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At least 1,027 records · Page 57

Simulating Turbulence-aided Neutrino-driven Core-collapse Supernova Explosions in One Dimension

The core-collapse supernova (CCSN) mechanism is fundamentally 3D, with instabilities, convection, and turbulence playing crucial roles in aiding neutrino-driven explosions. Simulations of CCNSe including accurate treatments of neutrino transport and sufficient resolution to capture key instabilities remain among the most expensive numerical simulations in astrophysics, prohibiting large parameter studies in 2D and 3D. Studies spanning a large swath of the incredibly varied initial conditions of CCSNe are possible in 1D, though such simulations must be artificially driven to explode. We present a new method for including the most important effects of convection and turbulence in 1D simulations of neutrino-driven CCSNe, called Supernova Turbulence In Reduced-dimensionality, or STIR. Our new approach includes crucial terms resulting from the turbulent and convective motions of the flow. We estimate the strength of convection and turbulence using a modified mixinglength theory approach, introducing a few free parameters to the model that are fit to the results of 3D simulations. For sufficiently large values of the mixing-length parameter, turbulence-aided neutrino-driven explosions are obtained. We compare the results of STIR to high-fidelity 3D simulations and perform a parameter study of CCSN explosion using 200 solar-metallicity progenitor models from 9 to 120 M ⊙ . We find that STIR is a better predictor of which models will explode in multidimensional simulations than other methods of driving explosions in 1D. We also present a preliminary investigation of predicted observable characteristics of the CCSN population from STIR, such as the distributions of explosion energies and remnant masses.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Dynamics of Laterally Propagating Flames in X-Ray Bursts. I. Burning Front Structure

We investigate the structure of laterally propagating flames through the highly stratified burning layer in an X-ray burst. Two-dimensional hydrodynamics simulations of flame propagation are performed through a rotating plane-parallel atmosphere, exploring the structure of the flame. We discuss the approximations needed to capture the length and timescales at play in an X-ray burst and describe the flame acceleration observed. Finally, our studies complement other multidimensional studies of burning in X-ray bursts.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Carbon–Oxygen Classical Novae Are Galactic 7 Li Producers as well as Potential Supernova Ia Progenitors

Here, we report on studies of classical nova (CN) explosions where we follow the evolution of thermonuclear runaways (TNRs) on carbon–oxygen (CO) white dwarfs (WDs). We vary both the mass of the WD (from 0.6 M ⊙ to 1.35 M ⊙ ) and the composition of the accreted material. Our simulations are guided by the results of multidimensional studies of TNRs in WDs, which find that sufficient mixing with WD core material occurs after the TNR is well underway, and levels of enrichment are reached that agree with observations of CN ejecta abundances. We use NOVA (our one-dimensional hydrodynamic code) to accrete solar matter until the TNR is ongoing and then switch to a mixed composition (either 25% WD material and 75% solar or 50% WD material and 50% solar). Because the amount of accreted material is inversely proportional to the initial 12 C abundance, by first accreting solar matter the amount of material taking part in the outburst is larger than in those simulations where we assume a mixed composition from the beginning. Our results show large enrichments of 7 Be in the ejected gases, implying that CO CNe may be responsible for a significant fraction (~100 M ⊙ ) of the 7 Li in the galaxy (~1000 M ⊙ ). Although the ejected gases are enriched in WD material, the WDs in these simulations eject less material than they accrete. We predict that the WD is growing in mass as a consequence of the accretion–outburst–accretion cycle, and CO CNe may be an important channel for SN Ia progenitors.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Markov Chain Monte Carlo Predictions of Neutron-rich Lanthanide Properties as a Probe of r -process Dynamics

