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DOE OSTI2024

JWST lensed quasar dark matter survey – I. Description and first results

ABSTRACT The flux ratios of gravitationally lensed quasars provide a powerful probe of the nature of dark matter. Importantly, these ratios are sensitive to small-scale structure, irrespective of the presence of baryons. This sensitivity may allow us to study the halo mass function even below the scales where galaxies form observable stars. For accurate measurements, it is essential that the quasar’s light is emitted from a physical region of the quasar with an angular scale of milliarcseconds or larger; this minimizes microlensing effects by stars within the deflector. The warm dust region of quasars fits this criterion, as it has parsec-size physical scales and dominates the spectral energy distribution of quasars at wavelengths greater than 10 μm. The JWST Mid-Infrared Instrument is adept at detecting redshifted light in this wavelength range, offering both the spatial resolution and sensitivity required for accurate gravitational lensing flux ratio measurements. Here, we introduce our survey designed to measure the warm dust flux ratios of 31 lensed quasars. We discuss the flux-ratio measurement technique and present results for the first target, DES J0405-3308. We find that we can measure the quasar warm dust flux ratios with 3 per cent precision. Our simulations suggest that this precision makes it feasible to detect the presence of 107 M⊙ dark matter haloes at cosmological distances. Such haloes are expected to be completely dark in cold dark matter models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2026

DESI DR2 Galaxy luminosity functions

We present galaxy luminosity functions (LFs) for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) DR2 Bright Galaxy Survey (BGS) in the g, r, z, and $w1$ bands over $0.002\lt z\lt 0.6$. Our analysis uses updated k-corrections and evolutionary corrections, including new polynomial kcorrection fits derived from BGS Year 1 data that supersede earlier GAMA-based prescriptions. Exploiting the statistical power of DESI, we measure LFs to very faint magnitudes, reaching $^{0.1}M_r-5\log h\sim -10$. Independent measurements from the North and South survey regions show excellent agreement around the LF knee, but the very small statistical uncertainties reveal that simple analytic forms fail to capture the full LF shape. The bright end departs from a pure exponential decline, while the faint end exhibits complex, non-powerlaw behaviour, including a pronounced upturn at $^{0.1}M_r-5\log h\gtrsim -15$, which is stronger for red galaxies than for blue. We show that our LFs are largely complete for galaxies with surface brightness $\mu _{50}\lt 25$, and that an apparent steepening fainter than $-13$ is driven primarily by local overdensity and fragmentation of large galaxies. A systematic North–South offset at the brightest magnitudes is traced to red galaxies and may reflect shallower North photometry underestimating extended earlytype profiles, although this remains inconclusive. We therefore also provide LFs based on model Petrosian magnitudes. Redshift splitting reveals small but significant residuals, indicating limitations of a simple global evolutionary model. Using the redshift limits of J. Loveday et al. (2012), we find excellent agreement with GAMA, with substantially reduced statistical errors. These measurements provide a precise reference for studies of environmental and population-dependent LFs and for testing galaxy formation models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Galaxy Cruise: Deep Insights into Interacting Galaxies in the Local Universe

Abstract We present the first results from GALAXY CRUISE, a community (or citizen) science project based on data from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP). The current paradigm of galaxy evolution suggests that galaxies grow hierarchically via mergers, but our observational understanding of the role of mergers is still limited. The data from HSC-SSP are ideally suited to improve our understanding with improved identifications of interacting galaxies thanks to the superb depth and image quality of HSC-SSP. We launched a community science project, GALAXY CRUISE, in 2019 and have collected over two million independent classifications of 20686 galaxies at z < 0.2. We first characterize the accuracy of the participants’ classifications and demonstrate that it surpasses previous studies based on shallower imaging data. We then investigate various aspects of interacting galaxies in detail. We show that there is a clear sign of enhanced activities of super-massive black holes and star formation in interacting galaxies compared to those in isolated galaxies. The enhancement seems particularly strong for galaxies undergoing violent mergers. We also show that the mass growth rate inferred from our results is roughly consistent with the observed evolution of the stellar mass function. The second season of GALAXY CRUISE is currently underway and we conclude with future prospects. We make the morphological classification catalog used in this paper publicly available at the GALAXY CRUISE website, which will be particularly useful for machine-learning applications.

