Search

As gravitational-wave (GW) interferometers become more sensitive and probe ever more distant reaches, the number of detected binary neutron star mergers will increase. However, detecting more events farther away with GWs does not guarantee corresponding increase in the number of electromagnetic counterparts of these events. Current and upcoming wide-field surveys that participate in GW follow-up operations will have to contend with distinguishing the kilonova from the ever increasing number of transients they detect, many of which will be consistent with the GW sky-localization. We have developed a novel tool based on a temporal convolutional neural network architecture, trained on sparse early-time photometry and contextual information for Electromagnetic Counterpart Identification (El-CID). The overarching goal for El-CID is to slice through list of new transient candidates that are consistent with the GW sky localization, and determine which sources are consistent with kilonovae, allowing limited target-of-opportunity resources to be used judiciously. In addition to verifying the performance of our algorithm on an extensive testing sample, we validate it on AT2017gfo - the only EM counterpart of a binary neutron star merger discovered to date - and AT2019npv - a supernova that was initially suspected as a counterpart of the gravitational-wave event, GW190814, but was later ruled out after further analysis., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, accepted in MNRAS

We describe the SNAD Viewer, a web portal for astronomers which presents a centralized view of individual objects from the Zwicky Transient Facility's (ZTF) data releases, including data gathered from multiple publicly available astronomical archives and data sources. Initially built to enable efficient expert feedback in the context of adaptive machine learning applications, it has evolved into a full-fledged community asset that centralizes public information and provides a multi-dimensional view of ZTF sources. For users, we provide detailed descriptions of the data sources and choices underlying the information displayed in the portal. For developers, we describe our architectural choices and their consequences such that our experience can help others engaged in similar endeavors or in adapting our publicly released code to their requirements. The infrastructure we describe here is scalable and flexible and can be personalized and used by other surveys and for other science goals. The Viewer has been instrumental in highlighting the crucial roles domain experts retain in the era of big data in astronomy. Given the arrival of the upcoming generation of large-scale surveys, we believe similar systems will be paramount in enabling an optimal exploitation of the scientific potential enclosed in current terabyte and future petabyte-scale data sets. The Viewer is publicly available online at https://ztf.snad.space, 21 pages, 9 figures. Published in PASP

We consider a new mechanism for the removal of the angular momentum from an X-ray binary system and the change in its orbital period - the mass loss in the form of a wind from an accretion disc. Both observations and models predict powerful winds from discs in X-ray transients. We have obtained an analytical estimate for the increase in the orbital period of a binary system with a wind from the disc during an outburst, and quantitative estimates are given for the systems XTE J1118+480, A0620-00 and GRS 1124-68. Resulting rate of period grow is of order of the observed rates of secular decrease in the period. We also compare the predicted rate of change in the period of a binary system due to the flow of matter into the disc and outflow from the second Lagrange point with the observations. It is concluded that the above mechanisms cannot explain the observed secular decrease in the period of the three X-ray Novae, and it is necessary to consider a circumbinary disc that drains the binary's angular momentum., 10 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy Letters

We verified for photometric stability a set of DA white dwarfs with Hubble Space Telescope magnitudes from the near-ultraviolet to the near-infrared and ground-based spectroscopy by using time-spaced observations from the Las Cumbres Observatory network of telescopes. The initial list of 38 stars was whittled to 32 final ones which comprise a high quality set of spectrophotometric standards. These stars are homogeneously distributed around the sky and are all fainter than r ~ 16.5 mag. Their distribution is such that at least two of them would be available to be observed from any observatory on the ground at any time at airmass less than two. Light curves and different variability indices from the Las Cumbres Observatory data were used to determine the stability of the candidate standards. When available, Pan-STARRS1, Zwicky Transient Facility and TESS data were also used to confirm the star classification. Our analysis showed that four DA white dwarfs may exhibit evidence of photometric variability, while a fifth is cooler than our established lower temperature limit, and a sixth star might be a binary. In some instances, due to the presence of faint nearby red sources, care should be used when observing a few of the spectrophotometric standards with ground-based telescopes. Light curves and finding charts for all the stars are provided., Comment: 48 pages, 50 figures, accepted for publication on ApJ

The SNAD team reports the discovery of SNAD160 (AT2018lzi) within the Zwicky Transient Facility third data release. The transient has been found using the active anomaly detection algorithm, an adaptive learning strategy aimed at incorporating expert knowledge into machine learning models. Our preliminary analysis shows that SNAD160 could be a superluminous supernova powered by a pair-instability mechanism—its light curve behavior is consistent with the observed slow rise and slow decay expected from these events.

FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) is a common format for astronomical data storage. It was first standardised in the early 1980s. Even though astronomical data is now processed mostly using software, visual data inspection by a human is still important during equipment or software commissioning and while observing. We present Fips, a cross-platform FITS file viewer open source software. To the best of our knowledge, it is for the first time that the image rendering algorithms are implemented mostly on GPU (graphics processing unit). We show that it is possible to implement a fully-capable FITS viewer using OpenGL interface. We also emphasise the advantages of using GPUs for efficient image handling., Accepted to Astronomy and Computing

We propose a novel approach for a machine-learning-based detection of the type Ia supernovae using photometric information. Unlike other approaches, only real observation data is used during training. Despite being trained on a relatively small sample, the method shows good results on real data from the Open Supernovae Catalog. We also investigate model transfer from the PLAsTiCC simulations train dataset to real data application, and the reverse, and find the performance significantly decreases in both cases, highlighting the existing differences between simulated and real data., Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Computing

Time domain science has undergone a revolution over the past decade, with tens of thousands of new supernovae (SNe) discovered each year. However, several observational domains, including SNe within days or hours of explosion and faint, red transients, are just beginning to be explored. Here, we present the Young Supernova Experiment (YSE), a novel optical time-domain survey on the Pan-STARRS telescopes. Our survey is designed to obtain well-sampled $griz$ light curves for thousands of transient events up to $z \approx 0.2$. This large sample of transients with 4-band light curves will lay the foundation for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, providing a critical training set in similar filters and a well-calibrated low-redshift anchor of cosmologically useful SNe Ia to benefit dark energy science. As the name suggests, YSE complements and extends other ongoing time-domain surveys by discovering fast-rising SNe within a few hours to days of explosion. YSE is the only current four-band time-domain survey and is able to discover transients as faint $\sim$21.5 mag in $gri$ and $\sim$20.5 mag in $z$, depths that allow us to probe the earliest epochs of stellar explosions. YSE is currently observing approximately 750 square degrees of sky every three days and we plan to increase the area to 1500 square degrees in the near future. When operating at full capacity, survey simulations show that YSE will find $\sim$5000 new SNe per year and at least two SNe within three days of explosion per month. To date, YSE has discovered or observed 8.3% of the transient candidates reported to the International Astronomical Union in 2020. We present an overview of YSE, including science goals, survey characteristics and a summary of our transient discoveries to date., ApJ, in press; more information at https://yse.ucsc.edu/

In this work we address the problem of anomaly detection in large astronomical databases by machine learning methods. The importance of such study is justified by the existence of a large amount of astronomical data that can not be processed only by human resource. We evaluated five anomaly detection algorithms to find anomalies in the light curve data of the Open Supernova Catalog. Comparison of the algorithms revealed that expert supervised active anomaly detection method shows the best performance, while among purely unsupervised techniques Gaussian mixture model and one-class support vector machine methods outperform isolation forest and local outlier factor methods.

International audience; The search for objects with unusual astronomical properties, or anomalies, is one of the most anticipated results to be delivered by the next generation of large scale astronomical surveys. Moreover, given the volume and complexity of current data sets, machine learning algorithms will undoubtedly play an important role in this endeavor. The SNAD team is specialized in the development, adaptation and improvement of such techniques with the goal of constructing optimal anomaly detection strategies for astronomy. We present here the preliminary results from the third annual SNAD workshop (https://snad.space/2020/) that was held on-line in 2020 July.

