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Physics Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies

astro-ph.GA Watch Astrophysics of Galaxies

Friday 18 September

Astrophysics of Galaxies

The Deep Learning Halo Definer: A Multimodal Framework for Halo Mass and Gas Fraction Inference on Galaxy Groups and Clusters

Caleb Ogle, Kalvyn N. Poncelet Adams, Benjamin D. Oppenheimer et al. (+5 more)

Accurately inferring dark matter halo properties like the total halo mass (M_{halo}) and gas fractions (f_{gas}) remains particularly challenging at group scales, where low member counts, shallow potential wells, and AGN feedback-driven baryon expulsion introduce significant observational scatter. As large-scale surveys begin to provide unprecedented multi-wavelength data, there is a pressing need for methods that can jointly leverage diverse observables to overcome these uncertainties. We introduce the Deep Learning Halo Definer (DLHD), a multimodal deep learning framework that simultaneously processes galaxy catalogues and X-ray imaging through the combination of a Deep Sets and a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to improve M_{halo} and f_{gas} estimation for galaxy groups and clusters. Using mock datasets derived from the IllustrisTNG300 hydrodynamic simulation, we demonstrate that the DLHD outperforms each of its component networks individually, achieving RMSE improvements in M_{halo} of 1.9x over Deep Sets and 1.3x over the CNN alone. For the gas fraction enclosed within R_{200c}, DLHD reduces RMSE by 2.0x relative to Deep Sets and 1.1x relative to the CNN alone, with consistent improvements across other apertures. These results highlight a novel ability to leverage multi-band information inaccessible to single-modality methods, positioning DLHD as a promising tool for next-generation survey analyses.
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All authors Caleb Ogle, Kalvyn N. Poncelet Adams, Benjamin D. Oppenheimer, Naomi Gluck, Matthew Ho, Daisuke Nagai, Joseph N. Burchett, Mohammadreza Ayromlou

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Cross-listed from astro-ph.SR

An Open Cluster Origin for Most Solar-Type Binaries in the Solar Neighborhood and Implications for Primordial Planet Stability

Anna C. Childs and Aaron M. Geller

We present the first Gaia-calibrated estimate of the contribution of dynamically processed open clusters (OCs) to the nearby solar-type field binary population and investigate the implications for primordial planet stability. We combine Gaia DR3 observations, empirical models of cluster formation and dissolution, and direct N-body simulations to constrain the fraction of field FGK-type binaries within 1 kpc that originated in OCs over the past 5 Gyr. We find that at least ~53% of solar-type field binaries formed in OCs with initial masses > 200 M_Sun, where dynamical processing becomes significant. We quantify the effects of stellar encounters and binary orbital evolution on the stability of both circumbinary and circumstellar planets by deriving empirical prescriptions for circumbinary planet destabilization as a function of binary separation and for the fractional reduction of stable circumstellar coplanar phase space. These results provide a framework for evaluating how OC dynamical evolution may influence the stability of planets in binary systems and therefore contribute to observed exoplanet demographics.
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Astrophysics of Galaxies · Cross-listed from astro-ph.SR

Inflated Supermassive Stars as Little Red Dots and Progenitors of Supermassive Black Holes

Wenbin Lu

JWST has uncovered an abundant population of compact, red sources at high redshifts, termed little red dots (LRDs). We study whether they could be explained by thermally relaxed, hydrogen-burning, metal-enriched supermassive stars (SMSs). We construct 1D models in hydrostatic and thermal equilibrium, including a radiation-pressure-dominated, CNO-burning core and an outer envelope with metallicity-dependent opacity, non-adiabatic convection, and an effective treatment of super-Eddington surface layers. The luminosity is close to the Thomson-scattering Eddington limit. The Fe-opacity bump drives the formation of a strongly inflated, low-mass envelope, while hydrogen recombination terminates the envelope at a bound photosphere. For M=$10^4$ to $10^6$ Msun and metal mass fractions $Z=10^{-4}$ to $10^{-2}$, we find that the most metal-rich models (Z ~ $10^{-2}$) develop highly inflated envelopes and reach Teff ~ 7000 K. We suggest that such enriched SMSs could instead be assembled through runaway stellar collisions in compact star clusters. The GR instability sets a maximum mass that depends on the core rotation rate. The nonrotating and rotating models have maximum masses $3\times10^5$ to $3\times 10^6$ Msun, and maximum luminosity of the order $10^{44}$ erg/s, comparable to the observed bright-end cutoff of the LRD luminosity function. Core hydrogen depletion can drive initially stable SMSs across the instability threshold after a lifetime of order 1 Myr. If each LRD leaves a black hole retaining most of its mass, the observed LRD abundance implies a present-day remnant density of order $10^{-2}\rm cMpc^{-3}$, consistent with the local abundance of supermassive black holes. Cool SMSs naturally produce weak X-ray and weak high-ionization lines. Non-LTE effects may significantly modify the Balmer features and the continuum opacity, and may lower Teff below our LTE value.
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Astrophysics of Galaxies

CECILIA: Using Flexible Photoionization Models to Accurately Measure Abundances without Auroral Lines

Nathalie A. Korhonen Cuestas, Allison L. Strom, Yijia Li et al. (+6 more)

JWST has facilitated the detection of faint, auroral emission lines needed to directly measure the electron temperature and elemental abundances in high-redshift galaxies. However, such measurements still require substantial observational investment, potentially making self-consistent, population-level studies of direct-method metallicity scaling relations across multiple epochs of Cosmic time prohibitively expensive. Photoionization modeling could allow us to measure metallicity using more routinely-observed emission lines across larger galaxy samples with shallower spectra. We use $z\sim 2$ galaxies from the CECILIA survey and local galaxies and H II regions from the LBT $Y_P$ Project to compare abundance measurements made via the $T_e$ method to abundances estimated using the novel photoionization modeling code, Cue. Based on the results, we explore the viability of, biases introduced by, and the best practices for measuring gas-phase metallicity with photoionization modeling. We show that Cue can be used to accurately measure O/H while remaining agnostic to the ionizing spectrum and that accurate recovery of O/H can be achieved with relatively bright oxygen and sulfur lines, demonstrating that Cue could be used to measure metallicity in large samples that lack the depth necessary for direct measurements of O/H. However, using sulfur emission lines can also severely bias the results of photoionization modeling in high-redshift galaxies, where non-Solar abundance patterns are common. We make recommendations regarding the use of photoionization models to measure metallicity in local and high-redshift samples and future developments to photoionization modeling methods.
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All authors Nathalie A. Korhonen Cuestas, Allison L. Strom, Yijia Li, Noah S. J. Rogers, Caroline von Raesfeld, Gwen C. Rudie, Ryan F. Trainor, Menelaos Raptis, Zhuyun Zhuang

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Cross-listed from astro-ph.CO

Model-Independent Measurement of Baryon Gas Fractions through Galaxy-Galaxy Lensing and the Kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect

R. Henry Liu, Uroš Seljak, Simone Ferraro et al. (+52 more)

Baryon feedback is a leading source of systematic uncertainty for cosmology from weak lensing, but measurements of the gas distribution around galaxies have largely relied on parametric profile models or simulation-calibrated frameworks. We present model independent measurements of the radial gas fraction profile around galaxies, combining galaxy-galaxy lensing and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect. We introduce a method that applies the same radial $\Delta\Sigma$ aperture filter to both the galaxy-galaxy lensing shear field and the velocity-weighted kSZ temperature maps; their ratio directly yields $\Delta\Sigma$ filtered gas fraction $f_{\rm gas}(R)$, the ratio of ionized gas to total matter as a function of projected radius. We apply this approach to DESI DR2 Bright Galaxy Survey (BGS, $\bar{z} \approx 0.26$) and Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG, $0.4 < z < 1.1$) samples, using ACT DR6 component-separated CMB maps for kSZ, and the HSC Year 3 shear catalog for weak lensing. After correcting for ACT beam suppression using a simulation-calibrated compensation factor, we detect baryon depletion relative to the cosmic mean baryon fraction at SNR = 17.2 (BGS) and SNR = 13.8 (LRG bin 1). Comparison with six hydrodynamical simulations from the Illustris, IllustrisTNG, SIMBA, and FLAMINGO suites shows that the fiducial FLAMINGO run most closely tracks the observed radial gas distribution in both samples, with Illustris-1 and TNG300-1 bracketing the data from below and above at small radii. We find a mild discrepancy between the kSZ measurements in the South and North Galactic Caps in one LRG redshift bin, which may indicate residual systematics. We show that the ratio is robust to splits by stellar mass and to the removal of close pairs. These results establish $\Delta\Sigma$ filtering of kSZ versus weak lensing signal as a model-independent probe of the baryon distribution around galaxies.
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All authors R. Henry Liu, Uroš Seljak, Simone Ferraro, Boryana Hadzhiyska, Frank J. Qu, Bernardita Ried Guachalla, Emmanuel Schaan, Jessica Nicole Aguilar, Steven Ahlen, Anton Baleato Lizancos, Florian Beutler, Davide Bianchi, David Brooks, Aurelio Carnero Rosell, Francisco Javier Castander, Todd Claybaugh, Andrei Cuceu, Axel de la Macorra, Jaime E. Forero-Romero, Enrique Gaztañaga, Satya Gontcho A Gontcho, Gaston Gutierrez, Klaus Honscheid, Dragan Huterer, Mustapha Ishak, Stephanie Juneau, Tanveer Karim, David Kirkby, Anthony Kremin, Ofer Lahav, Martin Landriau, Laurent Le Guillou, Martine Lokken, Marc Manera, Aaron Meisner, Ramon Miquel, John Moustakas, Seshadri Nadathur, Jeffrey A. Newman, Hernan Enrique Noriega, Will Percival, Ignasi Pérez-Ràfols, Francisco Prada, Corentin Ravoux, Graziano Rossi, Lado Samushia, Eusebio Sanchez, Christoph Saulder, David Schlegel, Michael Schubnell, Hee-Jong Seo, Małgorzata Siudek, Gregory Tarlé, Benjamin Alan Weaver, Rongpu Zhou

Astrophysics of Galaxies

The ALMA View of High-Redshift Galaxy Formation

Renske Smit and Rebecca A.A. Bowler

The advent of routine operations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in the last decade has led to a revolution in the direct study of the interstellar medium (ISM) in `normal' high-redshift galaxies in the rest-frame far-infrared (FIR). This review summarizes the observational literature on z>6.5 sources observed with ALMA and NOEMA (NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array). The main findings are as follows: Cool gas consistently scales with star-formation in a wide range of galaxy environments, similar to local relations, suggesting fundamental processes of star-formation stay relatively constant over 13 billion years of cosmic time. Significant metal enrichment is present in galaxies just 300-400 million years after the Big Bang. There is a trend to higher obscured fraction of star formation with stellar mass and SFR already in place at z~7, with measurements of the cosmic SFR density showing that >10 percent of the SFR density is obscured at this epoch. The estimated dust masses compared to the stellar mass suggest that rapid dust enrichment occurs, likely from supernova with little dust destruction and/or rapid growth in the ISM, which is in agreement with maximal predictions from models. In individual sources cold disks are already in existence, with their gas disks being more extended and smooth than their observed stellar counterparts.
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Astrophysics of Galaxies

LoTSS of dual AGN: enhanced detectability and prospects for a systematic search

Q. D'Amato, F. Mannucci, E. De Rubeis et al. (+25 more)

Context: Dual active galactic nuclei (DAGN) - systems of two accreting supermassive black holes at kpc-scale separations - trace galaxy mergers and are the progenitors of gravitational-wave sources targeted by pulsar timing arrays and the upcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. However, their radio properties remain poorly constrained, particularly at high redshift. Aims: We demonstrate the detectability of high-redshift DAGN at 144 MHz through sub-arcsec imaging of the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS) and characterize their low-frequency radio properties. Methods: We cross-matched 92 spectroscopically confirmed DAGN (z > 0.3, projected separation r_p < 30 kpc) with the LoTSS DR2 catalog and reprocessed international LOFAR telescope (ILT) data for three systems (0.59 < z < 2.39), achieving ~0.3 arcsec resolution at 144 MHz. Multi-frequency analysis and brightness-temperature diagnostics were used to investigate the radio emission. Results: We obtained high-quality ILT images for all three systems. In one source at z = 1.49, both AGN are detected at >5 sigma, making it one of the highest-redshift and faintest radio-detected DAGN. Brightness temperatures confirm AGN-powered emission even in sub-mJy sources. In the other two systems only one AGN is detected; for one, the new data constrain the low-frequency spectrum of a compact steep-spectrum source, indicating that its morphology is driven by jet-ISM interaction rather than the companion galaxy. For the 92 objects sample, the LoTSS detection rate is ~24%, significantly higher than for matched single AGN (~9-10%), suggesting an enhanced detectability of DAGN in the LoTSS. Conclusions: Low-frequency sub-arcsec radio observations provide an efficient, dust-unbiased method to detect and characterize DAGN. This pilot study establishes a benchmark for the forthcoming all-sky ~0.3 arcsec iLoTSS survey and future SKA observations.
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All authors Q. D'Amato, F. Mannucci, E. De Rubeis, I. Prandoni, A. De Rosa, M. Scialpi, M. Kunert-Bajraszewska, A. Janiuk, A. Krauze, L. Battistini, E. Bertola, C. Bracci, A. Chakraborty, M. Ceci, C. Cicone, G. Cresci, A. Marconi, C. Marconcini, E. Nardini, M. Parvatikar, A. Peca, K. Rubinur, P. Severgnini, C. Spingola, L. Ulivi, G. Venturi, C. Vignali, M. V. Zanchettin

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Low-power jet-ISM coupling and disk-plane perturbations in the edge-on Seyfert galaxy NGC 4388

M. Ceci, G. Venturi, C. Marconcini et al. (+26 more)

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) may regulate galaxy evolution through radiatively driven winds and collimated jets, but their relative impact and coupling to the interstellar medium (ISM) remain uncertain. We investigate the ionized gas in the nearby ($D\sim$ 17 Mpc) Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 4388, hosting a galaxy-scale ($\sim$1.6 kpc), low-power ($\sim1.4~\times~10^{42}~erg~s^{-1}$) bipolar radio jet projected roughly perpendicular to its edge-on disk. We analyze optical integral-field spectroscopic observations from the Wide Field Mode with adaptive optics of VLT/MUSE, complemented by VLA radio data tracing the jet. We map ionized-gas emission, kinematics, excitation, and dust attenuation. We reconstruct the de-projected 3D outflow geometry and velocity field using the MOKA3D kinematic model, and estimate its mass and energetics. The ionized gas shows a rotating disk and a kpc-scale biconical outflow. We measure a total ionized outflow mass of $\sim10^6~M_\odot$, a mass outflow rate of $\sim0.2~M_\odot$~yr$^{-1}$, and a kinetic power of $\sim3\times10^{40}~erg~s^{-1}$, which gives a coupling efficiency of $\sim1\%$ relative to both the jet kinetic and the radiation-driven nuclear wind power, indicating that either mechanism could drive the outflow. We detect an extended ($\sim$2 kpc) enhancement of the gas velocity dispersion along the galaxy disk plane, oriented perpendicular to the outflow and jet axes. These regions show optical line ratios consistent with shock excitation. The spatial correspondence with ALMA CO(2-1) emission is marginal, while enhanced stellar velocity dispersion prevents an exclusive jet interpretation. We report the first observational evidence that even a low-power radio jet oriented nearly perpendicular to the galaxy disk can efficiently couple with the ISM, suggesting that jet-induced perturbations are an important AGN feedback channel regardless of jet orientation.
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All authors M. Ceci, G. Venturi, C. Marconcini, M. V. Zanchettin, G. Cresci, M. Tartėnas, K. Zubovas, E. Treister, E. Amenta, E. Bertola, F. Belfiore, C. Bracci, E. Cataldi, Q. D'Amato, A. Feltre, M. Ginolfi, I. Lamperti, F. Mannucci, A. Marconi, A. Marasco, M. Meenakshi, M. Mingozzi, B. Moreschini, D. Mukherjee, E. Nardini, M. Perna, F. Ricci, M. Scialpi, L. Ulivi