Tanaka, Masayuki↗

DOE OSTI2020

Review of uncertainties in the cosmic supernova relic neutrino background

We review the computation of and associated uncertainties in the current understanding of the relic neutrino background due to core-collapse supernovae, black hole formation and neutron star merger events. We consider the current status of uncertainties due to the nuclear equation of state (EoS), the progenitor masses, the source supernova neutrino spectrum, the cosmological star formation rate, the stellar initial mass function, neutrino oscillations, and neutrino self-interactions. We summarize the current viability of future neutrino detectors to distinguish the nuclear EoS and the temperature of supernova neutrinos via the detected relic supernova neutrino spectrum.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

DOE OSTI2020

Tidal Disruption Event Galaxy Binner

This software simulates astronomical survey detections of tidal disruptions of stars by super-massive black holes. It begins with the synthetic galaxy catalogue described in van Velzen 2008 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.03458). The stellar disruption rate in each galaxy is estimated based on Stone & Metzger 2016 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.7772). Based on these rates, and the present-day stellar mass function in the galaxy, disruptions are randomly sampled, and the properties of the resulting flares are sampled based on empirical distributions. The code also accounts for obscuration by dust in the host galaxy. Finally, the survey selection effects are applied. The detectable simulated flares are stored in a database, allowing histograms of their properties to be created.

Roth, NathanielJ.↗

DOE OSTI2021

The Attraction Indian Buffet Distribution

We propose the attraction Indian buffet distribution (AIBD), a distribution for binary feature matrices influenced by pairwise similarity information. Binary feature matrices are used in Bayesian models to uncover latent variables (i.e., features) that explain observed data. The Indian buffet process (IBP) is a popular exchangeable prior distribution for latent feature matrices. In the presence of additional information, however, the exchangeability assumption is not reasonable or desirable. The AIBD can incorporate pairwise similarity information, yet it preserves many properties of the IBP, including the distribution of the total number of features. Thus, much of the interpretation and intuition that one has for the IBP directly carries over to the AIBD. A temperature parameter controls the degree to which the similarity information affects feature-sharing between observations. Unlike other nonexchangeable distributions for feature allocations, the probability mass function of the AIBD has a tractable normalizing constant, making posterior inference on hyperparameters straight-forward using standard MCMC methods. A novel posterior sampling algorithm is proposed for the IBP and the AIBD. We demonstrate the feasibility of the AIBD as a prior distribution in feature allocation models and compare the performance of competing methods in simulations and an application.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2022

Inter-Domain Fusion for Enhanced Intrusion Detection in Power Systems: An Evidence Theoretic and Meta-Heuristic Approach

False alerts due to misconfigured or compromised intrusion detection systems (IDS) in industrial control system (ICS) networks can lead to severe economic and operational damage. However, research using deep learning to reduce false alerts often requires the physical and cyber sensor data to be trustworthy. Implicit trust is a major problem for artificial intelligence or machine learning (AI/ML) in cyber-physical system (CPS) security, because when these solutions are most urgently needed is also when they are most at risk (e.g., during an attack). To address this, the Inter-Domain Evidence theoretic Approach for Inference (IDEA-I) is proposed that reframes the detection problem as how to make good decisions given uncertainty. Specifically, an evidence theoretic approach leveraging Dempster–Shafer (DS) combination rules and their variants is proposed for reducing false alerts. A multi-hypothesis mass function model is designed that leverages probability scores obtained from supervised-learning classifiers. Using this model, a location-cum-domain-based fusion framework is proposed to evaluate the detector’s performance using disjunctive, conjunctive, and cautious conjunctive rules. The approach is demonstrated in a cyber-physical power system testbed, and the classifiers are trained with datasets from Man-In-The-Middle attack emulation in a large-scale synthetic electric grid. For evaluating the performance, we consider plausibility, belief, pignistic, and general Bayesian theorem-based metrics as decision functions. To improve the performance, a multi-objective-based genetic algorithm is proposed for feature selection considering the decision metrics as the fitness function. Finally, we present a software application to evaluate the DS fusion approaches with different parameters and architectures.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2022

Dual-Biometric Human Identification Using Radar Deep Transfer Learning

Accurate human identification using radar has a variety of potential applications, such as surveillance, access control and security checkpoints. Nevertheless, radar-based human identification has been limited to a few motion-based biometrics that are solely reliant on micro-Doppler signatures. This paper proposes for the first time the use of combined radar-based heart sound and gait signals as biometrics for human identification. The proposed methodology starts by converting the extracted biometric signatures collected from 18 subjects to images, and then an image augmentation technique is applied and the deep transfer learning is used to classify each subject. A validation accuracy of 58.7% and 96% is reported for the heart sound and gait biometrics, respectively. Next, the identification results of the two biometrics are combined using the joint probability mass function (PMF) method to report a 98% identification accuracy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest reported in the literature to date. Lastly, the trained networks are tested in an actual scenario while being used in an office access control platform to identify different human subjects. We report an accuracy of 76.25%.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

