Search

We utilize the ALMA-MaNGA QUEnch and STar formation (ALMaQUEST) survey to investigate the kpc-scale scaling relations, presented as the resolved star-forming MS (rSFMS: ΣSFR versus Σ*), the resolved Schmidt–Kennicutt relation (rSK: ΣSFR versus Σ H 2 ), and the resolved molecular gas MS (rMGMS: Σ H 2 versus Σ*), for 11,478 star-forming and 1414 retired spaxels (oversampled by a factor of ∼20) located in 22 GV and 12 MS galaxies. For a given galaxy type (MS or GV), the retired spaxels are found to be offset from the sequences formed by the star-forming spaxels on the rSFMS, rSK, and rMGMS planes, toward lower absolute values of sSFR, SFE, and f H 2 by ∼1.1, 0.6, and 0.5 dex. The scaling relations for GV galaxies are found to be distinct from that of the MS galaxies, even if the analyses are restricted to the star-forming spaxels only. It is found that, for star-forming spaxels, sSFR, SFE, and f H 2 in GV galaxies are reduced by ∼0.36, 0.14, and 0.21 dex, respectively, compared to those in MS galaxies. Therefore, the suppressed sSFR/SFE/f gas in GV galaxies is associated with not only an increased proportion of retired regions in GV galaxies but also a depletion of these quantities in star-forming regions. Finally, the reduction of SFE and f H 2 in GV galaxies relative to MS galaxies is seen in both bulge and disk regions (albeit with larger uncertainties), suggesting that, statistically, quenching in the GV population may persist from the inner to the outer regions.