Lanthanide element signatures are key to understanding many astrophysical observables, from merger kilonova light curves to stellar and solar abundances. To learn about the lanthanide element synthesis that enriched our solar system, we apply the statistical method of Markov Chain Monte Carlo to examine the nuclear masses capable of forming the r-process rare-earth abundance peak. We describe the physical constraints we implement with this statistical approach and demonstrate the use of the parallel chains method to explore the multidimensional parameter space. We apply our procedure to three moderately neutron-rich astrophysical outflows with distinct types of r-process dynamics. We show that the mass solutions found are dependent on outflow conditions and are related to the r-process path. We describe in detail the mechanism behind peak formation in each case. We then compare our mass predictions for neutron-rich neodymium and samarium isotopes to the latest experimental data from the CPT at CARIBU. Here, we find our mass predictions given outflows that undergo an extended (n,γ)⇌(γ,n) equilibrium to be those most compatible with both observational solar abundances and neutron-rich mass measurements.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Dark Matter Constraints from a Unified Analysis of Strong Gravitational Lenses and Milky Way Satellite Galaxies

Joint analyses of small-scale cosmological structure probes have been relatively unexplored yet promise to advance measurements of microphysical dark matter properties using heterogeneous data. Here, we present a multidimensional analysis of dark matter substructure using strong gravitational lenses and the Milky Way (MW) satellite galaxy population, accounting for degeneracies in model predictions and using covariances in the constraining power of these individual probes for the first time. We simultaneously infer the projected subhalo number density and the half-mode mass describing the suppression of the subhalo mass function in thermal relic warm dark matter (WDM), $M_{\mathrm{hm}}$, using the semianalytic model \texttt{Galacticus} to connect the subhalo population inferred from MW satellite observations to the strong lensing host halo mass and redshift regime. Combining MW satellite and strong lensing posteriors in this parameter space yields $M_{\mathrm{hm}}<10^{7.0}\ M_{\mathrm{\odot}}$ (WDM particle mass $m_{\mathrm{WDM}}>9.7\ \mathrm{keV}$) at $95\%$ confidence and disfavors $M_{\mathrm{hm}}=10^{7.4}\ M_{\mathrm{\odot}}$ ($m_{\mathrm{WDM}}=7.4\ \mathrm{keV}$) with a 20:1 marginal likelihood ratio, improving limits on $m_{\mathrm{WDM}}$ set by the two methods independently by $\sim 30\%$. These results are marginalized over the line-of-sight contribution to the strong lensing signal, the mass of the MW host halo, and the efficiency of subhalo disruption due to baryons and are robust to differences in the disruption efficiency between the MW and strong lensing regimes at the $\sim 10\%$ level. This work paves the way for unified analyses of next-generation small-scale structure measurements covering a wide range of scales and redshifts.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Capturing the Physics of MaNGA Galaxies with Self-supervised Machine Learning

As available data sets grow in size and complexity, advanced visualization tools enabling their exploration and analysis become more important. In modern astronomy, integral field spectroscopic galaxy surveys are a clear example of increasing high dimensionality and complex data sets, which challenges the traditional methods used to extract the physical information they contain. Here, we present the use of a novel self-supervised machine-learning method to visualize the multidimensional information on stellar population and kinematics in the MaNGA survey in a 2D plane. Our framework is insensitive to nonphysical properties such as the size of the integral field unit and is therefore able to order galaxies according to their resolved physical properties. Using the extracted representations, we study how galaxies distribute based on their resolved and global physical properties. We show that even when exclusively using information about the internal structure, galaxies naturally cluster into two well-known categories, rotating main-sequence disks and massive slow rotators, from a purely data-driven perspective, hence confirming distinct assembly channels. Low-mass rotation-dominated quenched galaxies appear as a third cluster only if information about the integrated physical properties is preserved, suggesting a mixture of assembly processes for these galaxies without any particular signature in their internal kinematics that distinguishes them from the two main groups. The framework for data exploration is publicly released with this publication, ready to be used with the MaNGA or other integral field data sets.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

New Perspectives on the Exoplanet Radius Gap from a Mathematica Tool and Visualized Water Equation of State

