Publications (46)
Expediting DECam Multimessenger Counterpart Searches with Convolutional Neural Networks
Adam Shandonay, Robert Morgan, Keith Bechtol +11
Searches for counterparts to multimessenger events with optical imagers use difference imaging to detect new transient sources. However, even with existing artifact detection algor…
Rubin-Euclid Derived Data Products: Initial Recommendations
Leanne P. Guy, Jean-Charles Cuillandre, Etienne Bachelet +117
This report is the result of a joint discussion between the Rubin and Euclid scientific communities. The work presented in this report was focused on designing and recommending an…
Discovery of GeV Emission from the Circinus galaxy with the Fermi-LAT
Masaaki Hayashida, Lukasz Stawarz, Chi C. Cheung +7
We report the discovery of gamma-ray emission from the Circinus galaxy using the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Circinus is a nearby (~4 Mp…
Eridanus II: A Fossil from Reionization with an Off-Center Star Cluster
Joshua D. Simon, Thomas M. Brown, Alex Drlica-Wagner +10
We present deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST) photometry of the ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Eridanus II (Eri II). Eri II, which has an absolute magnitude of M_V = -7.1, is located at a…
Messengers from the Early Universe: Cosmic Neutrinos and Other Light Relics
Daniel Green, Mustafa A. Amin, Joel Meyers +136
The hot dense environment of the early universe is known to have produced large numbers of baryons, photons, and neutrinos. These extreme conditions may have also produced other lo…
Finding Lensed Radio Sources with the VLA Sky Survey
Michael N. Martinez, Yjan A. Gordon, Keith Bechtol +3
Radio observations of strongly lensed objects are valuable as cosmological probes. Lensed radio sources have proven difficult to identify in large part due to the limited depth and…
Hyper Wide Field Imaging of the Local Group Dwarf Irregular Galaxy IC 1613: An Extended Component of Metal-poor Stars
Ragadeepika Pucha, Jeffrey L. Carlin, Beth Willman +10
Stellar halos offer fossil evidence for hierarchical structure formation. Since halo assembly is predicted to be scale-free, stellar halos around low-mass galaxies constrain proper…
Probing the Fundamental Nature of Dark Matter with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
Alex Drlica-Wagner, Yao-Yuan Mao, Susmita Adhikari +97
Astrophysical and cosmological observations currently provide the only robust, empirical measurements of dark matter. Future observations with Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST…
Compact Steep Spectrum Radio Sources with Enhanced Star Formation are Smaller than kpc
Yjan A. Gordon, Christopher P. O'Dea, Stefi A. Baum +3
Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) radio sources are active galactic nuclei that have radio jets propagating only on galactic scales, defined as having projected linear sizes (LS) of up…
Rediscovery of the Sixth Star Cluster in the Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
Mei-Yu Wang, Sergey Koposov, Alex Drlica-Wagner +58
Since first noticed by Shapley in 1939, a faint object coincident with the Fornax dwarf spheroidal has long been discussed as a possible sixth globular cluster system. However, deb…
Report of the Topical Group on Cosmic Probes of Dark Matter for Snowmass 2021
Alex Drlica-Wagner, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Hai-Bo Yu +37
Cosmological and astrophysical observations currently provide the only robust, positive evidence for dark matter. Cosmic probes of dark matter, which seek to determine the fundamen…
Brightest Cluster Galaxy ellipticity as proxy for halo shape: Orientation bias, assembly bias, and potential selection effects in SZ-selected clusters
Radhakrishnan Srinivasan, Tae-hyeon Shin, Anja von der Linden +93
The orientation of triaxial galaxy clusters with respect to the line-of-sight is expected to be one of the prime sources of scatter and potential bias in optical observables (e.g.,…
Prospects for Detecting Gamma Rays from Annihilating Dark Matter in Dwarf Galaxies in the Era of DES and LSST
Chen He, Keith Bechtol, Andrew P. Hearin +1
Among the most stringent constraints on the dark matter annihilation cross section are those derived from observations of dwarf galaxies by the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. As…
The Detailed Science Case for the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer, 2019 edition
The MSE Science Team, Carine Babusiaux, Maria Bergemann +258
(Abridged) The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is an end-to-end science platform for the design, execution and scientific exploitation of spectroscopic surveys. It will unvei…
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory Data Preview 1
Vera C Rubin Observatory Team, Tatiana Acero Cuellar, Emily Acosta +325
We present Rubin Data Preview 1 DP1, the first data from the NSF DOE Vera C Rubin Observatory, comprising raw and calibrated single epoch images, coadds, difference images, detecti…
Mapping the Tidal Disruption of the Hercules Dwarf: A Wide-Field DECam Imaging Search for RR Lyrae Stars
Christopher Garling, Beth Willman, David J. Sand +10
We investigate the hypothesized tidal disruption of the Hercules ultra-faint dwarf galaxy (UFD). Previous tidal disruption studies of the Hercules UFD have been hindered by the hig…
Search for Spatially Extended Fermi-LAT Sources Using Two Years of Data
Joshua Lande, Markus Ackermann, Alice Allafort +10