All authors: Kasliwal, Mansi M.; Anand, Shreya; Ahumada, Tomás; Stein, Robert; Carracedo, Ana Sagués; Andreoni, Igor; Coughlin, Michael W.; Singer, Leo P.; Kool, Erik C.; De, Kishalay; Kumar, Harsh; AlMualla, Mouza; Yao, Yuhan; Bulla, Mattia; Dobie, Dougal; Reusch, Simeon; Perley, Daniel A.; Cenko, S. Bradley; Bhalerao, Varun; Kaplan, David L.; Sollerman, Jesper; Goobar, Ariel; Copperwheat, Christopher M.; Bellm, Eric C.; Anupama, G. C.; Corsi, Alessandra; Nissanke, Samaya; Agudo, Iván; Bagdasaryan, Ashot; Barway, Sudhanshu; Belicki, Justin; Bloom, Joshua S.; Bolin, Bryce; Buckley, David A. H.; Burdge, Kevin B.; Burruss, Rick; Caballero-García, Maria D.; Cannella, Chris; Castro-Tirado, Alberto J.; Cook, David O.; Cooke, Jeff; Cunningham, Virginia; Dahiwale, Aishwarya; Deshmukh, Kunal; Dichiara, Simone; Duev, Dmitry A.; Dutta, Anirban; Feeney, Michael; Franckowiak, Anna; Frederick, Sara; Fremling, Christoffer; Gal-Yam, Avishay; Gatkine, Pradip; Ghosh, Shaon; Goldstein, Daniel A.; Golkhou, V. Zach; Graham, Matthew J.; Graham, Melissa L.; Hankins, Matthew J.; Helou, George; Hu, Youdong; Ip, Wing-Huen; Jaodand, Amruta; Karambelkar, Viraj; Kong, Albert K. H.; Kowalski, Marek; Khandagale, Maitreya; Kulkarni, S. R.; Kumar, Brajesh; Laher, Russ R.; Li, K. L.; Mahabal, Ashish; Masci, Frank J.; Miller, Adam A.; Mogotsi, Moses; Mohite, Siddharth; Mooley, Kunal; Mroz, Przemek; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Ngeow, Chow-Choong; Oates, Samantha R.; Patil, Atharva Sunil; Pandey, Shashi B.; Pavana, M.; Pian, Elena; Riddle, Reed; Sánchez-Ramírez, Rubén; Sharma, Yashvi; Singh, Avinash; Smith, Roger; Soumagnac, Maayane T.; Taggart, Kirsty; Tan, Hanjie; Tzanidakis, Anastasios; Troja, Eleonora; Valeev, Azamat F.; Walters, Richard; Waratkar, Gaurav; Webb, Sara; Yu, Po-Chieh; Zhang, Bin-Bin; Zhou, Rongpu; Zolkower, Jeffry, We present a systematic search for optical counterparts to 13 gravitational wave (GW) triggers involving at least one neutron star during LIGO/Virgo's third observing run (O3). We searched binary neutron star (BNS) and neutron star black hole (NSBH) merger localizations with the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and undertook follow-up with the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH) collaboration. The GW triggers had a median localization area of 4480 deg2, a median distance of 267 Mpc, and false-alarm rates ranging from 1.5 to 10-25 yr-1. The ZTF coverage in the g and r bands had a median enclosed probability of 39%, median depth of 20.8 mag, and median time lag between merger and the start of observations of 1.5 hr. The O3 follow-up by the GROWTH team comprised 340 UltraViolet/Optical/InfraRed (UVOIR) photometric points, 64 OIR spectra, and three radio images using 17 different telescopes. We find no promising kilonovae (radioactivity-powered counterparts), and we show how to convert the upper limits to constrain the underlying kilonova luminosity function. Initially, we assume that all GW triggers are bona fide astrophysical events regardless of false-alarm rate and that kilonovae accompanying BNS and NSBH mergers are drawn from a common population; later, we relax these assumptions. Assuming that all kilonovae are at least as luminous as the discovery magnitude of GW170817 (-16.1 mag), we calculate that our joint probability of detecting zero kilonovae is only 4.2%. If we assume that all kilonovae are brighter than-16.6 mag (the extrapolated peak magnitude of GW170817) and fade at a rate of 1 mag day-1 (similar to GW170817), the joint probability of zero detections is 7%. If we separate the NSBH and BNS populations based on the online classifications, the joint probability of zero detections, assuming all kilonovae are brighter than-16.6 mag, is 9.7% for NSBH and 7.9% for BNS mergers. Moreover, no more than 10-4, or φ > 30° to be consistent with our limits. We look forward to searches in the fourth GW observing run; even 17 neutron star mergers with only 50% coverage to a depth of-16 mag would constrain the maximum fraction of bright kilonovae to, This work was supported by the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH) project, funded by the National Science Foundation under PIRE grant No. 1545949. GROWTH is a collaborative project among the California Institute of Technology (USA), University of Maryland College Park (USA), University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (USA), Texas Tech University (USA), San Diego State University (USA), University of Washington (USA), Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA), Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan), National Central University (Taiwan), Indian Institute of Astrophysics (India), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (India), Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), The Oskar Klein Centre at Stockholm University (Sweden), Humboldt University (Germany), Liverpool John Moores University (UK), and University of Sydney (Australia). Based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope 48 inch and the 60 inch telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility project. The ZTF is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No. AST-1440341 and a collaboration including Caltech, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute for Science, the Oskar Klein Center at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, the University of Washington, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt University, Los Alamos National Laboratories, the TANGO Consortium of Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. Operations are conducted by COO, IPAC, and UW. The ZTF forced photometry service was funded under Heising-Simons Foundation grant No. 12540303 (PI: Graham). The SED Machine is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No. 1106171. The GROWTH-India telescope is a 70 cm telescope with a 0.7 degrees field of view, set up by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay with support from the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF) and the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India (https://sites.google.com/view/growthindia/). It is located at the Indian Astronomical Observatory (Hanle), operated by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA). The GROWTH-India project is supported by SERB and administered by IUSSTF under grant No. IUSSTF/PIRE Program/GROWTH/2015-16. This research has made use of the VizieR catalog access tool, CDS, Strasbourg, France (doi: 10.26093/cds/vizier). The original description of the VizieR service was published in A&AS 143, 23. These results made use of the Lowell Discovery Telescope (LDT) at Lowell Observatory. Lowell is a private, nonprofit institution dedicated to astrophysical research and public appreciation of astronomy and operates the LDT in partnership with Boston University, the University of Maryland, the University of Toledo, Northern Arizona University, and Yale University. The Large Monolithic Imager was built by Lowell Observatory using funds provided by the National Science Foundation (AST-1005313). The upgrade of the DeVeny optical spectrograph has been funded by a generous grant from John and Ginger Giovale and a grant from the Mt. Cuba Astronomical Foundation. The KPED team thanks the National Science Foundation and the National Optical Astronomical Observatory for making the Kitt Peak 2.1 m telescope available. We thank the observatory staff at Kitt Peak for their efforts to assist Robo-AO KP operations. The KPED team thanks the National Science Foundation, the National Optical Astronomical Observatory, the Caltech Space Innovation Council, and the Murty family for support in the building and operation of KPED. In addition, they thank the CHIMERA project for use of the Electron Multiplying CCD (EMCCD). The Liverpool Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma by Liverpool John Moores University in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias with financial support from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. Some spectroscopic observations were obtained with the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). The Photometric Redshifts for the Legacy Surveys (PRLS) catalog used in this paper was produced thanks to funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics, via grant DE-SC0007914. This publication has made use of data collected at Lulin Observatory, partly supported by MoST grant 108-2112-M-008-001. Based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), installed at the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias on the island of La Palma. M.M.K. acknowledges generous support from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation. M.W.C. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation with grant No. PHY-2010970. A.G. and J.S. acknowledge support from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and GREAT research environment grant 2016-06012, funded by the Swedish Research Council. Some of the work by D.A.P. was performed at the Aspen Center for Physics, which is supported by National Science Foundation grant PHY-1607611. D.A.P. was partially supported by a grant from the Simons Foundation. H.K. thanks the LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program, which is funded by LSSTC, NSF Cybertraining Grant 1829740, the Brinson Foundation, and the Moore Foundation; his participation in the program has benefited this work. This work has been supported by the Spanish Science Ministry Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa Program under grant SEV-2017-0709. A.J.C.T. acknowledges support from the Junta de Andalucia (Project P07-TIC-03094) and Spanish Ministry Projects AYA2012-39727-C03-01, AYA2015-71718R, and PID-019-109974RB-I00. V.A.F. was supported by grant RFBR 19-02-00432. I.A. acknowledges support by a Ramon y Cajal grant (RYC-2013-14511) of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion, y Universidades (MICIU) of Spain. He also acknowledges financial support from MCIU through grant AYA2016-80889-P. A.A.M. is funded by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Corporation, the Brinson Foundation, and the Moore Foundation in support of the LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program; he also receives support as a CIERA Fellow by the CIERA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics, Northwestern University). A.C. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation with grant No. 1907975. W.-H.I., A. K., K.-L.L., C.-C.N., A.P., H.T., and P.-C.Y. acknowledge support from Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) Taiwan grants 104-2923-M-008-004-MY5, 107-2119-M-008-012, 108-2628-M-007-005-RSP, and 108-2112-M-007-025-MY3. D.D. is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. S.A. is supported by the GROWTH project, funded by the National Science Foundation under PIRE grant No. 1545949. A.S.C. is supported by GREAT research environment grant 2016-06012, funded by the Swedish Research Council. E.C.K. acknowledges support from the G.R.E.A.T. research environment and the Wenner-Gren Foundations. A.J.C.T. is thankful for fruitful discussions with J. Cepa, E. Fernandez-Garcia, J. A. Font, S. Jeong, A. Martin-Carrillo, A. M. Sintes, and S. Sokolov. D.A.H.B. acknowledges research support from the National Research Foundation of South Africa. S.B.P. and V.B. acknowledge BRICS grant No. "DST/IMRCD/BRICS/PilotCall1/ProFCheap/2017(G)" for part of the present work. J.S.B. was partially supported by a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Data-Driven Discovery grant and a grant from the National Science Foundation, "Conceptualization of a Scalable Cyberinfrastructure Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics."