DOE OSTI2020

RELICS: The Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey and the Brightest High- z Galaxies

Massive foreground galaxy clusters magnify and distort the light of objects behind them, permitting a view into both the extremely distant and intrinsically faint galaxy populations. Here we present the $z\sim 6\mbox{--}8$ candidate high-redshift galaxies from the Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey (RELICS), a Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescope survey of 41 massive galaxy clusters spanning an area of ≈200 arcmin2. These clusters were selected to be excellent lenses, and we find similar high-redshift sample sizes and magnitude distributions as the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH). We discover 257, 57, and eight candidate galaxies at z ~ 6, 7, and 8 respectively, (322 in total). The observed (lensed) magnitudes of the z ~ 6 candidates are as bright as AB mag ~23, making them among the brightest known at these redshifts, comparable with discoveries from much wider, blank-field surveys. RELICS demonstrates the efficiency of using strong gravitational lenses to produce high-redshift samples in the epoch of reionization. These brightly observed galaxies are excellent targets for follow-up study with current and future observatories, including the James Webb Space Telescope.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2020

PopSyCLE: A New Population Synthesis Code for Compact Object Microlensing Events

We present a new Milky Way microlensing simulation code, dubbed PopSyCLE (Population Synthesis for Compact object Lensing Events). PopSyCLE is the first resolved microlensing simulation to include a compact object distribution derived from numerical supernovae explosion models and both astrometric and photometric microlensing effects. We demonstrate the capabilities of PopSyCLE by investigating the optimal way to find black holes (BHs) with microlensing. Candidate BHs have typically been selected from wide-field photometric microlensing surveys, such as OGLE, by selecting events with long Einstein crossing times (tE > 120 days). These events can be selected at closest approach and monitored astrometrically in order to constrain the mass of each lens; PopSyCLE predicts a BH detection rate of ~40% for such a program. We find that the detection rate can be enhanced to ~ 85% by selecting events with both tE > 120 days and a microlensing parallax of πE < 0.08. Unfortunately, such a selection criterion cannot be applied during the event as πE requires both pre- and post-peak photometry. However, historical microlensing events from photometric surveys can be revisited using this new selection criteria in order to statistically constrain the abundance of BHs in the Milky Way. The future WFIRST microlensing survey provides both precise photometry and astrometry and will yield individual masses of O(100 - 1000) black holes, which is at least an order of magnitude more than is possible with individual candidate follow-up with current facilities. The resulting sample of BH masses from WFIRST will begin to constrain the shape of the black hole present-day mass function, BH multiplicity, and BH kick velocity distributions

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Search for Supernova Neutrinos and Constraint on the Galactic Star Formation Rate with the KamLAND Data

We present the results of a search for core-collapse supernova neutrinos, using long-term KamLAND data from 2002 March 9 to 2020 April 25. We focus on the electron antineutrinos emitted from supernovae in the energy range of 1.8–111 MeV. Supernovae will make a neutrino event cluster with the duration of ~10 s in the KamLAND data. We find no neutrino clusters and give the upper limit on the supernova rate to be 0.15 yr –1 with a 90% confidence level. The detectable range, which corresponds to a >95% detection probability, is 40–59 kpc and 65–81 kpc for core-collapse supernovae and failed core-collapse supernovae, respectively. This paper proposes to convert the supernova rate obtained by the neutrino observation to the Galactic star formation rate. Assuming a modified Salpeter-type initial mass function, the upper limit on the Galactic star formation rate is <(17.5–22.7) M ⊙ yr –1 with a 90% confidence level.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2023

From Images to Dark Matter: End-to-end Inference of Substructure from Hundreds of Strong Gravitational Lenses

Abstract Constraining the distribution of small-scale structure in our universe allows us to probe alternatives to the cold dark matter paradigm. Strong gravitational lensing offers a unique window into small dark matter halos (<10 10 M ⊙ ) because these halos impart a gravitational lensing signal even if they do not host luminous galaxies. We create large data sets of strong lensing images with realistic low-mass halos, Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observational effects, and galaxy light from HST’s COSMOS field. Using a simulation-based inference pipeline, we train a neural posterior estimator of the subhalo mass function (SHMF) and place constraints on populations of lenses generated using a separate set of galaxy sources. We find that by combining our network with a hierarchical inference framework, we can both reliably infer the SHMF across a variety of configurations and scale efficiently to populations with hundreds of lenses. By conducting precise inference on large and complex simulated data sets, our method lays a foundation for extracting dark matter constraints from the next generation of wide-field optical imaging surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Light Curves and Event Rates of Axion Instability Supernovae

