您选择的条件: N. Wyn Evans
  • Peeking beneath the precision floor -- II. Probing the chemo-dynamical histories of the potential globular cluster siblings, NGC 288 and NGC 362

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: The assembly history of the Milky Way (MW) is a rapidly evolving subject, with numerous small accretion events and at least one major merger proposed in the MW's history. Accreted alongside these dwarf galaxies are globular clusters (GCs), which act as spatially coherent remnants of these past events. Using high precision differential abundance measurements from our recently published study, we investigate the likelihood that the MW clusters NGC 362 and NGC 288 are galactic siblings, accreted as part of the Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus (GSE) merger. To do this, we compare the two GCs at the 0.01 dex level for 20+ elements for the first time. Strong similarities are found, with the two showing chemical similarity on the same order as those seen between the three LMC GCs, NGC 1786, NGC 2210 and NGC 2257. However, when comparing GC abundances directly to GSE stars, marked differences are observed. NGC 362 shows good agreement with GSE stars in the ratio of Eu to Mg and Si, as well as a clear dominance in the r- compared to the s-process, while NGC 288 exhibits only a slight r-process dominance. When fitting the two GC abundances with a GSE-like galactic chemical evolution model, NGC 362 shows agreement with both the model predictions and GSE abundance ratios (considering Si, Ni, Ba and Eu) at the same metallicity. This is not the case for NGC 288. We propose that the two are either not galactic siblings, or GSE was chemically inhomogeneous enough to birth two similar, but not identical clusters with distinct chemistry relative to constituent stars.

  • Catalogues of Active Galactic Nuclei From Gaia and unWISE Data

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: We present two catalogues of active galactic nucleus (AGN) candidates selected from the latest data of two all-sky surveys -- Data Release 2 (DR2) of the \emph{Gaia} mission and the unWISE catalogue of the \emph{Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer} (\emph{WISE}). We train a random forest classifier to predict the probability of each source in the \emph{Gaia}-unWISE joint sample being an AGN, $P_{\rm RF}$, based on \emph{Gaia} astrometric and photometric measurements and unWISE photometry. The two catalogues, which we designate C75 and R85, are constructed by applying different $P_{\rm RF}$ threshold cuts to achieve an overall completeness of 75\% ($\approx$90\% at \emph{Gaia} $G\leq20$ mag) and reliability of 85\% respectively. The C75 (R85) catalogue contains 2,734,464 (2,182,193) AGN candidates across the effective 36,000 deg$^2$ sky, of which $\approx$0.91 (0.52) million are new discoveries. Photometric redshifts of the AGN candidates are derived by a random forest regressor using \emph{Gaia} and \emph{WISE} magnitudes and colours. The estimated overall photometric redshift accuracy is 0.11. Cross-matching the AGN candidates with a sample of known bright cluster galaxies, we identify a high-probability strongly-lensed AGN candidate system, SDSS\,J1326$+$4806, with a large image separation of 21\farcs06. All the AGN candidates in our catalogues will have $\sim$5-year long light curves from \emph{Gaia} by the end of the mission, and thus will be a great resource for AGN variability studies. Our AGN catalogues will also be helpful in AGN target selections for future spectroscopic surveys, especially ones in the southern hemisphere. The C75 catalogue can be downloaded at https://zenodo.org/record/6837642#.YtEgjy8RrzI.

  • First semi-empirical test of the white dwarf mass-radius relationship using a single white dwarf via astrometric microlensing

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: In November 2019, the nearby single, isolated DQ-type white dwarf LAWD 37 (WD 1142-645) aligned closely with a distant background source and caused an astrometric microlensing event. Leveraging astrometry from \Gaia{} and followup data from the \textit{Hubble Space Telescope} we measure the astrometric deflection of the background source and obtain a gravitational mass for LAWD~37. The main challenge of this analysis is in extracting the lensing signal of the faint background source whilst it is buried in the wings of LAWD~37's point spread function. Removal of LAWD 37's point spread function induces a significant amount of correlated noise which we find can mimic the astrometric lensing signal. We find a deflection model including correlated noise caused by the removal of LAWD~37's point spread function best explains the data and yields a mass for LAWD 37 of $0.56\pm0.08 M_{\odot}$. This mass is in agreement with the theoretical mass-radius relationship and cooling tracks expected for CO core white dwarfs. Furthermore, the mass is consistent with no or trace amounts of hydrogen that is expected for objects with helium-rich atmospheres like LAWD 37. We conclude that further astrometric followup data on the source is likely to improve the inference on LAWD 37's mass at the $\approx3$ percent level and definitively rule out purely correlated noise explanations of the data. This work provides the first semi-empirical test of the white dwarf mass-radius relationship using a single, isolated white dwarf and supports current model atmospheres of DQ white dwarfs and white dwarf evolutionary theory.