Search

We present initial results of a survey of host $L_{*}$ galaxies environments in the Local Volume ($D, 17 pages, 12 figures, accepted to MNRAS

The spatial distribution of elemental abundances and their time evolution are among the major constraints to disentangle the scenarios of formation and evolution of the Galaxy. We used the sample of open clusters available in the final release of the Gaia-ESO survey to trace the Galactic radial abundance and abundance to iron ratio gradients, and their time evolution. We selected member stars in 62 open clusters, with ages from 0.1 to about 7~Gyr, located in the Galactic thin disc at Galactocentric radii from about 6 to 21~kpc. We analysed the shape of the resulting [Fe/H] gradient, the average gradients [El/H] and [El/Fe] combining elements belonging to four different nucleosynthesis channels, and their individual abundance and abundance ratio gradients. We also investigated the time evolution of the gradients dividing open clusters in three age bins. The[Fe/H] gradient has a slope of -0.054 dex~kpc-1. We saw different behaviours for elements belonging to different channels. We found that the youngest clusters in the inner disc have lower metallicity than their older counterpart and they outline a flatter gradient. We considered some possible explanations, including the effects of gas inflow and migration. We suggested that it might be a bias introduced by the standard spectroscopic analysis producing lower metallicities in low gravity stars. To delineate the shape of the `true' gradient, we should limit our analysis to stars with low surface gravity logg>2.5 and xi, 25 pages, 14 figures and 4 tables in the main text, 3 figures and 7 tables in the Appendix. Accepted for publication in A&A

Lyman Break Galaxy (LBG) candidates at z>10 are rapidly being identified in JWST/NIRCam observations. Due to the (redshifted) break produced by neutral hydrogen absorption of rest-frame UV photons, these sources are expected to drop out in the bluer filters while being well detected in redder filters. However, here we show that dust-enshrouded star-forming galaxies at lower redshifts (z10 LBGs, representing potential contaminants in LBG candidate samples. First, we analyze CEERS-DSFG-1, a NIRCam dropout undetected in the F115W and F150W filters but detected at longer wavelengths. Combining the JWST data with (sub)millimeter constraints, including deep NOEMA interferometric observations, we show that this source is a dusty star-forming galaxy (DSFG) at z~5.1. We also present a tentative 2.6sigma SCUBA-2 detection at 850um around a recently identified z~16 LBG candidate in the same field and show that, if the emission is real and associated with this candidate, the available photometry is consistent with a z~5 dusty galaxy with strong nebular emission lines despite its blue near-IR colors. Further observations on this candidate are imperative to mitigate the low confidence of this tentative submillimeter emission and its positional uncertainty. Our analysis shows that robust (sub)millimeter detections of NIRCam dropout galaxies likely imply z=4-6 redshift solutions, where the observed near-IR break would be the result of a strong rest-frame optical Balmer break combined with high dust attenuation and strong nebular line emission, rather than the rest-frame UV Lyman break. This provides evidence that DSFGs may contaminate searches for ultra high-redshift LBG candidates from JWST observations., Published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters (updated to match the published version)

A renewed interest about the origin of \emph{r}-process elements has been stimulated by the multi-messenger observation of the gravitational event GW170817, with the detection of both gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves corresponding to the merger of two neutron stars. Such phenomenon has been proposed as one of the main sources of the \emph{r}-process. However, the origin of the \emph{r}-process elements at different metallicities is still under debate. We aim at investigating the origin of the \emph{r}-process elements in the Galactic thin disc population. From the sixth internal data release of the \emph{Gaia}-ESO we have collected a large sample of Milky Way thin- and thick-disc stars for which abundances of Eu, O, and Mg are available. The sample consists of members of 62 open clusters, located at a Galactocentric radius from $\sim 5$ kpc to $\sim 20$ kpc in the disc, in the metallicity range $[-0.5, 0.4]$ and covering an age interval from 0.1 to 7 Gy, and about 1300 Milky Way disc field stars in the metallicity range $[-1.5, 0.5]$. We compare the observations with the results of a chemical evolution model, in which we varied the nucleosynthesis sources for the three considered elements. Our main result is that Eu in the thin disc is predominantly produced by sources with short lifetimes, such as magneto-rotationally driven SNe. There is no strong evidence for additional sources at delayed times. Our findings do not imply that there cannot be a contribution from mergers of neutron stars in other environments, as in the halo or in dwarf spheroidal galaxies, but such a contribution is not needed to explain Eu abundances at thin disc metallicities., 20 pages, accepted for publication in A&A

Ultra metal-poor stars ([Fe/H] < -4.0) are very rare, and finding them is a challenging task. Both narrow-band photometry and low-resolution spectroscopy have been useful tools for identifying candidates, and in this work we combine both approaches. We cross-matched metallicity-sensitive photometry from the Pristine survey with the low-resolution spectroscopic LAMOST database, and re-analysed all LAMOST spectra with [Fe/H]_Pristine < -2.5. We find that ~1/3rd of this sample (selected without [Fe/H]_Pristine quality cuts) also have spectroscopic [Fe/H] < -2.5. From this sample, containing many low signal-to-noise (S/N) spectra, we selected eleven stars potentially having [Fe/H] < -4.0 or [Fe/H] < -3.0 with very high carbon abundances, and we performed higher S/N medium-resolution spectroscopic follow-up with OSIRIS on the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). We confirm their extremely low metallicities, with a mean of [Fe/H] = -3.4 and the most metal-poor star having [Fe/H]= -3.8. Three of these are clearly carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars with +1.65 < [C/Fe] < +2.45. The two most carbon-rich stars are either among the most metal-poor CEMP-s stars or the most carbon-rich CEMP-no stars known, the third is likely a CEMP-no star. We derived orbital properties for the OSIRIS sample and find that only one of our targets can be confidently associated with known substructures/accretion events, and that three out of four inner halo stars have prograde orbits. Large spectroscopic surveys may contain many hidden extremely and ultra metal-poor stars, and adding additional information from e.g. photometry as in this work can uncover them more efficiently and confidently., 13 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Large fractions of metals are missing from the observable gas-phase in the interstellar medium (ISM) because they are incorporated into dust grains, a phenomenon called dust depletion. The study of dust depletion in the ISM is important to investigate the origin and evolution of metals and cosmic dust. Here we aim at characterizing the dust depletion of several metals from the Milky Way to distant galaxies. We collect ISM metal column densities from absorption-line spectroscopy in the literature, and in addition, we determine Ti and Ni column densities from a sample of 70 damped Lyman-$\alpha$ absorbers (DLAs) towards quasars, observed with UVES/VLT. We use ISM relative abundances to estimate the dust depletion of 18 metals (C, P, O, Cl, Kr, S, Ge, Mg, Si, Cu, Co, Mn, Cr, Ni, Al, Ti, Zn and Fe) for different environments (the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds (MCs), DLAs towards quasars and towards gamma-ray bursts). We observe linear relations between the depletion of each metal and the strength of dust depletion, which we trace with the observed [Zn/Fe]. In the neutral ISM of the MCs we find small deviations from linearity observed as an overabundance of the $\alpha$-elements Ti, Mg, S and an underabundance of Mn. The deviations disappear if we assume that all OB stars observed towards the MCs in our sample have an $\alpha$-element enhancement and Mn underabundance. This may imply that the MCs have been recently enriched in $\alpha$-elements, potentially due to recent bursts of star formation. The observed strong correlations of the depletion sequences of the metals all the way from low metallicity QSO-DLAs to the Milky Way suggest that cosmic dust has a common origin, independently of the star formation history, which varies significantly between these different galaxies. This supports the importance of grain growth in the ISM as a significant process of dust production., Comment: 30 pages, 35 figures, 12 tables, Accepted for publication in A&A, Abstract abridged for arXiv

We implement a new observational method for mapping the aliphatic hydrocarbon content in the solid phase in our Galaxy, based on spectrophotometric imaging of the 3.4 mu m absorption feature from interstellar dust. We previously demonstrated this method in a field including the Galactic Centre cluster. We applied the method to a new field in the Galactic Centre where the 3.4 mu m absorption feature has not been previously measured and we extended the measurements to a field in the Galactic plane to sample the diffuse local interstellar medium, where the 3.4 mu m absorption feature has been previously measured. We have analysed 3.4 mu m optical depth and aliphatic hydrocarbon column density maps for these fields. Optical depths are found to be reasonably uniform in each field, without large source-to-source variations. There is, however, a weak trend towards increasing optical depth in a direction towards b = 0 degrees in the Galactic Centre. The mean value of column densities and abundances for aliphatic hydrocarbon were found to be about several x 10(18) cm(-2) and several tens x 10(-6), respectively for the new sightlines in the Galactic plane. We conclude that at least 10-20 per cent of the carbon in the Galactic plane lies in aliphatic form., Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK); Australian Research Council [CE170100026, DP190103151]; University of New South Wales (UNSW); National Aeronautics and Space Administration, BG would like to thank to The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) for their support in this work through the 2214/A International Research Fellowship Programme. TWS is supported by the Australian Research Council (CE170100026 and DP190103151). The University of New South Wales (UNSW) seeded this work through the award of a Faculty interdisciplinary grant.; This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and operated by the California Institute of Technology.

