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- 2019
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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2. |
- Feldmeier, John J., et al.
(author)
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SEARCHING FOR NEUTRAL HYDROGEN HALOS AROUND z similar to 2.1 AND z similar to 3.1 Ly alpha EMITTING GALAXIES
- 2013
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In: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 776:2, s. 75-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We search for evidence of diffuse Ly alpha emission from extended neutral hydrogen surrounding Ly alpha emitting galaxies (LAEs) using deep narrow-band images of the Extended Chandra Deep Field South. By stacking the profiles of 187 LAEs at z = 2.06, 241 LAEs at z = 3.10, and 179 LAEs at z = 3.12, and carefully performing low-surface brightness photometry, we obtain mean surface brightness maps that reach 9.9, 8.7, and 6.2 x 10(-19) erg cm(-2) s(-1) arcsec(-2) in the emission line. We undertake a thorough investigation of systematic uncertainties in our surface brightness measurements and find that our limits are 5-10 times larger than would be expected from Poisson background fluctuations; these uncertainties are often underestimated in the literature. At z similar to 3.1, we find evidence for extended halos with small-scale lengths of 5-8 kpc in some but not all of our sub-samples. We demonstrate that sub-samples of LAEs with low equivalent widths and brighter continuum magnitudes are more likely to possess such halos. At z similar to 2.1, we find no evidence of extended Ly alpha emission down to our detection limits. Through Monte-Carlo simulations, we also show that we would have detected large diffuse LAE halos if they were present in our data sets. We compare these findings to other measurements in the literature and discuss possible instrumental and astrophysical reasons for the discrepancies.
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3. |
- Abolfathi, Bela, et al.
(author)
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The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey : First Spectroscopic Data from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the Second Phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment
- 2018
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In: Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. - : IOP Publishing Ltd. - 0067-0049 .- 1538-4365. ; 235:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since 2014 July. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the 14th from SDSS overall (making this Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes the data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (2014-2016 July) public. Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey; the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data-driven machine-learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from the SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS web site (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020 and will be followed by SDSS-V.
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4. |
- Blanton, Michael R., et al.
(author)
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Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV : Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant Universe
- 2017
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In: Astronomical Journal. - : IOP Publishing Ltd. - 0004-6256 .- 1538-3881. ; 154:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We describe the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV), a project encompassing three major spectroscopic programs. The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is observing hundreds of thousands of Milky Way stars at high resolution and. high signal-to-noise ratios in the near-infrared. The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopy for thousands of nearby galaxies (median z similar to 0.03). The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) is mapping the galaxy, quasar, and neutral gas distributions between z similar to 0.6 and 3.5 to constrain cosmology using baryon acoustic oscillations, redshift space distortions, and the shape of the power spectrum. Within eBOSS, we are conducting two major subprograms: the SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources (SPIDERS), investigating X-ray AGNs. and galaxies in X-ray clusters, and the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS), obtaining spectra of variable sources. All programs use the 2.5 m Sloan Foundation Telescope at the. Apache Point Observatory; observations there began in Summer 2014. APOGEE-2 also operates a second near-infrared spectrograph at the 2.5 m du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, with observations beginning in early 2017. Observations at both facilities are scheduled to continue through 2020. In keeping with previous SDSS policy, SDSS-IV provides regularly scheduled public data releases; the first one, Data Release 13, was made available in 2016 July.
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5. |
- Bridge, Joanna S., et al.
(author)
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The Ly alpha Reference Sample. VIII. Characterizing Ly alpha Scattering in Nearby Galaxies
- 2018
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In: Astrophysical Journal. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 852:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We examine the dust geometry and Ly alpha scattering in the galaxies of the Lyman Alpha Reference Sample (LARS), a set of 14 nearby (0.02 < z < 0.2) Ly alpha-emitting and starbursting systems with Hubble Space Telescope Ly alpha, H alpha, and H beta imaging. We find that the global dust properties determined by line ratios are consistent with other studies, with some of the LARS galaxies exhibiting clumpy dust media, while others of them show significantly lower Ly alpha emission compared to their Balmer decrement. With the LARS imaging, we present Ly alpha/H alpha and H alpha/H beta maps with spatial resolutions as low as similar to 40 pc, and use these data to show that in most galaxies, the dust geometry is best modeled by three distinct regions: a central core where dust acts as a screen, an annulus where dust is distributed in clumps, and an outer envelope where Ly alpha photons only scatter. We show that the dust that affects the escape of Ly alpha is more restricted to the galaxies' central regions, while the larger Ly alpha halos are generated by scattering at large radii. We present an empirical modeling technique to quantify how much Ly alpha scatters in the halo, and find that this characteristic scattering distance correlates with the measured size of the Ly alpha halo. We note that there exists a slight anti-correlation between the scattering distance of Ly alpha and global dust properties.
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6. |
- Elsik, Christine G., et al.
(author)
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The Genome Sequence of Taurine Cattle : A Window to Ruminant Biology and Evolution
- 2009
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In: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 324:5926, s. 522-528
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- To understand the biology and evolution of ruminants, the cattle genome was sequenced to about sevenfold coverage. The cattle genome contains a minimum of 22,000 genes, with a core set of 14,345 orthologs shared among seven mammalian species of which 1217 are absent or undetected in noneutherian (marsupial or monotreme) genomes. Cattle-specific evolutionary breakpoint regions in chromosomes have a higher density of segmental duplications, enrichment of repetitive elements, and species-specific variations in genes associated with lactation and immune responsiveness. Genes involved in metabolism are generally highly conserved, although five metabolic genes are deleted or extensively diverged from their human orthologs. The cattle genome sequence thus provides a resource for understanding mammalian evolution and accelerating livestock genetic improvement for milk and meat production.
