Search

The discovery of faint FR~I radio jets in the nearby elliptical galaxy NGC 5322 is reported here using 144 MHz LOFAR image. The jets have an angular extent of $\sim40$ arcmin or a projected physical extent of $\sim350$ kpc. The faint jets remain well collimated and disappear in the intergalactic medium, without any visible hotspot or radio lobes. The jets detected up to $\sim20$ kpc extent at higher frequencies are relatively bright within the optical extent of the galaxy but become faint abruptly outside, where detection is made only in the LOFAR image. The total radio luminosity of the galaxy at 144 MHz is estimated to be $3.7(\pm0.4)\times10^{22}$ W Hz$^{-1}$. The 144 MHz radio luminosity of the faint jets outside the optical extent is estimated to be $7.1(\pm2.0)\times10^{21}$ W Hz$^{-1}$. The extent of the jets for its radio luminosity is abnormally large when compared to the general population of radio galaxies. It makes NGC 5322 a member of a rare population of radio galaxies, previously not detected in other radio surveys. A combined effect of stellar core depletion and low-density environment around the jets, inferred from previous studies in other wave-bands, resulting into weak entrainment of surrounding material to the jets could be responsible for its large size despite a low radio luminosity., Comment: MNRAS submitted; 5 pages, 4 figures; comments welcome

Primordial black holes (PBHs) formed in the early Universe constitute an attractive candidate for dark matter. Within the gaseous environment of the interstellar medium, PBHs with accretion disks naturally launch outflows such as winds and jets. PBHs with significant spin can sustain powerful relativistic jets and generate associated cocoons. Jets and winds can efficiently deposit their kinetic energies and heat the surrounding gas through shocks. Focusing on the Leo T dwarf galaxy, we demonstrate that these considerations can provide novel tests of PBHs over a significant $\sim 10^{-2} M_{\odot} - 10^6 M_{\odot}$ mass range, including the parameter space associated with gravitational wave observations by the LIGO and VIRGO Collaborations. Observing the morphology of emission could allow to distinguish between jet and wind contributions, and hence indirectly detect spinning PBHs., 10 pages, 4 figures

While the cosmic microwave background (CMB) dipole is largely assumed entirely kinematic, there appears evidence that a part of it is primordial. Such possibility arises in models implying a tilt, interpreted as a dark flow, across the observable Universe. The kinematic nature of the entire CMB dipole can be probed using the dipole of cosmic backgrounds from galaxies after the last scattering. The near-IR cosmic infrared background (CIB) spectral energy distribution leads to an amplified dipole compared to the CMB. The CIB dipole is affected by galaxy clustering, decreasing with fainter, more distant galaxies, and by Solar System emissions and Galactic dust, which dominate the net CIB cosmological dipole in the optical/near-IR. We propose a technique that enables an accurate measurement of the kinematic near-IR CIB dipole. The CIB, effectively the integrated galaxy light (IGL), would be reconstructed from resolved galaxies in the forthcoming space-borne wide surveys covering four bands 0.9 to 2.5 micron. The galaxies will be sub-selected from the identified magnitude range where the dipole component from galaxy clustering is below the expected kinematic dipole. Using this technique the dipole can be measured in each of the bands at the statistical signal-to-noise S/N>50--100 with the forthcoming Euclid and Roman surveys, isolating CMB dipole's kinematic nature., MNRAS Letters, in press

We compare the surface brightness profile and morphology of the Galactic Centre Excess (GCE) identified in wide-angle $\gamma$-ray maps from the Fermi-Large Area Telescope to dark matter annihilation predictions derived from high-resolution $\Lambda$CDM magnetohydrodynamic simulations of galaxy formation. These simulations produce isolated, disc-dominated galaxies with structure, stellar populations, gas content, and stellar and halo masses comparable to those of the Milky Way. For a specific choice of annihilation cross-section, they agree well with the Fermi-LAT data over the full observed angular range, $1^{\circ}$ to $15^{\circ}$, whereas their dark-matter only counterparts, lacking any compression of the inner halo by the gravitational effects of the baryons, fail to predict emission as centrally concentrated as observed. These results provide additional support to the hypothesis that the GCE is produced by annihilating dark matter. If, however, it is produced by a different mechanism, they imply a strong upper limit on annihilation rates which can be translated into upper limits on the expected $\gamma$-ray flux not only from the inner Galaxy but also from any substructure, with or without stars, in the Galactic halo., Comment: Accepted to MNRAS letters following minor revision

The cosmological constant is estimated by considering the surface tension of supervoids in a void-dominated cosmic fluid by which we can get a possible source of dark energy. Looking at voids as bubbles, we define the concept of surface tension which is shown to have an almost constant value for supervoids that are enclosed by superclusters. The surface tensions of voids are computed by dimensional method for galaxies and superclusters with different values for each group. At large scale which vast voids are dominant the positive cosmological constants obtained of order $ (\simeq+10^{-52} {\rm m^{-2}} )$, which are very close to those given by $Planck$., 5 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, Title and some figures have been correctedand, published version in MNRASL

A recently-proposed algorithm identifies voids in simulations as the regions associated with halos when the initial overdensity field is negated. We apply this method to the real Universe by running a suite of constrained simulations of the 2M++ volume with initial conditions inferred by the BORG algorithm, along with the corresponding inverted set. Our 101 inverted and uninverted simulations, spanning the BORG posterior, each identify ~150,000 "voids as antihalos" with mass exceeding $4.38\times10^{11} \: \mathrm{M_\odot}$ (100 particles) at $z=0$ in a full-sky sphere of radius 155 Mpc/h around the Milky Way. We calculate the size function, volume filling fraction, ellipticity, central density, specific angular momentum, clustering and stacked density profile of the voids, and cross-correlate them with those produced by VIDE on the same simulations. We make our antihalo and VIDE catalogues publicly available., 5 pages, 5 figures; minor revision, matches MNRASL accepted version