Recent astronomical observations obtained with the Kepler and TESS missions and their related ground-based follow-ups revealed an abundance of exoplanets with a size intermediate between Earth and Neptune (1 R ⊕ ≤ R ≤ 4 R ⊕ ). A low occurrence rate of planets has been identified at around twice the size of Earth (2 × R ⊕ ), known as the exoplanet radius gap or radius valley. We explore the geometry of this gap in the mass–radius diagram, with the help of a Mathematica plotting tool developed with the capability of manipulating exoplanet data in multidimensional parameter space, and with the help of visualized water equations of state in the temperature–density (T–ρ) graph and the entropy–pressure (s–P) graph. We show that the radius valley can be explained by a compositional difference between smaller, predominantly rocky planets (<2 × R ⊕ ) and larger planets (>2 × R ⊕ ) that exhibit greater compositional diversity including cosmic ices (water, ammonia, methane, etc.) and gaseous envelopes. In particular, among the larger planets (>2 × R ⊕ ), when viewed from the perspective of planet equilibrium temperature (T eq ), the hot ones (T eq ≳ 900 K) are consistent with ice-dominated composition without significant gaseous envelopes, while the cold ones (T eq ≲ 900 K) have more diverse compositions, including various amounts of gaseous envelopes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Transverse Vector Decomposition Method for Analytical Inversion of Exoplanet Transit Spectra

Abstract We develop a new method for analytical inversion of binned exoplanet transit spectra and for retrieval of planet parameters. The method has a geometrical interpretation and treats each observed spectrum as a single vector r → in the multidimensional spectral space of observed bin values. We decompose the observed r → into two orthogonal components: a wavelength-independent component r → ∥ corresponding to the spectral mean across all observed bins, and a transverse component r → ⊥ that is wavelength dependent and contains the relevant information about the atmospheric chemistry. The method allows us to extract, without any prior assumptions or additional information, the relative mass (or volume) mixing ratios of the absorbers in the atmosphere, the scale height to stellar radius ratio, H / R S , and the atmospheric temperature. The method is illustrated and validated with several examples of increasing complexity.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Nucleosynthetic Analysis of Three-dimensional Core-collapse Supernova Simulations

Abstract We study in detail the ejecta conditions and theoretical nucleosynthetic results for 18 three-dimensional core-collapse supernova (CCSN) simulations done by F ornax . Most of the simulations are carried out to at least 3 s after bounce, which allows us to follow their longer-term behaviors. We find that multidimensional effects introduce many complexities into the ejecta conditions. We see a stochastic electron fraction evolution, complex peak temperature distributions and histories, and long-tail distributions of the time spent within nucleosynthetic temperature ranges. These all lead to substantial variation in CCSN nucleosynthetic yields and differences from 1D results. We discuss the production of lighter α -nuclei, radioactive isotopes, heavier elements, and a few isotopes of special interest. Comparing pre-CCSN and CCSN contributions, we find that a significant fraction of elements between roughly Si and Ge are generally produced in CCSNe. We find that 44 Ti exhibits an extended production timescale as compared to 56 Ni, which may explain its different distribution and higher than previously predicted abundances in supernova remnants such as Cas A and SN1987A. We also discuss the morphology of the ejected elements. This study highlights the high-level diversity of ejecta conditions and nucleosynthetic results in 3D CCSN simulations and emphasizes the need for additional long-term (∼10 s) 3D simulations to properly address such complexities.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Hydrodynamic Simulations of Oxygen–Neon Classical Novae as Galactic 7 Li Producers and Potential Accretion-induced Collapse Progenitors*

Abstract We report on studies of classical nova (CN) explosions where we follow the evolution of thermonuclear runaways (TNRs) on oxygen–neon (ONe) white dwarfs (WDs). Using NOVA, a 1D hydrodynamic computer code, we accrete solar matter until the TNR is ongoing and then switch to a mixed composition. This approach is guided by the results of multidimensional studies of TNRs in WDs, which find that sufficient mixing with WD core material occurs after the TNR is well underway, and levels of enrichment of the CNONeMg elements are reached that agree with observations of CN ejecta abundances. Because the amount of accreted material is inversely proportional to the oxygen abundance, by first accreting solar matter, the amount of accreted material is larger than in those simulations with an initially enriched composition. We vary the mass of the WD (from 0.6 M ⊙ to 1.35 M ⊙ ) and the composition of the mixed materials. Our results show large enrichments of 7 Be in the ejected gases, implying that ONe CNe and CO CNe may be responsible for a significant fraction (∼100 M ⊙ ) of the Galactic 7 Li (∼1000 M ⊙ ). The production of 22 Na and 26 Al in CN explosions and the γ -ray emission predicted by our simulations are discussed. The WDs in all our simulations eject less material than they accrete and we predict that the WD is growing in mass as a consequence of the CN outburst. ONe CNe, therefore, may be an important channel for accretion-induced collapse events.