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Galaxy-SMBH co-evolution in 2,435 DESI disk galaxies and merger-free BH growth in bulgeless disks

Sophie M. Jewell, Rebecca J. Smethurst, Chris J. Lintott et al. (+8 more)

We analyse black hole scaling relations for disk-dominated galaxies, and present evidence for secularly driven galaxy-black hole co-evolution. We do this observationally by looking at “bulgeless” galaxies, where the lack of a stellar bulge suggests a quiet merger history. We first compose a sample of 2,435 disk-dominated galaxies hosting optical broad line active galactic nuclei (AGN) from DESI data, and find a $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$–$M_{*}$ scaling relation of $\log(M_{\mathrm{BH}})= - 3.7^{+0.3}_{-0.3} + 1.00^{+0.03}_{-0.03} \log(M_*)$. From these, we identify 546 bulgeless galaxies hosting AGN, a factor of $\gtrsim 5$ larger than pre-existing samples, and find they follow the same $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$–$M_{*}$ relation as the general disk galaxy sample. Comparing the bulgeless galaxies to those with some bulge component, we find good agreement in the $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$–$M_{*}$ relation (within $3 \sigma$), but disagreement in the $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$–$M_{*, \mathrm{bulge}}$ relation (at $>7 \sigma$). This is the opposite of what is expected from merger-driven co-evolution, suggesting secular growth is significant in establishing observed $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$–$M_{*}$ scaling relations. Furthermore, in a control sample of early-type galaxies we find tentative evidence of increased AGN luminosity compared to the bulgeless sample, but no statistical difference in black hole mass. This suggests the assumed merger-dominated evolutionary history of early-type galaxies does not lead to significantly increased long-term BH growth. These results support numerous recent observational and theoretical studies which suggest secular processes fuel significant supermassive black hole growth and galaxy-black hole co-evolution.
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All authors Sophie M. Jewell, Rebecca J. Smethurst, Chris J. Lintott, Brooke D. Simmons, Ricarda S. Beckmann, Izzy L. Garland, Tobias Géron, Benne W. Holwerda, Karen L. Masters, Ragadeepika Pucha, Ashley Spindler

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Direct imaging of sub-parsec binary SMBHs in the central galaxy of the NGC 5044 group

Francesco Ubertosi, Gerrit Schellenberger, Ewan O'Sullivan et al. (+7 more)

Binary active galactic nuclei (AGN) consist of two supermassive black holes (SMBHs) hosted in a single galaxy that are simultaneously accreting gas. These systems are key to understanding hierarchical galaxy evolution and represent prime targets for low-frequency gravitational wave (GW) experiments. However, binary AGN remain extremely rare: only a handful are confirmed at separations of a few hundred parsecs, and just one pc-scale binary - in an elliptical galaxy at the center of a galaxy cluster - has been securely and visually identified. Direct imaging of sub-parsec binary AGN, the final stage before the GW regime, has so far been missing. Here we report on Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) observations of NGC 5044, the central galaxy of the X-ray brightest galaxy group. This galaxy is known to exhibit pc-scale radio jets nearly orthogonal to two older AGN outbursts. The 4.9, 8.4, 15.2, and 23.6 GHz VLBA images reveal two compact, flat-spectrum, and variable radio cores separated by just 0.38 parsec at the heart of the galaxy, forming the tightest directly imaged binary AGN known by an order of magnitude. This discovery suggests that the older outbursts may have been powered by jets from the secondary core, without invoking any reorientation of the primary jet axis. More broadly, comparison with other systems points to massive, cluster-central elliptical galaxies being promising targets to search for binary SMBHs.
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All authors Francesco Ubertosi, Gerrit Schellenberger, Ewan O'Sullivan, Laurence P. David, William Forman, Simona Giacintucci, Christine Jones, Kamlesh Rajpurohit, Tiziana Venturi, Jan Vrtilek

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Dual Signatures of Bursty Star Formation in High-Redshift UV Luminosity Functions

Guochao Sun, Claude-André Faucher-Giguère, Steven R. Furlanetto et al. (+1 more)

The UV luminosity function (UVLF) encodes key information about galaxy formation. The slowly evolving bright-end UVLFs at $z\gtrsim10$ have made UV variability from bursty star formation a promising explanation, but the impact of such variability need not be restricted to the bright end. Motivated by ultra-deep measurements of the $z\simeq7$ UVLF, we investigate whether UV variability can provide a unified interpretation of the low-mass star formation efficiency (SFE) at $z\simeq7$ and the abundance of UV-bright galaxies at $z\gtrsim12$. Using abundance matching, we show that a steep faint-end UVLF at $z\simeq7$ admits a range of interpretations. For modest, mass-independent UV variability, the inferred median SFE starts flattening below $M_{\rm h} \sim10^{10.5} M_{\odot}$. If UV variability instead grows with decreasing halo mass—a possibility motivated by simulations and observations—the inferred median SFE is steeper and lower by a factor of about three at $\sim10^9 M_{\odot}$, consistent with stronger feedback suppression in low-mass halos. Calibrated to the common target $z\simeq7$ UVLF, these two scenarios diverge strongly when extrapolated to $12\lesssim z\lesssim17$ under redshift-independent UV variability and SFE prescriptions. Strongly mass-dependent $M_\mathrm{UV}$ scatter links the steep $z\simeq7$ faint-end slope and high $z\gtrsim12$ bright-end abundance as dual signatures of burstiness in similarly low-mass halos. Stronger variability makes bright galaxies contribute a larger fraction of the UV luminosity density, whereas weaker variability favors faint sources, despite their similar predicted reionization histories. At fixed $M_\mathrm{UV}$, UV variability broadens the halo mass distribution and lowers the clustering bias, which provides a useful diagnostic of burstiness for JWST and Roman.
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All authors Guochao Sun, Claude-André Faucher-Giguère, Steven R. Furlanetto, Adam Lidz

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Star Formation and Nebular Attenuation from Pa$\alpha$, Br$\alpha$, and Br$\beta$ in Massive Dust-obscured Galaxies at Cosmic Noon using JWST

Virginia Vanicek, Jed McKinney, Alexandra Pope et al. (+14 more)

Near-infrared hydrogen recombination lines can provide robust star-formation rates if the effects of dust attenuation continue to diminish towards longer wavelengths. To quantify near-infrared attenuation and ultimately measure accurate star-formation rates (SFRs) at the height of cosmic star-formation, we present Pa$\alpha$, Br$\alpha$, and Br$\beta$ detections in $27$ luminous infrared galaxies at $z\sim 1-2$, including pure star-forming galaxies as well as dust-obscure Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Using combined spectra from the JWST MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) LRS (Low Resolution Spectrometer) and the Spitzer Space Telescope IRS we quantify the star formation rates of our sample using a sub-sample of 13 galaxies detected in Pa$\alpha$ emission ($1.87\, \mu$m), 14 galaxies detected in Br$\alpha$ ($4.05\, \mu$m), and 12 galaxies detected in Br$\beta$ ($2.63\, \mu$m). By combining multiple near-infrared recombination lines in individual galaxies we calculate nebular attenuation, finding $A_\lambda\sim3$ mag at $\sim2\,\mu$m and $A_\lambda\sim1$ mag at $\sim4\,\mu$m. Nebular lines trace the SFR on $\sim 10$ Myr timescales, which we compare to the total infrared luminosity ($L_{\rm IR}$) which probes the star formation over the last $\sim 100$ Myr. SFRs measured from $L_{\rm IR}$ using common conversions are systematically higher than the SFRs derived from attenuation-corrected nebular line measurements by a factor of $\sim2.5$. This could be indicative of a declining or static star formation history with a past burst or systematic effects on $\rm SFR_{{\rm IR}}$ such as dust heating from evolved stellar populations, and/or an active galactic nucleus.
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All authors Virginia Vanicek, Jed McKinney, Alexandra Pope, Anna Sajina, Stacey Alberts, Meredith Stone, Lee Armus, Sinclaire M. Manning, Olivia Cooper, Tanio DÍaz-Santos, Miriam Eleazer, Caitlin Casey, Thomas S.-Y. Lai, Steven Finkelstein, Leonid Sajkov, Allison Kirkpatrick, Anthony Taylor

