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We present cosmological constraints based on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing potential power spectrum measurement from the recent 500 deg² SPTPOL survey, the most precise CMB lensing measurement from the ground to date. We fit a flat ΛCDM model to the reconstructed lensing power spectrum alone and in addition with other data sets: baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), as well as primary CMB spectra from Planck and SPTPOL. The cosmological constraints based on SPTPOL and Planck lensing band powers are in good agreement when analyzed alone and in combination with Planck full-sky primary CMB data. With weak priors on the baryon density and other parameters, the SPTPOL CMB lensing data alone provide a 4% constraint on σ₈Ω^(0.25)_m = 0.593 ± 0.025. Jointly fitting with BAO data, we find σ₈ = 0.779±0.023, Ω_m = 0.368^(+0.032)_(−0.037), and H₀ = 72.0^(+2.1)_(−2.5)kms⁻¹ Mpc⁻¹, up to 2σ away from the central values preferred by Planck lensing + BAO. However, we recover good agreement between SPTPOL and Planck when restricting the analysis to similar scales. We also consider single-parameter extensions to the flat ΛCDM model. The SPTPOL lensing spectrum constrains the spatial curvature to be Ω_K = −0.0007±0.0025 and the sum of the neutrino masses to be ∑m_ν < 0.23 eV at 95% C.L. (with Planck primary CMB and BAO data), in good agreement with the Planck lensing results. With the differences in the signal-to-noise ratio of the lensing modes and the angular scales covered in the lensing spectra, this analysis represents an important independent check on the full-sky Planck lensing measurement.

We study the polarization properties of extragalactic sources at 95 and 150 GHz in the SPTpol 500 deg² survey. We estimate the polarized power by stacking maps at known source positions, and correct for noise bias by subtracting the mean polarized power at random positions in the maps. We show that the method is unbiased using a set of simulated maps with similar noise properties to the real SPTpol maps. We find a flux-weighted mean-squared polarization fraction 〈p²〉 = [8.9 ± 1.1] × 10⁻⁴ at 95 GHz and [6.9 ± 1.1] × 10⁻⁴ at 150 GHz for the full sample. This is consistent with the values obtained for a subsample of active galactic nuclei. For dusty sources, we find 95 per cent upper limits of 〈p²〉₉₅ < 16.9 × 10⁻³and 〈p²〉₁₅₀ < 2.6 × 10⁻³. We find no evidence that the polarization fraction depends on the source flux or observing frequency. The 1σ upper limit on measured mean-squared polarization fraction at 150 GHz implies that extragalactic foregrounds will be subdominant to the CMB E and B mode polarization power spectra out to at least ℓ ≲ 5700 (ℓ ≲ 4700) and ℓ ≲ 5300 (ℓ ≲ 3600), respectively, at 95 (150) GHz.

We study the polarisation properties of extragalactic sources at 95 and 150 GHz in the SPTpol 500 deg$^2$ survey. We estimate the polarised power by stacking maps at known source positions, and correct for noise bias by subtracting the mean polarised power at random positions in the maps. We show that the method is unbiased using a set of simulated maps with similar noise properties to the real SPTpol maps. We find a flux-weighted mean-squared polarisation fraction $\langle p^2 \rangle= [8.9\pm1.1] \times 10^{-4}$ at 95 GHz and $[6.9\pm1.1] \times 10^{-4}$ at 150~GHz for the full sample. This is consistent with the values obtained for a sub-sample of active galactic nuclei. For dusty sources, we find 95 per cent upper limits of $\langle p^2 \rangle_{\rm 95}, 10 pages, 5 figures

A promising supermassive black hole seed formation channel is that of direct collapse from primordial gas clouds. We perform a suite of 3D hydrodynamics simulations of an isolated turbulent gas cloud to investigate conditions conducive to forming massive black hole seeds via direct collapse, probing the impact of cloud metallicity, gas temperature floor and cooling physics on cloud fragmentation. We find there is no threshold in metallicity which produces a sharp drop in fragmentation. When molecular cooling is not present, metallicity has little effect on fragmentation. When molecular cooling is present, fragmentation is suppressed by at most $\sim 25\%$, with the greatest suppression seen at metallicities below $2\%$ solar. A gas temperature floor $\sim 10^{4}$K produces the largest drop in fragmentation of any parameter choice, reducing fragmentation by $\sim 60\%$. At metallicities below $2\%$ solar or at temperatures $\sim 10^{3}$K we see a reduction in fragmentation $\sim 20-25 \%$. For a cloud of metallicity $2\%$ solar above and a temperature below $10^3$K, the detailed choices of temperature floor, metallicity, and cooling physics have little impact on fragmentation., 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to MNRAS

