Scattered light from the objective lens, directly exposed to the intense sunlight, is a dominant source of stray light in internally occulted coronagraphs. The variable stray light, such as the scatter from dust on the objective lens, can produce varying scattering backgrounds in coronal images, significantly impacting image quality and data analysis. Using data acquired by the Lijiang 10-cm Coronagraph, the quantitative relationship between the distribution of dust on the objective lens and the resulting scattering backgrounds background is analyzed. Two empirical models for the scattering background are derived, and used to correct the raw coronal data. The second model, which depends on three parameters and performs better, shows that the scattering-background distribution varies with angle, weakens with increasing height, and enhances with increasing dust level on the objective lens. Moreover, we find that the dust on the center of the objective lens can contribute more significantly to the scattering background than on the edge. This study not only quantitatively confirms the significant impact of the stray light produced by dust on the objective lens of the coronagraph, but also corrects the coronal data with this stray light for the first time. Correcting for dust-scattered light is crucial for the high-precision calibration of ground-based coronagraph data, enabling a more accurate analysis of coronal structures. Furthermore, our model is envisioned to support the provision of reliable observational data for future routine coronal magnetic-field measurements using ground-based coronagraphs.

This work is devoted to studying the influence of the bar on the orbital dynamics of globular clusters. The orbits of 45 globular clusters in the central galactic region with a radius of 3.5 kpc were analyzed using spectral dynamics methods in order to identify objects captured by the bar. To form the 6D phase space required for orbit integration, the most accurate astrometric data to date from the Gaia satellite (EDR3), as well as new refined average distances to globular clusters, were used. Since the parameters of the Milky Way bar are known with very great uncertainty, the orbits were constructed and their frequency analysis was carried out with varying the mass, length and angular velocity of rotation of the bar in a wide range of values with a fairly small step. The integration of orbits was carried out at 2.5 billion years ago. As a result, bar-supporting globular clusters were identified for each set of bar parameters. For the first time, an analytical expression has been obtained for the dependence of the dominant frequency $f_X$ on the angular velocity of rotation of the bar. In addition, the probabilities of capturing globular clusters by the bar were determined when the bar parameters were varied in certain ranges of values according to a random distribution law. A list of 14 globular clusters with the most significant capture probabilities is given, with five GCs - NGC6266, NGC6569, Terzan 5, NGC6522, NGC6540 - showing the probability capture by bar $\geq 0.2$. A conclusion is made about the regularity of the orbits of globular clusters based on the calculation of approximations of the maximum characteristic Lyapunov exponents.

We investigate the nature of CXOU J005440.5-374320 (J0054), a peculiar bright ($\sim$$4\times10^{39}$ erg/s) and soft X-ray transient in the spiral galaxy NGC 300 with a 6-hour periodic flux modulation that was detected in a 2014 Chandra observation. Subsequent observations with Chandra and XMM-Newton, as well as a large observational campaign of NGC 300 and its sources performed with the Swift Neil Gehrels Observatory, showed that this source exhibits recurrent flaring activity: four other outbursts were detected across $\sim$8 years of monitoring. Using data from the Swift/UVOT archive and from the XMM-Newton/OM and Gaia catalogues, we noted the source is likely associated with a bright blue optical/ultraviolet counterpart. This prompted us to perform follow-up observations with the Southern African Large Telescope in December 2019. With the multi-wavelength information at hand, we discuss several possibilities for the nature of J0054. Although none is able to account for the full range of the observed peculiar features, we found that the two most promising scenarios are a stellar-mass compact object in a binary system with a Wolf$-$Rayet star companion, or the recurrent tidal stripping of a stellar object trapped in a system with an intermediate-mass ($\sim1000$ $M_\odot$) black hole.

A fundamental prediction of the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) cosmology are the centrally-divergent cuspy density profiles of dark matter haloes. These density cusps render CDM haloes resilient to tides, and protect dwarf galaxies embedded in them from full tidal disruption. The hierarchical assembly history of the Milky Way may therefore give rise to a population of "micro galaxies"; i.e., heavily-stripped remnants of early accreted satellites which may reach arbitrarily low luminosity. Assuming that the progenitor systems are dark matter dominated, we use an empirical formalism for tidal stripping to predict the evolution of the luminosity, size and velocity dispersion of such remnants, tracing their tidal evolution across multiple orders of magnitude in mass and size. The evolutionary tracks depend sensitively on the progenitor distribution of stellar binding energies. We explore two cases that likely bracket most realistic models of dwarf galaxies: one where the energy distribution of the most tightly bound stars follows that of the dark matter, and another where stars are less tightly bound and have a well-defined finite density core. The tidal evolution in the size-velocity dispersion plane is quite similar for these two models, although their remnants may differ widely in luminosity. Micro galaxies are therefore best distinguished from globular clusters by the presence of dark matter; either directly, by measuring their velocity dispersion, or indirectly, by examining their tidal resilience. Our work highlights the need for further theoretical and observational constraints on the stellar energy distribution in dwarf galaxies.

The Initial-Final Mass-Relation (IFMR) maps the masses of main sequence stars to their white dwarf descendants. The most common approach to measure the IFMR has been to use white dwarfs in clusters. However, it has been shown that wide double white dwarfs can also be used to measure the IFMR using a Bayesian approach. We have observed a large sample of 90 Gaia double white dwarfs using FORS2 on the VLT. Considering 52 DA+DA, DA+DC, and DC+DC pairs, we applied our extended Bayesian framework to probe the IFMR in exquisite detail. Our monotonic IFMR is well constrained by our observations for initial masses of 1-5 Msun, with the range 1-4 Msun mostly constrained to a precision of 0.03 Msun or better. We add an important extension to the framework, using a Bayesian mixture-model to determine the IFMR robustly in the presence of systems departing from single star evolution. We find a large but uncertain outlier fraction of 59$\pm$21 percent, with outlier systems requiring an additional $0.70^{+0.40}_{-0.22}$ Gyr uncertainty in their cooling age differences. However, we find that this fraction is dominated by a few systems with massive components near 0.9 Msun, where we are most sensitive to outliers, but are also able to establish four systems as merger candidates

We analyze the evolution of massive (log$_{10}$ [$M_\star/M_\odot$] $>10$) galaxies at $z \sim$ 4--8 selected from the JWST Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey. We infer the physical properties of all galaxies in the CEERS NIRCam imaging through spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting with dense basis to select a sample of high redshift massive galaxies. Where available we include constraints from additional CEERS observing modes, including 18 sources with MIRI photometric coverage, and 28 sources with spectroscopic confirmations from NIRSpec or NIRCam wide-field slitless spectroscopy. We sample the recovered posteriors in stellar mass from SED fitting to infer the volume densities of massive galaxies across cosmic time, taking into consideration the potential for sample contamination by active galactic nuclei (AGN). We find that the evolving abundance of massive galaxies tracks expectations based on a constant baryon conversion efficiency in dark matter halos for $z \sim$ 1--4. At higher redshifts, we observe an excess abundance of massive galaxies relative to this simple model. These higher abundances can be explained by modest changes to star formation physics and/or the efficiencies with which star formation occurs in massive dark matter halos, and are not in tension with modern cosmology.

We present observations and analysis of the starburst, PACS-819, at z=1.45 ($M_*=10^{10.7}$ M$_{ \odot}$), using high-resolution ($0^{\prime \prime}.1$; 0.8 kpc) ALMA and multi-wavelength JWST images from the COSMOS-Web program. Dissimilar to HST/ACS images in the rest-frame UV, the redder NIRCam and MIRI images reveal a smooth central mass concentration and spiral-like features, atypical for such an intense starburst. Through dynamical modeling of the CO J=5--4 emission with ALMA, PACS-819 is rotation-dominated thus has a disk-like nature. However, kinematic anomalies in CO and asymmetric features in the bluer JWST bands (e.g., F150W) support a more disturbed nature likely due to interactions. The JWST imaging further enables us to map the distribution of stellar mass and dust attenuation, thus clarifying the relationships between different structural components, not discernable in the previous HST images. The CO J = 5 -- 4 and FIR dust continuum emission are co-spatial with a heavily-obscured starbursting core (<1 kpc) which is partially surrounded by much less obscured star-forming structures including a prominent arc, possibly a tidally-distorted dwarf galaxy, and a clump, either a sign of an ongoing violent disk instability or a recently accreted low-mass satellite. With spatially-resolved maps, we find a high molecular gas fraction in the central area reaching $\sim3$ ($M_{\text{gas}}$/$M_*$) and short depletion times ($M_{\text{gas}}/SFR\sim$ 120 Myrs) across the entire system. These observations provide insights into the complex nature of starbursts in the distant universe and underscore the wealth of complementary information from high-resolution observations with both ALMA and JWST.

We present a novel approach to analyzing astronomical spectral survey data using our non-linear extension of an online dictionary learning algorithm. Current and upcoming surveys such as SPHEREx will use spectral data to build a 3D map of the universe by estimating the redshifts of millions of galaxies. Existing algorithms rely on hand-curated external templates and have limited performance due to model mismatch error. Our algorithm addresses this limitation by jointly estimating both the underlying spectral features in common across the entire dataset, as well as the redshift of each galaxy. Our online approach scales well to large datasets since we only process a single spectrum in memory at a time. Our algorithm performs better than a state-of-the-art existing algorithm when analyzing a mock SPHEREx dataset, achieving a NMAD standard deviation of 0.18% and a catastrophic error rate of 0.40% when analyzing noiseless data. Our algorithm also performs well over a wide range of signal to noise ratios (SNR), delivering sub-percent NMAD and catastrophic error above median SNR of 20. We released our algorithm publicly at github.com/HyperspectralDictionaryLearning/BryanEtAl2023 .

This review presents the main points of current advances in the field of active galactic nuclei (AGN). A brief historical excursion about the search for the nature of AGN is given. The problem of close binary systems consisting of supermassive black holes located in the centers of galaxies is discussed in details. The main characteristics, as well as new methods for studying and ``weighing'' these new objects, are described. This paper is based on a presentation made in the astrophysical seminar, which dedicated to the memory of the outstanding astrophysicist N.G. Bochkarev (took place on May 19, 2023 at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute of Moscow State University).

Nova eruptions occur in cataclysmic variables when enough material has been accreted onto the surface of the white dwarf primary. As a consequence, the material that has been accumulated until then is expelled into the interstellar medium, forming an expanding nova shell around the system. Understanding the physical process that shapes the morphology of nova shells is essential to fully comprehend how the ejection mechanism operates during nova eruptions. Because of its closeness and age, the nova shell around the classical nova RR Pic (Nova Pic 1925) is an ideal target for studying the evolving morphology of nova shells. In this work, we present an IFS study of the RR Pic nova shell, with a particular emphasis on the extraction of the 3D morphology of the shell. The nova shell was observed by the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument placed at the ESO-VLT. The MUSE datacube confirms the presence of the nova shell in H$\rm\alpha$, H$\rm\beta$ and [OIII], and very faintly in [NII]. A comparison with previous observations suggests that the shell continues in its free-expansion phase but with the different parts of the shell apparently expanding at different rates. The data analysis corroborates the previous vision that the shell is composed of an equatorial ring and polar filaments. At the same time, the new data also reveal that [OIII] is confined in gaps located in the tropical regions of the shell where no Hydrogen is observed. The flux measurements indicate that ~99% of the shell flux is confined to the equatorial ring, while the polar filaments show a flux asymmetry between the NE and SW filaments. We have estimated the mass of the shell to be ~5x10$^{-5}$M$_\odot$. From the analysis of the 3D-extracted data, we determine that the ring structure extends ~8,000 au from the central binary, and has a position angle of ~155 deg and an inclination of ~74 deg.

After the nearly hundred gravitational-wave detections reported by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration, the question of the cosmological origin of merging binary black holes (BBHs) remains open. The two main formation channels generally considered are from isolated field binaries or via dynamical assembly in dense star clusters. Here, we focus on understanding the dynamical formation of merging BBHs within massive clusters in galaxies of different masses. To this end, we apply a new framework to consistently model the formation and evolution of massive star clusters in zoom-in cosmological simulations of galaxies. Each simulation, taken from the FIRE project, provides a realistic star formation environment with a unique star formation history and hosts realistic giant molecular clouds that constitute the birthplace of star clusters. Combined with the code for star cluster evolution CMC, we are able to produce populations of dynamically formed merging BBHs across cosmic time in different environments. As the most massive star clusters preferentially form in dense massive clouds of gas, we find that, despite their low metallicities favourable to the creation of black holes, low-mass galaxies contain few massive clusters and therefore have a limited contribution to the global production of dynamically formed merging BBHs. Furthermore, we find that massive clusters can host hierarchical BBH mergers with clear identifiable physical properties. Looking at the evolution of the BBH merger rate in different galaxies, we find strong correlations between BBH mergers and the most extreme episodes of star formation. Finally, we discuss the implications for future LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA gravitational wave observations.

The KM3NeT Collaboration is building an underwater neutrino observatory at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea consisting of two neutrino telescopes, both composed of a three-dimensional array of light detectors, known as digital optical modules. Each digital optical module contains a set of 31 three inch photomultiplier tubes distributed over the surface of a 0.44 m diameter pressure-resistant glass sphere. The module includes also calibration instruments and electronics for power, readout and data acquisition. The power board was developed to supply power to all the elements of the digital optical module. The design of the power board began in 2013, and several prototypes were produced and tested. After an exhaustive validation process in various laboratories within the KM3NeT Collaboration, a mass production batch began, resulting in the construction of over 1200 power boards so far. These boards were integrated in the digital optical modules that have already been produced and deployed, 828 until October 2023. In 2017, an upgrade of the power board, to increase reliability and efficiency, was initiated. After the validation of a pre-production series, a production batch of 800 upgraded boards is currently underway. This paper describes the design, architecture, upgrade, validation, and production of the power board, including the reliability studies and tests conducted to ensure the safe operation at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea throughout the observatory's lifespan

We report the discovery of a young, highly scattered pulsar in a search for highly circularly polarized radio sources as part of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) Variables and Slow Transients (VAST) survey. In follow-up observations with Murriyang/Parkes, we identified PSR J1032-5804 and measured a period of 78.7 ms, dispersion measure (DM) of 819$\pm$4 pc cm$^{-3}$, rotation measure of -2000$\pm$1 rad m$^{-2}$, and a characteristic age of 34.6 kyr. We found a pulse scattering timescale at 3 GHz of ~22 ms, implying a timescale at 1 GHz of ~3845 ms, which is the third most scattered pulsar known and explains its non-detection in previous pulsar surveys. We discuss the identification of a possible pulsar wind nebula and supernova remnant in the pulsar's local environment by analyzing the pulsar spectral energy distribution and the surrounding extended emission from multiwavelength images. Our result highlights the possibility of identifying extremely scattered pulsars from radio continuum images. Ongoing and future large-scale radio continuum surveys will offer us an unprecedented opportunity to find more extreme pulsars (e.g., highly scattered, highly intermittent, highly accelerated), which will enhance our understanding of the characteristics of pulsars and the interstellar medium.