We present near-infrared 1.1-1.3 and 1.3-1.6 $\mu$m spectra of the Ly$\alpha$-luminous quasar PSO J006.1240+39.2219 at $z=6.617$ obtained with the NIRSPEC spectrograph at the Keck-II telescope. The spectra cover the CIV $\lambda$1549, CIII] $\lambda$1909 emission lines and part of the UV continuum of the quasar. From the NIRSPEC observations of PSO J006.1240+39.2219, we constrain the spectral slope of its UV continuum to be $\alpha_{\lambda}=-1.35\pm0.26$ and measure an absolute magnitude of $M_{1450}=-25.60$. Using the scaling relation between black hole mass, width of the CIV line and ultraviolet continuum luminosity, we derive a black hole mass of $(2.19\pm0.30)\times 10^8 M_{sun}$, which is consistent but somewhat smaller than the typical black hole masses of $z\gtrsim6$ quasars of similar luminosities. The inferred accretion rate of $L_{bol}/L_{edd}\gtrsim2$ indicates that PSO J006.1240+39.2219 is in the phase of the rapid growth of its supermassive black hole characterized by the high NV/CIV line ratio, NV/CIV$>1$, and lower level of ionization of its circumnuclear gas than in other high-redshift luminous quasars. The NV/CIV line ratio of PSO J006.1240+39.2219 implies relatively high abundance of nitrogen in its circumnuclear gas. This abundance might be produced by the post-starburst population of stars that provide the fuel for black hole accretion., Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, submitted to ApJ

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) is a modern-day wide-field optical survey to systematically explore the transient and variable sky. The ZTF utilizes the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Schmidt Telescope located at the Palomar Observatory. This telescope is equipped with a mosaic CCD camera that provides a field of view of 47 squared degrees. The allocated observing time of ZTF can be divided into partnership time (40%), public time (40%) and Caltech time (20%). The public time contains two surveys: a 3-day cadence for the Northern Sky Survey and a 1-day cadence for the Galactic Plane Survey. Astronomical communities in South East Asian countries are encouraged to explore the public ZTF data once it is released in March 2019. Taiwan’s National Central University (NCU) is one of the partnered institutions, and a major ZTF-related project carried out at NCU is the ZTF Be stars variability (ZTF-BeV) program. The main goal of our program is to study the variability of Be stars in the range of ∼13.5 to ∼20.5 magnitudes.