Context. The fate of a massive star during the latest stages of its evolution is highly dependent on its mass-loss rate/geometry and therefore knowing the geometry of the circumstellar material close to the star and its surroundings is crucial. Aims. We aim to study the nature (i.e. geometry, rates) of mass-loss episodes. In this context, yellow hypergiants are great targets. Methods. We analyse a large set of optical/near-infrared data, in spectroscopic and photometric (X-shooter/VLT), spectropolarimetric (ISIS/WHT), and interferometric GRAVITY-AMBER/VLTI) modes, toward the yellow hypergiant IRAS 17163-3907. We present the first model-independent reconstructed images of IRAS 17163-3907 at these wavelengths at milli-arcsecond scales. Lastly, we apply a 2D radiative transfer model to fit the dereddened photometry and the radial profiles of published VISIR images at 8.59 {\mu}m, 11.85 {\mu}m and 12.81 {\mu}m simultaneously, adopting the revised Gaia distance (DR2). Results. The interferometric observables around 2 {\mu}m show that the Br{\gamma} emission is more extended and asymmetric than the Na i and the continuum emission. In addition to the two known shells surrounding IRAS 17163-3907 we report on the existence of a third hot inner shell with a maximum dynamical age of only 30 yr. Conclusions. The interpretation of the presence of Na i emission at closer distances to the star compared to Br{\gamma} has been a challenge in various studies. We argue that the presence of a pseudophotosphere is not needed, but it is rather an optical depth effect. The three observed distinct mass-loss episodes are characterised by different mass-loss rates and can inform the theories on mass-loss mechanisms, which is a topic still under debate. We discuss these in the context of photospheric pulsations and wind bi-stability mechanisms., Comment: 26 pages, 22 Figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in A&A. Original abstract will be available after publication

Stellar metallicity distribution functions (MDF) have been measured for resolved stellar populations in the outer halos of many galaxies in nearby groups. Among them, the MDF of NGC 5128, the central giant elliptical in the Centaurus group, provides essential constraints for theories of massive galaxy formation and hierarchical assembly. To investigate the formation and chemical evolution history of the outer halo of giant elliptical galaxies, we examine the chemical properties of three zoom-in high resolution cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of an NGC 5128-like giant elliptical galaxy and compare their outer halo MDFs to the observed one of NGC 5128. Even though the simulated galaxies have different merging histories and age distributions, all predicted MDFs are in good qualitative agreement with the observed one. The median metallicity of the simulated galaxies is on average $\rm [M/H]=-0.41 \pm 0.06$ compared to the observed value of $\rm [M/H]=-0.38 \pm 0.02$ for NGC 5128, and the dispersion in metallicity is $\sim 0.77$ dex for both observed and simulated galaxies. We investigate the origin of the stars ending up in the outer halo field of simulated galaxies and show that most have an `accreted' origin, formed in other small galaxies and later accreted in mergers. Only $\sim 15$ percent of the stars are formed `in situ' within the main progenitor of galaxy and radially migrate outwards. We show that the contribution of metal-rich in situ stars is sub-dominant in the outer halos of our simulated galaxies, but can be prominent in the inner regions., 16 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ

Numerical simulations of dwarf galaxies have so far failed to reproduce the observed metallicity-luminosity relation, down to the regime of ultra-faint dwarfs (UFDs). We address this issue by exploring how the first generations of metal-free stars (Pop III) could help increase the mean metallicity ([Fe/H]) of those small and faint galaxies. We ran zoom-in chemo-dynamical simulations of 19 halos extracted from a Λ Cold Dark Matter (CDM) cosmological box and followed their evolution down to redshift z = 0. Models were validated not only on the basis of galaxy global properties, but also on the detailed investigation of the stellar abundance ratios ([α/Fe]). We identified the necessary conditions for the formation of the first stars in mini-halos and derived constraints on the metal ejection schemes. The impact of Pop III stars on the final metallicity of UFDs was evaluated by considering different stellar mass ranges for their initial mass function (IMF), the influence of pair-instability supernovae (PISNe), and their energetic feedback, as well as the metallicity threshold that marks the transition from the first massive stars to the formation of low-mass long-lived stars. The inclusion of Pop III stars with masses below 140 M⊙, and a standard IMF slope of −1.3 does increase the global metallicity of UFDs, although these are insufficient to resolve the tension with observations. The PISNe with progenitor masses above 140 M⊙ do allow the metal content of UFDs to further increase. However, as PISNe are very rare and sometimes absent in the faintest UFDs, they have a limited impact on the global faint end of the metallicity-luminosity relation. Despite a limited number of spectroscopically confirmed members in UFDs, which make the stellar metallicity distribution of some UFDs uncertain, our analysis reveals that this is essentially the metal-rich tail that is missing in the models. The remaining challenges are thus both observational and numerical: (i) to extend high-resolution spectroscopy data samples and confirm the mean metallicity of the faintest UFDs; and (ii) to explain the presence of chemically enriched stars in galaxies with very short star formation histories.

We analyse FIR dust continuum measurements for 14 galaxies (redshift z approximate to 7) in the ALMA Reionization Era Bright Emission Line Survey (REBELS) Large Program to derive their physical properties. Our model uses three input data, i.e. (a) the UV spectral slope, beta, (b) the observed UV continuum flux at 1500 angstrom, F-1500, (c) the observed continuum flux at approximate to 158 mu m, F-158, and considers Milky Way (MW) and SMC extinction curves, along with different dust geometries. We find that REBELS galaxies have 28-90.5 per cent of their star formation obscured; the total (UV+IR) star formation rates are in the range 31.5 < SFR/(M-circle dot yr(-1)) < 129.5. The sample-averaged dust mass and temperature are (1.3 +/- 1.1) x 10(7) M-circle dot and 52 +/- 11 K, respectively. However, in some galaxies dust is particularly abundant (REBELS-14, M-d' approximate to 3.4 x 10(7) M-circle dot), or hot (REBELS-18, T-d' approximate to 67 K). The dust distribution is compact ( 1 M-circle dot, which is likely inconsistent with pure SN production, and might require dust growth via accretion of heavy elements from the interstellar medium. With the SFR predicted by the model and a MW extinction curve, REBELS galaxies detected in [C II] nicely follow the local L-CII-SFR relation, and are approximately located on the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation. The sample-averaged gas depletion time is 0.11 y(p)(-2) Gyr, where y(p) is the ratio of the gas-to-stellar distribution radius. For some systems, a solution simultaneously matching the observed (beta, F-1500, F-158) values cannot be found. This occurs when the index I-m = (F-158/F-1500)/(beta - beta(int)), where beta(int) is the intrinsic UV slope, exceeds I-m* approximate to 1120 for an MW curve. For these objects, we argue that the FIR and UV emitting regions are not co-spatial, questioning the use of the IRX-beta relation.

The relative distribution of molecular gas and star formation in galaxies gives insight into the physical processes and timescales of the cycle between gas and stars. In this work, we track the relative spatial configuration of CO and H$\alpha$ emission at high resolution in each of our galaxy targets, and use these measurements to quantify the distributions of regions in different evolutionary stages of star formation: from molecular gas without star formation traced by H$\alpha$ to star-forming gas, and to HII regions. The large sample, drawn from the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS ALMA and narrowband H$\alpha$ (PHANGS-ALMA and PHANGS-H$\alpha$) surveys, spans a wide range of stellar mass and morphological types, allowing us to investigate the dependencies of the gas-star formation cycle on global galaxy properties. At a resolution of 150 pc, the incidence of regions in different stages shows a dependence on stellar mass and Hubble type of galaxies over the radial range probed. Massive and/or earlier-type galaxies exhibit a significant reservoir of molecular gas without star formation traced by H$\alpha$, while lower-mass galaxies harbor substantial HII regions that may have dispersed their birth clouds or formed from low-mass, more isolated clouds. Galactic structures add a further layer of complexity to relative distribution of CO and H$\alpha$ emission. Trends between galaxy properties and distributions of gas traced by CO and H$\alpha$ are visible only when the observed spatial scale is $\ll$ 500 pc, reflecting the critical resolution requirement to distinguish stages of star formation process., Comment: 60 pages, 22 figures, 9 tables, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

In Galaxy And Mass Assembly Data Release 4 (GAMA DR4), we make available our full spectroscopic redshift sample. This includes 248682 galaxy spectra, and, in combination with earlier surveys, results in 330542 redshifts across five sky regions covering ~250deg^2. The redshift density, is the highest available over such a sustained area, has exceptionally high completeness (95 per cent to r_KIDS=19.65mag), and is well suited for the study of galaxy mergers, galaxy groups, and the low redshift (z, Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. GAMA Data Release 4 is available at: http://www.gama-survey.org/dr4/

We present DARKFLUX, a software tool designed to analyze indirect-detection signatures for next-generation models of dark matter (DM) with multiple annihilation channels. Version 1.0 of this tool accepts user-generated models with 2 -> 2 tree-level dark matter annihilation to pairs of Standard Model (SM) particles and analyzes DM annihilation to gamma rays. The tool consists of three modules, which can be run in a loop in order to scan over DM mass if desired, (I) The annihilation fraction module calls an internal installation of MADDM, a dark matter phenomenology plugin for the Monte Carlo event generator MADGRAPH5_AMC@NLO, to compute the thermally averaged cross section (i) for each annihilation channel chi chi((chi) over bar, chi(dagger)) -> i is an element of {SM, SM}. The module then computes the fractional annihilation rate (annihilation fraction) into each channel., (II) The flux module combines the flux spectrum from each annihilation channel, weighted by the appropriate annihilation fractions, to compute the total flux at Earth due to DM annihilation. In DARKFLUX v1.0, this module specifically computes the gamma-ray flux for each channel using the publicly available PPPC4DMID tables., (III) The analysis module compares the total flux to observational data and computes the upper limit at 95% confidence level (CL) on the total thermally averaged DM annihilation cross section. In DARKFLUX v1.0, this module compares the total gamma-ray flux to a joint-likelihood analysis of fifteen dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) analyzed by the Fermi-LAT collaboration., DARKFLUX v1.0 automatically provides data tables and can plot the output of these three modules. In this manual, we briefly motivate this indirect-detection computer tool and review the essential DM physics. We then describe the several modules of DARKFLUX in greater detail. Finally, we show how to install and run DARKFLUX and provide two worked examples demonstrating its capabilities. DARKFLUX is available on GitHub at https://github.com/carpenterphysics/DarkFlux. (C) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