With a single training image and using wavelet phase harmonic augmentation, we present polarized Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) foreground marginalization in a high-dimensional likelihood-free (Bayesian) framework. We demonstrate robust foreground removal using only a single frequency of simulated data for a BICEP-like sky patch. Using Moment Networks we estimate the pixel-level posterior probability for the underlying {E,B} signal and validate the statistical model with a quantile-type test using the estimated marginal posterior moments. The Moment Networks use a hierarchy of U-Net convolutional neural networks. This work validates such an approach in the most difficult limiting case: pixel-level, noise-free, highly non-Gaussian dust foregrounds with a single training image at a single frequency. For a real CMB experiment, a small number of representative sky patches would provide the training data required for full cosmological inference. These results enable robust likelihood-free, simulation-based parameter and model inference for primordial B-mode detection using observed CMB polarization data., Accepted by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters. 5 pages with 3 figures (plus 1 page of Supporting Materials with 2 figures)

Recent measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Anisotropies power spectra measured by the Planck satellite show a preference for a closed universe at more than $99 \%$ Confidence Level. Such a scenario is however in disagreement with several low redshift observables, including luminosity distances of Type Ia Supernovae. Here we show that Interacting Dark Energy (IDE) models can ease the discrepancies between Planck and Supernovae Ia data in a closed Universe. Therefore IDE cosmologies remain as very appealing scenarios, as they can provide the solution to a number of observational tensions in different fiducial cosmologies. The results presented here strongly favour broader analyses of cosmological data, and suggest that relaxing the usual flatness and vacuum energy assumptions can lead to a much better agreement among theory and observations., 5 pages, 2 figures, Version accepted for publication in MNRAS letters

The NANOGrav pulsar timing array experiment reported evidence for a stochastic common-spectrum process affecting pulsar timing residuals in its 12.5-year dataset, which might be interpreted as the first detection of a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB). I examine whether the NANOGrav signal might be explained by an inflationary SGWB, focusing on the implications for the tensor spectral index $n_T$ and the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$. Explaining NANOGrav while complying with upper limits on $r$ from BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck requires $r \gtrsim {\cal O}(10^{-6})$ in conjunction with an extremely blue tensor spectrum, $0.7 \lesssim n_T \lesssim 1.3$. After discussing models which can realize such a blue spectrum, I show that this region of parameter space can be brought in agreement with Big Bang Nucleosynthesis constraints for a sufficiently low reheating scale, $T_{\rm rh} \lesssim 100\,{\rm GeV}-1\,{\rm TeV}$. With the important caveat of having assumed a power-law parametrization for the primordial tensor spectrum, an inflationary interpretation of the NANOGrav signal is therefore not excluded., 5 pages, 2 figures. v2: revised conclusions, NANOGrav can in principle be due to an inflationary SGWB provided the reheating temperature is sufficiently (=very) low. References added, version accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters. Comments are welcome

GW190521 challenges our understanding of the late-stage evolution of massive stars and the effects of the pair-instability in particular. We discuss the possibility that stars at low or zero metallicity could retain most of their hydrogen envelope until the pre-supernova stage, avoid the pulsational pair-instability regime and produce a black hole with a mass in the mass gap by fallback. We present a series of new stellar evolution models at zero and low metallicity computed with the Geneva and MESA stellar evolution codes and compare to existing grids of models. Models with a metallicity in the range 0-0.0004 have three properties which favour higher BH masses as compared to higher metallicity models. These are (i) lower mass-loss rates during the post-MS phase, (ii) a more compact star disfavouring binary interaction and (iii) possible H-He shell interactions which lower the CO core mass. We conclude that it is possible that GW190521 may be the merger of black holes produced directly by massive stars from the first stellar generations. Our models indicate BH masses up to 70-75 Msun. Uncertainties related to convective mixing, mass loss, H-He shell interactions and pair-instability pulsations may increase this limit to ~85 Msun., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

Superclusters are a convenient way to partition and characterize the large scale structure of the Universe. In this Letter we explore the advantages of defining superclusters as watershed basins in the divergence velocity field. We apply this definition on diverse datasets generated from linear theory and N-body simulations, with different grid sizes, smoothing scales and types of tracers. From this framework emerges a linear scaling relation between the average supercluster size and the autocorrelation length in the divergence field, a result that holds for one order of magnitude from 10 Mpc/h up to 100 Mpc/h. These results suggest that the divergence-based definition provides a robust context to quantitatively compare results across different observational or computational frameworks. Through its connection with linear theory, it can also facilitate the exploration of how supercluster properties depend on cosmological parameters, paving the way to use superclusters as cosmological probes., 5 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

We suggest a crucial direct-observational test for measuring distinction between the standard $\Lambda$CDM model and recently proposed phantom dark energy positive curvature cosmological model. The test is based on the fundamental distance--flux--redshift relation for general Friedmann models. It does not depend on the CMBR data, on the large-scale structure growth models, and also on the value of the Hubble constant $H_0$. Our crucial test can be performed by future gamma-ray burst observations with THESEUS space mission and by using gravitational-wave standard siren observations with modern advanced LIGO--Virgo and also forthcoming LISA detectors., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, MNRAS accepted 18.09.2020

We study the 21-cm differential brightness temperature in the presence of primordial helical magnetic fields for redshift $z=10-30$. We argue that the $\alpha$-effect that sets in at earlier time can be helpful in lowering the gas temperature to 3.2 degrees Kelvin at $z=17$. This effect can arise in the early Universe due to some parity violating high energy processes. Using the EDGES (Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Reionization Signature) results, we find the upper and lower limits on the primordial magnetic field to be $6\times 10^{-3}~{\rm nG} $ & $5\times 10^{-4}~{\rm nG}$ respectively. We also discuss the effect of Ly$\alpha$ background on the bounds. Our results do not require any new physics in terms of dark matter., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters, 5 pages, 4 figures