We present results from applying the SNAD anomaly detection pipeline to the third public data release of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF DR3). The pipeline is composed of 3 stages: feature extraction, search of outliers with machine learning algorithms and anomaly identification with followup by human experts. Our analysis concentrates in three ZTF fields, comprising more than 2.25 million objects. A set of 4 automatic learning algorithms was used to identify 277 outliers, which were subsequently scrutinised by an expert. From these, 188 (68%) were found to be bogus light curves -- including effects from the image subtraction pipeline as well as overlapping between a star and a known asteroid, 66 (24%) were previously reported sources whereas 23 (8%) correspond to non-catalogued objects, with the two latter cases of potential scientific interest (e. g. 1 spectroscopically confirmed RS Canum Venaticorum star, 4 supernovae candidates, 1 red dwarf flare). Moreover, using results from the expert analysis, we were able to identify a simple bi-dimensional relation which can be used to aid filtering potentially bogus light curves in future studies. We provide a complete list of objects with potential scientific application so they can be further scrutinised by the community. These results confirm the importance of combining automatic machine learning algorithms with domain knowledge in the construction of recommendation systems for astronomy. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/snad-space/zwad, Comment: 31 pages, 28 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Optical and near-infrared photometry, optical spectroscopy, and soft X-ray and UV monitoring of the changing-look active galactic nucleus NGC 2617 show that it continues to have the appearance of a type-1 Seyfert galaxy. An optical light curve for 2010$-$2017 indicates that the change of type probably occurred between 2010 October and 2012 February and was not related to the brightening in 2013. In 2016 and 2017 NGC 2617 brightened again to a level of activity close to that in 2013 April. However, in 2017 from the end of the March to end of July 2017 it was in very low level and starting to change back to a Seyfert 1.8. We find variations in all passbands and in both the intensities and profiles of the broad Balmer lines. A new displaced emission peak has appeared in H$\beta$. X-ray variations are well correlated with UV$-$optical variability and possibly lead by $\sim$ 2$-$3 d. The $K$ band lags the $J$ band by about 21.5 $\pm$ 2.5 d and lags the combined $B + J$ bands by $\sim$ 25 d. $J$ lags $B$ by $\sim$ 3 d. This could be because $J$-band variability arises predominantly from the outer part of the accretion disc, while $K$-band variability is dominated by thermal re-emission by dust. We propose that spectral-type changes are a result of increasing central luminosity causing sublimation of the innermost dust in the hollow bi-conical outflow. We briefly discuss various other possible reasons that might explain the dramatic changes in NGC 2617., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted to the OAP

Optical and near-infrared photometry, optical spectroscopy, and soft X-ray and UV monitoring of the changing look active galactic nucleus NGC 2617 show that it continues to have the appearance of a type-1 Seyfert galaxy. An optical light curve for 2010-2016 indicates that the change of type probably occurred between 2010 October and 2012 February and was not related to the brightening in 2013. In 2016 NGC 2617 brightened again to a level of activity close to that in 2013 April. We find variations in all passbands and in both the intensities and profiles of the broad Balmer lines. A new displaced emission peak has appeared in H$\beta$. X-ray variations are well correlated with UV-optical variability and possibly lead by $\sim$ 2-3 d. The $K$ band lags the $J$ band by about 21.5 $\pm$ 2.5 d. and lags the combined $B+J$ filters by $\sim$ 25 d. $J$ lags $B$ by about 3 d. This could be because $J$-band variability arises from the outer part of the accretion disc, while $K$-band variability comes from thermal re-emission by dust. We propose that spectral-type changes are a result of increasing central luminosity causing sublimation of the innermost dust in the hollow biconical outflow. We briefly discuss various other possible reasons that might explain the dramatic changes in NGC 2617., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The next generation of astronomical surveys will revolutionize our understanding of the Universe, raising unprecedented data challenges in the process. One of them is the impossibility to rely on human scanning for the identification of unusual/unpredicted astrophysical objects. Moreover, given that most of the available data will be in the form of photometric observations, such characterization cannot rely on the existence of high resolution spectroscopic observations. We introduce an analysis of anomaly detection in the Open Supernova Catalog (http://sne.space/) with use of machine learning. We developed a strategy and pipeline — where anomalous objects are identified and then submitted to careful individual analysis. This project represents an effective strategy to guarantee we shall not overlook exciting new science hidden in the data we fought so hard to acquire.