We present a Bayesian analysis of the Quaia sample of 1.3 million quasars as a test of the cosmological principle. This principle postulates that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic on sufficiently large scales, forming the basis of prevailing cosmological models. However, recent analyses of quasar samples have found a matter dipole inconsistent with the inferred kinematic dipole of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), representing a tension with the expectations of the cosmological principle. Here, we explore various hypotheses for the distribution of quasars in Quaia, finding that the sample is influenced by selection effects with significant contamination near the galactic plane. After excising these regions, we find significant evidence that the Quaia quasar dipole is consistent with the CMB dipole, both in terms of the expected amplitude and direction. This result is in conflict with recent analyses, lending support to the cosmological principle and the interpretation that the observed dipole is due to our local departure from the Hubble flow.

Initial density distribution provides a basis for understanding the complete evolution of cosmological density fluctuations. While reconstruction in our local Universe exploits the observations of galaxy surveys with large volumes, observations of high-redshift galaxies are performed with a small field of view and therefore can hardly be used for reconstruction. Here we propose to reconstruct the initial density field using the H I 21 cm and CO line intensity maps from the epoch of reionization. Observations of these two intensity maps provide complementary information of the density field -- the H I 21 cm field is a proxy of matter distributions in the neutral regions, while the CO line intensity maps are sensitive to the high-density, star-forming regions that host the sources for reionization. Technically, we employ the conjugate gradient method and develop the machinery for minimizing the cost function for the intensity mapping observations. Analytical expressions for the gradient of cost function are derived explicitly. We show that the resimulated intensity maps match the input maps of mock observations using semi-numerical simulations of reionization with an rms error $\lesssim 7\%$ at all stages of reionization. This reconstruction is also robust at the same level of accuracy when a noise at the level of $\lesssim 1\%$ of the standard deviation is applied to each map. Our proof-of-concept work demonstrates the robustness of the reconstruction method, thereby providing an effective technique for reconstructing the cosmological initial density distribution from high-redshift observations.

Employing 3D GRMHD simulation, we study the images of a geometrically thin jet, whose emissions concentrate on its surface, for accretion system surrounding a central spinning BH. By introducing a strong magnetic field, we observe three phases of BH accretion evolution: (a) initially, both the accretion rate and the magnetic flux on the horizon gradually increase; (b) at an intermediate stage, the magnetic flux approximately reaches saturation, and a jet forms via the Blandford-Znajek (BZ) mechanism; (c) ultimately, the entire system achieves a dynamic equilibrium, and a magnetically arrested disk (MAD) forms. We carefully study the jet images during the saturation and MAD regimes at various frequencies and from different observational angles. We reveal the presence of U-shaped brighter lines near the jet surface boundaries, which can be attributed to the photons whose trajectories skim over the jet surface. The existence of these brighter lines is a unique feature of a geometrically thin jet. Moreover, we notice that the jet images are relatively insensitive to the observed frequencies of interest. Additionally, we observe that the time-averaged images for the highly oscillating MAD regime show only slight differences from those of the saturation regime.

The Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) has enabled a renaissance of the planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF) as a standard candle. In the case of NGC 300, we learned that the precise spectrophotometry of MUSE was crucial to obtain an accurate PNLF distance. We present the advantage of the integral field spectrograph compared to the slit spectrograph in delivering precise spectrophotometry by simulating a slit observation on integral field spectroscopy data. We also discuss the possible systematic shift in measuring the PNLF distance using the least-square method, especially when the PNLF cutoff is affected by small number statistics.

Mini-EUSO is a wide-angle fluorescence telescope that registers ultraviolet (UV) radiation in the nocturnal atmosphere of Earth from the International Space Station. Meteors are among multiple phenomena that manifest themselves not only in the visible range but also in the UV. We present two simple artificial neural networks that allow for recognizing meteor signals in the Mini-EUSO data with high accuracy in terms of a binary classification problem. We expect that similar architectures can be effectively used for signal recognition in other fluorescence telescopes, regardless of the nature of the signal. Due to their simplicity, the networks can be implemented in onboard electronics of future orbital or balloon experiments.

Radio sources with peaked spectra (peaked spectrum sources, PSS) and compact symmetric objects (CSO) are powerful, compact, and presumably young AGNs and therefore particularly suitable to study aspects of the AGN-host connection. We use a statistical approach to compare a PSS-CSO sample with a matching comparison sample of extended sources (ECS). We find significant differences between the two samples. In particular, we find that the ECS sample has a higher proportion of passive galaxies with a lower star formation activity. This applies to both sub-samples of QSOs or radio galaxies as well as to the entire sample. The star formation rates of the PSS-CSO host galaxies are typically in the range 0 to 5 M_sun/yr and the stellar masses are in the range 3x10^11 to 10^12 M_sun. Secondly, in agreement with previous results, we find a remarkably high proportion of PSS-CSO host galaxies with merger signatures. The merger fraction of the PSS-CSO sample is 0.61, which is significantly higher than that of the comparison sample (0.15). We suggest that this difference can be explained by assuming that the majority of the PSSs and CSOs cannot evolve to extended radio sources and are therefore not represented in our comparison sample.

Craters formed by the impact of agglomerated materials are commonly observed in nature, such as asteroids colliding with planets and moons. In this paper, we investigate how the projectile spin and cohesion lead to different crater shapes. For that, we carried out DEM (discrete element method) computations of spinning granular projectiles impacting onto cohesionless grains, for different bonding stresses, initial spins and initial heights. We found that, as the bonding stresses decrease and the initial spin increases, the projectile's grains spread farther from the collision point, and, in consequence, the crater shape becomes flatter, with peaks around the rim and in the center of craters. Our results shed light on the dispersion of the projectile's material and the different shapes of craters found on Earth and other planetary environments.

In this paper, we develop a high-precision satellite orbit determination model for satellites orbiting the Earth. Solving this model entails numerically integrating the differential equation of motion governing a two-body system, employing Fehlberg's formulation and the Runge-Kutta class of embedded integrators with adaptive stepsize control. Relevant primary perturbing forces included in this mathematical model are the full force gravitational field model, Earth's atmospheric drag, third body gravitational effects and solar radiation pressure. Development of the high-precision model required accounting for the perturbing influences of Earth radiation pressure, Earth tides and relativistic effects. The model is then implemented to obtain a high-fidelity Earth orbiting satellite propagator, namely the Satellite Ephemeris Determiner (SED), which is comparable to the popular High Precision Orbit Propagator (HPOP). The architecture of SED, the methodology employed, and the numerical results obtained are presented.

We have recently proposed that supercritical colliding wind binaries (SCWBs) are suitable scenarios for particle acceleration and nonthermal radiation. In these X-ray binary systems (XRBs), the wind from the companion star collides with the wind ejected from the super-Eddington accretion disk of the stellar black hole. Strong shocks are generated in this collision, leading to the acceleration of particles and subsequent broadband emission through different nonthermal radiative processes. In particular, we estimate luminosities of the order of $L\approx 10^{34}\,{\rm erg\,s^{-1}}$ in the radio band. One of the major components in these processes is the power provided by the super wind expelled from the disk. Furthermore, some properties of the wind photosphere, such as its geometry or its temperature distribution, also contribute to the absorption and reprocessing of the nonthermal radiation. In this work, we perform a more detailed description of the powerful wind launched from the accretion disk, in order to obtain a better understanding of the above-mentioned processes.

Our work highlights the crucial role played by the equation of state (EoS) parameter $w$ within the context of single field inflation with Multiple Sharp Transitions (MSTs) to untangle the current state of the PBH overproduction issue. We examine the situation for a broad interval of EoS parameter that remains most favourable to explain the recent data released by the pulsar timing array (PTA) collaboration. Our analysis yields the interval, $0.2 \leq w \leq 1/3$, to be the most acceptable window from the SIGW interpretation of the PTA signal and where sizeable PBHs abundance, $f_{\rm PBH} \in (10^{-3},1)$, is observed. We also obtain $w=1/3$, radiation-dominated era, to be the best scenario to explain the early stages of the Universe and address the overproduction problem. Within the range of $1 \leq c_{s} \leq 1.17$, we construct a regularized-renormalized-resummed scalar power spectrum whose amplitude obeys the perturbativity criterion while being substantial enough to generate EoS dependent scalar induced gravitational waves ($w$-SIGWs) consistent with NANOGrav-15 data. Working for both $c_{s} = 1\;{\rm and}\;1.17$, we find the $c_{s}=1.17$ case more favourable for generating large mass PBHs, $M_{\rm PBH}\sim {\cal O}(10^{-6}-10^{-3})M_{\odot}$, as potential dark matter candidates with substantial abundance after constraints coming from microlensing experiments.

We examine the impact of two alternative dark matter models that possess distinct non-zero equations of state, one constant and the other time-dependent, on the nonlinear regime using the spherical collapse approach. Specifically, we compare these models to standard cold dark matter (CDM) by analyzing their influence on the linear density threshold for nonrelativistic component collapse and virial overdensity. Additionally, we explore the number count of collapsed objects, or dark matter halos, which is analogous to the number count of galaxy clusters. Finally, in light of recent discoveries by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which indicate the potential for more efficient early galaxy formation at higher redshifts, we have been investigating how alternative dark matter assumptions can enhance structure formation efficiency during the early times.

Firmamento (https://firmamento.hosting.nyu.edu) is a new-concept web-based and mobile-friendly data analysis tool dedicated to multi-frequency/multi-messenger emitters, as exemplified by blazars. Although initially intended to support a citizen researcher project at New York University-Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), Firmamento has evolved to be a valuable tool for professional researchers due to its broad accessibility to classical and contemporary multi-frequency open data sets. From this perspective Firmamento facilitates the identification of new blazars and other multi-frequency emitters in the localisation uncertainty regions of sources detected by current and planned observatories such as Fermi-LAT, Swift , eROSITA, CTA, ASTRI Mini-Array, LHAASO, IceCube, KM3Net, SWGO, etc. The multi-epoch and multi-wavelength data that Firmamento retrieves from over 90 remote and local catalogues and databases can be used to characterise the spectral energy distribution and the variability properties of cosmic sources as well as to constrain physical models. Firmamento distinguishes itself from other online platforms due to its high specialization, the use of machine learning and other methodologies to characterise the data and for its commitment to inclusivity. From this particular perspective, its objective is to assist both researchers and citizens interested in science, strengthening a trend that is bound to gain momentum in the coming years as data retrieval facilities improve in power and machine learning/artificial intelligence tools become more widely available

We present a comprehensive analysis of approximately $15$ years ($2006-2021$) of X-ray observations of UGC~6728, a low-mass bare AGN, for the first time. Our study encompasses both spectral and temporal aspects of this source. The spectral properties of this source are studied using various phenomenological and physical models. We conclude that (a) the observed variability in X-ray luminosity is not attributed to the Hydrogen column density ($N_H$) as UGC~6728 exhibits a bare nucleus, implying a negligible $N_H$ contribution along the line of sight, and (b) the spectral slope in the X-ray band demonstrates a systematic variation over time, indicating a transition from a relatively hard state to a comparatively soft state. We propose that the underlying accretion dynamics around the central object account for this behavior. By performing X-ray spectral fitting, we estimate the mass of the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) in UGC~6728 to be $M_{BH}=(7.13\pm1.23)\times10^5$ M$_\odot$ with spin $a=0.97^{+0.20}_{-0.27}$ and inclination angle $i=49.5\pm14.5$ degree. Based on our spectral and temporal analysis, we suggest that UGC~6728 lacks a prominent Compton hump or exhibits a very subtle hump that remains undetectable in our analysis. Furthermore, the high-energy X-ray photons in this source are likely to originate from the low-energy X-ray photons through inverse Compton scattering in a Compton cloud, highlighting a connection between the emission in two energy ranges. We notice a strong soft excess component in the initial part of our observations, which later reduced substantially. This variation of soft excess is explained in view of accretion dynamics.

Very-faint X-ray binaries (VFXBs) are a sub-class of black holes and neutron stars in binaries that appear to be accreting at a very low rate. In addition to providing interesting constraints on poorly understood forms of accretion, elucidating the nature of VFXBs is particularly interesting for binary evolution and population modeling. Through near-infrared (nIR) spectroscopy, we here investigate the nature of the bursting neutron star and VFXB 1RXH J173523.7$-$354013 (J1735), which persistently accretes at an X-ray luminosity of $L_X \sim 10^{34} - 10^{35}~L_{\odot}$. Our analysis shows that the nIR emission is dominated by that of the companion star, which we find to be a late G or early K-type giant, making this the second neutron star identified as a VFXB found to have a giant companion. We discuss how several of the system properties are difficult to reconcile with a wind-fed symbiotic X-ray binary. We therefore also propose an alternative scenario wherein J1735 is a wide binary system (supported by the discovery of a 7.5 d modulation in the nIR light curves) with a quiescent luminosity of $L_X \sim 10^{34} - 10^{35}~L_{\odot}$, in which the donor star is overflowing its Roche lobe. This raises the possibility that J1735 may, every century or more, exhibit very long and very bright outbursts during which it reaches accretion rates around the Eddington limit like the neutron star Z sources.

We present a systematic search of candidate galaxies at z > 11.3 using the public Near Infrared Camera data taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in its Cycle 1, which include six blank fields totalling 386 sq.arcmin and two lensing cluster fields totalling 48 sq.arcmin. The candidates are selected as F150W, F200W and F277W dropouts, which correspond to z ~ 12.7 (11.3 < z < 15.4), 17.3 (15.4 < z < 21.8) and 24.7 (21.8 < z < 28.3), respectively. Our sample consists of 123 F150W dropouts, 52 F200W dropouts and 32 F277W dropouts, which is the largest candidate galaxy sample probing the highest redshift range to date. The F150W and F200W dropouts have sufficient photometric information that allows contaminant rejection, which we do by fitting to their spectrum energy distributions. Based on the purified samples of F150W and F200W dropouts, we derive galaxy luminosity functions at z ~ 12.7 and 17.3, respectively. We find that both are better described by power law than Schechter function and that there is only a marginal evolution (a factor of < 2) between the two epochs. The emergence of galaxy population at z ~ 17.3 or earlier is consistent with the suggestion of an early cosmic hydrogen reionization and is not necessarily a crisis of the LCDM paradigm. To establish a new picture of galaxy formation in the early universe, we will need both JWST spectroscopic confirmation of bright candidates such as those in our sample and deeper surveys to further constrain the faint-end of the luminosity function at M > -18 mag.