There is now ample evidence that dust is already present in abundance at high z. However, given the faintness of distant galaxies in the optical and the NIR, datasets are still limited and how the dust affects the emerging radiation of galaxies at very high redshift is not yet fully understood. Using the ALPINE survey, our objective is to quantify the dust attenuation properties in galaxies at z=4.4-5.5, and in particular the shape of their attenuation curve. Using the CIGALE code, we model the stellar populations and their interaction with the dust in order to measure some of the physical properties of a subsample of 23 main-sequence ALPINE galaxies. We find that the attenuation curves span a broad range of properties, from curves that are much steeper than the SMC extinction curve, to shallower than the starburst attenuation curve. The shape of the attenuation curves strongly depends on the V-band attenuation. Galaxies with the lowest attenuation also present the steepest curves. The steepness of such curves is probably the consequence of the combination of the intrinsic physical properties of the dust, the relative distribution of stars and dust in the interstellar medium, and the differential reddening. The broad range of attenuation curves found at z~5 shows that no single attenuation curve is appropriate for main sequence galaxies and that assuming a fixed curve can lead to large errors, for instance in the interpretation and use of the IRX-beta diagram, if SED modeling is not feasible. Great caution should be exercised when correcting high redshift galaxies for the presence of dust using the UV slope beta as it can affect the estimation of both SFR and stellar mass even at low V-band attenuation due to the steepness of the attenuation curve. However, when SED modeling can be used, the impact of the choice of the attenuation curve on the SFR and the stellar mass is limited., Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A

We analyse FIR dust continuum measurements for 14 galaxies ($z\approx 7$) in the ALMA REBELS LP to derive their physical properties. Our model uses three input data: (a) the UV spectral slope, $\beta$, (b) the observed UV continuum flux at $1500$A, $F_{\rm UV}$, (c) the observed continuum flux at $\approx 158\mu$m, $F_{158}$, and considers Milky Way (MW) and SMC extinction curves, along with different dust geometries. We find that REBELS galaxies have (28-90.5)% of their star formation obscured; the total (UV+IR) star formation rates are in the range $31.5 < {\rm SFR}/ (M_\odot {\rm yr}^{-1}) < 129.5$. The sample-averaged dust mass and temperature are $(1.3\pm 1.1)\times 10^7 M_\odot$ and $52 \pm 11$ K, respectively. In some galaxies dust is abundant (REBELS-14, $M'_d \approx 3.4 \times 10^7 M_\odot$), or hot (REBELS-18, $T'_d \approx 67$ K). The dust distribution is compact ($ 1 M_\odot$. With the SFR predicted by the model and a MW extinction curve, REBELS galaxies detected in [CII] nicely follow the local $L_{\rm CII}-$SFR relation, and are approximately located on the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation. The sample-averaged gas depletion time is of $0.11\, y_P^{-2}$ Gyr, where $y_P$ is the ratio of the gas-to-stellar distribution radius. For some systems a solution simultaneously matching the observed ($\beta, F_{\rm UV}, F_{158}$) values cannot be found. This occurs when the index $I_m = (F_{158}/F_{\rm UV})/(\beta-\beta_{\rm int})$, where $\beta_{\rm int}$ is the intrinsic UV slope, exceeds $I_m^*\approx 1120$ for a MW curve. For these objects we argue that the FIR and UV emitting regions are not co-spatial, questioning the use of the IRX-$\beta$ relation., Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, accepted by MNRAS. Comments welcome

The Cepheid period-luminosity (PL) relation (or Leavitt law) has served as the first rung of the most widely used extragalactic distance ladder and is central to the determination of the local value of the Hubble constant ($H_0$). We investigate the influence of metallicity on Cepheid brightness, a term that significantly improves the overall fit of the distance ladder, to better define its wavelength dependence. To this aim, we compare the PL relations obtained for three Cepheid samples having distinct chemical composition (in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds) and focusing on the use of improved and recent data while covering a metallicity range of about 1 dex. We estimate the metallicity effect (hereafter $\gamma$) in 15 filters from mid-IR to optical wavelengths, including five Wesenheit indices, and we derive a significant metallicity term in all filters, in agreement with recent empirical studies and models, in the sense of metal-rich Cepheids being brighter than metal-poor ones. We describe the contribution of various systematic effects in the determination of the $\gamma$ term. We find no evidence of $\gamma$ changing over the wavelength range $0.5-4.5 \, \rm \mu m$, indicating that the main influence of metallicity on Cepheids is in their luminosity rather than color. Finally, we identify factors that sharpen the empirical constraints on the metallicity term over past studies, including corrections for the depth of the Magellanic Clouds, better-calibrated Cepheid photometry, improved Milky Way extinction estimates, and revised and expanded metallicity measurements in the LMC., Comment: Accepted to ApJ

We have conducted a search for open clusters in the vicinity of classical Galactic Cepheids based on high-quality astrometry from the third data release (DR3) of the ESA mission Gaia to improve the calibration of the Leavitt law (LL). Our approach requires no prior knowledge of existing clusters, allowing us to both detect new host clusters and cross-check previously reported associations. Our Gold sample consists of 34 Cepheids residing in 28 open clusters, including 27 fundamental mode and 7 overtone Cepheids. Three new bona fide cluster Cepheids are reported (V0378 Cen, ST Tau, and GH Lup) and the host cluster identifications for three others (VW Cru, IQ Nor, and SX Vel) are corrected. The fraction of Cepheids occurring in open clusters within 2 kpc of the Sun is $f_{CC,2kpc} = 0.088^{+0.029}_{-0.019}$. By combining cluster and field Cepheids, we calibrate the LL for several individual photometric passbands, together with reddening-free Wesenheit magnitudes based on Gaia and HST photometry, while solving for the residual offset applicable to Cepheid parallaxes, $\Delta \varpi_{\mathrm{Cep}}$. The most direct comparison of our results with the SH0ES distance ladder yields excellent ($0.3\sigma$) agreement for both the absolute magnitude of a 10d solar metallicity Cepheid in the near-IR HST Wesenheit magnitudes, $M_{H,1}^W=-5.914\pm 0.017$ mag, and the residual parallax offset, $\Delta \varpi_{\mathrm{Cep}}=-13 \pm 5\,\mu$as. Using the larger sample of 26 Gold cluster Cepheids and $225$ MW Cepheids with recent Gaia DR3 astrometry and photometry, we determine at solar metallicity $M_{G,1}^W = -6.004 \pm 0.019$\,mag and $\Delta \varpi_{\mathrm{Cep}}=-19 \pm 3\,\mu$as. These results mark the currently most accurate absolute calibrations of the Cepheid luminosity scale based purely on observations of MW Cepheids., Comment: 24 pages, Version accepted in A&A

Context. The [Mg/Fe] abundance ratios are a fundamental fossil signature to trace the chemical evolution of the disc. Despite of the huge observational and theoretical effort, discrepancies between models and data are still present and several explanations have been put forward to explain the [$\alpha$/Fe] bimodality. Aims. In this work, we take advantage of a new AMBRE:HARPS dataset, which provides new and more precise [Mg/Fe] estimations, as well as reliable stellar ages for a subsample of stars, to study the evolution of the solar neighbourhood. Methods. The above data are compared with detailed chemical evolution models for the Milky Way, exploring the most used prescriptions for stellar yields and different formation scenarios for the Galactic disc, i.e. the delayed two-infall and the parallel model, also including prescriptions for stellar radial migration. Results. We see that most of the stellar yields struggle to reproduce the observed trend of the data and that semi-empirical yields are still the best to describe the [Mg/Fe] evolution in the thick and thin discs. In particular, most of the yields still predict a steeper decrease of the [Mg/Fe] ratio at high metallicity than what is shown by the data. The bulk of the data are well reproduced by the parallel and two-infall scenarios, but both scenarios have problems in explaining the most metal-rich and metal-poor tails of the low-$\alpha$ data. These tails can be explained in light of radial migration from inner and outer disc regions, respectively. Conclusions. Despite of the evidence of stellar migration, it is difficult to estimate the actual contribution of stars from other parts of the disc to the solar vicinity. However, the comparison between data and models suggests that peculiar histories of star formation, such as that of the two-infall model, are still needed to reproduce the observed distribution of stars., Comment: 16 pages, 16 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics (A&A)

We report the identification of a set of old super metal-rich dwarf stars with orbits of low eccentricity that reach a maximum height from the Galactic plane between ~0.5-1.5 kpc. We discuss their properties to understand their origins. We use data from the internal data release 6 of the Gaia-ESO Survey. We selected stars observed at high resolution with abundances of 21 species of 18 individual elements. We apply hierarchical clustering to group the stars with similar chemical abundances within the complete chemical abundance space. According to their chemical properties, this set of super metal-rich stars can be arranged into five subgroups. Four seem to follow a chemical enrichment flow, where nearly all abundances increase in lockstep with Fe. The fifth subgroup shows different chemical characteristics. All subgroups have the following features: median ages of the order of 7-9 Gyr, Solar or sub-Solar [Mg/Fe] ratios, maximum height between 0.5-1.5 kpc, low eccentricities, and a detachment from the expected metallicity gradient with guiding radius. The high metallicity of our stars is incompatible with a formation in the Solar neighbourhood. Their dynamic properties agree with theoretical expectations that these stars travelled from the inner Galaxy due to blurring and, most importantly, to churning. We suggest that most of this population's stars originated in the Milky Way's inner regions (inner disc and/or the bulge) and later migrated to the Solar neighbourhood. The region from where the stars originated had a complex chemical enrichment history, with contributions from supernovae types Ia and II and possibly asymptotic giant branch stars., Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A. Version after language proofs. The catalogue remains to be released. Abridged abstract to fit arxiv's requirements

