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The Spatial Clustering of ROSAT All-Sky Survey Active Galactic Nuclei. V. The Evolution of Broad-line AGN Clustering Properties in the Last 6 Gyr

This is the fifth paper in a series of investigations of the clustering properties of luminous, broad-emission-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) identified in the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). In this work we measure the cross-correlation function (CCF) between RASS/SDSS Data Release 14 AGNs with the SDSS CMASS galaxy sample at 0.44 < z < 0.64. We apply halo occupation distribution (HOD) modeling to the CCF along with the autocorrelation function of the CMASS galaxies. We find that X-ray-selected and optically selected AGNs at 0.44 < z < 0.64 reside in statistically identical halos with a typical dark matter halo (DMH) mass of $M$$^{typ,AGN}_{DMH}$ ~ 10 12.7 h –1 M ⊙ . The acceptable HOD parameter space for these two broad-line AGN samples have only statistically marginal differences caused by small deviations of the CCFs in the one-halo-dominated regime on small scales. In contrast to optically selected AGNs, the X-ray AGN sample may contain a larger population of satellites at MDMH ~ 1013h–1M⊙. We compare our measurements in this work with our earlier studies at lower independent redshift ranges, spanning a lookback time of 6 Gyr. The comparison over this wider redshift range of 0.07 < z < 0.64 reveals (i) no significant difference between the typical DMH masses of X-ray-selected and optically selected AGNs, (ii) weak positive clustering dependencies of $M$$^{typ,AGN}_{DMH}$ with L X and M BH , (iii) no significant dependence of $M$$^{typ,AGN}_{DMH}$ on Eddington ratio, and (iv) the same DMH masses host more-massive accreting black holes at high redshift than at low redshifts.

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Searching for Dwarf H$α$ Emission-line Galaxies within Voids. I. Survey Methods and First Observations

The population density of dwarf galaxies in low-density voids is likely determined by the dark matter halo mass function and how galaxy formation proceeds in smaller halos. This depends on the nature of dark matter itself, making the dwarf galaxy population a tracer of its properties. While dwarfs have been found in smaller, closer voids, they have proven difficult to find in larger, more distant voids through magnitude-limited spectroscopic surveys. This is because these surveys detect an overwhelmingly large number of objects behind the voids that must be verified spectroscopically, making void surveys prohibitively inefficient and expensive in terms of large-telescope time. Narrowband imaging for emission lines such as Hα reduces the number of background objects, although the overall number remains large. If imaging is done through a filter set with overlapping transmission wings, then object redshift can be estimated from photometry alone. The precision possible is an order of magnitude greater than single-band photometry, with the caveat that the captured line must be identified through other means. Broadband photometry can be used to reject enough objects with emission of an unwanted type to make obtaining spectra of the remaining objects feasible. In this study, we present an Hα survey for dwarf galaxies with M r ' fainter than -14 mag through the center 4.3 square degrees of the void FN8. Using Sloan $g^{\prime} ,r^{\prime} ,i^{\prime}$ photometry, we exclude enough [O II ] and [O III ] emitters that follow-up spectra of only a few dozen objects are required to statistically estimate the void population density.

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Mass Dependence of Galaxy–Halo Alignment in LOWZ and CMASS

We measure the galaxy-ellipticity (GI) correlations for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12 LOWZ and CMASS samples with the shape measurements from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys. We model the GI correlations in an N-body simulation with our recent accurate stellar–halo mass relation from the Photometric object Around Cosmic webs (PAC) method. The large data set and our accurate modeling turns out an accurate measurement of the alignment angle between central galaxies and their host halos. We find that the alignment of central elliptical galaxies with their host halos increases monotonically with galaxy stellar mass or host halo mass, which can be well described by a power law for the massive galaxies. We also find that central elliptical galaxies are more aligned with their host halos in LOWZ than in CMASS, which might indicate an evolution of galaxy–halo alignment, though future studies are needed to verify this is not induced by the sample selections. In contrast, central disk galaxies are aligned with their host halos about 10 times more weakly in the GI correlation. These results have important implications for intrinsic alignment (IA) correction in weak lensing studies, IA cosmology, and theory of massive galaxy formation.