We develop a new method for spatially mapping a lower limit on the mass fraction of the cold neutral medium by analyzing the amplitude structure of $\hat T_b(k_v)$, the Fourier transform of $T_b(v)$, the spectrum of the brightness temperature of HI 21cm line emission with respect to the radial velocity $v$. This advances a broader effort exploiting 21cm emission line data alone (without absorption line data, $\tau$) to extract integrated properties of the multiphase structure of the HI gas and to map each phase separately. Using toy models, we illustrate the origin of interference patterns seen in $\hat T_b(k_v)$. Building on this, a lower limit on the cold gas mass fraction is obtained from the amplitude of $\hat T_b$ at high $k_v$. Tested on a numerical simulation of thermally bi-stable turbulence, the lower limit from this method has a strong linear correlation with the "true" cold gas mass fraction from the simulation for relatively low cold gas mass fraction. At higher mass fraction, our lower limit is lower than the "true" value, because of a combination of interference and opacity effects. Comparison with absorption surveys shows a similar behavior, with a departure from linear correlation at $N_{\rm HI}\gtrsim 3-5\times10^{20}$ cm$^{-2}$. Application to the DRAO Deep Field (DF) from DHIGLS reveals a complex network of cold filaments in the Spider, an important structural property of the thermal condensation of the HI gas. Application to the HI4PI survey in the velocity range $-90 < v < 90$ km/s produces a full sky map of a lower limit on the mass fraction of the cold neutral medium at 16'.2 resolution. Our new method has the ability to extract a lower limit on the cold gas mass fraction for massive amounts of emission line data alone with low computing time and memory, pointing the way to new approaches suitable for the new generation of radio interferometers.

In astrophysics, experiments are impossible. We thus must rely exclusively on observational data. Other observational sciences increasingly leverage causal inference methods, but this is not yet the case in astrophysics. Here we attempt causal discovery for the first time to address an important open problem in astrophysics: the (co)evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and their host galaxies. We apply the Peter-Clark (PC) algorithm to a comprehensive catalog of galaxy properties to obtain a completed partially directed acyclic graph (CPDAG), representing a Markov equivalence class over directed acyclic graphs (DAGs). Central density and velocity dispersion are found to cause SMBH mass. We test the robustness of our analysis by random sub-sampling, recovering similar results. We also apply the Fast Causal Inference (FCI) algorithm to our dataset to relax the hypothesis of causal sufficiency, admitting unobserved confounds. Hierarchical SMBH assembly may provide a physical explanation for our findings.

The standard cosmological model, the $\Lambda$CDM model, is the most suitable description for our universe. This framework can explain the accelerated expansion phase of the universe but still is not immune to open problems when it comes to the comparison with observations. One of the most critical issues is the so-called Hubble constant ($H_0$) tension, namely, the difference of about $5\sigma$ as an average between the value of $H_0$ estimated locally and the cosmological value measured from the Last Scattering Surface. The value of this tension changes from 4 to 6 $\sigma$ according to the data used. The current analysis explores the $H_0$ tension in the \textit{Pantheon} sample (PS) of SNe Ia. Through the division of the PS in 3 and 4 bins, the value of $H_0$ is estimated for each bin and all the values are fitted with a decreasing function of the redshift ($z$). Remarkably, $H_0$ undergoes a slow decreasing evolution with $z$, having an evolutionary coefficient compatible with zero up to $5.8\sigma$. If this trend is not caused by hidden astrophysical biases or $z$-selection effects, then the $f(R)$ modified theories of gravity represent a valid model for explaining such a trend.

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are interesting objects for testing the emission models in highly energetic regimes and are very promising standardizable candles, given their observability at high redshift (up to $z=9.4$) that allows the extension of the Hubble diagram much further the limit of Supernovae Ia (SNe Ia), the most distant one being at $z=2.26$. In this study, we demonstrate that the fundamental plane relation involving the prompt peak luminosity in X-rays, the X-rays plateau-end luminosity, and the plateau-end rest-frame time is not only a robust benchmark for testing GRB emission models like the magnetar but also a promising avenue for high-$z$ cosmology exploration. First, we discuss the connection between the magnetar model and the GRB afterglow correlations. Second, through the simulation of GRBs, we count how many years are needed to achieve the same precision of modern SNe Ia samples in the estimation of $\Omega_{M}$.

Upcoming surveys of the large scale structure will employ large coverage area around half of the sky, and a significant increase in the depth of observations. With these surveys we will be able to perform cross-correlations between CMB gravitational lensing and galaxy surveys divided into narrow redshift bins to map the evolution of the cosmological parameters with redshift. To study the impact of redshift bin mismatch of objects due to photometric redshift errors on tomographic cross-correlation measurements. We use the \texttt{FLASK} code to create Monte Carlo simulations of the LSST galaxy survey and \textit{Planck} CMB lensing convergence. We simulate log-normal fields and divide galaxies into $9$ redshift bins, with Gaussian photometric redshift errors. To estimate parameters, we use angular power spectra of CMB lensing and galaxy density contrast fields and the Maximum Likelihood Estimation method. We show that even with the simple Gaussian errors with standard deviation of $\sigma(z)=0.02(1+z)$, the galaxy auto-power spectra in tomographic bins suffer offsets varying between $2-15\%$. The estimated cross-power spectra between galaxy clustering and CMB lensing are also biased with smaller deviations $<5\%$. The $\sigma_{8}$ parameter, as a result, shows deviations between $0.2-1.2\,\sigma$ due to redshift bin mismatch of objects. We propose a computationally fast and robust method based on the scattering matrix approach (arXiv:0910.4181) to correct for the redshift bin mismatch of objects. The estimation of parameters in tomographic studies like galaxy linear bias, amplitude of cross-correlation, and $\sigma_{8}$ are biased due to redshift bin mismatch of objects. The biases in these parameters get alleviated with our scattering matrix approach.

The most metal-poor tail of the Milky Way ([Fe/H] $\leq$ $-$2.5) contains a population of stars with very prograde planar orbits, which is puzzling in both their origin and evolution. A possible scenario is that they are shepherded by the bar from the inner Galaxy, where many of the old and low-metallicity stars in the Galaxy are located. To investigate this scenario, we use test-particle simulations with an axisymmetric background potential plus a central bar model. The test particles are generated by an extended distribution function (EDF) model based on the observational constraints of bulge stars. According to the simulation results, a bar with constant pattern speed cannot help bring stars from the bulge to the solar vicinity. In contrast, when the model includes a rapidly decelerating bar, some bulge stars can gain rotation and move outwards as they are trapped in the co-rotation regions of the bar. The resulting distribution of shepherded stars heavily depends on the present-day azimuthal angle between the bar and the Sun. The majority of the low-metallicity bulge stars driven outwards are distributed in the fourth quadrant of the Galaxy with respect to the Sun, and about 10$\%$ of them are within 6 kpc from us. Our experiments indicate that the decelerating bar perturbation can be a contributing process to explain part of the most metal-poor stars with prograde planar orbits seen in the Solar neighborhood but is unlikely to be the dominant one.

The nature of the highly dense matter inside the supernova remnant compact star is not constrained by terrestrial experiment and hence is modeled phenomenologically to accommodate the astrophysical observations from compact stars as the observable properties of the compact stars are highly sensitive to the microscopic model of highly dense matter. However, there exists some universal relations between some macroscopic properties of compact stars independent of the matter model. We examine the universal relations for quantities moment of inertia - tidal love number - quadrupole moment. We also study some already established universal relations in non-radial oscillation frequencies with star compactness for the baryonic star with core composed of heavier baryons and for the hybrid star with core composed of strange quark matter in CFL phase surrounded by nucleonic matter. We find the hybrid star with core of quark matter in the CFL phase obeys the same universal relation as the hybrid star with normal quark matter. However, the baryonic star with strange and non-strange heavier baryons at the inner core fails to satisfy the universal relations.

Ultradense dark matter halos (UDMHs) are high concentrations of dark matter which are assumed to have formed from amplified primordial perturbations, alongside the primordial black holes (PBHs). In this work we calculate the abundance of UDMHs and improve the previous works by elaborating on the formation process of these halos through including various physical and geometrical modifications in the analysis. In particular, we investigate the impact of angular momentum, dynamical friction and triaxial collapse on the predicted mass functions for UDMHs. We perform the calculations for four primordial power spectra with different amplified features that allow for (PBH and) UDHM formation in a wide mass range. We find that the abundance of UDMHs is prominently enhanced in the presence of these more realistic physical modifications. Comparison of the results with the current observational bounds on PBHs also implies that the UDMHs are expected to significantly outnumber PBHs in broad mass intervals, with the details depending on the primordial power spectrum.

We present the analysis results of the simultaneous multifrequency observations of the blazar 4C +28.07. The observations were conducted by the Interferometric Monitoring of Gamma-ray Bright Active Galactic Nuclei (iMOGABA) program, which is a key science program of the Korean Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Network (KVN). Observations of the iMOGABA program for 4C +28.07 were conducted from 16 January 2013 (MJD 56308) to 13 March 2020 (MJD 58921). We also used {\gamma}-ray data from the Fermi Large Array Telescope (Fermi-LAT) Light Curve Repository. We divided the iMOGABA data and the Fermi-LAT data into five periods from 0 to 4, according to the prosody of the 22 GHz data and the presence or absence of the data. In order to investigate the characteristics of each period, the light curves were plotted and compared. However, a peak was observed earlier than the period of a strong {\gamma}-ray flare at 43-86 GHz in period 3 (MJD 57400-58100). Therefore, we assumed that the minimum total CLEANed flux density for each frequency was quiescent flux (Sq), with the variable flux (Svar) obtained by subtracting Sq from the values of the total CLEANed flux density. We then compared the variability of the spectral indices ({\alpha}) between adjacent frequencies. Most notably, {\alpha}22-43 showed optically thick spectra in the absence of a strong {\gamma}-ray flare, and when the flare appeared, {\alpha}22-43 became optically thinner. In order to find out the characteristics of the magnetic field in the variable region, the magnetic field strength in the synchrotron self-absorption (BSSA) and the equipartition magnetic field strength (Beq) were obtained. We found that BSSA is largely consistent with Beq within the uncertainty, implying that the SSA region in the source is not significantly deviated from the equipartition condition in the {\gamma}-ray quiescent periods.

Women in the Astronomy and STEM fields face systemic inequalities throughout their careers. Raising awareness, supported by detailed statistical data, represents the initial step toward closely monitoring hurdles in career progress and addressing underlying barriers to workplace equality. This, in turn, contributes to rectifying gender imbalances in STEM careers. The International Astronomical Union Women in Astronomy (IAU WiA) working group, a part of the IAU Executive Committee, is dedicated to increasing awareness of the status of women in Astronomy and supporting the aspirations of female astronomers globally. Its mission includes taking concrete actions to advance equal opportunities for both women and men in the field of astronomy. In August 2021, the IAU WiA Working Group established a new organizing committee, unveiling a comprehensive four-point plan. This plan aims to strengthen various aspects of the group's mission, encompassing: (i) Awareness Sustainability: Achieved through surveys and data collection, (ii) Training and Skill Building: Focused on professional development, (iii) Fundraising: To support key initiatives, and (iv) Communication: Dissemination of results through conferences, WG Magazines, newsletters, and more. This publication provides an overview of focused surveys that illuminate the factors influencing the careers of women in Astronomy, with a particular focus on the careers of mothers. It highlights the lack of inclusive policies, equal opportunities, and funding support for women researchers in the field. Finally, we summarize the specific initiatives undertaken by the IAU WiA Working Group to advance inclusivity and equal opportunities in Astronomy.

In this study, we present an analysis of over 34 years of observational data from CAL 87, an eclipsing supersoft X-ray source. The primary aim of our study, which combines previously analysed measurements as well as unexplored publicly available datasets, is to examine the orbital period evolution of CAL 87. After meticulously and consistently determining the eclipse timings, we constructed an O$-$C (observed minus calculated) diagram using a total of 38 data points. Our results provide confirmation of a positive derivative in the system's orbital period, with a determined value of $\dot{P}=+ 8.18\pm1.46\times10^{-11}$ s/s. We observe a noticeable jitter in the eclipse timings and additionally identify a systematic delay in the X-ray eclipses compared to those observed in longer wavelengths. We discuss the interplay of the pertinent factors that could contribute to a positive period derivative and the inherent variability in the eclipses.

The co-evolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes (SMBHs) underpins our understanding of galaxy evolution, but different methods to measure SMBH masses have only infrequently been cross-checked. We attempt to identify targets to cross-check two of the most accurate methods, megamaser and cold molecular gas dynamics. Three promising galaxies are selected from all those with existing megamaser SMBH mass measurements. We present Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) 12CO(2-1) and 230-GHz continuum observations with angular resolutions of about 0.5". Every galaxy has an extended rotating molecular gas disc and 230-GHz continuum source(s), but all also have irregularities and/or non-axisymmetric features: NGC1194 is highly inclined and has disturbed and lopsided central 12CO(2-1) emission; NGC3393 has a nuclear disc with fairly regular but patchy 12CO(2-1) emission with little gas near the kinematic major axis, faint emission in the very centre and two brighter structures reminiscent of a nuclear ring and/or spiral; NGC5765B has a strong bar and very bright 12CO(2-1) emission concentrated along two bisymmetric offset dust lanes and two bisymmetric nuclear spiral arms. 12CO(2-1) and 12CO(3-2) observations with the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope are compared with the ALMA observations. Because of the disturbed gas kinematics and the impractically long integration times required for higher angular resolution observations, none of the three galaxies is suitable for a future SMBH mass measurement. Nonetheless, increasing the number of molecular gas observations of megamaser galaxies is valuable, and the ubiquitous disturbances suggest a link between large-scale gas properties and the existence of megamasers.

All very massive early-type galaxies contain supermassive blackholes but are these blackholes all sufficiently active to produce detectable radio continuum sources? We have used the 887.5~MHz Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey DR1 to measure the radio emission from morphological early-type galaxies brighter than $K_S=9.5$ selected from the 2MASS Redshift Survey, HyperLEDA and RC3. In line with previous studies, we find median radio power increases with infrared luminosity, with $P_{1.4} \propto L_K^{2.2}$, although the scatter about this relation spans several orders of magnitude. All 40 of the $M_K<-25.7$ early-type galaxies in our sample have measured radio flux densities that are more than $2\sigma$ above the background noise, with $1.4~{\rm GHz}$ radio powers spanning $\sim 3 \times 10^{20}$ to $\sim 3\times 10^{25}~{\rm W~Hz^{-1}}$. Cross matching our sample with integral field spectroscopy of early-type galaxies reveals that the most powerful radio sources preferentially reside in galaxies with relatively low angular momentum (i.e. slow rotators). While the infrared colours of most galaxies in our early-type sample are consistent with passive galaxies with negligible star formation and the radio emission produced by active galactic nuclei or AGN remnants, very low levels of star formation could power the weakest radio sources with little effect on many other star formation rate tracers.