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Linking X-ray emission to galaxy populations in GAMA groups

Selene Levis, Hernán Muriel, Valeria Coenda et al. (+3 more)

We study how the presence of a detectable hot intragroup medium affects galaxy colour and star-formation properties, and how these trends depend on dynamical stage within the group. We analysed galaxies in GAMA groups with and without X-ray detection (XG and NXG) at 0.1 <= z <= 0.2, using samples with similar halo-mass distributions, compared with a field control sample. Galaxies were classified as red, green, or blue by UV-optical colour, and group galaxies further classified into dynamical classes based on projected phase-space position and host halo mass. We examined galaxy populations as a function of orbital class, star-formation activity, nuclear activity, and cluster-centric distance. The galaxy population is systematically more evolved in XG than NXG, with lower blue and star-forming fractions and higher red and passive fractions. The green fraction is stable across environments and orbital classes, though high-mass recent arrivals show a mild excess of green systems while retaining relatively high star-forming and low passive fractions, suggesting an intermediate quenching stage. The active galactic nucleus fraction shows no environmental dependence, while the post-starburst fraction increases strongly in XG, reaching nearly 20 percent, consistent with enhanced rapid quenching. Galaxy properties show stronger radial segregation in XG than NXG, with colour fractions differing from field values even at R/R200 ~ 3, consistent with preprocessing. Despite similar halo-mass distributions, the systematic differences between XG and NXG show that halo mass alone does not determine galaxy properties. A detectable hot intragroup medium is associated with enhanced environmental processing, stronger quenching, and more frequent rapid transitions, highlighting the role of the intragroup medium's thermodynamical state, beyond halo mass, in shaping galaxy evolution at group scales.
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All authors Selene Levis, Hernán Muriel, Valeria Coenda, Andrea Biviano, Héctor J. Martínez, Martín de los Rios

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Multi-tracer constraints on quasar outflows. Acceleration from BLR to galactic scales

M. Brazzini, M. Bischetti, S. Hagen et al. (+14 more)

Black hole-driven outflows are a fundamental component of the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) paradigm, and may play a major role in regulating the evolution of both supermassive black holes and their host galaxies. Yet, their physical properties remain challenging to constrain, due to their multi-phase and multi-scale nature which demands a combined approach of different complementary observational tracers. In this work, we investigate AGN-driven ionized outflows from nuclear to galaxy scale within individual quasars, with the aim of establishing whether and how these phenomena are physically connected. We assemble a luminosity-matched sample of 148 quasars with bolometric luminosities higher than 10^47 erg/s, spanning the redshift range z~2-6.5. We perform a homogeneous analysis of CIV emission and broad absorption line (BAL) profiles to derive outflow properties on different spatial scales. We find statistically significant correlations between emission- and absorption-based outflow diagnostics, including the minimum and maximum BAL velocities, vmin,BAL and vmax,BAL, and the v98 of CIV emission lines. These correlations are tighter in high redshift quasars. We also find evidence for an evolution of outflow properties across cosmic time, with high-redshift quasars exhibiting systematically larger CIV line shifts and broader profiles, and faster BAL outflows. According to our outflow toy model, these correlations suggest a scenario in which a clumpy BAL wind is composed of expelled and accelerated broad-line region gas clouds.
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All authors M. Brazzini, M. Bischetti, S. Hagen, V. D'Odorico, N. Arav, G. Becker, G. Cupani, F. Fiore, M. Ghosh, E. Piconcelli, F. Salvestrini, M. Sharma, A. Travascio, A. Tortosa, G. Vietri, L. Zappacosta, C. Feruglio

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Cross-listed from astro-ph.HE

Geometrically Thin Sub-Eddington AGN Accretion Disks show a suppressed Lyman Edge

Ish Kaul, Yan-Fei Jiang, Omer Blaes et al. (+1 more)

The observed ultraviolet continua of active galactic nuclei (AGN) generally lack a strong intrinsic HI Lyman edge predicted by classical optically thick accretion disk atmosphere models. We revisit this long-standing problem using our previous sub-Eddington ($L/L_{\rm Edd}\sim 0.03$) geometrically thin 3D accretion disk simulation evolved with gray angle-dependent radiation magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) around a $10^8M_{\odot}$ black hole. This disk is magnetic pressure dominated, and has surface densities more than two orders of magnitude below the corresponding radiation-pressure-supported $\alpha$-disk prediction. By restarting the simulation with multiple frequency groups, we compute the emergent continuum directly from the frequency-dependent radiation fluxes and find no sharp HI Lyman edge at 13.6 eV. This suppressed Lyman edge is mainly caused by the low densities in a magnetic pressure supported disk where the Lyman opacity jump is far weaker than in standard disk models. These results indicate that magnetic pressure support may provide a possible solution to reconciling optically thick AGN disks with the smooth observed continuum emission around the Lyman edge. However, in this simulation, a substantial fraction of the emission near 13.6 eV is expected to originate at smaller radii closer to the central black hole, which is outside our simulation domain. More detailed predictions of the spectrum will require an extension to the inner disk, non-LTE radiation transfer, higher frequency resolution and a survey across a broader range of accretion rates.
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All authors Ish Kaul, Yan-Fei Jiang, Omer Blaes, Lizhong Zhang

Astrophysics of Galaxies

The AGN Channel in 3D: Scattering Belts and the Importance of Eccentricity in the Black Hole Population

Connar Rowan and Martin E. Pessah

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are a promising origin for observed gravitational wave mergers. Current population synthesis models are limited to 1D N-body or Monte Carlo methods which rely on statistical approaches to resolving dynamical scatterings. We present three-dimensional hybrid $N$-body simulations of a population of black holes (BHs) surrounding an AGN using a new code in development, AGNBI, where close interactions are directly simulated for both single and binary objects. Our results show binary formations occur throughout the AGN disk, particularly where the migration time is long. While BHs efficiently migrate and pair up in migration traps, they are frequently disrupted by ionisation or exchanges from binary-single and binary-binary interactions. We report a broadened radial distribution of formations and mergers about the trap radius when accounting for binary-single and binary-binary interactions, which we describe as a "scattering belt”. We assess the influence of the pre-existing BH population. When we model a non-zero eccentricity distribution in the BH population, the binary formations and mergers are suppressed by an order of magnitude compared to a non-eccentric population as fewer BHs embed in the AGN disk. We report an approximate merger rate of $\mathcal{R}_\mathrm{GW}\approx2\text{--}12\,\mathrm{Gpc}^{-3}\,\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$ with maximum BH masses of $10^2\text{--}10^3\,M_\odot$ through hierarchical mergers, where lower initial velocity dispersions produce larger BHs. The mass and mass ratio distributions are comparatively flat, suggesting AGN may be more relevant for high-mass or unequal-mass gravitational wave sources.
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Astrophysics of Galaxies

Discovery, Characterization, and Potential Origins of a Stream in the Stellar Halo of Nearby LMC-Mass Galaxy NGC 55

Benjamin N. Velguth, Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil, Erik Tollerud et al. (+32 more)

