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J.P. Magué & B. Ménard

[1]
Title: Probing axions with the neutrino signal from the next galactic supernova
Comments: 19 pages, 13 figures, DESY 16-094
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)

We study the impact of axion emission in simulations of massive star explosions, as an additional source of energy loss complementary to the standard neutrino emission. The inclusion of this channel shortens the cooling time of the nascent protoneutron star and hence the duration of the neutrino signal. We treat the axion-matter coupling strength as a free parameter to study its impact on the protoneutron star evolution as well as on the neutrino signal. We furthermore analyze the observability of the enhanced cooling in current and next-generation underground neutrino detectors, showing that values of the axion mass $m_a \gtrsim 8 \times 10^{-3}$ eV can be probed. Therefore a galactic supernova neutrino observation would provide a valuable possibility to probe axion masses in a range within reach of the planned helioscope experiment the International Axion Observatory (IAXO).

[2]
Title: Multi-PeV Signals from a New Astrophysical Neutrino Flux Beyond the Glashow Resonance
Authors: Matthew D. Kistler, Ranjan Laha (KIPAC, Stanford, SLAC)
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)

The IceCube neutrino discovery was punctuated by three showers with $E_\nu$ ~ 1-2 PeV. Interest is intense in possible fluxes at higher energies, though a marked lack of $E_\nu$ ~ 6 PeV Glashow resonance events implies a spectrum that is soft and/or cutoff below ~few PeV. However, IceCube recently reported a through-going track event depositing 2.6 $\pm$ 0.3 PeV. A muon depositing so much energy can imply $E_{\nu_\mu} \gtrsim$ 10 PeV. We show that extending the soft $E_\nu^{-2.6}$ spectral fit from TeV-PeV data is unlikely to yield such an event. Alternatively, a tau can deposit this much energy, though requiring $E_{\nu_\tau}$ ~10x higher. We find that either scenario hints at a new flux, with the hierarchy of $\nu_\mu$ and $\nu_\tau$ energies suggesting a window into astrophysical neutrinos at $E_\nu$ ~ 100 PeV if a tau. We address implications, including for ultrahigh-energy cosmic-ray and neutrino origins.

[3]
Title: The production and escape of Lyman-Continuum radiation from star-forming galaxies at z~2 and their redshift evolution
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

We study the production and escape of ionizing photons of a sample of 588 H$\alpha$ (Ha) emitters (HAEs) at z=2.2 in COSMOS by exploring their rest-frame Lyman Continuum (LyC) with GALEX/NUV data. We find 8 candidate LyC leakers with f$_{esc}$>60% out of a clean subsample of 191 HAEs (i.e. without any neighbour or foreground galaxy inside the GALEX PSF). Overall, we measure a very low escape fraction f$_{esc}$ <5.5(12.7)% through median (mean) stacking. By combining the Ha luminosity density with IGM emissivity measurements from absorption studies, we find a globally averaged f$_{esc}$ of 5.9$^{+9.3}_{-2.6}$ %. We find similarly low values of the global f$_{esc}$ at z~3-5, indicating little evolution of f$_{esc}$ with redshift and ruling out a high f$_{esc}$ at z<5. We also measure the typical number of ionizing photons per unit UV luminosity, $\xi_{ion}$=10$^{24.77\pm0.04}$ Hz erg$^{-1}$. HAEs at z=2.2 are typically three times less ionizing than typically assumed in the reionization era, but higher values of $\xi_{ion}$ are found for galaxies with strong Lyman-$\alpha$ and lower mass. Due to an increasing $\xi_{ion}$ with increasing EW(Ha), $\xi_{ion}$ likely increases with redshift. This evolution alone is fully in line with the observed evolution of $\xi_{ion}$ between z~2-5, indicating a typical value of $\xi_{ion}$~10$^{25.4}$ Hz erg$^{-1}$ in the reionization era. Therefore, only modest global escape fractions of ~10% are required to provide enough photons to reionize the Universe. Our results are consistent with only a few galaxies having f$_{esc}$~75%, which could indicate that a small fraction (4$\pm$1%) of galaxies contribute most of the total number of escaping ionizing photons.

[4]
Title: When and where did GW150914 form?
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

The recent LIGO detection of gravitational waves (GW150914), likely originating from the merger of two $\sim 30 M_\odot$ black holes suggests progenitor stars of low metallicity ($[Z/Z_\odot] \lesssim 0.3$), constraining when and where the progenitor of GW150914 may have formed. We combine estimates of galaxy properties (metallicity, star formation rate and merger rate) across cosmic time to predict the low redshift black hole - black hole merger rate as a function of present day host galaxy mass, $M_\mathrm{gal}$, and the formation redshift of the progenitor system $z_\mathrm{form}$ for different progenitor metallicities $Z_\mathrm{c}$. At $Z_\mathrm{c}=0.1 Z_\odot$, the signal is dominated by binaries in massive galaxies with $z_\mathrm{form}\simeq 2$, with a small contribution from binaries formed around $z_\mathrm{form}\simeq 0.5$ in dwarf galaxies. For $Z_\mathrm{c}=0.01Z_\odot$, fast mergers are possible and very recent star formation in dwarfs likely dominates. Additional gravitational wave detections from merging massive black holes will provide constraints on the mass-metallicity relation and massive star formation at high redshifts.

[5]
Title: Precise strong lensing mass profile of the CLASH galaxy cluster MACS 2129
Comments: 14 pages, 10 Figures, Submitted to MNRAS
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

We present a detailed strong lensing mass reconstruction of the core of the galaxy cluster MACSJ 2129.4-0741 ($\rm z_{cl}=0.589$) obtained by combining high-resolution HST photometry from the CLASH survey with new spectroscopic observations from the CLASH-VLT survey. A background bright red passive galaxy at $\rm z_{sp}=1.36$, sextuply lensed in the cluster core, has four radial lensed images located over the three central cluster members. Further 19 background lensed galaxies are spectroscopically confirmed by our VLT survey, including 3 additional multiple systems. A total of 27 multiple images are used in the lensing analysis. This allows us to trace with high precision the total mass profile of the cluster in its very inner region ($\rm R<100$ kpc). Our final lensing mass model reproduces the multiple images systems identified in the cluster core with high accuracy of $0.4''$. This translates in an high precision mass reconstruction of MACS 2129, which is constrained at level of 3%. The cluster has Einstein radius $\theta_E=(15\pm2)''$, for a source at $z_s=1.36$ and a projected total mass of $\rm M_{tot}(<\theta_E)=(3.4\pm0.1)\times 10^{13}M_{\odot}$ within such radius. Together with the cluster mass profile, we provide here also the complete spectroscopic dataset for the cluster members and lensed images measured with VLT/VIMOS within the CLASH-VLT survey.

[6]
Title: Examining Tatooine: Atmospheric Models of Neptune-Like Circumbinary Planets
Comments: 9 pages, 7 figures, Accepted to ApJ
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)

Circumbinary planets experience a time varying irradiation pattern as they orbit their two host stars. In this work, we present the first detailed study of the atmospheric effects of this irradiation pattern on known and hypothetical gaseous circumbinary planets. Using both a one-dimensional Energy Balance Model and a three-dimensional General Circulation Model, we look at the temperature differences between circumbinary planets and their equivalent single-star cases in order to determine the nature of the atmospheres of these planets. We find that for circumbinary planets on stable orbits around their host stars, temperature differences are on average no more than 1.0% in the most extreme cases. Based on detailed modeling with the General Circulation Model, we find that these temperature differences are not large enough to excite circulation differences between the two cases. We conclude that gaseous circumbinary planets can be treated as their equivalent single-star case in future atmospheric modeling efforts.

[7]
Title: The Star-formation History and Accretion-Disk Fraction Among the K-Type Members of the Scorpius-Centaurus OB Association
Comments: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 32 pages, 16 figures, 13 tables; Electronic tables to be available in Vizier, temporarily available for download at this http URL
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)

We present results of a spectroscopic survey for new K- and M-type members of Scorpius-Centaurus (Sco-Cen), the nearest OB Association (~100-200 pc). Using an X-ray, proper motion and color-magnitude selected sample, we obtained spectra for 361 stars, for which we report spectral classifications and Li and Halpha equivalent widths. We identified 156 new members of Sco-Cen, and recovered 51 previously published members. We have combined these with previously known members to form a sample of 493 solar-mass (~0.7-1.3 Msun) members of Sco-Cen. We investigated the star-formation history of this sample, and re-assessed the ages of the massive main-sequence turn-off and the G-type members in all three subgroups. We performed a census for circumstellar disks in our sample using WISE infrared data and find a protoplanetary disk fraction for K-type stars of 4.4$^{+1.6}_{-0.9}$% for Upper Centaurus-Lupus and Lower Centaurus-Crux at ~16 Myr and 9.0$^{+4.0}_{-2.2}$% for Upper Scorpius at ~10 Myr. These data are consistent with a protoplanetary disk e-folding timescale of ~4-5 Myr for ~1 Msun stars, twice that previously quoted (Mamajek 2009), but consistent with the Bell et al. revised age scale of young clusters. Finally, we construct an age map of Scorpius-Centaurus which clearly reveals substructure consisting of concentrations of younger and older stars. We find evidence for strong age gradients within all three subgroups. None of the subgroups are consistent with being simple, coeval populations which formed in single bursts, but likely represents a multitude of smaller star formation episodes of hundreds to tens of stars each.