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FAST Drift Scan Survey for Ηι Intensity Mapping: I. Preliminary Data Analysis

This work presents the initial results of the drift-scan observation for the neutral hydrogen (Hi) intensity mapping survey with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). The data analyzed in this work were collected in night observations from 2019 through 2021. The primary findings are based on 28 hr of drift-scan observation carried out over 7 nights in 2021, which covers 60 deg 2 sky area. Our main findings are, first, our calibration strategy can successfully correct both the temporal and bandpass gain variation over the 4 hr drift-scan observation. Second, the continuum maps of the surveyed region are made with frequency resolution of 28 kHz and pixel area of $_{2.95\,{\mathrm{arcmin}}^{2}}$. The pixel noise levels of the continuum maps are slightly higher than the forecast assuming $T$ sys = 20 K, which are 36.0 mK (for 10.0 s integration time) at the 1050–1150 MHz band, and 25.9 mK (for 16.7 s integration time) at the 1323–1450 MHz band, respectively. Third, the flux-weighted differential number count is consistent with the NRAO-VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) catalog down to the confusion limit ~7 mJy beam –1 . Finally, the continuum flux measurements of the sources are consistent with those found in the literature. The difference in the flux measurement of 81 isolated NVSS sources is about 6.3%. Our research offers a systematic analysis for the FAST Hi intensity mapping drift-scan survey and serves as a helpful resource for further cosmology and associated galaxies sciences with the FAST drift-scan survey.

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Reconstructing Ly$α$ Fields from Low-resolution Hydrodynamical Simulations with Deep Learning

Hydrodynamical cosmological simulations are a powerful tool for accurately predicting the properties of the intergalactic medium (IGM) and for producing mock skies that can be compared against observational data. However, the need to resolve density fluctuation in the IGM puts a stringent requirement on the resolution of such simulations, which in turn limits the volumes that can be modeled, even on the most powerful supercomputers. In this work, we present a novel modeling method that combines physics-driven simulations with data-driven generative neural networks to produce outputs that are qualitatively and statistically close to the outputs of hydrodynamical simulations employing eight times higher resolution. We show that the Ly$α$ flux field, as well as the underlying hydrodynamic fields, have greatly improved statistical fidelity over a low-resolution simulation. Importantly, the design of our neural network allows for sampling multiple realizations from a given input, enabling us to quantify the model uncertainty. Using test data, we demonstrate that this model uncertainty correlates well with the true error of the Ly$α$ flux prediction. Ultimately, our approach allows for training on small simulation volumes and applying it to much larger ones, opening the door to producing accurate Ly$α$ mock skies in volumes of Hubble size, as will be probed with DESI and future spectroscopic sky surveys.

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The Aemulus Project. VI. Emulation of Beyond-standard Galaxy Clustering Statistics to Improve Cosmological Constraints

Abstract There is untapped cosmological information in galaxy redshift surveys in the nonlinear regime. In this work, we use the Aemulus suite of cosmological N -body simulations to construct Gaussian process emulators of galaxy clustering statistics at small scales (0.1–50 h −1 Mpc) in order to constrain cosmological and galaxy bias parameters. In addition to standard statistics—the projected correlation function w p ( r p ), the redshift-space monopole of the correlation function ξ 0 ( s ), and the quadrupole ξ 2 ( s )—we emulate statistics that include information about the local environment, namely the underdensity probability function P U ( s ) and the density-marked correlation function M ( s ). This extends the model of Aemulus III for redshift-space distortions by including new statistics sensitive to galaxy assembly bias. In recovery tests, we find that the beyond-standard statistics significantly increase the constraining power on cosmological parameters of interest: including P U ( s ) and M ( s ) improves the precision of our constraints on Ω m by 27%, σ 8 by 19%, and the growth of structure parameter, f σ 8 , by 12% compared to standard statistics. We additionally find that scales below ∼6 h −1 Mpc contain as much information as larger scales. The density-sensitive statistics also contribute to constraining halo occupation distribution parameters and a flexible environment-dependent assembly bias model, which is important for extracting the small-scale cosmological information as well as understanding the galaxy–halo connection. This analysis demonstrates the potential of emulating beyond-standard clustering statistics at small scales to constrain the growth of structure as a test of cosmic acceleration.