Starrfield, Sumner (ORCID:0000000213596312)↗

Hydrodynamical Simulations of Proton Ingestion Flashes in Type I X-Ray Bursts

We perform the first multidimensional fluid simulations of thermonuclear helium ignition underneath a hydrogen-rich shell. This situation is relevant to Type I X-ray bursts on neutron stars that accrete from a hydrogen-rich companion. Using the low-Mach number fluid code MAESTROeX, we investigate the growth of the convection zone due to nuclear burning, and the evolution of the chemical abundances in the atmosphere of the star. We also examine the convective boundary mixing processes that cause the evolution to differ significantly from previous one-dimensional simulations that rely on mixing-length theory. We find that the convection zone grows outward as penetrating fluid elements cool the overlying radiative layer, rather than directly from the increasing entropy of the convection zone itself. Simultaneously, these flows efficiently mix composition, carrying carbon out of and protons into the convection zone even before contact with the hydrogen shell. We discuss the implications of these effects for future modeling of these events and observations.

astrophysical fluid dynamics↗

47 Tuc in Rubin Data Preview 1. Exploring Early LSST Data and Science Potential

We present analyses of the early data from Rubin Observatory’s Data Preview 1 (DP1) for the field of the globular cluster 47 Tuc. The DP1 data set for 47 Tuc includes four nights of observations from the Rubin Commissioning Camera (LSSTComCam), covering multiple bands (ugriy). We address challenges of crowding in the inner region of the cluster and toward the SMC in DP1, and demonstrate improved star–galaxy separation by fitting fifth-degree polynomials to the stellar loci in color–color diagrams and applying multidimensional sigma clipping. We compile a catalog of 3576 probable 47 Tuc member stars selected via a combination of isochrone, Gaia proper-motion, and color–color space matched filtering. We explore the sources of photometric scatter in the 47 Tuc color–color sequence, evaluating contributions from various potential sources, including differential extinction within the cluster. Finally, of the 72 well-characterized variables in the field, we recover three known variable stars, including two RR Lyrae and one eclipsing binary, in the coadd-based object catalog, and identify 62 in the difference image-based object catalog. Although the DP1 lightcurves have sparse temporal sampling, they appear to follow the patterns of densely sampled literature lightcurves well. Despite some data limitations for crowded-field stellar analysis, DP1 demonstrates the promising scientific potential for future LSST data releases.

Choi, Yumi [NSF National Optical-Infrared Astronom↗

SAGAbg. III. Environmental Stellar Mass Functions, Self-quenching, and the Stellar-to-halo Mass Relation in the Dwarf Galaxy Regime

Recent efforts have extended our view of the number and properties of satellite galaxies beyond the Local Group firmly down to M ⋆ ∼ 10 6 M ⊙ . A similarly complete view of the field dwarf population has lagged behind. Using the background galaxy sample from the Satellites Around Galactic Analogs (SAGA) survey at z < 0.05, we take inventory of the dwarf population down to M ⋆ ∼ 5 × 10 6 M ⊙ using three metrics: the stellar mass function (SMF) as a function of environment, the stellar-to-halo mass relation (SHMR) of dwarf galaxies inferred via abundance matching, and the quenched fraction of highly isolated dwarfs. We find that the low-mass SMF shape shows minimal environmental dependence, with the field dwarf SMF described by a low-mass power-law index of α 1 = −1.44 ± 0.09 down to M ⋆ ∼ 5 × 10 6 M ⊙ , and that the quenched fraction of isolated dwarfs drops monotonically to f q ∼ 10 −3 at M ⋆ ∼ 10 8.5 M ⊙ . Though slightly steeper than estimates from H I kinematic measures, our inferred SHMR agrees with literature measurements of satellite systems, consistent with minimal environmental dependence of the SHMR in the probed mass range. Finally, although most contemporary cosmological simulations against which we compare accurately predict the SAGAbg-SMF SHMR, we find that big-box cosmological simulations largely overpredict isolated galaxy quenched fractions via a turnaround in f q (M ⋆ ) at 10 8 ≲ M ⋆ /M ⊙ ≲ 10 9 , underscoring the complexities in disentangling the drivers of galaxy formation and the need for systematic multidimensional observations of the dwarf population across environments.