The Universe at the present epoch is found to be a network of matter over-dense and under-dense regions. To date, this picture of the Universe is best revealed through cosmological large-volume simulations and large-scale galaxy redshift surveys, in which, the most important step is the appropriate identification of structures. So far, these structures are identified using various group finding codes, mostly based on the friends-of-friends (FoF) or spherical over-density (SO) algorithms. Although, the main purpose is to identify gravitationally bound structures, surprisingly, the mass information has hardly been used effectively by these codes. Moreover, the methods used so far either constrain the over-density or use the real unstructured geometry only. Even though these are key factors in the accurate determination of structures-mass information, hardly any attempt has been made as yet to consider these important parameters together while formulating the grouping algorithms. In this paper, we present our proposed algorithm which takes care of all the above-mentioned relevant features and ensures the bound structures by means of physical quantities, mainly mass and the total energy information. We introduced a novel concept of physically relevant arm-length for each element depending on their individual gravity leading to a distinct linking length for each unique pair of elements. This proposed algorithm is thus fundamentally new that, not only able to catch the gravitationally bound, real unstructured geometry, it does identify it roughly within a predefined physically motivated density threshold. Such a thing could not be simultaneously achieved before by any of the usual FoF or SO-based methods. We also demonstrate the unique ability of the code in the appropriate identification of structures, both from large volume cosmological simulations as well as from galaxy redshift surveys.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most intense explosions in the universe. GRBs with extended emission (GRB EE) constitute a small subclass of GRBs. GRB EE are divided into EE-I GRBs and EE-II GRBs, according to the Amati empirical relationship rather than duration. We test here if these two types of GRB have different origins based on their luminosity function (and formation rate). Therefore, we use Lynden-Bell's c^- method to investigate the LF and FR of GRBs with EE without any assumption. We calculate the formation rate of two types of GRBs. For EE-I GRBs, the fitting function can be written as \rho (z) \propto {(1 + z)^{ - 0.34 \pm 0.04} for z < 2.39 and \rho (z) \propto {(1 + z)^{ - 2.34 \pm 0.24}} for z>2.39. The formation rate of EE-II can describe as \rho (z) \propto {(1 + z)^{ - 1.05 \pm 1.10}} for z<0.43 and \rho (z) \propto {(1 + z)^{ - 8.44 \pm 1.10}} for z>0.43. The local formation rate are \rho (0) = 0.03 Gpc^{-3}yr^{-1} for some EE-I GRBs and \rho (0) = 0.32 Gpc^{-3}yr^{-1} for EE-II GRBs. Based on these results, we provide a new evidence that the origins of EE-I GRBs are different from EE-II GRBs from the perspective of event rate. The EE-I GRB could be produced from the death of the massive star, but EE-II GRB bursts may come from other processes that are unrelated to the SFR. Our findings indicate that the GRB with EE could have multiple production channels.

A recently released XMM-Newton technical note has revealed a significant calibration issue between NuSTAR and XMM-Newton EPIC, and provided an empirical correction to EPIC effective area. To quantify the bias caused by the calibration issue to joint analysis of XMM-NuSTAR spectra and verify the effectiveness of the correction, in this work we perform joint-fitting of NuSTAR and EPIC-pn spectra for a large sample of 104 observation pairs of 44 X-ray bright AGN. The spectra were extracted after requiring perfect simultaneity between XMM-Newton and NuSTAR exposures (merging GTIs from two missions) to avoid bias due to rapid spectral variability of AGN. Before the correction, the EPIC-pn spectra are systematically harder than corresponding NuSTAR spectra by $\Delta \Gamma \sim 0.1$, subsequently yielding significantly underestimated cutoff energy $E_{\rm cut} $ and the strength of reflection component R when performing joint-fitting. We confirm the correction is highly effective and can commendably erase the discrepancy in best-fit $\Gamma$, $E_{\rm cut} $ and R, and thus we urge the community to apply the correction when joint-fitting XMM-NuSTAR spectra. Besides, we show that as merging GTIs from two missions would cause severe loss of NuSTAR net exposure time, in many cases joint-fitting yields no advantage compared with utilizing NuSTAR data alone. We finally present a technical note on filtering periods of high background flares for XMM-Newton EPIC-pn exposures in the Small Window mode.

We present the main results from a long-term reverberation mapping campaign carried out for the Seoul National University Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) Monitoring Project. High-quality data were obtained during 2015-2021 for 32 luminous AGNs (i.e., continuum luminosity in the range of $10^{44-46}$ erg s$^{-1}$) at a regular cadence, of 20-30 days for spectroscopy and 3-5 days for photometry. We obtain time lag measurements between the variability in the H$\beta$ emission and the continuum for 32 AGNs; twenty-five of those have the best lag measurements based on our quality assessment, examining correlation strength, and the posterior lag distribution. Our study significantly increases the current sample of reverberation-mapped AGNs, particularly at the moderate to high luminosity end. Combining our results with literature measurements, we derive a H$\beta$ broad line region size--luminosity relation with a shallower slope than reported in the literature. For a given luminosity, most of our measured lags are shorter than the expectation, implying that single-epoch black hole mass estimators based on previous calibrations could suffer large systematic uncertainties.

In the epoch of deep photometric surveys, a large number of substructures, e.g., over-densities, streams, were identified. With the help of astrometry and spectroscopy, the community revealed a complex picture of our Milky Way (MW) after investigating their origins. Off-plane substructures Anticenter Stream (ACS) and Monoceros Ring (MNC), once considered as dissolving dwarf galaxies, were later found to share similar kinematics and metallicity with the Galactic outer thin disk. In this work, we aim to chemically tag ACS and MNC with high-accuracy abundances from the APOGEE survey. By extrapolating chemical abundance trends in the outer thin disk region (10 < Rgc < 18 kpc, 0 < |Zgc| < 3kpc), we found that ACS and MNC stars show consistent chemical abundances as the extrapolating values for 12 elements, including C, N, O, Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca, Cr, Mn, Co and Ni. The similar chemical patterns indicate that ACS and MNC have similar star formation history as the MW outer thin disk, meanwhile, we also excluded their dwarf galaxy association, as they are distinctive in multiple chemical spaces. The ages of ACS and MNC stars are consistent with the time of the first Sgr dSph passage, indicating their possible connection.

Black hole (BH) ultracompact X-ray binaries (UCXBs) are potential Galactic low-frequency gravitational wave (GW) sources. As an alternative channel, BH UCXBs can evolve from BH+He star binaries. In this work, we perform a detailed stellar evolution model for the formation and evolution of BH UCXBs evolving from the He star channel to diagnose their detectability as low-frequency GW sources. Our calculations found that some nascent BH+He star binaries after the common-envelope (CE) phase could evolve into UCXB-LISA sources with a maximum GW frequency of $\sim5~\rm mHz$, which can be detected in a distance of 10 kpc (or 100 kpc). Once BH+He star systems become UCXBs through mass transfer, they would emit X-ray luminosities of $\sim10^{38}~\rm erg\, s^{-1}$, making them ideal multimessenger objects. If the initial He-star masses are $\geq 0.7 M_{\odot}$, those systems are likely to experience two Roche lobe overflows, and the X-ray luminosity can reach a maximum of $3.5\times 10^{39}~\rm erg\, s^{-1}$ in the second mass-transfer stage. The initial He-star masses and initial orbital periods of progenitors of Galactic BH UCXB-LISA sources are in the range of 0.32-2.9 $M_{\odot}$ and 0.02-0.19 days, respectively. Nearly all BH+He star binaries in the above parameter space can evolve into GW sources whose chirp masses can be accurately measured. Employing a population synthesis simulation, we predict the birthrate and detection number of Galactic BH UCXB-LISA source evolving from the He star channel are $R=2.2\times10^{-6}~\rm yr^{-1}$ and 33 for an optimistic CE parameter, respectively.

Galactic dynamo models have generally relied on input parameters that are very challenging to constrain. We address this problem by developing a model that uses observable quantities as input: the galaxy rotation curve, the surface densities of the gas, stars and star formation rate, and the gas temperature. The model can be used to estimate parameters of the random and mean components of the magnetic field, as well as the gas scale height, root-mean-square velocity and the correlation length and time of the interstellar turbulence, in terms of the observables. We use our model to derive theoretical scaling relations for the quantities of interest, finding reasonable agreement with empirical scaling relations inferred from observation. We assess the dependence of the results on different assumptions about turbulence driving, finding that agreement with observations is improved by explicitly modeling the expansion and energetics of supernova remnants. The model is flexible enough to include alternative prescriptions for the physical processes involved, and we provide links to two open-source PYTHON programs that implement it.

A key challenge in space weather forecasting is accurately predicting the magnetic field topology of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs), specifically the north-south magnetic field component (Bz) for Earth-directed CMEs. Heliospheric MHD models typically use spheromaks to represent the magnetic structure of CMEs. However, when inserted into the ambient interplanetary magnetic field, spheromaks can experience a phenomenon reminiscent of the condition known as the "spheromak tilting instability", causing its magnetic axis to rotate. From the perspective of space weather forecasting, it is crucial to understand the effect of this rotation on predicting Bz at 1 au while implementing the spheromak model for realistic event studies. In this work, we study this by modelling a CME event on 2013 April 11 using the "EUropean Heliospheric FORecasting Information Asset" (EUHFORIA). Our results show that a significant spheromak rotation up to 90 degrees has occurred by the time it reaches 1 au, while the majority of this rotation occurs below 0.3 au. This total rotation resulted in poor predicted magnetic field topology of the ICME at 1 au. To address this issue, we further investigated the influence of spheromak density on mitigating rotation. The results show that the spheromak rotation is less for higher densities. Importantly, we observe a substantial reduction in the uncertainties associated with predicting Bz when there is minimal spheromak rotation. Therefore, we conclude that spheromak rotation adversely affects Bz prediction in the analyzed event, emphasizing the need for caution when employing spheromaks in global MHD models for space weather forecasting.

We identify more than ten steady sub-Alfv\'enic solar wind intervals from the measurements of the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) from encounter 8 to encounter 14. An analysis of these sub-Alfv\'enic intervals reveals similar properties and similar origins. In situ measurements show that these intervals feature a decreased radial Alfv\'en Mach number resulting from a reduced density and a relatively low velocity, and that switchbacks are suppressed in these intervals. Magnetic source tracing indicates that these sub-Alfv\'enic streams generally originate from the boundaries inside coronal holes, or narrow/small regions of open magnetic fields. Such properties and origins suggest that these streams are low Mach-number boundary layers (LMBLs), which is a special component of the pristine solar wind proposed by Liu et al. (2023). We find that the LMBL wind, the fast wind from deep inside coronal holes, and the slow streamer wind constitute three typical components of the young solar wind near the Sun. In these sub-Alfv\'enic intervals, the Alfv\'en radius varies between 15 and 25 solar radii, in contrast with a typical 12 radii for the Alfv\'en radius of the super-Alfv\'enic wind. These results give a self-consistent picture interpreting the PSP measurements in the vicinity of the Sun.

We study the recent star formation histories of ten galaxies in the Fornax A galaxy group, on the outskirts of the Fornax cluster. The group galaxies are gas-rich, and their neutral atomic hydrogen (HI) was studied in detail with observations from the MeerKAT telescope. This allowed them to be classified into different stages of pre-processing (early, ongoing, advanced). We use long-slit spectra obtained with the South African Large Telescope (SALT) to analyse stellar population indicators to constrain quenching timescales and to compare these to the HI gas content of the galaxies. The H$\alpha$ equivalent width, EW(H$\alpha$), suggest that the pre-processing stage is closely related to the recent (< 10 Myr) specific Star Formation Rate (sSFR). The early-stage galaxy (NGC 1326B) is not yet quenched in its outer parts, while the ongoing-stage galaxies mostly have a distributed population of very young stars, though less so in their outer parts. The galaxies in the advanced stage of pre-processing show very low recent sSFR in the outer parts. Our results suggest that NGC 1326B, FCC 35 and FCC 46 underwent significantly different histories from secular evolution during the last Gyr. The fact that most galaxies are on the secular evolution sequence implies that pre-processing has a negligible effect on these galaxies compared to secular evolution. We find EW(H$\alpha$) to be a useful tool for classifying the stage of pre-processing in group galaxies. The recent sSFR and HI morphology show that galaxies in the Fornax A vicinity are pre-processing from the outside in.

We present principled Bayesian model comparison through simulation-based neural classification applied to SN Ia analysis. We validate our approach on realistically simulated SN Ia light curve data, demonstrating its ability to recover posterior model probabilities while marginalizing over >4000 latent variables. The amortized nature of our technique allows us to explore the dependence of Bayes factors on the true parameters of simulated data, demonstrating Occam's razor for nested models. When applied to a sample of 86 low-redshift SNae Ia from the Carnegie Supernova Project, our method prefers a model with a single dust law and no magnitude step with host mass, disfavouring different dust laws for low- and high-mass hosts with odds in excess of 100:1.

In the most extreme astrophysical environments, such as core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) and neutron star mergers (NSMs), neutrinos can undergo fast flavor conversions (FFCs) on exceedingly short scales. Intensive simulations have demonstrated that FFCs can attain equilibrium states in certain models. In this study, we utilize physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) to predict the asymptotic outcomes of FFCs, by specifically targeting the first two moments of neutrino angular distributions. This makes our approach suitable for state-of-the-art CCSN and NSM simulations. Through effective feature engineering and the incorporation of customized loss functions that penalize discrepancies in the predicted total number of $\nu_e$ and $\bar\nu_e$, our PINNs demonstrate remarkable accuracies, with an error margin of $\lesssim3\%$. Our study represents a substantial leap forward in the potential incorporation of FFCs into simulations of CCSNe and NSMs, thereby enhancing our understanding of these extraordinary astrophysical events.

UVCANDELS is a HST Cycle-26 Treasury Program awarded 164 orbits of primary ultraviolet (UV) F275W imaging and coordinated parallel optical F435W imaging in four CANDELS fields: GOODS-N, GOODS-S, EGS, and COSMOS, covering a total area of $\sim426$ arcmin$^2$. This is $\sim2.7$ times larger than the area covered by previous deep-field space UV data combined, reaching a depth of about 27 and 28 ABmag ($5\sigma$ in $0.2"$ apertures) for F275W and F435W, respectively. Along with the new photometric catalogs, we present an analysis of the rest-frame UV luminosity function (LF), relying on our UV-optimized aperture photometry method yielding a factor of $1.5\times$ increase than the H-isophot aperture photometry in the signal-to-noise ratios of galaxies in our F275W imaging. Using well tested photometric redshift measurements we identify 5810 galaxies at redshifts $0.6<z<1$, down to an absolute magnitude of $M_\text{UV} = -14.3$. In order to minimize the effect of uncertainties in estimating the completeness function, especially at the faint-end, we restrict our analysis to sources above $30\%$ completeness, which provides a final sample of 4731 galaxies at $-21.5<M_\text{UV}<-15.5$. We performed a maximum likelihood estimate to derive the best-fit parameters of the UV LF. We report a best-fit faint-end slope of $\alpha = -1.286^{+0.043}_{-0.042}$ at $z \sim 0.8$. Creating sub-samples at $z\sim0.7$ and $z\sim0.9$, we observe a possible evolution of $\alpha$ with redshift. The unobscured UV luminosity density at $M_\text{UV}<-10$ is derived as $\rho_\text{UV}=1.309^{+0.24}_{-0.26}\ (\times10^{26} \text{ergs/s/Hz/Mpc}^3)$ using our best-fit LF parameters. The new F275W and F435 photometric catalogs from UVCANDELS have been made publicly available on the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST).