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The One-hundred-deg 2 DECam Imaging in Narrowbands (ODIN): Survey Design and Science Goals

We describe the survey design and science goals for One-hundred-deg 2 DECam Imaging in Narrowbands (ODIN), a NOIRLab survey using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) to obtain deep (AB ~ 25.7) narrowband images over an unprecedented area of sky. The three custom-built narrowband filters, N419, N501, and N673, have central wavelengths of 419, 501, and 673 nm and respective FWHM of 7.5, 7.6, and 10.0 nm, corresponding to Lyα at z = 2.4, 3.1, and 4.5 and cosmic times of 2.8, 2.1, and 1.4 Gyr, respectively. When combined with even deeper, public broadband data from the Hyper Suprime-Cam, DECam, and in the future, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, the ODIN narrowband images will enable the selection of over 100,000 Lyα-emitting (LAE) galaxies at these epochs. ODIN-selected LAEs will identify protoclusters as galaxy overdensities, and the deep narrowband images enable detection of highly extended Lyα blobs (LABs). Primary science goals include measuring the clustering strength and dark matter halo connection of LAEs, LABs, and protoclusters, and their respective relationship to filaments in the cosmic web. The three epochs allow for the redshift evolution of these properties to be determined during the period known as Cosmic Noon, where star formation was at its peak. The narrowband filter wavelengths are designed to enable interloper rejection and further scientific studies by revealing [O II] and [O III] at z = 0.34, Lyα and He II 1640 at z = 3.1, and Lyman continuum plus Lyα at z = 4.5. Ancillary science includes similar studies of the lower-redshift emission-line galaxy samples and investigations of nearby starforming galaxies resolved into numerous [O III] and [S II] emitting regions.

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PROVABGS: The Probabilistic Stellar Mass Function of the BGS One-percent Survey

We present the probabilistic stellar mass function (pSMF) of galaxies in the DESI Bright Galaxy Survey (BGS), observed during the One-percent Survey. The One-percent Survey was one of DESI's survey validation programs conducted from 2021 April to May, before the start of the main survey. It used the same target selection and similar observing strategy as the main survey and successfully observed the spectra and redshifts of 143,017 galaxies in the r < 19.5 magnitude-limited BGS Bright sample and 95,499 galaxies in the fainter surface-brightness- and color-selected BGS Faint sample over z < 0.6. We derive pSMFs from posteriors of stellar mass, M*, inferred from DESI photometry and spectroscopy using the Hahn et al. PRObabilistic Value-Added BGS (PROVABGS) Bayesian spectral energy distribution modeling framework. We use a hierarchical population inference framework that statistically and rigorously propagates the M* uncertainties. Furthermore, we include correction weights that account for the selection effects and incompleteness of the BGS observations. We present the redshift evolution of the pSMF in BGS, as well as the pSMFs of star-forming and quiescent galaxies classified using average specific star formation rates from PROVABGS. Overall, the pSMFs show good agreement with previous stellar mass function measurements in the literature. Our pSMFs showcase the potential and statistical power of BGS, which in its main survey will observe >100 × more galaxies. Moreover, we present the statistical framework for subsequent population statistics measurements using BGS, which will characterize the global galaxy population and scaling relations at low redshifts with unprecedented precision.

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The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Mitigating the Impact of Extragalactic Foregrounds for the DR6 Cosmic Microwave Background Lensing Analysis

We investigate the impact and mitigation of extragalactic foregrounds for the cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing power spectrum analysis of Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) data release 6 (DR6) data. Two independent microwave sky simulations are used to test a range of mitigation strategies. We demonstrate that finding and then subtracting point sources, finding and then subtracting models of clusters, and using a profile bias-hardened lensing estimator together reduce the fractional biases to well below statistical uncertainties, with the inferred lensing amplitude, A lens , biased by less than 0.2σ. We also show that another method where a model for the cosmic infrared background (CIB) contribution is deprojected and high-frequency data from Planck is included has similar performance. Other frequency-cleaned options do not perform as well, either incurring a large noise cost or resulting in biased recovery of the lensing spectrum. In addition to these simulation-based tests, we also present null tests on the ACT DR6 data for sensitivity of our lensing spectrum estimation to differences in foreground levels between the two ACT frequencies used, while nulling the CMB lensing signal. These tests pass whether the nulling is performed at the map or bandpower level. The CIB-deprojected measurement performed on the DR6 data is consistent with our baseline measurement, implying that contamination from the CIB is unlikely to significantly bias the DR6 lensing spectrum. This collection of tests gives confidence that the ACT DR6 lensing measurements and cosmological constraints presented in companion papers to this work are robust to extragalactic foregrounds.