Kado-Fong, Erin [Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United↗

CosmosDG: An hp -adaptive Discontinuous Galerkin Code for Hyper-resolved Relativistic MHD

We have extended Cosmos++, a multidimensional unstructured adaptive mesh code for solving the covariant Newtonian and general relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations, to accommodate both discrete finite volume and arbitrarily high-order finite element structures. The new finite element implementation, called CosmosDG, is based on a discontinuous Galerkin (DG) formulation, using both entropy-based artificial viscosity and slope limiting procedures for the regularization of shocks. High-order multistage forward Euler and strong-stability preserving Runge–Kutta time integration options complement high-order spatial discretization. We have also added flexibility in the code infrastructure allowing for both adaptive mesh and adaptive basis order refinement to be performed separately or simultaneously in a local (cell-by-cell) manner. We discuss in this report the DG formulation and present tests demonstrating the robustness, accuracy, and convergence of our numerical methods applied to special and general relativistic MHD, although we note that an equivalent capability currently also exists in CosmosDG for Newtonian systems.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Robust Period Estimation Using Mutual Information for Multiband Light Curves in the Synoptic Survey Era

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will produce an unprecedented amount of light curves using six optical bands. Robust and efficient methods that can aggregate data from multidimensional sparsely sampled time-series are needed. Here, we present a new method for light curve period estimation based on quadratic mutual information (QMI). The presented method does not assume a particular model for the light curve nor its underlying probability density and it is robust to non-Gaussian noise and outliers. By combining the QMI from several bands the true period can be estimated even when no single-band QMI yields the period. Period recovery performance as a function of average magnitude and sample size is measured using 30,000 synthetic multiband light curves of RR Lyrae and Cepheid variables generated by the LSST Operations and Catalog simulators. The results show that aggregating information from several bands is highly beneficial in LSST sparsely sampled time-series, obtaining an absolute increase in period recovery rate up to 50%. We also show that the QMI is more robust to noise and light curve length (sample size) than the multiband generalizations of the Lomb–Scargle and AoV periodograms, recovering the true period in 10%–30% more cases than its competitors. A python package with efficient Cython implementations of the QMI and other methods is provided.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

C HIMERA : A Massively Parallel Code for Core-collapse Supernova Simulations

Herein we provide a detailed description of the C HIMERA code, a code developed to model core collapse supernovae (CCSNe) in multiple spatial dimensions. The CCSN explosion mechanism remains the subject of intense research. Progress to date demonstrates that it involves a complex interplay of neutrino production, transport, and interaction in the stellar core, three-dimensional stellar core fluid dynamics and its associated instabilities, nuclear burning, and the fundamental physics of the neutrino–stellar core weak interactions and the equations of state of all stellar core constituents—particularly, the nuclear equation of state associated with core nucleons, both free and bound in nuclei. C HIMERA , by incorporating detailed neutrino transport, realistic neutrino–matter interactions, three-dimensional hydrodynamics, realistic nuclear, leptonic, and photonic equations of state, and a nuclear reaction network, along with other refinements, can be used to study the role of neutrino radiation, hydrodynamic instabilities, and a variety of input physics in the explosion mechanism itself. It can also be used to compute observables such as neutrino signatures, gravitational radiation, and the products of nucleosynthesis associated with CCSNe. The code contains modules for neutrino transport, multidimensional compressible hydrodynamics, nuclear reactions, a variety of neutrino interactions, equations of state, and modules to provide data for post-processing observables such as the products of nucleosynthesis, and gravitational radiation. C HIMERA is an evolving code, being updated periodically with improved input physics and numerical refinements. We detail here the current version of the code, from which future improvements will stem, which can in turn be described as needed in future publications.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A Southern Photometric Quasar Catalog from the Dark Energy Survey Data Release 2