HO Puppis (HO Pup) was considered as a Be-star candidate based on its gamma-Cassiopeiae-type light curve, but lacked spectroscopic confirmation. Using distance measured from Gaia Data Release 2 and the spectral-energy-distribution (SED) fit on broadband photometry, the Be-star nature of HO Pup is ruled out. Furthermore, based on the 28,700 photometric data points collected from various time-domain surveys and dedicated intensive-monitoring observations, the light curves of HO Pup closely resemble IW And-type stars (as pointed out in Kimura et al. 2020a), exhibiting characteristics such as quasi-standstill phase, brightening, and dips. The light curve of HO Pup displays various variability timescales, including brightening cycles ranging from 23 to 61 days, variations with periods between 3.9 days and 50 minutes during the quasi-standstill phase, and a semi-regular ~14-day period for the dip events. We have also collected time-series spectra (with various spectral resolutions), in which Balmer emission lines and other expected spectral lines for an IW And-type star were detected (even though some of these lines were also expected to be present for Be stars). We detect Bowen fluorescence near the brightening phase, and that can be used to discriminate between IW And-type stars and Be stars. Finally, despite only observing for four nights, the polarization variation was detected, indicating that HO Pup has significant intrinsic polarization., Comment: 24 pages, 7 tables and 12 figures; ApJ accepted

We investigate the mass-velocity dispersion relation (MVDR) in 29 galaxy clusters in the HIghest X-ray FLUx Galaxy Cluster Sample (HIFLUGCS). We measure the spatially resolved, line-of-sight velocity dispersion profiles of these clusters, which we find to be mostly flat at large radii, reminiscent of the rotation curves of galaxies. We discover a tight empirical relation between the baryonic mass $M_\mathrm{bar}$ and the flat velocity dispersion $\sigma$ of the member galaxies, i.e. MVDR, $\log(M_\mathrm{bar}/M_\odot)=4.1^{+0.4}_{-0.4}\,\log(\sigma/\mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1})+1.6^{+1.0}_{-1.3}$, with the lognormal intrinsic scatter of $12^{+3}_{-3}\%$. The residuals of the MVDR are uncorrelated with other cluster properties like temperature, cluster radius, baryonic mass surface density, and redshift. These characteristics are reminiscent of the MVDR for individual galaxies, albeit about ten times larger characteristic acceleration scale. The cluster baryon fraction falls short of the cosmic value, exposing a problem: the discrepancy increases systematically for clusters of lower mass and lower baryonic acceleration., Comment: Version accepted by ApJ; 10 pages, 5 figures, 2 Tables

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), a public-private enterprise, is a new time domain survey employing a dedicated camera on the Palomar 48-inch Schmidt telescope with a 47 deg$^2$ field of view and 8 second readout time. It is well positioned in the development of time domain astronomy, offering operations at 10% of the scale and style of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) with a single 1-m class survey telescope. The public surveys will cover the observable northern sky every three nights in g and r filters and the visible Galactic plane every night in g and r. Alerts generated by these surveys are sent in real time to brokers. A consortium of universities which provided funding ("partnership") are undertaking several boutique surveys. The combination of these surveys producing one million alerts per night allows for exploration of transient and variable astrophysical phenomena brighter than r $\sim$ 20.5 on timescales of minutes to years. We describe the primary science objectives driving ZTF including the physics of supernovae and relativistic explosions, multi-messenger astrophysics, supernova cosmology, active galactic nuclei and tidal disruption events, stellar variability, and Solar System objects., Comment: 26 pages, 7 figures, Published in PASP Focus Issue on the Zwicky Transient Facility