Observations of large-scale radio emissions prove the existence of shock accelerated cosmic-ray electrons in galaxy clusters, while the lack of detected $\gamma$-rays limits the acceleration of cosmic-ray protons in galaxy clusters. This challenges our understanding of how diffusive shock acceleration works. In this work, we couple the most updated recipes for shock acceleration in the intracluster medium to state-of-the-art magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of massive galaxy clusters. Furthermore, we use passive tracer particles to follow the evolution of accelerated cosmic-rays. We show that when the interplay between magnetic field topology and the feedback from accelerated cosmic rays is taken into account, the latest developments of particle acceleration theory give results which are compatible with observational constraints., Comment: published by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 6 pages, 4 figures

Fluctuations in sky maps of the galaxy redshifts, dubbed as angular redshift fluctuations (ARF), contain precise information about the growth rate of structures and the nature of gravity in the Universe. Specifically, ARF constrain the combination of cosmological parameters $H/H_0\,f\sigma_8(z)$, while being an intrinsically tomographic probe and largely insensitive to many observational systematic errors, all this without requiring the assumption of any redshift-to-distance relation under a given fiducial cosmology. We present the first cosmological constraints derived from ARF by using BOSS LOWZ+CMASS DR12 galaxy samples, obtaining 7\%-accurate constraints on $H/H_0 f\sigma_8(z)$ at more than 20 redshifts over the range $z \in [0.26,0.72]$. Our best-fitting value is $10\%$ larger, but compatible at the $1.4\sigma$ level, than the $\Lambda$CDM expectation set by {\it Planck} observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. Our tomographic measurements, combined with these CMB data, provides one of the strongest constraints on the gravity index $\gamma$, $\gamma=0.44^{+0.09}_{-0.07}$, which lies within $2\sigma$ from the prediction of General Relativity ($\gamma_{\rm GR}\simeq 0.55$)., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, matches accepted version in MNRAS letters

In this letter we present constraints on the scale-dependent "local" type primordial non-Gaussianity, which is described by non-Gaussianity's spectral index $n_{\rm NG}$, from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey and the quasar catalog of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 6, together with the SDSS Data Release 12 photo-z sample. Here, we use the auto-correlation analyses of these three probes and their cross-correlation analyses with the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature map, and obtain the tight constraint on the spectral index: $n_{\rm NG}=0.2 ^{+0.7}_{-1.0}$ ($1\,\sigma$ C.L.), which shows the first competitive constraint on the running of non-Gaussianity from current large-scale structure clustering data. Furthermore, we also perform the forecast calculations and improve the limit of $n_{\rm NG}$ using the future Euclid mission, and obtain the standard deviation at 68\% confidence level: $\Delta n_{\rm NG}=1.74$ when considering the fiducial value $f_{\rm NL}=3$, which provides the complementary constraining power to those from the CMB bispectrum information., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Accepted by MNRAS Letters

The dwarf satellite galaxies of the Milky Way Crater II and Antlia II have uncommonly low dynamical mass densities, due to their large size and low velocity dispersion. Previous work have failed to identify formation scenarios within the $\Lambda$CDM framework and have invoked cored dark matter haloes, processed by tides. I show that the tidal evolution of $\Lambda$CDM NFW haloes is richer than previously recognised: tidal heating causes the innermost regions of haloes that fall short of the mass-concentration relation to expand significantly, resulting in the formation of giant, kinematically cold satellites like Crater II and Antlia II. Furthermore, while the satellite is reaching apocenter, extra-tidal material can cause an even more inflated appearance. When present, as likely for the larger Antlia II, nominally unbound material can be recognised thanks to its somewhat hotter kinematics and line-of-sight velocity gradient. Contrary to other formation scenarios, Crater II and Antlia II may well have experienced very little mass loss, as in fact hinted by their observed metallicity. If indeed a satellite of NGC1052, tidal evolution of a low-concentration halo may similarly have led to the formation of NGC1052-DF2., Comment: MNRAS Letters submitted, comments welcome

An observer stationary with respect to comoving coordinates of the expanding universe should find the redshift distribution to be isotropic. However, a peculiar motion of the observer would introduce a dipole anisotropy in the observed redshift distribution. Conversely, a dipole anisotropy in observed redshift distribution could be exploited to infer our peculiar motion, or rather of our solar system. We determine here our peculiar velocity by studying the dipole anisotropy in the redshift distribution of a large sample of quasars. The magnitude of the peculiar velocity thus determined turns out to be $2350\pm280$ km s$^{-1}$, not only much larger than 370 km s$^{-1}$ determined from the dipole anisotropy in the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), but also nearly in an opposite direction. Such large values for peculiar velocity have been found in a couple of radio surveys too, but with a direction along the CMBR dipole. Large genuine differences in the inferred motion, whether in magnitude or direction, are rather disconcerting since a solar peculiar velocity should not depend upon the method of its determination. Such discordant dipoles imply perhaps an anisotropic universe, violating the cosmological principle, a cornerstone of the modern cosmology., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted in MNRAS

We investigate the impact of dynamical streams and substructure on estimates of the local escape speed and total mass of Milky Way-mass galaxies from modelling the high velocity tail of local halo stars. We use a suite of high-resolution, magneto-hydrodynamical cosmological zoom-in simulations, which resolve phase space substructure in local volumes around solar-like positions. We show that phase space structure varies significantly between positions in individual galaxies and across the suite. Substructure populates the high velocity tail unevenly and leads to discrepancies in the mass estimates. We show that a combination of streams, sample noise and truncation of the high velocity tail below the escape speed leads to a distribution of mass estimates with a median that falls below the true value by $\sim 20 \%$, and a spread of a factor of 2 across the suite. Correcting for these biases, we derive a revised value for the Milky Way mass presented in Deason et al. of $1.29 ^{+0.37}_{-0.47} \times 10^{12}$ $\rm M_{\odot}$., Accepted to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Letters, with minor revision