We present a previously undetected stellar stream in the halo of the LMC-mass dwarf galaxy NGC 55 (2 Mpc), as part of an ongoing effort to characterize the stellar halos of LMC/SMC-mass dwarfs in the DEEP component of the DECam Local Volume Exploration (DELVE) survey. This structure is aligned with an outflow traced by H$\alpha$ emission, a spur and cloud of neutral hydrogen, and the ultra-diffuse and possibly disrupting satellite galaxy NGC 55-dw1. We investigate possible ex-situ progenitor scenarios for this stream through the local luminosity-metallicity relation and a set of toy dynamical models that include gaseous, stellar, and dark matter components. If the stream is a product of a previous merger, the progenitor galaxy had an absolute magnitude $M_V \leq -7.2$ and a stellar mass $M_* \geq 10^5 M_{\odot}$ based on extrapolations of the detected stellar populations. If it is disrupted material from the ultra-diffuse satellite, their shared progenitor had an absolute magnitude $M_V \leq -8.3$ and a stellar mass $M_* \geq 10^{5.2} M_{\odot}$. We compare our stream and progenitor scenarios to those for NGC 300, a galaxy with a stellar mass similar to that of NGC~55 and known to host multiple structures in its halo. Our results demonstrate that even relatively isolated LMC-mass galaxies can have complex accretion histories, providing new tests of hierarchical galaxy formation at low masses.
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All authors Benjamin N. Velguth, Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil, Erik Tollerud, Sarah Pearson, Kristine Spekkens, Amandine Doliva-Dolinsky, Michael G. Jones, Denija Crnojević, Jeffrey L. Carlin, David J. Sand, Paul Bennet, Guy Stringfellow, William Cerny, Alex Drlica-Wagner, Joanna D. Sakowska, Jaclyn Jensen, Laura C. Hunter, Eric F. Bell, David Martínez-Delgado, Anirudh Chiti, Adam Smercina, Nitya Kallivayalil, Deepthi S. Prabhu, Alexander H. Riley, Yumi Choi, Noelia E. D. Noël, Sasha N. Campana, Guinevere Herron, Alistair R. Walker, Andrew B. Pace, Clara E. Martínez-Vázquez, Clecio R. Bom, Julio A. Carballo-Bello, Pol Massana, Gustavo E. Medina

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Cross-listed from astro-ph.EP

Multiband Color Monitoring of 3I/ATLAS through Ground-Based Relay Observations

Ariel Graykowski, Bryce Bolin, Laura-May Abron et al. (+140 more)

We present multiband, long-baseline photometric observations of interstellar comet 3I throughout its 2025–2026 apparition using coordinated ground-based global relay observations. Our dataset combines measurements from professional observatories and citizen-operated Unistellar eVscopes distributed worldwide, providing dense temporal coverage from 2025 July 2 through 2026 April 1 and spanning the comet's pre- and post-perihelion trajectory. Broadband photometry was obtained in bandpasses equivalent to the Johnson–Cousins $B$ (436 nm), $V$ (545 nm), and $R$ (641 nm) filters and the Sloan $g$ (477 nm), $r$ (623 nm), and $i$ (763 nm) filters. The photometry was measured using projected aperture radii of approximately 10{,}000~km to provide a consistent probe of the inner coma across the heterogeneous dataset. We measure representative mean colors of $B-V=0.86\pm0.06$, $V-R=0.50\pm0.03$, $B-R=1.36\pm0.08$, and $g-r=0.58\pm0.08$, demonstrating a persistently red optical coma. Constant-color models provide an adequate description of the data, with little evidence for long-term color evolution with time or heliocentric distance despite substantial changes in the coma's brightness, gas production, and volatile composition. This suggests that the ensemble-averaged optical scattering properties of the coma remained relatively stable over the period sampled by our observations, even as other properties of the coma evolved. These observations provide the first densely sampled, apparition-long characterization of the broadband optical colors of an interstellar comet and establish a benchmark for comparison with future interstellar objects.
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All authors Ariel Graykowski, Bryce Bolin, Laura-May Abron, Franck Marchis, Martin Mašek, Filipp D. Romanov, Ahmed M. Abdelaziz, Dimitrios Athanasopoulos, Matthew Belyakov, Luca Buzzi, Michael W. Coughlin, Ergün Ege, Nicolas Erasmus, Thomas M. Esposito, Christoffer Fremling, Josep M. L. Garcia, Marek Husárik, Oleksandra Ivanova, Tarek M. Kamel, Sergey Karpov, Myung-Jin Kim, Tomasz Kwiatkowski, H.-J. Lee, Sofiia Mykhailova, Alessandro Nastasi, Dagmara Oszkiewicz, John W. Pickering, Alexey Sergeyev, Roman Telesnikov, Josep M. Trigo-Rodríguez, Al Alicea, Jin Beniyama, Otabek A. Burkhonov, Kamoliddin E. Ergashev, Y.H.M. Hendy, Jeong-Han Kim, Cheng-Han Hsieh, M. Emir Kenger, Thomas Lehmann, Igor Luk'yanyk, Ali Takey, Dušan Tomko, Murat Tekkesinoglu, Shane Winter, Joel Alonzo, Michael Beddo, Axel Bienefeld, Mario Billiani, John K. Bradley, Olivier Clerget, Sabine Cremer, Nicolas Delaunoy, José Donas, John Dunn, Jiří Dvořáček, Michael Edwards, Taj Entabi, Raffaele Esposito, Karen Fischer, Robert Foster, Edward Friday, Keiichi Fukui, Francois Gagnon, Matthieu Garisson, George Ghreichi, Patrice Girard, Tateki Goto, Michael Grant, Chris Greenfield, Bruno Guillet, Josef Hanus, John Harrison, David Havell, Kevin Heider, Kirt Hufstedler, Kachi Iwai, Maxime Johnson, Christian Joisten, Scott Kardel, Suzanne Kavic, Vamshi Kesireddy, Rachel Knight, David Koster, Jericho Kuehl, Ryuichi Kukita, Jan Kunc, Petri Kuossari, Alain Lambert, Scott Lancelle, Jean-Marie Laugier, Stephen Lawrence, Pedro Lemos, Jeffrey Linn, Joseph Llanes, Steeve Loisel, Gaël Lombart, Margaret A. Loose, Yohann Lorand, Chris Mahar, Scott Manley, Vincent Marcouiller, Sevastos Mastrogiorgis, Nicola Meneghelli, Mike Mitchell, Iaroslav Mokroguz, Jacques Molne, Fabrice Mortecrette, Ioannis Mytakos, Anouchka Nardi, Wataru Ono, James Owen, Larry Parchman, Bruce Parker, Michael Primm, Darren Rivett, Facundo Robles, Van Ruckman, Matthew Ryno, Nikolaj Schraufl, Jean-Pierre Schulz, Christoph Seidler, Lauren A. Sgro, Masao Shimizu, Francois Simard, Georges Simard, Bran Solo, Grant Sorenson, Marcelo Souza, David Swalander, Akimitsu Takahashi, Lydia Tamez, Petri Tikkanen, Bryan Tobias, Ian Transom, William Turnipseed, Charles Urban, Claudio Vantaggiato, Aad Verveen, Andrew Wendelborn, Stefan Will, Mark Wilson, Neil Yoblonsky, Wai-Chun Yue

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Stochastic black hole growth tracks stellar mass in ultramassive galaxies