In the upcoming decade large astronomical surveys will discover millions of transients raising unprecedented data challenges in the process. Only the use of the machine learning algorithms can process such large data volumes. Most of the discovered transients will belong to the known classes of astronomical objects. However, it is expected that some transients will be rare or completely new events of unknown physical nature. The task of finding them can be framed as an anomaly detection problem. In this work, we perform for the first time an automated anomaly detection analysis in the photometric data of the Open Supernova Catalog (OSC), which serves as a proof of concept for the applicability of these methods to future large scale surveys. The analysis consists of the following steps: 1) data selection from the OSC and approximation of the pre-processed data with Gaussian processes, 2) dimensionality reduction, 3) searching for outliers with the use of the isolation forest algorithm, 4) expert analysis of the identified outliers. The pipeline returned 81 candidate anomalies, 27 (33%) of which were confirmed to be from astrophysically peculiar objects. Found anomalies correspond to a selected sample of 1.4% of the initial automatically identified data sample of ~2000 objects. Among the identified outliers we recognised superluminous supernovae, non-classical Type Ia supernovae, unusual Type II supernovae, one active galactic nucleus and one binary microlensing event. We also found that 16 anomalies classified as supernovae in the literature are likely to be quasars or stars. Our proposed pipeline represents an effective strategy to guarantee we shall not overlook exciting new science hidden in the data we fought so hard to acquire. All code and products of this investigation are made publicly available., Comment: 18 pages, 19 figures, accepted in MNRAS

We present the first evidence that adaptive learning techniques can boost the discovery of unusual objects within astronomical light curve data sets. Our method follows an active learning strategy where the learning algorithm chooses objects which can potentially improve the learner if additional information about them is provided. This new information is subsequently used to update the machine learning model, allowing its accuracy to evolve with each new information. For the case of anomaly detection, the algorithm aims to maximize the number of scientifically interesting anomalies presented to the expert by slightly modifying the weights of a traditional Isolation Forest (IF) at each iteration. In order to demonstrate the potential of such techniques, we apply the Active Anomaly Discovery (AAD) algorithm to 2 data sets: simulated light curves from the PLAsTiCC challenge and real light curves from the Open Supernova Catalog. We compare the AAD results to those of a static IF. For both methods, we performed a detailed analysis for all objects with the ~2% highest anomaly scores. We show that, in the real data scenario, AAD was able to identify ~80\% more true anomalies than the IF. This result is the first evidence that AAD algorithms can play a central role in the search for new physics in the era of large scale sky surveys., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, updated to include PLAsTiCC results

Two major challenges to unification schemes for active galactic nuclei (AGN) are the existence of Narrow-Line Seyfert 1s (NLS1s) and the existence of changing-look (CL) AGNs. AGNs can drastically change their spectral appearance in the optical (changing their Seyfert type) and/or in the X-ray region. We illustrate the CL phenomenon with our multi-wavelength monitoring of NGC 2617 and discuss its properties compared with NLS1s. There are few examples of CL NLS1s and the changes are mostly only in the X-ray region. It has been proposed that some of these could be cases of a tidal-disruption events (TDE) or supernova events. If BLRs have a flat geometry and NLS1s are seen face-on then we have to see CL cases only if the orientation of the BLR changes as a result of a TDE or a close encounter of a star without a TDE. If NLS1s include both high Eddington accretion rate and low-inclination AGNs then a significant fraction of NLS1s could be obscured and would not be identified as NLS1s. CL cases might happen more in such objects if dust sublimation occurs following a strong increase in the optical luminosity., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figures, Revisiting narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies and their place in the Universe (NLS1-2018)

The vertical structure of stationary thin accretion discs is calculated from the energy balance equation with heat generation due to microscopic ion viscosity {\eta} and electron heat conductivity {\kappa}, both depending on temperature. In the optically thin discs it is found that for the heat conductivity increasing with temperature, the vertical temperature gradient exceeds the adiabatic value at some height, suggesting convective instability in the upper disc layer. There is a critical Prandtl number, Pr = 4/9, above which a Keplerian disc become fully convective. The vertical density distribution of optically thin laminar accretion discs as found from the hydrostatic equilibrium equation cannot be generally described by a polytrope but in the case of constant viscosity and heat conductivity. In the optically thick discs with radiation heat transfer, the vertical disc structure is found to be convectively stable for both absorption dominated and scattering dominated opacities, unless a very steep dependence of the viscosity coefficient on temperature is assumed. A polytropic-like structure in this case is found for Thomson scattering dominated opacity., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, published in MNRAS

The model of a nonstationary α-disk with allowance made for the irradiation and vertical convection in the outer accretion disk, where hydrogen is partially ionized, is considered. Allowance for the energy release through turbulent viscosity is shown to be important in the mixing-length convection theory in accretion disks. This model has been used to explain the optical and X-ray light curves of the X-ray nova A0620-00. The turbulent viscosity parameter of the accretion disk has been estimated, α = 0.5−0.6, to explain the luminosity decay rate on the descending branch of the X-ray light curve for the A0620-00 1975 outburst. The secondary luminosity maximum on the light curves is explained by assuming an additional injection of matter into the accretion disk from the optical companion.