We present an independent cosmic shear analysis of the non-cosmological B-mode distortions within the public first year data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We find no significant detection of B-modes in a full tomographic analysis of the primary METACALIBRATION shear catalogue. This is in contrast to the secondary IM3SHAPE shear catalogue, where we detect B- modes at a significance of $\sim 3\sigma$ with a pattern that is consistent with the B-mode signature of a repeating additive shear bias across the survey. We use the COSEBIs statistic to cleanly separate the B-modes from the gravitational lensing signal (E-modes). We find good agreement between the measured E-modes and their theoretical expectation given the DES cosmological parameter constraints., Comment: 5 Pages, 2 Figures

We present a novel method to compress galaxy clustering three-point statistics and apply it to redshift space galaxy bispectrum monopole measurements from BOSS DR12 CMASS data considering a $k$-space range of $0.03-0.12\,h/\mathrm{Mpc}$. The method consists in binning together bispectra evaluated at sets of wave-numbers forming closed triangles with similar geometrical properties: the area, the cosine of the largest angle and the ratio between the cosines of the remaining two angles. This enables us to increase the number of bispectrum measurements for example by a factor of $23$ over the standard binning (from 116 to 2734 triangles used), which is otherwise limited by the number of mock catalogues available to estimate the covariance matrix needed to derive parameter constraints. The $68\%$ credible intervals for the inferred parameters $\left(b_1,b_2,f,\sigma_8\right)$ are thus reduced by $\left(-39\%,-49\%,-29\%,-22\%\right)$, respectively. We find very good agreement with the posteriors recently obtained by alternative maximal compression methods. This new method does not require the a-priori computation of the data-vector covariance matrix and has the potential to be directly applicable to other three-point statistics (e.g. glaxy clustering, weak gravitational lensing, 21 cm emission line) measured from future surveys such as DESI, Euclid, PFS and SKA., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, Accepted by MNRAS: Letters

Carbon enhanced metal poor (CEMP) stars with low abundances of neutron capture elements (CEMP-no stars) are ubiquitous among metal poor stars in the Milky Way. Recent observations have uncovered their two subgroups that differ in the carbon to magnesium ([C/Mg]) abundance ratio. Here we demonstrate that similar abundance patterns are also present in Milky Way-like galaxies in the EAGLE cosmological hydrodynamical simulation, where these patterns originate from the fact that stars may form from gas enriched predominantly by asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars or by type-II supernovae. This occurs when stars form in the poorly mixed interstellar medium of Milky Way progenitor galaxies that are undergoing bursty star formation. The CEMP-no stars with lower [C/Mg] form at the onset of a starburst from gas enriched by low metallicity type-II supernovae that power a strong outflow, quenching further star formation. When star formation resumes following cosmological gas accretion, the CEMP-no stars with higher [C/Mg] form, with enrichment by AGB ejecta evident in their higher abundance of barium and lower abundance of magnesium. This suggests that bursty star formation in the progenitors of the Galaxy leaves a permanent imprint in the abundance patterns of CEMP stars., 5 pages, 4 figures, Accepted in MNRAS letters, Comments Welcome

Elucidating the particle physics nature of dark matter (DM) is one of the great challenges in modern science. The current lack of any direct DM detections in the laboratory heightens the need for astrophysical constraints, extending the search to DM models beyond the popular weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) scenario. We here apply the classical Rees-Ostriker-Silk cooling criterion for galaxy formation to models with ultralight axion DM, also known as fuzzy dark matter (FDM). The resulting constraints provide a heuristic framework for upcoming observations, and our approximate analysis motivates the need for future, self-consistent simulations of FDM structure formation. We use observational constraints for the DM hosts of ultra faint dwarf (UFD) galaxies in the Local Group, together with the redshift constraints for the onset of primordial star formation from the recent EDGES 21-cm cosmology measurement, to illustrate this approach. We find that the existing constraints are straightforward to reconcile with standard $\Lambda$CDM, but disfavour FDM axion masses below $\sim 10^{-21}\,{\rm eV}/c^2$. The future potential for harnessing astrophysical probes of DM particle physics is compelling., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, MNRAS Letters: in press

NGC1052-DF2 was recently discovered as the dark-matter deficient galaxy claimed by van Dokkum et al. (2018a, vD18). However, large uncertainties on its dynamical mass estimate have been pointed out, concerning the paucity of sample, statistical methods and distance measurements. In this work, we discuss the effects of the difference in modeling of the tracer profile of this galaxy on the dynamical mass estimate. To do this, we assume that the tracer densities are modeled with power-law and S\'ersic profiles, and then we solve the spherical Jeans equation to estimate the dynamical mass. Applying these models to kinematic data of globular clusters in NGC1052-DF2, we compare 90 per cent upper limits of dynamical mass-to-light ratios estimated between from this analysis and from vD18. We find that the upper limit obtained by the power-law is virtually the same as the result from vD18, whilst this limit estimated by the S\'ersic is significantly greater than that from vD18, thereby suggesting that NGC1052-DF2 can still be a dark-matter dominated system. Consequently, we propose that dynamical mass estimate of a galaxy is largely affected by not only small kinematic sample but the choice of tracer distributions, and thus the estimated mass still remains quite uncertain., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures and 2 tables, Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

The recent detection of the sky-averaged 21-cm cosmological signal indicates a stronger absorption than the maximum allowed value based on the standard model. One explanation for the required colder primordial gas is the energy transfer between the baryon and dark matter fluids due to non-gravitational scattering. Here, we explore the thermal evolution of primordial gas, collapsing to form Population III (Pop III) stars, when this energy transfer is included. Performing a series of one-zone calculations, we find that the evolution results in stars more massive than in the standard model, provided that the dark matter is described by the best-fit parameters inferred from the 21-cm observation. On the other hand, a significant part of the dark matter parameter space can be excluded by the requirement to form massive Pop III stars sufficiently early in cosmic history. Otherwise, the radiation background needed to bring about the strong Wouthuysen-Field coupling at z >~ 17, inferred to explain the 21-cm absorption feature, could not be builtup. Intriguingly, the independent constraint from the physics of first star formation at high densities points to a similarly narrow range in dark matter properties. This exploratory study has to be followed-up with self-consistent three-dimensional simulations for a more rigorous derivation., 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted to MNRASL