The formation process of the two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, is still debated with two main competing hypotheses: the capture of an asteroid or a giant impact onto Mars. In order to reveal their origin, the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to measure Phobos' elemental composition by a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer called MEGANE. This study provides a model of Phobos' bulk elemental composition, assuming the two formation hypotheses. Using the mixing model, we established a MEGANE data analysis flow to discriminate between the formation hypotheses by multivariate analysis. The mixing model expresses the composition of Phobos in 6 key lithophile elements that will be measured by MEGANE (Fe, Si, O, Ca, Mg, and Th) as a linear mixing of two mixing components: material from Mars and material from an asteroid as represented by primitive meteorite compositions. The inversion calculation includes consideration of MEGANE's measurement errors ($E_P$) and derives the mixing ratio for a given Phobos composition, based on which the formation hypotheses are judged. For at least 65\% of the modeled compositions, MEGANE measurements will determine the origin uniquely ($E_P$ = 30\%), and this increases from 74 to 87\% as $E_P$ decreases from 20 to 10\%. Although the discrimination performance depends on $E_P$, the current operation plan for MEGANE predicts an instrument performance for $E_P$ of 20--30\%, resulting in ~70\% discrimination between the original hypotheses. MEGANE observations can also enable the determination of the asteroid type of the captured body or the impactor. The addition of other measurements, such as MEGANE's measurements of the volatile element K, as well as observations by other MMX remote sensing instruments, will also contribute to the MMX mission's goal to constrain the origin of Phobos.

The star-forming clumps in star-bursting dwarf galaxies provide valuable insights into the understanding of the evolution of dwarf galaxies. In this paper, we focus on five star-bursting dwarf galaxies featuring off-centered clumps in the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey. Using the stellar population synthesis software FADO, we obtain the spatially-resolved distribution of the star formation history, which allows us to construct the $g$-band images of the five galaxies at different ages. These images can help us to probe the evolution of the morphological structures of these galaxies. While images of stellar population older than 1 Gyr are typically smooth, images of stellar population younger than 1 Gyr reveal significant clumps, including multiple clumps which appear at different locations and even different ages. To study the evolutionary connections of these five galaxies to other dwarf galaxies before their star-forming clumps appear, we construct the images of the stellar populations older than three age nodes, and define them to be the images of the "host" galaxies. We find that the properties such as the central surface brightness and the effective radii of the hosts of the five galaxies are in between those of dwarf ellipticals (dEs) and dwarf irregulars (dIrrs), with two clearly more similar to dEs and one more similar to dIrrs. Among the five galaxies, 8257-3704 is particularly interesting, as it shows a previous starburst event that is not quite visible from its $gri$ image, but only visible from images of the stellar population at a few hundred million years. The star-forming clump associated with this event may have appeared at around 600 Myr and disappeared at around 40 Myr.

All magnetic field vector measurements lead to ambiguous results. We show that observations in two different lines belonging to the same multiplet but having different absorption coefficients so that they are formed at two different depths like Fe I 6302.5 A and 6301.5 A, enable the resolution of the azimuth ambiguity remaining from the Zeeman signal interpretation. What is measured by interpretation of the Zeeman effect is the magnetic field H, and not the divergence-free magnetic induction B. We analyze how the anisotropy of the photosphere, which is strongly stratified due to gravity and density at the star surface, affects divH and how the ambiguity resolution has to be performed in these conditions. As a consequence, two ambiguity-resolved field vector maps are obtained at two different but close altitudes, which enable the derivation of the current density full vector via rotH=J. This reveals the horizontal component of the current density, which is generally found markedly larger than the better known vertical one. We observe some systematical trends, of which we present examples in the paper, like circular currents wrapping spots clockwise about a positive polarity spot and anticlockwise about a negative polarity spot and strong horizontal current components crossing active region neutral lines. We finally remark that the Na I D1 and D2 lines form another such line pair and we successfully tested their application to full vector mapping (magnetic field and current density) with THEMIS telescope observations. Therefore, we propose them as an access to the low chromosphere where they are formed. Examples of such observations are also reported in the paper.

The atmospheric compositions of planets offer a unique view into their respective formation processes. State-of-the-art observatories and techniques are finally able to provide high-precision data on atmospheric composition that can be used to constrain planet formation. In this context, we focus on the formation of WASP-77Ab based on previous observations of its atmosphere, which have provided precise C/O and metallicity measurements. We use the SimAb planet formation simulation to model the formation of WASP-77Ab. We assume two compositions for the disk WASP-77Ab was formed within: one of a solar composition and one that represents the composition of WASP-77A. In addition, we considered two different scenarios regarding the migration of the planet and we study the possible planet formation paths that reproduce the composition of WASP-77Ab. This work shows that the planet is expected to have formed in a disk where not many planetesimals could be accreted. Moreover, we demonstrate that the most likely migration scenario is disk-free migration, whereby the planet initiates its Type II migration within the CO ice line and ends it beyond the water ice line.

After GW170817, kilonovae have become of great interest for the astronomical, astrophysics and nuclear physics communities, due to their potential in revealing key information on the compact binary merger from which they emerge, such as the fate of the central remnant or the composition of the expelled material. Therefore, the landscape of models employed for their analysis is rapidly evolving, with multiple approaches being used for different purposes. In this paper, we present xkn, a semi-analytic framework which predicts and interprets the bolometric luminosity and the broadband light curves of such transients. xkn models the merger ejecta structure accounting for different ejecta components and non-spherical geometries. In addition to light curve models from the literature based on time scale and random-walk arguments, it implements a new model, xkn-diff, which is grounded on a solution of the radiative transfer equation for homologously expanding material. In order to characterize the variety of the ejecta conditions, it employs time and composition dependent heating rates, thermalization efficiencies and opacities. We compare xkn light curves with reference radiative transfer calculations, and we find that xkn-diff significantly improves over previous semi-analytic prescriptions. We view xkn as an ideal tool for extensive parameter estimation data analysis applications.

Body tides reveal information about planetary interiors and affect their evolution. Most models to compute body tides rely on the assumption of a spherically-symmetric interior. However, several processes can lead to lateral variations of interior properties. We present a new spectral method to compute the tidal response of laterally-heterogeneous bodies. Compared to previous spectral methods, our approach is not limited to small-amplitude lateral variations; compared to finite element codes, the approach is more computationally-efficient. While the tidal response of a spherically-symmetric body has the same wave-length as the tidal force; lateral heterogeneities produce an additional tidal response with an spectra that depends on the spatial pattern of such variations. For Mercury, the Moon and Io the amplitude of this signal is as high as $1\%-10\%$ the main tidal response for long-wavelength shear modulus variations higher than $\sim 10\%$ the mean shear modulus. For Europa, Ganymede and Enceladus, shell-thickness variations of $50\%$ the mean shell thickness can cause an additional signal of $\sim 1\%$ and $\sim 10\%$ for the Jovian moons and Encelaudus, respectively. Future missions, such as $ \textit{BepiColombo}$ and $\textit{JUICE}$, might measure these signals. Lateral variations of viscosity affect the distribution of tidal heating. This can drive the thermal evolution of tidally-active bodies and affect the distribution of active regions.

We report for the first time a relationship between galaxy kinematics and net Lyman-alpha equivalent width (net Lya EW) in star forming galaxies during the epoch of peak cosmic star formation. Building on the previously reported broadband imaging segregation of Lya-emitting and Lya-absorbing Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) at z~2 (Paper I in this series) and previously at z~3, we use the Lya spectral type classification method to study the relationship between net Lya EW and nebular emission-line kinematics determined from IFU spectroscopy. We show that z~2 and z~3 LBGs segregate in colour-magnitude space according to their kinematic properties and Lyman-alpha spectral type, and conclude that LBGs with Lya dominant in absorption are almost exclusively rotation-dominated (presumably disc-like) systems, and LBGs with Lya dominant in emission characteristically have dispersion-dominated kinematics. We quantify the relationship between the strength of rotational dynamic support and net Lya EW, and demonstrate the consistency of our result with other properties that scale with net Lya EW and kinematics. Based on these findings, we suggest a method by which large samples of rotation- and dispersion-dominated galaxies might be selected using broadband imaging in as few as three filters and/or net Lya EW alone. Application of this method will enable an understanding of galaxy kinematic behaviour over large scales in datasets from current and future large-area and all-sky photometric surveys that will select hundreds of millions of LBGs in redshift ranges from z~2-6 across many hundreds to thousands of Mpc. Finally, we speculate that the combination of our result linking net Lya EW and nebular emission-line kinematics with the known large-scale clustering behaviour of Lya-absorbing and Lya-emitting LBGs is evocative of a nascent morphology-density relation at z~2-3.

We present resolved GMRT HI observations of the high gas-phase metallicity dwarf galaxy WISEA J230615.06+143927.9 (z = 0.005) (hereafter J2306) and investigate whether it could be a Tidal Dwarf Galaxy (TDG) candidate. TDGs are observed to have higher metallicities than normal dwarfs. J2306 has an unusual combination of a blue g -- r colour of 0.23 mag, irregular optical morphology and high-metallicity (12 + log(O/H) = 8.68$\pm$0.14), making it an interesting galaxy to study in more detail. We find J2306 to be an HI rich galaxy with a large extended, unperturbed rotating HI disk. Using our HI data we estimated its dynamical mass and found the galaxy to be dark matter (DM) dominated within its HI radius. The quantity of DM, inferred from its dynamical mass, appears to rule out J2306 as an evolved TDG. A wide area environment search reveals J2306 to be isolated from any larger galaxies which could have been the source of its high gas metallicity. Additionally, the HI morphology and kinematics of the galaxy show no indication of a recent merger to explain the high-metallicity. Further detailed optical spectroscopic observations of J2306 might provide an answer to how a seemingly ordinary irregular dwarf galaxy achieved such a high level of metal enrichment.

By performing global hydrodynamical simulations of accretion discs with driven turbulence models, we demonstrate that elevated levels of turbulence induce highly stochastic migration torques on low-mass companions embedded in these discs. This scenario applies to planets migrating within gravito-turbulent regions of protoplanetary discs as well as stars and black holes embedded in the outskirts of active galactic nuclei (AGN) accretion discs. When the turbulence level is low, linear Lindblad torques persists in the background of stochastic forces and its accumulative effect can still dominate over relatively long timescales. However, in the presence of very stronger turbulence, classical flow patterns around the companion embedded in the disc are disrupted, leading to significant deviations from the expectations of classical Type I migration theory over arbitrarily long timescales. Our findings suggest that the stochastic nature of turbulent migration can prevent low-mass companions from monotonically settling into universal migration traps within the traditional laminar disc framework, thus reducing the frequency of three-body interactions and hierarchical mergers compared to previously expected. We propose a scaling for the transition mass ratio from classical to chaotic migration $q\propto \alpha_R$, where $\alpha_R$ is the Reynolds viscosity stress parameter, which can be further tested and refined by conducting extensive simulations over the relevant parameter space.

The recent observations of gravitational waves (GWs) by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration (LVK) have provided a new opportunity for studying our Universe. By detecting several merging events of black holes (BHs), LVK has spurred the astronomical community to improve theoretical models of single, binary, and multiple star evolution in order to better understand the formation of binary black hole (BBH) systems and interpret their observed properties. The final BBH system configuration before the merger depends on several processes, including those related to the evolution of the inner stellar structure and those due to the interaction with the companion and the environment (such as in stellar clusters). This chapter provides a summary of the formation scenarios of stellar BHs in single, binary, and multiple systems. We review all the important physical processes that affect the formation of BHs and discuss the methodologies used to detect these elusive objects and constrain their properties.

We study tidal dissipation in models of rotating giant planets with masses in the range $0.1 - 10 M_\mathrm{J}$ throughout their evolution. Our models incorporate a frequency-dependent turbulent effective viscosity acting on equilibrium tides (including its modification by rapid rotation consistent with hydrodynamical simulations) and inertial waves in convection zones, and internal gravity waves in the thin radiative atmospheres. We consider a range of planetary evolutionary models for various masses and strengths of stellar instellation. Dissipation of inertial waves is computed using a frequency-averaged formalism fully accounting for planetary structures. Dissipation of gravity waves in the radiation zone is computed assuming these waves are launched adiabatically and are subsequently fully damped (by wave breaking/radiative damping). We compute modified tidal quality factors $Q'$ and evolutionary timescales for these planets as a function of their ages. We find inertial waves to be the dominant mechanism of tidal dissipation in giant planets whenever they are excited. Their excitation requires the tidal period ($P_\mathrm{tide}$) to be longer than half the planetary rotation ($P_\mathrm{rot}/2$), and we predict inertial waves to provide a typical $Q'\sim 10^3 (P_\mathrm{rot}/1 \mathrm{d})^2$, with values between $10^5$ and $10^6$ for a 10-day period. We show correlations of observed exoplanet eccentricities with tidal circularisation timescale predictions, highlighting the key role of planetary tides. A major uncertainty in planetary models is the role of stably-stratified layers resulting from compositional gradients, which we do not account for here, but which could modify predictions for tidal dissipation rates.

How protoplanetary discs evolve remains an unanswered question. Competing theories of viscosity and magnetohydrodynamic disc winds have been put forward as the drivers of angular momentum transport in protoplanetary discs. These two models predict distinct differences in the disc mass, radius and accretion rates over time, that could be used to distinguish them. However that expectation is built on models that do not include another important process - photoevaporation, both internally by the host star and externally by neighbouring stars. In this work we produce numerical models of protoplanetary discs including viscosity, magnetohydrodynamic disc winds, and internal and external photoevaporation. We find that even weak levels of external photoevaporation can significantly affect the evolution of protoplanetary discs, influencing the observable features such as disc radii, that might otherwise distinguish between viscous and wind driven discs. Including internal photoevaporation further suppresses differences in evolution between viscous and wind driven discs. This makes it much more difficult than previously anticipated, to use observations of nearby star forming regions to determine whether discs are viscous or wind driven. Interestingly we find that evolved protoplanetary discs in intermediate FUV environments may be the best cases for differentiating whether they evolve through viscosity or magnetohydrodynamic disc winds. Ultimately this work demonstrates the importance of understanding what are the key evolutionary processes and including as many of those as possible when exploring the evolution of protoplanetary discs.

