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249 results on '"Gill, P. P. S."'

1. Constraints on compact objects from the Dark Energy Survey five-year supernova sample

Author

Shah, Paul, Davis, Tamara M., Vincenzi, Maria, Armstrong, Patrick, Brout, Dillon, Camilleri, Ryan, Galbany, Lluis, Garcia-Bellido, Juan, Gill, Mandeep S. S., Lahav, Ofer, Lee, Jason, Lidman, Chris, Moeller, Anais, Sako, Masao, Sanchez, Bruno O., Sullivan, Mark, Whiteway, Lorne, Wiseman, Phillip, Allam, S., Aguena, M., Bocquet, S., Brooks, D., Burke, D. L., Rosell, A. Carnero, da Costa, L. N., Pereira, M. E. S., Desai, S., Dodelson, S., Doel, P., Ferrero, I., Flaugher, B., Frieman, J., Gaztanaga, E., Gruen, D., Gruendl, R. A., Gutierrez, G., Herner, K., Hinton, S. R., Hollowood, D. L., Honscheid, K., James, D. J., Kuehn, K., Lee, S., Marshall, J. L., Mena-Fernandez, J., Miquel, R., Myles, J., Palmese, A., Pieres, A., Malagon, A. A. Plazas, Roodman, A., Samuroff, S., Sanchez, E., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Smith, M., Suchyta, E., Swanson, M. E. C., Tarle, G., To, C., and Vikram, V.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract

Gravitational lensing magnification of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) allows information to be obtained about the distribution of matter on small scales. In this paper, we derive limits on the fraction $\alpha$ of the total matter density in compact objects (which comprise stars, stellar remnants, small stellar groupings and primordial black holes) of mass $M > 0.03 M_{\odot}$ over cosmological distances. Using 1,532 SNe Ia from the Dark Energy Survey Year 5 sample (DES-SN5YR) combined with a Bayesian prior for the absolute magnitude $M$, we obtain $\alpha < 0.12$ at the 95\% confidence level after marginalisation over cosmological parameters, lensing due to large-scale structure, and intrinsic non-Gaussianity. Similar results are obtained using priors from the cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations and galaxy weak lensing, indicating our results do not depend on the background cosmology. We argue our constraints are likely to be conservative (in the sense of the values we quote being higher than the truth), but discuss scenarios in which they could be weakened by systematics of the order of $\Delta \alpha \sim 0.04$, Comment: Accepted by MNRAS

Published
2024

6. Environmental sustainability in basic research: a perspective from HECAP+

Author

Initiative, Sustainable HECAP, Banerjee, Shankha, Chen, Thomas Y., David, Claire, Düren, Michael, Erbin, Harold, Ghiglieri, Jacopo, Gill, Mandeep S. S., Glaser, L, Gütschow, Christian, Hall, Jack Joseph, Hampp, Johannes, Koppenburg, Patrick, Koschnitzke, Matthias, Lohwasser, Kristin, Mahbubani, Rakhi, Mehta, Viraf, Millington, Peter, Paul, Ayan, Poblotzki, Frauke, Potamianos, Karolos, Šarčević, Nikolina, Singh, Rajeev, Wakeling, Hannah, Walker, Rodney, van der Wild, Matthijs, and Zurita, Pia

Subjects
Physics - Physics and Society, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology, Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

The climate crisis and the degradation of the world's ecosystems require humanity to take immediate action. The international scientific community has a responsibility to limit the negative environmental impacts of basic research. The HECAP+ communities (High Energy Physics, Cosmology, Astroparticle Physics, and Hadron and Nuclear Physics) make use of common and similar experimental infrastructure, such as accelerators and observatories, and rely similarly on the processing of big data. Our communities therefore face similar challenges to improving the sustainability of our research. This document aims to reflect on the environmental impacts of our work practices and research infrastructure, to highlight best practice, to make recommendations for positive changes, and to identify the opportunities and challenges that such changes present for wider aspects of social responsibility., Comment: 158 pages, 21 figures; comments welcome. Revisions included in Version 2.0 are detailed on page 3 of the pdf. If you would like to endorse this document please visit: https://sustainable-hecap-plus.github.io/. An HTML version of this document is available at: https://sustainable-hecap-plus.github.io/

Published
2023

9. Designing an Optimal Kilonova Search using DECam for Gravitational Wave Events

Author

Bom, C. R., Annis, J., Garcia, A., Palmese, A., Sherman, N., Soares-Santos, M., Santana-Silva, L., Morgan, R., Bechtol, K., Davis, T., Diehl, H. T., Allam, S. S., Bachmann, T. G., Fraga, B. M. O., Garcıa-Bellido, J., Gill, M. S. S., Herner, K., Kilpatrick, C. D., Makler, M., E., F. Olivares, Pereira, M. E. S., Pineda, J., Santos, A., Tucker, D. L., Wiesner, M. P., Aguena, M., Alves, O., Bacon, D., Bernardinelli, P. H., Bertin, E., Bocquet, S., Brooks, D., Kind, M. Carrasco, Carretero, J., Conselice, C., Costanzi, M., da Costa, L. N., De Vicente, J., Desai, S., Doel, P., Everett, S., Ferrero, I., Frieman, J., Gatti, M., Gerdes, D. W., Gruen, D., Gruendl, R. A., Gutierrez, G., Hinton, S. R., Hollowood, D. L., Honscheid, K., James, D. J., Kuehn, K., Kuropatkin, N., Melchior, P., Mena-Fernandez, J., Menanteau, F., Pieres, A., Malagon, A. A. Plazas, Raveri, M., Rodriguez-Monroy, M., Sanchez, E., Santiago, B., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Smith, M., Suchyta, E., Swanson, M. E. C., Tarle, G., To, C., and Weaverdyck, N.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract

We address the problem of optimally identifying all kilonovae detected via gravitational wave emission in the upcoming LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA Collaboration observing run, O4, which is expected to be sensitive to a factor of $\sim 7$ more Binary Neutron Stars alerts than previously. Electromagnetic follow-up of all but the brightest of these new events will require $>1$ meter telescopes, for which limited time is available. We present an optimized observing strategy for the Dark Energy Camera during O4. We base our study on simulations of gravitational wave events expected for O4 and wide-prior kilonova simulations. We derive the detectabilities of events for realistic observing conditions. We optimize our strategy for confirming a kilonova while minimizing telescope time. For a wide range of kilonova parameters, corresponding to a fainter kilonova compared to GW170817/AT2017gfo we find that, with this optimal strategy, the discovery probability for electromagnetic counterparts with the Dark Energy Camera is $\sim 80\%$ at the nominal binary neutron star gravitational wave detection limit for the next LVK observing run (190 Mpc), which corresponds to a $\sim 30\%$ improvement compared to the strategy adopted during the previous observing run. For more distant events ($\sim 330$ Mpc), we reach a $\sim 60\%$ probability of detection, a factor of $\sim 2$ increase. For a brighter kilonova model dominated by the blue component that reproduces the observations of GW170817/AT2017gfo, we find that we can reach $\sim 90\%$ probability of detection out to 330 Mpc, representing an increase of $\sim 20 \%$, while also reducing the total telescope time required to follow-up events by $\sim 20\%$., Comment: 26 pages, 11 figures, accepted by ApJ

Published
2023

17. The DES Bright Arcs Survey: Candidate Strongly Lensed Galaxy Systems from the Dark Energy Survey 5,000 Sq. Deg. Footprint

Author

O'Donnell, J. H., Wilkinson, R. D., Diehl, H. T., Aros-Bunster, C., Bechtol, K., Birrer, S., Buckley-Geer, E. J., Rosell, A. Carnero, Kind, M. Carrasco, da Costa, L. N., Lozano, S. J. Gonzalez, Gruendl, R. A., Hilton, M., Lin, H., Lindgren, K. A., Martin, J., Pieres, A., Rykoff, E. S., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Sheldon, E., Sifón, C., Tucker, D. L., Yanny, B., Abbott, T. M. C., Aguena, M., Allam, S., Andrade-Oliveira, F., Annis, J., Bertin, E., Brooks, D., Burke, D. L., Carretero, J., Costanzi, M., De Vicente, J., Desai, S., Dietrich, J. P., Eckert, K., Everett, S., Ferrero, I., Flaugher, B., Fosalba, P., Frieman, J., García-Bellido, J., Gaztanaga, E., Gerdes, D. W., Gruen, D., Gschwend, J., Gill, M. S. S., Gutierrez, G., Hinton, S. R., Hollowood, D. L., Honscheid, K., James, D. J., Jeltema, T., Kuehn, K., Lahav, O., Lima, M., Maia, M. A. G., Marshall, J. L., Melchior, P., Menanteau, F., Miquel, R., Morgan, R., Nord, B., Ogando, R. L. C., Paz-Chinchón, F., Pereira, M. E. S., Malagón, A. A. Plazas, Rodriguez-Monroy, M., Romer, A. K., Roodman, A., Sanchez, E., Scarpine, V., Schubnell, M., Serrano, S., Smith, M., Suchyta, E., Swanson, M. E. C., Tarle, G., Thomas, D., To, C., and Varga, T. N.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

We report the combined results of eight searches for strong gravitational lens systems in the full 5,000 sq. deg. of Dark Energy Survey (DES) observations. The observations accumulated by the end of the third observing season fully covered the DES footprint in 5 filters (grizY), with an $i-$band limiting magnitude (at $10\sigma$) of 23.44. In four searches, a list of potential candidates was identified using a color and magnitude selection from the object catalogs created from the first three observing seasons. Three other searches were conducted at the locations of previously identified galaxy clusters. Cutout images of potential candidates were then visually scanned using an object viewer. An additional set of candidates came from a data-quality check of a subset of the color-coadd "tiles" created from the full DES six-season data set. A short list of the most promising strong lens candidates was then numerically ranked according to whether or not we judged them to be bona fide strong gravitational lens systems. These searches discovered a diverse set of 247 strong lens candidate systems, of which 81 are identified for the first time. We provide the coordinates, magnitudes, and photometric properties of the lens and source objects, and an estimate of the Einstein radius for 81 new systems and 166 previously reported. This catalog will be of use for selecting interesting systems for detailed follow-up, studies of galaxy cluster and group mass profiles, as well as a training/validation set for automated strong lens searches., Comment: 38 pages, 17 figures, 4 tables, accepted by ApJS

Published
2021
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19. Expediting DECam Multimessenger Counterpart Searches with Convolutional Neural Networks

Author

Shandonay, Adam, Morgan, Robert, Bechtol, Keith, Bom, Clecio R., Nord, Brian, Garcia, Alyssa, Henghes, Ben, Herner, Kenneth, Tabbutt, Megan, Palmese, Antonella, Santana-Silva, Luidhy, Soares-Santos, Marcelle, Gill, Mandeep S. S., and Garcia-Bellido, Juan

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

Searches for counterparts to multimessenger events with optical imagers use difference imaging to detect new transient sources. However, even with existing artifact detection algorithms, this process simultaneously returns several classes of false positives: false detections from poor quality image subtractions, false detections from low signal-to-noise images, and detections of pre-existing variable sources. Currently, human visual inspection to remove the false positives is a central part of multimessenger follow-up observations, but when next generation gravitational wave and neutrino detectors come online and increase the rate of multimessenger events, the visual inspection process will be prohibitively expensive. We approach this problem with two convolutional neural networks operating on the difference imaging outputs. The first network focuses on removing false detections and demonstrates an accuracy of 92 percent on our dataset. The second network focuses on sorting all real detections by the probability of being a transient source within a host galaxy and distinguishes between various classes of images that previously required additional human inspection. We find the number of images requiring human inspection will decrease by a factor of 1.5 using our approach alone and a factor of 3.6 using our approach in combination with existing algorithms, facilitating rapid multimessenger counterpart identification by the astronomical community., Comment: Published in ApJ

Published
2021
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20. The Gravity Collective: A Search for the Electromagnetic Counterpart to the Neutron Star-Black Hole Merger GW190814

Author

Kilpatrick, Charles D., Coulter, David A., Arcavi, Iair, Brink, Thomas G., Dimitriadis, Georgios, Filippenko, Alexei V., Foley, Ryan J., Howell, D. Andrew, Jones, David O., Makler, Martin, Piro, Anthony L., Rojas-Bravo, César, Sand, David J., Swift, Jonathan J., Tucker, Douglas, Zheng, WeiKang, Allam, Sahar S., Annis, James T., Antilen, Juanita, Bachmann, Tristan G., Bloom, Joshua S., Bom, Clecio R., Bostroem, K. Azalee, Brout, Dillon, Burke, Jamison, Butler, Robert E., Butner, Melissa, Campillay, Abdo, Clever, Karoli E., Conselice, Christopher J., Cooke, Jeff, Dage, Kristen C., de Carvalho, Reinaldo R., de Jaeger, Thomas, Desai, Shantanu, Garcia, Alyssa, Garcia-Bellido, Juan, Gill, Mandeep S. S., Girish, Nachiket, Hallakoun, Na'ama, Herner, Kenneth, Hiramatsu, Daichi, Holz, Daniel E., Huber, Grace, Kawash, Adam M., McCully, Curtis, Medallon, Sophia A., Metzger, Brian D., Modak, Shaunak, Morgan, Robert, Muñoz, Ricardo R., Muñoz-Elgueta, Nahir, Murakami, Yukei S., E., Felipe Olivares, Palmese, Antonella, Patra, Kishore, Pereira, Maria E. S., Pessi, Thallis L., Pineda-Garcia, J., Quirola-Vásquez, Jonathan, Ramirez-Ruiz, Enrico, Rembold, Sandro Barboza, Rest, Armin, Rodríguez, Ósmar, Santana-Silva, Luidhy, Sherman, Nora F., Siebert, Matthew R., Smith, Carli, Smith, J. Allyn, Soares-Santos, Marcelle, Stacey, Holland, Stahl, Benjamin E., Strader, Jay, Strasburger, Erika, Sunseri, James, Tinyanont, Samaporn, Tucker, Brad E., Ulloa, Natalie, Valenti, Stefano, Vasylyev, Sergiy, Wiesner, Matthew P., and Zhang, Keto D.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract

We present optical follow-up imaging obtained with the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope, Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, Nickel Telescope, Swope Telescope, and Thacher Telescope of the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave (GW) signal from the neutron star-black hole (NSBH) merger GW190814. We searched the GW190814 localization region (19 deg$^{2}$ for the 90th percentile best localization), covering a total of 51 deg$^{2}$ and 94.6% of the two-dimensional localization region. Analyzing the properties of 189 transients that we consider as candidate counterparts to the NSBH merger, including their localizations, discovery times from merger, optical spectra, likely host-galaxy redshifts, and photometric evolution, we conclude that none of these objects are likely to be associated with GW190814. Based on this finding, we consider the likely optical properties of an electromagnetic counterpart to GW190814, including possible kilonovae and short gamma-ray burst afterglows. Using the joint limits from our follow-up imaging, we conclude that a counterpart with an $r$-band decline rate of 0.68 mag day$^{-1}$, similar to the kilonova AT 2017gfo, could peak at an absolute magnitude of at most $-17.8$ mag (50% confidence). Our data are not constraining for ''red'' kilonovae and rule out ''blue'' kilonovae with $M>0.5 M_{\odot}$ (30% confidence). We strongly rule out all known types of short gamma-ray burst afterglows with viewing angles $<$17$^{\circ}$ assuming an initial jet opening angle of $\sim$$5.2^{\circ}$ and explosion energies and circumburst densities similar to afterglows explored in the literature. Finally, we explore the possibility that GW190814 merged in the disk of an active galactic nucleus, of which we find four in the localization region, but we do not find any candidate counterparts among these sources., Comment: 86 pages, 9 figures

Published
2021
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22. A DESGW Search for the Electromagnetic Counterpart to the LIGO/Virgo Gravitational Wave Binary Neutron Star Merger Candidate S190510g

Author

DES Collaboration, Garcia, A., Morgan, R., Herner, K., Palmese, A., Soares-Santos, M., Annis, J., Brout, D., Vivas, A. K., Drlica-Wagner, A., Santana-Silva, L., Tucker, D. L., Allam, S., Wiesner, M., García-Bellido, J., Gill, M. S. S., Sako, M., Kessler, R., Davis, T. M., Scolnic, D., E., F. Olivares, Paz-Chinchón, F., Sherman, N., Conselice, C., Chen, H., Foley, R. J., Doctor, Z., Horvath, J., Howell, D. A., Kilpatrick, C. D., Casares, J., Cooke, J., Rest, A., Abbott, T. M. C., Aguena, M., Avila, S., Bertin, E., Bhargava, S., Brooks, D., Burke, D. L., Rosell, A. Carnero, Kind, M. Carrasco, Carretero, J., Costanzi, M., da Costa, L. N., Desai, S., Diehl, H. T., Dietrich, J. P., Doel, P., Everett, S., Flaugher, B., Fosalba, P., Friedel, D., Frieman, J., Gaztanaga, E., Gerdes, D. W., Gruen, D., Gruendl, R. A., Gschwend, J., Gutierrez, G., Hinton, S. R., Hollowood, D. L., Honscheid, K., James, D. J., Kuehn, K., Kuropatkin, N., Lahav, O., Lima, M., Maia, M. A. G., March, M., Marshall, J. L., Menanteau, F., Miquel, R., Ogando, R. L. C., Plazas, A. A., Romer, A. K., Roodman, A., Sanchez, E., Scarpine, V., Schubnell, M., Serrano, S., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Smith, M., Suchyta, E., Swanson, M. E. C., Tarle, G., Thomas, D., Varga, T. N., Walker, A. R., and Weller, J.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

We present the results from a search for the electromagnetic counterpart of the LIGO/Virgo event S190510g using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam). S190510g is a binary neutron star (BNS) merger candidate of moderate significance detected at a distance of 227$\pm$92 Mpc and localized within an area of 31 (1166) square degrees at 50\% (90\%) confidence. While this event was later classified as likely non-astrophysical in nature within 30 hours of the event, our short latency search and discovery pipeline identified 11 counterpart candidates, all of which appear consistent with supernovae following offline analysis and spectroscopy by other instruments. Later reprocessing of the images enabled the recovery of 6 more candidates. Additionally, we implement our candidate selection procedure on simulated kilonovae and supernovae under DECam observing conditions (e.g., seeing, exposure time) with the intent of quantifying our search efficiency and making informed decisions on observing strategy for future similar events. This is the first BNS counterpart search to employ a comprehensive simulation-based efficiency study. We find that using the current follow-up strategy, there would need to be 19 events similar to S190510g for us to have a 99\% chance of detecting an optical counterpart, assuming a GW170817-like kilonova. We further conclude that optimization of observing plans, which should include preference for deeper images over multiple color information, could result in up to a factor of 1.5 reduction in the total number of followups needed for discovery., Comment: Paper submitted to ApJL

Published
2020
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23. A statistical standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant from the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave compact object merger GW190814 and Dark Energy Survey galaxies

Author

Palmese, A., deVicente, J., Pereira, M. E. S., Annis, J., Hartley, W., Herner, K., Soares-Santos, M., Crocce, M., Huterer, D., Hernandez, I. Magana, Davis, T. M., Garcia, A., Garcia-Bellido, J., Gschwend, J., Holz, D. E., Kessler, R., Lahav, O., Morgan, R., Nicolaou, C., Conselice, C., Foley, R. J., Gill, M. S. S., Abbott, T. M. C., Aguena, M., Allam, S., Avila, S., Bechtol, K., Bertin, E., Bhargava, S., Brooks, D., Buckley-Geer, E., Burke, D. L., Kind, M. Carrasco, Carretero, J., Castander, F. J., Chang, C., Costanzi, M., da Costa, L. N., Desai, S., Diehl, H. T., Doel, P., Estrada, J., Everett, S., Evrard, A. E., Fernandez, E., Finley, D. A., Flaugher, B., Fosalba, P., Frieman, J., Gaztanaga, E., Gerdes, D. W., Gruen, D., Gruendl, R. A., Gutierrez, G., Hinton, S. R., Hollowood, D. L., Honscheid, K., James, D. J., Kent, S., Krause, E., Kuehn, K., Lin, H., Maia, M. A. G., March, M., Marshall, J. L., Melchior, P., Menanteau, F., Miquel, R., Ogando, R. L. C., Paz-Chinchon, F., Plazas, A. A., Roodman, A., Sako, M., Sanchez, E., Scarpine, V., Schubnell, M., Serrano, S., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Smith, J. Allyn, Smith, M., Suchyta, E., Tarle, G., Troxel, M. A., Tucker, D. L., Walker, A. R., Wester, W., Wilkinson, R. D., and Zuntz, J.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract

We present a measurement of the Hubble constant $H_0$ using the gravitational wave (GW) event GW190814, which resulted from the coalescence of a 23 $M_\odot$ black hole with a 2.6 $M_\odot$ compact object, as a standard siren. No compelling electromagnetic counterpart has been identified for this event, thus our analysis accounts for thousands of potential host galaxies within a statistical framework. The redshift information is obtained from the photometric redshift (photo-$z$) catalog from the Dark Energy Survey. The luminosity distance is provided by the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave sky map. Since this GW event has the second-smallest localization volume after GW170817, GW190814 is likely to provide the best constraint on cosmology from a single standard siren without identifying an electromagnetic counterpart. Our analysis uses photo-$z$ probability distribution functions and corrects for photo-$z$ biases. We also reanalyze the binary-black hole GW170814 within this updated framework. We explore how our findings impact the $H_0$ constraints from GW170817, the only GW merger associated with a unique host galaxy. From a combination of GW190814, GW170814 and GW170817, our analysis yields $H_0 = 72.0^{+ 12}_{- 8.2 }~{\rm km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}$ (68\% Highest Density Interval, HDI) for a prior in $H_0$ uniform between $[20,140]~{\rm km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}$. The addition of GW190814 and GW170814 to GW170817 improves the 68\% HDI from GW170817 alone by $\sim 18\%$, showing how well-localized mergers without counterparts can provide a significant contribution to standard siren measurements, provided that a complete galaxy catalog is available at the location of the event., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, replacement reflects published version

Published
2020
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24. Constraints on the Physical Properties of GW190814 through Simulations based on DECam Follow-up Observations by the Dark Energy Survey

Author

Morgan, R., Soares-Santos, M., Annis, J., Herner, K., Garcia, A., Palmese, A., Drlica-Wagner, A., Kessler, R., Garcia-Bellido, J., Sherman, T. G. Bachmann N., Allam, S., Bechtol, K., Bom, C. R., Brout, D., Butler, R. E., Butner, M., Cartier, R., Chen, H., Conselice, C., Cook, E., Davis, T. M., Doctor, Z., Farr, B., Figueiredo, A. L., Finley, D. A., Foley, R. J., Galarza, J. Y., Gill, M. S. S., Gruendl, R. A., Holz, D. E., Kuropatkin, N., Lidman, C., Lin, H., Malik, U., Mann, A. W., Marriner, J., Marshall, J. L., Martinez-Vazquez, C. E., Meza, N., Neilsen, E., Nicolaou, C., E., F. Olivares, Paz-Chinchon, F., Points, S., Quirola, J., Rodriguez, O., Sako, M., Scolnic, D., Smith, M., Sobreira, F., Tucker, D. L., Vivas, A. K., Wiesner, M., Wood, M. L., Yanny, B., Zenteno, A., Abbott, T. M. C., Aguena, M., Avila, S., Bertin, E., Bhargava, S., Brooks, D., Burke, D. L., Rosell, A. Carnero, Kind, M. Carrasco, Carretero, J., da Costa, L. N., Costanzi, M., De Vicente, J., Desai, S., Diehl, H. T., Doel, P., Eifler, T. F., Everett, S., Flaugher, B., Frieman, J., Gaztanaga, E., Gerdes, D. W., Gruen, D., Gschwend, J., Gutierrez, G., Hartley, W. G., Hinton, S. R., Hollowood, D. L., Honscheid, K., James, D. J., Kuehn, K., Lahav, O., Lima, M., Maia, M. A. G., March, M., Miquel, R., Ogando, R. L. C., Plazas, A. A., Roodman, A., Sanchez, E., Scarpine, V., Schubnell, M., Serrano, S., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Suchyta, E., and Tarle, G.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

On 14 August 2019, the LIGO and Virgo Collaborations detected gravitational waves from a black hole and a 2.6 solar mass compact object, possibly the first neutron star -- black hole (NSBH) merger. In search of an optical counterpart, the Dark Energy Survey (DES) obtained deep imaging of the entire 90 percent confidence level localization area with Blanco/DECam 0, 1, 2, 3, 6, and 16 nights after the merger. Objects with varying brightness were detected by the DES Pipeline and we systematically reduced the candidate counterparts through catalog matching, light curve properties, host-galaxy photometric redshifts, SOAR spectroscopic follow-up observations, and machine-learning-based photometric classification. All candidates were rejected as counterparts to the merger. To quantify the sensitivity of our search, we applied our selection criteria to full light curve simulations of supernovae and kilonovae as they would appear in the DECam observations. Since the source class of the merger was uncertain, we utilized an agnostic, three-component kilonova model based on tidally-disrupted NS ejecta properties to quantify our detection efficiency of a counterpart if the merger included a NS. We find that if a kilonova occurred during this merger, configurations where the ejected matter is greater than 0.07 solar masses, has lanthanide abundance less than $10^{-8.56}$, and has a velocity between $0.18c$ and $0.21c$ are disfavored at the $2\sigma$ level. Furthermore, we estimate that our background reduction methods are capable of associating gravitational wave signals with a detected electromagnetic counterpart at the $4\sigma$ level in $95\%$ of future follow-up observations., Comment: Published in ApJ

Published
2020
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25. Optical follow-up of gravitational wave triggers with DECam during the first two LIGO/VIRGO observing runs

Author

Herner, K., Annis, J., Brout, D., Soares-Santos, M., Kessler, R., Sako, M., Butler, R., Doctor, Z., Palmese, A., Allam, S., Tucker, D. L., Sobreira, F., Yanny, B., Diehl, H. T., Frieman, J., Glaeser, N., Garcia, A., Sherman, N. F., Bechtol, K., Berger, E., Chen, H. Y., Conselice, C. J., Cook, E., Cowperthwaite, P. S., Davis, T. M., Drlica-Wagner, A., Farr, B., Finley, D., Foley, R. J., Garcia-Bellido, J., Gill, M. S. S., Gruendl, R. A., Holz, D. E., Kuropatkin, N., Lin, H., Marriner, J., Marshall, J. L., Matheson, T., Neilsen, E., Paz-Chinchón, F., Sauseda, M., Scolnic, D., Williams, P. K. G., Avila, S., Bertin, E., Buckley-Geer, E., Burke, D. L., Rosell, A. Carnero, Carrasco-Kind, M., Carretero, J., da Costa, L. N., De Vicente, J., Desai, S., Doel, P., Eifler, T. F., Everett, S., Fosalba, P., Gaztanaga, E., Gerdes, D. W., Gschwend, J., Gutierrez, G., Hartley, W. G., Hollowood, D. L., Honscheid, K., James, D. J., Krause, E., Kuehn, K., Lahav, O., Li, T. S., Lima, M., Maia, M. A. G., March, M., Menanteau, F., Miquel, R., Plazas, A. A., Sanchez, E., Scarpine, V., Schubnell, M., Serrano, S., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Smith, M., Suchyta, E., Tarle, G., Wester, W., and Zhang, Y.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

Gravitational wave (GW) events detectable by LIGO and Virgo have several possible progenitors, including black hole mergers, neutron star mergers, black hole--neutron star mergers, supernovae, and cosmic string cusps. A subset of GW events are expected to produce electromagnetic (EM) emission that, once detected, will provide complementary information about their astrophysical context. To that end, the LIGO--Virgo Collaboration (LVC) sends GW candidate alerts to the astronomical community so that searches for their EM counterparts can be pursued. The DESGW group, consisting of members of the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the LVC, and other members of the astronomical community, uses the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) to perform a search and discovery program for optical signatures of LVC GW events. DESGW aims to use a sample of GW events as standard sirens for cosmology. Due to the short decay timescale of the expected EM counterparts and the need to quickly eliminate survey areas with no counterpart candidates, it is critical to complete the initial analysis of each night's images as quickly as possible. We discuss our search area determination, imaging pipeline, and candidate selection processes. We review results from the DESGW program during the first two LIGO--Virgo observing campaigns and introduce other science applications that our pipeline enables., Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, accepted in Astronomy and Computing, matches accepted version

Published
2020
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28. Dark Matter Science in the Era of LSST

Author

Bechtol, Keith, Drlica-Wagner, Alex, Abazajian, Kevork N., Abidi, Muntazir, Adhikari, Susmita, Ali-Haïmoud, Yacine, Annis, James, Ansarinejad, Behzad, Armstrong, Robert, Asorey, Jacobo, Baccigalupi, Carlo, Banerjee, Arka, Banik, Nilanjan, Bennett, Charles, Beutler, Florian, Bird, Simeon, Birrer, Simon, Biswas, Rahul, Biviano, Andrea, Blazek, Jonathan, Boddy, Kimberly K., Bonaca, Ana, Borrill, Julian, Bose, Sownak, Bovy, Jo, Frye, Brenda, Brooks, Alyson M., Buckley, Matthew R., Buckley-Geer, Elizabeth, Bulbul, Esra, Burchat, Patricia R., Burgess, Cliff, Calore, Francesca, Caputo, Regina, Castorina, Emanuele, Chang, Chihway, Chapline, George, Charles, Eric, Chen, Xingang, Clowe, Douglas, Cohen-Tanugi, Johann, Comparat, Johan, Croft, Rupert A. C., Cuoco, Alessandro, Cyr-Racine, Francis-Yan, D'Amico, Guido, Davis, Tamara M, Dawson, William A., de la Macorra, Axel, Di Valentino, Eleonora, Rivero, Ana Díaz, Digel, Seth, Dodelson, Scott, Doré, Olivier, Dvorkin, Cora, Eckner, Christopher, Ellison, John, Erkal, Denis, Farahi, Arya, Fassnacht, Christopher D., Ferreira, Pedro G., Flaugher, Brenna, Foreman, Simon, Friedrich, Oliver, Frieman, Joshua, García-Bellido, Juan, Gawiser, Eric, Gerbino, Martina, Giannotti, Maurizio, Gill, Mandeep S. S., Gluscevic, Vera, Golovich, Nathan, Gontcho, Satya Gontcho A, González-Morales, Alma X., Grin, Daniel, Gruen, Daniel, Hearin, Andrew P., Hendel, David, Hezaveh, Yashar D., Hirata, Christopher M., Hložek, Renee, Horiuchi, Shunsaku, Jain, Bhuvnesh, Jee, M. James, Jeltema, Tesla E., Kamionkowski, Marc, Kaplinghat, Manoj, Keeley, Ryan E., Keeton, Charles R., Khatri, Rishi, Koposov, Sergey E., Koushiappas, Savvas M., Kovetz, Ely D., Lahav, Ofer, Lam, Casey, Lee, Chien-Hsiu, Li, Ting S., Liguori, Michele, Lin, Tongyan, Lisanti, Mariangela, LoVerde, Marilena, Lu, Jessica R., Mandelbaum, Rachel, Mao, Yao-Yuan, McDermott, Samuel D., McNanna, Mitch, Medford, Michael, Meerburg, P. Daniel, Meyer, Manuel, Mirbabayi, Mehrdad, Mishra-Sharma, Siddharth, Marc, Moniez, More, Surhud, Moustakas, John, Muñoz, Julian B., Murgia, Simona, Myers, Adam D., Nadler, Ethan O., Necib, Lina, Newburgh, Laura, Newman, Jeffrey A., Nord, Brian, Nourbakhsh, Erfan, Nuss, Eric, O'Connor, Paul, Pace, Andrew B., Padmanabhan, Hamsa, Palmese, Antonella, Peiris, Hiranya V., Peter, Annika H. G., Piacentni, Francesco, Piacentini, Francesco, Plazas, Andrés, Polin, Daniel A., Prakash, Abhishek, Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda, Read, Justin I., Ritz, Steven, Robertson, Brant E., Rose, Benjamin, Rosenfeld, Rogerio, Rossi, Graziano, Samushia, Lado, Sánchez, Javier, Sánchez-Conde, Miguel A., Schaan, Emmanuel, Sehgal, Neelima, Senatore, Leonardo, Seo, Hee-Jong, Shafieloo, Arman, Shan, Huanyuan, Shipp, Nora, Simon, Joshua D., Simon, Sara, Slatyer, Tracy R., Slosar, Anže, Sridhar, Srivatsan, Stebbins, Albert, Straniero, Oscar, Strigari, Louis E., Tait, Tim M. P., Tollerud, Erik, Troxel, M. A., Tyson, J. Anthony, Uhlemann, Cora, Urenña-López, L. Arturo, Verma, Aprajita, Vilalta, Ricardo, Walter, Christopher W., Wang, Mei-Yu, Watson, Scott, Wechsler, Risa H., Wittman, David, Xu, Weishuang, Yanny, Brian, Young, Sam, Yu, Hai-Bo, Zaharijas, Gabrijela, Zentner, Andrew R., and Zuntz, Joe

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract

Astrophysical observations currently provide the only robust, empirical measurements of dark matter. In the coming decade, astrophysical observations will guide other experimental efforts, while simultaneously probing unique regions of dark matter parameter space. This white paper summarizes astrophysical observations that can constrain the fundamental physics of dark matter in the era of LSST. We describe how astrophysical observations will inform our understanding of the fundamental properties of dark matter, such as particle mass, self-interaction strength, non-gravitational interactions with the Standard Model, and compact object abundances. Additionally, we highlight theoretical work and experimental/observational facilities that will complement LSST to strengthen our understanding of the fundamental characteristics of dark matter., Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, Science Whitepaper for Astro 2020, more information at https://lsstdarkmatter.github.io

Published
2019

29. First measurement of the Hubble constant from a dark standard siren using the Dark Energy Survey galaxies and the LIGO/Virgo binary-black-hole merger GW170814

Author

The DES Collaboration, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration, Soares-Santos, M., Palmese, A., Hartley, W., Annis, J., Garcia-Bellido, J., Lahav, O., Doctor, Z., Fishbach, M., Holz, D. E., Lin, H., Pereira, M. E. S., Garcia, A., Herner, K., Kessler, R., Peiris, H. V., Sako, M., Allam, S., Brout, D., Rosell, A. Carnero, Chen, H. Y., Conselice, C., deRose, J., deVicente, J., Diehl, H. T., Gill, M. S. S., Gschwend, J., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Tucker, D. L., Wechsler, R., Berger, E., Cowperthwaite, P. S., Metzger, B. D., Williams, P. K. G., Abbott, T. M. C., Abdalla, F. B., Avila, S., Bechtol, K., Bertin, E., Brooks, D., Buckley-Geer, E., Burke, D. L., Kind, M. Carrasco, Carretero, J., Castander, F. J., Crocce, M., Cunha, C. E., D'Andrea, C. B., da Costa, L. N., Davis, C., Desai, S., Doel, P., Drlica-Wagner, A., Eifler, T. F., Evrard, A. E., Flaugher, B., Fosalba, P., Frieman, J., Gaztanaga, E., Gerdes, D. W., Gruen, D., Gruendl, R. A., Gutierrez, G., Hollowood, D. L., Hoyle, B., James, D. J., Jeltema, T., Kuehn, K., Kuropatkin, N., Li, T. S., Lima, M., Maia, M. A. G., Marshall, J. L., Menanteau, F., Miquel, R., Neilsen, E., Ogando, R. L. C., Plazas, A. A., Romer, A. K., Roodman, A., Sanchez, E., Scarpine, V., Schindler, R., Schubnell, M., Serrano, S., Smith, M., Smith, R. C., Sobreira, F., Suchyta, E., Swanson, M. E. C., Tarle, G., Thomas, R. C., Walker, A. R., Wester, W., Zuntz, J., Abbott, B. P., Abbott, R., Abbott, T. D., Abraham, S., Acernese, F., Ackley, K., Adams, C., Adhikari, R. X., Adya, V. B., Affeldt, C., Agathos, M., Agatsuma, K., Aggarwal, N., Aguiar, O. D., Aiello, L., Ain, A., Ajith, P., Allen, G., Allocca, A., Aloy, M. A., Altin, P. A., Amato, A., Ananyeva, A., Anderson, S. B., Anderson, W. G., Angelova, S. V., Appert, S., Arai, K., Araya, M. C., Areeda, J. S., Arene, M., Ascenzi, S., Ashton, G., Aston, S. M., Astone, P., Aubin, F., Aufmuth, P., AultONeal, K., Austin, C., Avendano, V., Avila-Alvarez, A., Babak, S., Bacon, P., Badaracco, F., Bader, M. K. M., Bae, S., Baker, P. T., Baldaccini, F., Ballardin, G., Ballmer, S. W., Banagiri, S., Barayoga, J. C., Barclay, S. E., Barish, B. C., Barker, D., Barkett, K., Barnum, S., Barone, F., Barr, B., Barsotti, L., Barsuglia, M., Barta, D., Bartlett, J., Bartos, I., Bassiri, R., Basti, A., Bawaj, M., Bayley, J. C., Bazzan, M., Becsy, B., Bejger, M., Bell, A. S., Beniwal, D., Bergmann, G., Bernuzzi, S., Bero, J. J., Berry, C. P. L., Bersanetti, D., Bertolini, A., Betzwieser, J., Bhandare, R., Bidler, J., Bilenko, I. A., Bilgili, S. A., Billingsley, G., Birch, J., Birney, R., Birnholtz, O., Biscans, S., Biscoveanu, S., Bisht, A., Bitossi, M., Blackburn, J. K., Blair, C. D., Blair, D. G., Blair, R. M., Bloemen, S., Bode, N., Boer, M., Boetzel, Y., Bogaert, G., Bondu, F., Bonilla, E., Bonnand, R., Booker, P., Boom, B. A., Booth, C. D., Bork, R., Boschi, V., Bose, S., Bossie, K., Bossilkov, V., Bosveld, J., Bouffanais, Y., Bozzi, A., Bradaschia, C., Brady, P. R., Bramley, A., Branchesi, M., Brau, J. E., Briant, T., Briggs, J. H., Brighenti, F., Brillet, A., Brinkmann, M., Brockill, P., Brooks, A. F., Brown, D. D., Brunett, S., Buikema, A., Bulik, T., Bulten, H. J., Buonanno, A., Buskulic, D., Buy, C., Byer, R. L., Cabero, M., Cadonati, L., Cagnoli, G., Cahillane, C., Bustillo, J. Calderon, Callister, T. A., Calloni, E., Camp, J. B., Campbell, W. A., Cannon, K. C., Cao, H., Cao, J., Capocasa, E., Carbognani, F., Caride, S., Carney, M. F., Carullo, G., Diaz, J. Casanueva, Casentini, C., Caudill, S., Cavaglia, M., Cavalieri, R., Cella, G., Cerda-Duran, P., Cerretani, G., Cesarini, E., Chaibi, O., Chakravarti, K., Chamberlin, S. J., Chan, M., Chao, S., Charlton, P., Chase, E. A., Chassande-Mottin, E., Chatterjee, D., Chaturvedi, M., Chatziioannou, K., Cheeseboro, B. D., Chen, X., Chen, Y., Cheng, H. -P., Cheong, C. K., Chia, H. Y., Chincarini, A., Chiummo, A., Cho, G., Cho, H. S., Cho, M., Christensen, N., Chu, Q., Chua, S., Chung, K. W., Chung, S., Ciani, G., Ciobanu, A. A., Ciolfi, R., Cipriano, F., Cirone, A., Clara, F., Clark, J. A., Clearwater, P., Cleva, F., Cocchieri, C., Coccia, E., Cohadon, P. -F., Colgan, R., Colleoni, M., Collette, C. G., Collins, C., Cominsky, L. R., Constancio Jr., M., Conti, L., Cooper, S. J., Corban, P., Corbitt, T. R., Cordero-Carrion, I., Corley, K. R., Cornish, N., Corsi, A., Cortese, S., Costa, C. A., Cotesta, R., Coughlin, M. W., Coughlin, S. B., Coulon, J. -P., Countryman, S. T., Couvares, P., Covas, P. B., Cowan, E. E., Coward, D. M., Cowart, M. J., Coyne, D. C., Coyne, R., Creighton, J. D. E., Creighton, T. D., Cripe, J., Croquette, M., Crowder, S. G., Cullen, T. J., Cumming, A., Cunningham, L., Cuoco, E., Canton, T. Dal, Dalya, G., Danilishin, S. L., D'Antonio, S., Danzmann, K., Dasgupta, A., Costa, C. F. Da Silva, Datrier, L. E. H., Dattilo, V., Dave, I., Davis, D., Daw, E. J., DeBra, D., Deenadayalan, M., Degallaix, J., De Laurentis, M., Deleglise, S., Del Pozzo, W., DeMarchi, L. M., Demos, N., Dent, T., De Pietri, R., Derby, J., De Rosa, R., De Rossi, C., DeSalvo, R., de Varona, O., Dhurandhar, S., Diaz, M. C., Dietrich, T., Di Fiore, L., Di Giovanni, M., Di Girolamo, T., Di Lieto, A., Ding, B., Di Pace, S., Di Palma, I., Di Renzo, F., Dmitriev, A., Donovan, F., Dooley, K. L., Doravari, S., Dorrington, I., Downes, T. P., Drago, M., Driggers, J. C., Du, Z., Dupej, P., Dwyer, S. E., Easter, P. J., Edo, T. B., Edwards, M. C., Effler, A., Ehrens, P., Eichholz, J., Eikenberry, S. S., Eisenmann, M., Eisenstein, R. A., Estelles, H., Estevez, D., Etienne, Z. B., Etzel, T., Evans, M., Evans, T. M., Fafone, V., Fair, H., Fairhurst, S., Fan, X., Farinon, S., Farr, B., Farr, W. M., Fauchon-Jones, E. J., Favata, M., Fays, M., Fazio, M., Fee, C., Feicht, J., Fejer, M. M., Feng, F., Fernandez-Galiana, A., Ferrante, I., Ferreira, E. C., Ferreira, T. A., Ferrini, F., Fidecaro, F., Fiori, I., Fiorucci, D., Fisher, R. P., Fishner, J. M., Fitz-Axen, M., Flaminio, R., Fletcher, M., Flynn, E., Fong, H., Font, J. A., Forsyth, P. W. F., Fournier, J. -D., Frasca, S., Frasconi, F., Frei, Z., Freise, A., Frey, R., Fritschel, P., Frolov, V. V., Fulda, P., Fyffe, M., Gabbard, H. A., Gadre, B. U., Gaebel, S. M., Gair, J. R., Gammaitoni, L., Ganija, M. R., Gaonkar, S. G., Garcia-Quiros, C., Garufi, F., Gateley, B., Gaudio, S., Gaur, G., Gayathri, V., Gemme, G., Genin, E., Gennai, A., George, D., George, J., Gergely, L., Germain, V., Ghonge, S., Ghosh, Abhirup, Ghosh, Archisman, Ghosh, S., Giacomazzo, B., Giaime, J. A., Giardina, K. D., Giazotto, A., Gill, K., Giordano, G., Glover, L., Godwin, P., Goetz, E., Goetz, R., Goncharov, B., Gonzalez, G., Castro, J. M. Gonzalez, Gopakumar, A., Gorodetsky, M. L., Gossan, S. E., Gosselin, M., Gouaty, R., Grado, A., Graef, C., Granata, M., Grant, A., Gras, S., Grassia, P., Gray, C., Gray, R., Greco, G., Green, A. C., Green, R., Gretarsson, E. M., Groot, P., Grote, H., Grunewald, S., Guidi, G. M., Gulati, H. K., Guo, Y., Gupta, A., Gupta, M. K., Gustafson, E. K., Gustafson, R., Haegel, L., Halim, O., Hall, B. R., Hall, E. D., Hamilton, E. Z., Hammond, G., Haney, M., Hanke, M. M., Hanks, J., Hanna, C., Hannuksela, O. A., Hanson, J., Hardwick, T., Haris, K., Harms, J., Harry, G. M., Harry, I. W., Haster, C. -J., Haughian, K., Hayes, F. J., Healy, J., Heidmann, A., Heintze, M. C., Heitmann, H., Hemming, G., Hendry, M., Heng, I. S., Hennig, J., Heptonstall, A. W., Vivanco, Francisco Hernandez, Heurs, M., Hild, S., Hinderer, T., Hoak, D., Hochheim, S., Hofman, D., Holgado, A. M., Holland, N. A., Holt, K., Hopkins, P., Horst, C., Hough, J., Howell, E. J., Hoy, C. G., Hreibi, A., Huerta, E. A., Hughey, B., Hulko, M., Husa, S., Huttner, S. H., Huynh-Dinh, T., Idzkowski, B., Iess, A., Ingram, C., Inta, R., Intini, G., Irwin, B., Isa, H. N., Isac, J. -M., Isi, M., Iyer, B. R., Izumi, K., Jacqmin, T., Jadhav, S. J., Jani, K., Janthalur, N. N., Jaranowski, P., Jenkins, A. C., Jiang, J., Johnson, D. S., Jones, A. W., Jones, D. I., Jones, R., Jonker, R. J. G., Ju, L., Junker, J., Kalaghatgi, C. V., Kalogera, V., Kamai, B., Kandhasamy, S., Kang, G., Kanner, J. B., Kapadia, S. J., Karki, S., Karvinen, K. S., Kashyap, R., Kasprzack, M., Katsanevas, S., Katsavounidis, E., Katzman, W., Kaufer, S., Kawabe, K., Keerthana, N. V., Kefelian, F., Keitel, D., Kennedy, R., Key, J. S., Khalili, F. Y., Khan, H., Khan, I., Khan, S., Khan, Z., Khazanov, E. A., Khursheed, M., Kijbunchoo, N., Kim, Chunglee, Kim, J. C., Kim, K., Kim, W., Kim, W. S., Kim, Y. -M., Kimball, C., King, E. J., King, P. J., Kinley-Hanlon, M., Kirchhoff, R., Kissel, J. S., Kleybolte, L., Klika, J. H., Klimenko, S., Knowles, T. D., Koch, P., Koehlenbeck, S. M., Koekoek, G., Koley, S., Kondrashov, V., Kontos, A., Koper, N., Korobko, M., Korth, W. Z., Kowalska, I., Kozak, D. B., Kringel, V., Krishnendu, N., Krolak, A., Kuehn, G., Kumar, A., Kumar, P., Kumar, R., Kumar, S., Kuo, L., Kutynia, A., Kwang, S., Lackey, B. D., Lai, K. H., Lam, T. L., Landry, M., Lane, B. B., Lang, R. N., Lange, J., Lantz, B., Lanza, R. K., Lasky, P. D., Laxen, M., Lazzarini, A., Lazzaro, C., Leaci, P., Leavey, S., Lecoeuche, Y. K., Lee, C. H., Lee, H. K., Lee, H. M., Lee, H. W., Lee, J., Lee, K., Lehmann, J., Lenon, A., Letendre, N., Levin, Y., Li, J., Li, K. J. L., Li, T. G. F., Li, X., Lin, F., Linde, F., Linker, S. D., Littenberg, T. B., Liu, J., Liu, X., Lo, R. K. L., Lockerbie, N. A., London, L. T., Longo, A., Lorenzini, M., Loriette, V., Lormand, M., Losurdo, G., Lough, J. D., Lousto, C. O., Lovelace, G., Lower, M. E., Luck, H., Lumaca, D., Lundgren, A. P., Lynch, R., Ma, Y., Macas, R., Macfoy, S., MacInnis, M., Macleod, D. M., Macquet, A., Hernandez, I. Magana, Magana-Sandoval, F., Zertuche, L. Magana, Magee, R. M., Majorana, E., Maksimovic, I., Malik, A., Man, N., Mandic, V., Mangano, V., Mansell, G. L., Manske, M., Mantovani, M., Marchesoni, F., Marion, F., Marka, S., Marka, Z., Markakis, C., Markosyan, A. S., Markowitz, A., Maros, E., Marquina, A., Marsat, S., Martelli, F., Martin, I. W., Martin, R. M., Martynov, D. V., Mason, K., Massera, E., Masserot, A., Massinger, T. J., Masso-Reid, M., Mastrogiovanni, S., Matas, A., Matichard, F., Matone, L., Mavalvala, N., Mazumder, N., McCann, J. J., McCarthy, R., McClelland, D. E., McCormick, S., McCuller, L., McGuire, S. C., McIver, J., McManus, D. J., McRae, T., McWilliams, S. T., Meacher, D., Meadors, G. D., Mehmet, M., Mehta, A. K., Meidam, J., Melatos, A., Mendell, G., Mercer, R. A., Mereni, L., Merilh, E. L., Merzougui, M., Meshkov, S., Messenger, C., Messick, C., Metzdorff, R., Meyers, P. M., Miao, H., Michel, C., Middleton, H., Mikhailov, E. E., Milano, L., Miller, A. L., Miller, A., Millhouse, M., Mills, J. C., Milovich-Goff, M. C., Minazzoli, O., Minenkov, Y., Mishkin, A., Mishra, C., Mistry, T., Mitra, S., Mitrofanov, V. P., Mitselmakher, G., Mittleman, R., Mo, G., Moffa, D., Mogushi, K., Mohapatra, S. R. P., Montani, M., Moore, C. J., Moraru, D., Moreno, G., Morisaki, S., Mours, B., Mow-Lowry, C. M., Mukherjee, Arunava, Mukherjee, D., Mukherjee, S., Mukund, N., Mullavey, A., Munch, J., Muniz, E. A., Muratore, M., Murray, P. G., Nardecchia, I., Naticchioni, L., Nayak, R. K., Neilson, J., Nelemans, G., Nelson, T. J. N., Nery, M., Neunzert, A., Ng, K. Y., Ng, S., Nguyen, P., Nichols, D., Nissanke, S., Nocera, F., North, C., Nuttall, L. K., Obergaulinger, M., Oberling, J., O'Brien, B. D., O'Dea, G. D., Ogin, G. H., Oh, J. J., Oh, S. H., Ohme, F., Ohta, H., Okada, M. A., Oliver, M., Oppermann, P., Oram, Richard J., O'Reilly, B., Ormiston, R. G., Ortega, L. F., O'Shaughnessy, R., Ossokine, S., Ottaway, D. J., Overmier, H., Owen, B. J., Pace, A. E., Pagano, G., Page, M. A., Pai, A., Pai, S. A., Palamos, J. R., Palashov, O., Palomba, C., Pal-Singh, A., Pan, Huang-Wei, Pang, B., Pang, P. T. H., Pankow, C., Pannarale, F., Pant, B. C., Paoletti, F., Paoli, A., Parida, A., Parker, W., Pascucci, D., Pasqualetti, A., Passaquieti, R., Passuello, D., Patil, M., Patricelli, B., Pearlstone, B. L., Pedersen, C., Pedraza, M., Pedurand, R., Pele, A., Penn, S., Perez, C. J., Perreca, A., Pfeiffer, H. P., Phelps, M., Phukon, K. S., Piccinni, O. J., Pichot, M., Piergiovanni, F., Pillant, G., Pinard, L., Pirello, M., Pitkin, M., Poggiani, R., Pong, D. Y. T., Ponrathnam, S., Popolizio, P., Porter, E. K., Powell, J., Prajapati, A. K., Prasad, J., Prasai, K., Prasanna, R., Pratten, G., Prestegard, T., Privitera, S., Prodi, G. A., Prokhorov, L. G., Puncken, O., Punturo, M., Puppo, P., Purrer, M., Qi, H., Quetschke, V., Quinonez, P. J., Quintero, E. A., Quitzow-James, R., Radkins, H., Radulescu, N., Raffai, P., Raja, S., Rajan, C., Rajbhandari, B., Rakhmanov, M., Ramirez, K. E., Ramos-Buades, A., Rana, Javed, Rao, K., Rapagnani, P., Raymond, V., Razzano, M., Read, J., Regimbau, T., Rei, L., Reid, S., Reitze, D. H., Ren, W., Ricci, F., Richardson, C. J., Richardson, J. W., Ricker, P. M., Riles, K., Rizzo, M., Robertson, N. A., Robie, R., Rocchi, A., Rolland, L., Rollins, J. G., Roma, V. J., Romanelli, M., Romano, R., Romel, C. L., Romie, J. H., Rose, K., Rosinska, D., Rosofsky, S. G., Ross, M. P., Rowan, S., Rudiger, A., Ruggi, P., Rutins, G., Ryan, K., Sachdev, S., Sadecki, T., Sakellariadou, M., Salconi, L., Saleem, M., Samajdar, A., Sammut, L., Sanchez, E. J., Sanchez, L. E., Sanchis-Gual, N., Sandberg, V., Sanders, J. R., Santiago, K. A., Sarin, N., Sassolas, B., Saulson, P. R., Sauter, O., Savage, R. L., Schale, P., Scheel, M., Scheuer, J., Schmidt, P., Schnabel, R., Schofield, R. M. S., Schonbeck, A., Schreiber, E., Schulte, B. W., Schutz, B. F., Schwalbe, S. G., Scott, J., Scott, S. M., Seidel, E., Sellers, D., Sengupta, A. S., Sennett, N., Sentenac, D., Sequino, V., Sergeev, A., Shaddock, D. A., Shaffer, T., Shahriar, M. S., Shaner, M. B., Shao, L., Sharma, P., Shawhan, P., Shen, H., Shink, R., Shoemaker, D. H., Shoemaker, D. M., ShyamSundar, S., Siellez, K., Sieniawska, M., Sigg, D., Silva, A. D., Singer, L. P., Singh, N., Singhal, A., Sintes, A. M., Sitmukhambetov, S., Skliris, V., Slagmolen, B. J. J., Slaven-Blair, T. J., Smith, J. R., Smith, R. J. E., Somala, S., Son, E. J., Sorazu, B., Sorrentino, F., Souradeep, T., Sowell, E., Spencer, A. P., Srivastava, A. K., Srivastava, V., Staats, K., Stachie, C., Standke, M., Steer, D. A., Steinke, M., Steinlechner, J., Steinlechner, S., Steinmeyer, D., Stevenson, S. P., Stocks, D., Stone, R., Stops, D. J., Strain, K. A., Stratta, G., Strigin, S. E., Strunk, A., Sturani, R., Stuver, A. L., Sudhir, V., Summerscales, T. Z., Sun, L., Sunil, S., Sur, A., Suresh, J., Sutton, P. J., Swinkels, B. L., Szczepanczyk, M. J., Tacca, M., Tait, S. C., Talbot, C., Talukder, D., Tanner, D. B., Tapai, M., Taracchini, A., Tasson, J. D., Taylor, R., Thies, F., Thomas, M., Thomas, P., Thondapu, S. R., Thorne, K. A., Thrane, E., Tiwari, Shubhanshu, Tiwari, Srishti, Tiwari, V., Toland, K., Tonelli, M., Tornasi, Z., Torres-Forne, A., Torrie, C. I., Toyra, D., Travasso, F., Traylor, G., Tringali, M. C., Trovato, A., Trozzo, L., Trudeau, R., Tsang, K. W., Tse, M., Tso, R., Tsukada, L., Tsuna, D., Tuyenbayev, D., Ueno, K., Ugolini, D., Unnikrishnan, C. S., Urban, A. L., Usman, S. A., Vahlbruch, H., Vajente, G., Valdes, G., van Bakel, N., van Beuzekom, M., Brand, J. F. J. van den, Broeck, C. Van Den, Vander-Hyde, D. C., van Heijningen, J. V., van der Schaaf, L., van Veggel, A. A., Vardaro, M., Varma, V., Vass, S., Vasuth, M., Vecchio, A., Vedovato, G., Veitch, J., Veitch, P. J., Venkateswara, K., Venugopalan, G., Verkindt, D., Vetrano, F., Vicere, A., Viets, A. D., Vine, D. J., Vinet, J. -Y., Vitale, S., Vo, T., Vocca, H., Vorvick, C., Vyatchanin, S. P., Wade, A. R., Wade, L. E., Wade, M., Walet, R., Walker, M., Wallace, L., Walsh, S., Wang, G., Wang, H., Wang, J. Z., Wang, W. H., Wang, Y. F., Ward, R. L., Warden, Z. A., Warner, J., Was, M., Watchi, J., Weaver, B., Wei, L. -W., Weinert, M., Weinstein, A. J., Weiss, R., Wellmann, F., Wen, L., Wessel, E. K., Wessels, P., Westhouse, J. W., Wette, K., Whelan, J. T., Whiting, B. F., Whittle, C., Wilken, D. M., Williams, D., Williamson, A. R., Willis, J. L., Willke, B., Wimmer, M. H., Winkler, W., Wipf, C. C., Wittel, H., Woan, G., Woehler, J., Wofford, J. K., Worden, J., Wright, J. L., Wu, D. S., Wysocki, D. M., Xiao, L., Yamamoto, H., Yancey, C. C., Yang, L., Yap, M. J., Yazback, M., Yeeles, D. W., Yu, Hang, Yu, Haocun, Yuen, S. H. R., Yvert, M., Zadrozny, A. K., Zanolin, M., Zelenova, T., Zendri, J. -P., Zevin, M., Zhang, J., Zhang, L., Zhang, T., Zhao, C., Zhou, M., Zhou, Z., Zhu, X. J., Zimmerman, A., Zucker, M. E., and Zweizig, J.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract

We present a multi-messenger measurement of the Hubble constant H_0 using the binary-black-hole merger GW170814 as a standard siren, combined with a photometric redshift catalog from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). The luminosity distance is obtained from the gravitational wave signal detected by the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration (LVC) on 2017 August 14, and the redshift information is provided by the DES Year 3 data. Black-hole mergers such as GW170814 are expected to lack bright electromagnetic emission to uniquely identify their host galaxies and build an object-by-object Hubble diagram. However, they are suitable for a statistical measurement, provided that a galaxy catalog of adequate depth and redshift completion is available. Here we present the first Hubble parameter measurement using a black-hole merger. Our analysis results in $H_0 = 75.2^{+39.5}_{-32.4}~{\rm km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}$, which is consistent with both SN Ia and CMB measurements of the Hubble constant. The quoted 68% credible region comprises 60% of the uniform prior range [20,140] ${\rm km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}$, and it depends on the assumed prior range. If we take a broader prior of [10,220] ${\rm km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}$, we find $H_0 = 78^{+ 96}_{-24}~{\rm km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}$ ($57\%$ of the prior range). Although a weak constraint on the Hubble constant from a single event is expected using the dark siren method, a multifold increase in the LVC event rate is anticipated in the coming years and combinations of many sirens will lead to improved constraints on $H_0$., Comment: 18 pages, 2 Figures, submitted to ApJL

Published
2019
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30. A Search for Optical Emission from Binary-Black-Hole Merger GW170814 with the Dark Energy Camera

Author

Doctor, Z., Kessler, R., Herner, K., Palmese, A., Soares-Santos, M., Annis, J., Brout, D., Holz, D. E., Sako, M., Rest, A., Cowperthwaite, P., Berger, E., Foley, R. J., Conselice, C. J., Gill, M. S. S., Allam, S., Balbinot, E., Butler, R. E., Chen, H. -Y., Chornock, R., Cook, E., Diehl, H. T., Farr, B., Fong, W., Frieman, J., Fryer, C., García-Bellido, J., Margutti, R., Marshall, J. L., Matheson, T., Metzger, B. D., Nicholl, M., Paz-Chinchón, F., Salim, S., Sauseda, M., Secco, L. F., Smith, N., Smith, R. C., Vivas, A. K., Tucker, D. L., Abbott, T. M. C., Avila, S., Bechtol, K., Bertin, E., Brooks, D., Buckley-Geer, E., Burke, D. L., Rosell, A. Carnero, Kind, M. Carrasco, Carretero, J., Castander, F. J., D'Andrea, C. B., da Costa, L. N., De Vicente, J., Desai, S., Doel, P., Flaugher, B., Fosalba, P., Gaztanaga, E., Gerdes, D. W., Goldstein, D. A., Gruen, D., Gruendl, R. A., Gutierrez, G., Hartley, W. G., Hollowood, D. L., Honscheid, K., Hoyle, B., James, D. J., Jeltema, T., Kent, S., Kuehn, K., Kuropatkin, N., Lahav, O., Lima, M., Maia, M. A. G., March, M., Menanteau, F., Miller, C. J., Miquel, R., Neilsen, E., Nord, B., Ogando, R. L. C., Plazas, A. A., Roodman, A., Sanchez, E., Scarpine, V., Schindler, R., Schubnell, M., Serrano, S., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Smith, M., Sobreira, F., Suchyta, E., Swanson, M. E. C., Tarle, G., Thomas, D., Walker, A. R., and Wester, W.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract

Binary black hole (BBH) mergers found by the LIGO and Virgo detectors are of immense scientific interest to the astrophysics community, but are considered unlikely to be sources of electromagnetic emission. To test whether they have rapidly fading optical counterparts, we used the Dark Energy Camera to perform an $i$-band search for the BBH merger GW170814, the first gravitational wave detected by three interferometers. The 87-deg$^2$ localization region (at 90\% confidence) centered in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) footprint enabled us to image 86\% of the probable sky area to a depth of $i\sim 23$ mag and provide the most comprehensive dataset to search for EM emission from BBH mergers. To identify candidates, we perform difference imaging with our search images and with templates from pre-existing DES images. The analysis strategy and selection requirements were designed to remove supernovae and to identify transients that decline in the first two epochs. We find two candidates, each of which is spatially coincident with a star or a high-redshift galaxy in the DES catalogs, and they are thus unlikely to be associated with GW170814. Our search finds no candidates associated with GW170814, disfavoring rapidly declining optical emission from BBH mergers brighter than $i\sim 23$ mag ($L_{\rm optical} \sim 5\times10^{41}$ erg/s) 1-2 days after coalescence. In terms of GW sky map coverage, this is the most complete search for optical counterparts to BBH mergers to date, Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures

Published
2018
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35. New Science, New Media: An Assessment of the Online Education and Public Outreach Initiatives of The Dark Energy Survey

Author

Wolf, R. C., Romer, A. K., Nord, B., Avila, S., Bechtol, K., Biron, L., Cawthon, R., Chang, C., Das, R., Ferte, A., Gill, M. S. S., Gupta, R. R., Hamilton, S., Hislop, J. M., Jennings, E., Krawiec, C., Kremin, A., Li, T. S., Lingard, T., Moller, A., Muir, J., Nagasawa, D. Q., Ogando, R. L. C., Plazas, A. A., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Suchyta, E., Zhang, Y., and Zuntz, J.

Subjects
Physics - Physics Education, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

As large-scale international collaborations become the standard for astronomy research, a wealth of opportunities have emerged to create innovative education and public outreach (EPO) programming. In the past two decades, large collaborations have focused EPO strategies around published data products. Newer collaborations have begun to explore other avenues of public engagement before and after data are made available. We present a case study of the online EPO program of The Dark Energy Survey, currently one of the largest international astronomy collaborations actively taking data. DES EPO is unique at this scale in astronomy, as far as we are aware, as it evolved organically from scientists' passion for EPO and is entirely organized and implemented by the volunteer efforts of collaboration scientists. We summarize the strategy and implementation of eight EPO initiatives. For content distributed via social media, we present reach and user statistics over the 2016 calendar year. DES EPO online products reached ~2,500 users per post, and 94% of these users indicate a predisposition to science-related interests. We find no obvious correlation between post type and post reach, with the most popular posts featuring the intersections of science and art and/or popular culture. We conclude that one key issue of the online DES EPO program was designing material which would inspire new interest in science. The greatest difficulty of the online DES EPO program was sustaining scientist participation and collaboration support; the most successful programs are those which capitalized on the hobbies of participating scientists. We present statistics and recommendations, along with observations from individual experience, as a potentially instructive resource for scientists or EPO professionals interested in organizing EPO programs and partnerships for large science collaborations or organizations., Comment: 50 pages, 3 appendices, 15 total figures

Published
2018

36. The Dark Energy Survey Data Release 1

Author

Abbott, T. M. C., Abdalla, F. B., Allam, S., Amara, A., Annis, J., Asorey, J., Avila, S., Ballester, O., Banerji, M., Barkhouse, W., Baruah, L., Baumer, M., Bechtol, K., Becker, M . R., Benoit-Lévy, A., Bernstein, G. M., Bertin, E., Blazek, J., Bocquet, S., Brooks, D., Brout, D., Buckley-Geer, E., Burke, D. L., Busti, V., Campisano, R., Cardiel-Sas, L., Rosell, A. C arnero, Kind, M. Carrasco, Carretero, J., Castander, F. J., Cawthon, R., Chang, C., Chen, X., Conselice, C., Costa, G., Crocce, M., Cunha, C. E., D'Andrea, C. B., da Costa, L. N., Das, R., Daues, G., Davis, T. M., Davis, C., De Vicente, J., DePoy, D. L., DeRose, J., Desai, S., Diehl, H. T., Dietrich, J. P., Dodelson, S., Doel, P., Drlica-Wagner, A., Eifler, T. F., Elliott, A. E., Evrard, A. E., Farahi, A., Neto, A. Fausti, Fernandez, E., Finley, D. A., Fitzpatrick, M., Flaugher, B., Foley, R. J., Fosalba, P., Friedel, D. N., Frieman, J., García-Bellido, J., tanaga, E. Gaz, Gerdes, D. W., Giannantonio, T., Gill, M. S. S., Glazebrook, K., Goldstein, D. A., Gower, M., Gruen, D., Gruendl, R. A., Gschwend, J., Gupta, R. R., Gutierrez, G., Hamilton, S., Hartley, W. G., Hinton, S. R., Hislop, J. M., Hollowood, D., Honscheid, K., Hoyle, B., Huterer, D., Jain, B., James, D. J., Jeltema, T., Johnson, M. W. G., Johnson, M. D., Juneau, S., Kacprzak, T., Kent, S., Khullar, G., Klein, M., Kovacs, A., Koziol, A. M. G., Krause, E., Kremin, A., Kron, R., Kuehn, K., Kuhlmann, S., Kuropatkin, N., Lahav, O., Lasker, J., Li, T. S., Li, R. T., Liddle, A. R., Lima, M., Lin, H., López-Reyes, P., MacCrann, N., Maia, M. A. G., Maloney, J. D., Manera, M., March, M., Marriner, J., Marshall, J. L., Martini, P., McClintock, T., McKay, T., McMahon, R . G., Melchior, P., Menanteau, F., Miller, C. J., Miquel, R., Mohr, J. J., Morganson, E., Mould, J., Neilsen, E., Nichol, R. C., Nidever, D., Nikutta, R., Nogueira, F., Nord, B., Nugent, P., Nunes, L., Ogando, R. L. C., Old, L., Olsen, K., Pace, A. B., Palmese, A., Paz-Chinchón, F., Peiris, H. V., Percival, W. J., Petravick, D., Plazas, A. A., Poh, J., Pond, C., redon, A. Por, Pujol, A., Refregier, A., Reil, K., Ricker, P. M., Rollins, R. P., Romer, A. K., Roodman, A., Rooney, P., Ross, A. J., Rykoff, E. S., Sako, M., Sanchez, E., Sanchez, M. L., Santiago, B., Saro, A., Scarpine, V., Scolnic, D., Scott, A., Serrano, S., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Sheldon, E., Shipp, N., Silveira, M. L., Smith, R. C., Smith, J. A., Smith, M., Soares-Santos, M., ira, F. Sobre, Song, J., Stebbins, A., Suchyta, E., Sullivan, M., Swanson, M. E. C., Tarle, G., Thaler, J., Thomas, D., Thomas, R. C., Troxel, M. A., Tucker, D. L., Vikram, V., Vivas, A. K., ker, A. R. Wal, Wechsler, R. H., Weller, J., Wester, W., Wolf, R. C., Wu, H., Yanny, B., Zenteno, A., Zhang, Y., and Zuntz, J.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Abstract

We describe the first public data release of the Dark Energy Survey, DES DR1, consisting of reduced single epoch images, coadded images, coadded source catalogs, and associated products and services assembled over the first three years of DES science operations. DES DR1 is based on optical/near-infrared imaging from 345 distinct nights (August 2013 to February 2016) by the Dark Energy Camera mounted on the 4-m Blanco telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. We release data from the DES wide-area survey covering ~5,000 sq. deg. of the southern Galactic cap in five broad photometric bands, grizY. DES DR1 has a median delivered point-spread function of g = 1.12, r = 0.96, i = 0.88, z = 0.84, and Y = 0.90 arcsec FWHM, a photometric precision of < 1% in all bands, and an astrometric precision of 151 mas. The median coadded catalog depth for a 1.95" diameter aperture at S/N = 10 is g = 24.33, r = 24.08, i = 23.44, z = 22.69, and Y = 21.44 mag. DES DR1 includes nearly 400M distinct astronomical objects detected in ~10,000 coadd tiles of size 0.534 sq. deg. produced from ~39,000 individual exposures. Benchmark galaxy and stellar samples contain ~310M and ~ 80M objects, respectively, following a basic object quality selection. These data are accessible through a range of interfaces, including query web clients, image cutout servers, jupyter notebooks, and an interactive coadd image visualization tool. DES DR1 constitutes the largest photometric data set to date at the achieved depth and photometric precision., Comment: 30 pages, 20 Figures. Release page found at this url https://des.ncsa.illinois.edu/releases/dr1

Published
2018
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38. A gravitational-wave standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant

Author

Abbott, B. P., Abbott, R., Abbott, T. D., Acernese, F., Ackley, K., Adams, C., Adams, T., Addesso, P., Adhikari, R. X., Adya, V. B., Affeldt, C., Afrough, M., Agarwal, B., Agathos, M., Agatsuma, K., Aggarwal, N., Aguiar, O. D., Aiello, L., Ain, A., Ajith, P., Allen, B., Allen, G., Allocca, A., Altin, P. A., Amato, A., Ananyeva, A., Anderson, S. B., Anderson, W. G., Angelova, S. V., Antier, S., Appert, S., Arai, K., Araya, M. C., Areeda, J. S., Arnaud, N., Arun, K. G., Ascenzi, S., Ashton, G., Ast, M., Aston, S. M., Astone, P., Atallah, D. V., Aufmuth, P., Aulbert, C., AultONeal, K., Austin, C., Avila-Alvarez, A., Babak, S., Bacon, P., Bader, M. K. M., Bae, S., Baker, P. T., Baldaccini, F., Ballardin, G., Ballmer, S. W., Banagiri, S., Barayoga, J. C., Barclay, S. E., Barish, B. C., Barker, D., Barkett, K., Barone, F., Barr, B., Barsotti, L., Barsuglia, M., Barta, D., Bartlett, J., Bartos, I., Bassiri, R., Basti, A., Batch, J. C., Bawaj, M., Bayley, J. C., Bazzan, M., Bécsy, B., Beer, C., Bejger, M., Belahcene, I., Bell, A. S., Berger, B. K., Bergmann, G., Bero, J. J., Berry, C. P. L., Bersanetti, D., Bertolini, A., Betzwieser, J., Bhagwat, S., Bhandare, R., Bilenko, I. A., Billingsley, G., Billman, C. R., Birch, J., Birney, R., Birnholtz, O., Biscans, S., Biscoveanu, S., Bisht, A., Bitossi, M., Biwer, C., Bizouard, M. A., Blackburn, J. K., Blackman, J., Blair, C. D., Blair, D. G., Blair, R. M., Bloemen, S., Bock, O., Bode, N., Boer, M., Bogaert, G., Bohe, A., Bondu, F., Bonilla, E., Bonnand, R., Boom, B. A., Bork, R., Boschi, V., Bose, S., Bossie, K., Bouffanais, Y., Bozzi, A., Bradaschia, C., Brady, P. R., Branchesi, M., Brau, J. E., Briant, T., Brillet, A., Brinkmann, M., Brisson, V., Brockill, P., Broida, J. E., Brooks, A. F., Brown, D. A., Brown, D. D., Brunett, S., Buchanan, C. C., Buikema, A., Bulik, T., Bulten, H. J., Buonanno, A., Buskulic, D., Buy, C., Byer, R. L., Cabero, M., Cadonati, L., Cagnoli, G., Cahillane, C., Bustillo, J. Calderón, Callister, T. A., Calloni, E., Camp, J. B., Canepa, M., Canizares, P., Cannon, K. C., Cao, H., Cao, J., Capano, C. D., Capocasa, E., Carbognani, F., Caride, S., Carney, M. F., Diaz, J. Casanueva, Casentini, C., Caudill, S., Cavaglià, M., Cavalier, F., Cavalieri, R., Cella, G., Cepeda, C. B., Cerdá-Durán, P., Cerretani, G., Cesarini, E., Chamberlin, S. J., Chan, M., Chao, S., Charlton, P., Chase, E., Chassande-Mottin, E., Chatterjee, D., Chatziioannou, K., Cheeseboro, B. D., Chen, H. Y., Chen, X., Chen, Y., Cheng, H. -P., Chia, H., Chincarini, A., Chiummo, A., Chmiel, T., Cho, H. S., Cho, M., Chow, J. H., Christensen, N., Chu, Q., Chua, A. J. K., Chua, S., Chung, A. K. W., Chung, S., Ciani, G., Ciolfi, R., Cirelli, C. E., Cirone, A., Clara, F., Clark, J. A., Clearwater, P., Cleva, F., Cocchieri, C., Coccia, E., Cohadon, P. -F., Cohen, D., Colla, A., Collette, C. G., Cominsky, L. R., Constancio Jr., M., Conti, L., Cooper, S. J., Corban, P., Corbitt, T. R., Cordero-Carrión, I., Corley, K. R., Cornish, N., Corsi, A., Cortese, S., Costa, C. A., Coughlin, M. W., Coughlin, S. B., Coulon, J. -P., Countryman, S. T., Couvares, P., Covas, P. B., Cowan, E. E., Coward, D. M., Cowart, M. J., Coyne, D. C., Coyne, R., Creighton, J. D. E., Creighton, T. D., Cripe, J., Crowder, S. G., Cullen, T. J., Cumming, A., Cunningham, L., Cuoco, E., Canton, T. Dal, Dálya, G., Danilishin, S. L., D'Antonio, S., Danzmann, K., Dasgupta, A., Costa, C. F. Da Silva, Datrier, L. E. H., Dattilo, V., Dave, I., Davier, M., Davis, D., Daw, E. J., Day, B., De, S., DeBra, D., Degallaix, J., De Laurentis, M., Deléglise, S., Del Pozzo, W., Demos, N., Denker, T., Dent, T., De Pietri, R., Dergachev, V., De Rosa, R., DeRosa, R. T., De Rossi, C., DeSalvo, R., de Varona, O., Devenson, J., Dhurandhar, S., Díaz, M. C., Di Fiore, L., Di Giovanni, M., Di Girolamo, T., Di Lieto, A., Di Pace, S., Di Palma, I., Di Renzo, F., Doctor, Z., Dolique, V., Donovan, F., Dooley, K. L., Doravari, S., Dorrington, I., Douglas, R., Álvarez, M. Dovale, Downes, T. P., Drago, M., Dreissigacker, C., Driggers, J. C., Du, Z., Ducrot, M., Dupej, P., Dwyer, S. E., Edo, T. B., Edwards, M. C., Effler, A., Eggenstein, H. -B., Ehrens, P., Eichholz, J., Eikenberry, S. S., Eisenstein, R. A., Essick, R. C., Estevez, D., Etienne, Z. B., Etzel, T., Evans, M., Evans, T. M., Factourovich, M., Fafone, V., Fair, H., Fairhurst, S., Fan, X., Farinon, S., Farr, B., Farr, W. M., Fauchon-Jones, E. J., Favata, M., Fays, M., Fee, C., Fehrmann, H., Feicht, J., Fejer, M. M., Fernandez-Galiana, A., Ferrante, I., Ferreira, E. C., Ferrini, F., Fidecaro, F., Finstad, D., Fiori, I., Fiorucci, D., Fishbach, M., Fisher, R. P., Fitz-Axen, M., Flaminio, R., Fletcher, M., Fong, H., Font, J. A., Forsyth, P. W. F., Forsyth, S. 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Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract

The detection of GW170817 in both gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves heralds the age of gravitational-wave multi-messenger astronomy. On 17 August 2017 the Advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors observed GW170817, a strong signal from the merger of a binary neutron-star system. Less than 2 seconds after the merger, a gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) was detected within a region of the sky consistent with the LIGO-Virgo-derived location of the gravitational-wave source. This sky region was subsequently observed by optical astronomy facilities, resulting in the identification of an optical transient signal within $\sim 10$ arcsec of the galaxy NGC 4993. These multi-messenger observations allow us to use GW170817 as a standard siren, the gravitational-wave analog of an astronomical standard candle, to measure the Hubble constant. This quantity, which represents the local expansion rate of the Universe, sets the overall scale of the Universe and is of fundamental importance to cosmology. Our measurement combines the distance to the source inferred purely from the gravitational-wave signal with the recession velocity inferred from measurements of the redshift using electromagnetic data. This approach does not require any form of cosmic "distance ladder;" the gravitational wave analysis can be used to estimate the luminosity distance out to cosmological scales directly, without the use of intermediate astronomical distance measurements. We determine the Hubble constant to be $70.0^{+12.0}_{-8.0} \, \mathrm{km} \, \mathrm{s}^{-1} \, \mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ (maximum a posteriori and 68% credible interval). This is consistent with existing measurements, while being completely independent of them. Additional standard-siren measurements from future gravitational-wave sources will provide precision constraints of this important cosmological parameter., Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, Nature in press. For more information see https://dcc.ligo.org/LIGO-P1700296/public

Published
2017
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39. The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/VIRGO GW170817. II. UV, Optical, and Near-IR Light Curves and Comparison to Kilonova Models

Author

Cowperthwaite, P. S., Berger, E., Villar, V. A., Metzger, B. D., Nicholl, M., Chornock, R., Blanchard, P. K., Fong, W., Margutti, R., Soares-Santos, M., Alexander, K. D., Allam, S., Annis, J., Brout, D., Brown, D. A., Butler, R. E., Chen, H. -Y., Diehl, H. T., Doctor, Z., Drout, M. R., Eftekhari, T., Farr, B., Finley, D. A., Foley, R. J., Frieman, J. A., Fryer, C. L., García-Bellido, J., Gill, M. S. S., Guillochon, J., Herner, K., Holz, D. E., Kasen, D., Kessler, R., Marriner, J., Matheson, T., Neilsen, Jr., E. H., Quataert, E., Palmese, A., Rest, A., Sako, M., Scolnic, D. M., Smith, N., Tucker, D. L., Williams, P. K. G., Balbinot, E., Carlin, J. L., Cook, E. R., Durret, F., Li, T. S., Lopes, P. A. A., Lourenço, A. C. C., Marshall, J. L., Medina, G. E., Muir, J., Muñoz, R. R., Sauseda, M., Schlegel, D. J., Secco, L. F., Vivas, A. K., Wester, W., Zenteno, A., Zhang, Y., Abbott, T. M. C., Banerji, M., Bechtol, K., Benoit-Lévy, A., Bertin, E., Buckley-Geer, E., Burke, D. L., Capozzi, D., Rosell, A. Carnero, Kind, M. Carrasco, Castander, F. J., Crocce, M., Cunha, C. E., D'Andrea, C. B., da Costa, L. N., Davis, C., DePoy, D. L., Desai, S., Dietrich, J. P., Drlica-Wagner, A., Eifler, T. F., Evrard, A. E., Fernandez, E., Flaugher, B., Fosalba, P., Gaztanaga, E., Gerdes, D. W., Giannantonio, T., Goldstein, D. A., Gruen, D., Gruendl, R. A., Gutierrez, G., Honscheid, K., Jain, B., James, D. J., Jeltema, T., Johnson, M. W. G., Johnson, M. D., Kent, S., Krause, E., Kron, R., Kuehn, K., Kuropatkin, N., Lahav, O., Lima, M., Lin, H., Maia, M. A. G., March, M., Martini, P., McMahon, R. G., Menanteau, F., Miller, C. J., Miquel, R., Mohr, J. J., Neilsen, E., Nichol, R. C., Ogando, R. L. C., Plazas, A. A., Roe, N., Romer, A. K., Roodman, A., Rykoff, E. S., Sanchez, E., Scarpine, V., Schindler, R., Schubnell, M., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Smith, M., Smith, R. C., Sobreira, F., Suchyta, E., Swanson, M. E. C., Tarle, G., Thomas, D., Thomas, R. C., Troxel, M. A., Vikram, V., Walker, A. R., Wechsler, R. H., Weller, J., Yanny, B., and Zuntz, J.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract

We present UV, optical, and NIR photometry of the first electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational wave source from Advanced LIGO/Virgo, the binary neutron star merger GW170817. Our data set extends from the discovery of the optical counterpart at $0.47$ days to $18.5$ days post-merger, and includes observations with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), Gemini-South/FLAMINGOS-2 (GS/F2), and the {\it Hubble Space Telescope} ({\it HST}). The spectral energy distribution (SED) inferred from this photometry at $0.6$ days is well described by a blackbody model with $T\approx 8300$ K, a radius of $R\approx 4.5\times 10^{14}$ cm (corresponding to an expansion velocity of $v\approx 0.3c$), and a bolometric luminosity of $L_{\rm bol}\approx 5\times10^{41}$ erg s$^{-1}$. At $1.5$ days we find a multi-component SED across the optical and NIR, and subsequently we observe rapid fading in the UV and blue optical bands and significant reddening of the optical/NIR colors. Modeling the entire data set we find that models with heating from radioactive decay of $^{56}$Ni, or those with only a single component of opacity from $r$-process elements, fail to capture the rapid optical decline and red optical/NIR colors. Instead, models with two components consistent with lanthanide-poor and lanthanide-rich ejecta provide a good fit to the data, the resulting "blue" component has $M_\mathrm{ej}^\mathrm{blue}\approx 0.01$ M$_\odot$ and $v_\mathrm{ej}^\mathrm{blue}\approx 0.3$c, and the "red" component has $M_\mathrm{ej}^\mathrm{red}\approx 0.04$ M$_\odot$ and $v_\mathrm{ej}^\mathrm{red}\approx 0.1$c. These ejecta masses are broadly consistent with the estimated $r$-process production rate required to explain the Milky Way $r$-process abundances, providing the first evidence that BNS mergers can be a dominant site of $r$-process enrichment., Comment: 13 Pages, 3 Figures, 2 Tables. ApJL, In Press. Keywords: GW170817, LVC

Published
2017
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40. The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/Virgo GW170817. I. Dark Energy Camera Discovery of the Optical Counterpart

Author

Soares-Santos, M., Holz, D. E., Annis, J., Chornock, R., Herner, K., Berger, E., Brout, D., Chen, H., Kessler, R., Sako, M., Allam, S., Tucker, D. L., Butler, R. E., Palmese, A., Doctor, Z., Diehl, H. T., Frieman, J., Yanny, B., Lin, H., Scolnic, D., Cowperthwaite, P., Neilsen, E., Marriner, J., Kuropatkin, N., Hartley, W. G., Paz-Chinchón, F., Alexander, K. D., Balbinot, E., Blanchard, P., Brown, D. A., Carlin, J. L., Conselice, C., Cook, E. R., Drlica-Wagner, A., Drout, M. R., Durret, F., Eftekhari, T., Farr, B., Finley, D. A., Foley, R. J., Fong, W., Fryer, C. L., García-Bellido, J., Gill, M. S . S., Gruendl, R. A., Hanna, C., Kasen, D., Li, T. S., Lopes, P. A. A., Lourenço, A. C. C., Margutti, R., Marshall, J. L., Matheson, T., Medina, G. E., Metzger, B. D., Muñoz, R. R., Muir, J., Nicholl, M., Quataert, E., Rest, A., Sauseda, M., Schlegel, D. J., Secco, L. F., Sobreira, F., Stebbins, A., Villar, V. A., Walker, A. R., Wester, W., Williams, P. K. G., Zenteno, A., Zhang, Y., Abbott, T. M. C., Abdalla, F. B., Banerji, M., Bechtol, K., Benoit-Lévy, A., Bertin, E., Brooks, D., Buckley-Geer, E., Burke, D. L., Rosell, A. Carnero, Kind, M. Carrasco, Carretero, J., Castander, F. J., Crocce, M., Cunha, C. E., D'Andrea, C. B., da Costa, L. N., Davis, C., Desai, S., Dietrich, J. P., Doel, P., Eifler, T. F., Fernandez, E., Flaugher, B., Fosalba, P., Gaztanaga, E., Gerdes, D. W., Giannantonio, T., Goldstein, D. A., Gruen, D., Gschwend, J., Gutierrez, G., Honscheid, K., Jain, B., James, D. J., Jeltema, T., Johnson, M. W. G., Johnson, M. D., Kent, S., Krause, E., Kron, R., Kuehn, K., Kuhlmann, S., Lahav, O., Lima, M., Maia, M. A. G., March, M., McMahon, R. G., Menanteau, F., Miquel, R., Mohr, J. J., Nichol, R. C., Nord, B., Ogando, R. L. C., Petravick, D., Plazas, A. A., Romer, A. K., Roodman, A., Rykoff, E. S., Sanchez, E., Scarpine, V., Schubnell, M., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Smith, M., Smith, R. C., Suchyta, E., Swanson, M. E. C., Tarle, G., Thomas, D., Thomas, R. C., Troxel, M. A., Vikram, V., Wechsler, R. H., and Weller, J.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract

We present the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) discovery of the optical counterpart of the first binary neutron star merger detected through gravitational wave emission, GW170817. Our observations commenced 10.5 hours post-merger, as soon as the localization region became accessible from Chile. We imaged 70 deg$^2$ in the $i$ and $z$ bands, covering 93\% of the initial integrated localization probability, to a depth necessary to identify likely optical counterparts (e.g., a kilonova). At 11.4 hours post-merger we detected a bright optical transient located $10.6''$ from the nucleus of NGC\,4993 at redshift $z=0.0098$, consistent (for $H_0 = 70$\, km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$) with the distance of $40 \pm 8$\, Mpc reported by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration (LVC). At detection the transient had magnitudes $i\approx 17.30$ and $z\approx 17.45$, and thus an absolute magnitude of $M_i = -15.7$, in the luminosity range expected for a kilonova. We identified 1,500 potential transient candidates. Applying simple selection criteria aimed at rejecting background events such as supernovae, we find the transient associated with NGC\,4993 as the only remaining plausible counterpart, and reject chance coincidence at the 99.5\% confidence level. We therefore conclude that the optical counterpart we have identified near NGC\,4993 is associated with GW170817. This discovery ushers in the era of multi-messenger astronomy with gravitational waves, and demonstrates the power of DECam to identify the optical counterparts of gravitational-wave sources., Comment: 9 Pages, 3 Figures, 2 Tables. ApJL, In Press. Keywords: GW170817, LVC

Published
2017
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41. Density split statistics: Cosmological constraints from counts and lensing in cells in DES Y1 and SDSS data

Author

Gruen, D., Friedrich, O., Krause, E., DeRose, J., Cawthon, R., Davis, C., Elvin-Poole, J., Rykoff, E. S., Wechsler, R. H., Alarcon, A., Bernstein, G. M., Blazek, J., Chang, C., Clampitt, J., Crocce, M., De Vicente, J., Gatti, M., Gill, M. S. S., Hartley, W. G., Hilbert, S., Hoyle, B., Jain, B., Jarvis, M., Lahav, O., MacCrann, N., McClintock, T., Prat, J., Rollins, R. P., Ross, A. J., Rozo, E., Samuroff, S., Sánchez, C., Sheldon, E., Troxel, M. A., Zuntz, J., Abbott, T. M. C., Abdalla, F. B., Allam, S., Annis, J., Bechtol, K., Benoit-Lévy, A., Bertin, E., Bridle, S. L., Brooks, D., Buckley-Geer, E., Rosell, A. Carnero, Kind, M. Carrasco, Carretero, J., Cunha, C. E., D'Andrea, C. B., da Costa, L. N., Desai, S., Diehl, H. T., Dietrich, J. P., Doel, P., Drlica-Wagner, A., Fernandez, E., Flaugher, B., Fosalba, P., Frieman, J., García-Bellido, J., Gaztanaga, E., Giannantonio, T., Gruendl, R. A., Gschwend, J., Gutierrez, G., Honscheid, K., James, D. J., Jeltema, T., Kuehn, K., Kuropatkin, N., Lima, M., March, M., Marshall, J. L., Martini, P., Melchior, P., Menanteau, F., Miquel, R., Mohr, J. J., Plazas, A. A., Roodman, A., Sanchez, E., Scarpine, V., Schubnell, M., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Smith, M., Smith, R. C., Soares-Santos, M., Sobreira, F., Swanson, M. E. C., Tarle, G., Thomas, D., Vikram, V., Walker, A. R., Weller, J., and Zhang, Y.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract

We derive cosmological constraints from the probability distribution function (PDF) of evolved large-scale matter density fluctuations. We do this by splitting lines of sight by density based on their count of tracer galaxies, and by measuring both gravitational shear around and counts-in-cells in overdense and underdense lines of sight, in Dark Energy Survey (DES) First Year and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data. Our analysis uses a perturbation theory model (see companion paper Friedrich at al.) and is validated using N-body simulation realizations and log-normal mocks. It allows us to constrain cosmology, bias and stochasticity of galaxies w.r.t. matter density and, in addition, the skewness of the matter density field. From a Bayesian model comparison, we find that the data weakly prefer a connection of galaxies and matter that is stochastic beyond Poisson fluctuations on <=20 arcmin angular smoothing scale. The two stochasticity models we fit yield DES constraints on the matter density $\Omega_m=0.26^{+0.04}_{-0.03}$ and $\Omega_m=0.28^{+0.05}_{-0.04}$ that are consistent with each other. These values also agree with the DES analysis of galaxy and shear two-point functions (3x2pt) that only uses second moments of the PDF. Constraints on $\sigma_8$ are model dependent ($\sigma_8=0.97^{+0.07}_{-0.06}$ and $0.80^{+0.06}_{-0.07}$ for the two stochasticity models), but consistent with each other and with the 3x2pt results if stochasticity is at the low end of the posterior range. As an additional test of gravity, counts and lensing in cells allow to compare the skewness $S_3$ of the matter density PDF to its LCDM prediction. We find no evidence of excess skewness in any model or data set, with better than 25 per cent relative precision in the skewness estimate from DES alone., Comment: 33 pages, 22 figures; matches published version

Published
2017
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42. Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Cosmological Constraints from Galaxy Clustering and Weak Lensing

Author

DES Collaboration, Abbott, T. M. C., Abdalla, F. B., Alarcon, A., Aleksić, J., Allam, S., Allen, S., Amara, A., Annis, J., Asorey, J., Avila, S., Bacon, D., Balbinot, E., Banerji, M., Banik, N., Barkhouse, W., Baumer, M., Baxter, E., Bechtol, K., Becker, M. R., Benoit-Lévy, A., Benson, B. A., Bernstein, G. M., Bertin, E., Blazek, J., Bridle, S. L., Brooks, D., Brout, D., Buckley-Geer, E., Burke, D. L., Busha, M. T., Capozzi, D., Rosell, A. Carnero, Kind, M. Carrasco, Carretero, J., Castander, F. J., Cawthon, R., Chang, C., Chen, N., Childress, M., Choi, A., Conselice, C., Crittenden, R., Crocce, M., Cunha, C. E., D'Andrea, C. B., da Costa, L. N., Das, R., Davis, T. M., Davis, C., De Vicente, J., DePoy, D. L., DeRose, J., Desai, S., Diehl, H. T., Dietrich, J. P., Dodelson, S., Doel, P., Drlica-Wagner, A., Eifler, T. F., Elliott, A. E., Elsner, F., Elvin-Poole, J., Estrada, J., Evrard, A. E., Fang, Y., Fernandez, E., Ferté, A., Finley, D. A., Flaugher, B., Fosalba, P., Friedrich, O., Frieman, J., García-Bellido, J., Garcia-Fernandez, M., Gatti, M., Gaztanaga, E., Gerdes, D. W., Giannantonio, T., Gill, M. S. S., Glazebrook, K., Goldstein, D. A., Gruen, D., Gruendl, R. A., Gschwend, J., Gutierrez, G., Hamilton, S., Hartley, W. G., Hinton, S. R., Honscheid, K., Hoyle, B., Huterer, D., Jain, B., James, D. J., Jarvis, M., Jeltema, T., Johnson, M. D., Johnson, M. W. G., Kacprzak, T., Kent, S., Kim, A. G., King, A., Kirk, D., Kokron, N., Kovacs, A., Krause, E., Krawiec, C., Kremin, A., Kuehn, K., Kuhlmann, S., Kuropatkin, N., Lacasa, F., Lahav, O., Li, T. S., Liddle, A. R., Lidman, C., Lima, M., Lin, H., MacCrann, N., Maia, M. A. G., Makler, M., Manera, M., March, M., Marshall, J. L., Martini, P., McMahon, R. G., Melchior, P., Menanteau, F., Miquel, R., Miranda, V., Mudd, D., Muir, J., Möller, A., Neilsen, E., Nichol, R. C., Nord, B., Nugent, P., Ogando, R. L. C., Palmese, A., Peacock, J., Peiris, H. V., Peoples, J., Percival, W. J., Petravick, D., Plazas, A. A., Porredon, A., Prat, J., Pujol, A., Rau, M. M., Refregier, A., Ricker, P. M., Roe, N., Rollins, R. P., Romer, A. K., Roodman, A., Rosenfeld, R., Ross, A. J., Rozo, E., Rykoff, E. S., Sako, M., Salvador, A. I., Samuroff, S., Sánchez, C., Sanchez, E., Santiago, B., Scarpine, V., Schindler, R., Scolnic, D., Secco, L. F., Serrano, S., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Sheldon, E., Smith, R. C., Smith, M., Smith, J., Soares-Santos, M., Sobreira, F., Suchyta, E., Tarle, G., Thomas, D., Troxel, M. A., Tucker, D. L., Tucker, B. E., Uddin, S. A., Varga, T. N., Vielzeuf, P., Vikram, V., Vivas, A. K., Walker, A. R., Wang, M., Wechsler, R. H., Weller, J., Wester, W., Wolf, R. C., Yanny, B., Yuan, F., Zenteno, A., Zhang, B., Zhang, Y., and Zuntz, J.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract

We present cosmological results from a combined analysis of galaxy clustering and weak gravitational lensing, using 1321 deg$^2$ of $griz$ imaging data from the first year of the Dark Energy Survey (DES Y1). We combine three two-point functions: (i) the cosmic shear correlation function of 26 million source galaxies in four redshift bins, (ii) the galaxy angular autocorrelation function of 650,000 luminous red galaxies in five redshift bins, and (iii) the galaxy-shear cross-correlation of luminous red galaxy positions and source galaxy shears. To demonstrate the robustness of these results, we use independent pairs of galaxy shape, photometric redshift estimation and validation, and likelihood analysis pipelines. To prevent confirmation bias, the bulk of the analysis was carried out while blind to the true results; we describe an extensive suite of systematics checks performed and passed during this blinded phase. The data are modeled in flat $\Lambda$CDM and $w$CDM cosmologies, marginalizing over 20 nuisance parameters, varying 6 (for $\Lambda$CDM) or 7 (for $w$CDM) cosmological parameters including the neutrino mass density and including the 457 $\times$ 457 element analytic covariance matrix. We find consistent cosmological results from these three two-point functions, and from their combination obtain $S_8 \equiv \sigma_8 (\Omega_m/0.3)^{0.5} = 0.783^{+0.021}_{-0.025}$ and $\Omega_m = 0.264^{+0.032}_{-0.019}$ for $\Lambda$CDM for $w$CDM, we find $S_8 = 0.794^{+0.029}_{-0.027}$, $\Omega_m = 0.279^{+0.043}_{-0.022}$, and $w=-0.80^{+0.20}_{-0.22}$ at 68% CL. The precision of these DES Y1 results rivals that from the Planck cosmic microwave background measurements, allowing a comparison of structure in the very early and late Universe on equal terms. Although the DES Y1 best-fit values for $S_8$ and $\Omega_m$ are lower than the central values from Planck ..., Comment: Matches published version. Results essentially unchanged, except updated covariance matrix leads to improved chi^2 (colored text removed)

Published
2017
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43. Discovery of the Lensed Quasar System DES J0408-5354

Author

Lin, H., Buckley-Geer, E., Agnello, A., Ostrovski, F., McMahon, R. G., Nord, B., Kuropatkin, N., Tucker, D. L., Treu, T., Chan, J. H. H., Suyu, S. H., Diehl, H. T., Collett, T., Gill, M. S. S., More, A., Amara, A., Auger, M. W., Courbin, F., Fassnacht, C. D., Frieman, J., Marshall, P. J., Meylan, G., Rusu, C. E., Abbott, T. M. C., Abdalla, F. B., Allam, S., Banerji, M., Bechtol, K., Benoit-Lévy, A., Bertin, E., Brooks, D., Burke, D. L., Rosell, A. Carnero, Kind, M. Carrasco, Carretero, J., Castander, F. J., Crocce, M., D'Andrea, C. B., da Costa, L. N., Desai, S., Dietrich, J. P., Eifler, T. F., Finley, D. A., Flaugher, B., Fosalba, P., García-Bellido, J., Gaztanaga, E., Gerdes, D. W., Goldstein, D. A., Gruen, D., Gruendl, R. A., Gschwend, J., Gutierrez, G., Honscheid, K., James, D. J., Kuehn, K., Lahav, O., Li, T. S., Lima, M., Maia, M. A. G., March, M., Marshall, J. L., Martini, P., Melchior, P., Menanteau, F., Miquel, R., Ogando, R. L. C., Plazas, A. A., Romer, A. K., Sanchez, E., Schindler, R., Schubnell, M., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Smith, M., Smith, R. C., Sobreira, F., Suchyta, E., Swanson, M. E. C., Tarle, G., Thomas, D., and Walker, A. R.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract

We report the discovery and spectroscopic confirmation of the quad-like lensed quasar system DES J0408-5354 found in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 1 (Y1) data. This system was discovered during a search for DES Y1 strong lensing systems using a method that identified candidates as red galaxies with multiple blue neighbors. DES J0408-5354 consists of a central red galaxy surrounded by three bright (i < 20) blue objects and a fourth red object. Subsequent spectroscopic observations using the Gemini South telescope confirmed that the three blue objects are indeed the lensed images of a quasar with redshift z = 2.375, and that the central red object is an early-type lensing galaxy with redshift z = 0.597. DES J0408-5354 is the first quad lensed quasar system to be found in DES and begins to demonstrate the potential of DES to discover and dramatically increase the sample size of these very rare objects., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, submitted to ApJ Letters

Published
2017
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44. A DECam Search for an Optical Counterpart to the LIGO Gravitational Wave Event GW151226

Author

Cowperthwaite, P. S., Berger, E., Soares-Santos, M., Annis, J., Brout, D., Brown, D. A., Buckley-Geer, E., Cenko, S. B., Chen, H. Y., Chornock, R., Diehl, H. T., Doctor, Z., Drlica-Wagner, A., Drout, M. R., Farr, B., Finley, D. A., Foley, R. J., Fong, W., Fox, D. B., Frieman, J., Garcia-Bellido, J., Gill, M. S. S., Gruendl, R. A., Herner, K., Holz, D. E., Kasen, D., Kessler, R., Lin, H., Margutti, R., Marriner, J., Matheson, T., Metzger, B. D., Neilsen Jr., E. H., Quataert, E., Rest, A., Sako, M., Scolnic, D., Smith, N., Sobreira, F., Strampelli, G. M., Villar, V. A., Walker, A. R., Wester, W., Williams, P. K. G., Yanny, B., Abbott, T. M. C., Abdalla, F. B., Allam, S., Armstrong, R., Bechtol, K., Benoit-Levy, A., Bertin, E., Brooks, D., Burke, D. L., Rosell, A. Carnero, Kind, M. Carrasco, Carretero, J., Castander, F. J., Cunha, C. E., D'Andrea, C. B., da Costa, L. N., Desai, S., Dietrich, J. P., Evrard, A. E., Neto, A. Fausti, Fosalba, P., Gerdes, D. W., Giannantonio, T., Goldstein, D. A., Gruen, D., Gutierrez, G., Honscheid, K., James, D. J., Johnson, M. W. G., Johnson, M. D., Krause, E., Kuehn, K., Kuropatkin, N., Lima, M., Maia, M. A. G., Marshall, J. L., Menanteau, F., Miquel, R., Mohr, J. J., Nichol, R. C., Nord, B., Ogando, R., Plazas, A. A., Reil, K., Romer, A. K., Sanchez, E., Scarpine, V., Sevilla-Noarbe, I., Smith, R. C., Suchyta, E., Tarle, G., Thomas, D., Thomas, R. C., Tucker, D. L., and Weller, J.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract

We report the results of a Dark Energy Camera (DECam) optical follow-up of the gravitational wave (GW) event GW151226, discovered by the Advanced LIGO detectors. Our observations cover 28.8 deg$^2$ of the localization region in the $i$ and $z$ bands (containing 3% of the BAYESTAR localization probability), starting 10 hours after the event was announced and spanning four epochs at $2-24$ days after the GW detection. We achieve $5\sigma$ point-source limiting magnitudes of $i\approx21.7$ and $z\approx21.5$, with a scatter of $0.4$ mag, in our difference images. Given the two day delay, we search this area for a rapidly declining optical counterpart with $\gtrsim 3\sigma$ significance steady decline between the first and final observations. We recover four sources that pass our selection criteria, of which three are cataloged AGN. The fourth source is offset by $5.8$ arcsec from the center of a galaxy at a distance of 187 Mpc, exhibits a rapid decline by $0.5$ mag over $4$ days, and has a red color of $i-z\approx 0.3$ mag. These properties roughly match the expectations for a kilonova. However, this source was detected several times, starting $94$ days prior to GW151226, in the Pan-STARRS Survey for Transients (dubbed as PS15cdi) and is therefore unrelated to the GW event. Given its long-term behavior, PS15cdi is likely a Type IIP supernova that transitioned out of its plateau phase during our observations, mimicking a kilonova-like behavior. We comment on the implications of this detection for contamination in future optical follow-up observations., Comment: 7 Pages, 2 Figures, 1 Table. Accepted to ApJL, updated to better match published version

Published
2016
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45. GREAT3 results I: systematic errors in shear estimation and the impact of real galaxy morphology

Author

Mandelbaum, Rachel, Rowe, Barnaby, Armstrong, Robert, Bard, Deborah, Bertin, Emmanuel, Bosch, James, Boutigny, Dominique, Courbin, Frederic, Dawson, William A., Donnarumma, Annamaria, Conti, Ian Fenech, Gavazzi, Raphael, Gentile, Marc, Gill, Mandeep S. S., Hogg, David W., Huff, Eric M., Jee, M. James, Kacprzak, Tomasz, Kilbinger, Martin, Kuntzer, Thibault, Lang, Dustin, Luo, Wentao, March, Marisa C., Marshall, Philip J., Meyers, Joshua E., Miller, Lance, Miyatake, Hironao, Nakajima, Reiko, Mboula, Fred Maurice Ngole, Nurbaeva, Guldariya, Okura, Yuki, Paulin-Henriksson, Stephane, Rhodes, Jason, Schneider, Michael D., Shan, Huanyuan, Sheldon, Erin S., Simet, Melanie, Starck, Jean-Luc, Sureau, Florent, Tewes, Malte, Adami, Kristian Zarb, Zhang, Jun, and Zuntz, Joe

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract

We present first results from the third GRavitational lEnsing Accuracy Testing (GREAT3) challenge, the third in a sequence of challenges for testing methods of inferring weak gravitational lensing shear distortions from simulated galaxy images. GREAT3 was divided into experiments to test three specific questions, and included simulated space- and ground-based data with constant or cosmologically-varying shear fields. The simplest (control) experiment included parametric galaxies with a realistic distribution of signal-to-noise, size, and ellipticity, and a complex point spread function (PSF). The other experiments tested the additional impact of realistic galaxy morphology, multiple exposure imaging, and the uncertainty about a spatially-varying PSF; the last two questions will be explored in Paper II. The 24 participating teams competed to estimate lensing shears to within systematic error tolerances for upcoming Stage-IV dark energy surveys, making 1525 submissions overall. GREAT3 saw considerable variety and innovation in the types of methods applied. Several teams now meet or exceed the targets in many of the tests conducted (to within the statistical errors). We conclude that the presence of realistic galaxy morphology in simulations changes shear calibration biases by $\sim 1$ per cent for a wide range of methods. Other effects such as truncation biases due to finite galaxy postage stamps, and the impact of galaxy type as measured by the S\'{e}rsic index, are quantified for the first time. Our results generalize previous studies regarding sensitivities to galaxy size and signal-to-noise, and to PSF properties such as seeing and defocus. Almost all methods' results support the simple model in which additive shear biases depend linearly on PSF ellipticity., Comment: 32 pages + 15 pages of technical appendices; 28 figures; published in MNRAS; all data and other information may be found at https://github.com/barnabytprowe/great3-public as the GREAT3 website and leaderboard are no longer live. v3 has updates to this comment only

Published
2014
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48. GalSim: The modular galaxy image simulation toolkit

Author

Rowe, Barnaby, Jarvis, Mike, Mandelbaum, Rachel, Bernstein, Gary M., Bosch, James, Simet, Melanie, Meyers, Joshua E., Kacprzak, Tomasz, Nakajima, Reiko, Zuntz, Joe, Miyatake, Hironao, Dietrich, Joerg P., Armstrong, Robert, Melchior, Peter, and Gill, Mandeep S. S.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract

GALSIM is a collaborative, open-source project aimed at providing an image simulation tool of enduring benefit to the astronomical community. It provides a software library for generating images of astronomical objects such as stars and galaxies in a variety of ways, efficiently handling image transformations and operations such as convolution and rendering at high precision. We describe the GALSIM software and its capabilities, including necessary theoretical background. We demonstrate that the performance of GALSIM meets the stringent requirements of high precision image analysis applications such as weak gravitational lensing, for current datasets and for the Stage IV dark energy surveys of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, ESA's Euclid mission, and NASA's WFIRST-AFTA mission. The GALSIM project repository is public and includes the full code history, all open and closed issues, installation instructions, documentation, and wiki pages (including a Frequently Asked Questions section). The GALSIM repository can be found at https://github.com/GalSim-developers/GalSim ., Comment: 38 pages, 3 tables, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Computing

Published
2014

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