We introduce a new diagnostic for exploring the link between angular momentum and local gravitational instability in galaxy discs. Our diagnostic incorporates the latest developments in disc instability research, is fully consistent with approximations that are widely used for measuring the stellar specific angular momentum, $j_{\star}=J_{\star}/M_{\star}$, and is also very simple. We show that such a disc instability diagnostic hardly correlates with $j_{\star}$ or $M_{\star}$, and is remarkably constant across spiral galaxies of any given type (Sa$\!-\!$Sd), stellar mass ($M_{\star}=10^{9.5}\!-\!10^{11.5}\,\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$) and velocity dispersion anisotropy ($\sigma_{z\star}/\sigma_{R\star}=0\!-\!1$). The fact that $M_{\star}$ is tightly correlated with star formation rate ($\mathrm{SFR}$), molecular gas mass ($M_{\mathrm{mol}}$), metallicity ($12+\log\mathrm{O/H}$) and other fundamental galaxy properties thus implies that nearby star-forming spirals self-regulate to a quasi-universal disc stability level. This proves the existence of the self-regulation process postulated by several star formation models, but also raises important caveats., Comment: MNRAS Letters, in press. Minor revision to match the accepted version (added Fig. 1, Sect. 3.2, the final paragraph of Sect. 4, references and clarifications)

Recent numerical simulations reveal that the isothermal collapse of pristine gas in atomic cooling haloes may result in stellar binaries of supermassive stars with $M_* \gtrsim 10^4\ \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$. For the first time, we compute the in-situ merger rate for such massive black hole remnants by combining their abundance and multiplicity estimates. For black holes with initial masses in the range $10^{4-6} \ \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ merging at redshifts $z \gtrsim 15$ our optimistic model predicts that LISA should be able to detect 0.6 mergers per year. This rate of detection can be attributed, without confusion, to the in-situ mergers of seeds from the collapse of very massive stars. Equally, in the case where LISA observes no mergers from heavy seeds at $z \gtrsim 15$ we can constrain the combined number density, multiplicity, and coalesence times of these high-redshift systems. This letter proposes gravitational wave signatures as a means to constrain theoretical models and processes that govern the abundance of massive black hole seeds in the early Universe., Accepted for publication in MNRAS: Letters

Observations of high-redshift Type Ia supernovae (SNe~Ia) are used to study the cosmic transparency at optical wavelengths. Assuming a flat $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model based on BAO and CMB results, redshift dependent deviations of SN~Ia distances are used to constrain mechanisms that would dim light. The analysis is based on the most recent Pantheon SN compilation, for which there is a $0.03\pm0.01 {\textrm \,(\rm stat)}$ mag discrepancy in the distant supernova distance moduli relative to the $\Lambda$CDM model anchored by supernovae at $z, Comment: Letter accepted for publication in MNRAS

Gradient pattern analysis (GPA) is a well-established technique for measuring gradient bilateral asymmetries of a square numerical lattice. This paper introduces an improved version of GPA designed for galaxy morphometry. We show the performance of the new method on a selected sample of 54,896 objects from the SDSS-DR7 in common with Galaxy Zoo 1 catalog. The results suggest that the second gradient moment, G2, has the potential to dramatically improve over more conventional morphometric parameters. It separates early from late type galaxies better (\sim 90\%) than the CAS system (C \sim 79\%, A \sim 50\%, S \sim 43\%) and a benchmark test shows that it is applicable to hundreds of thousands of galaxies using typical processing systems., 5 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Wave dark matter ($\psi \rm{DM}$) composed of extremely light bosons ($m_{\psi} \sim 10^{-22}\,\rm eV$), with quantum pressure suppressing structures below a kpc-scale de Broglie wavelength, has become a viable dark matter candidate. Compared to the conventional free-particle $\psi {\rm DM}$ (${\rm FP} \psi {\rm DM}$), the extreme-axion $\psi \rm{DM}$ model (${\rm EA} \psi {\rm DM}$) proposed by Zhang & Chiueh (2017) features a larger cut-off wavenumber and a broad spectral bump in the matter transfer function. Here we conduct cosmological simulations to compare the halo abundances and assembly histories at $z=4-11$ between three different scenarios: ${\rm FP} \psi {\rm DM}$, ${\rm EA} \psi {\rm DM}$, and cold dark matter (CDM). We show that ${\rm EA} \psi {\rm DM}$ produces significantly more abundant low-mass haloes than ${\rm FP} \psi {\rm DM}$ with the same $m_{\psi}$, and therefore could alleviate the tension in $m_{\psi}$ required by the Ly$\alpha$ forest data and by the kpc-scale dwarf galaxy cores. We also find that, compared to the CDM counterparts, massive ${\rm EA} \psi {\rm DM}$ haloes are on average $3-4$ times more massive at $z=10-11$ due to their earlier formation, undergo a slower mass accretion at $7 \lesssim z \lesssim 11$, and then show a rapidly rising major merger rate exceeding CDM by $\sim 50\%$ at $4 \lesssim z \lesssim 7$. This fact suggests that ${\rm EA} \psi {\rm DM}$ haloes may exhibit more prominent starbursts at $z \lesssim 7$., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, only minor updates (accepted for publication in MNRAS letters)