We present observations of supernova (SN) 2017ens, discovered by the ATLAS survey and identified as a hot blue object through the GREAT program. The redshift z = 0.1086 implies a peak brightness of M = -21.1 mag, placing the object within the regime of superluminous supernovae. We observe a dramatic spectral evolution, from initially being blue and featureless, to later developing features similar to those of the broadlined Type Ic SN 1998bw, and finally showing ∼2000 km s wide Hα and Hβ emission. Relatively narrow Balmer emission (reminiscent of a SN IIn) is present at all times. We also detect coronal lines, indicative of a dense circumstellar medium. We constrain the progenitor wind velocity to ∼50-60 km s based on P-Cygni profiles, which is far slower than those present in Wolf-Rayet stars. This may suggest that the progenitor passed through a luminous blue variable phase, or that the wind is instead from a binary companion red supergiant star. At late times we see the ∼2000 km s wide Hα emission persisting at high luminosity (∼3 × 10 erg s) for at least 100 day, perhaps indicative of additional mass loss at high velocities that could have been ejected by a pulsational pair instability. © 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved., T.W.C. acknowledges Thomas. Kruhler for the X-Shooter data reduction, Lin Yan and Claes Fransson for providing comparison spectra, Jason Spyromilio for useful discussions, Chien-Hsiu. Lee and You-Hua. Chu for coordinating observational resources, and funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. M.F. acknowledges the support of a Royal Society-Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellowship. P.S. acknowledges support through the Sofia Kovalevskaja Award (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation). A.V.F. is grateful for the support of the TABASGO Foundation, the Christopher R. Redlich fund, and the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science (U.C. Berkeley). A.J.R. and I.R.S. are supported by the Australian Research Council through grants FT170100243 and FT160100028, respectively. F.T. and J.S. acknowledge support from the KAW Foundation. S.J.S. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council Grant agreement #291222 and STFC grant ST/P000312/1. M.G. is supported by Polish National Science Centre grant OPUS 2015/17/B/ST9/03167. K.M. acknowledges support from the UK STFC through an Ernest Rutherford Fellowship and from a Horizon 2020 ERC Starting Grant (#758638). L.G. was supported in part by US NSF grant AST-1311862. C.P.G. acknowledges support from EU/FP7-ERC grant #615929. Z.Y.L., C.C.N., and P.C.Y. are grateful for funding from MoST (Taiwan) under grants 105-2112-M-008-002-MY3, 104-2923-M-008-004-MY5, and 106-2112-M-008-007. A.P. and S.B. are partially supported by PRIN-INAF 2017 "Toward the SKA and CTA era: discovery, localization, and physics of transient sources" (P.I.: Giroletti). A.G.-Y. is supported by the EU via ERC grant No. 725161, the Quantum Universe I-Core program, the ISF, the BSF Transformative program, and a Kimmel award. Part of the funding for GROND was generously granted from the Leibniz Prize to Prof. G. Hasinger (DFG grant HA 1850/28-1). Some observations were made with the Nordic Optical Telescope using ALFOSC. This publication has made use of data collected at Lulin Observatory, partly supported by MoST grant 105-2112-M-008-024-MY3. Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and NASA; the observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation.

We report on searching for Classical B-type emission-line (CBe) stars in the first data release of the Large Sky Area Multi-Object fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST; also called the Guo Shou Jing Telescope). A total of 192 objects (including 12 previously known CBes) were identified as CBe candidates with prominent He I λ4387, He I λ4471 and Mg II λ4481 absorption lines, as well as Hβ λ4861 and Hα λ6563 emission lines. These candidates significantly increase the currently known sample of CBes by about 8%. Most of the CBe candidates are distributed near the Galactic Anti-Center due to the observing strategy used for LAMOST. Only two CBes are in star clusters. These two CBes have ages of 15.8 and 398 Myr, respectively.

Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 131(995), 018002 - (2019). doi:10.1088/1538-3873/aaecbe, The Zwicky Transient Facility(ZTF)is a new optical time-domain survey that uses the Palomar 48 inch Schmidttelescope. A custom-built wide-field camera provides a 47 deg2field of view and 8 s readout time, yielding morethan an order of magnitude improvement in survey speed relative to its predecessor survey, the Palomar TransientFactory. We describe the design and implementation of the camera and observing system. The ZTF data system atthe Infrared Processing and Analysis Center provides near-real-time reduction to identify moving and varyingobjects. We outline the analysis pipelines, data products, and associated archive. Finally, we present on-skyperformance analysis andfirst scientific results from commissioning and the early survey. ZTF’s public alert streamwill serve as a useful precursor for that of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope., Published by Univ. of Chicago Press, Journals Division10692, Chicago, Ill.

Aims. We studied the r ′-, z ′-, and y ′-band images of merging galaxies from the observations of the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS). The merging galaxies were selected from our merging catalog that was created by checking the images of the Red-Sequence Cluster Survey 2 from the observations of the Canada France Hawaii Telescope.Methods. By using the homomorphic-aperture, we determined the photometric results of these merging systems. To obtain accurate photometry, we calibrated the Pan-STARRS r ′-, z ′-, and y ′-band data to match the results of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 9. We also investigated the stellar masses of the merging galaxies by comparing the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer 3.4 μ m emission with the calibrated y ′-band data.Results. We present a catalog of the r ′-, z ′-, and y ′-band photometric results for 4698 merging galaxies. For extended sources, our results suggest that the homomorphic-aperture method can obtain more reasonable results than the Desktop Virtual Observatory photometry. We derived new relations between the Pan-STARRS y ′-band luminosities and the stellar masses of the merging galaxies. Our results show that the stellar masses of the merging galaxies range from 108 to 1013 M ⊙ ; some of the dry mergers could be as massive as 1013 M ⊙ .