Michele Cappellari, Dieu D. Nguyen and Susan A. Kassin

Over the past three decades, it has been established that galaxy spheroids contain supermassive black holes (BHs) whose masses correlate tightly with the properties of their host galaxies. The most predictive of these correlations is between BH mass and stellar velocity dispersion (the $M_{\rm BH}-\sigma$ relation), alongside a relation with bulge luminosity or stellar mass (the $M_{\rm BH}-M_\star$ relation). Theoretical models of galaxy evolution predict that for the most massive galaxies, whose late-time growth proceeds mainly via gas-poor `dry' mergers, $M_\star$ should become a better predictor of BH mass than $\sigma$. However, genuine deviations from the $M_{\rm BH}-\sigma$ relation have remained difficult to observe due to the extreme rarity and low central surface brightness of such galaxies. Here we report James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) measurements of central BHs in a sample of eight ultramassive galaxies. We find the largest deviations from the $M_{\rm BH}-\sigma$ relation ever reported, with most BH masses exceeding $10^{10}$ solar masses. In this extreme mass regime, the galaxies tightly follow the $M_{\rm BH}-M_\star$ relation with minimal scatter, successfully confirming theoretical predictions. Furthermore, we observe significant stochasticity: For one ultramassive galaxy, the central dispersion drops rather than peaks, revealing no evidence for a central mass; while we can formally only place an upper limit, the data are entirely consistent with no BH at all. Crucially, this physical dichotomy is already evident directly in the raw kinematic maps prior to any fitting, and is robustly confirmed by our dynamical modelling. This unexpected diversity suggests that extreme multi-body dynamical processes, such as gravitational recoil or three-body ejections, significantly disrupt BH growth in the Universe's most massive galaxies.
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Astrophysics of Galaxies

The JWST Ultramassive Galaxy Sample – II. Supermassive Black Hole Masses for 8 Extreme Early-Type Galaxies via Jeans Anisotropic Modelling of High-Resolution Integral-Field NIRSpec Stellar Kinematics

Michele Cappellari, Dieu D. Nguyen and Susan A. Kassin

We present central supermassive black hole (BH) mass measurements for the JWST Ultramassive Galaxy Sample, comprising 8 galaxies selected from a complete sample of the most massive early-type galaxies in the nearby Universe ($M_\star \gtrsim 2\times10^{12} M_\odot$). Building on the MGE photometric profiles and JWST/NIRSpec stellar kinematics from Paper I, we use the Jeans Anisotropic Modelling (JAM) framework to reconstruct the nuclear dynamics. Given the unique structural properties of these dry-merger-dominated systems, our Bayesian MCMC analysis explicitly tests both oblate and prolate intrinsic geometries. By marginalizing over classical dynamical degeneracies (including orbital velocity anisotropy, mass-to-light ratios, and inclination), we extract robust BH masses. We demonstrate that JWST's exceptional resolution allows JAM to tightly constrain the central potential using nuclear kinematics alone. Crucially, not all ultramassive galaxies host ultramassive BHs: while most display a classic central velocity dispersion peak, notable exceptions emerge, including a clear central dispersion drop in one galaxy and a subdued peak in another. These kinematic differences yield distinct BH masses, suggesting BH growth at extreme mass scales is highly stochastic. This stochasticity may be driven by three-body ejections during hierarchical mergers or gravitational recoil kicks from coalescing binaries. In the latter case, the kicked BH may be displaced and wandering outside the compact NIRSpec field of view. Our derived BH masses populate the historically sparse upper envelope of the galaxy mass hierarchy, providing the critical foundation for Paper III to investigate extreme-mass BH scaling relations and test models of galaxy-BH co-evolution.
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Astrophysics of Galaxies

The JWST Ultramassive Galaxy Sample – I. Overview, Photometry, and Stellar Kinematics: Selecting Optimal Template Subsets via Non-Negative Matrix Factorization

Michele Cappellari, Dieu D. Nguyen and Susan A. Kassin

We introduce the JWST Ultramassive Galaxy Sample, comprising 8 extreme early-type galaxies ($M_\star \gtrsim 2\times10^{12}\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$) drawn as a representative subset from a comprehensive full-sky census of over 100 such objects. This program aims to dynamically measure their central supermassive black holes (BHs) to probe the extreme high-mass end of BH–galaxy scaling relations, a critical regime where the physical mechanisms governing BH growth and host-galaxy co-evolution are expected to fundamentally change. In this first paper, we present the foundational data products: detailed photometric models and spatially resolved nuclear stellar kinematics. To accurately map the stellar mass distribution from the BH sphere of influence out to the extended halo, we combine diffraction-limited JWST/NIRCam imaging with wide-field DESI Legacy Surveys data, parametrizing the surface brightness using Multi-Gaussian Expansion (MGE). We extract stellar kinematics from JWST/NIRSpec integral-field observations using the penalized pixel-fitting (pPXF) method. To fully exploit the continuous $1.66-3.17\,\mu\mathrm{m}$ wavelength coverage—avoiding the telluric gaps of ground-based empirical libraries and the computational burden of massive theoretical grids—we introduce the use of near-separable Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (NMF). This algorithm identifies an optimal, highly compressed subset of synthetic spectra from the updated BOSZ library, perfectly capturing its spanning power at a fraction of the computational cost. The resulting kinematic maps reveal that these ultramassive systems are overwhelmingly slow rotators, frequently harboring kinematically decoupled cores. These high-quality photometric and kinematic data provide the inputs required for the robust Jeans Anisotropic Modelling (JAM) of the central BH masses in Paper II.
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Astrophysics of Galaxies

Stellar Yields of Rapidly Rotating Population III Stars for the High Redshift Universe

Devesh Nandal, Konstantinos Topalakis, Vasilisa Sergienko et al. (+6 more)

JWST has revealed rapid nitrogen enrichment in high redshift galaxies, renewing the need for stellar yields that follow metal free stars beyond the main sequence and across their final fates. We present Geneva stellar evolution models of rapidly rotating Pop~III stars with $5 \leq M_{\rm ini}/M_\odot \leq 200$ and $\upsilon_{\rm ini}/\upsilon_{\rm crit}=0.7$, evolved to the end of core O-burning. We calculate gross adopted ejecta masses using fate dependent remnant prescriptions spanning core collapse, pulsational pair instability, and complete pair instability. Our quantitative results focus on hydrostatically produced CNO material, while heavier species are treated as final-model reservoirs. Rotation produces primary CNO material by mixing newly synthesized C and O into H-burning layers, where CNO cycling generates nitrogen. The resulting abundance signature depends strongly on which stellar layers escape. Models leaving compact remnants can reach $\log({\rm N/O})=-0.49$ while remaining poor in Si/S/Ar/Ca-rich material. PISN models eject the largest nitrogen masses, $M_{\rm N}=1.8$–$2.5,M_\odot$, but also release $57$–$65,M_\odot$ of oxygen, lowering $\log({\rm N/O})$ to $-1.44$ to $-1.29$. Thus, high nitrogen yields do not imply high N/O ratios. This trend persists after IMF weighting, as increasingly top-heavy populations add oxygen and deep alpha material faster than they build a nitrogen dominated mixture. Our grid provides a new CNO-focused prompt-enrichment dataset for interpreting nitrogen-rich systems including GN-z11, CEERS-1019, and GS~3073.
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All authors Devesh Nandal, Konstantinos Topalakis, Vasilisa Sergienko, Doga Eker, Efe K. Celep, Danielle A. Berg, Daniel J. Whalen, Sophie Tsiatsiou, Raphael Hirschi

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Cross-listed from astro-ph.HE