We investigate the evolution of the dark matter density profiles of the most massive galaxy clusters in the Universe. Using a `zoom-in' procedure on a large suite of cosmological simulations of total comoving volume of $3\,(h^{-1}\,\rm Gpc)^3$, we study the 25 most massive clusters in four redshift slices from $z\sim 1$ to the present. The minimum mass is $M_{500} > 5.5 \times 10^{14}$ M$_{\odot}$ at $z=1$. Each system has more than two million particles within $r_{500}$. Once scaled to the critical density at each redshift, the dark matter profiles within $r_{500}$ are strikingly similar from $z\sim1$ to the present day, exhibiting a low dispersion of 0.15 dex, and showing little evolution with redshift in the radial logarithmic slope and scatter. They have the running power law shape typical of the NFW-type profiles, and their inner structure, resolved to $3.8\,h^{-1}$ comoving kpc at $z=1$, shows no signs of converging to an asymptotic slope. Our results suggest that this type of profile is already in place at $z>1$ in the highest-mass haloes in the Universe, and that it remains exceptionally robust to merging activity., 5 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by MNRAS Letters

We present a newly discovered correlation between the wind outflow velocity and the X-ray luminosity in the luminous ($L_{\rm bol}\sim10^{47}\,\rm erg\,s^{-1}$) nearby ($z=0.184$) quasar PDS\,456. All the contemporary XMM-Newton, NuSTAR and Suzaku observations from 2001--2014 were revisited and we find that the centroid energy of the blueshifted Fe\,K absorption profile increases with luminosity. This translates into a correlation between the wind outflow velocity and the hard X-ray luminosity (between 7--30\,keV) where we find that $v_{\rm w}/c \propto L_{7-30}^{\gamma}$ where $\gamma=0.22\pm0.04$. We also show that this is consistent with a wind that is predominately radiatively driven, possibly resulting from the high Eddington ratio of PDS\,456., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter

Combining measurements on the expansion history of the Universe and on the growth rate of cosmic structures is key to discriminate between alternative cosmological frameworks and to test gravity. Recently, Linder (2017) proposed a new diagram to investigate the joint evolutionary track of these two quantities. In this letter, we collect the most recent cosmic growth and expansion rate datasets to provide the state-of-the-art observational constraints on this diagram. By performing a joint statistical analysis of both probes, we test the standard $\Lambda$CDM model, confirming a mild tension between cosmic microwave background predictions from Planck mission and cosmic growth measurements at low redshift ($z1$ will be crucial to discriminate between alternative models., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS letter

Star-forming galaxies at high redshifts are the ideal targets to probe the hypothetical variation of the fine-structure constant alpha over cosmological time scales. We propose a modification of the alkali doublets method which allows us to search for variation in alpha combining far infrared and submillimeter spectroscopic observations. This variation manifests as velocity offsets between the observed positions of the fine-structure and gross-structure transitions when compared to laboratory wavelengths. Here we describe our method whose sensitivity limit to the fractional changes in alpha is about 5*10^-7. We also demonstrate that current spectral observations of hydrogen and [C II] 158 micron lines provide an upper limit on |Delta alpha/alpha| < 6*10^-5 at redshifts z = 3.1 and z = 4.7., 4 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

The peculiar emission properties of the $z \sim 6.6$ Ly$\alpha$ emitter CR7 have been initially interpreted with the presence of either a direct collapse black hole (DCBH) or a substantial mass of Pop III stars. Instead, updated photometric observations by Bowler et al. (2016) seem to suggest that CR7 is a more standard system. Here we confirm that the original DCBH hypothesis is consistent also with the new data. Using radiation-hydrodynamic simulations, we reproduce the new IR photometry with two models involving a Compton-thick DCBH of mass $\approx 7 \times 10^6 \, \mathrm{M_{\odot}}$ accreting (a) metal-free ($Z=0$) gas with column density $N_H = 8 \times 10^{25} \, \mathrm{cm^{-2}}$, or (b) low-metallicity gas ($Z = 5 \times 10^{-3} \, \mathrm{Z_{\odot}}$) with $N_H = 3 \times 10^{24} \, \mathrm{cm^{-2}}$. The best fit model reproduces the photometric data to within $1 \sigma$. Such metals can be produced by weak star-forming activity occurring after the formation of the DCBH. The main contribution to the Spitzer/IRAC $3.6 \, \mathrm{\mu m}$ photometric band in both models is due to HeI/HeII $\lambda 4714, 4687$ emission lines, while the contribution of [OIII] $\lambda 4959, 5007$ emission lines, if present, is sub-dominant. Spectroscopic observations with JWST will be required to ultimately clarify the nature of CR7., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

The small-scale environment characterized by the local density is known to play a crucial role in deciding the galaxy properties but the role of large-scale environment on galaxy formation and evolution still remain a less clear issue. We propose an information theoretic framework to investigate the influence of large-scale environment on galaxy properties and apply it to the data from the Galaxy Zoo project which provides the visual morphological classifications of $\sim 1$ million galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find a non-zero mutual information between morphology and environment which decreases with increasing length scales but persists throughout the entire length scales probed. We estimate the conditional mutual information and the interaction information between morphology and environment by conditioning the environment on different length scales and find a synergic interaction between them which operates upto at least a length scales of $ \sim 30 \, h^{-1}\, {\rm Mpc}$. Our analysis indicates that these interactions largely arise due to the mutual information shared between the environments on different length scales., 6 pages, 1 figure, minor revision, Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

We present a structural study of 182 obscured Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) at z, Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter

We report the discovery of a fourth eastern arc (Arc E) towards the cool-core cluster Abell 2626 using 610 MHz Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope observations. Three arcs towards north, west and south were known from earlier works at 1400 MHz and proposed to have originated in precessing radio jets of the central active galactic nucleus. The 610 - 1400 MHz integrated spectral indices of the arcs are in the range 3.2 - 3.6 and the spectral index map shows uniform distribution along the lengths of the arcs. If associated with A2626, the arcs have linear extents in the range 79 - 152 kpc. The detection of Arc E favours the scenario in which a pair of bipolar precessing jets were active and halted to produce the arc system. Based on the morphological symmetry and spectral similarity, we indicate a possible role of gravitational lensing. Further high resolution low frequency observations and measurements of the mass of the system are needed to disentangle the mystery of this source., 5 pages, Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