Cosmological observations, e.g., cosmic microwave background, have precisely measured the spectrum of primordial curvature perturbation on larger scales, but smaller scales are still poorly constrained. Since primordial black holes (PBHs) could form in the very early Universe through the gravitational collapse of primordial density perturbations, constrains on the PBH could encodes much information on primordial fluctuations. In this work, we first derive a simple formula for lensing effect to apply PBH constraints with the monochromatic mass distribution to an extended mass distribution. Then, we investigate the latest fast radio burst observations with this relationship to constrain two kinds of primordial curvature perturbation models on the small scales. It suggests that, from the null search result of lensed fast radio burst in currently available observations, the amplitude of primordial curvature perturbation should be less than $8\times 10^{-2}$ at the scale region of $10^5-10^6~\rm Mpc^{-1}$. This corresponds to an interesting mass range relating to binary black holes detected by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA and future Einstein Telescope or Cosmic Explorer.

The instability strip (IS) of classical Cepheids has been extensively studied theoretically. Comparison of the theoretical IS edges with those obtained empirically, using the most recent Cepheids catalogs available, can provide us with insights into the physical processes that determine the position of the IS boundaries. In this study, we investigate the empirical positions of the IS of the classical Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), considering any effect that increases its width, to obtain intrinsic edges that can be compared with theoretical models. We use data of classical fundamental-mode (F) and first-overtone (1O) LMC Cepheids from the OGLE-IV variable star catalog, together with a recent high-resolution reddening map from the literature. Our final sample includes 2058 F and 1387 1O Cepheids. We studied their position on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and determined the IS borders by tracing the edges of the color distribution along the strip. We obtain the blue and red edges of the IS in V- and I-photometric bands, in addition to $\log T_{\rm eff}$ and $\log L$. The results obtained show a break located at the Cepheids' period of about 3 days, which was not reported before. We compare our empirical borders with theoretical ones published in the literature obtaining a good agreement for specific parameter sets. The break in the IS borders is most likely explained by the depopulation of second and third crossing classical Cepheids in the faint part of the IS, since blue loops of evolutionary tracks in this mass range do not extend blueward enough to cross the IS at the LMC metallicity. Results from the comparison of our empirical borders with theoretical ones prove that our empirical IS is a useful tool for constraining theoretical models.

Computing the matter power spectrum, $P(k)$, as a function of cosmological parameters can be prohibitively slow in cosmological analyses, hence emulating this calculation is desirable. Previous analytic approximations are insufficiently accurate for modern applications, so black-box, uninterpretable emulators are often used. We utilise an efficient genetic programming based symbolic regression framework to explore the space of potential mathematical expressions which can approximate the power spectrum and $\sigma_8$. We learn the ratio between an existing low-accuracy fitting function for $P(k)$ and that obtained by solving the Boltzmann equations and thus still incorporate the physics which motivated this earlier approximation. We obtain an analytic approximation to the linear power spectrum with a root mean squared fractional error of 0.2% between $k = 9\times10^{-3} - 9 \, h{\rm \, Mpc^{-1}}$ and across a wide range of cosmological parameters, and we provide physical interpretations for various terms in the expression. We also provide a simple analytic approximation for $\sigma_8$ with a similar accuracy, with a root mean squared fractional error of just 0.4% when evaluated across the same range of cosmologies. This function is easily invertible to obtain $A_{\rm s}$ as a function of $\sigma_8$ and the other cosmological parameters, if preferred. It is possible to obtain symbolic approximations to a seemingly complex function at a precision required for current and future cosmological analyses without resorting to deep-learning techniques, thus avoiding their black-box nature and large number of parameters. Our emulator will be usable long after the codes on which numerical approximations are built become outdated.

The clustering of galaxies and their connections to their initial conditions is a major means by which we learn about cosmology. However, the stochasticity between galaxies and their underlying matter field is a major limitation for precise measurements of galaxy clustering. It also hinders accurate mass reconstruction for retrieving cosmological information from observations. Efforts have been made with an optimal weighting scheme to reduce this stochasticity using the mass-dependent clustering of dark matter halos, but its application to observation is challenging due to the difficulties in measuring the mass of halos precisely. Here, we show that this is not optimal. We demonstrate that the cosmic-web environments (voids, sheets, filaments \& knots) of halos provide extra information for reducing stochasticity. Using the environmental information alone can increase the signal-to-noise of clustering by approximately a factor of 3, better than the Poisson level at the scales of the baryon acoustic oscillations. This improvement is comparable to using halo mass information alone. The information about the environment and halo mass are complementary. Their combination increases the signal-to-noise by another factor of 2-3. The information about the cosmic web correlates with other properties of halos, including halo concentrations and tidal forces, thus, these are among the most dominant factors that can help improve the reconstruction. We attribute the extra information from the environment and secondary properties of halos primarily to the assembly bias of halos. Our findings open a new avenue for mass reconstruction and noise reduction using information beyond the halo mass.

Both the 1866 and 1946 outbursts of the recurrent symbiotic nova T CrB have displayed a mysterious secondary maximum peaking in brightness ~5 months past the primary one. Common to all previous modeling attempts was the rejection of plain irradiation of the red giant (RG), on the basis that the secondary maximum of T CrB would have been out of phase with the transit at superior conjunction of the RG. Implicit to this line of reasoning is the assumption of a constant temperature for the white dwarf (WD) irradiating the red giant. I show by radiative modeling that irradiation of the RG by a cooling WD nicely reproduces the photometric evolution of the secondary maximum, both in terms of brightness and color, removes the phasing offset, and provides a straightforward explanation that will be easy to test at the next and imminent outburst.

We present infrared aperture masking interferometry (AMI) observations of newly formed dust from the colliding winds of the massive binary system Wolf-Rayet (WR) 137 with JWST using the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS). NIRISS AMI observations of WR 137 and a point-spread-function calibrator star, HD~228337, were taken using the F380M and F480M filters in 2022 July and August as part of the Director's Discretionary Early Release Science (DD-ERS) program 1349. Interferometric observables (squared visibilities and closure phases) from the WR 137 "interferogram" were extracted and calibrated using three independent software tools: ImPlaneIA, AMICAL, and SAMpip. The analysis of the calibrated observables yielded consistent values except for slightly discrepant closure phases measured by ImPlaneIA. Based on all three sets of calibrated observables, images were reconstructed using three independent software tools: BSMEM, IRBis, and SQUEEZE. All reconstructed image combinations generated consistent images in both F380M and F480M filters. The reconstructed images of WR 137 reveal a bright central core with a $\sim300$ mas linear filament extending to the northwest. A geometric colliding-wind model with dust production constrained to the orbital plane of the binary system and enhanced as the system approaches periapsis provided a general agreement with the interferometric observables and reconstructed images. Based on a colliding-wind dust condensation analysis, we suggest that dust formation within the orbital plane of WR 137 is induced by enhanced equatorial mass-loss from the rapidly rotating O9 companion star, whose axis of rotation is aligned with that of the orbit.

In the last few years, there has been significant progress in the development of machine learning methods tailored to astrophysics and cosmology. Among the various methods that have been developed, there is one that allows to obtain a bundle of solutions of differential systems without the need of using traditional numerical solvers. We have recently applied this to the cosmological scenario and showed that in some cases the computational times of the inference process can be reduced. In this paper, we present an improvement to the neural network bundle method that results in a significant reduction of the computational times of the statistical analysis. The novelty of the method consists in the use of the neural network bundle method to calculate the luminosity distance of type Ia supernovae, which is usually computed through an integral with numerical methods. In this work, we have applied this improvement to the Starobinsky $f(R)$ model, which is more difficult to integrate than the $f(R)$ models analyzed in our previous work. We performed a statistical analysis with data from type Ia supernovae of the Pantheon+ compilation and cosmic chronometers to estimate the values of the free parameters of the Starobinsky model. We show that the statistical analyses carried out with our new method require lower computational times than the ones performed with both the numerical and the neural network method from our previous work. This reduction in time is more significant in the case of a difficult computational problem such as the one we address in this work.

Neutron stars (NS) that are born in binary systems, with a main sequence star companion, can experience mass transfer, resulting in the accumulation of material at the NS's surface. This, in turn, leads to the continuous growth of the NS mass and the associated steepening of the gravitational potential. If the central density surpasses the onset for the phase transition from nuclear, generally hadronic matter to deconfined quark-gluon plasma-a quantity currently constrained solely from an upper limit by asymptotic freedom in QCD-the system may experience a dynamic response due to the appearance of additional degrees of freedom in the equation of state (EOS). This might give rise to a rapid softening of the EOS during the transition in the hadron-quark matter co-existence region. Whilst this phenomenon has long been studied in the context of hydrostatic configurations, the dynamical implications of this problem are yet incompletely understood. It is the essence of the present paper to simulate the dynamics of NS, with previously accreted envelopes, caused by the presence of a first-order QCD phase transition. Therefore, the neutrino radiation hydrodynamics treatment is employed based on the fully general relativistic approach in spherical symmetry, implementing three-flavor Boltzmann neutrino transport and a microscopic model EOS that contains a first-order hadron-quark phase transition. The associated neutrino signal shows a sudden rise of the neutrino fluxes and average energies, becoming observable for the present generation of neutrino detectors for a galactic event, and a gravitational wave mode analysis reveals the behaviors of the dominant $f$ and first gravity $g$ modes that are being excited during the NS evolution across the QCD phase transition.

Although during the last decade new observations and new theoretical results have brought better understanding of the physics of accretion onto compact objects, many old and several new questions and problems await answers and solutions. I show how the disc thermal-viscous instability model applied to both cataclysmic variable stars and X-ray binary transients compels us to conclude that assuming the existence in these systems of a flat accretion disc extending down to the accretor's surface or to the last stable orbit and fed with matter at its outer edge is too simple and inadequate a description of these objects. It is also clear that, in most cases, these discs cannot driven by (anomalous) viscosity only. The origin of the superhumps observed in cataclysmic variables and X-ray binaries is, contrary to the common opinion, still unknown. In accreting magnetic white dwarf systems outbursts not of the dwarf-nova type can be due to the magnetic gating instability and/or thermonuclear micronova explosions. Although the "typical" lightcvurves of X-ray transients can be described by analytical formulae (but their decay phase is not exponential), observations show that in many cases the light variations in these systems are much more complex. An elementary argument shows the impossibility of magnetars in pulsing ultraluminous X-ray systems, but we still do not have a complete, self-consistent description of supercritical accretion onto magnetized neutron stars and the resulting (necessarily beamed) emission. Although it is (almost) universally believed that active galactic nuclei contain accretion discs of the same type as those observed in binary systems, the evidence supporting this alleged truth is slim and the structure of accretion flows onto supermassive black holes is still to be determined.

We present the results for the detectability of the O2 and O3 molecular species in the atmosphere of an Earth-like planet using reflected light at the visible wavelengths. By quantifying the detectability as a function of signal-to-noise ration (SNR), we can constrain the best methods to detect these biosignatures with nest-generation telescopes designed for high-contrast coronagraph. Using 25 bandpasses between 0.515 and 1 micron, and a pre-constructed grid of geometric albedo spectra, we examined the spectral sensitivity needed to detect these species for a range of molecular abundances. We first replicate a modern-Earth twin atmosphere to study the detectability of current O2 and O3 levels, and then expand to a wider range of literature-driven abundances for each molecule. We constrain the optimal 20%, 30%, and 40% bandpasses based on the effective SNR of the data, and define the requirements for the possibility of simultaneous molecular detection. We present our findings of O2 and O3 detectability as functions of SNR, wavelength, and abundance, and discuss how to use these results for optimizing future instrument designs. We find that O2 is detectable between 0.64 and 0.83 micron with moderate-SNR data for abundances near that of modern-Earth and greater, but undetectable for lower abundances consistent with a Proterozoic Earth. O3 is detectable only at very high SNR data in the case of modern-Earth abundances, however it is detectable at low-SNR data for higher O3 abundances that can occur from efficient abiotic O3 production mechanisms.

Voigt profile (VP) decomposition of quasar absorption lines is key to studying intergalactic gas and the baryon cycle governing the formation and evolution of galaxies. The VP velocities, column densities, and Doppler $b$ parameters inform us of the kinematic, chemical, and ionization conditions of these astrophysical environments. A drawback of traditional VP fitting is that it can be human-time intensive. With the coming next generation of large all-sky survey telescopes with multi-object high-resolution spectrographs, the time demands will significantly outstrip our resources. Deep learning pipelines hold the promise to keep pace and deliver science digestible data products. We explore the application of deep learning convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for predicting VP fitted parameters directly from the normalized pixel flux values in quasar absorption line profiles. A CNN was applied to 56 single-component MgII2796, 2803 doublet absorption line systems observed with HIRES and UVES ($R=45,000$). The CNN predictions were statistically indistinct from a traditional VP fitter. The advantage is that once trained, the CNN processes systems $\sim\!10^5$ times faster than a human expert VP fitting profiles by hand. Our pilot study shows that CNNs hold promise to perform bulk analysis of quasar absorption line systems in the future.

Recent analyses of samples from asteroid (162173) Ryugu returned by JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission suggest that Ryugu and CI chondrites formed in the same region of the protoplanetary disk, in a reservoir that was isolated from the source regions of other carbonaceous (C-type) asteroids. Here we conduct $N$-body simulations in which CI planetesimals are assumed to have formed in the Uranus/Neptune zone at $\sim15$--25 au from the Sun. We show that CI planetesimals are scattered by giant planets toward the asteroid belt where their orbits can be circularized by aerodynamic gas drag. We find that the dynamical implantation of CI asteroids from $\sim15$--25 au is very efficient with $\sim 5$\% of $\sim 100$-km planetesimals reaching stable orbits in the asteroid belt by the end of the protoplanetary gas disk lifetime. The efficiency is reduced when planetesimal ablation is accounted for. The implanted population subsequently evolved by collisions and was depleted by dynamical instabilities. The model can explain why CIs are isotopically distinct from other C-type asteroids which presumably formed at $\sim5$--10 au.

In the HST/COS spectrum of the Seyfert 1 galaxy 2MASX J14292507+4518318, we have identified a narrow absorption line (NAL) outflow system with a velocity of -151 km s$^{-1}$ This outflow exhibits absorption troughs from the resonance states of ions like \ion{C}{iv}, \ion{N}{v}, \ion{S}{iv}, and \ion{Si}{ii}, as well as excited states from \ion{C}{ii}$^{*}$, and \ion{Si}{ii}$^{*}$. Our investigation of the outflow involved measuring ionic column densities and conducting photoionization analysis. These yield the total column density of the outflow to be estimated as $\log N_{H}$=19.84 [cm$^{-2}]$, its ionization parameter to be $\log U_{H}$=$-$2.0 and its electron number density equal to $\log n_{e}$= 2.75[cm$^{-3}$]. These measurements enabled us to determine the mass-loss rate and the kinetic luminosity of the outflow system to be $M$=0.22$\sim$[$M$\sim$yr^{-1}$] and $\log E_{K}$=39.3\sim[erg s$^{-1}$], respectively. We have also measured the location of the outflow system to be at $\sim$275 pc from the central source. This outflow does not contribute to the AGN feedback processes due to the low ratio of the outflows kinetic luminosity to the AGNs Eddington luminosity ($E_{K}/L_{Edd}\approx 0.00025 \%$). This outflow is remarkably similar to the two bipolar lobe outflows observed in the Milky Way by XMM-Newton and Chandra.