[8]
Title: IGR J18293-1213 is an eclipsing Cataclysmic Variable
Authors: Maïca Clavel (1), J. A. Tomsick (1), A. Bodaghee (2), J.-L. Chiu (1), F. M. Fornasini (1), J. Hong (3), R. Krivonos (4), G. Ponti (5), F. Rahoui (6,7), D. Stern (8) ((1) SSL/UC Berkeley, (2) Georgia College, (3) CfA, (4) IKI Moscow, (5) MPE Garching, (6) ESO, (7) Harvard University, (8) JPL Caltech)
Comments: 8 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

Studying the population of faint hard X-ray sources along the plane of the Galaxy is challenging because of high-extinction and crowding, which make the identification of individual sources more difficult. IGR J18293-1213 is part of the population of persistent sources which have been discovered by the INTEGRAL satellite. We report on NuSTAR and Swift/XRT observations of this source, performed on 2015 September 11. We detected three eclipsing intervals in the NuSTAR light curve, allowing us to constrain the duration of these eclipses, $\Delta t = 30.8^{+6.3}_{-0.0}$ min, and the orbital period of the system, $T = 6.92\pm0.01$ hr. Even though we only report an upper limit on the amplitude of a putative spin modulation, the orbital period and the hard thermal Bremsstrahlung spectrum of IGR J18293-1213 provide strong evidence that this source is a magnetic Cataclysmic Variable (CV). Our NuSTAR and Swift/XRT joint spectral analysis places strong constraints on the white dwarf mass $M_{\rm wd} = 0.78^{+0.10}_{-0.09}$ M$_\odot$. Assuming that the mass to radius ratio of the companion star $M_* / R_* = 1$ (solar units) and using $T$, $\Delta t$ and $M_{\rm wd}$, we derived the mass of the companion star $M_* = 0.82\pm0.01$ M$_\odot$, the orbital separation of the binary system $a=2.14\pm0.04$ R$_\odot$, and its orbital inclination compared to the line of sight $i=(72.2^{+2.4}_{-0.0})\pm1.0^\circ$.

[9]
Title: Protoplanetary disks in the hostile environment of Carina
Authors: A. Mesa-Delgado (IA-PUC, Chile), L. Zapata (IRyA, Mexico), W.J. Henney (IRyA, Mexico), T.H. Puzia (IA-PUC, Chile), Y.G. Tsamis (UCL, UK)
Comments: 6 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)

We report the first direct imaging of protoplanetary disks in the star-forming region of Carina, the most distant, massive cluster in which disks have been imaged. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA), disks are observed around two young stellar objects (YSOs) that are embedded inside evaporating gaseous globules and exhibit jet activity. The disks have an average size of 120 AU and total masses of 30 and 50 M_Jup. Given the measured masses, the minimum timescale required for planet formation (~1-2 Myr) and the average age of the Carina population (~1-4 Myr), it is plausible that young planets are present or their formation is currently ongoing in these disks. The non-detection of millimeter emission above the 4sigma threshold (~7 M_Jup) in the core of the massive cluster Trumpler~14, an area containing previously identified proplyd candidates, suggest evidence for rapid photo-evaporative disk destruction in the cluster's harsh radiation field. This would prevent the formation of giant gas planets in disks located in the cores of Carina's dense sub-clusters, whereas the majority of YSO disks in the wider Carina region remain unaffected by external photo-evaporation.

[10]
Title: No Thermal Inversion and a Solar Water Abundance for the Hot Jupiter HD209458b from HST WFC3 Emission Spectroscopy
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)

The nature of the vertical thermal structure of hot Jupiter atmospheres is one of the key questions raised by the characterization of transiting exoplanets over the last decade. There have been claims that many hot Jupiter's exhibit vertical profiles with increasing temperature with decreasing pressure in the infrared photosphere that leads to the reversal of molecular absorption bands into emission features (an inversion). However, these claims have been based on broadband photometry rather than the unambiguous identification of emission features with spectroscopy, and the chemical species that could cause the thermal inversions by absorbing stellar irradiation at high altitudes have not been identified despite extensive theoretical and observational effort. Here we present high precision HST WFC3 observations of the dayside emission spectrum of the hot Jupiter HD209458b; the first exoplanet suggested to have a thermal inversion. Our observations resolve a water band in absorption at 6.2 sigma confidence. When combined with Spitzer photometry the data are indicative of a monotonically decreasing temperature with pressure over the range 1-0.001 bar at 7.7 sigma confidence. We test the robustness of our results by exploring a variety of model assumptions including the temperature profile parameterization, presence of a cloud, and choice of Spitzer data reduction. We also introduce a new analysis method, "chemical retrieval-on-retrieval", to determine the elemental abundances from the spectrally retrieved mixing ratios with thermochemical self-consistency and find plausible abundances consistent with solar metallicity (0.06 - 10 x solar) and carbon-to-oxygen ratios less than unity. This work suggests that high-precision spectrophotometric results are required to robustly infer thermal structures and compositions of extra-solar planet atmospheres.

[11]
Title: The Discovery of Raman Scattering in HII Regions
Comments: Accepted for publication in ApJ (Letters). 6pp, 3 figs
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