As a result of their internal dynamical coherence, thin stellar streams formed by disrupting globular clusters (GCs) can act as detectors of dark matter (DM) substructure in the Galactic halo. Perturbations induced by close flybys amplify into detectable density gaps, providing a probe both of the abundance and of the masses of DM subhaloes. Here, we use N-body simulations to show that the Galactic population of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) can also produce gaps (and clumps) in GC streams, and so may confuse the detection of DM subhaloes. We explore the cases of streams analogous to the observed Palomar 5 and GD1 systems, quantifying the expected incidence of structure caused by GMC perturbations. Deep observations should detect such disturbances regardless of the substructure content of the Milky Way's halo. Detailed modelling will be needed to demonstrate that any detected gaps or clumps were produced by DM subhaloes rather than by molecular clouds., MNRASL accepted, conclusions unchanged, new observationally-based GMC model

Near-field cosmology -- using detailed observations of the Local Group and its environs to study wide-ranging questions in galaxy formation and dark matter physics -- has become a mature and rich field over the past decade. There are lingering concerns, however, that the relatively small size of the present-day Local Group ($\sim 2$ Mpc diameter) imposes insurmountable sample-variance uncertainties, limiting its broader utility. We consider the region spanned by the Local Group's progenitors at earlier times and show that it reaches $3' \approx 7$ co-moving Mpc in linear size (a volume of $\approx 350\,{\rm Mpc}^3$) at $z=7$. This size at early cosmic epochs is large enough to be representative in terms of the matter density and counts of dark matter halos with $M_{\rm vir}(z=7) \lesssim 2\times 10^{9}\,M_{\odot}$. The Local Group's stellar fossil record traces the cosmic evolution of galaxies with $10^{3} \lesssim M_{\star}(z=0) / M_{\odot} \lesssim 10^{9}$ (reaching $M_{1500} > -9$ at $z\sim7$) over a region that is comparable to or larger than the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF) for the entire history of the Universe. It is highly complementary to the HUDF, as it probes much fainter galaxies but does not contain the intrinsically rarer, brighter sources that are detectable in the HUDF. Archaeological studies in the Local Group also provide the ability to trace the evolution of individual galaxies across time as opposed to evaluating statistical connections between temporally distinct populations. In the JWST era, resolved stellar populations will probe regions larger than the HUDF and any deep JWST fields, further enhancing the value of near-field cosmology., 6 pages, 5 figures; MNRAS Letters, in press

Scattering of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation in galaxy clusters induces polarization signals determined by the quadrupole anisotropy in the photon distribution at the location of clusters. This "remote quadrupole" derived from the measurements of the induced polarization in galaxy clusters provides an opportunity of reconstruction of local CMB temperature anisotropies. In this {\em Letter} we develop an algorithm of the reconstruction through the estimation of the underlying primordial gravitational potential, which is the origin of the CMB temperature and polarization fluctuations and CMB induced polarization in galaxy clusters. We found a nice reconstruction for the quadrupole and octopole components of the CMB temperature anisotropies with the assistance of the CMB induced polarization signals. The reconstruction can be an important consistency test on the puzzles of CMB anomaly, especially for the low quadrupole and axis of evil problems reported in WMAP and Planck data., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to MNRAS Letter

Gravitational waves (GWs) provide a revolutionary tool to investigate yet unobserved astrophysical objects. Especially the first stars, which are believed to be more massive than present-day stars, might be indirectly observable via the merger of their compact remnants. We develop a self-consistent, cosmologically representative, semi-analytical model to simulate the formation of the first stars. By extrapolating binary stellar-evolution models at 10% solar metallicity to metal-free stars, we track the individual systems until the coalescence of the compact remnants. We estimate the contribution of primordial stars to the merger rate density and to the detection rate of the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (aLIGO). Owing to their higher masses, the remnants of primordial stars produce strong GW signals, even if their contribution in number is relatively small. We find a probability of $\gtrsim1\%$ that the current detection GW150914 is of primordial origin. We estimate that aLIGO will detect roughly 1 primordial BH-BH merger per year for the final design sensitivity, although this rate depends sensitively on the primordial initial mass function (IMF). Turning this around, the detection of black hole mergers with a total binary mass of $\sim 300\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$ would enable us to constrain the primordial IMF., 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, MNRAS Letters in press, for our PopIII binary catalogues, see http://www2.iap.fr/users/volonter/PopIIIGW

The integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) contribution induced on the cosmicmicrowave background by the presence of a supervoid as the one detected by Szapudi et al. (2015) is reviewed in this letter in order to check whether it could explain the Cold Spot (CS) anomaly. Two different models, previously used for the same purpose, are considered to describe the matter density profile of the void: a top hat function and a compensated profile produced by a Gaussian potential. The analysis shows that, even enabling ellipticity changes or different values for the dark-energy equation of state parameter ω, the ISW contribution due to the presence of the void does not reproduce the properties of the CS., Partial financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad Projects AYA2012-39475-C02-01 and ConsoliderIngenio 2010 CSD2010-00064 is acknowledged.

