error bars for spectral types are not plotted, and small x-axis offsets have been
added to the spectral types for clarity.
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7. Fig. 4. Bolometric luminosities (Lbol) and effective temperatures
for objects of spectral type T8 and later; spectrally peculiar
objects are denoted by white symbols. Objects with Lbol
uncertainties larger than 0.2 dex are shown as smaller, gray
symbols. These are either objects with very uncertain distances
or the components of tight binaries where the lack of resolved
mid-infrared photometry results in a very uncertain bolometric
flux. Error bars for spectral types are not plotted, and small x-
axis offsets have been added to the spectral types for clarity.
Effective temperatures are derived from our Lbol measurements
and Cond evolutionary model radii. Upward and downward
pointing triangles correspond to the median Lbol and lower and
upper age limits used (see Table S5). Error bars show the range
of temperatures corresponding to the ±1Ï range of Lbol over the
same age range.
Fig. 3. Intrinsic photometric scatter among objects at each spectral type; unfilled symbols are
upper limits where no scatter is detected. Y0 dwarfs show remarkably low intrinsic scatter in
the near-infrared, reversing the trend observed at the end of the T dwarf sequence that later
type T dwarfs show increasing dispersion in their near-infrared absolute magnitudes. The
much smaller sample of T9.5 dwarfs are also suggestive of this reversal at J and H bands.
There is no evidence for such a reversal in the mid-infrared where both late-T and Y dwarfs
show much less intrinsic scatter and distance uncertainties for Y dwarfs do not permit strong
enough upper limits.
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