We report here on the discovery of faint extended wings of H\alpha\ observed out to an apparent velocity of ~ 7600 km/s in the Orion Nebula (M42) and in five HII regions in the Large and the Small Magellanic Clouds. We show that, these wings are caused by Raman scattering of both the O I and Si II resonance lines and stellar continuum UV photons with H I followed by radiative decay to the H I n=2 level. The broad wings also seen in H\beta\ and in H\gamma\ result from Raman scattering of the UV continuum in the H I n=4 and n=5 levels respectively.The Raman scattering fluorescence is correlated with the intensity of the narrow permitted lines of O I and Si II. In the case of Si II, this is explained by radiative pumping of the same 1023.7\AA\ resonance line involved in the Raman scattering by the Ly\beta\ radiation field. The subsequent radiative cascade produces enhanced Si II 5978.9, 6347.1and 6371.4\AA\ permitted transitions. Finally we show that in O I, radiative pumping of the 1025.76\AA\ resonance line by the Lyman series radiation field is also the cause of the enhancement in the permitted lines of this species lying near H\alpha\ in wavelength, but here the process is a little more complex. We argue that all these processes are active in the zone of the HII region near the ionisation front [12] Title: Filamentary flow and magnetic geometry in evolving cluster-forming molecular cloud clumps Comments: 26 pages, 19 figures, submitted to the MNRAS and revised in response to the referee report Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) We present an analysis of the relationship between the orientation of magnetic fields and filaments that form in 3D magnetohydrodynamic simulations of cluster-forming, turbulent molecular cloud clumps. We examine simulated cloud clumps with size scales of L ~ 2-4 pc and densities of n ~ 400-1000 cm^-3. Many molecular clouds have Alfven Mach numbers near unity, a regime insufficiently explored by numerical simulations. We simulated two cloud clumps of different masses, one in virial equilibrium, the other strongly gravitationally bound, but with the same initial turbulent velocity field and similar mass-to-flux ratio. We apply various techniques to analyze the filamentary and magnetic structure of the resulting cloud, including the DisPerSE filament-finding algorithm in 3D. The largest structure that forms is a 1-2 parsec-long filament, with smaller connecting sub-filaments. We find that in our trans-Alfvenic clouds, wherein magnetic forces and turbulence are comparable, coherent orientation of the magnetic field depends on the virial parameter. Subvirial clumps undergo strong gravitational collapse and magnetic field lines are dragged with the accretion flow. We see evidence of filament-aligned flow and accretion flow onto the filament in the subvirial cloud. Magnetic fields aligned more parallel in the subvirial cloud and more perpendicular in the denser, marginally bound cloud. Radiative feedback from a 16 Msun star forming in a cluster in one of our simulations results in the destruction of the main filament, the formation of an HII region, and the sweeping up of magnetic fields within an expanding shell of material at the edges of the HII region. [13] Title: The effect of environment on the structure of disk galaxies Comments: 7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; submitted to MNRAS on 28 May 2016 Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) We study the influence of environment on the structure of disk galaxies, using IMFIT to measure the g- and r-band parameters of the surface-brightness profiles for ~200 low-redshift (z<0.051) cluster and field disk-galaxies with intermediate stellar mass (10^10 M_sol < M_star < 4 x 10^10 M_sol) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, DR7. Based on this measurement, we assign each galaxy to a surface-brightness profile type (Type I single-exponential, Type II truncated, Type III anti-truncated). In addition, we measure (g-r) restframe colour for disk regions separated by the truncation radius. Cluster disk galaxies (at the same stellar mass) have redder (g-r) colour by ~0.2 mag than field galaxies. This reddening is the same inside and outside the break radius. Cluster disk galaxies are also more compact than field disks by 10%. This change is reflected in the outer scalelengths, which increase by ~10% in the cluster environment compared to the field. Finally, Type I galaxies are 3 times more frequent in the clusters than in the field. We suggest that the large abundance of Type I galaxies in clusters could be the signature of a transition phase between Type II and Type III galaxies produced/enhanced by environment-driven mechanisms. [14] Title: A Census of Young Stars and Brown Dwarfs in IC 348 and NGC 1333 Comments: accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal; machine readable tables and fits spectra available at this http URL Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) We have obtained optical and near-infrared spectra of candidate members of the star-forming clusters IC 348 and NGC 1333. We classify 100 and 42 candidates as new members of the clusters, respectively, which brings the total numbers of known members to 478 and 203. We also have performed spectroscopy on a large majority of the previously known members of NGC 1333 in order to provide spectral classifications that are measured with the same scheme that has been applied to IC 348 in previous studies. The new census of members is nearly complete for Ks<16.8 at Aj<1.5 in IC 348 and for Ks<16.2 at Aj<3 in NGC 1333, which correspond to masses of <=0.01 Msun for ages of 3 Myr according to theoretical evolutionary models. The faintest known members extend below these completeness limits and appear to have masses of ~0.005 Msun. In extinction-limited samples of cluster members, NGC 1333 exhibits a higher abundance of objects at lower masses than IC 348. It would be surprising if the initial mass functions of these clusters differ significantly given their similar stellar densities and formation environments. Instead, it is possible that average extinctions are lower for less massive members of star-forming clusters, in which case extinction-limited samples could be biased in favor of low-mass objects in the more heavily embedded clusters like NGC 1333. In the H-R diagram, the median sequences of IC 348 and NGC 1333 coincide with each other for the adopted distances of 300 and 235 pc, which would suggest that they have similar ages. However, NGC 1333 is widely believed to be younger than IC 348 based on its higher abundance of disks and protostars and its greater obscuration. Errors in the adopted distances may be responsible for this discrepancy. [15] Title: Molecular Emission in Dense Massive Clumps from the Star-Forming Regions S231-S235 Comments: 16 pages, 4 figures Journal-ref: Astrophys. Bull., 2016., Vol. 71, Issue 2, P. 208-224 Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) The article deals with observations of star-forming regions S231-S235 in 'quasi-thermal' lines of ammonia (NH_3$), cyanoacetylene (HC$_3$N) and maser lines of methanol (CH$_3$OH) and water vapor (H$_2$O). S231-S235 regions is situated in the giant molecular cloud G174+2.5. We selected all massive molecular clumps in G174+2.5 using archive CO data. For the each clump we determined mass, size and CO column density. After that we performed observations of these clumps. We report about first detections of NH$_3$and HC$_3$N lines toward the molecular clumps WB89 673 and WB89 668. This means that high-density gas is present there. Physical parameters of molecular gas in the clumps were estimated using the data on ammonia emission. We found that the gas temperature and the hydrogen number density are in the ranges 16-30 K and 2.8-7.2$\times10^3$cm$^{-3}$, respectively. The shock-tracing line of CH$_3$OH molecule at 36.2 GHz is newly detected toward WB89 673. [16] Title: Looking for imprints of the first stellar generations in metal-poor bulge field stars Comments: 15 pages, 14 figures, accepted in A&A Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) Context. Efforts to look for signatures of the first stars have concentrated on metal-poor halo objects. However, the low end of the bulge metallicity distribution has been shown to host some of the oldest objects in the Milky Way and hence this Galactic component potentially offers interesting targets to look at imprints of the first stellar generations. As a pilot project, we selected bulge field stars already identified in the ARGOS survey as having [Fe/H] ~ -1 and oversolar [alpha/Fe] ratios, and we used FLAMES-UVES to obtain detailed abundances of key elements that are believed to reveal imprints of the first stellar generations. Aims. The main purpose of this study is to analyse selected ARGOS stars using new high-resolution (R~45,000) and high-signal-to-noise (S/N >100) spectra. We aim to derive their stellar parameters and elemental ratios, in particular the abundances of C, N, the alpha-elements O, Mg, Si, Ca, and Ti, the odd-Z elements Na and Al, the neutron-capture s-process dominated elements Y, Zr, La, and Ba, and the r-element Eu. Methods. High-resolution spectra of five field giant stars were obtained at the 8m VLT UT2-Kueyen telescope with the UVES spectrograph in FLAMES-UVES configuration. Spectroscopic parameters were derived based on the excitation and ionization equilibrium of Fe I and Fe II. The abundance analysis was performed with a MARCS LTE spherical model atmosphere grid and the Turbospectrum spectrum synthesis code. [17] Title: Observational analysis of the well--correlated diffuse bands: 6196 and 6614 Å Comments: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2016 Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) We confirm, using spectra from seven observatories, that the diffuse bands 6196 and 6614 are very tightly correlated. However, their strength ratio is not constant as well as profile shapes. Apparently the two interstellar features do not react in unison to the varying physical conditions of different interstellar clouds. [18] Title: Observation and Simulation of the Variable Gamma-ray Emission from PSR~J2021+4026 Authors: C. W. Ng (1), J. Takata (2), K. S. Cheng (1) ((1) The University of Hong Kong, (2) Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China) Comments: 20 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) Pulsars are rapidly spinning and highly magnetized neutron stars, with highly stable rotational period and gradual spin-down over a long timescale due to the loss of radiation. Glitches refer to the events that suddenly increase the rotational speed of a pulsar. The exact causes of glitches and the resulting processes are not fully understood. It is generally believed that couplings between the normal matter and the superfluid components, and the starquakes, are the common causes of glitches. In this study, one famous glitching pulsar, PSR~J2021+4026, is investigated. PSR~J2021+4026 is the first variable gamma-ray pulsar observed by Fermi. From the gamma-ray observations, it is found that the pulsar experienced a significant flux drop, an increase in the spin-down rate, a change in the pulse profile and a shift in the spectral cut-off to a lower energy, simultaneously around 2011 October 16. To explain these effects on the high-energy emissions by the glitch of PSR~J2021+4026, we hypothesized the glitch to be caused by the rearrangement of the surface magnetic field due to the crustal plate tectonic activities on the pulsar which is triggered by a starquake. In this glitch event, the inclination angle of the magnetic dipole axis is slightly shifted. This proposition is then tested by numerical modeling using a three-dimensional two-layer outer gap model. The simulation results indicate that a modification of the inclination angle can affect the pulse profile and the spectral properties, which can explain the observation changes after the glitch. [19] Title: Dense molecular gas star formation law in Galactic clumps: an extensive survey of HCN (4-3) and CS (7-6) with the ASTE telescope Comments: 20 pages. resubmited to ApJ after taking comments from the referee. Comments welcome Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) We observed 146 Galactic clumps in HCN (4-3) and CS (7-6) with the Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment (ASTE) 10-m telescope. The star formation rates probed by total infrared luminosities (LTIR) are linearly correlated with clump masses (Mclump) for those clumps with LTIR larger than 10^3 Lsun, leading to a constant gas depletion time of ~107 Myr. The correlations between LTIR and molecular line luminosities (Lmol) of HCN (4-3) and CS (7-6) are tight and sublinear extending down to clumps with LTIR 10^3 Lsun. These correlations become linear when extended to external galaxies. A bimodal behavior in the LTIR-Lmol correlations was found for clumps with different dust temperature, luminosity-to-mass ratio, and sigma_line-to-sigma_vir ratio. Such bimodal behavior may be due to evolutionary effects. The slopes of LTIR-Lmol correlations become more shallow as clumps evolve. We compared our results with lower J transition lines in Wu et al. (2010). The correlations between clump masses and line luminosities are close to linear for low effective excitation density tracers but become sublinear for high effective excitation density tracers for clumps with LTIR larger than LTIR 10^4.5 Lsun. High effective excitation density tracers cannot linearly trace the total clump masses, leading to a sublinear correlations for both Mclump-Lmol and LTIR-Lmol relations. [20] Title: Dominance of outflowing electric currents on decaparsec to kiloparsec scales in extragalactic jets Comments: 12 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) Helical magnetic fields embedded in the jets of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are required by the broad range of theoretical models that advocate for electromagnetic launching of the jets. In most models, the direction of the magnetic field is random, but if the axial field is generated by a Cosmic Battery generated by current in the direction of rotation in the accretion disk, there is a correlation between the directions of the spin of the AGN accretion disk and of the axial field, which leads to a specific direction for the axial electric current, azimuthal magnetic field, and the resulting observed transverse Faraday-rotation (FR) gradient across the jet, due to the systematic change in the line-of-sight magnetic field. We consider new observational evidence for the presence of a nested helical magnetic-field structure such as would be brought about by the operation of the Cosmic Battery, and make predictions about the expected behavior of transverse FR gradients observed on decaparsec and kiloparsec scales. The collected results can be understood if the dominant azimuthal field on parsec scales corresponds to an axial electric current flowing inward along the jet, whereas the (weaker) dominant azimuthal field on kiloparsec scales corresponds to a outward-flowing current in the outer sheath of the jet and/or an extended disk wind. [21] Title: Arithmetic with X-ray images of galaxy clusters: effective equation of state for small-scale perturbations in the ICM Comments: 13 pages, 11 figures, submitted to MNRAS Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) We discuss a novel technique of manipulating X-ray images of galaxy clusters to reveal the nature of small-scale density/temperature perturbations in the intra cluster medium (ICM). As we show, this technique can be used to differentiate between sound waves and isobaric perturbations in Chandra images of the Perseus and M87/Virgo clusters. The comparison of the manipulated images with the radio data and with the results of detailed spectral analysis shows that this approach successfully classifies the types of perturbations and helps to reveal their nature. For the central regions (5-100 kpc) of the M87 and Perseus clusters this analysis suggests that observed images are dominated by isobaric perturbations, followed by perturbations caused by bubbles of relativistic plasma and weak shocks. Such a hierarchy is best explained in a "slow" AGN feedback scenario, when much of the mechanical energy output of a central black hole is captured by the bubble enthalpy that is gradually released during buoyant rise of the bubbles. The "image arithmetic" works best for prominent structure and for datasets with excellent statistics, visualizing the perturbations with a given effective equation of state. The same approach can be extended to faint perturbations via cross-spectrum analysis of surface brightness fluctuations in X-ray images in different energy bands. [22] Title: Shock-Turbulence Interaction in Core-Collapse Supernovae Authors: Ernazar Abdikamalov (1), Azamat Zhaksylykov (1), David Radice (2), Shapagat Berdibek (1) ((1) Nazarbayev University, (2) Caltech) Comments: 14 pages, 14 figures. Submitted to MNRAS Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) Nuclear shell burning in the final stages of the lives of massive stars is accompanied by strong turbulent convection. The resulting fluctuations aid supernova explosion by amplifying the non-radial flow in the post-shock region. In this work, we investigate the physical mechanism behind this amplification using a linear perturbation theory. We model the shock wave as a one-dimensional planar discontinuity and consider its interaction with vorticity and entropy perturbations in the upstream flow. We find that, as the perturbations cross the shock, their total turbulent kinetic energy is amplified by a factor of$\sim\!2$, while