We present results of recurrence analysis of the black hole X-ray binary Cygnus X-1 using combined observations from the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer All-sky Monitor and the Japanese Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image aboard the ISS. From the time-dependent windowed recurrence plot (RP), we compute ten recurrence quantities that describe the dynamical behavior of the source and compare them to the spectral state at each point in time. We identify epochs of state changes corresponding to transitions into highly deterministic or highly stochastic dynamical regimes and their correlation to specific spectral states. We compare k-Nearest Neighbors and Random Forest models for various sizes of the time-dependent RP. The spectral state in Cygnus X-1 can be predicted with greater than 95 per cent accuracy for both types of models explored across a range of RP sizes based solely on the recurrence properties. The primary features from the RP that distinguish between spectral states are the determinism, Shannon entropy, and average line length, all of which are systematically higher in the hard state compared to the soft state. Our results suggest that the hard and soft states of Cygnus X-1 exhibit distinct dynamical variability and the time domain alone can be used for spectral state classification.

ALMA observations revealed the presence of significant amounts of dust in the first Gyr of Cosmic time. However, the metal and dust buildup picture remains very uncertain due to the lack of constraints on metallicity. JWST has started to reveal the metal content of high-redshift targets, which may lead to firmer constraints on high-redshift dusty galaxies evolution. In this work, we use detailed chemical and dust evolution models to explore the evolution of galaxies within the ALMA REBELS survey, testing different metallicity scenarios that could be inferred from JWST observations. In the models, we track the buildup of stellar mass by using non-parametric SFHs for REBELS galaxies. Different scenarios for metal and dust evolution are simulated by allowing different prescriptions for gas flows and dust processes. The model outputs are compared with measured dust scaling relations, by employing metallicity-dependent calibrations for the gas mass based on the [CII]158micron line. Independently of the galaxies metal content, we found no need for extreme dust prescriptions to explain the dust masses revealed by ALMA. However, different levels of metal enrichment will lead to different dominant dust production mechanisms, with stardust production dominant over other ISM dust processes only in the metal-poor case. This points out how metallicity measurements from JWST will significantly improve our understanding of the dust buildup in high-redshift galaxies. We also show that models struggle to reproduce observables such as dust-to-gas and dust-to-stellar ratios simultaneously, possibly indicating an overestimation of the gas mass through current calibrations, especially at high metallicities.

Here we report on joint X-ray and radio monitoring of the neutron star low-mass X-ray binary SAX J1810.8-2609. Our monitoring covered the entirety of its ~5 month outburst in 2021, revealing a temporal correlation between its radio and X-ray luminosity and X-ray spectral properties consistent with a `hard-only' outburst. During the outburst, the best-fit radio position shows significant variability, suggesting emission from multiple locations on the sky. Furthermore, our 2023 follow-up observations revealed a persistent, unresolved, steep spectrum radio source ~2 years after SAX J1810.8-2609 returned to X-ray quiescence. We investigated potential origins of the persistent emission, which included an unrelated background source, long-lasting jet ejection(s), and SAX J1810 as a transitional millisecond pulsar. While the chance coincidence probability is low (<0.16%), an unrelated background source remains the most likely scenario. SAX J1810.8-2609 goes into outburst every ~5 years, so monitoring of the source during its next outburst at higher sensitivities and improved spatial resolutions (e.g., with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array or Square Kilometre Array) should be able to identify two components (if the persistent emission originates from a background source). If only one source is observed, this would be strong evidence that the persistent emission is local SAX J1810.8-2609, and future monitoring campaigns should focus on understanding the underlying physical mechanisms, as no neutron star X-ray binary has shown a persistent radio signal absent any simultaneous X-ray emission.

Using images from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager aboard the \textit{Solar Dynamics Observatory} (SDO/HMI), we extract the radial-velocity (RV) signal arising from the suppression of convective blue-shift and from bright faculae and dark sunspots transiting the rotating solar disc. We remove these rotationally modulated magnetic-activity contributions from simultaneous radial velocities observed by the HARPS-N solar feed to produce a radial-velocity time series arising from the magnetically quiet solar surface (the 'inactive-region radial velocities'). We find that the level of variability in the inactive-region radial velocities remains constant over the almost 7 year baseline and shows no correlation with well-known activity indicators. With an RMS of roughly 1 m/s, the inactive-region radial-velocity time series dominates the total RV variability budget during the decline of solar cycle 24. Finally, we compare the variability amplitude and timescale of the inactive-region radial velocities with simulations of supergranulation. We find consistency between the inactive-region radial-velocity and simulated time series, indicating that supergranulation is a significant contribution to the overall solar radial velocity variability, and may be the main source of variability towards solar minimum. This work highlights supergranulation as a key barrier to detecting Earth twins.

A seminar given about 30 years ago by Ruben Aldrovandi motivates this text where some reflexions about constructing theories that modify General Relativity are made. Two particular cases, the Brans-Dicke and Unimodular Gravity ones, are discussed, in a quite qualitative way, showing on how they can address some of the most outstanding problems of General Relativity, specially the transplanckian physics and the cosmological constant problem.

We explore various aspects concerning the role of vector bosons during the reheating process. Generally, reheating occurs during the period of oscillations of the inflaton condensate and the evolution of the radiation bath depends on the inflaton equation of state. For oscillations about a quadratic minimum, the equation of state parameter, $w = p/\rho =0$, and the evolution of the temperature, $T(a)$ with respect to the scale factor is independent of the spin of the inflaton decay products. However, for cases when $w>0$, there is a dependence on the spin, and here we consider the evolution when the inflaton decays or scatters to vector bosons. We also investigate the gravitational production of vector bosons as potential dark matter candidates. Gravitational production predominantly occurs through the longitudinal mode. We compare these results to the gravitational production of scalars.

Non-relativistic axions can be efficiently produced in in the polar caps of pulsars, resulting in the formation of a dense cloud of gravitationally bound axions. Here, we investigate the interplay between such an axion cloud and the electrodynamics in the pulsar magnetosphere, focusing specifically on the dynamics in the polar caps, where the impact of the axion cloud is expected to be most pronounced. For sufficiently light axions $m_a \lesssim 10^{-7}$ eV, we show that the axion cloud can occasionally screen the local electric field responsible for particle acceleration and pair production, inducing a periodic nulling of the pulsar's intrinsic radio emission. At larger axion masses, the small-scale fluctuations in the axion field tend to suppress the back-reaction of the axion on the electrodynamics; however, we point out that the incoherent oscillations of the axion in short-lived regions of vacuum near the neutron star surface can produce a narrow radio line, which provides a complementary source of radio emission to the plasma-resonant emission processes identified in previous work. While this work focuses on the leading order correction to pair production in the magnetosphere, we speculate that there can exist dramatic deviations in the electrodynamics of these systems when the axion back-reaction becomes non-linear.

An extension of the bimetric theory of gravity is considered that includes quadratic Ricci curvature terms associated with each metric. The issue of the Boulware-Deser ghost is analyzed. The Hamiltonian constraint is derived and the existence of a secondary constraint is shown, proving that the theory is ghost-free.

Black hole spectroscopy is a clean and powerful tool to test gravity in the strong-field regime and to probe the nature of compact objects. Next-generation ground-based detectors, such as the Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer, will observe thousands of binary black hole mergers with large signal-to-noise ratios, allowing for accurate measurements of the remnant black hole quasinormal mode frequencies and damping times. In previous work we developed an observable-based parametrization of the quasinormal mode spectrum of spinning black holes beyond general relativity (ParSpec). In this paper we use this parametrization to ask: can next-generation detectors detect or constrain deviations from the Kerr spectrum by stacking multiple observations of binary mergers from astrophysically motivated populations? We focus on two families of tests: (i) agnostic (null) tests, and (ii) theory-based tests, which make use of quasinormal frequency calculations in specific modified theories of gravity. We consider in particular two quadratic gravity theories (Einstein-scalar-Gauss-Bonnet and dynamical Chern-Simons gravity) and various effective field theory-based extensions of general relativity. We find that robust inference of hypothetical corrections to general relativity requires pushing the slow-rotation expansion to high orders. Even when high-order expansions are available, ringdown observations alone may not be sufficient to measure deviations from the Kerr spectrum for theories with dimensionful coupling constants. This is because the constraints are dominated by "light" black hole remnants, and only few of them have sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio in the ringdown. Black hole spectroscopy with next-generation detectors may be able to set tight constraints on theories with dimensionless coupling, as long as we assume prior knowledge of the mass and spin of the remnant black hole.

We briefly survey open questions in cosmology that either have been or could potentially be addressed with the help of the causal set theory approach to quantum gravity. Our discussion includes topics ranging from dark matter and dark energy to primordial quantum fluctuations and horizon entropy. By putting together all in one place these cosmologically relevant directions of work within causal set theory, we hope to impart a bird's-eye view of this important research theme.

Satellite-observed solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) is a powerful proxy for diagnosing the photosynthetic characteristics of terrestrial ecosystems. Despite the increasing spatial and temporal resolutions of these satellite retrievals, records of SIF are primarily limited to the recent decade, impeding their application in detecting long-term dynamics of ecosystem function and structure. In this study, we leverage the two surface reflectance bands (red and near-infrared) available both from Advanced Very High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR, 1982-2022) and MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS, 2001-2022). Importantly, we calibrate and orbit-correct the AVHRR bands against their MODIS counterparts during their overlapping period. Using the long-term bias-corrected reflectance data, a neural network is then built to reproduce the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 SIF using AVHRR and MODIS, and used to map SIF globally over the entire 1982-2022 period. Compared with the previous MODIS-based CSIF product relying on four reflectance bands, our two-band-based product has similar skill but can be advantageously extended to the bias-corrected AVHRR period. Further comparison with three widely used vegetation indices (NDVI, kNDVI, NIRv; all based empirically on red and near-infrared bands) shows a higher or comparable correlation of LCSIF with satellite SIF and site-level GPP estimates across vegetation types, ensuring a greater capacity of LCSIF for representing terrestrial photosynthesis. Globally, LCSIF-AVHRR shows an accelerating upward trend since 1982, with an average rate of 0.0025 mW m-2 nm-1 sr-1 per decade during 1982-2000 and 0.0038 mW m-2 nm-1 sr-1 per decade during 2001-2022. Our LCSIF data provide opportunities to better understand the long-term dynamics of ecosystem photosynthesis and their underlying driving processes.

We have worked for some time on a model for dark matter, in which dark matter consists of small bubbles of a new speculated type of vacuum, which are pumped up by some ordinary matter such as diamond, so as to resist the pressure of the domain wall separating the two vacua. Here we put forward thoughts on, how such macroscopic pearls would have their surrounding dust cleaned off passing through the atmosphere and the Earth, and what their distribution would be as a function of the depth of their stopping point and the distribution of the radiation emitted from them. In our model we assume that they radiate 3.5 keV electrons and photons, after having been excited during their passage into the Earth. The purpose of such an estimation of the radiation distribution is to explain the truly mysterious fact that, among all the underground experiments seeking dark matter colliding with the Earth material, only the DAMA-LIBRA experiment has seen any evidence of dark matter. This is an experiment based on solid NaI scintillators and is rather deep at 1400 m. It is our point that we can arrange the main radiation to appear in the relatively deep DAMA- LIBRA site, and explain that the dark matter pearls cannot stop in a fluid, such as xenon in the xenon based experiments.

We have studied the inhomogeneous cosmology in Kaluza-Klein spacetime with positive cosmological constant. Depending on the integration constant we have derived two types of solutions. The dimensional reduction is possible of extra dimensional scale factor depending on the curvature of the metric for positive cosmological constant for all solutions. The high value of entropy in present observable universe and the possible matter leakage in $4D$ world due to reduction of extra dimension are also discussed. Our solutions show that early deceleration and late accelerating nature of the universe. Findings are verified by the wellknown Raychaudhuri equation.

Assisted with Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission capturing unprecedented high-resolution data in the terrestrial magnetotail, we apply a local streamline-topology classification methodology to investigate the categorization of the magnetic-field topological structures at kinetic scales in the turbulent reconnection outflow. It is found that strong correlations between the straining and rotational part of the velocity gradient tensor as well as the magnetic-field gradient tensor. The strong energy dissipation prefers to occur at regions with high magnetic stress or current density, which is contributed mainly by O-type topologies. These results indicate that the kinetic structures with O-type topology play more import role in energy dissipation in turbulent reconnection outflow.

The Scale Invariant Vacuum (SIV) theory rests on the basic hypothesis that the macroscopic empty space is scale invariant. This hypothesis is applied in the context of the Integrable Weyl Geometry, where it leads to considerable simplifications in the scale covariant cosmological equations. After an initial explosion and a phase of braking, the cosmological models show a continuous acceleration of the expansion. Several observational tests of the SIV cosmology are performed: on the relation between $H_0$ and the age of the Universe, on the $m-z$ diagram for SNIa data and its extension to $z=7$ with quasars and GRBs, and on the $H(z)$ vs. $z$ relation. All comparisons show a very good agreement between SIV predictions and observations. Predictions for the future observations of the redshift drifts are also given. In the weak field approximation, the equation of motion contains, in addition to the classical Newtonian term, an acceleration term (usually very small) depending on the velocity. The two-body problem is studied, showing a slow expansion of the classical conics. The new equation has been applied to clusters of galaxies, to rotating galaxies (some proximities with Modifies Newtonian Dynamics, MOND, are noticed), to the velocity dispersion vs. the age of the stars in the Milky Way, and to the growth of the density fluctuations in the Universe. We point out the similarity of the mechanical effects of the SIV hypothesis in cosmology and in the Newtonian approximation. In both cases, it results in an additional acceleration in the direction of motions. In cosmology, these effects are currently interpreted in terms of the dark energy hypothesis, while in the Newtonian approximation they are accounted for in terms of the dark matter (DM) hypothesis. These hypotheses appear no longer necessary in the SIV context.

In this paper, we report on the implementation of CC2 and CC3 in the context of molecules in finite magnetic fields. The methods are applied to the investigation of atoms and molecules through spectroscopic predictions and geometry optimizations for the study of the atmospheres of highly-magnetized White Dwarfs (WDs). We show that ground-state finite-field (ff) CC2 is a reasonable alternative to CCSD for energies and, in particular for geometrical properties. For excited states ff-CC2 is shown to perform well for states with predominant single-excitation character. Yet, for cases in which the excited-state wavefunction has double-excitation character with respect to the reference, ff-CC2 can easily Ff-CC3, however, is shown to reproduce the CCSDT behaviour very well and enables the treatment of larger systems at a high accuracy.