Euclid: Quick Data Release (Q1) – Optical hotspots in powerful radio galaxies

M. J. Hardcastle, L. Bisigello, M. Bondi et al. (+154 more)

The hotspots of powerful radio galaxies are the sites of high-energy particle acceleration, but radio observations give us limited information on the electron energy distributions that they generate, which affects our overall understanding of their physics and energetics. Optical synchrotron counterparts to radio galaxy hotspots, which probe high electron energies, have been known for many years, but have only been studied in a small number of objects selected as being very bright in the radio. By combining Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) observations with the Euclid Q1 data release in the Euclid Deep Field North, we identify 77 powerful radio galaxies with hotspots and show that a small but significant fraction of them, 7–15%, may have detected infrared and optical counterparts to their hotspots. The hotspot spectral energy distributions in our clearest cases are consistent with particle acceleration up to (but not beyond) 1\,TeV in energy on the assumption of field strengths close to equipartition, whereas non-detected hotspots either do not reach such high electron energies or would have to have very different electron energy spectra or significantly sub-equipartition magnetic field strengths. Two new candidate optical hotspots are clearly detected matching high-resolution LOFAR data; one is remarkable as both the highest-redshift optical hotspot known to date ($z \approx 1.6$) and also the first optical detection of the hotspot of the inner lobe of a restarting source. We discuss approaches to performing a large-scale study of hotspots with the full wide-area Euclid surveys, particularly when combined with the international baselines of LOFAR, enabling for the first time a statistical analysis of high-energy particle acceleration in hotspots.
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All authors M. J. Hardcastle, L. Bisigello, M. Bondi, M. Magliocchetti, L. K. Morabito, J. Petley, F. Ricci, H. J. A. Rottgering, K. Rubinur, D. J. B. Smith, D. Stern, B. Altieri, S. Andreon, N. Auricchio, C. Baccigalupi, M. Baldi, A. Balestra, S. Bardelli, P. Battaglia, A. Biviano, E. Branchini, M. Brescia, S. Camera, V. Capobianco, C. Carbone, J. Carretero, S. Casas, M. Castellano, G. Castignani, S. Cavuoti, K. C. Chambers, A. Cimatti, C. Colodro-Conde, G. Congedo, C. J. Conselice, L. Conversi, Y. Copin, A. Costille, F. Courbin, H. M. Courtois, M. Cropper, J.-G. Cuby, A. Da Silva, H. Degaudenzi, G. De Lucia, C. Dolding, H. Dole, F. Dubath, X. Dupac, M. Farina, R. Farinelli, S. Ferriol, P. Fosalba, S. Fotopoulou, M. Frailis, E. Franceschi, M. Fumana, S. Galeotta, K. George, B. Gillis, C. Giocoli, J. Gracia-Carpio, A. Grazian, F. Grupp, S. V. H. Haugan, J. Hoar, W. Holmes, I. M. Hook, F. Hormuth, A. Hornstrup, K. Jahnke, M. Jhabvala, B. Joachimi, S. Kermiche, A. Kiessling, B. Kubik, M. Kümmel, M. Kunz, H. Kurki-Suonio, A. M. C. Le Brun, S. Ligori, P. B. Lilje, V. Lindholm, I. Lloro, G. Mainetti, O. Mansutti, O. Marggraf, M. Martinelli, N. Martinet, F. Marulli, R. J. Massey, E. Medinaceli, S. Mei, M. Meneghetti, E. Merlin, G. Meylan, A. Mora, M. Moresco, L. Moscardini, R. Nakajima, C. Neissner, S.-M. Niemi, J. W. Nightingale, C. Padilla, S. Paltani, F. Pasian, K. Pedersen, W. J. Percival, V. Pettorino, S. Pires, G. Polenta, L. A. Popa, F. Raison, A. Renzi, J. Rhodes, G. Riccio, E. Romelli, M. Roncarelli, B. Rusholme, R. Saglia, Z. Sakr, D. Sapone, B. Sartoris, M. Schirmer, P. Schneider, A. Secroun, G. Seidel, E. Sihvola, P. Simon, C. Sirignano, G. Sirri, J. Skottfelt, L. Stanco, P. Tallada-Crespí, A. N. Taylor, H. I. Teplitz, I. Tereno, N. Tessore, S. Toft, R. Toledo-Moreo, F. Torradeflot, I. Tutusaus, J. Valiviita, T. Vassallo, G. Verdoes Kleijn, A. Veropalumbo, Y. Wang, J. Weller, O. R. Williams, A. Zacchei, G. Zamorani, F. M. Zerbi, E. Zucca, J. García-Bellido, V. Scottez, F. Tarsitano, J. H. Knapen

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Stellar ages from [C/N] in giant stars: applicability and limitations

Giada Casali, Luca Casagrande, Fiorenzo Vincenzo et al. (+5 more)

The [C/N] abundance ratio is a powerful age indicator for giant stars, enabling age estimates for spectroscopic samples where traditional methods are limited. We calibrate a multivariate [C/N]-age-[Fe/H] relationship using 9,122 giant stars observed by Kepler, with asteroseismic ages and APOGEE DR17 abundances. The calibration is performed separately for lower red giant branch (LRGB), upper RGB (URGB), and red clump (RC) stars. We validate the relationships using independent samples from K2, TESS, and open clusters, finding good agreement with reference ages, particularly for LRGB stars, with typical precision of ~30% for ages between ~2 - 10 Gyr. The performance degrades for URGB and RC stars and low metallicities, likely due to extra mixing processes, for young (<2 Gyr) and old (>10 Gyr) stars, where the [C/N]-age correlation weakens. We show that the [C/N]-based ages reproduce known Milky Way features, including the age distribution across the [alpha/Fe]-[Fe/H] plane and the flaring of the Galactic disc. Compared to other chemical clocks, [C/N] provides more robust and precise age estimates within its domain of validity. Our results demonstrate that [C/N], combined with metallicity, is an effective empirical tool for deriving stellar ages of giant stars from spectroscopic surveys, particularly for LRGB stars with [Fe/H] > -1, enabling Galactic archaeology studies beyond the reach of current asteroseismic samples.
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All authors Giada Casali, Luca Casagrande, Fiorenzo Vincenzo, Andrea Miglio, Melissa Ness, Grazina Tautvaišiene, Laura Magrini, Sven Buder

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Supernova origin of galactic turbulence revealed by superbubbles

Fanyi Meng, Chao-Wei Tsai, Jingwen Wu et al. (+13 more)

Supernovae (SNe) are among the leading candidates for powering galactic-scale turbulence. SNe drive expanding shells of neutral atomic hydrogen (HI) known as superbubbles. Due to the lack of a sensitive, dynamically complete, galaxy-wide census, superbubbles have not been used to quantify the galactic-scale turbulent energy budget. Here we present a combined Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) and Jansky Very Large Array HI survey of the Andromeda galaxy (M31), the nearest giant spiral, with superior sensitivity and dynamical coverage. We identify 118 superbubbles across the entire disk of M31 with dynamical ages up to 40 Myr, consistent with the expected duration of SN activity in a star cluster and extending the age coverage well beyond previous surveys. Inferred from these superbubbles, the kinetic energy injection rates ($10^{49}$–$10^{51.5}$ erg kpc$^{-3}$ Myr$^{-1}$) from SNe closely match the turbulence dissipation rates derived independently from the same data, in both magnitude and spatial distribution. These results demonstrate that clustered SN feedback is sufficient to sustain galactic-scale turbulence, which shapes disk structure and influences galaxy evolution.
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All authors Fanyi Meng, Chao-Wei Tsai, Jingwen Wu, Sihan Jiao, Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, Zhi-Yu Zhang, Amélie Saintonge, Hui Li, Zongnan Li, Jie Wang, Lile Wang, Haitao Xu, Yanbin Yang, Kai Zhang, Rouyu Li, Di Li

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Cross-listed from astro-ph.HE

Core-collapse supernovae 2022prr, 2023ucy, and 2024ljc in the luminous infrared galaxy NGC 6745

K. K. Matilainen, E. Kankare, T. Nagao et al. (+19 more)

The core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) 2022prr, 2023ucy, and 2024ljc exploded within the central regions of the nearby luminous infrared galaxy (LIRG) NGC6745. We present our follow-up data with the aim to characterise the spectrophotometric evolution of these CCSNe, determine their host-galaxy extinction, and to define their physical nature. The presented spectrophotometric data set covers the optical and near-infrared region for our three supernovae (SNe). The data are analysed and compared to other hydrogen-rich CCSNe, and a host-galaxy extinction value Av is derived based on broadband photometry for each of the targets. A spectral energy distribution (SED) for the host galaxy is constructed, and a combination of different galactic components are fitted to the SED to estimate the intrinsic CCSN rate and the age of the starburst of NGC6745. 2022prr is a SN2009ip-like event, whose light curve evolution consists of two consecutive luminous events A and B with peak magnitudes of Mr = -14.8 and -18.3 mag, respectively. The high degree of V and R-band polarisation (P=2.8%) near maximum light suggests interaction with highly aspherical circumstellar material. The spectral evolution of the SN is dominated by narrow Balmer emission lines, which have a complex evolution over time. 2022prr joins the growing sample of SN2009ip-like events that show early `flash ionisation' features of CIII, NIII, and HeII. 2023ucy is found to be a normal Type IIP SN. However, 2024ljc is a rapidly evolving Type IIb SN with a post-maximum r-band decline of roughly 3.2 mag by +41 d whereas normal IIb SNe decline typically by 1.5+/-0.3 mag during the same timescale. While the events exploded in a LIRG, the SNe are obscured by only moderate V-band host extinctions ranging from 0 to 1 mag. Based on the SED modelling we estimate an age of the host starburst to be 40Myr, and the intrinsic CCSN rate to be 0.4+/-0.1 SN/year.
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All authors K. K. Matilainen, E. Kankare, T. Nagao, T. Reynolds, A. Efstathiou, S. Mattila, C. R. Angus, A. Reguitti, Y.-Z. Cai, M. Fraser, L. Galbany, M. González-Bañuelos, C. P. Gutiérrez, T. Kangas, T. L. Killestein, T. Kravtsov, P. Lundqvist, S. Moran, A. Pastorello, A. Popowicz, I. Salmaso, M. Stritzinger

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Morphology classification for galaxies in the Kilo Degree Survey using a label-efficient self-supervised learning framework

Xu Huang, Rui Li, Liang Gao et al. (+14 more)

Galaxy morphology classification is fundamental to understanding galaxy formation and evolution. The advent of large-scale sky surveys has produced an unprecedented volume of galaxy images, making traditional manual classification impractical. Although supervised deep learning can achieve high accuracy, it requires large labeled datasets that are time-consuming to construct. In contrast, unsupervised methods often show limited classification performance. To address this limitation, we propose a label-efficient self-supervised learning framework for galaxy morphology classification. Our method first learns robust morphological representations from 305,583 unlabeled KiDS galaxy images through contrastive learning, and then trains a classifier using only 5,000 human-labeled images. The classifier separates galaxies into five categories: elliptical, spiral, lenticular-disk, irregular, and "other." Using a ResNet-50 model with a crop size of 64x64 pixels, our approach achieves an overall test accuracy of up to 91.0% (90.5% +/- 0.2% on average) on the human-classified catalog. The corresponding F1 scores for elliptical, spiral, irregular, lenticular-disk, and "other" galaxies are 0.96, 0.86, 0.86, 0.95, and 0.92, respectively. We apply this pipeline to the Kilo-Degree Survey Data Release 5 and produce a publicly available morphology catalog of 310,583 galaxies. This is the first morphology catalog for KiDS galaxies and provides a valuable resource for future studies of galaxy evolution. Our results show that self-supervised learning can substantially reduce the need for manual labels while maintaining high classification accuracy, making it a promising and scalable approach for automated galaxy morphology classification in the era of large-scale surveys.
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All authors Xu Huang, Rui Li, Liang Gao, Liqing Chen, Hui Li, Huijun Mu, Hao Su, Fucheng Zhong, Zhenping Yi, Xiaoyue Cao, Ran Li, Haicheng Feng, Nicola N. Napolitano, Yue Dong, Yida Deng, Sihan Li, Kang Jiao

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Cross-listed from astro-ph.CO

Lens Modeling and Cosmological Inference from an Impure Sample of Galaxy-Galaxy Strong Lenses

Philip Holloway, Aprajita Verma, Philip J. Marshall et al. (+7 more)

The start of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time marks a new era for strong lensing science, where the number of strong lenses identified is expected to increase to $\mathcal{O}(10^5)$. In this paper we use a neural network to determine the precision with which lens parameters can be determined, using realistic simulated LSST lensed systems. We find that the Einstein radius can be measured with a mean precision of $3.7\%$ with calibrated uncertainties accurately reflecting the corresponding measurement error. Based on the performance of current strong lens classifiers, the $\sim 100,000$ detectable strong lenses are expected to be accompanied by a similar or larger number of false positives (non-lenses). In readiness for this we introduce a formalism, termed `COSMIC-BEAMS', to infer cosmological parameters while accounting for contamination by false positives. As a proof-of-concept, using simulated LSST measurements of the Einstein radii of a realistic and impure sample of photometric lens systems, i.e. those without spectroscopic confirmation, we find that the cosmological parameters $\Omega_m$, $\Omega_\Lambda$, and $w$ can be measured to a precision of $0.1$, $0.03$ and $0.15$ respectively for a $w$CDM cosmology. We demonstrate that unbiased cosmological parameters can be inferred even in strong lens samples contaminated by $50\%$ false positives, and that the photometric dataset of $100\,000$ strong lenses will provide equivalent $w$-precision to $2500-3500$ spectroscopic systems.
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All authors Philip Holloway, Aprajita Verma, Philip J. Marshall, Padmavathi Venkatraman, Sydney Erickson, Tian Li, Simon Birrer, Steven Dillmann, Thomas E. Collett, the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration

Astrophysics of Galaxies

LenNet: Direct Detection and Localization of Strong Gravitational Lenses in Wide-Field Sky Survey Images

Pufan Liu, Hui Li, Ziqi Li et al. (+9 more)

Strong gravitational lenses are invaluable tools for addressing fundamental questions in astrophysics, from the nature of dark matter to the expansion of the universe. While current sky surveys have successfully identified thousands of lens candidates, the search methods employed face a critical challenge. The conventional approach relies on a "crop-and-classify" strategy, where small images are first cut out around billions of potential host galaxies before being individually classified. This process creates a significant computational and storage bottleneck that is unsustainable for future large-scale surveys. To overcome this limitation, we propose LenNet, an object detection model that identifies lenses directly within large, original survey images. Our method completely bypasses the inefficient cropping step by framing the problem as a direct detection and localization task. We initially train LenNet on simulated data to learn the complex features of gravitational lenses and then use transfer learning to fine-tune the model on a limited set of real, labeled examples from the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS). Our experiments show that LenNet performs remarkably well on real survey data, validating its potential as a highly efficient and scalable solution for lens discovery in massive astronomical surveys.
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All authors Pufan Liu, Hui Li, Ziqi Li, Xiaoyue Cao, Rui Li, Hao Su, Ran Li, Nicola R. Napolitano, Léon V. E. Koopmans, Valerio Busillo, Crescenzo Tortora, Liang Gao

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Cross-listed from astro-ph.IM

Identification of gravitational lenses obscured by foreground light in the KiDS dataset using U-Nets and ResNets

S. Liu, Rui Li, J. Jia et al. (+13 more)

*Context.* Many lensing images are often obscured by foreground light from the central galaxies, making them challenging to detect. *Aims.* To address the limitations of previous lens search efforts, particularly for samples with smaller $R_E$ or faint lensed images, we developed a composite convolutional neural network framework that utilizes both U-Net and ResNet architectures for feature extraction and classification. *Methods.* We propose a hybrid search method that combines U-Net and ResNet architectures to enhance the detection of foreground galaxy-obscured lenses. Our approach consists of two main stages: first, the U-Net model separates the foreground galaxy light from potential lensing signals, creating residual images that highlight the lensing features. Next, the ResNet module performs binary classification on these residual images to detect lensing signals. *Results.* We evaluated the hybrid search method with real observational data to demonstrate its effectiveness, achieving a recall of 71.5% and a 4.5% false positive rate at a confidence threshold of 0.6. Applying this method to over 638,398 galaxy samples from the Kilo-Degree Survey Data Release 4 and conducting thorough inspections, we identify 88 Class A, 322 Class B, and 1,758 Class C candidates. *Conclusions.* This hybrid approach significantly enhances the completeness of existing strong gravitational lensing searches and shows great potential for improving future astronomical surveys.
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All authors S. Liu, Rui Li, J. Jia, Hui Li, Liqing Chen, Xiaoyue Cao, Zizhao He, Valerio Busillo, Nicola N. Napolitano, Crescenzo Tortora, Fucheng Zhong, Hao Su, Haicheng Feng, Yue Dong, Ran Li, Liang Gao