Attenuation by dust severely impacts our ability to obtain unbiased observations of galaxies, especially as the amount and wavelength dependence of the attenuation varies with the stellar mass M-*, inclination i, and other galaxy properties. In this study, we used the attenuation - inclination models in ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared bands designed by Tuffs and collaborators to investigate the average global dust properties in galaxies as a function of M-*, the stellar mass surface density mu(*), the star-formation rate SFR, the specific star-formation rate sSFR, the star-formation main-sequence offset dMS, and the star-formation rate surface density Sigma(SFR) at redshifts z similar to 0 and z similar to 0.7. We used star-forming galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (similar to 20 000) and Galaxy And Mass Assembly (similar to 2000) to form our low-z sample at 0.04 < z < 0.1 and star-forming galaxies from Cosmological Evolution Survey (similar to 2000) for the sample at 0.6 < z < 0.8. We found that galaxies at z similar to 0.7 have a higher optical depth tau(f)(B) and clumpiness F than galaxies at z similar to 0. The increase in F hints that the stars of z similar to 0.7 galaxies are less likely to escape their birth cloud, which might indicate that the birth clouds are larger. We also found that tau(f)(B) increases with M-* and mu(*), independent of the sample and therefore redshift. We found no clear trends in tau(f)(B) or F with the SFR, which could imply that the dust mass distribution is independent of the SFR. In turn, this would imply that the balance of dust formation and destruction is independent of the SFR. Based on an analysis of the inclination dependence of the Balmer decrement, we found that reproducing the Balmer line emission requires not only a completely optically thick dust component associated with star-forming regions, as in the standard model, but an extra component of an optically thin dust within the birth clouds. This new component implies the existence of dust inside H II regions that attenuates the Balmer emission before it escapes through gaps in the birth cloud and we found it is more important in high-mass galaxies. These results will inform our understanding of dust formation and dust geometry in star-forming galaxies across redshift., Australian Research Council FT140101202 639.042.611, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Scientific Exchanges visitor fellowship IZSEZO_202357, Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), European Commission

Full list of authors: Randich, S.; Gilmore, G.; Magrini, L.; Sacco, G. G.; Jackson, R. J.; Jeffries, R. D.; Worley, C. C.; Hourihane, A.; Gonneau, A.; Vazquez, C. Viscasillas; Franciosini, E.; Lewis, J. R.; Alfaro, E. J.; Allende Prieto, C.; Bensby, T.; Blomme, R.; Bragaglia, A.; Flaccomio, E.; Francois, P.; Irwin, M. J.; Koposov, S. E.; Korn, A. J.; Lanzafame, A. C.; Pancino, E.; Recio-Blanco, A.; Smiljanic, R.; Van Eck, S.; Zwitter, T.; Asplund, M.; Bonifacio, P.; Feltzing, S.; Binney, J.; Drew, J.; Ferguson, A. M. N.; Micela, G.; Negueruela, I; Prusti, T.; Rix, H-W; Vallenari, A.; Bayo, A.; Bergemann, M.; Biazzo, K.; Carraro, G.; Casey, A. R.; Damiani, F.; Frasca, A.; Heiter, U.; Hill, V; Jofre, P.; de Laverny, P.; Lind, K.; Marconi, G.; Martayan, C.; Masseron, T.; Monaco, L.; Morbidelli, L.; Prisinzano, L.; Sbordone, L.; Sousa, S. G.; Zaggia, S.; Adibekyan, V; Bonito, R.; Caffau, E.; Daflon, S.; Feuillet, D. K.; Gebran, M.; Gonzalez Hernandez, J., I; Guiglion, G.; Herrero, A.; Lobel, A.; Maiz Apellaniz, J.; Montes, D.; Morel, T.; Soubiran, C.; Spina, L.; Tabernero, H. M.; Traven, G.; Valentini, M.; Van der Swaelmen, M.; Villanova, S.; Wright, N. J.; Abbas, U.; Borsen-Koch, V. Aguirre; Alves, J.; Balaguer-Nunez, L.; Barklem, P. S.; Barrado, D.; Berlanas, S. R.; Binks, A. S.; Bressan, A.; Capuzzo-Dolcetta, R.; Casagrande, L.; Casamiquela, L.; Collins, R. S.; D'Orazi, V; Dantas, M. L. L.; Debattista, V. P.; Delgado-Mena, E.; Di Marcantonio, P.; Drazdauskas, A.; Evans, N. W.; Famaey, B.; Franchini, M.; Fremat, Y.; Friel, E. D.; Fu, X.; Geisler, D.; Gerhard, O.; Solares, E. A. Gonzalez; Grebel, E. K.; Gutierrez Albarran, M. L.; Hatzidimitriou, D.; Held, E., V; Jimenez-Esteban, F.; Jonsson, H.; Jordi, C.; Khachaturyants, T.; Kordopatis, G.; Kos, J.; Lagarde, N.; Mahy, L.; Mapelli, M.; Marfil, E.; Martell, S. L.; Messina, S.; Miglio, A.; Minchev, I; Moitinho, A.; Montalban, J.; Monteiro, M. J. P. F. G.; Morossi, C.; Mowlavi, N.; Mucciarelli, A.; Murphy, D. N. A.; Nardetto, N.; Ortolani, S.; Paletou, F.; Palous, J.; Paunzen, E.; Pickering, J. C.; Quirrenbach, A.; Fiorentin, P. Re; Read, J., I; Romano, D.; Ryde, N.; Sanna, N.; Santos, W.; Seabroke, G. M.; Spagna, A.; Steinmetz, M.; Stonkute, E.; Sutorius, E.; Thevenin, F.; Tosi, M.; Tsantaki, M.; Vink, J. S.; Wright, N.; Wyse, R. F. G.; Zoccali, M.; Zorec, J.; Zucker, D. B.; Walton, N. A., Context. In the last 15 years different ground-based spectroscopic surveys have been started (and completed) with the general aim of delivering stellar parameters and elemental abundances for large samples of Galactic stars, complementing Gaia astrometry. Among those surveys, the Gaia-ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey, the only one performed on a 8m class telescope, was designed to target 100 000 stars using FLAMES on the ESO VLT (both Giraffe and UVES spectrographs), covering all the Milky Way populations, with a special focus on open star clusters. Aims. This article provides an overview of the survey implementation (observations, data quality, analysis and its success, data products, and releases), of the open cluster survey, of the science results and potential, and of the survey legacy. A companion article reviews the overall survey motivation, strategy, Giraffe pipeline data reduction, organisation, and workflow. Methods. We made use of the information recorded and archived in the observing blocks; during the observing runs; in a number of relevant documents; in the spectra and master catalogue of spectra; in the parameters delivered by the analysis nodes and the working groups; in the final catalogue; and in the science papers. Based on these sources, we critically analyse and discuss the output and products of the Survey, including science highlights. We also determined the average metallicities of the open clusters observed as science targets and of a sample of clusters whose spectra were retrieved from the ESO archive. Results. The Gaia-ESO Survey has determined homogeneous good-quality radial velocities and stellar parameters for a large fraction of its more than 110 000 unique target stars. Elemental abundances were derived for up to 31 elements for targets observed with UVES. Lithium abundances are delivered for about 1/3 of the sample. The analysis and homogenisation strategies have proven to be successful; several science topics have been addressed by the Gaia-ESO consortium and the community, with many highlight results achieved. Conclusions. The final catalogue will be released through the ESO archive in the first half of 2022, including the complete set of advanced data products. In addition to these results, the Gaia-ESO Survey will leave a very important legacy, for several aspects and for many years to come. © ESO 2022., Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programmes ID 188.B-3002, 193-B-0936, and 197.B-1074. These data products have been processed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. Public access to the data products is via the ESO Archive, and the Gaia-ESO Survey Data Archive, prepared and hosted by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF PRIN and Ministero dell’ Universitá e della Ricerca (MUR) in the form of the grant “Premiale VLT 2012” and “Premiale Mitic”. This work was partly supported by the INAF grant for mainstream projects: “Enhancing the legacy of the Gaia-ESO Survey for open cluster science”. The project presented here benefited in development from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. R. Smiljanic acknowledges support from the National Science Centre, Poland (2014/15/B/ST9/03981). F.J.E. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish MINECO/FEDER through the grant AYA2017-84089 and MDM-2017-0737 at Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA), Unidad de Excelencia Mar a de Maeztu, and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement no. 824064 through the ESCAPE - The European Science Cluster of Astronomy & Particle Physics ESFRI Research Infrastructures project. T.B. was funded by the “The New Milky Way” project grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. S.R.B. acknowledges support by the Spanish Government under grants AYA2015-68012-C2-2-P and PGC2018-093741-B-C21/C22 (MICIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). W.J.S. acknowledges CAPES for a PhD studentship. J.M.A. acknowledges support from the Spanish Government Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaciόn through grants AYA2013-40611-P, AYA2016-75931-C2-2-P, and PGC2018-095049-B-C22. T.M. and others from STAR institute, Liege, Belgium are grateful to Belgian F.R.S.-FNRS for support, and are also indebted for an ESA/PRODEX Belspo contract related to the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium and for support through an ARC grant for Concerted Research Actions financed by the Federation Wallonie-Brussels. This research has been partially supported by the ASI-INAF contract 2014-049-R.O: “Realizzazione attività tecniche/scientifiche presso ASDC” (PI Angelo Antonelli). V.A.acknowledges the support from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through Investigador FCT contract nr. IF/00650/2015/CP1273/CT0001. AJK acknowledges support by the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA). AB acknowledges support by ANID, – Millennium Science Initiative Program – NCN19_171, and FONDECYT regular 1190748. E.M. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) through project MDM-2017-0737 Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu” – Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA). T.Z. acknowledges financial support of the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding no. P1-0188) and the European Space Agency (Prodex Experiment Arrangement No. C4000127986). P.J. acknowledges support FONDECYT Regular 1200703. The work of I.N. is partially supported by the Spanish Government Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovaciόn y Universidades under grant PGC2018-093741-B-C21 (MICIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). Funding for this work has been provided by the ARC Future Fellowship FT160100402. CAP acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Government through research grants MINECO AYA 2014-56359-P, MINECO AYA2017-86389-P, and MICINN PID2020-117493GB-I00. S.F. was supported by the grants 2011-5042 and 2016- 03412 from the Swedish Research Council and the project grant “The New Milky Way” from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. CASU is supported through STFC grants: ST/H004157/1, ST/J00541X/1, ST/M007626/1, ST/N005805/1, ST/T003081/1. Work reported here benefited from support through the GREAT-ITN FP7 project Grant agreement ID: 264895. DKF acknowledges funds from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in the framework of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award endowed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the grant 2016-03412 from the Swedish Research Council. A.H. acknowledges support from the Spanish Government Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaciόn and ERD Funds through grants PGC-2018-091 3741-B-C22 and CEX2019-000920-S. X.F. acknowledge the support of China Postdoctoral Science Foundation 2020M670023. M.L.L. Dantas acknowledges the Polish NCN grant number 2019/34/E/ST9/00133. Part of this work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Project-ID 138713538 – SFB 881 (“The Milky Way System”, subproject A09). M.Z. acknowledge support from the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) grants: FONDECYT Regular 1191505, Millennium Institute of Astrophysics ICN12-009, BASAL Center for Astrophysics and Associated Technologies AFB-170002. R.B. acknowledges support from the project PRIN-INAF 2019 “Spectroscopically Tracing the Disk Dispersal Evolution”. HMT acknowledges financial support from the Agencia Estatal de Investigaciόn of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovaciόn y Universidades through projects PID2019-109522GB-C51,54/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and the Centre of Excellence “María de Maeztu” award to Centro de Astrobiología (MDM-2017-0737). JIGH acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) project AYA2017-86389-P, and also from the Spanish MICINN under 2013 Ramøn y Cajal program RYC-2013-14875. V.P.D. is supported by STFC Consolidated grant ST/R000786/1. N.L. acknowledges financial support from “Programme National de Physique Stellaire” (PNPS) and the “Programme National Cosmology et Galaxies (PNCG)” of CNRS/INSU, France. A.R.C. is supported in part by the Australian Research Council through a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE190100656). Parts of this research were supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. PSB is Supported by the Swedish Research Council through individual project grants with contract Nos. 2016-03765 and 2020-03404. A.M. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 772293 - project ASTEROCHRONOMETRY). J.P. was supported by the project RVO: 67985815. E.D.M. acknowledges the support from FCT through the research grants UIDB/04434/2020 & UIDP/04434/2020 and through Investigator FCT contract IF/00849/2015/CP1273/CT0003. This work was (partially) supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and University (MICIU/FEDER, UE) through grant RTI2018-095076-B-C21, and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences University of Barcelona (ICCUB, Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu”) through grant CEX2019-000918-M. S.L.M. acknowledges the support of the UNSW Scientia Fellowship program and the Australian Research Council through Discovery Project grant DP180101791. G.T. acknowledges financial support of the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding no. P1-0188) and the European Space Agency (Prodex Experiment Arrangement No. C4000127986). S.G.S. acknowledges the support from FCT through Investigador FCT contract no. CEECIND/00826/2018 and POPH/FSE (EC). H.G.L. acknowledges financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) - Project-ID 138713538 – SFB 881 (“The Milky Way System”, subproject A04). This work was (partially) supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and University (MICIU/FEDER, UE) through grant RTI2018-095076-B-C21, and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences University of Barcelona (ICCUB, Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu”) through grant CEX2019-000918-M. T.K. is supported by STFC Consolidated grant ST/R000786/1. M.V. acknowledges the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, project number: 428473034). T.M. is supported by a grant from the Fondation ULB. We acknowledge financial support from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovaciόn y Universidades, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, from project AYA2016-79425-C3-1-P and PID2019-109522GB-C5[4]/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. U.H. acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA/Rymdstyrelsen). D.G. gratefully acknowledges support from the Chilean Centro de Excelencia en Astrofίsica y Tecnologías Afines (CATA) BASAL grant AFB-170002. D.G. also acknowledges financial support from the Direcciόn de Investigaciόn y Desarrollo de la Universidad de La Serena through the Programa de Incentivo a la Investigaciόn de Académicos (PIA-DIDULS). A. Lobel acknowledges support in part by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office under contract no. BR/143/A2/BRASS. We acknowledge financial support from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovaciόn y Universidades, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, from project AYA2016-79425-C3-1-P and PID2019-109522GB-C5[4]/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. AM acknowledges the support from the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through the Portuguese Strategic Programme UID/FIS/00099/2019 for CENTRA. T.M. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) through the Spanish State Research Agency, under the Severo Ochoa Program 2020-2023 (CEX2019-000920-S). E.J.A. acknowledges funding from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award to the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709).