The horizon of a classical black hole, functioning as a one-way membrane, plays a vital role in the dynamic evolution of binary objects, capable of absorbing fluxes entirely. Tidal heating, stemming from this phenomenon, exerts a notable influence on the production of gravitational waves (GWs).This impact can be utilized for model-independent investigations into the nature of massive objects. In this paper, assuming that the extreme-mass-ratio inspiral (EMRI) contains a stellar-mass compact object orbiting around a massive exotic compact object (ECO) with a reflective surface, we compute the GWs from the generic EMRI orbits. Using the accurate and analytic flux formulas in the black hole spacetime, we adapted these formulas in the vicinity of the ECO surface by incorporating a reflectivity parameter. Under the adiabatic approximation, we can evolve the orbital parameters and compute the EMRI waveforms. The effect of tidal heating for the spinning and non-spinning objects can be used to constrain the reflectivity of the surface at the level of O(10^-4) by computing the mismatch and Fisher information matrix.

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI), with its vast capabilities, has become an integral part of our daily interactions, particularly with the rise of sophisticated models like Large Language Models. These advancements have not only transformed human-machine interactions but have also paved the way for significant breakthroughs in various scientific domains. Aim of review: This review is centered on elucidating the profound impact of AI, especially deep learning, in the field of gravitational wave data analysis (GWDA). We aim to highlight the challenges faced by traditional GWDA methodologies and how AI emerges as a beacon of hope, promising enhanced accuracy, real-time processing, and adaptability. Key scientific concepts of review: Gravitational wave (GW) waveform modeling stands as a cornerstone in the realm of GW research, serving as a sophisticated method to simulate and interpret the intricate patterns and signatures of these cosmic phenomena. This modeling provides a deep understanding of the astrophysical events that produce gravitational waves. Next in line is GW signal detection, a refined technique that meticulously combs through extensive datasets, distinguishing genuine gravitational wave signals from the cacophony of background noise. This detection process is pivotal in ensuring the authenticity of observed events. Complementing this is the GW parameter estimation, a method intricately designed to decode the detected signals, extracting crucial parameters that offer insights into the properties and origins of the waves. Lastly, the integration of AI for GW science has emerged as a transformative force. AI methodologies harness vast computational power and advanced algorithms to enhance the efficiency, accuracy, and adaptability of data analysis in GW research, heralding a new era of innovation and discovery in the field.

Particle transports in carriers with even-odd alternating dispersions (introduced in Part I) are investigated. For the third-order dispersion as in Korteweg-de-Vries (KdV), such alternating dispersion has the effects of not only regularizing the velocity from forming shock singularity (thus the attenuation of particle clustering strength) but also symmetrizing the oscillations (thus the corresponding skewness of the particle densities), among others, as demonstrated numerically. The analogy of such dispersion effects and consequences (on particle transports in particular) with those of helicity in Burgers turbulence, addressed in the context of astrophysics and cosmology, is made for illumination and promoting models. Among many details, a reward from the study of particle transports is the understanding of the (asymptotic) $k^0$-scaling (equipartition among the wavenumbers, $k$s), before large-$k$ exponential decay, of the power spectrum of KdV solitons (resulting in the statement that "a soliton is the derivative of the classical shock, just like the Dirac delta is the derivative of a step function"), motivated by the explanation of the the same scaling of the particle densities as the apparent approximation of the Dirac deltas due to particle clustering; while, the "shocliton" from the even-odd alternating dispersion in aKdV appears to be, indeed, $shock \oplus soliton$, accordingly the decomposition of the averaged odd-mode spectrum, from sinusoidal initial field, into a $k^{-2}$ part for the shock and a $k^0$-scaling part for the solitonic pulses, only the latter being contained in the averaged even-mode spectrum.

We have studied the signals from axion-like particles (ALPs) as dark matter mediators from celestial objects such as neutron stars or brown dwarfs. We consider the accumulation of dark matter inside the celestial objects using the multiscatter capturing process. The production of ALP from the dark matter annihilation can escape the celestial object and decay into gamma-ray and neutrinos before reaching the Earth. We investigate our model using gamma-ray observations from Fermi and H.E.S.S and neutrino observations from IceCube and ANTARES. The effective Lagrangian approach allows us to place constraints on the ALP-photon and ALP-fermion couplings. In the gamma-ray channel, our results improve the existing bounds on ALPs by 1-2 orders of magnitude. Although the constraints from neutrino fluxes rule out a significant portion of the parameter space, the remaining part of the parameter space is accessible by future experiments.

LIGO-Aundha (A1), the Indian gravitational wave detector, is expected to join the IGWN and begin operations in the early 2030s. We study the impact of A1 on the accuracy of determining the direction of incoming transient signals from coalescing BNS sources with moderately high SNRs. It is conceivable that A1's sensitivity, effective bandwidth, and duty cycle will improve incrementally through multiple detector commissioning rounds to achieve the desired `LIGO-A+' design sensitivity. For this purpose, we examine A1 under two distinct noise PSDs. One mirrors the conditions during the O4 run of the LIGO Hanford and Livingston detectors, simulating an early commissioning stage, while the other represents the A+ design sensitivity. We consider various duty cycles of A1 at the sensitivities mentioned above for a comprehensive analysis. We show that even at the O4 sensitivity with a modest $20\%$ duty cycle, A1's addition to the IGWN leads to a $15\%$ reduction in median sky-localization errors ($\Delta \Omega_{90\%}$) to $5.6$~sq.~deg. At its design sensitivity and $80\%$ duty cycle, this error shrinks further to $2.4$~sq.~deg, with 84\% sources localized within a nominal error box of $10$~sq.~deg! Even in the worst-case scenario, where signals are sub-threshold in A1, we demonstrate its critical role in reducing the localization uncertainties of the BNS source. Our results are obtained from a large Bayesian PE study using simulated signals injected in a heterogeneous network of detectors using the recently developed meshfree approximation aided rapid Bayesian inference pipeline. We consider a seismic cut-off frequency of 10 Hz for all the detectors. We also present hypothetical improvements in sky localization for a few GWTC-like events injected in real data and demonstrate A1's role in resolving the degeneracy between the luminosity distance and inclination angle parameters.

Fitting the thermal continuum emission of accreting black holes observed across X-ray bands represents one of the principle means of constraining the properties (mass and spin) of astrophysical black holes. Recent ''continuum fitting'' studies of Galactic X-ray binaries in the soft state have found best fitting dimensionless spin values which run into the prior bounds placed on traditional models ($a_\star = 0.9999$). It is of critical importance that these results are robust, and not a result solely of the presence of these prior bounds and deficiencies in conventional models of accretion. Motivated by these results we derive and present superkerr, an XSPEC model comprising of a thin accretion disc solution valid in the Kerr geometry for arbitrary spin parameter $a_\star$, extending previous models valid only for black holes ($|a_\star| < 1$). This extension into ''superextremal'' spacetimes with $|a_\star| > 1$ includes solutions which describe discs evolving around naked singularities, not black holes. While being valid solutions of Einstein's field equations these naked singularities are not expected to be present in nature. We discuss how the ''measurement'' of a Kerr spin parameter $1 < a_\star < 5/3$ would present compelling evidence for the requirement of a rethink in either standard accretion theory, or our theories of gravity.

The existence of self-bound strange stars is a long-standing mystery in astrophysics. Future astrophysical data, even with improved precision, may not allow us to discriminate them from neutron stars, given the uncertainties in observational and theoretical modeling. In this work, we propose a unique strategy to distinguish strange stars from neutron stars using gravitational waves from binary compact star systems. We demonstrate that empirical relations connecting f-mode frequencies with tidal deformation are distinct for the two classes of compact objects, irrespective of their equations of state. Therefore simultaneous measurement of f-mode frequency and tidal deformability from the inspiral phase of compact binary mergers with the next-generation detectors can provide smoking gun evidence for the presence of strange stars. This would have crucial implications not only in gravitational wave physics but multidisciplinary fields such as nuclear and high energy physics.

Radiative, gravitational surface waves are investigated at the interface of high density and low temperature, magnetized incompressible electron-ion plasmas in the presence of dense radiation electromagnetic radiation pressure (DEMRP). The inhomogeneous embedded is reported at plasma-vacuum interface. The DEMRP is found to stabilize the surface waves, however for a specific case, it tends to enhance the growth rate of surface waves via the frictional instability. The group velocity of gravitational radiation is shown to be the function of wavelength. The obtained analytical results are presented both numerically and graphically as function of DEMRP. to show that the incorporation of DEMRP may introduce quite different dispersive properties of charged surface wave phenomena. It is shown numerically that the frequency of the obtained radiative gravitational waves in the presence of DEMRP is found to lie in the range of high frequency radio waves, while in case of rare laboratory plasma, the frequency of these waves is found to lie within the very low frequency radio waves of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum. This work may enhance the gravitational aspects of electromagnetic radiations in dense astrophysical systems such as neutron star and white dwarfs.

Scalarized black holes (BH) have been shown to form dynamically in extended-scalar-tensor theories, either through spontaneous scalarization -- when the BH is unstable against linear perturbations -- or through a non-linear scalarization. In the latter, linearly stable BHs can ignite scalarization when sufficiently perturbed. These phenomena are, however, not incompatible and mixed scalarization is also possible. The objective of this work is twofold: first, study mixed scalarization on a family of Einstein-Maxwell-scalar models; and second, study the effect of the counter scalarization that occurs when one of the coupling parameters has a sign opposite to the one that generates scalarization. Both objectives are addressed by constructing and examining the mixed scalarization's domain of existence. An overall dominance of the spontaneous scalarization over the non-linear scalarization is observed. Thermodynamically, an entropical preference for mixed over the standard scalarization (spontaneous or non-linear) exists. In the presence of counter scalarization, a quench of the scalarization occurs, mimicking the effect of a scalar particle's mass/positive self-interaction term.

The study of hadronic showers, which are produced by cosmic rays penetrating Earth's atmosphere, is essential for shedding light on the origins and characteristics of high-energy particles originating from space and reaching our planet. At the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, there are plans to conduct a short run of proton--oxygen collisions toward the final years of LHC Run 3, anticipated in 2024, in order to refine the modeling of hadronic showers. This work explores the potential impact on constraining models of hadronic showers by measuring interactions facilitated by color-neutral objects such as photons, pomerons, and pions. These interactions are often characterized by high-energy protons or neutrons produced at forward rapidities, and detecting and analyzing these events is possible through the use of dedicated detectors for forward neutrons and protons.

Reducing the form factor while retaining the radiation hardness and performance matrix is the goal of avionics. While a compromise between a transistor s size and its radiation hardness has reached consensus in micro-electronics, the size-performance balance for their optical counterparts has not been quested but eventually will limit the spaceborne photonic instruments capacity to weight ratio. Here we performed the first space experiments of photonic integrated circuits (PICs), revealing the critical roles of energetic charged particles. The year long cosmic radiation does not change carrier mobility but reduces free carrier lifetime, resulting in unchanged electro-optic modulation efficiency and well expanded optoelectronic bandwidth. The diversity and statistics of the tested PIC modulator indicate the minimal requirement of shielding for PIC transmitters with small footprint modulators and complexed routing waveguides, towards lightweight space terminals for terabits communications and inter-satellite ranging.

In this letter we discuss how the results of recent nuclear experiments that correspond to measurements at low densities can affect the equation of state at large densities, changing the particle composition and ultimately influencing deconfinement to quark matter. In particular, saturation values of the hyperon potentials affect the hyperon content, while the symmetry energy at saturation directly regulates how the stiffness of the equation of state changes with isospin. We make use of a chiral model that describes nucleons, hyperons, and quarks to show how astrophysical conditions, such as the ones in neutron stars, present the ideal ground to study the effects of these two quantities in dense matter. In this case, for small charge fraction/ large isospin asymmetry, the couplings that reproduce different symmetry energy slopes can significantly modify deconfinement, with quantitative changes in the critical chemical potential depending on the deconfining potential. On the other hand, different values of the parameter that controls the hyperon potentials do not affect deconfinement significantly.

We present two new frequency-domain gravitational waveform models for the analysis of signals emitted by binary neutron star coalescences: IMRPhenomXAS_NRTidalv2 and IMRPhenomXP_NRTidalv2. Both models are available through the public algorithm library LALSuite and represent the first extensions of IMRPhenomX models including matter effects. We show here that these two models represent a significant advancement in efficiency and accuracy with respect to their phenomenological predecessors, IMRPhenomD_NRTidalv2 and IMRPhenomPv2_NRTidalv2. The computational efficiency of the new models is achieved through the application of the same multibanding technique previously applied to binary black hole models. Furthermore, IMRPhenomXP_NRTidalv2 implements a more accurate description of the precession dynamics, including double-spin effects and, optionally, matter effects in the twisting-up construction. The latter are available through an option to use a numerical integration of the post-Newtonian precession equations. We show that the new precession descriptions allow the model to better reproduce the phenomenology observed in numerical-relativity simulations of precessing binary neutron stars. Finally, we present some applications of the new models to Bayesian parameter estimation studies, including a reanalysis of GW170817 and a study of simulated observations using numerical relativity waveforms for nonprecessing binary neutron stars with highly spinning components. We find that in these cases the new models make a negligible difference in the results. Nevertheless, by virtue of the aforementioned improvements, the new models represent valuable tools for the study of future detections of coalescing binary neutron stars.

We study the Schwinger pair creation of scalar charged particles by a homogeneous electric field in an expanding universe in the quantum kinetic approach. We introduce an adiabatic vacuum for the scalar field based on the Wentzel--Kramers--Brillouin solution to the mode equation in conformal time and apply the formalism of Bogolyubov coefficients to derive a system of quantum Vlasov equations for three real kinetic functions. Compared to the analogous system of equations previously reported in the literature, the new one has two advantages. First, its solutions exhibit a faster decrease at large momenta which makes it more suitable for numerical computations. Second, it predicts no particle creation in the case of conformally coupled massless scalar field in the vanishing electric field, i.e., it respects the conformal symmetry of the system. We identify the ultraviolet divergences in the electric current and energy-momentum tensor of produced particles and introduce the corresponding counterterms in order to cancel them.

A follow-up of a subsolar black hole candidate identified in the second part of the third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration is carried out. With a search signal-to-noise ratio of $8.90$ and a false-alarm rate of 1 per 5 years, close to the usual thresholds for claiming a gravitational-wave event, we cannot exclude a noise origin. A complete Bayesian parameter estimation of this candidate, denoted SSM200308, reveals that if the signal originates from a compact binary coalescence, the component masses are $m_1= 0.62^{+0.46}_{-0.20} M_{\odot}$ and $m_2 = 0.27^{+0.12}_{-0.10} M_{\odot}$ (90% credible intervals) with at least one component being firmly subsolar, below the minimum mass of a neutron star. This discards the hypothesis that the signal comes from a standard binary neutron star. The signal coherence test between the two LIGO detectors brings support to a compact object coalescence origin.