Spatial extension is an important characteristic for correctly associating gamma-ray-emitting sources with their counterparts at other wavelengths and for obtaining an unbiased mod…
Faro: A framework for measuring the scientific performance of petascale Rubin Observatory data products
Leanne P. Guy, Keith Bechtol, Jeffrey L. Carlin +14
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will advance many areas of astronomy over the next decade with its unique wide-fast-deep multi-color imaging survey, the Legacy Survey of Space and Ti…
The Rubin Observatory Target-of-Opportunity System in the First Year of Operations
Sean Patrick MacBride, R. Lynne Jones, Peter Yoachim +41
The NSF/DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a discovery machine, with unprecedented survey speed, which can be used to identify exotic astrophysical transients. In its prime mission,…
A Path to an All-Sky Survey with Roman
Jiwon Jesse Han, Anirudh Chiti, Kai-Feng Chen +93
A deep, space-based, all-sky near-infrared survey carried out with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope would constitute a foundational astronomical infrastructure for decades to…
Evidence against star-forming galaxies as the dominant source of IceCube neutrinos
Keith Bechtol, Markus Ahlers, Mattia Di Mauro +2
The cumulative emission resulting from hadronic cosmic-ray interactions in star-forming galaxies (SFGs) has been proposed as the dominant contribution to the astrophysical neutrino…
Discovery of a Candidate Binary Supermassive Black Hole in a Periodic Quasar from Circumbinary Accretion Variability
Wei-Ting Liao, Yu-Ching Chen, Xin Liu +68
Binary supermassive black holes (BSBHs) are expected to be a generic byproduct from hierarchical galaxy formation. The final coalescence of BSBHs is thought to be the loudest gravi…
The Gravitational Lensing Imprints of DES Y3 Superstructures on the CMB: A Matched Filtering Approach
Umut Demirbozan, Seshadri Nadathur, Ismael Ferrero +63
Low density cosmic voids gravitationally lens the cosmic microwave background (CMB), leaving a negative imprint on the CMB convergence . This effect provides insight into th…
NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Observations of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1)
Colin Orion Chandler, Pedro H. Bernardinelli, Mario JuriÄ +305
We report on the observation and measurement of astrometry, photometry, morphology, and activityof the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, also designated C/2025 N1 (ATLAS) with the NSF-…
An overview of stray light findings and interpretation during on-sky commissioning of LSSTCam
Gabriele Rodeghiero, Alex Drlica-Wagner, Alessio Taranto +78
Wide-field telescopes are intrinsically difficult to shield from unwanted stray and scattered light, while the search to identify sources of contaminating light is frequently a cha…
Modeling of the diffuse background produced by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory M2 baffle scattered light
Alessio Taranto, Gabriele Rodeghiero, Luca Rosignoli +58
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, with its unprecedented field of view and fast focal ratio, will survey the entire sky every 3.5 nights. This unique capacity requires dealing with of…
Dynamical Masses for a Complete Census of Local Dwarf Galaxies
Joshua D. Simon, Keith Bechtol, Alex Drlica-Wagner +9
The 2020s are poised to continue the past two decades of significant advances based on observations of dwarf galaxies in the nearby universe. Upcoming wide-field photometric survey…
Predicting the Number of Radio Sources Seen by Both VLASS and LSST
Alex Tellez, Yjan Gordon, Keith Bechtol
Radio surveys typically sample extragalactic sources in higher redshift regimes than is typical for optical surveys, resulting in many radio sources not having a detected optical c…
Snowmass2021 Cosmic Frontier White Paper: Dark Matter Physics from Halo Measurements
Keith Bechtol, Simon Birrer, Francis-Yan Cyr-Racine +41
The non-linear process of cosmic structure formation produces gravitationally bound overdensities of dark matter known as halos. The abundances, density profiles, ellipticities, an…
Cosmological Probes of Dark Matter Interactions: The Next Decade
Vera Gluscevic, Yacine Ali-Haimoud, Keith Bechtol +16
Cosmological observations offer unique and robust avenues for probing the fundamental nature of dark matter particles-they broadly test a range of compelling theoretical scenarios,…
Predictions for the Detectability of Milky Way Satellite Galaxies and Outer-Halo Star Clusters with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory
Kabelo Tsiane, Sidney Mau, Alex Drlica-Wagner +8
We predict the sensitivity of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) to faint, resolved Milky Way satellite galaxies and outer-halo star clusters. We…
Detailed Abundances in the Ultra-faint Magellanic Satellites Carina II and III
Alexander P. Ji, Ting S. Li, Joshua D. Simon +15
We present the first detailed elemental abundances in the ultra-faint Magellanic satellite galaxies Carina II (Car II) and Carina III (Car III). With high-resolution Magellan/MIKE…
Spatially Resolving a Starburst Galaxy at Hard X-ray Energies: NuSTAR, Chandra, AND VLBA Observations of NGC 253
Daniel R. Wik, Bret D. Lehmer, Ann E. Hornschemeier +16
Prior to the launch of NuSTAR, it was not feasible to spatially resolve the hard (E > 10 keV) emission from galaxies beyond the Local Group. The combined NuSTAR dataset, comprised…
The predicted luminous satellite populations around SMC and LMC-mass galaxies - A missing satellite problem around the LMC?