One of the major goals for astronomy in the next decades is the remote search for biosignatures (i.e.\ the spectroscopic evidence of biological activity) in exoplanets. Here, we adopt a Bayesian statistical framework to discuss the implications of such future searches, both in the case when life is detected, and when no definite evidence is found. We show that even a single detection of biosignatures in the vicinity of our stellar system, in a survey of similar size to what will be obtainable in the next two decades, would affect significantly our prior belief on the frequency of life in the universe, even starting from a neutral or pessimistic stance. In particular, after such discovery, an initially agnostic observer would be led to conclude that there are more than $10^5$ inhabited planets in the galaxy with a probability exceeding $95$\%. However, this conclusion would be somewhat weakened by the viability of transfer of biological material over interstellar distances, as in panspermia scenarios. Conversely, the lack of significant evidence of biosignatures would have little effect, leaving the assessment of the abundance of life in the galaxy still largely undetermined., Comment: Published on PNAS

We introduce the Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopy Survey (${S}^5$), an on-going program to map the kinematics and chemistry of stellar streams in the Southern Hemisphere. The initial focus of ${S}^5$ has been spectroscopic observations of recently identified streams within the footprint of the Dark Energy Survey (DES), with the eventual goal of surveying streams across the entire southern sky. Stellar streams are composed of material that has been tidally striped from dwarf galaxies and globular clusters and hence are excellent dynamical probes of the gravitational potential of the Milky Way, as well as providing a detailed snapshot of its accretion history. Observing with the 3.9-m Anglo-Australian Telescope's 2-degree-Field fibre positioner and AAOmega spectrograph, and combining the precise photometry of DES DR1 with the superb proper motions from $Gaia$ DR2, allows us to conduct an efficient spectroscopic survey to map these stellar streams. So far ${S}^5$ has mapped 9 DES streams and 3 streams outside of DES; the former are the first spectroscopic observations of these recently discovered streams. In addition to the stream survey, we use spare fibres to undertake a Milky Way halo survey and a low-redshift galaxy survey. This paper presents an overview of the ${S}^5$ program, describing the scientific motivation for the survey, target selection, observation strategy, data reduction and survey validation. Finally, we describe early science results on stellar streams and Milky Way halo stars drawn from the survey. Updates on ${S}^5$, including future public data release, can be found at \url{http://s5collab.github.io}., Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures (1 in appendix), 3 tables (1 in appendix). Published on MNRAS. See also paper from Shipp et al. 2019, which measures the proper motion of the DES streams

The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is a dual-hemisphere, near-infrared (NIR), spectroscopic survey with the goal of producing a chemodynamical mapping of the Milky Way. The targeting for APOGEE-2 is complex and has evolved with time. In this paper, we present the updates and additions to the initial targeting strategy for APOGEE-2N presented in Zasowski et al. (2017). These modifications come in two implementation modes: (i) “Ancillary Science Programs” competitively awarded to Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV PIs through proposal calls in 2015 and 2017 for the pursuit of new scientific avenues outside the main survey, and (ii) an effective 1.5 yr expansion of the survey, known as the Bright Time Extension (BTX), made possible through accrued efficiency gains over the first years of the APOGEE-2N project. For the 23 distinct ancillary programs, we provide descriptions of the scientific aims, target selection, and how to identify these targets within the APOGEE-2 sample. The BTX permitted changes to the main survey strategy, the inclusion of new programs in response to scientific discoveries or to exploit major new data sets not available at the outset of the survey design, and expansions of existing programs to enhance their scientific success and reach. After describing the motivations, implementation, and assessment of these programs, we also leave a summary of lessons learned from nearly a decade of APOGEE-1 and APOGEE-2 survey operations. A companion paper, F. Santana et al. (submitted; AAS29036), provides a complementary presentation of targeting modifications relevant to APOGEE-2 operations in the Southern Hemisphere.

Possible dark matter candidates in particle physics span a mass range extending over fifty orders of magnitude. In this review, we consider the range of masses from a few keV to a few hundred TeV, which is relevant for cold particle dark matter. We will consider models where dark matter arises as weakly coupled elementary fields and models where dark matter is a composite state bound by a new strong interaction. Different production mechanisms for dark matter in these models will be described. The landscape of direct and indirect searches for dark matter and some of the resulting constraints on models will be briefly discussed.