Hydrogen in the Universe was (re)ionised between redshifts $z \approx 10$ and $z \approx 6$. The nature of the sources of the ionising radiation is hotly debated, with faint galaxies below current detection limits regarded as prime candidates. Here we consider a scenario in which ionising photons escape through channels punctured in the interstellar medium by outflows powered by starbursts. We take account of the observation that strong outflows occur only when the star formation density is sufficiently high, and estimate the galaxy-averaged escape fraction as a function of redshift and luminosity from the resolved star formation surface densities in the EAGLE cosmological hydrodynamical simulation. We find that the fraction of ionising photons that escape from galaxies increases rapidly with redshift, reaching values of 5-20 percent at $z > 6$, with the brighter galaxies having higher escape fractions. Combining the dependence of escape fraction on luminosity and redshift with the observed luminosity function, we demonstrate that galaxies emit enough ionising photons to match the existing constraints on reionisation while also matching the observed UV-background post-reionisation. Our findings suggest that galaxies above the current Hubble Space Telescope detection limit emit half of the ionising radiation required to reionise the Universe., 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

We test the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium in an X-ray luminosity selected sample of 50 galaxy clusters at $0.15, Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, accepted by MNRAS

We compute the bulk motions of cosmic voids, using a $\Lambda$CDM numerical simulation considering the mean velocities of the dark matter inside the void itself and that of the haloes in the surrounding shell. We find coincident values of these two measures in the range $\sim$ 300-400 km/s, not far from the expected mean peculiar velocities of groups and galaxy clusters. When analysing the distribution of the pairwise relative velocities of voids, we find a remarkable bimodal behaviour consistent with an excess of both systematically approaching and receding voids. We determine that the origin of this bimodality resides in the void large scale environment, since once voids are classified into void-in-void (R-type) or void-in-cloud (S-type), R-types are found mutually receding away, while S-types approach each other. The magnitude of these systematic relative velocities account for more than 100 km/s, reaching large coherence lengths of up to 200 h$^{-1}$ Mpc . We have used samples of voids from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS-DR7) and the peculiar velocity field inferred from linear theory, finding fully consistent results with the simulation predictions. Thus, their relative motion suggests a scenario of a sparkling Universe, with approaching and receding voids according to their local environment., Comment: 6 pages, 4 Figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

Nonlinear redshift-space distortion known as the Fingers-of-God (FoG) effect is a major systematic uncertainty in redshift-space distortion studies conducted to test gravity models. The FoG effect has been usually attributed to the random motion of galaxies inside their clusters. When the internal galaxy motion is not well virialized, however, the coherent infalling motion toward the cluster center generates the FoG effect. Here we derive an analytical model of the satellite velocity distribution due to the infall motion combined with the random motion. We show that the velocity distribution becomes far from Maxwellian when the infalling motion is dominant. We use simulated subhalo catalogs to find that the contribution of infall motion is important to massive subhalos and that the velocity distribution has a top-hat like shape as expected from our analytic model. We also study the FoG effect due to infall motion on the redshift-space power spectrum. Using simulated mock samples of luminous red galaxies constructed from halos and massive subhalos in N-body simulations, we show that the redshift-space power spectra can differ from expectations when the infall motion is ignored., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

In this letter we present a study of the central regions of cool-core clusters hosting radio mini-halos, which are diffuse synchrotron sources extended on cluster-scales surrounding the radio-loud brightest cluster galaxy. We aim to investigate the interplay between the thermal and non-thermal components in the intra-cluster medium in order to get more insights into these radio sources, whose nature is still unclear. It has recently been proposed that turbulence plays a role for heating the gas in cool cores. By assuming that mini-halos are powered by the same turbulence, we expect that the integrated radio luminosity of mini-halos, $\nu P_{\nu}$, depends on the cooling flow power, $P_{\rm CF}$, which in turn constrains the energy available for the non-thermal components and emission in the cool-core region. We carried out a homogeneous re-analysis of X-ray Chandra data of the largest sample of cool-core clusters hosting radio mini-halos currently available ($\sim$ 20 objects), finding a quasi-linear correlation, $\nu P_{\nu} \propto P_{\rm CF}^{0.8}$. We show that the scenario of a common origin of radio mini-halos and gas heating in cool-core clusters is energetically viable, provided that mini-halos trace regions where the magnetic field strength is $B \gg 0.5\, \mu$G ., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures; MNRAS Letters in press

Cosmic reionization holds the key to understand structure formation in the Universe, and can inform us about the properties of the first sources, as their star formation efficiency and escape fraction of ionizing photons. By combining the recent release of Planck electron scattering optical depth data with observations of high-redshift quasar absorption spectra, we obtain strong constraints on viable reionization histories. We show that inclusion of Planck data favors a reionization scenario with a single stellar population. The mean $x_{\rm HI}$ drops from $\sim0.8$ at $z=10.6$ to $\sim10^{-4}$ at $z=5.8$ and reionization is completed around $5.8\lesssim z\lesssim8.5$ (2-$\sigma$), thus indicating a significant reduction in contributions to reionization from high redshift sources. We can put independent constraints on the escape fraction $f_{\rm esc}$ of ionizing photons by incorporating the high-redshift galaxy luminosity function data into our analysis. We find a non-evolving $f_{\rm esc}$ of $\sim10\%$ in the redshift range $z=6-9$., Comment: Accepted in MNRAS Letters. Revised to match the accepted version

We report the detection and mapping of atomic hydrogen in HI 21cm emission from ESO 184-G82, the host galaxy of the gamma ray burst 980425. This is the first instance where HI in emission has been detected from a galaxy hosting a gamma ray burst. ESO 184-G82 is an isolated galaxy and contains a Wolf-Rayet region close to the location of the gamma ray burst and the associated supernova, SN 1998bw. This is one of the most luminous HII regions identified in the local Universe, with a very high inferred density of star formation. The HI 21cm observations reveal a high HI mass for the galaxy, twice as large as the stellar mass. The spatial and velocity distribution of the HI 21cm emission reveals a disturbed rotating gas disk, which suggests that the galaxy has undergone a recent minor merger that disrupted its rotation. We find that the Wolf-Rayet region and the gamma ray burst are both located in the highest HI column density region of the galaxy. We speculate that the merger event has resulted in shock compression of the gas, triggering extreme star formation activity, and resulting in the formation of both the Wolf-Rayet region and the gamma ray burst. The high HI column density environment of the GRB is consistent with the high HI column densities seen in absorption in the host galaxies of high redshift gamma ray bursts., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters. 5 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables. For the definitive version visit http://mnrasl.oxfordjournals.org/