the average linear size of turbulent eddies decreases by about the same factor. These values are not sensitive to the parameters of the upstream turbulence and the nuclear dissociation efficiency at the shock. Finally, we discuss the implication of our results for the supernova explosion mechanism. We show that the upstream perturbations can decrease the critical neutrino luminosity for producing explosion by several percent. [23] Title: Long-term multi-wavelength variability and correlation study of Markarian 421 from 2007 to 2009 Comments: Corresponding authors: Ann-Kristin Overkemping (ann-kristin.overkemping@tu-dortmund.de), Marina Manganaro (manganaro@iac.es), Diego Tescaro (diego.tescaro@gmail.com), To be published in Astronomy&Astrophysics (A&A), 12 pages, 9 figures Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) We study the multi-band variability and correlations of the TeV blazar Mrk 421 on year time scales, which can bring additional insight on the processes responsible for its broadband emission. We observed Mrk 421 in the very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray range with the Cherenkov telescope MAGIC-I from March 2007 to June 2009 for a total of 96 hours of effective time after quality cuts. The VHE flux variability is quantified with several methods, including the Bayesian Block algorithm, which is applied to data from Cherenkov telescopes for the first time. The 2.3 year long MAGIC light curve is complemented with data from the Swift/BAT and RXTE/ASM satellites and the KVA, GASP-WEBT, OVRO, and Mets\"ahovi telescopes from February 2007 to July 2009, allowing for an excellent characterisation of the multi-band variability and correlations over year time scales. Mrk 421 was found in different gamma-ray emission states during the 2.3 year long observation period. Flares and different levels of variability in the gamma-ray light curve could be identified with the Bayesian Block algorithm. The same behaviour of a quiet and active emission was found in the X-ray light curves measured by Swift/BAT and the RXTE/ASM, with a direct correlation in time. The behaviour of the optical light curve of GASP-WEBT and the radio light curves by OVRO and Mets\"ahovi are different as they show no coincident features with the higher energetic light curves and a less variable emission. The fractional variability is overall increasing with energy. The comparable variability in the X-ray and VHE bands and their direct correlation during both high- and low-activity periods spanning many months show that the electron populations radiating the X-ray and gamma-ray photons are either the same, as expected in the Synchrotron-Self-Compton mechanism, or at least strongly correlated, as expected in electromagnetic cascades. [24] Title: Properties of massive star-forming clumps with infall motions Comments: 26 pages, 26 figures, accepted for publication on MNRAS Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) In this work, we aim to characterise high-mass clumps with infall motions. We selected 327 clumps from the Millimetre Astronomy Legacy Team 90-GHz (MALT90) survey, and identified 100 infall candidates. Combined with the results of He et al. (2015), we obtained a sample of 732 high-mass clumps, including 231 massive infall candidates and 501 clumps where infall is not detected. Objects in our sample were classified as pre-stellar, proto-stellar, HII or photo-dissociation region (PDR). The detection rates of the infall candidates in the pre-stellar, proto-stellar, HII and PDR stages are 41.2%, 36.6%, 30.6% and 12.7%, respectively. The infall candidates have a higher H$_{2}$column density and volume density compared with the clumps where infall is not detected at every stage. For the infall candidates, the median values of the infall rates at the pre-stellar, proto-stellar, HII and PDR stages are 2.6$\times$10$^{-3}$, 7.0$\times$10$^{-3}$, 6.5$\times$10$^{-3}$and 5.5$\times$10$^{-3}$M$_\odot$yr$^{-1}$, respectively. These values indicate that infall candidates at later evolutionary stages are still accumulating material efficiently. It is interesting to find that both infall candidates and clumps where infall is not detected show a clear trend of increasing mass from the pre-stellar to proto-stellar, and to the HII stages. The power indices of the clump mass function (ClMF) are 2.04$\pm$0.16 and 2.17$\pm$0.31 for the infall candidates and clumps where infall is not detected, respectively, which agree well with the power index of the stellar initial mass function (2.35) and the cold Planck cores (2.0). [25] Title: Cosmic Shear as a Probe of Galaxy Formation Physics Comments: 14 pages, 12 figures Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) We evaluate the potential for current and future cosmic shear measurements from large galaxy surveys to constrain the impact of baryonic physics on the matter power spectrum. We do so using a model-independent parameterization that describes deviations of the matter power spectrum from the dark-matter-only case as a set of principal components that are localized in wavenumber and redshift. We perform forecasts for a variety of current and future datasets, and find that at least ~90% of the constraining power of these datasets is contained in no more than nine principal components. The constraining power of different surveys can be quantified using a figure of merit defined relative to currently available surveys. With this metric, we find that the final Dark Energy Survey dataset (DES Y5) and the Hyper Suprime Cam Survey will be roughly an order of magnitude more powerful than existing data in constraining baryonic effects. Upcoming Stage IV surveys (LSST, Euclid, and WFIRST) will improve upon this by a further factor of a few. We show that this conclusion is robust to marginalization over several key systematics. The ultimate power of cosmic shear to constrain galaxy formation is dependent on understanding systematics in the shear measurements at small (sub-arcminute) scales. If these systematics can be sufficiently controlled, cosmic shear measurements from DES Y5 and other future surveys have the potential to provide a very clean probe of galaxy formation and to strongly constrain a wide range of predictions from modern hydrodynamical simulations. [26] Title: Direct Ejecta Velocity Measurements of Tycho's Supernova Remnant Authors: Toshiki Sato (1, 2, 3), John P. Hughes (3) ((1) Tokyo Metropolitan University, (2) ISAS/JAXA, (3) Rutgers University) Comments: Submitted to ApJ, 16 pages, 13 figures, 6 tables Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) We present the first direct ejecta velocity measurements of Tycho's supernova remnant (SNR). Chandra's high angular resolution images reveal a patchy structure of radial velocities in the ejecta that can be separated into distinct redshifted, blueshifted, and low velocity ejecta clumps or blobs. The typical velocities of the redshifted and blueshifted blobs are <~ 7,800 km/s and <~ 5,000 km/s, respectively. The highest velocity blobs are located near the center, while the low velocity ones appear near the edge as expected for a generally spherical expansion. Systematic uncertainty on the velocity measurements from gain calibration was assessed by carrying out joint fits of individual blobs with both the ACIS-I and ACIS-S detectors. We identified an annular region (~3.3'-3.5'), where the surface brightness in the Si, S, and Fe K lines reaches a peak while the line width reaches a minimum value. These minimum line widths correspond to ion temperatures of ~1 MeV for each of the three species, in excellent agreement with one-dimensional model calculations. We determine the three-dimensional kinematics of the Si- and Fe-rich clumps in the southeastern quadrant and show that these knots form a distinct, compact, and kinematically-connected structure, possibly even a chain of knots strung along the remnant's edge. By examining the viewing geometries we conclude that the knots in the southeastern region are unlikely to be responsible for the high velocity Ca II absorption features seen in the light echo spectrum of Tycho's SNR. [27] Title: KIC 6220497: A New Algol-type Eclipsing Binary with Multiperiodic Pulsations Comments: 15 pages, including 8 figures and 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) We present both binarity and pulsation of KIC 6220497 from the {\it Kepler} observations. The light curve synthesis shows that the eclipsing system is a semi-detached Algol with parameters of$q$= 0.243$\pm$0.001,$i$= 77.3$\pm$0.3 deg, and$\Delta T$= 3,372$\pm$58 K, in which the detached primary component fills its Roche lobe by$\sim$87\%. A multiple frequency analysis of the eclipse-subtracted light residuals reveals 33 frequencies in the range of 0.75$-$20.22 d$^{-1}$with amplitudes between 0.27 and 4.56 mmag. Among these, four are pulsation frequencies in fundamental ($f_1$,$f_5$) and$p$($f_2$,$f_7$) modes, and six are orbital frequency ($f_8$,$f_{31}$) and its harmonics ($f_6$,$f_{11}$,$f_{20}$,$f_{24}$), which can be attributed to tidally excited modes. For the pulsation frequencies, the pulsation constants of 0.16$-$0.33 d and the period ratios of$P_{\rm pul}/P_{\rm orb}$= 0.042$-$0.089 indicate that the primary component is a$\delta$Sct pulsating star and, thus, KIC 6220497 is an oscillating eclipsing Algol (oEA) star. The dominant pulsation period of 0.1174051$\pm$0.0000004 d is significantly longer than that expected from empirical relations that link the pulsation period with the orbital period. The surface gravity of$\log g_1$= 3.78$\pm$0.03 is clearly smaller than those of the other oEA stars with similar orbital periods. The pulsation period and the surface gravity of the pulsating primary demonstrate that KIC 6220497 would be the more evolved EB, compared with normal oEA stars. [28] Title: Magnetar heating Authors: Andrei M. Beloborodov, Xinyu Li (Columbia University) Comments: 21 pages, 15 figures, submitted to ApJ Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) We examine four candidate mechanisms that could explain the high surface temperatures of magnetars. (1) Heat flux from the liquid core heated by ambipolar diffusion. It could sustain the observed surface luminosity$L_s\approx 10^{35}$erg s$^{-1}$if core heating offsets neutrino cooling at a temperature$T_{\rm core}>6\times 10^8$K. This scenario is viable if the core magnetic field exceeds$10^{16}$G, the magnetar has mass$M<1.4 M_\odot$, and its heat-blanketing envelope has a light element composition. We find however that the lifetime of such a hot core should be shorter than the typical observed lifetime of magnetars. (2) Mechanical dissipation in the solid crust. This heating can be quasi-steady, powered by gradual (or frequent) crustal yielding to magnetic stresses. We show that it obeys a strong upper limit. As long as the crustal stresses are fostered by the field evolution in the core or Hall drift in the crust, mechanical heating is insufficient to sustain persistent$L_s\approx 10^{35}$erg s$^{-1}$. The surface luminosity is increased in an alternative scenario of mechanical deformations triggered by external magnetospheric flares. (3) Ohmic dissipation in the crust, in volume or current sheets. This mechanism is inefficient because of the high conductivity of the crust. Only extreme magnetic configurations with crustal fields$B>10^{16}$G varying on a 100 meter scale could provide$L_s\approx 10^{35}$erg s$^{-1}$. (4) Bombardment of the stellar surface by particles accelerated in the magnetosphere. This mechanism produces hot spots on magnetars. Observations of transient magnetars show evidence for external heating. [29] Title: A deep / wide 1-2 GHz snapshot survey of SDSS Stripe 82 using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in a compact hybrid configuration Comments: 20 pages, 14 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) We have used the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array to image ~100 sq. deg. of SDSS Stripe 82 at 1-2 GHz. The survey consists of 1,026 snapshot observations of 2.5 minutes duration, using the hybrid CnB configuration. The survey has good sensitivity to diffuse, low surface brightness structures and extended radio emission, making it highly synergistic with existing 1.4 GHz radio observations of the region. The principal data products are continuum images, with 16 x 10 arcsecond resolution, and a catalogue containing 11,782 point and Gaussian components resulting from fits to the thresholded Stokes-I brightness distribution, forming approximately 8,948 unique radio sources. The typical effective 1{\sigma} noise level is 88 {\mu}Jy / beam. Spectral index estimates are included, as derived from the 1 GHz of instantaneous bandwidth. Astrometric and photometric accuracy are in excellent agreement with existing narrowband observations. A large-scale simulation is used to investigate clean bias, which we extend into the spectral domain. Clean bias remains an issue for snapshot surveys with the VLA, affecting our total intensity measurements at the ~1{\sigma} level. Statistical spectral index measurements are in good agreement with existing measurements derived from matching separate surveys at two frequencies. At flux densities below ~35{\sigma} the median in-band spectral index measurements begin to exhibit a bias towards flatness that is dependent on both flux density and the intrinsic spectral index. In-band spectral curvature measurements are likely to be unreliable for all but the very brightest components. Image products and catalogues are publicly available via an FTP server. [30] Title: Time-domain and spectral properties of pulsars at 154 MHz Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) We present 154 MHz Murchison Widefield Array imaging observations and variability information for a sample of pulsars. Over the declination range$-80^{\circ} < {\delta} < 10^{\circ}$we detect 17 known pulsars with mean flux density greater than 0.3 Jy. We explore the variability properties of this sample on timescales of minutes to years. For three of these pulsars, PSR J0953+0755, PSR J0437-4715 and PSR J0630-2834 we observe interstellar scintillation and variability on timescales of greater than 2 minutes. One further pulsar, PSR J0034-0721, showed significant variability, the physical origins of which are difficult to determine. The dynamic spectra for PSR J0953+0755 and PSR J0437-4715 show discrete time and frequency structure consistent with diffractive interstellar scintillation and we present the scintillation bandwidth and timescales from these observations. The remaining pulsars within our sample were statistically non-variable. We also explore the spectral properties of this sample and find spectral curvature in pulsars PSR J0835-4510, PSR J1752-2806 and PSR J0437-4715. [31] Title: Hyper-Eddington mass accretion onto a black hole with super-Eddington luminosity Comments: 9 pages, 9 figures, submitted to MNRAS Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) We perform one-dimensional radiation hydrodynamical simulations to solve spherically symmetric accretion flows onto massive black holes (BHs) with a very high rate. Assuming that photon trapping limits the luminosity emerging from the central region to$L\lesssim L_{\rm Edd}$, IHO16 have shown that a sufficiently rapid accretion flow settles to a "hyper-Eddington" solution, with a steady and isothermal ($T\simeq 8000$K) Bondi profile reaching$\gtrsim 5000$times the Eddington accretion rate$\dot{M}_{\rm Edd}\equiv L_{\rm Edd}/c^2$. Here we address the possibility that gas accreting with finite angular momentum forms a bright nuclear accretion disc, with a luminosity exceeding the Eddington limit ($1\lesssim L/L_{\rm Edd} \lesssim 100$). Combining our simulations with an analytic model, we find that a transition to steady hyper-Eddington accretion still occurs, as long as the luminosity of the central source remains below$L/L_{\rm Edd} \lesssim 35~(M_{\rm BH}/10^4~M_\odot)^{3/2} (n_\infty/10^5~{\rm cm^{-3}}) (T_\infty/10^4~{\rm K})^{-3/2} (r_{\star}/10^{14}~{\rm cm})^{-1/2}$, where$n_\infty$and$T_\infty$are the density and temperature of the ambient gas, and$r_\star$is the radius of the photosphere, at which the radiation emerges. If the luminosity exceeds this value, accretion becomes strongly episodic. Our results can be accurately recovered in a toy model of an optically thick spherical shell, driven by radiation force into a rapidly collapsing medium. When the central source is dimmer than the above critical value, the expansion of the shell is halted and reversed by the ram pressure of the collapsing medium, and by the shell's accumulating weight. Our results imply that rapid, unimpeded hyper-Eddington accretion is possible even if the luminosity of the central source far exceeds the Eddington limit, and can be either steady or strongly episodic. [32] Title: Temperature spectra of interstellar dust grains heated by cosmic-rays I: translucent clouds Authors: Juris Kalvāns Comments: 30 one column pages, 4 tables, 6 figures + 18 data tables in two Appendices. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) Heating of whole interstellar dust grains by cosmic-ray (CR) particles affects the gas-grain chemistry in molecular clouds by promoting molecule desorption, diffusion, and chemical reactions on grain surfaces. The frequency of such heating$f_T$, s$^{-1}$, determines how often a certain temperature$T_{\rm CR}$, K, is reached for grains hit by CR particles. This study aims to provide astrochemists with comprehensive and updated dataset on the CR-induced whole-grain heating. We present calculations of$f_T$and$T_{\rm CR}$spectra for bare olivine grains with radius$a$of 0.05; 0.1; 0.2$\mu$m, and such grains covered with ice mantles of thickness 0.1$a$and 0.3$a$. Grain shape and structure effects are considered, as well as 30 CR elemental constituents with an updated energy spectrum corresponding to a translucent cloud with$A_V=2$mag. Energy deposition by CRs in grain material was calculated with the SRIM program. We report full$T_{\rm CR}$spectra for all nine grain types and consider initial grain temperatures of 10 K and 20 K. We also provide frequencies for a range of minimum$T_{\rm CR}$values. The calculated dataset can be simply and flexibly implemented in astrochemical models. The results show that, in the case of translucent clouds, the currently adopted rate for heating of whole grains to temperatures in excess of 70 K is underestimated by approximately two orders of magnitude in astrochemical numerical simulations. Additionally, grains are heated by CRs to modest temperatures (20--30 K) with intervals of a few years, which reduces the possibility of ice chemical explosions. [33] Title: Cosmic Shear Bias and Calibration in Cosmic Shear Studies Comments: 10 pages, 3 figures Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) With the advent of large-scale weak lensing surveys there is a need to understand how realistic, scale-dependent systematics bias cosmic shear and dark energy measurements, and how they can be removed. Here we describe how spatial variations in the amplitude and orientation of realistic image distortions convolve with the measured shear field, mixing the even-parity convergence and odd-parity modes, and bias the shear power spectrum. Many of these biases can be removed by calibration to external data, the survey itself, or by modelling in simulations. The uncertainty in the calibration must be marginalised over and we calculate how this propagates into parameter estimation, degrading the dark energy Figure-of-Merit. We find that noise-like biases affect dark energy measurements the most, while spikes in the bias power have the least impact, reflecting their correlation with the effect of cosmological parameters. We argue that in order to remove systematic biases in cosmic shear surveys and maintain statistical power effort should be put into improving the accuracy of the bias calibration rather than minimising the size of the bias. In general, this appears to be a weaker condition for bias removal. We also investigate how to minimise the size of the calibration set for a fixed reduction in the Figure-of-Merit. These results can be used to model the effect of biases and calibration on a cosmic shear survey accurately, assess their impact on the measurement of modified gravity and dark energy models, and to optimise surveys and calibration requirements. [34] Title: Effect of the drag force on the orbital motion of the broad-line region clouds Comments: Accepted for publication in ApJ Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) We investigate orbital motion of cold clouds in the broad line region of active galactic nuclei subject to the gravity of a black hole and a force due to a nonisotropic central source and a drag force proportional to the velocity square. The intercloud is described using the standard solutions for the advection-dominated accretion flows. Orbit of a cloud decays because of the drag force, but the typical time scale of falling of clouds onto the central black hole is shorter comparing to the linear drag case. This time scale is calculated when a cloud is moving through a static or rotating intercloud. We show that when the drag force is a quadratic function of the velocity, irrespective of the initial conditions and other input parameters, clouds will generally fall onto the central region much faster than the age of whole system and since cold clouds present in most of the broad line regions, we suggest that mechanisms for continuous creation of the clouds must operate in these systems. [35] Title: Drag-driven instability of a dust layer in a magnetized protoplanetary disc Comments: Accepted for publication in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) We study drag-driven instability in a protoplanetary disc consisting of a layer of single-sized dust particles which are coupled to the magnetized gas aerodynamically and the particle-to-gas feedback is included. We find a dispersion relation for axisymmetric linear disturbances and growth rate of the unstable modes are calculated numerically. While the secular gravitational instability in the absence of particle-to-gas feedback predicts the dust layer is unstable, magnetic fields significantly amplifies the instability if the Toomre parameter for the gas component is fixed. We also show that even a weak magnetic field is able to amplify the instability more or less irrespective of the dust-gas coupling. [36] Title: The Xinglong 2.16-m Telescope: Current Instruments and Scientific Projects Comments: 16 figures, 5 tables; accepted for publication in PASP Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) The Xinglong 2.16-m reflector is the first 2-meter class astronomical telescope in China. It was jointly designed and built by the Nanjing Astronomical Instruments Factory (NAIF), Beijing Astronomical Observatory (now National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, NAOC) and Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1989. It is Ritchey-Chr\'{e}tien (R-C) reflector on an English equatorial mount and the effective aperture is 2.16 meters. It had been the largest optical telescope in China for$\sim18$years until the Guoshoujing Telescope (also called Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope, LAMOST) and the Lijiang 2.4-m telescope were built. At present, there are three main instruments on the Cassegrain focus available: the Beijing Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera (BFOSC) for direct imaging and low resolution ($R\sim500-2000$) spectroscopy, the spectrograph made by Optomechanics Research Inc. (OMR) for low resolution spectroscopy (the spectral resolutions are similar to those of BFOSC) and the fiber-fed High Resolution Spectrograph (HRS,$R\sim30000-65000$). The telescope is widely open to astronomers all over China as well as international astronomical observers. Each year there are more than 40 ongoing observing projects, including 6-8 key projects. Recently, some new techniques and instruments (e.g., astro-frequency comb calibration system, polarimeter and adaptive optics) have been or will be tested on the telescope to extend its observing abilities. [37] Title: The K2-ESPRINT Project V: a short-period giant planet orbiting a subgiant star Comments: Accepted for publication in AJ Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) We report on the discovery and characterization of the transiting planet K2-39b (EPIC 206247743b). With an orbital period of 4.6 days, it is the shortest-period planet orbiting a subgiant star known to date. Such planets are rare, with only a handful of known cases. The reason for this is poorly understood, but may reflect differences in planet occurrence around the relatively high-mass stars that have been surveyed, or may be the result of tidal destruction of such planets. K2-39 is an evolved star with a spectroscopically derived stellar radius and mass of$3.88^{+0.48}_{-0.42}~\mathrm{R_\odot}$and$1.53^{+0.13}_{-0.12}~\mathrm{M_\odot}$, respectively, and a very close-in transiting planet, with$a/R_\star = 3.4$. Radial velocity (RV) follow-up using the HARPS, FIES and PFS instruments leads to a planetary mass of$50.3^{+9.7}_{-9.4}~\mathrm{M_\oplus}$. In combination with a radius measurement of$8.3 \pm 1.1~\mathrm{R_\oplus}$, this results in a mean planetary density of$0.50^{+0.29}_{-0.17}$g~cm$^{-3}$. We furthermore discover a long-term RV trend, which may be caused by a long-period planet or stellar companion. Because K2-39b has a short orbital period, its existence makes it seem unlikely that tidal destruction is wholly responsible for the differences in planet populations around subgiant and main-sequence stars. Future monitoring of the transits of this system may enable the detection of period decay and constrain the tidal dissipation rates of subgiant stars. [38] Title: A lambda 3mm and 1mm line survey toward the yellow hypergiant IRC +10420 Comments: 31 Pages, 9 figures Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) Our knowledge of the chemical properties of the circumstellar ejecta of the most massive evolved stars is particularly poor. We aim to study the chemical characteristics of the prototypical yellow hypergiant star, IRC +10420. For this purpose, we obtained full line surveys at 1 and 3mm atmospheric windows. We have identified 106 molecular emission lines from 22 molecular species. Approximately half of the molecules detected are N-bearing species, in particular HCN, HNC, CN, NO, NS, PN, and N2H+. We used rotational diagrams to derive the density and rotational temperature of the di?erent molecular species detected. We introduced an iterative method that allows us to take moderate line opacities into account. We have found that IRC +10420 presents high abundances of the N-bearing molecules compared with O-rich evolved stars. This result supports the presence of a N-rich chemistry, expected for massive stars. Our analysis also suggests a decrease of the 12C/13C ratio from \gtrsim 7 to \sim 3.7 in the last 3800 years, which can be directly related to the nitrogen enrichment observed. In addition, we found that SiO emission presents a significant intensity decrease for high-J lines when compared with older observations. Radiative transfer modeling shows that this variation can be explained by a decrease in the infrared (IR) flux of the dust. The origin of this decrease might be an expansion of the dust shell or a lower stellar temperature due to the pulsation of the star. [39] Title: Four dual AGN candidates observed with the VLBA Comments: 35 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) According to hierarchical structure formation models, merging galaxies are expected to be seen in different stages of their coalescence. However, currently there are no straightforward observational methods neither to select nor to confirm a large number of dual active galactic nuclei (AGN) candidates. Most attempts involve the better understanding of double-peaked narrow emission line sources, to distinguish the objects where the emission lines originate from narrow-line kinematics or jet-driven outflows from those which might harbour dual AGN. We observed four such candidate sources with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) at 1.5 GHz with$\sim10 milli-arcsecond angular resolution where spectral profiles of AGN optical emission suggested the existence of dual AGN. In SDSS J210449.13-000919.1 and SDSS J23044.82-093345.3, the radio structures are aligned with the optical emission features, thus the double-peaked emission lines might be the results of jet-driven outflows. In the third detected source SDSS J115523.74+150756.9, the radio structure is less extended and oriented nearly perpendicular to the position angle derived from optical spectroscopy. The fourth source remained undetected with the VLBA but it has been imaged with the Very Large Array at arcsec resolution a few months before our observations, suggesting the existence of extended radio structure. In none of the four sources did we detect two radio-emitting cores, a convincing signature of duality. [40] Title: Constraining light gravitino mass with 21 cm line observation Comments: 34 pages, 5 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1510.03806 Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) We investigate how well we can constrain the mass of light gravitino m_3/2 by using future observations of 21 cm line fluctuations such as Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and Omniscope. Models with light gravitino with the mass m_3/2 < O(10) eV are quite interesting because they are free from the cosmological gravitino problem and consistent with many baryogenesis/leptogenesis scenarios. We evaluate expected constraints on the mass of light gravitino from the observations of 21 cm line, and show that the observations are quite useful to prove the mass. If the gravitino mass is m_3/2 = 1 eV, we found expected 1 sigma errors on m_3/2 are sigma(m_3/2) = 0.25 eV (SKA phase 1), 0.16 eV (SKA phase 2) and 0.067 eV (Omniscope) in combination with Planck + Simons Array + DESI (BAO) + H_0. Additionally, we also discuss detectability of the effective number of neutrino species by varying the effective number of neutrino species for light gravitino N_3/2 and constraints on the mass of light gravitino in the presence of massive neutrinos. We show that 21 cm line observations can detect the nonzero value of N_3/2, and allow us to distinguish the effects of the light gravitino from those of massive neutrino. [41] Title: A new gravitational-wave signature of SASI activities in non-rotating supernova cores Comments: 7 pages, 5 figures Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) We present results from fully relativistic three-dimensional core-collapse supernova (CCSN) simulations of a non-rotating 15 M_sun star using three different nuclear equations of state (EoSs). From our simulations covering up to ~350 ms after bounce, we show that the development of the standing accretion shock instability (SASI) differs significantly depending on the stiffness of nuclear EoS. Generally, the SASI activity occurs more vigorously in models with softer EoS. By evaluating the gravitational-wave (GW) emission, we find a new GW signature on top of the previously identified one, in which the typical GW frequency increases with time due to an accumulating accretion to the proto-neutron star (PNS). The newly observed quasi-periodic signal appears in the frequency range from ~100 to 200 Hz and persists for ~150 ms before neutrino-driven convection dominates over the SASI. By analyzing the cycle frequency of the SASI sloshing and spiral modes as well as the mass accretion rate to the emission region, we show that the SASI frequency is correlated with the GW frequency. This is because the SASI-induced strong downflows intermittently strike the PNS surface, leading to the quasi-periodic GW emission. Our results show that the GW signal, which could be a smoking-gun signature of the SASI, is within the detection limits of LIGO, advanced Virgo, and KAGRA for Galactic events. [42] Title: Fine tuning consensus optimization for distributed radio interferometric calibration Authors: Sarod Yatawatta Comments: Draft, to be published in the Proceedings of the 24th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO-2016) in 2016, published by EURASIP Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing (cs.DC) We recently proposed the use of consensus optimization as a viable and effective way to improve the quality of calibration of radio interferometric data. We showed that it is possible to obtain far more accurate calibration solutions and also to distribute the compute load across a network of computers by using this technique. A crucial aspect in any consensus optimization problem is the selection of the penalty parameter used in the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) iterations. This affects the convergence speed as well as the accuracy. In this paper, we use the Hessian of the cost function used in calibration to appropriately select this penalty. We extend our results to a multi-directional calibration setting, where we propose to use a penalty scaled by the squared intensity of each direction. [43] Title: Pinwheels in the sky, with dust: 3D modeling of the Wolf-Rayet 98a environment Comments: Accepted for publication in mnras Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) The Wolf-Rayet 98a (WR 98a) system is a prime target for interferometric surveys, since its identification as a "rotating pinwheel nebulae", where infrared images display a spiral dust lane revolving with a 1.4 year periodicity. WR 98a hosts a WC9+OB star, and the presence of dust is puzzling given the extreme luminosities of Wolf-Rayet stars. We present 3D hydrodynamic models for WR 98a, where dust creation and redistribution are self-consistently incorporated. Our grid-adaptive simulations resolve details in the wind collision region at scales below one percent of the orbital separation (~4 AU), while simulating up to 1300 AU. We cover several orbital periods under conditions where the gas component alone behaves adiabatic, or is subject to effective radiative cooling. In the adiabatic case, mixing between stellar winds is effective in a well-defined spiral pattern, where optimal conditions for dust creation are met. When radiative cooling is incorporated, the interaction gets dominated by thermal instabilities along the wind collision region, and dust concentrates in clumps and filaments in a volume-filling fashion, so WR 98a must obey close to adiabatic evolutions to demonstrate the rotating pinwheel structure. We mimic Keck, ALMA or future E-ELT observations and confront photometric long-term monitoring. We predict an asymmetry in the dust distribution between leading and trailing edge of the spiral, show that ALMA and E-ELT would be able to detect fine-structure in the spiral indicative of Kelvin-Helmholtz development, and confirm the variation in photometry due to the orientation. Historic Keck images are reproduced, but their resolution is insufficient to detect the details we predict. [44] Title: AMiBA: Cluster Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect Observations with the Expanded 13-Element Array Comments: 19 pages, 18 figures, submitted to ApJ Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) The