We combine JWST observations with ALMA CO and VLT-MUSE H$\alpha$ data to examine off-spiral arm star formation in the face-on, grand-design spiral galaxy NGC 628. We focus on the northern spiral arm, around a galactocentric radius of 3-4 kpc, and study two spurs. These form an interesting contrast, as one is CO-rich and one CO-poor, and they have a maximum azimuthal offset in MIRI 21$\mu$m and MUSE H$\alpha$ of around 40$^\circ$ (CO-rich) and 55$^\circ$ (CO-poor) from the spiral arm. The star formation rate is higher in the regions of the spurs near to spiral arms, but the star formation efficiency appears relatively constant. Given the spiral pattern speed and rotation curve of this galaxy and assuming material exiting the arms undergoes purely circular motion, these offsets would be reached in 100-150 Myr, significantly longer than the 21$\mu$m and H$\alpha$ star formation timescales (both, Comment: 11 pages, 5 Figures, accepted as part of a PHANGS-JWST Focus Issue to appear in ApJ. Updated to include missing author and published paper references

We propose a space-based interferometer surveying the gravitational wave (GW) sky in the milli-Hz to $\mu$-Hz frequency range. By the 2040s', the $\mu$-Hz frequency band, bracketed in between the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) and pulsar timing arrays, will constitute the largest gap in the coverage of the astrophysically relevant GW spectrum. Yet many outstanding questions related to astrophysics and cosmology are best answered by GW observations in this band. We show that a $\mu$-Hz GW detector will be a truly overarching observatory for the scientific community at large, greatly extending the potential of LISA. Conceived to detect massive black hole binaries from their early inspiral with high signal-to-noise ratio, and low-frequency stellar binaries in the Galaxy, this instrument will be a cornerstone for multimessenger astronomy from the solar neighbourhood to the high-redshift Universe., Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures; White Paper submitted to ESA's Voyage 2050 call for papers on behalf of the LISA Consortium 2050 Task Force

Globular clusters are considered to be likely breeding grounds for compact binary mergers. In this paper, we demonstrate how the gravitational-wave signals produced by compact object mergers can act as tracers of globular cluster formation and evolution. Globular cluster formation is a long-standing mystery in astrophysics, with multiple competing theories describing when and how globular clusters formed. The limited sensitivity of electromagnetic telescopes inhibits our ability to directly observe globular cluster formation. However, with future audio-band detectors sensitive out to redshifts of z ≈ 50 for GW150914-like signals, gravitational-wave astronomy will enable us to probe the Universe when the first globular clusters formed. We simulate a population of binary black hole mergers from theoretically motivated globular cluster formation models, and construct redshift measurements consistent with the predicted accuracy of third-generation detectors. We show that we can locate the peak time of a cluster formation epoch during reionization to within 0.05 Gyr after 1 yr of observations. The peak of a formation epoch that coincides with the Universal star formation rate can be measured to within 0.4–10.5 Gyr after 1 yr of observations, depending on the relative weighting of the model components.

We have applied our method to weigh the Galactic disk using phase-space spirals to the proper motion sample of Gaia's early third release (EDR3). For stars in distant regions of the Galactic disk, the latitudinal proper motion has a close projection with vertical velocity, such that the phase-space spiral in the plane of vertical position and vertical velocity can be observed without requiring that all stars have available radial velocity information. We divided the Galactic plane into 360 separate data samples, each corresponding to an area cell in the Galactic plane in the distance range of 1.4-3.4 kpc, with an approximate cell length of 200-400 pc. Roughly half of our data samples were disqualified altogether due to severe selection e ffects, especially in the direction of the Galactic centre. In the remainder, we were able to infer the vertical gravitational potential by fitting an analytic model of the phase-space spiral to the data. This work is the first of its kind, in the sense that we are weighing distant regions of the Galactic disk with a high spatial resolution, without relying on the strong assumptions of axisymmetry. Post-inference, we fitted a thin disk scale length of 2.2 +/- 0.1 kpc, although this value is sensitive to the considered spatial region. We see surface density variations as a function of azimuth of the order of 10-20%, which is roughly the size of our estimated sum of potential systematic biases. With this work, we have demonstrated that our method can be used to weigh distant regions of the Galactic disk despite strong selection e ffects. We expect to reach even greater distances and improve our accuracy with future Gaia data releases and further improvements to our method.

(abridged) Star formation in the outer Galaxy, i.e., outside of the Solar circle, has been lightly studied in part due to low CO brightness of molecular clouds linked with the negative metallicity gradient. Recent infrared surveys provide an overview of dust emission in large sections of the Galaxy, but suffer from cloud confusion and poor spatial resolution at far-infrared wavelengths. We aim to develop a methodology to identify and classify young stellar objects (YSOs) in star-forming regions in the outer Galaxy, and use it to solve a long-standing confusion with the distance and evolutionary status of IRAS 22147+5948. We use Support Vector Machine learning algorithm to complement standard color-color and color-magnitude diagrams in search for YSOs in the IRAS 22147 region using publicly available data from the `Spitzer Mapping of the Outer Galaxy' survey. The agglomerative hierarchical clustering algorithm is used to identify clusters, along with the Robitaille et al. (2017) code to calculate physical properties of individual YSOs. We identify 13 Class I and 13 Class II YSO candidates using the color-color diagrams, and additional 2 and 21 sources, respectively, using the machine learning techniques. Spectral energy distributions of 23 sources are modelled with a star and a passive disk, corresponding to Class II objects. Models of 3 sources include envelopes typical for Class I objects. The objects are grouped in 2 clusters located at the distance of ~2.2 kpc, and 5 clusters at ~5.6 kpc. The spatial extent of CO, radio continuum, and dust emission confirms the origin of YSOs in two distinct star-forming regions along a similar line-of-sight. The outer Galaxy might serve as a unique laboratory of star formation across environments on condition that complementary methods and ancillary data are used to properly account for cloud confusion and distance uncertainties., 29 pages, 17 figures, 9 tables

In this fourth article on weighing the Galactic disk using the shape of the phase-space spiral, we have tested our method on a billion particle three-dimensional N-body simulation, comprised of a Milky Way like host galaxy and a merging dwarf satellite. The main purpose of this work was to test the validity of our model’s fundamental assumptions that the spiral inhabits a locally static and vertically separable gravitational potential. These assumptions might be compromised in the complex kinematic system of a disturbed three-dimensional disk galaxy; in fact, the statistical uncertainty and any potential biases related to these assumptions are expected to be amplified for this simulation, which differs from the Milky Way in that it is more strongly perturbed and has a phase-space spiral that inhabits higher vertical energies. We constructed 44 separate data samples from different spatial locations in the simulated host galaxy. Our method produced accurate results for the vertical gravitational potential of these 44 data samples, with an unbiased distribution of errors with a standard deviation of 7%. We also tested our method under severe and unknown spatially dependent selection effects, also with robust results; this sets it apart from traditional dynamical mass measurements that are based on the assumption of a steady state and which are highly sensitive to unknown or poorly modelled incompleteness. Hence, we will be able to make localised mass measurements of distant regions in the Milky Way disk, which would otherwise be compromised by complex and poorly understood selection effects., AW acknowledges support from the Carlsberg Foundation via a Semper Ardens grant (CF15-0384). JH is supported by a Flatiron Research Fellowship at the Flatiron institute, which is supported by the Simons Foundation. CL acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 852839). GM acknowledges funding from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR project ANR-18-CE31-0006 and ANR-19-CE31-0017) and from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 834148). This work made use of an HPC facility funded by a grant from VILLUM FONDEN (projectnumber 16599). This research utilised the following open-source Python packages: MATPLOTLIB (Hunter 2007), NUMPY (Harris et al. 2020), SCIPY (Virtanen et al. 2020), PANDAS (McKinney et al. 2010), TENSORFLOW (Abadi et al. 2015).

Globular clusters are some of the oldest bound stellar structures observed in the Universe. They are ubiquitous in large galaxies and are believed to trace intense star formation events and the hierarchical build-up of structure. Observations of globular clusters in the Milky Way, and a wide variety of other galaxies, have found evidence for a `metallicity floor', whereby no globular clusters are found with chemical (`metal') abundances below approximately 0.3 to 0.4 per cent of that of the Sun. The existence of this metallicity floor may reflect a minimum mass and a maximum redshift for surviving globular clusters to form, both critical components for understanding the build-up of mass in the universe. Here we report measurements from the Southern Stellar Streams Spectroscopic Survey of the spatially thin, dynamically cold Phoenix stellar stream in the halo of the Milky Way. The properties of the Phoenix stream are consistent with it being the tidally disrupted remains of a globular cluster. However, its metal abundance ([Fe/H] = -2.7) is substantially below that of the empirical metallicity floor. The Phoenix stream thus represents the debris of the most metal-poor globular cluster discovered so far, and its progenitor is distinct from the present-day globular cluster population in the local Universe. Its existence implies that globular clusters below the metallicity floor have probably existed, but were destroyed during Galactic evolution., Comment: Authors' version of an Article published in Nature on July 29th, 2020

We present the CO isotopologue Line Atlas within the Whirpool galaxy Survey (CLAWS) based on an IRAM 30-m large programme which provides a benchmark study of numerous, faint CO isotopologues in the mm-wavelength regime across the full disc of M51 (NGC 5194). The survey's core goal is to use the low-J CO isotopologue lines to constrain CO excitation and chemistry, and therefrom the local physical conditions of the gas. In this survey paper, we describe the CLAWS observing and data reduction strategies. We map the J=1-0 and 2-1 transitions of the CO isotopologues $^{12}$CO,$^{13}$CO, C$^{18}$O and C$^{17}$O, as well as several supplementary lines within the 1 mm and 3 mm window (CN(1-0), CS(2-1), CH$_3$OH(2-1), N$_2$H$^+$(1-0), HC$_3$N(10-9)) at ~1 kpc resolution. A total observation time of 149 h offers unprecedented sensitivity. We use these data to explore several CO isotopologue line ratios in detail, study their radial (and azimuthal) trends and investigate whether changes in line ratios stem from changes in ISM properties such as gas temperatures, densities or chemical abundances. For example, we find negative radial trends for the $^{13}$CO}/$^{12}$CO, C$^{18}$O/$^{12}$CO and C$^{18}$O/$^{13}$CO line ratios in their J=1-0 transitions. We also find variations with local environment, such as higher $^{12}$CO(2-1)/(1-0) or $^{13}$CO/$^{12}$CO(1-0) line ratios in interarm regions compared to spiral arm regions. We propose that these aforementioned variations of CO line ratios are most likely due to a variation of the optical depth, while abundance variations due to selective nucleosynthesis on a galaxy-wide scale could also play a role. We also study the CO spectral line energy distribution (SLED) using archival JCMT $^{12}$CO(3-2) data and find a variation of the SLED shape with local environmental parameters further underlying changes in optical depth, gas temperatures or densities., 29 pages, 22 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