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The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Cosmology from Cross-correlations of unWISE Galaxies and ACT DR6 CMB Lensing

We present tomographic measurements of structure growth using cross-correlations of Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) DR6 and Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing maps with the unWISE Blue and Green galaxy samples, which span the redshift ranges 0.2 ≲ z ≲ 1.1 and 0.3 ≲ z ≲ 1.8, respectively. We improve on prior unWISE cross-correlations not just by making use of the new, high-precision ACT DR6 lensing maps, but also by including additional spectroscopic data for redshift calibration and by analyzing our measurements with a more flexible theoretical model. We determine the amplitude of matter fluctuations at low redshifts (z ≃ 0.2–1.6), finding S 8 ≡ σ 8 (Ω m /0.3) 0.5 = 0.813 ± 0.021 using the ACT cross-correlation alone and S 8 = 0.810 ± 0.015 with a combination of Planck and ACT cross-correlations; these measurements are fully consistent with the predictions from primary CMB measurements assuming standard structure growth. The addition of baryon acoustic oscillation data breaks the degeneracy between σ 8 and Ω m , allowing us to measure σ 8 = 0.813 ± 0.020 from the cross-correlation of unWISE with ACT and σ 8 = 0.813 ± 0.015 from the combination of cross-correlations with ACT and Planck. These results also agree with the expectations from primary CMB extrapolations in ΛCDM cosmology; the consistency of σ 8 derived from our two redshift samples at z ∼ 0.6 and 1.1 provides a further check of our cosmological model. Our results suggest that structure formation on linear scales is well described by ΛCDM even down to low redshifts z ≲ 1.

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Subhalos in Galaxy Clusters: Coherent Accretion and Internal Orbits

Subhalo dynamics in galaxy cluster host halos govern the observed distribution and properties of cluster member galaxies. We use the IllustrisTNG simulation to investigate the accretion and orbits of subhalos found in cluster-size halos. We find that the median change in the major axis direction of cluster-size host halos is approximately 80° between a ∼ 0.1 and the present day. We identify coherent regions in the angular distribution of subhalo accretion, and ∼68% of accreted subhalos enter their host halo through ∼38% of the surface area at the virial radius. The majority of galaxy clusters in the sample have ∼2 such coherent regions. We further measure angular orbits of subhalos with respect to the host major axis and use a clustering algorithm to identify distinct orbit modes with varying oscillation timescales. The orbit modes correlate with subhalo accretion conditions. Subhalos in orbit modes with shorter oscillations tend to have lower peak masses and accretion directions somewhat more aligned with the major axis. One orbit mode, exhibiting the least oscillatory behavior, largely consists of subhalos that accrete near the plane perpendicular to the host halo major axis. Our findings are consistent with expectations from inflow from major filament structures and internal dynamical friction: most subhalos accrete through coherent regions, and more massive subhalos experience fewer orbits after accretion. Our work offers a unique quantification of subhalo dynamics that can be connected to how the intracluster medium strips and quenches cluster galaxies.

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How the Galaxy–Halo Connection Depends on Large-scale Environment

We investigate the connection between galaxies, dark matter halos, and their large-scale environments at z = 0 with Illustris TNG300 hydrodynamic simulation data. We predict stellar masses from subhalo properties to test two types of machine learning (ML) models: explainable boosting machines (EBMs) with simple galaxy environment features and E(3)-invariant graph neural networks (GNNs). The best-performing EBM models leverage spherically averaged overdensity features on 3 Mpc scales. Interpretations via SHapley Additive exPlanations also suggest that in the context of the TNG300 galaxy–halo connection, simple spherical overdensity on ∼3 Mpc scales is more important than cosmic web distance features measured using the DisPerSE algorithm. Meanwhile, a GNN with connectivity defined by a fixed linking length, L, outperforms the EBM models by a significant margin. As we increase the linking length scale, GNNs learn important environmental contributions up to the largest scales we probe (L = 10 Mpc). We conclude that 3 Mpc distance scales are most critical for describing the TNG galaxy–halo connection using the spherical overdensity parameterization, but that information on larger scales, which is not captured by simple environmental parameters or cosmic web features, can further augment these models. Our study highlights the benefits of using interpretable ML algorithms to explain models of astrophysical phenomena, and the power of using GNNs to flexibly learn complex relationships directly from data while imposing constraints from physical symmetries.