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7. |
- Gardner, Alex S., et al.
(author)
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A Reconciled Estimate of Glacier Contributions to Sea Level Rise : 2003 to 2009
- 2013
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In: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 340:6134, s. 852-857
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Glaciers distinct from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are losing large amounts of water to the world's oceans. However, estimates of their contribution to sea level rise disagree. We provide a consensus estimate by standardizing existing, and creating new, mass-budget estimates from satellite gravimetry and altimetry and from local glaciological records. In many regions, local measurements are more negative than satellite-based estimates. All regions lost mass during 2003-2009, with the largest losses from Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes, and high-mountain Asia, but there was little loss from glaciers in Antarctica. Over this period, the global mass budget was -259 +/- 28 gigatons per year, equivalent to the combined loss from both ice sheets and accounting for 29 +/- 13% of the observed sea level rise.
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8. |
- Jones, Amy M., et al.
(author)
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SDSS-IV from 2014 to 2016 : A Detailed Demographic Comparison over Three Years
- 2023
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In: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. - 0004-6280. ; 135:1054
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is one of the largest international astronomy organizations. We present demographic data based on surveys of its members from 2014, 2015 and 2016, during the fourth phase of SDSS (SDSS-IV). We find about half of SDSS-IV collaboration members were based in North America, a quarter in Europe, and the remainder in Asia and Central and South America. Overall, 26%-36% are women (from 2014 to 2016), up to 2% report non-binary genders. 11%-14% report that they are racial or ethnic minorities where they live. The fraction of women drops with seniority, and is also lower among collaboration leadership. Men in SDSS-IV were more likely to report being in a leadership role, and for the role to be funded and formally recognized. SDSS-IV collaboration members are twice as likely to have a parent with a college degree, than the general population, and are ten times more likely to have a parent with a PhD. This trend is slightly enhanced for female collaboration members. Despite this, the fraction of first generation college students is significant (31%). This fraction increased among collaboration members who are racial or ethnic minorities (40%-50%), and decreased among women (15%-25%). SDSS-IV implemented many inclusive policies and established a dedicated committee, the Committee on INclusiveness in SDSS. More than 60% of the collaboration agree that the collaboration is inclusive; however, collaboration leadership more strongly agree with this than the general membership. In this paper, we explain these results in full, including the history of inclusive efforts in SDSS-IV. We conclude with a list of suggested recommendations based on our findings, which can be used to improve equity and inclusion in large astronomical collaborations, which we argue is not only moral, but will also optimize their scientific output.
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9. |
- Pfeffer, W. Tad, et al.
(author)
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The Randolph Glacier Inventory : a globally complete inventory of glaciers
- 2014
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In: Journal of Glaciology. - 0022-1430 .- 1727-5652. ; 60:221, s. 537-552
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) is a globally complete collection of digital outlines of glaciers, excluding the ice sheets, developed to meet the needs of the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for estimates of past and future mass balance. The RGI was created with limited resources in a short period. Priority was given to completeness of coverage, but a limited, uniform set of attributes is attached to each of the similar to 198 000 glaciers in its latest version, 3.2. Satellite imagery from 1999-2010 provided most of the outlines. Their total extent is estimated as 726 800 +/- 34 000 km(2). The uncertainty, about +/- 5%, is derived from careful single-glacier and basin-scale uncertainty estimates and comparisons with inventories that were not sources for the RGI. The main contributors to uncertainty are probably misinterpretation of seasonal snow cover and debris cover. These errors appear not to be normally distributed, and quantifying them reliably is an unsolved problem. Combined with digital elevation models, the RGI glacier outlines yield hypsometries that can be combined with atmospheric data or model outputs for analysis of the impacts of climatic change on glaciers. The RGI has already proved its value in the generation of significantly improved aggregate estimates of glacier mass changes and total volume, and thus actual and potential contributions to sea-level rise.
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10. |
- Vargas, Carlos J., et al.
(author)
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TO STACK OR NOT TO STACK : SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTION PROPERTIES OF Ly alpha-EMITTING GALAXIES AT z=2.1
- 2014
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In: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 783:1, s. 26-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We use the Cosmic Assembly Near-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) GOODS-S multi-wavelength catalog to identify counterparts for 20 Ly alpha emitting (LAE) galaxies at z = 2.1. We build several types of stacked spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of these objects. We combine photometry to form average and median flux-stacked SEDs, and postage-stamp images to form average and median image-stacked SEDs. We also introduce scaled flux stacks that eliminate the influence of variation in overall brightness. We use the SED fitting code SpeedyMC to constrain the physical properties of individual objects and stacks. Our LAEs at z = 2.1 have stellar masses ranging from 2 x 10(7) M-circle dot to 8 x 10(9) M-circle dot (median = 3 x 10(8) M-circle dot), ages ranging from 4 Myr to 500 Myr (median = 100 Myr), and E(B - V) between 0.02 and 0.24 (median = 0.12). Although still low, this represents significantly more dust reddening than has been reported for LAEs at higher redshifts. We do not observe strong correlations between Ly alpha equivalent width (EW) and age or E(B - V). The Ly alpha radiative transfer (q) factors of our sample are predominantly close to one and do not correlate strongly with EW or E(B - V). The absence of strong correlations with EW or q implies that Ly alpha radiative transfer is highly anisotropic and/or prevents Ly alpha photons from scattering in dusty regions. The SED parameters of the flux stacks match the average and median values of the individual objects, with the flux-scaled median SED performing best with uncertainties reduced by a factor of two. Median image-stacked SEDs provide a poor representation of the median individual object, and none of the stacking methods capture the large dispersion of LAE properties.
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