We combine the power of two stream-searching tools, STREAMFINDER and StarGO applied to the Gaia EDR3 data, to detect stellar debris belonging to the Cetus stream system that forms a complex, nearly polar structure around the Milky Way. In this work, we find the southern extensions of the northern Cetus stream as the Palca stream and a new southern stream, which overlap on the sky but have different distances. These two stream wraps extend over more than $\sim100\deg$ on the sky ($-60\deg, Comment: accepted to ApJ. The N-body model of the Cetus system is published at https://zenodo.org/record/5771585

Aims. We aim to demonstrate the scientific potential of the Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) for the study of different aspects of the Milky Way structure and evolution and we provide, at the same time, a description of several practical aspects of the data and examples of their usage., Methods. We used astrometric positions, proper motions, parallaxes, and photometry from EDR3 to select different populations and components and to calculate the distances and velocities in the direction of the anticentre. In this direction, the Gaia astrometric data alone enable the calculation of the vertical and azimuthal velocities; also, the extinction is relatively low compared to other directions in the Galactic plane. We then explore the disturbances of the current disc, the spatial and kinematical distributions of early accreted versus in situ stars, the structures in the outer parts of the disc, and the orbits of open clusters Berkeley 29 and Saurer 1., Results. With the improved astrometry and photometry of EDR3, we find that: (i) the dynamics of the Galactic disc are very complex with oscillations in the median rotation and vertical velocities as a function of radius, vertical asymmetries, and new correlations, including a bimodality with disc stars with large angular momentum moving vertically upwards from below the plane, and disc stars with slightly lower angular momentum moving preferentially downwards; (ii) we resolve the kinematic substructure (diagonal ridges) in the outer parts of the disc for the first time; (iii) the red sequence that has been associated with the proto-Galactic disc that was present at the time of the merger with Gaia-Enceladus-Sausage is currently radially concentrated up to around 14 kpc, while the blue sequence that has been associated with debris of the satellite extends beyond that; (iv) there are density structures in the outer disc, both above and below the plane, most probably related to Monoceros, the Anticentre Stream, and TriAnd, for which the Gaia data allow an exhaustive selection of candidate member stars and dynamical study; and (v) the open clusters Berkeley 29 and Saurer 1, despite being located at large distances from the Galactic centre, are on nearly circular disc-like orbits., Conclusions. Even with our simple preliminary exploration of the Gaia EDR3, we demonstrate how, once again, these data from the European Space Agency are crucial for our understanding of the different pieces of our Galaxy and their connection to its global structure and history.

It is still poorly constrained how the densest phase of the interstellar medium varies across galactic environment. A large observing time is required to recover significant emission from dense molecular gas at high spatial resolution, and to cover a large dynamic range of extragalactic disc environments. We present new NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) observations of a range of high critical density molecular tracers (HCN, HNC, HCO+) and CO isotopologues (13CO, C18O) towards the nearby (11.3 Mpc), strongly barred galaxy NGC 3627. These observations represent the current highest angular resolution (1.85"; 100 pc) map of dense gas tracers across a disc of a nearby spiral galaxy, which we use here to assess the properties of the dense molecular gas, and their variation as a function of galactocentric radius, molecular gas, and star formation. We find that the HCN(1-0)/CO(2-1) integrated intensity ratio does not correlate with the amount of recent star formation. Instead, the HCN(1-0)/CO(2-1) ratio depends on the galactic environment, with differences between the galaxy centre, bar, and bar end regions. The dense gas in the central 600 pc appears to produce stars less efficiently despite containing a higher fraction of dense molecular gas than the bar ends where the star formation is enhanced. In assessing the dynamics of the dense gas, we find the HCN(1-0) and HCO+(1-0) emission lines showing multiple components towards regions in the bar ends that correspond to previously identified features in CO emission. These features are co-spatial with peaks of Halpha emission, which highlights that the complex dynamics of this bar end region could be linked to local enhancements in the star formation., Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS

Elemental abundances of the most metal-poor stars reflect the conditions in the early Galaxy and the properties of the first stars. We present a spectroscopic follow-up of two ultra metal-poor stars ([Fe/H], Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

This study reports a probabilistic insight into the stellar-mass and supernovae (SNe) explosion energy of five CEMP-no stars' possible progenitors. As such, a direct comparison between the abundance ratios [X/Fe] of the light-elements and the predicted nucleosynthetic yields of SN of high-mass metal-free stars has been performed. This comparison suggests that the possible progenitors have a stellar-mass range of 11 - 22 M-circle dot and explosion energies of 0.3 - 1.8 x 10(51) erg. In addition, we investigate the kinematic signatures, derived from Gaia DR2, to conclude that these five CEMP-no stars have halo-like kinematic and do not enter the outer-halo region. In addition, we link the abundance patterns with kinematic signatures to investigate the Gaia-Sausage and Gaia-Sequoia memberships. This chemo-dynamical analysis suggests that these CEMP-no stars are neither Gaia-Sausage nor Gaia-Sequoia remnant stars, but another accretion event might be responsible for the contribution of these stars to the Galactic Halo.

We present a new method for inferring the gravitational potential of the Galactic disk, using the time-varying structure of a phase-space spiral in the $(z,w)$-plane (where $z$ and $w$ represent vertical position and vertical velocity). Our method of inference extracts information from the shape of the spiral and disregards the bulk density distribution that is usually used to perform dynamical mass measurements. In this manner, it is complementary to traditional methods that are based on the assumption of a steady state. Our method consists of fitting an analytical model for the phase-space spiral to data, where the spiral is seen as a perturbation of the stellar number density in the $(z,w)$-plane. We tested our method on one-dimensional simulations, which were initiated in a steady state and then perturbed by an external force similar to that of a passing satellite. We were able to retrieve the true gravitational potentials of the simulations with high accuracy. The gravitational potential at 400-500 parsec distances from the disk mid-plane was inferred with an error of only a few percent. This is the first paper of a series in which we plan to test and refine our method on more complex simulations, as well as apply our method to Gaia data., Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures

We use deep narrowband Ca H&K ($F395N$) imaging taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to construct the metallicity distribution function (MDF) of Local Group (LG) ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxy Eridanus II (Eri II). When combined with archival $F475W$ and $F814W$ data, we measure metallicities for 60 resolved red giant branch stars as faint as $m_{F475W}\sim24$ mag, a factor of $\sim4$x more stars than current spectroscopic MDF determinations. We find that Eri II has a mean metallicity of [Fe/H]$=$-2.50$^{+0.07}_{-0.07}$ and a dispersion of $��_{\mbox{[Fe/H]}}=0.42^{+0.06}_{-0.06}$, which are consistent with spectroscopic MDFs, though more precisely constrained owing to a larger sample. We identify a handful of extremely metal-poor star candidates (EMP; [Fe/H] $< -3$) that are marginally bright enough for spectroscopic follow up. Eri II's MDF appears well-described by a leaky box chemical evolution model. We also compute an updated orbital history for Eri II using Gaia eDR3 proper motions, and find that it is likely on first infall into the Milky Way. Our findings suggest that Eri II underwent an evolutionary history similar to that of an isolated galaxy. Compared to MDFs for select cosmological simulations of similar mass galaxies, we find that Eri II has a lower fraction of stars with [Fe/H] $< -3$, though such comparisons should currently be treated with caution due to a paucity of simulations, selection effects, and known limitations of Ca H&K for EMPs. This study demonstrates the power of deep HST CaHK imaging for measuring the MDFs of UFDs., Resubmitted to ApJ with revisions following a positive referee report of the initial draft; 29 pages, 19 figures, and 3 tables, including appendix. Comments welcome!

Zhao, Gong-Bo, et al., We perform a joint BAO and RSD analysis using the eBOSS DR16 LRG and ELG samples in the redshift range of z [0.6, 1.1], and detect an RSD signal from the cross-power spectrum at a ∼4σ confidence level, i.e., fσ8 = 0.317 ± 0.080 at zeff = 0.77. Based on the chained power spectrum, which is a new development in this work to mitigate the angular systematics, we measure the BAO distances and growth rate simultaneously at two effective redshifts, namely, DM/rd (z = 0.70) = 17.96 ± 0.51, DH/rd (z = 0.70) = 21.22 ± 1.20, fσ8 (z = 0.70) = 0.43 ± 0.05, and DM/rd (z = 0.845) = 18.90 ± 0.78, DH/rd (z = 0.845) = 20.91 ± 2.86, fσ8 (z = 0.845) = 0.30 ± 0.08. Combined with BAO measurements including those from the eBOSS DR16 QSO and Lyman-α sample, our measurement has raised the significance level of a non-zero ωΛ to ∼11σ. The data product of this work is publicly available at https://github.com/icosmology/eBOSS_DR16_LRGxELG and https://www.sdss.org/science/final-bao-and-rsd-measurements/., GBZ is supported by the National Key Basic Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFA0404503), and a grant of CAS Interdisciplinary Innovation Team. GBZ, YW, and WBZ are supported by NSFC Grants 11925303, 11720101004, 11673025, and 11890691. YW is also supported by the Nebula Talents Program of NAOC and by the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS. EMM has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 693024).