Yuan-Tseh Lee Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy (AMiBA) is a co-planar interferometer array operating at a wavelength of 3mm to measure the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (SZE) of galaxy clusters. In the first phase of operation -- with a compact 7-element array with 0.6m antennas (AMiBA-7) -- we observed six clusters at angular scales from 5\arcmin to 23\arcmin. Here, we describe the expansion of AMiBA to a 13-element array with 1.2m antennas (AMiBA-13), its subsequent commissioning, and our cluster SZE observing program. The most important changes compared to AMiBA-7 are (1) array re-configuration with baselines ranging from 1.4m to 4.8m covering angular scales from 2\arcmin to 11.5\arcmin, (2) thirteen new lightweight carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) 1.2m reflectors, and (3) additional correlators and six new receivers. From the AMiBA-13 SZE observing program, we present here maps of a subset of twelve clusters. In highlights, we combine AMiBA-7 and AMiBA-13 observations of Abell 1689 and perform a joint fitting assuming a generalized NFW pressure profile. Our cylindrically integrated Compton-y values for this cluster are consistent with the BIMA/OVRA, SZA, and Planck results. Finally, we report the first targeted SZE detection towards the optically selected galaxy cluster RCS J1447+0828, and we demonstrate the ability of AMiBA SZE data to serve as a proxy for the total cluster mass. [45] Title: Three X-ray Flares Near Primary Eclipse of the RS CVn Binary XY UMa Comments: 13 pages, 2 figures, RAA accepted Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) We report on an archival X-ray observation of the eclipsing RS CVn binary XY UMa (\rm P_{orb}\approx$0.48d). In two$\emph{Chandra}$ACIS observations spanning 200 ks and almost five orbital periods, three flares occurred. We find no evidence for eclipses in the X-ray flux. The flares took place around times of primary eclipse, with one flare occurring shortly ($<0.125\rm P_{orb}$) after a primary eclipse, and the other two happening shortly ($<0.05\rm P_{orb}$) before a primary eclipse. Two flares occurred within roughly one orbital period ($\Delta \phi\approx1.024\rm P_{orb}$) of each other. We analyze the light curve and spectra of the system, and investigate coronal length scales both during quiescence and during flares, as well as the timing of the flares. We explore the possibility that the flares are orbit-induced by introducing a small orbital eccentricity, which is quite challenging for this close binary. [46] Title: Development of SED Camera for Quasars in Early Universe (SQUEAN) Comments: 31 pages, 14 figures Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) We describe the characteristics and performance of a camera system, Spectral energy distribution Camera for Quasars in Early Universe (SQUEAN). It was developed to measure SEDs of high redshift quasar candidates (z$\gtrsim$5) and other targets, e.g., young stellar objects, supernovae, and gamma-ray bursts, and to trace the time variability of SEDs of objects such as active galactic nuclei (AGNs). SQUEAN consists of an on-axis focal plane camera module, an auto-guiding system, and mechanical supporting structures. The science camera module is composed of a focal reducer, a customizable filter wheel, and a CCD camera on the focal plane. The filter wheel uses filter cartridges that can house filters with different shapes and sizes, enabling the filter wheel to hold twenty filters of 50 mm$\times$50 mm size, ten filters of 86 mm$\times$86 mm size, or many other combinations. The initial filter mask was applied to calibrate the filter wheel with high accuracy and we verified that the filter position is repeatable at much less than one pixel accuracy. We installed and tested 50 nm medium bandwidth filters of 600 -- 1,050 nm and other filters at the commissioning observation in 2015 February. We found that SQUEAN can reach limiting magnitudes of 23.3 - 25.3 AB mag at 5-$\sigma$in a 1-hour total integration time. - 25.3 AB mag at 5-$\sigma$in a 1-hour total integration time. [47] Title: The slowly pulsating B-star 18 Peg: A testbed for upper main sequence stellar evolution Comments: 14 pages, 12 figures, Astronomy and Astrophysics, accepted Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) The predicted width of the upper main sequence in stellar evolution models depends on the empirical calibration of the convective overshooting parameter. Despite decades of discussions, its precise value is still unknown and further observational constraints are required to gauge it. Based on a photometric and preliminary asteroseismic analysis, we show that the mid B-type giant 18 Peg is one of the most evolved members of the rare class of slowly pulsating B-stars and, thus, bears tremendous potential to derive a tight lower limit for the width of the upper main sequence. In addition, 18 Peg turns out to be part of a single-lined spectroscopic binary system with an eccentric orbit that is greater than 6 years. Further spectroscopic and photometric monitoring and a sophisticated asteroseismic investigation are required to exploit the full potential of this star as a benchmark object for stellar evolution theory. [48] Title: GAVIP: A Platform for Gaia Data Analysis Comments: 19 pages, 8 figures. To appear at SPIE 2016 Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) Gaia is a major European Space Agency (ESA) astrophysics mission designed to map and analyse 10$^9$stars, ultimately generating more than 1 PetaByte of data products. As Gaia data becomes publicly available and reaches a wider audience, there is an increasing need to facilitate the further use of Gaia products without needing to download large datasets. The Gaia Added Value Interface Platform (GAVIP) is designed to address this challenge by providing an innovative platform within which scientists can submit and deploy code, packaged as "Added Value Interfaces" (AVIs), which will be executed close to the data. Deployed AVIs and associated outputs may also be made available to other GAVIP platform users, thus providing a mechanism for scientific experiment reproducibility. This paper describes the capabilities and features of GAVIP. [49] Title: The Latin American Giant Observatory: a successful collaboration in Latin America based on Cosmic Rays and computer science domains Comments: to be published in Proccedings of the 16th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud, and Grid Computing Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing (cs.DC) In this work the strategy of the Latin American Giant Observatory (LAGO) to build a Latin American collaboration is presented. Installing Cosmic Rays detectors settled all around the Continent, from Mexico to the Antarctica, this collaboration is forming a community that embraces both high energy physicist and computer scientists. This is so because the data that are measured must be analytical processed and due to the fact that \textit{a priori} and \textit{a posteriori} simulations representing the effects of the radiation must be performed. To perform the calculi, customized codes have been implemented by the collaboration. With regard to the huge amount of data emerging from this network of sensors and from the computational simulations performed in a diversity of computing architectures and e-infrastructures, an effort is being carried out to catalog and preserve a vast amount of data produced by the water-Cherenkov Detector network and the complete LAGO simulation workflow that characterize each site. Metadata, Permanent Identifiers and the facilities from the LAGO Data Repository are described in this work jointly with the simulation codes used. These initiatives allow researchers to produce and find data and to directly use them in a code running by means of a Science Gateway that provides access to different clusters, Grid and Cloud infrastructures worldwide. [50] Title: Planetary Nebulae in the Small Magellanic Cloud Comments: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 11 pages, 4 figures Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) We analyse the planetary nebulae (PNe) population of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), based on evolutionary models of stars with metallicities in the range$10^{-3} \leq Z \leq 4\times 10^{-3}$and mass$0.9 M\odot < M < 8M\odot$, evolved through the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase. The models used account for dust formation in the circumstellar envelope. To characterise the PNe sample of the SMC, we compare the observed abundances of the various species with the final chemical composition of the AGB models: this study allows us to identify the progenitors of the PNe observed, in terms of mass and chemical composition. According to our interpretation, most of the PNe descend from low-mass ($M < 2 M\odot$) stars, which become carbon rich, after experiencing repeated third dredge-up episodes, during the AGB phase. A fraction of the PNe showing the signature of advanced CNO processing are interpreted as the progeny of massive AGB stars, with mass above$\sim 6 M\odot$, undergoing strong hot bottom burning. The differences with the chemical composition of the PNe population of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is explained on the basis of the diverse star formation history and age-metallicity relation of the two galaxies. The implications of the present study for some still highly debated points regarding the AGB evolution are also commented. [51] Title: Strategies in seismic inference of supergranular flows on the Sun Comments: Accepted in ApJ, 12 pages, 10 figures, 1 table Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) Observations of the solar surface reveal the presence of flows with length scales of around$35$Mm, commonly referred to as supergranules. Inferring the sub-surface flow profile of supergranules from measurements of the surface and photospheric wavefield is an important challenge faced by helioseismology. Traditionally, the inverse problem has been approached by studying the linear response of seismic waves in a horizontally translationally invariant background to the presence of the supergranule; following an iterative approach that does not depend on horizontal translational invariance might perform better, since the misfit can be analyzed post iterations. In this work, we construct synthetic observations using a reference supergranule, and invert for the flow profile using surface measurements of travel-times of waves belonging to modal ridges$f$(surface-gravity) and$p_{1}$through$p_{7}$(acoustic). We study the extent to which individual modes and their combinations contribute to infer the flow. We show that this method of non-linear iterative inversion tends to underestimate the flow velocities as well as inferring a shallower flow profile, with significant deviations from the reference supergranule near the surface. We carry out a similar analysis for a sound-speed perturbation and find that analogous near-surface deviations persist, although the iterations converge faster and more accurately. We conclude that a better approach to inversion would be to expand the supergranule profile in an appropriate basis, thereby reducing the number of parameters being inverted for and appropriately regularizing them. [52] Title: The Distribution of Mass Surface Densities in a High-Mass Protocluster Comments: Submitted to ApJ, comments welcome. 8 pages, 5 figures Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) We study the probability distribution function (PDF) of mass surface densities,$\Sigma$, of infrared dark cloud (IRDC) G028.37+00.07 and its surrounding giant molecular cloud. This PDF constrains the physical processes, such as turbulence, magnetic fields and self-gravity, that are expected to be controlling cloud structure and star formation activity. The chosen IRDC is of particular interest since it has almost 100,000 solar masses within a radius of 8 parsecs, making it one of the most massive, dense molecular structures known and is thus a potential site for the formation of a "super star cluster." We study$\Sigma$in two ways. First, we use a combination of NIR and MIR extinction maps that are able to probe the bulk of the cloud structure up to$\Sigma\sim1\:{\rm{g\:cm}^{-2}}\:$($A_V\simeq200$~mag). Second, we study the FIR and sub-mm dust continuum emission from the cloud utilizing Herschel PACS and SPIRE images and paying careful attention to the effects of foreground and background contamination. We find that the PDFs from both methods, applied over a$\sim20^\prime$(30~pc)-sized region that contains$\simeq1.5\times10^5\:M_\odot$and encloses a minimum closed contour with$\Sigma\simeq0.013\:{\rm{g\:cm}^{-2}}\:$($A_V\simeq3$~mag), shows a log-normal shape with the peak measured at$\Sigma\simeq0.021\:{\rm{g\:cm}^{-2}}\:$($A_V\simeq4.7$~mag). There is tentative evidence for the presence of a high-$\Sigma$power law tail that contains from$\sim3\%$to$8\%$of the mass of the cloud material. We discuss the implications of these results for the physical processes occurring in this cloud. [53] Title: Clues to the Structure of AGN through massive variability surveys Authors: Andy Lawrence Comments: Review paper in "Astronomical Surveys and Big Data", ASP Conference series, Vol 505, eds A.M.Mickaelian, A.Lawrence, T.Y.Magakian. Proceedings of Symposium held in Byurakan, Armenia, Oct 2015. 10 pages, 2 figures Journal-ref: APCS 2016, 505, 109 Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) Variability studies hold information on otherwise unresolvable regions in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Population studies of large samples likewise have been very productive for our understanding of AGN. These two themes are coming together in the idea of systematic variability studies of large samples - with SDSS, PanSTARRS, and soon, LSST. I summarise what we have learned about the optical and UV variability of AGN, and what it tells us about accretion discs and the BLR. The most exciting recent results have focused on rare large-scale outbursts and collapses - Tidal Disruption Events, changing-look AGN, and large amplitude microlensing. All of these promise to give us new insight into AGN physics. [54] Title: Testing chirality of primordial gravitational waves with Planck and future CMB data: no hope from angular power spectra Comments: 13 pages, 3 figures Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) We use the 2015 Planck likelihood in combination with the Bicep2/Keck likelihood (BKP and BK14) to constrain the chirality,$\chi$, of primordial gravitational waves in a scale-invariant scenario. In this framework, the parameter$\chi$enters theory always coupled to the tensor-to-scalar ratio,$r$, e.g. in combination of the form$\chi \cdot r$. Thus, the capability to detect$\chi$critically depends on the value of$r$. We find that with present data set$\chi$is \textit{de facto}unconstrained. We also provide forecasts for$\chi$from future CMB experiments, as COrE+, exploring several fiducial values of$r$. We find that the current limit on$r$is tight enough to disfavor a neat detection of$\chi$. For example in the unlikely case in which$r\sim0.1(0.05)$, then the maximal chirality case, i.e.$\chi = \pm1$, could be detected with a significance of$\sim2.5(1.5)\sigma$at best. We conclude that the two-point statistics at the basis of CMB likelihood functions is currently unable to constrain chirality and may only provide weak limits on$\chi$in the most optimistic scenarios. Hence, it is crucial to investigate the use of other observables, e.g. provided by higher order statistics, to constrain these kind of parity violating theories with the CMB. [55] Title: The Future of Primordial Features with 21 cm Tomography Comments: 30 pages, 15 figures, companion paper to the LSS forecast. Comments welcome Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) Detecting a deviation from a featureless primordial power spectrum of fluctuations would give profound insight into the physics of the primordial Universe. Depending on their nature, primordial features can either provide direct evidence for the inflation scenario or pin down details of the inflation model. Thus far, using the cosmic microwave background (CMB) we have only been able to put stringent constraints on the amplitude of features, but no significant evidence has been found for such signals. Here we explore the limit of the experimental reach in constraining such features using 21 cm tomography at high redshift. A measurement of the 21 cm power spectrum from the Dark Ages is generally considered as the ideal experiment for early Universe physics, with potentially access to a large number of modes. We consider three different categories of theoretically motivated models: the sharp feature models, resonance models, and standard clock models. We study the improvements on bounds on features as a function of the total number of observed modes and identify parameter degeneracies. The detectability depends critically on the amplitude, frequency and scale-location of the features, as well as the angular and redshift resolution of the experiment. We quantify these effects by considering different fiducial models. Our forecast shows that a cosmic variance limited 21 cm experiment measuring fluctuations in the redshift range$30\leq z \leq 100\$ with a 0.1-MHz bandwidth and sub-arcminute angular resolution could potentially improve bounds by several order of magnitude compared current Planck bounds for most features. At the same time, 21 cm tomography also opens up a unique window into features that are located on very small scales.