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New Measurements of the Lyα Forest Continuum and Effective Optical Depth with LyCAN and DESI Y1 Data

Abstract We present the Ly α Continuum Analysis Network (LyCAN), a convolutional neural network that predicts the unabsorbed quasar continuum within the rest-frame wavelength range of 1040–1600 Å based on the red side of the Ly α emission line (1216–1600 Å). We developed synthetic spectra based on a Gaussian mixture model representation of nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) coefficients. These coefficients were derived from high-resolution, low-redshift ( z < 0.2) Hubble Space Telescope/Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) quasar spectra. We supplemented this COS-based synthetic sample with an equal number of DESI Year 5 mock spectra. LyCAN performs extremely well on testing sets, achieving a median error in the forest region of 1.5% on the DESI mock sample, 2.0% on the COS-based synthetic sample, and 4.1% on the original COS spectra. LyCAN outperforms principal component analysis (PCA) and NMF-based prediction methods using the same training set by 40% or more. We predict the intrinsic continua of 83,635 DESI Year 1 spectra in the redshift range of 2.1 ≤ z ≤ 4.2 and perform an absolute measurement of the evolution of the effective optical depth. This is the largest sample employed to measure the optical depth evolution to date. We fit a power law of the form τ ( z ) = τ 0 ( 1 + z ) γ to our measurements and find τ 0 = (2.46 ± 0.14) × 10 −3 and γ = 3.62 ± 0.04. Our results show particular agreement with high-resolution, ground-based observations around z = 2, indicating that LyCAN is able to predict the quasar continuum in the forest region with only spectral information outside the forest.

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How Do Uncertainties in Galaxy Formation Physics Impact Field-level Galaxy Bias?

Our ability to extract cosmological information from galaxy surveys is limited by uncertainties in the galaxy–dark matter halo relationship for a given galaxy population, which are governed by the intricacies of galaxy formation. To quantify these uncertainties, we examine quenched and star-forming galaxies using two distinct approaches to modeling galaxy formation: U$\scriptsize{NIVERSE}$M$\scriptsize{ACHINE}$, an empirical semianalytic model, and the I$\scriptsize{llustris}$TNG hydrodynamical simulation. We apply a second-order hybrid N-body perturbative bias expansion to each galaxy sample, enabling direct comparison of modeling approaches and revealing how uncertainties in the galaxy–halo connection affect bias parameters and non-Poisson noise across number densities and redshifts. Notably, we find that quenched and star-forming galaxies occupy distinct parts of the bias parameter space, and that the scatter induced from these different galaxy formation models is small when conditioned on similar selections of galaxies. We also detect the signature of assembly bias in our samples; this leads to small but significant deviations from analytic bias predictions, while assembly bias-removed samples match these predictions well. This work indicates that galaxy samples from a spectrum of reasonable, physically motivated models for galaxy formation give a relatively small range of field-level galaxy bias parameters. We estimate a set of priors from these models that should be useful in extracting cosmological constraints from luminous red galaxy– and emission line galaxy–like samples. Looking forward, careful estimates of the range of impacts of galaxy formation, for a given sample and cosmological analysis, will be an essential ingredient for extracting the most precise cosmological information from current and future large galaxy surveys.

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Joint X-Ray, Kinetic Sunyaev–Zeldovich, and Weak Lensing Measurements: Toward a Consensus Picture of Efficient Gas Expulsion from Groups and Clusters