We present a catalogue of 362 million stellar parameters, distances, and extinctions derived from Gaia's early third data release (EDR3) cross-matched with the photometric catalogues of Pan-STARRS1, SkyMapper, 2MASS, and AllWISE. The higher precision of the Gaia EDR3 data, combined with the broad wavelength coverage of the additional photometric surveys and the new stellar-density priors of the {\tt StarHorse} code allow us to substantially improve the accuracy and precision over previous photo-astrometric stellar-parameter estimates. At magnitude $G=14\, (17)$, our typical precisions amount to 3% (15%) in distance, 0.13 mag (0.15 mag) in $V$-band extinction, and 140 K (180 K) in effective temperature. Our results are validated by comparisons with open clusters, as well as with asteroseismic and spectroscopic measurements, indicating systematic errors smaller than the nominal uncertainties for the vast majority of objects. We also provide distance- and extinction-corrected colour-magnitude diagrams, extinction maps, and extensive stellar density maps that reveal detailed substructures in the Milky Way and beyond. The new density maps now probe a much greater volume, extending to regions beyond the Galactic bar and to Local Group galaxies, with a larger total number density. We publish our results through an ADQL query interface ({\tt gaia.aip.de}) as well as via tables containing approximations of the full posterior distributions. Our multi-wavelength approach and the deep magnitude limit make our results useful also beyond the next Gaia release, DR3., Comment: A&A, accepted, 27 pages, 25 figures. Fig. 5 has changed with respect to v1 (post-processing bug corrected). For various options to access the data see https://data.aip.de/projects/starhorse2021.html

The ultraviolet (UV) to sub-millimetre (submm) spectral energy distribution of galaxies can be roughly divided into two sections: the stellar emission (attenuated by dust) at UV to near-infrared wavelengths and dust emission at longer wavelengths. In Dobbels et al. (2020), we show that these two sections are strongly related, and we can predict the global dust properties from the integrated UV to mid-infrared emission with the help of machine learning techniques. We investigate if these machine learning techniques can also be extended to resolved scales. Our aim is to predict resolved maps of the specific dust luminosity, specific dust mass, and dust temperature starting from a set of surface brightness images from UV to mid-infrared wavelengths. We used a selection of nearby galaxies retrieved from the DustPedia sample, in addition to M31 and M33. These were convolved and resampled to a range of pixel sizes, ranging from 150 pc to 3 kpc. We trained a random forest model which considers each pixel individually. We find that the predictions work well on resolved scales, with the dust mass and temperature having a similar root mean square error as on global scales (0.32 dex and 3.15 K on 18" scales respectively), and the dust luminosity being noticeably better (0.11 dex). We find no significant dependence on the pixel scale. Predictions on individual galaxies can be biased, and we find that about two-thirds of the scatter can be attributed to scatter between galaxies (rather than within galaxies). A machine learning approach can be used to create dust maps, with its resolution being only limited to the input bands, thus achieving a higher resolution than Herschel. These dust maps can be used to improve global estimates of dust properties, they can lead to a better estimate of dust attenuation, and they can be used as a constraint on cosmological simulations that trace dust., Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, accepted by A&A

In the last decades, much effort has been put into finding the star formation law which could unequivocally link the gas and the star formation rate (SFR) densities measured on sub-kiloparsec scale in star-forming galaxies. The conventional approach of using the observed surface densities to infer star formation laws has however revealed a major and well-known issue, as such relations are valid for the high-density regions of galaxies but break down in low-density and HI-dominated environments. Recently, an empirical correlation between the total gas (HI+H$_2$) and the star formation rate (SFR) volume densities was obtained for a sample of nearby disc galaxies and for the Milky Way. This volumetric star formation (VSF) law is a single power-law with no break and a smaller intrinsic scatter with respect to the star formation laws based on the surface density. In this work, we explore the VSF law in the regime of dwarf galaxies in order to test its validity in HI-dominated, low-density, and low-metallicity environments. In addition, we assess this relation in the outskirts of spiral galaxies, which are low-density and HI-dominated regions similar to dwarf galaxies. Remarkably, we find the VSF law, namely $\rho_\mathrm{SFR} \propto \rho_\mathrm{gas}^\alpha$ with $\alpha \approx 2$, is valid for both these regimes. This result indicates that the VSF law, which holds unbroken for a wide range of gas ($\approx 3$ dex) and SFR ($\approx 6$ dex) volume densities, is the empirical relation with the smallest intrinsic scatter and is likely more fundamental than surface-based star formation laws., Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, accepted by A&A

We infer the gravitational potential of the Galactic disk by analysing the phase-space densities of 120 stellar samples in 40 spatially separate sub-regions of the solar neighbourhood, using Gaia's second data release (DR2), in order to quantify spatially dependent systematic effects that bias this type of measurement. The gravitational potential was inferred under the assumption of a steady state in the framework of a Bayesian hierarchical model. We performed a joint fit of our stellar tracers' three-dimensional velocity distribution, while fully accounting for the astrometric uncertainties of all stars. The inferred gravitational potential is compared, post-inference, to a model for the baryonic matter and halo dark matter components. We see an unexpected but clear trend for all 40 spatially separate sub-regions: Compared to the potential derived from the baryonic model, the inferred gravitational potential is significantly steeper close to the Galactic mid-plane (, 19 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

The latest generation of Galactic-plane surveys is enhancing our ability to study the effects of galactic environment upon the process of star formation. We present the first data from CO Heterodyne Inner Milky Way Plane Survey 2 (CHIMPS2). CHIMPS2 is a survey that will observe the Inner Galaxy, the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ), and a section of the Outer Galaxy in $^{12}$CO, $^{13}$CO, and C$^{18}$O $(J = 3\rightarrow2)$ emission with the Heterodyne Array Receiver Program on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT). The first CHIMPS2 data presented here are a first look towards the CMZ in $^{12}$CO J = 3$\rightarrow$2 and cover $-3^{\circ}\leq\,\ell\,\leq\,5^{\circ}$ and $\mid$b$\mid \leq 0.5^{\circ}$ with angular resolution of 15 arcsec, velocity resolution of 1 km s$^{-1}$, and rms $\Delta T_A ^\ast =$ 0.58 K at these resolutions. Such high-resolution observations of the CMZ will be a valuable data set for future studies, whilst complementing the existing Galactic Plane surveys, such as SEDIGISM, the Herschel infrared Galactic Plane Survey, and ATLASGAL. In this paper, we discuss the survey plan, the current observations and data, as well as presenting position-position maps of the region. The position-velocity maps detect foreground spiral arms in both absorption and emission., Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We discuss formation of dark matter (DM) mini-halos around primordial black holes (PBHs) and its implication on DM direct detection experiments, including axion searches. Motivated by LIGO observations, we consider $f_{\textrm{DM}} \simeq 0.01$ as the fraction of DM in PBHs with masses $10 M_{\odot} - 70 M_{\odot}$. In this case, we expect the presence of dressed PBHs after Milky Way halo formation with mini-halo masses peaked around $M_{\textrm{halo}} \sim (50-55) M_{\textrm{PBH}}$. We analyze the effect of tidal forces acting on dressed PBHs within the Milky Way galaxy. In the solar neighborhood, the mini-halos are resistant against tidal disruption from the mean-field potential of the galaxy and encounters with stars, but they undergo a small level of disruption caused by disk shocking. The presence of mini-halos around LIGO-motivated PBHs today could reduce by half the local dark matter background. High-resolution simulations are encouraged. If the proposed scenario is realized, chances of direct detection of DM would decrease., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures. v2: New material added, especially in Secs. 2.2-2.3. References added. v3: Updated towards version accepted in Physics Letters B

We report studies of the relationships between the total bolometric luminosity ($L_{\rm bol}$ or $L_{\rm TIR}$) and the molecular line luminosities of $J=1-0$ transitions of H$^{13}$CN, H$^{13}$CO$^+$, HCN, and HCO$^+$ with data obtained from ACA observations in the "ATOMS" survey of 146 active Galactic star forming regions. The correlations between $L_{\rm bol}$ and molecular line luminosities $L'_{\rm mol}$ of the four transitions all appear to be approximately linear. Line emission of isotopologues shows as large scatters in $L_{\rm bol}$-$L'_{\rm mol}$ relations as their main line emission. The log($L_{\rm bol}$/$L'_{\rm mol}$) for different molecular line tracers have similar distributions. The $L_{\rm bol}$-to-$L'_{\rm mol}$ ratios do not change with galactocentric distances ($R_{\rm GC}$) and clump masses ($M_{\rm clump}$). The molecular line luminosity ratios (HCN-to-HCO$^+$, H$^{13}$CN-to-H$^{13}$CO$^+$, HCN-to-H$^{13}$CN and HCO$^+$-to-H$^{13}$CO$^+$) all appear constant against $L_{\rm bol}$, dust temperature ($T_{\rm d}$), $M_{\rm clump}$ and $R_{\rm GC}$. Our studies suggest that both the main lines and isotopologue lines are good tracers of the total masses of dense gas in Galactic molecular clumps. The large optical depths of main lines do not affect the interpretation of the slopes in star formation relations. We find that the mean star formation efficiency (SFE) of massive Galactic clumps in the "ATOMS" survey is reasonably consistent with other measures of the SFE for dense gas, even those using very different tracers or examining very different spatial scales., Comment: Published on MNRAS. The full tables are included in Tables.pdf or Tables.tex files, which can be downloaded from source files

Apparent deviations between properties of dwarf galaxies from observations and simulations are known to exist, such as the "Missing Dwarfs" problem, the too-big-to-fail problem, and the cusp-core problem, to name a few. Recent studies have shown that these issues can at least be partially resolved by taking into account the systematic differences between simulations and observations. This work aims to investigate and address any systematic differences affecting the comparison of simulations with observations. To this aim, we analyzed a set of 24 realistically simulated MoRIA (Models of Realistic dwarfs In Action) dwarf galaxies in an observationally motivated way. We first constructed "observed" color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of the simulated dwarf galaxies in the typically used V- and I-bands. Then we used the CMD-fitting method to recover their star-formation histories (SFHs) from their observed CMDs. These solved SFHs were then directly compared to the true SFHs from the simulation star-particle data, mainly in terms of the star-formation rate(SFR) and the age-metallicity relation (AMR). We applied a dust extinction prescription to the simulation data to produce observed CMDs affected by dust in star-formation regions. Since future facilities, such as the JWST and E-ELT will focus on the near IR rather than the optical, we also constructed and analyzed CMDs using the I- and H-bands. We find a very good agreement between the recovered and the true SFHs of all the simulated dwarf galaxies in our sample, from the synthetic CMD analysis of their V-I versus I as well as the I-H versus H CMDs. Dust leads to an underestimation of the SFR during the last few hundred million years. Overall, our analysis indicates that quantities like SFR and AMR derived from the photometric observations of galaxies are directly comparable to their simulated counterparts., 19 pages, 15 figures, to appear in Section 4. Extragalactic astronomy of Astronomy and Astrophysics