Accretion discs are powerful energy factories in our Universe. They effectively transform the potential energy of gravitational interaction to emission, thereby unraveling the physics of distant objects. This is possible due to the presence of viscosity, driven by turbulent motions in accretion discs. In this chapter, we describe the equations for disc accretion in the framework of the standard model. We outline basic elements of the theory of turbulent viscosity and the emergence of the α-parameter. We further describe the radial and vertical structure of thin stationary accretion discs, and present analytical solutions to the basic equation of the evolution of a viscous accretion disc for both an infinite disc and for a disc in a binary system. Finally, we present a numerical method to solve the equations of disc evolution and vertical structure simultaneously.

We present the results of 3D-hydrodynamical simulations of accretion flow in the eclipsing dwarf nova V1239 Her in quiescence. The model includes the optical star filling its Roche lobe, a gas stream emanating from the inner Lagrangian point of the binary system, and the accretion disc structure. A cold hydrogen gas stream is initially emitted towards a point-like gravitational centre. A stationary accretion disc is formed in about 15 orbital periods after the beginning of accretion. The model takes into account partial ionization of hydrogen and uses realistic cooling function for hydrogen. The light curve of the system is calculated as the volume emission of optically thin layers along the line of sight up to the optical depth \tau =2/3 calculated using Planck-averaged opacities. The calculated eclipse light curves show good agreement with observations, with the changing shape of pre-eclipse and post-eclipse light curves being explained entirely due to ~ 50% variations in the mass accretion rate through the gas stream., Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, 1 movie (ancillary file). Accepted for publication in MNRAS

The physical conditions of convection appearance in laminar accretion flows with microscopic transport coefficients are examined. Hot sparse ionised flow with periods below an hour found to be optically thin and have convective layer. Cold sparse molecular flow with period about a year found to be optically thin too and are fully convective. Ranges of temperature, density and period of optically thick laminar accretion flow are shown.

We investigate the viscous evolution of the accretion disk in 4U 1543-47, a black hole binary system, during the first 30 days after the peak of the 2002 burst by comparing the observed and theoretical accretion rate evolution $\dot M(t)$. The observed $\dot M(t)$ is obtained from spectral modelling of the archival RXTE/PCA data. Different scenarios of disk decay evolution are possible depending on a degree of self-irradiation of the disk by the emission from its centre. If the self-irradiation, which is parametrized by factor $C_\mathrm{irr}$, had been as high as $\sim 5\times10^{-3}$, then the disk would have been completely ionized up to the tidal radius and the short time of the decay would have required the turbulent parameter $\alpha\sim 3$. We find that the shape of the $\dot M(t)$ curve is much better explained in a model with a shrinking high-viscosity zone. If $C_\mathrm{irr}\approx(2-3)\times 10^{-4}$, the resulting $\alpha$ lie in the interval $0.5-1.5$ for the black hole masses in the range $6-10~\mathrm{M}_\odot$, while the radius of the ionized disk is variable and controlled by irradiation. For very weak irradiation, $C_\mathrm{irr} < 1.5 \times10^{-4}$, the burst decline develops as in normal outbursts of dwarf novae with $\alpha \sim 0.08-0.32$. The optical data indicate that $C_\mathrm{irr}$ in 4U 1543-47 (2002) was not greater than approximately $(3-6)\times10^{-4}$. Generally, modelling of an X-ray nova burst allows one to estimate $\alpha$ that depends on the black hole parameters. We present the public 1-D code Freddi to model the viscous evolution of an accretion disk. Analytic approximations are derived to estimate $\alpha$ in X-ray novae using $\dot M(t)$., Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Code Freddi is publicly available at http://xray.sai.msu.ru/~malanchev/freddi/

We describe phenomenon of X-ray Novae in a model of non-stationary accretion α-disk with account for irradiation and vertical convection in outer disk region. We extended the commonly used disk vertical structure model by adding viscous turbulent energy generation in mixing length theory. This model was used to simulate both optical and X-ray light curves of the 1975 outburst of X-ray Nova A0620-00.