There is no consensus on how baryon feedback shapes the underlying matter distribution from either simulations or observations. We confront the uncertain landscape by jointly analyzing new measurements of the gas distribution around groups and clusters—DESI+ACT kinetic Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (kSZ) effect profiles and eROSITA X-ray gas masses—with mean halo masses characterized by galaxy–galaxy lensing. Across a wide range of halo masses ( M 500 = 10 13−14 M ⊙ ) and redshifts (0 < z < 1), we find evidence of more efficient gas expulsion beyond several R 500 than predicted by most state-of-the-art simulations. A like-with-like comparison reveals all kSZ and X-ray observations are inconsistent with the fiducial 1 Gpc 3 hydrodynamical FLAMINGO simulation, which was calibrated to reproduce pre-eROSITA X-ray gas fractions: eROSITA X-ray gas fractions are 2 × lower than the simulation, and the kSZ measurements are combined >8σ discrepant. The FLAMINGO simulation variant with the most gas expulsion, and therefore the most suppression of the matter power spectrum relative to a dark-matter-only simulation, provides a good description of how much gas is expelled and how far it extends; the enhanced gas depletion is achieved by more powerful but less frequent AGN outbursts. Joint kSZ, X-ray, and lensing measurements form a consistent picture of gas expulsion beyond several R 500 , implying a more suppressed matter power spectrum than predicted by most recent simulations. Complementary observables (e.g., thermal Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect and fast radio bursts) and next-generation simulations are critical to understanding the physical mechanism behind this extreme gas expulsion and mapping its impact on the large-scale matter distribution.

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The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Sixteenth Data Release

We present the final Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) quasar catalog from Data Release 16 of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS). This catalog comprises the largest selection of spectroscopically confirmed quasars to date. The full catalog includes two subcatalogs (the current versions are DR16Q_v4 and DR16Q_Superset_v3 at https://data.sdss.org/sas/dr16/eboss/qso/DR16Q/): a "superset" of all SDSS-IV/eBOSS objects targeted as quasars containing 1,440,615 observations and a quasar-only catalog containing 750,414 quasars, including 225,082 new quasars appearing in an SDSS data release for the first time, as well as known quasars from SDSS-I/II/III. We present automated identification and redshift information for these quasars alongside data from visual inspections for 320,161 spectra. Here, the quasar-only catalog is estimated to be 99.8% complete with 0.3%-1.3% contamination. Automated and visual inspection redshifts are supplemented by redshifts derived via principal component analysis and emission lines. We include emission-line redshifts for Hα, Hβ, Mg II, C III], C IV, and Lyα. Identification and key characteristics generated by automated algorithms are presented for 99,856 broad absorption-line quasars and 35,686 damped Lyman alpha quasars. In addition to SDSS photometric data, we also present multiwavelength data for quasars from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, UKIDSS, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, FIRST, ROSAT/2RXS, XMM-Newton, and Gaia. Calibrated digital optical spectra for these quasars can be obtained from the SDSS Science Archive Server.

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The Last Journey. I. An Extreme-scale Simulation on the Mira Supercomputer

The Last Journey is a large-volume, gravity-only, cosmological N-body simulation evolving more than 1.24 trillion particles in a periodic box with a side length of 5.025 Gpc. It was implemented using the HACC simulation and analysis framework on the BG/Q system Mira. The cosmological parameters are chosen to be consistent with the results from the Planck satellite. A range of analysis tools have been run in situ to enable a diverse set of science projects and, at the same time, keep the resulting data amount manageable. Analysis outputs have been generated starting at redshift z ~ 10 to allow for construction of synthetic galaxy catalogs using a semianalytic modeling approach in postprocessing. As part of our in situ analysis pipeline, we employ a new method for tracking halo substructures, introducing the concept of subhalo cores. The production of multiwavelength synthetic sky maps is facilitated by generating particle light cones in situ, also beginning at z ~ 10. We provide an overview of the simulation setup and generated data products; a first set of analysis results is presented. A subset of the data is publicly available.

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CMB/kSZ and Compton-y Maps from 2500 deg 2 of SPT-SZ and Planck Survey Data

Abstract We present component-separated maps of the primary cosmic microwave background/kinematic Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) amplitude and the thermal SZ Compton- y parameter, created using data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and the Planck satellite. These maps, which cover the ∼2500 deg 2 of the southern sky imaged by the SPT-SZ survey, represent a significant improvement over previous such products available in this region by virtue of their higher angular resolution ( 1 .′ 25 for our highest-resolution Compton- y maps) and lower noise at small angular scales. In this work we detail the construction of these maps using linear combination techniques, including our method for limiting the correlation of our lowest-noise Compton- y map products with the cosmic infrared background. We perform a range of validation tests on these data products to test our sky modeling and combination algorithms, and we find good performance in all of these tests. Recognizing the potential utility of these data products for a wide range of astrophysical and cosmological analyses, including studies of the gas properties of galaxies, groups, and clusters, we make these products publicly available at http://pole.uchicago.edu/public/data/sptsz_ymap and on the NASA/LAMBDA website.

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