We present a catalog of 1.4 million photometrically selected quasar candidates in the southern hemisphere over the ~5000 deg 2 Dark Energy Survey (DES) wide survey area. We combine optical photometry from the DES second data release (DR2) with available near-infrared (NIR) and the all-sky unWISE mid-infrared photometry in the selection. We build models of quasars, galaxies, and stars with multivariate skew-t distributions in the multidimensional space of relative fluxes as functions of redshift (or color for stars) and magnitude. Our selection algorithm assigns probabilities for quasars, galaxies, and stars and simultaneously calculates photometric redshifts (photo-z) for quasar and galaxy candidates. Benchmarking on spectroscopically confirmed objects, we successfully classify (with photometry) 94.7% of quasars, 99.3% of galaxies, and 96.3% of stars when all IR bands (NIR YJHK and WISE W1W2) are available. The classification and photo-z regression success rates decrease when fewer bands are available. Our quasar (galaxy) photo-z quality, defined as the fraction of objects with the difference between the photo-z z p and the spectroscopic redshift z s , |Δz| ≡ |z s - z p |/(1 + z s ) ≤ 0.1, is 92.2% (98.1%) when all IR bands are available, decreasing to 72.2% (90.0%) using optical DES data only. Our photometric quasar catalog achieves an estimated completeness of 89% and purity of 79% at r < 21.5 (0.68 million quasar candidates), with reduced completeness and purity at 21.5 < r ≲ 24. Among the 1.4 million quasar candidates, 87,857 have existing spectra, and 84,978 (96.7%) of them are spectroscopically confirmed quasars. Finally, we provide quasar, galaxy, and star probabilities for all (0.69 billion) photometric sources in the DES DR2 coadded photometric catalog.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

thornado+FLASH-X: A Hybrid Discontinuous Galerkin–Implicit-explicit and Finite-volume Framework for Neutrino-radiation Hydrodynamics in Core-collapse Supernovae

We present neutrino-transport algorithms implemented in the toolkit for high-order neutrino-radiation hydrodynamics (thornado) and their coupling to self-gravitating hydrodynamics within the adaptive mesh refinement–based multiphysics simulation framework FLASH-X. thornado, developed primarily for simulations of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe), employs a spectral, six-species two-moment formulation with algebraic closure and special-relativistic observer corrections accurate to $\mathcal{O}(v/c)$, and uses discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods for phase-space discretization combined with implicit-explicit time stepping. A key development is a nonlinear neutrino–matter coupling algorithm based on nested fixed-point iteration with Anderson acceleration, enabling fully implicit treatment of collisional processes, including energy-coupling interactions such as neutrino–electron scattering and pair production. Coupling to finite-volume (FV) hydrodynamics is achieved through a hybrid DG-FV representation of the fluid variables and operator-split evolution within FLASH-X. The implementation is verified using basic transport tests with idealized opacities and relaxation and deleptonization problems with tabulated microphysics. Spherically symmetric CCSN simulations demonstrate accuracy and robustness of the coupled scheme, including close agreement with the CCSN simulation code Chimera. An axisymmetric CCSN simulation further demonstrates the viability of DG-based neutrino transport for multidimensional supernova modeling within FLASH-X. thornado’s neutrino-transport solver is GPU-enabled using OpenMP offloading or OpenACC, and all CCSN applications included in this work use the GPU implementation. Together, these results establish a foundation for future enhancements in physics fidelity, numerical algorithms, and computational performance, for increasingly realistic large-scale CCSN simulations.

Endeve, Eirik [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL↗