Full author list: L. E. Bleem, S. Bocquet, B. Stalder, M. D. Gladders, P. A. R. Ade, S. W. Allen, A. J. Anderson, J. Annis, M. L. N. Ashby, J. E. Austermann, S. Avila, J. S. Avva, M. Bayliss, J. A. Beall, K. Bechtol, A. N. Bender, B. A. Benson, E. Bertin, F. Bianchini, C. Blake, M. Brodwin, D. Brooks, E. Buckley-Geer, D. L. Burke, J. E. Carlstrom, A. Carnero Rosell, M. Carrasco Kind, J. Carretero, C. L. Chang, H. C. Chiang, R. Citron, C. Corbett Moran, M. Costanzi, T. M. Crawford, A. T. Crites, L. N. da Costa, T. de Haan, J. De Vicente, S. Desai, H. T. Diehl, J. P. Dietrich, M. A. Dobbs, T. F. Eifler, W. Everett, B. Flaugher, B. Floyd, J. Frieman, J. Gallicchio, J. García-Bellido, E. M. George, D. W. Gerdes, A. Gilbert, D. Gruen, R. A. Gruendl, J. Gschwend, N. Gupta, G. Gutierrez, N. W. Halverson, N. Harrington, J. W. Henning, C. Heymans, G. P. Holder, D. L. Hollowood, W. L. Holzapfel, K. Honscheid, J. D. Hrubes, N. Huang, J. Hubmayr, K. D. Irwin, D. J. James, T. Jeltema, S. Joudaki, G. Khullar, M. Klein, L. Knox, N. Kuropatkin, A. T. Lee, D. Li, C. Lidman, A. Lowitz, N. MacCrann, G. Mahler, M. A. G. Maia, J. L. Marshall, M. McDonald, J. J. McMahon, P. Melchior, F. Menanteau, S. S. Meyer, R. Miquel, L. M. Mocanu, J. J. Mohr, J. Montgomery, A. Nadolski, T. Natoli, J. P. Nibarger, G. Noble, V. Novosad, S. Padin, A. Palmese, D. Parkinson, S. Patil, F. Paz-Chinchón, A. A. Plazas, C. Pryke, N. S. Ramachandra, C. L. Reichardt, J. D. Remolina González, A. K. Romer, A. Roodman, J. E. Ruhl, E. S. Rykoff, B. R. Saliwanchik, E. Sanchez, A. Saro, J. T. Sayre, K. K. Schaffer, T. Schrabback, S. Serrano, K. Sharon, C. Sievers, G. Smecher, M. Smith, M. Soares-Santos, A. A. Stark, K. T. Story, E. Suchyta, G. Tarle, C. Tucker, K. Vanderlinde, T. Veach, J. D. Vieira, G. Wang, J. Weller, N. Whitehorn, W. L. K. Wu, V. Yefremenko, and Y. Zhang, We describe the observations and resultant galaxy cluster catalog from the 2770 deg2 SPTpol Extended Cluster Survey (SPT-ECS). Clusters are identified via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect and confirmed with a combination of archival and targeted follow-up data, making particular use of data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). With incomplete follow-up we have confirmed as clusters 244 of 266 candidates at a detection significance ξ ≥ 5 and an additional 204 systems at 4 < ξ < 5. The confirmed sample has a median mass of M500c ~ 4.4 ¿ 1014 M☉ h70 -1 and a median redshift of z = 0.49, and we have identified 44 strong gravitational lenses in the sample thus far. Radio data are used to characterize contamination to the SZ signal; the median contamination for confirmed clusters is predicted to be ∼1% of the SZ signal at the ξ > 4 threshold, and 10% of their measured SZ flux. We associate SZ-selected clusters, from both SPT-ECS and the SPT-SZ survey, with clusters from the DES redMaPPer sample, and we find an offset distribution between the SZ center and central galaxy in general agreement with previous work, though with a larger fraction of clusters with significant offsets. Adopting a fixed Planck-like cosmology, we measure the optical richness-SZ mass (l - M) relation and find it to be 28% shallower than that from a weak-lensing analysis of the DES data-a difference significant at the 4σ level-with the relations intersecting at λ = 60. The SPT-ECS cluster sample will be particularly useful for studying the evolution of massive clusters and, in combination with DES lensing observations and the SPT-SZ cluster sample, will be an important component of future cosmological analyses., This work was performed in the context of the South Pole Telescope scientific program. SPT is supported by the National Science Foundation through grant PLR-1248097. Partial support is also provided by the NSF Physics Frontier Center grant PHY-0114422 to the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Kavli Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant GBMF 947 to the University of Chicago. This work is also supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. PISCO observations are supported by NSF AST-1814719. Work at Argonne National Lab is supported by UChicago Argonne LLC, operator of Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne). Argonne, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Laboratory, is operated under contract No. DE-AC02- 06CH11357. We also acknowledge support from the Argonne Center for Nanoscale Materials. M.G. and L.B. acknowledge partial support from HST-GO-15307.001. B.B. is supported by the Fermi Research Alliance LLC under contract No. De-AC02- 07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The CU Boulder group acknowledges support from NSF AST-0956135. The McGill authors acknowledge funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec Nature et technologies. The UCLA authors acknowledge support from NSF AST-1716965 and CSSI-1835865. The Stanford/SLAC group acknowledges support from the U.S. Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515. A.S. is supported by the ERC-StG “ClustersXCosmo” grant agreement 716762 and by the FARE-MIUR grant “ClustersXEuclid” R165SBKTMA. C.H. acknowledges support from the Max Planck Society and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, in the framework of the Max Planck-Humboldt Research Award endowed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, in addition to support from the European Research Council under grant No. 647112. S.J. acknowledges support from the Beecroft Trust and ERC 693024. T.S. acknowledges support from the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) provided through DLR under projects 50 OR 1610 and 50 OR 1803, as well as support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG, under project SCHR 1400/3-1. The Melbourne authors acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects scheme (DP150103208). The 2dFLenS survey is based on data acquired through the Australian Astronomical Observatory, under program A/2014B/008. This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at The Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico and the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. The Collaborating Institutions are Argonne National Laboratory, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Cambridge, Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas-Madrid, the University of Chicago, University College London, the DES-Brazil Consortium, the University of Edinburgh, the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, the Institut de Ciències de l’Espai (IEEC/CSIC), the Institut de Física d’Altes Energies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, the University of Michigan, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the University of Nottingham, The Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, the University of Sussex, Texas A&M University, and the OzDES Membership Consortium. Based in part on observations at Cerro Tololo InterAmerican Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The DES data management system is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant Nos. AST-1138766 and AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MINECO under grants AYA2015-71825, ESP2015-66861, FPA2015-68048, SEV2016-0588, SEV-2016-0597, and MDM-2015-0509, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union. IFAE is partially funded by the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007- 2013), including ERC grant agreements 240672, 291329, and 306478. We acknowledge support from the Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia (INCT) e-Universe (CNPq grant 465376/2014-2). This manuscript has been authored by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC, under contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys (PS1) and the PS1 public science archive have been made possible through contributions by the Institute for Astronomy, the University of Hawaii, the Pan-STARRS Project Office, the Max-Planck Society and its participating institutes, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, Johns Hopkins University, Durham University, the University of Edinburgh, the Queen’s University Belfast, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network Incorporated, the National Central University of Taiwan, the Space Telescope Science Institute, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under grant No. NNX08AR22G issued through the Planetary Science Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, the National Science Foundation grant No. AST1238877, the University of Maryland, Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE), the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation