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The nearest stars provide a fundamental constraint for our understanding of stellar physics and the Galaxy. The nearby sample serves as an anchor where all objects can be seen and understood with precise data. This work is triggered by the most recent data release of the astrometric space mission Gaia and uses its unprecedented high precision parallax measurements to review the census of objects within 10 pc. The first aim of this work was to compile all stars and brown dwarfs within 10 pc observable by Gaia, and compare it with the Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars as a quality assurance test. We complement the list to get a full 10 pc census, including bright stars, brown dwarfs, and exoplanets. We started our compilation from a query on all objects with a parallax larger than 100 mas using SIMBAD. We completed the census by adding companions, brown dwarfs with recent parallax measurements not in SIMBAD yet, and vetted exoplanets. The compilation combines astrometry and photometry from the recent Gaia Early Data Release 3 with literature magnitudes, spectral types and line-of-sight velocities. We give a description of the astrophysical content of the 10 pc sample. We find a multiplicity frequency of around 28%. Among the stars and brown dwarfs, we estimate that around 61% are M stars and more than half of the M stars are within the range M3.0 V to M5.0 V. We give an overview of the brown dwarfs and exoplanets that should be detected in the next Gaia data releases along with future developments. We provide a catalogue of 540 stars, brown dwarfs, and exoplanets in 339 systems, within 10 pc from the Sun. This list is as volume-complete as possible from current knowledge and provides benchmark stars that can be used, for instance, to define calibration samples and to test the quality of the forthcoming Gaia releases. It also has a strong outreach potential., Comment: Revised version. Accepted for publication in A&A. 15 pages, 3 figures. The catalogue will be only available in electronic form at https://gruze.org/10pc/, at https://gucds.inaf.it/, and at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/

Context. Extratidal stars are stellar bodies that end up outside the tidal radius of a cluster as a result of internal processes or external forces acting upon it. The presence and spatial distribution of these stars can give us insights into the past evolution of a cluster inside our Galaxy. Aims. Previous works suggest that globular clusters, when explored in detail, show evidence of extratidal stars. We aim to search for possible extratidal stars in the Galactic globular clusters NGC 6397, NGC 2808, and NGC 6266 using the photometry and proper motion measurements from Gaia DR2 database (Gaia Collaboration et al. 2018). Results. Finally, 120, 126, and 107 extratidal candidate stars were found lying outside the tidal radius of the globular clusters NGC 6397, NGC 2808, and NGC 6266, respectively. 70%, 25.4%, and 72.9% of the extratidal stars found are located outside the Jacobi radius of NGC 6397, NGC 2808, and NGC 6266, respectively. The spatial distribution of the extratidal stars belonging to NGC 6397 appears S-like, extending along the curved leading and trailing arms. NGC 2808 has an overdensity of stars in the trailing part of the cluster and NGC 6266 seems to have overdensities of extratidal stars in its eastern and northern sides. Conclusions. Proper motions and color-magnitude diagrams can be used to identify extratidal candidate stars around GCs. Nonetheless, depending on how different the kinematics and stellar populations of a cluster are compared to the Milky Way field, the fraction of contamination can be larger. All three clusters are found to have extratidal stars outside their tidal radii. For NGC 6397 and NGC 2808, these stars may be the result of a combined effect of the disc shocks and tidal disruptions. For NGC 6266, the distribution of extratidal stars is symmetrical around it, most likely indicating that the cluster has an extended stellar envelope., Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

The cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency, Gaia, has revealed properties of 260 000 white dwarfs in the Galaxy, allowing us for the first time to constrain the evolution of white dwarfs with a large sample. Complementary surveys (CoRoT,Kepler, K2, APOGEE andGaia-ESO), will revolutionize our understanding of the formation and history of our Galaxy, providing accurate stellar masses, radii, ages, distances, and chemical properties for very large samples of stars across different Galactic stellar populations. To exploit the potential of the combination of spectroscopic, seismic and astrometric observations, the population synthesis approach is a very crucial and efficient tool. We develop the Besan\c{c}on Galaxy model (BGM, Lagarde et al.2017) for which stellar evolution predictions are included, providing the global asteroseismic properties and the surface chemical abundances along the evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars. For the first time, the BGM can explore the effects of an extra-mixing occurring in red-giant stars (Lagarde et al.2019), changing their stellar properties. The nextstep is to model a consistent treatment of giant stars and their remnants (e.g., white dwarfs).This kind of improvement would help us to constrain stellar and Galactic evolutions.

We present an analysis of the structure, kinematics and orbit of a newly found stellar stream emanating from the globular cluster M92 (NGC 6341). This stream was discovered in an improved matched-filter map of the outer Galaxy, based on a "color-color-magnitude" diagram, created using photometry from the Canada-France Imaging Survey (CFIS) and the Pan-STARRS 1 3$\pi$ survey (PS1). We find the stream to have a length of 17{\deg} (2.5 kpc at the distance of M92), a width dispersion of $0.29${\deg}(42 pc) and a stellar mass of $[3.17 \pm{0.89}] \times 10^{4} $ M$_\odot$ ($10 \%$ of the stellar mass of the current main body of M92). We examine the kinematics of main sequence, red giant and blue horizontal branch stars belonging to the stream and that have proper motion measurements from the second data release of Gaia. N-body simulations suggest that the stream was likely formed very recently (during the last $\sim 500$ Myr) forcing us to question the orbital origin of this ancient, metal-poor globular cluster., Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ

We analyse the kinematics and dynamics of a homogeneous sample of red clump stars selected from the second Gaia data release catalogue in the direction of the Galactic poles. The level of completeness of the sample at heights between 0.6 and 3.5 kpc is asserted by comparison with the 2 Micron All Sky Survey catalogue. We show that both the density distribution and velocity dispersion are significantly more perturbed in the North than in the South, in all analysed regions of our Galactic neighbourhoods. We provide a detailed assessment of these North-South asymmetries at large heights. We then proceed to evaluate how such asymmetries could affect determinations of the dynamical matter density under equilibrium assumptions. We find that a Jeans analysis delivers relatively similar vertical forces and integrated dynamical surface densities at large heights above the plane in both hemispheres. At these heights, the densities of stars and gas are very low and the surface density is largely dominated by dark matter, which allows to estimate, separately in the North and South, the local dark matter density derived under equilibrium assumptions. In the presence of vertical perturbations, such values should be considered as an upper limit. This Jeans analysis yields values of the local dark matter density above 2~kpc, $\rho_{\rm DM} \sim 0.013 \, {\rm M}_\odot/{\rm pc}^3$ ($ \sim 0.509 \, {\rm GeV/cm}^3$) in the perturbed Northern hemisphere, and $\rho_{\rm DM} \sim 0.010 \, {\rm M}_\odot/{\rm pc}^3$ ($ \sim 0.374 \, {\rm GeV/cm}^3$) in the much less perturbed South. As a comparison, we determine the local dark matter density by fitting a global phase-space distribution to the data. We end up with a value in the range of $\rho_{\rm DM} \sim 0.011 - 0.014 \, {\rm M}_\odot/{\rm pc}^3$ in global agreement with Jeans analysis., Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, accepted in A&A

We propose a new mission called Space Project for Astrophysical and Cosmological Exploration (SPACE) as part on the ESA long term planning Voyage 2050 programme. SPACE will study galaxy evolution at the earliest times, with the key goals of charting the formation of the heavy elements, measuring the evolution of the galaxy luminosity function, tracing the build-up of stellar mass in galaxies over cosmic time, and finding the first super-massive black holes (SMBHs) to form. The mission will exploit a unique region of the parameter space, between the narrow ultra-deep surveys with HST and JWST, and shallow wide-field surveys such as Roman Space Telescope and EUCLID, and should yield by far the largest sample of any current or planned mission of very high redshift galaxies at z > 10 which are sufficiently bright for detailed follow-up spectroscopy. Crucially, we propose a wide-field spectroscopic near-IR + mid-IR capability which will greatly enhance our understanding of the first galaxies by detecting and identifying a statistical sample of the first galaxies and the first SMBH, and to chart the metal enrichment history of galaxies in the early Universe - potentially finding signatures of the very first stars to form from metal-free primordial gas. The wide-field and wavelength range of SPACE will also provide us a unique opportunity to study star formation by performing a wide survey of the Milky Way in the near-IR + mid-IR. This science project can be enabled either by a stand-alone ESA-led M mission or by an instrument for an L mission (with ESA and/or NASA, JAXA and other international space agencies) with a wide-field (sub-)millimetre capability at wavelength > 500 microns., Comment: Submitted to Experimental Astronomy as one of the proposals for the European Space Agency Voyage 2050 Programme

We present a new fully data-driven algorithm that uses photometric data from the Canada-France-Imaging-Survey (CFIS; $u$), Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1; $griz$), and Gaia ($G$) to discriminate between dwarf and giant stars and to estimate their distances and metallicities. The algorithm is trained and tested using the SDSS/SEGUE spectroscopic dataset and Gaia photometric/astrometric dataset. At [Fe/H]$<-1.2$, the algorithm succeeds in identifying more than 70% of the giants in the training/test set, with a dwarf contamination fraction below 30% (with respect to the SDSS/SEGUE dataset). The photometric metallicity estimates have uncertainties better than 0.2 dex when compared with the spectroscopic measurements. The distances estimated by the algorithm are valid out to a distance of at least $\sim 80$ kpc without requiring any prior on the stellar distribution, and have fully independent uncertainities that take into account both random and systematic errors. These advances allow us to estimate these stellar parameters for approximately 12 million stars in the photometric dataset. This will enable studies involving the chemical mapping of the distant outer disc and the stellar halo, including their kinematics using the Gaia proper motions. This type of algorithm can be applied in the Southern hemisphere to the first release of LSST data, thus providing an almost complete view of the external components of our Galaxy out to at least $\sim 80$ kpc. Critical to the success of these efforts will be ensuring well-defined spectroscopic training sets that sample a broad range of stellar parameters with minimal biases. A catalogue containing the training/test set and all relevant parameters within the public footprint of CFIS is available online., Comment: 27 pages. 21 Figures. Accepted for publication in AAS. Training/testing sample available at: http://www.canfar.net/storage/list/gthomas/dwarfOrGiants.fits

We report the identification of possible extended star debris candidates beyond the cluster tidal radius of NGC 6362 based on the second {\it Gaia} data release ({\it Gaia} DR2). We found 259 objects possibly associated with the cluster lying in the vicinity of the giant branch and 1--2 magnitudes fainter/brighter than the main-sequence turn-off in the cluster color-magnitude diagram and which cover an area on the sky of $\sim$4.1 deg$^{2}$ centered on the cluster. We traced back the orbit of NGC 6362 in a realistic Milky-Way potential, using the \texttt{GravPot16} package, for 3 Gyrs. The orbit shows that the cluster shares similar orbital properties as the inner disk, having peri-/apo-galactic distances, and maximum vertical excursion from the Galactic plane inside the corotation radius (CR), moving inwards from CR radius to visit the inner regions of the Milky Way. The dynamical history of the cluster reveals that it has crossed the Galactic disk several times in its lifetime and has recently undergone a gravitational shock, $\sim 15.9$ Myr ago, suggesting that less than 0.1\% of its mass has been lost during the current disk-shocking event. Based on the cluster's orbit and position in the Galaxy, we conclude that the possible extended star debris candidates are a combined effect of the shocks from the Galactic disk and evaporation from the cluster. Lastly, the evolution of the vertical component of the angular momentum shows that the cluster is strongly affected dynamically by the Galactic bar potential., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables. Accepted to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

We report the discovery of a unique collection of metal-poor giant-stars, that exhibit anomalously high levels of $^{28}$Si, clearly above typical Galactic levels. Our sample spans a narrow range of metallicities, peaking at $-1.07\pm 0.06$, and exhibit abundance ratios of [Si,Al/Fe] that are as extreme as those observed in Galactic globular clusters (GCs), and Mg is slightly less overabundant. In almost all the sources we used, the elemental abundances were re-determined from high-resolution spectra, which were re-analyzed assuming LTE. Thus, we compiled the main element families, namely the light elements (C, N), $\alpha-$elements (O, Mg, Si), iron-peak element (Fe), $\textit{s}-$process elements (Ce, Nd), and the light odd-Z element (Al). We also provide dynamical evidence that most of these stars lie on tight (inner)halo-like and retrograde orbits passing through the bulge. Such kinds of objects have been found in present-day halo GCs, providing the clearest chemical signature of past accretion events in the (inner) stellar halo of the Galaxy, formed possibly as the result of dissolved halo GCs. Their chemical composition is, in general, similar to that of typical GCs population, although several differences exist., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 2 table; accepted for publication in ApJ Letters

We report the serendipitous discovery of a nitrogen-rich, mildly metal-poor ([Fe/H]=-1.08) giant star in a single-lined spectroscopic binary system found in the SDSS-IV Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2) survey, Data Release 14 (DR14). Previous work has assumed that the two percent of halo giants with unusual elemental abundances have been evaporated from globular clusters, but other origins for their abundance signatures, including binary mass transfer, must also be explored. We present the results of an abundance re-analysis of the APOGEE-2 high-resolution near-infrared spectrum of 2M12451043+1217401 with the Brussels Automatic Stellar Parameter (BACCHUS) automated spectral analysis code, and re-derive manually the main element families, namely the light elements (C, N), elements (O, Mg, Si), iron-peak element (Fe), \textit{s}-process element (Ce), and the light odd-Z element (Al). Our analysis confirm the N-rich nature of 2M12451043+1217401, which has a [N/Fe] ratio of $+0.69$, and shows that the abundances of C and Al are slightly discrepant from that of a typical mildly metal-poor RGB star, but exhibit Mg, Si, O and \textit{s}-process abundances (Ce) of typical field stars. We also detect a particularly large variability in its radial velocity over the period of the APOGEE-2 observations, and the most likely orbit fit to the radial velocity data has a period of $730.89\pm106.86$ days, a velocity semi-amplitude of $9.92 \pm 0.14$ km s$^{-1}$, and an eccentricity of $\sim 0.1276 \pm0.1174$, which support the hypothesis of a binary companion, and that has probably been polluted by a now-extinct AGB star., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 13 pages, 8 figures, 7 tables

Connecting star and planet properties in a single model is not straightforward. Stellar population synthesis models are key to explore combined statistical constraints from stars and planets observations. The Besan\c{c}on stellar population synthesis model (Robin et al. 2003, Lagarde et al. 2017) includes now the stellar evolutionary tracks computed with the stellar evolution code STAREVOL (Lagarde et al. 2012, Amard et al. 2016). It provides the global (M, R, Teff, etc) and chemical properties of stars for 54 chemical species. It enables to study the different galactic populations of the Milky Way (the halo, the bulge, the thin and thick disc) and a specific observational survey. Here, we couple the Besan\c{c}on model with a simple stoichiometric model (Santos et al. 2017) in order to determine the expected composition of the planet building blocks (PBB). We investigate the trends and correlations of the expected chemical abundances of PBB in the different stellar populations of the Milky Way (Cabral et al. 2018)., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, conference

We present the chemical distribution of the Milky Way, based on 2,900$\, {\rm deg^2}$ of $u$-band photometry taken as part of the Canada-France Imaging Survey. When complete, this survey will cover 10,000$\, {\rm deg^2}$ of the Northern sky. By combing the CFHT $u$-band photometry together with SDSS and Pan-STARRS $g,r,$ and $i$, we demonstrate that we are able to measure reliably the metallicities of individual stars to $\sim 0.2$ dex, and hence additionally obtain good photometric distance estimates. This survey thus permits the measurement of metallicities and distances of the dominant main-sequence population out to approximately 30 kpc, and provides much higher number of stars at large extraplanar distances than have been available from previous surveys. We develop a non-parametric distance-metallicity decomposition algorithm and apply it to the sky at $30\deg < |b| < 70\deg$ and to the North Galactic Cap. We find that the metallicity-distance distribution is well-represented by three populations whose metallicity distributions do not vary significantly with vertical height above the disk. As traced in main-sequence stars, the stellar halo component shows a vertical density profile that is close to exponential, with a scale height of around 3 kpc. This may indicate that the inner halo was formed partly from disk stars ejected in an ancient minor merger., Comment: 21 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

The Canada-France Imaging Survey (CFIS) will map the northern high Galactic latitude sky in the $u$-band ("CFIS-u", 10,000$\, {\rm deg^2}$) and in the $r$-band ("CFIS-r", 5,000$\, {\rm deg^2}$), enabling a host of stand-alone science investigations, and providing some of the ground-based data necessary for photometric redshift determination for the Euclid mission. In this first contribution we present the $u$-band component of the survey, describe the observational strategy, and discuss some first highlight results, based on approximately one third of the final area. We show that the Galactic anticenter structure is distributed continuously along the line of sight, out to beyond 20 kpc, and possesses a metallicity distribution that is essentially identical to that of the outer disk sampled by APOGEE. This suggests that it is probably a buckled disk of old metal-rich stars, rather than a stream or a flare. We also discuss the future potential for CFIS-u in discovering star-forming dwarf galaxies around the Local Group, the characterization of the white dwarf and blue straggler population of the Milky Way, as well as its sensitivity to low-surface brightness structures in external galaxies., Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

We attempt to constrain the kinematics of the thin and thick disks using the Besancon population synthesis model together with RAVE DR4 and Gaia first data release (TGAS). The RAVE fields were simulated by applying a detailed target selection function and the kinematics was computed using velocity ellipsoids depending on age in order to study the secular evolution. We accounted for the asymmetric drift computed from fitting a Stackel potential to orbits. Model parameters such as velocity dispersions, mean motions, and velocity gradients were adjusted using an ABC-MCMC method. We made use of the metallicity to enhance the separation between thin and thick disks. We show that this model is able to reproduce the kinematics of the local disks in great detail. The disk follows the expected secular evolution, in very good agreement with previous studies of the thin disk. The new asymmetric drift formula, fitted to our previously described St\"ackel potential, fairly well reproduces the velocity distribution in a wide solar neighborhood. The U and W components of the solar motion determined with this method agree well with previous studies. However, we find a smaller V component than previously thought, essentially because we include the variation of the asymmetric drift with distance to the plane. The thick disk is represented by a long period of formation (at least 2 Gyr), during which, as we show, the mean velocity increases with time while the scale height and scale length decrease, very consistently with a collapse phase with conservation of angular momentum. This new Galactic dynamical model is able to reproduce the observed velocities in a wide solar neighborhood at the quality level of the TGAS-RAVE sample, allowing us to constrain the thin and thick disk dynamical evolution, as well as determining the solar motion., Comment: Astronomy and Astrophysics in press, 18 pages, 10 figures, 1 appendix; revised with modified discussion and language editing

We report the discovery of 14 low-mass binary systems containing mid-M to mid-L dwarf companions with separations larger than 250 AU. We also report the independent discovery of 9 other systems with similar characteristics that were recently discovered in other studies. We have identified these systems by searching for common proper motion sources in the vicinity of known high proper motion stars, based on a cross-correlation of wide area near-infrared surveys (2MASS, SDSS, and SIMP). An astrometric follow-up, for common proper motion confirmation, was made with SIMON and/or CPAPIR at the OMM 1.6 m and CTIO 1.5 m telescopes for all the candidates identified. A spectroscopic follow-up was also made with GMOS or GNIRS at Gemini to determine the spectral types of 11 of our newly identified companions and 10 of our primaries. Statistical arguments are provided to show that all of the systems we report here are very likely to be physical binaries. One of the new systems reported features a brown dwarf companion: LSPM J1259+1001 (M5) has an L4.5 (2M1259+1001) companion at about 340 AU. This brown dwarf was previously unknown. Seven other systems have a companion of spectral type L0-L1 at a separation in the 250-7500 AU range. Our sample includes 14 systems with a mass ratio below 0.3., Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures

We re-analyse photometric near-infrared data in order to investigate why it is so hard to get a consensus for the shape and density law of the bulge, as seen from the literature. To solve the problem we use the Besancon Galaxy Model to provide a scheme for parameter fitting of the structural characteristics of the bulge region. The fitting process allows the determination of the global shape of the bulge main structure. We explore various parameters and shape for the bulge/bar structure based on Ferrer's ellipsoids and fit the shape of the inner disc in the same process. The results show that the main structure is a quite standard triaxial boxy bar/bulge with an orientation of about 13 degree with respect to the Sun-centre direction. But the fit is greatly improved when we add a second structure, which is a longer and thicker ellipsoid. We emphasize that our first ellipsoid represent the main boxy bar of the Galaxy, and that the thick bulge could be either a classical bulge slightly flattened by the effect of the bar potential, or a inner thick disc counterpart. We show that the double clump seen at intermediate latitudes can be reproduced by adding a slight flare to the bar. In order to better characterize the populations, we further simulate several fields which have been surveyed in spectroscopy and for which metallicity distribution function (MDF) are available. The model is in good agreement with these MDF along the minor axis if we assume that the main bar has a mean solar metallicity and the second thicker population has a lower metallicity. It then creates naturally a vertical metallicity gradient by the mixing of the two poulations. (abridged), Comment: 16 pages, 17 figures, Astronomy and Astrophysics in press, new submission after langage editing and minor corrections (including the title)

We have identified CFBDS J1458+10 as a 0.11" (2.6 AU) physical binary using Keck laser guide star adaptive optics imaging and have measured a distance of 23.1+/-2.4 pc to the system based on near-IR parallax data from CFHT. The integrated-light near-IR spectrum indicates a spectral type of T9.5, and model atmospheres suggest a slightly higher temperature and surface gravity than the T10 dwarf UGPS J0722-05. Thus, CFBDS J1458+10AB is the coolest brown dwarf binary found to date. Its secondary component has an absolute H-band magnitude that is 1.9+/-0.3 mag fainter than UGPS J0722-05, giving an inferred spectral type of >T10. The secondary's bolometric luminosity of ~2 x 10^{-7} L_sun makes it the least luminous known brown dwarf by a factor of 4-5. By comparing to evolutionary models and T9-T10 objects, we estimate a temperature of 370+/-40 K and a mass of 6-15 Mjup for CFBDS J1458+10B. At such extremes, atmospheric models predict the onset of novel photospheric processes, namely the appearance of water clouds and the removal of strong alkali lines, but their impact on the emergent spectrum is highly uncertain. Our photometry shows that strong CH4 absorption persists at H-band; the J-K color is bluer than the latest known T dwarfs but not as blue as predicted by current models; and the J-H color delineates a possible inflection in the blueward trend for the latest T dwarfs. Given its low luminosity, atypical colors and cold temperature, CFBDS J1458+10B is a promising candidate for the hypothesized Y spectral class. However, regardless of its ultimate classification, CFBDS J1458+10AB provides a new benchmark for measuring the properties of brown dwarfs and gas-giant planets, testing substellar models, and constraining the low-mass limit for star formation., Comment: Tiny cosmetic changes made to match final published version, including update of Ross 458C values in Table 6 and correction to Figure 7 legend

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) started a new phase in August 2008, with new instrumentation and new surveys focused on Galactic structure and chemical evolution, measurements of the baryon oscillation feature in the clustering of galaxies and the quasar Ly alpha forest, and a radial velocity search for planets around ~8000 stars. This paper describes the first data release of SDSS-III (and the eighth counting from the beginning of the SDSS). The release includes five-band imaging of roughly 5200 deg^2 in the Southern Galactic Cap, bringing the total footprint of the SDSS imaging to 14,555 deg^2, or over a third of the Celestial Sphere. All the imaging data have been reprocessed with an improved sky-subtraction algorithm and a final, self-consistent photometric recalibration and flat-field determination. This release also includes all data from the second phase of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Evolution (SEGUE-2), consisting of spectroscopy of approximately 118,000 stars at both high and low Galactic latitudes. All the more than half a million stellar spectra obtained with the SDSS spectrograph have been reprocessed through an improved stellar parameters pipeline, which has better determination of metallicity for high metallicity stars., Comment: Astrophysical Journal Supplements, in press (minor updates from submitted version)

We present discovery observations of a quasar in the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey (CFHQS) at redshift z=6.44. We also use near-IR spectroscopy of nine CFHQS quasars at z~6 to determine black hole masses. These are compared with similar estimates for more luminous Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasars to investigate the relationship between black hole mass and quasar luminosity. We find a strong correlation between MgII FWHM and UV luminosity and that most quasars at this early epoch are accreting close to the Eddington limit. Thus these quasars appear to be in an early stage of their life cycle where they are building up their black hole mass exponentially. Combining these results with the quasar luminosity function, we derive the black hole mass function at z=6. Our black hole mass function is ~10^4 times lower than at z=0 and substantially below estimates from previous studies. The main uncertainties which could increase the black hole mass function are a larger population of obscured quasars at high-redshift than is observed at low-redshift and/or a low quasar duty cycle at z=6. In comparison, the global stellar mass function is only ~10^2 times lower at z=6 than at z=0. The difference between the black hole and stellar mass function evolution is due to either rapid early star formation which is not limited by radiation pressure as is the case for black hole growth or inefficient black hole seeding. Our work predicts that the black hole mass - stellar mass relation for a volume-limited sample of galaxies declines rapidly at very high redshift. This is in contrast to the observed increase at 4

We present discovery imaging and spectroscopy for nine new z ~ 6 quasars found in the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey (CFHQS) bringing the total number of CFHQS quasars to 19. By combining the CFHQS with the more luminous SDSS sample we are able to derive the quasar luminosity function from a sample of 40 quasars at redshifts 5.74 < z < 6.42. Our binned luminosity function shows a slightly lower normalisation and flatter slope than found in previous work. The binned data also suggest a break in the luminosity function at M_1450 approx -25. A double power law maximum likelihood fit to the data is consistent with the binned results. The luminosity function is strongly constrained (1 sigma uncertainty < 0.1 dex) over the range -27.5 < M_1450 < -24.7. The best-fit parameters are Phi(M_1450^*) = 1.14 x 10^-8 Mpc^-3 mag^-1, break magnitude M_1450^* = -25.13 and bright end slope beta = -2.81. However the covariance between beta and M_1450^* prevents strong constraints being placed on either parameter. For a break magnitude in the range -26 < M_1450^* < -24 we find -3.8 < beta < -2.3 at 95% confidence. We calculate the z = 6 quasar intergalactic ionizing flux and show it is between 20 and 100 times lower than that necessary for reionization. Finally, we use the luminosity function to predict how many higher redshift quasars may be discovered in future near-IR imaging surveys., Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, AJ in press

We present the first results of a wide field survey for cool brown dwarfs with the MegaCam camera on the CFHT telescope, the Canada-France Brown Dwarf Survey, hereafter CFBDS. Our objectives are to find ultracool brown dwarfs and to constrain the field-brown dwarf mass function thanks to a larger sample of L and T dwarfs. We identify candidates in CFHT/MegaCam i' and z' images using optimised psf-fitting within Source Extractor, and follow them up with pointed near-infrared imaging on several telescopes. We have so far analysed over 350 square degrees and found 770 brown dwarf candidates brighter than z'{AB}=22.5. We currently have J-band photometry for 220 of these candidates, which confirms 37% as potential L or T dwarfs. Some are among the reddest and farthest brown dwarfs currently known, including an independent identification of the recently published ULAS J003402.77-005206.7 and the discovery of a second brown dwarf later than T8, CFBDS J005910.83-011401.3. Infrared spectra of three T dwarf candidates confirm their nature, and validate the selection process. The completed survey will discover ~100 T dwarfs and ~500 L dwarfs or M dwarfs later than M8, approximately doubling the number of currently known brown dwarfs. The resulting sample will have a very well-defined selection function, and will therefore produce a very clean luminosity function., Comment: A&A in press

We report the discovery of CFBDS J005910.90-011401.3 (hereafter CFBDS0059), the coolest brown dwarf identified to date. We found CFBDS0059 using i' and z' images from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), and present optical and near-infrared photometry, Keck laser guide star adaptive optics imaging, and a complete near-infrared spectrum, from 1.0 to 2.2 $\mu$m. A side to side comparison of the near-infrared spectra of CFBDS0059 and ULAS J003402.77-005206.7 (hereafter ULAS0034), previously the coolest known brown dwarf, indicates that CFBDS0059 is ~50+/-15K cooler. We estimate a temperature of Teff ~ 620K and gravity of log g ~ 4.75. Evolutionary models translate these parameters into an age of 1-5 Gyr and a mass of 15-30 M_Jup. We estimate a photometric distance of ~13pc, which puts CFBDS0059 within easy reach of accurate parallax measurements. Its large proper motion suggests membership in the older population of the thin disk. The spectra of both CFBDS0059 and ULAS J0034 shows probable absorption by a wide ammonia band on the blue side of the $H$-band flux peak. If, as we expect, that feature deepens further for still lower effective temperatures, its appearance will become a natural breakpoint for the transition between the T spectral class and the new Y spectral type. CFBDS0059 and ULAS J0034 would then be the first Y0 dwarfs., Comment: 12 pages, Submitted to A&A

The Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey (CFHQS) is an optical survey designed to locate quasars during the epoch of reionization. In this paper we present the discovery of the first four CFHQS quasars at redshift greater than 6, including the most distant known quasar, CFHQS J2329-0301 at z=6.43. We describe the observational method used to identify the quasars and present optical, infrared, and millimeter photometry and optical and near-infrared spectroscopy. We investigate the dust properties of these quasars finding an unusual dust extinction curve for one quasar and a high far-infrared luminosity due to dust emission for another. The mean millimeter continuum flux for CFHQS quasars is substantially lower than that for SDSS quasars at the same redshift, likely due to a correlation with quasar UV luminosity. For two quasars with sufficiently high signal-to-noise optical spectra, we use the spectra to investigate the ionization state of hydrogen at z>5. For CFHQS J1509-1749 at z=6.12, we find significant evolution (beyond a simple extrapolation of lower redshift data) in the Gunn-Peterson optical depth at z>5.4. The line-of-sight to this quasar has one of the highest known optical depths at z~5.8. An analysis of the sizes of the highly-ionized near-zones in the spectra of two quasars at z=6.12 and z=6.43 suggest the IGM surrounding these quasars was substantially ionized before these quasars turned on. Together, these observations point towards an extended reionization process, but we caution that cosmic variance is still a major limitation in z>6 quasar observations., Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, AJ, in press, minor changes to previous version

The interpretation of high proper motion white dwarfs detected by Oppenheimer et al (2001) was the start of a lively controversy. While the discoverers identify a large fraction of their findings as dark halo members, others interpret the same sample as essentially made of disc and/or thick disc stars. We use the comprehensive description of Galactic stellar populations provided by the "Besancon" model to produce a realistic simulation of Oppenheimer et al. data, including all observational selections and calibration biases. The conclusion is unambiguous: Thick disc white dwarfs resulting from ordinary hypotheses on the local density and kinematics are sufficient to explain the observed objects, there is no need for halo white dwarfs. This conclusion is robust to reasonable changes in model ingredients. The main cause of the misinterpretation seems to be that the velocity distribution of a proper motion selected star sample is severely biased in favour of high velocities. This has been neglected in previous analyses. Obviously this does not prove that no such objects like halo white dwarfs can exist, but Oppenheimer et al. observations drive their possible contribution in the dark matter halo down to an extremely low fraction., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, A&A Letters, accepted