Distant luminous quasars provide important information on the growth of the first supermassive black holes, their host galaxies and the epoch of reionization. The identification of quasars is usually performed through detection of their Lyman-$\alpha$ line redshifted to $\sim$ 0.9 microns at z>6.5. Here, we report the discovery of a very Lyman-$\alpha$ luminous quasar, PSO J006.1240+39.2219 at redshift z=6.618, selected based on its red colour and multi-epoch detection of the Lyman-$\alpha$ emission in a single near-infrared band. The Lyman-$\alpha$-line luminosity of PSO J006.1240+39.2219 is unusually high and estimated to be 0.8$\times$10$^{12}$ Solar luminosities (about 3% of the total quasar luminosity). The Lyman-$\alpha$ emission of PSO J006.1240+39.2219 shows fast variability on timescales of days in the quasar rest frame, which has never been detected in any of the known high-redshift quasars. The high luminosity of the Lyman-$\alpha$ line, its narrow width and fast variability resemble properties of local Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 galaxies which suggests that the quasar is likely at the active phase of the black hole growth accreting close or even beyond the Eddington limit., Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures

Superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) are found predominantly in dwarf galaxies, indicating that their progenitors have a low metallicity. However, the most nearby SLSN to date, SN 2017egm, occurred in the spiral galaxy NGC 3191, which has a relatively high stellar mass and correspondingly high metallicity. In this paper, we present detailed analysis of the nearby environment of SN 2017egm using MaNGA IFU data, which provides spectral data on kiloparsec scales. From the velocity map we find no evidence that SN 2017egm occurred within some intervening satellite galaxy, and at the SN position most metallicity diagnostics yield a solar and above solar metallicity (12 + log (O/H) = 8.8-9.1). Additionally we measure a small H-alpha equivalent width (EW) at the SN position of just 34 Angs, which is one of the lowest EWs measured at any SLSN or Gamma-Ray Burst position, and indicative of the progenitor star being comparatively old. We also compare the observed properties of NGC 3191 with other SLSN host galaxies. The solar-metallicity environment at the position of SN 2017egm presents a challenge to our theoretical understanding, and our spatially resolved spectral analysis provides further constraints on the progenitors of SLSNe., Comment: Accepted version in ApJ Letter. Thank you for useful comments

We introduce the Keck Osiris Nearby AGN survey (KONA), a new adaptive optics-assisted integral-field spectroscopic survey of Seyfert galaxies. KONA permits at ~0.1" resolution a detailed study of the nuclear kinematic structure of gas and stars in a representative sample of 40 local bona fide active galactic nucleus (AGN). KONA seeks to characterize the physical processes responsible for the coevolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies, principally inflows and outflows. With these IFU data of the nuclear regions of 40 Seyfert galaxies, the KONA survey will be able to study, for the first time, a number of key topics with meaningful statistics. In this paper we study the nuclear K-band properties of nearby AGN. We find that the luminosities of the unresolved Seyfert 1 sources at 2.1 microns are correlated with the hard X-ray luminosities, implying that the majority of the emission is non-stellar. The best-fit correlation is logLK = 0.9logL2-10 keV + 4 over 3 orders of magnitude in both K-band and X-ray luminosities. We find no strong correlation between 2.1 microns luminosity and hard X-ray luminosity for the Seyfert 2 galaxies. The spatial extent and spectral slope of the Seyfert 2 galaxies indicate the presence of nuclear star formation and attenuating material (gas and dust), which in some cases is compact and in some galaxies extended. We detect coronal-line emission in 36 galaxies and for the first time in five galaxies. Finally, we find 4/20 galaxies that are optically classified as Seyfert 2 show broad emission lines in the near-IR, and one galaxy (NGC 7465) shows evidence of a double nucleus., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 19 pages with 18 figures

The wide-field synoptic sky surveys, known as the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) and the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF), will accumulate a large number of known and new RR Lyrae. These RR Lyrae are good tracers to study the substructure of the Galactic halo if their distance, metallicity, and galactocentric velocity can be measured. Candidates of halo RR Lyrae can be identified from their distance and metallicity before requesting spectroscopic observations for confirmation. This is because both quantities can be obtained via their photometric light curves, because the absolute V-band magnitude for RR Lyrae is correlated with metallicity, and the metallicity can be estimated using a metallicity-light curve relation. To fully utilize the PTF and iPTF light-curve data in related future work, it is necessary to derive the metallicity-light curve relation in the native PTF/iPTF R-band photometric system. In this work, we derived such a relation using the known ab-type RR Lyrae located in the Kepler field, and it is found to be $[Fe/H]_{PTF} = -4.089 - 7.346 P + 1.280 \phi_{31}$ (where $P$ is pulsational period and $\phi_{31}$ is one of the Fourier parameters describing the shape of the light curve), with a dispersion of 0.118 dex. We tested our metallicity-light curve relation with new spectroscopic observations of a few RR Lyrae in the Kepler field, as well as several data sets available in the literature. Our tests demonstrated that the derived metallicity-light curve relation could be used to estimate metallicities for the majority of the RR Lyrae, which are in agreement with the published values.