Gregory A. Dooley, Annika H. G. Peter, Jeffrey L. Carlin +3
Recent discovery of many dwarf satellite galaxies in the direction of the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds (SMC and LMC) provokes questions of their origins, and what they can rev…
Timing the r-Process Enrichment of the Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxy Reticulum II
Joshua D. Simon, Thomas M. Brown, Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil +65
The ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Reticulum II (Ret II) exhibits a unique chemical evolution history, with 72 +10/-12% of its stars strongly enhanced in r-process elements. We present d…
Development of an ASIC for Dual Mirror Telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array
Justin Vandenbroucke, Keith Bechtol, Stefan Funk +3
We have developed an application-specific integrated circui (ASIC) for photomultipler tube (PMT) waveform digitization which is well-suited for the Schwarzschild-Couder optical sys…
Sensitivity Projections for Dark Matter Searches with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
Eric Charles, Miguel Sanchez-Conde, Brandon Anderson +22
The nature of dark matter is a longstanding enigma of physics; it may consist of particles beyond the Standard Model that are still elusive to experiments. Among indirect search te…
SOAR/Goodman Spectroscopic Assessment of Candidate Counterparts of the LIGO-Virgo Event GW190814
Douglas Tucker, Matthew Wiesner, Sahar Allam +140
On 2019 August 14 at 21:10:39 UTC, the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration (LVC) detected a possible neutron star-black hole merger (NSBH), the first ever identified. An extensive search for…
Estimating the GeV Emission of Millisecond Pulsars in Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies
Miles Winter, Gabrijela Zaharijas, Keith Bechtol +1
We estimate the conventional astrophysical emission from dwarf spheroidal satellite galaxies (dSphs) of the Milky Way, focusing on millisecond pulsars (MSPs), and evaluate the pote…
Test Management and Coordination During the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Commissioning and Early Operations Using Zephyr Scale
Bruno Quint, Tiago Ribeiro, Erik Dennihy +3
The commissioning of the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory required coordinating the planning, design, and execution of hundreds of integration and on-sky tests involving different…
Machine Learning and Cosmology
Cora Dvorkin, Siddharth Mishra-Sharma, Brian Nord +8
Methods based on machine learning have recently made substantial inroads in many corners of cosmology. Through this process, new computational tools, new perspectives on data colle…
Fermi-LAT Observation of Supernova Remnant S147
Junichiro Katsuta, Yasunobu Uchiyama, Takaaki Tanaka +8
We present an analysis of gamma-ray data obtained with the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in the region around SNR S147 (G180.0-1.7). A spat…
Snowmass2021: Vera C. Rubin Observatory as a Flagship Dark Matter Experiment
Yao-Yuan Mao, Annika H. G. Peter, Susmita Adhikari +30
Establishing that Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a flagship dark matter experiment is an essential pathway toward understanding the physical nature of dark matter. In the past two de…
Astrophysical Tests of Dark Matter with Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer
Ting S. Li, Manoj Kaplinghat, Keith Bechtol +27
We discuss how astrophysical observations with the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE), a high-multiplexity (about 4300 fibers), wide field-of-view (1.5 square degree), large tel…
Testing the Nature of Dark Matter with Extremely Large Telescopes
Joshua D. Simon, Simon Birrer, Keith Bechtol +12
For nearly 40 years, dark matter has been widely assumed to be cold and collisionless. Cold dark matter models make fundamental predictions for the behavior of dark matter on small…
Dark Matter Science in the Era of LSST
Keith Bechtol, Alex Drlica-Wagner, Kevork N. Abazajian +177
Astrophysical observations currently provide the only robust, empirical measurements of dark matter. In the coming decade, astrophysical observations will guide other experimental…