[56]
Title: The Future of Primordial Features with Large-Scale Structure Surveys
Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)

Primordial features are one of the most important extensions of the Standard Model of cosmology, providing a wealth of information on the primordial universe, ranging from discrimination between inflation and alternative scenarios, new particle detection, to fine structures in the inflationary potential. We study the prospects of future large-scale structure (LSS) surveys on the detection and constraints of these features. We classify primordial feature models into several classes, and for each class we present a simple template of power spectrum that encodes the essential physics. We study how well the most ambitious LSS surveys proposed to date, including both spectroscopic and photometric surveys, will be able to improve the constraints with respect to the current Planck data. We find that these LSS surveys will significantly improve the experimental sensitivity on features signals that are oscillatory in scales, due to the 3D information. For a broad range of models, these surveys will be able to reduce the errors of the amplitudes of the features by a factor of 5 or more, including several interesting candidates identified in the recent Planck data. Therefore, LSS surveys offer an impressive opportunity for primordial feature discovery in the next decade or two. We also compare the advantages of both types of surveys.

[57]
Title: The 7.67 Years Collection of Well-Monitored Fermi-LAT GRB Afterglows
Authors: A. Panaitescu
Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

We present the light-curves and spectra of 24 afterglows that have been monitored by Fermi-LAT at 0.1-100 GeV over more than a decade in time. All light-curves are consistent with a single power-law starting from their peaks, which occur, in most cases, before the burst end. The light-curves display a brightness-decay rate correlation, with all but one (130427) of the bright afterglows decaying faster than the dimmer afterglows. We attribute this dichotomy to a quick deposition of the relativistic ejecta energy in the external-shock for the former type and to an extended energy-injection in the afterglow shock for the latter. The spectra of 10 afterglows are better described with a broken power-law than a single power-law, indicating the existence of a hard component above a dip energy that ranges from 0.5 GeV to 5 GeV, and at a 1-3 sigma confidence level. We interpret those spectra as being synchrotron self-Compton emissions, and suggest that power-law photon spectra softer than dN/dE ~ E^{-2} are synchrotron, while those harder than that are inverse-Compton. Marginal evidence for a spectral softening is found for two afterglows.