From a study of the light curves of the M dwarfs observed by the Kepler space telescope in its primary mission, a number of flare events with the peak flux increases reaching more than the nominal stellar luminosity have been found. One of them, KIC 9201463, produced an extreme flare with the peak flux increase jumping to five times the quiet-time value. In relative terms, this class of hyperflares is much stronger than the superflares of the solar-type stars and could have a very important influence on the atmospheric evolution and the potential development of biospheres of habitable super-Earths orbiting around M dwarf stars. A cross-correlation of the flare activities of some of these M dwarf stars and their Hα equivalent width (EW) values derived from the LAMOST project indicates that the Hα EW values can be used to monitor the occurrence of hyperflares as well as the level of flare activity of different classes of M dwarfs with fast to slow rotations, and hence the long-term environmental effects of star–planet interaction of exoplanets.

We investigate the nuclear dust properties of hidden broad-line region (HBLR) and non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies. Optical images obtained from the Hubble Space Telescope for a selected sample of HBLR and non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies are fitted with the Galfit package to probe the inner structures of these galaxies within the central 1 kpc regions. Most of the galaxies show complicated dust features in these regions. However, the dust morphology shows no significant difference between the HBLR and non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies. Dust masses inside the 1 kpc nuclear regions (M1 kpc) are estimated from the obscuration levels in the central regions of these galaxies. We compare our results with other observed properties, including [O III], far-infrared, and radio emission. We find that the HBLR and non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies show different near-infrared colors and M1 kpc-FIR correlations, indicating that these two classes of Seyfert 2 galaxies are dominated by different emission mechanisms. We suggest that they are intrinsically different and cannot be explained by the standard unification model.

We conducted a search for Be star candidates in open clusters using Hα imaging photometry of the Palomar Transient Factory Survey to investigate some connections among Be star phenomena, cluster environments, and ages. Stellar members of clusters were identified by spatial distributions, near-infrared magnitudes and colors, and by proper motions. Among 104 open clusters, we identified 96 Be star candidates in 32 clusters; 11 of our candidates have been reported in previous studies. We found that the clusters with age 7.5 < log(t(year)) ≤slant 8.5 tend to have more Be star candidates; there is about a 40% occurrence rate within this age bin. The clusters in this age bin also tend to have a higher Be fraction N(Be)/N(Be+B-type). These results suggest that the environments of young and intermediate clusters are favorable to the formation of Be phenomena. Spatial distribution of Be star candidates with different ages implies that they do not form preferentially in the central regions. Furthermore, we showed that the mid-infrared (MIR) colors of the Be star candidates are similar to known Be stars, which could be caused by free-free emission or bound-free emission. Some Be star candidates might have no circumstellar dust according to their MIR colors. Finally, among 96 Be candidates, we discovered that one Be star candidate FSR 0904-1 exhibits long-term variability on the timescale of ̃2000 days with an amplitude of 0.2-0.3 mag, indicating a long timescale of disk evolution.

We present a radio-quiet quasar at z=0.237 discovered "turning on" by the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF). The transient, iPTF 16bco, was detected by iPTF in the nucleus of a galaxy with an archival SDSS spectrum with weak narrow-line emission characteristic of a low-ionization emission line region (LINER). Our follow-up spectra show the dramatic appearance of broad Balmer lines and a power-law continuum characteristic of a luminous (L_bol~10^45 erg/s) type 1 quasar 12 years later. Our photometric monitoring with PTF from 2009-2012, and serendipitous X-ray observations from the XMM-Newton Slew Survey in 2011 and 2015, constrain the change of state to have occurred less than 500 days before the iPTF detection. An enhanced broad Halpha to [OIII]5007 line ratio in the type 1 state relative to other changing-look quasars also is suggestive of the most rapid change of state yet observed in a quasar. We argue that the >10 increase in Eddington ratio inferred from the brightening in UV and X-ray continuum flux is more likely due to an intrinsic change in the accretion rate of a pre-existing accretion disk, than an external mechanism such as variable obscuration, microlensing, or the tidal disruption of a star. However, further monitoring will be helpful in better constraining the mechanism driving this change of state. The rapid "turn on" of the quasar is much shorter than the viscous infall timescale of an accretion disk, and requires a disk instability that can develop around a ~10^8 M_sun black hole on timescales less than a year., Accepted for Publication in ApJ

We report on the first open-use based Atacama Large Millimeter/submm Array (ALMA) 345-GHz observation for the late afterglow phase of GRB131030A. The ALMA observation constrained a deep limit at 17.1 d for the afterglow and host galaxy. We also identified a faint submillimeter source (ALMAJ2300-0522) near the GRB131030A position. The deep limit at 345 GHz and multifrequency observations obtained using {\it Swift} and RATIR yielded forward shock modeling with a two-dimensional relativistic hydrodynamic jet simulation and described X-ray excess in the afterglow. The excess was inconsistent with the synchrotron self-inverse Compton radiation from the forward shock. The host galaxy of GRB131030A and optical counterpart of ALMAJ2300-0522 were also identified in the SUBARU image. Based on the deep ALMA limit for the host galaxy, the 3-$��$ upper limits of IR luminosity and the star formation rate (SFR) is estimated as $L_{IR}, 16 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, PASJ in press

We report the discovery of 2 new Be stars, and re-identify one known Be star in the open cluster NGC 6830. Eleven H-alpha emitters were discovered using the H-alpha imaging photometry of the Palomar Transient Factory Survey. Stellar membership of the candidates was verified with photometric and kinematic information using 2MASS data and proper motions. The spectroscopic confirmation was carried out by using the Shane 3-m telescope at Lick observatory. Based on their spectral types, three H-alpha emitters were confirmed as Be stars with H-alpha equivalent widths > -10 Angstrom. Two objects were also observed by the new spectrograph SED-Machine on the Palomar 60 inch Telescope. The SED-Machine results show strong H-alpha emission lines, which are consistent with the results of the Lick observations. The high efficiency of the SED-Machine can provide rapid observations for Be stars in a comprehensive survey in the future., 11 pages, 8 figures, AJ in press

We investigate the ionization mechanisms for hidden broad-line region (HBLR) and non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies by comparing some optical emission line ratios. We note that the [N II]6583/H_alpha ratio of the non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies is significantly higher than that of the HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies while other line ratios, such as [O III]/H_beta and [O I]/H_beta are similar. To probe the origin of this difference, we explore theoretical results of different ionization models, such as photoionization, starburst, and shock models. We find that none of these models can explain the high [N II]6583/H_alpha ratio of the non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies with solar abundance; the high [N II]6583/H_alpha must be reproduced from enhanced nitrogen abundance. Since nitrogen overabundance can be achieved from the dredge-up of red supergiants in the post-main-sequence stage, we suggest that the observed nitrogen overabundance of the non-HBLR Seyfert 2 might be caused by stellar evolution, and there could be an evolutionary connection between the HBLR and non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies., Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in AJ

We present Be star candidates in the open cluster NGC\,663, identified by H$\alpha$ imaging photometry with the Palomar Transient Factory Survey, as a pilot program to investigate how the Be star phenomena, the emission spectra, extended circumstellar envelopes, and fast rotation, correlate with massive stellar evolution. Stellar membership of the candidates was verified by 2MASS magnitudes and colors, and by proper motions. We discover 4 new Be stars and exclude one known Be star from being a member due to its inconsistent proper motions. The fraction of Be stars to member stars [N(Be)/N(members)] in NGC\,663 is 3.5\%. The spectral type of the 34 Be stars in NGC\,663 shows bimodal peaks at B0--B2 and B5--B7, which is consistent with the statistics in most star clusters. Additionally, we also discover 23 emission-line stars of different types, including non-member Be stars, dwarfs, and giants., Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures, accepted by AJ

We compare the 4000 A break (Dn (4000)) strength in the central kpc of hidden broad-line region (HBLR) and non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies to investigate the origin of these galaxies. Our results show that the Dn (4000) strengths in the nuclear regions of the non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies are larger than those in the HBLR galaxies. We also show that the Dn (4000) strength is not related to the morphology of host galaxies. These results imply that the non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies have an older stellar population in nuclear regions than the HBLR galaxies. This suggests that an evolutionary connection might exist between non-HBLR and HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies. We propose a potential evolutionary scenario and a modified unification model for Seyfert galaxies. In this scheme, Seyfert 1 and HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies evolve into unabsorbed and absorbed non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies. We also discuss the implications of our results in the hydrogen column density distribution of the non-HBLR Seyfert 2 galaxies.

Merging neutron stars offer an exquisite laboratory for simultaneously studying strong-field gravity and matter in extreme environments. We establish the physical association of an electromagnetic counterpart EM170817 to gravitational waves (GW170817) detected from merging neutron stars. By synthesizing a panchromatic dataset, we demonstrate that merging neutron stars are a long-sought production site forging heavy elements by r-process nucleosynthesis. The weak gamma-rays seen in EM170817 are dissimilar to classical short gamma-ray bursts with ultra-relativistic jets. Instead, we suggest that breakout of a wide-angle, mildly-relativistic cocoon engulfing the jet elegantly explains the low-luminosity gamma-rays, the high-luminosity ultraviolet-optical-infrared and the delayed radio/X-ray emission. We posit that all merging neutron stars may lead to a wide-angle cocoon breakout; sometimes accompanied by a successful jet and sometimes a choked jet., Science, in press DOI 10.1126/science.aap9455, 83 pages, 3 tables, 16 figures