[58]
Title: GrayStarServer: Server-side spectrum synthesis with a browser-based client-side user interface
Authors: C. Ian Short
Comments: Accepted for publication in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 37 pages in review format
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

I present GrayStarServer (GSS), a stellar atmospheric modeling and spectrum synthesis code of pedagogical accuracy that is accessible in any web browser on commonplace computational devices and that runs on a time-scale of a few seconds. The addition of spectrum synthesis annotated with line identifications extends the functionality and pedagogical applicability of GSS beyond that of its predecessor, GrayStar3 (GS3). The spectrum synthesis is based on a line list acquired from the NIST atomic spectra database, and the GSS post-processing and user interface (UI) client allows the user to inspect the plain text ASCII version of the line list, as well as to apply macroscopic broadening. Unlike GS3, GSS carries out the physical modeling on the server side in Java, and communicates with the JavaScript and HTML client via an asynchronous HTTP request. I also describe other improvements beyond GS3 such as more realistic modeling physics and use of the HTML <canvas> element for higher quality plotting and rendering of results, and include a comparison to Phoenix modeling. I also present LineListServer, a Java code for converting custom ASCII line lists in NIST format to the byte data type file format required by GSS so that users can prepare their own custom line lists. I propose a standard for marking up and packaging model atmosphere and spectrum synthesis output for data transmission and storage that will facilitate a web-based approach to stellar atmospheric modeling and spectrum synthesis. I describe some pedagogical demonstrations and exercises enabled by easily accessible, on-demand, responsive spectrum synthesis. GSS may serve as a research support tool by providing quick spectroscopic reconnaissance. GSS may be found at www.ap.smu.ca/~ishort/OpenStars/.

[59]
Title: Magnetic field morphology in nearby molecular clouds as revealed by starlight and submillimetre polarization
Comments: 15 pages, 10 figures, submitted to A&A
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)

Within four nearby (d < 160 pc) molecular clouds, we statistically evaluate the structure of the interstellar magnetic field, projected on the plane of the sky and integrated along the line of sight, as inferred from the polarized thermal emission of Galactic dust observed by Planck at 353 GHz and from the optical and NIR polarization of background starlight. We compare the dispersion of the field orientation directly in vicinities with an area equivalent to that subtended by the Planck effective beam at 353 GHz (10') and using the second-order structure functions of the field orientation angles. We find that the average dispersion of the starlight-inferred field orientations within 10'-diameter vicinities is less than 20 deg, and that at these scales the mean field orientation is on average within 5 deg of that inferred from the submillimetre polarization observations in the considered regions. We also find that the dispersion of starlight polarization orientations and the polarization fractions within these vicinities are well reproduced by a Gaussian model of the turbulent structure of the magnetic field, in agreement with the findings reported by the Planck collaboration at scales greater than 10' and for comparable column densities. At scales greater than 10', we find differences of up to 14.7 deg between the second-order structure functions obtained from starlight and submillimetre polarization observations in the same positions in the plane of the sky, but comparison with a Gaussian model of the turbulent structure of the magnetic field indicates that these differences are small and are consistent with the difference in angular resolution between both techniques.