Abstract It was recently proposed that exotic particles can trigger a new stellar instability that is analogous to the e − e + pair instability if they are produced and reach equilibrium in the stellar plasma. In this study, we construct axion instability supernova (AISN) models caused by the new instability to predict their observational signatures. We focus on heavy axion-like particles (ALPs) with masses of ∼400 keV–2 MeV and coupling with photons of g a γ ∼ 10 −5 GeV −1 . It is found that the 56 Ni mass and the explosion energy are significantly increased by ALPs for a fixed stellar mass. As a result, the peak times of the light curves of AISNe occur earlier than those of standard pair-instability supernovae by 10–20 days when the ALP mass is equal to the electron mass. Also, the event rate of AISNe is 1.7–2.6 times higher than that of pair-instability supernovae, depending on the high mass cutoff of the initial mass function.

Mori, Kanji (ORCID:0000000325951657)↗

DOE OSTI2023

Toward Accurate Modeling of Galaxy Clustering on Small Scales: Halo Model Extensions and Lingering Tension

This paper represents an effort to provide robust constraints on the galaxy–halo connection and simultaneously test the Planck ΛCDM cosmology using a fully numerical model of small-scale galaxy clustering. We explore two extensions to the standard Halo Occupation Distribution model: assembly bias, whereby halo occupation depends on both halo mass and the larger environment, and velocity bias, whereby galaxy velocities do not perfectly trace the velocity of the dark matter within the halo. Moreover, we incorporate halo mass corrections to account for the impact of baryonic physics on the halo population. We identify an optimal set of clustering measurements to constrain this "decorated" HOD model for both low- and high-luminosity galaxies in SDSS DR7. We find that, for low-luminosity galaxies, a model with both assembly bias and velocity bias provides the best fit to the clustering measurements, with no tension remaining in the fit. In this model, we find evidence for both central and satellite galaxy assembly bias at the 99% and 95% confidence levels, respectively. In addition, we find evidence for satellite galaxy velocity bias at the 99.9% confidence level. For high-luminosity galaxies, we find no evidence for either assembly bias or velocity bias, but our model exhibits significant tension with SDSS measurements. We find that all of these conclusions still stand when we include the effects of baryonic physics on the halo mass function, suggesting that the tension we find for high-luminosity galaxies may be due to a problem with our assumed cosmological model.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2023

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.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Suppressed Cosmic-Ray Energy Densities in Molecular Clouds from Streaming Instability-regulated Transport

Abstract Cosmic rays (CRs) are the primary driver of ionization in star-forming molecular clouds (MCs). Despite their potential impacts on gas dynamics and chemistry, no simulations of star cluster formation following the creation of individual stars have included explicit cosmic-ray transport (CRT) to date. We conduct the first numerical simulations following the collapse of a 2000 M ⊙ MC and the subsequent star formation including CRT using the STAR FORmation in Gaseous Environments framework implemented in the GIZMO code. We show that when CRT is streaming-dominated, the CR energy in the cloud is strongly attenuated due to energy losses from the streaming instability. Consequently, in a Milky Way–like environment the median CR ionization rate in the cloud is low ( ζ ≲ 2 × 10 −19 s −1 ) during the main star-forming epoch of the calculation and the impact of CRs on the star formation in the cloud is limited. However, in high-CR environments, the CR distribution in the cloud is elevated ( ζ ≲ 6 × 10 −18 ), and the relatively higher CR pressure outside the cloud causes slightly earlier cloud collapse and increases the star formation efficiency by 50% to ∼13%. The initial mass function is similar in all cases except with possible variations in a high-CR environment. Further studies are needed to explain the range of ionization rates observed in MCs and explore star formation in extreme CR environments.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

DOE OSTI2025

Effects of Subhalos on Interpreting Highly Magnified Sources Near Lensing Caustics

Large magnification factors near gravitational lensing caustics of galaxy-cluster lenses allow the study of individual stars or compact stellar associations at cosmological distances. We study how the presence of sub-galactic subhalos, an inevitable consequence of cold dark matter, can alter the property of caustics and hence change the interpretation of highly magnified sources that lie atop them. First, we consider a galaxy-cluster halo populated with subhalos sampled from a realistic subhalo mass function calibrated to N-body simulations. Then, we compare a semianalytical approximation and an adaptive ray-shooting method that we employ to quantify the property of the caustics. As a case study, we investigate Earendel, a z = 6.2 candidate of magnified single- or multiple-star system with a lone lensed image atop the critical curve in the Sunrise Arc. We find that the source size constraint (≲0.3 pc) previously derived from macrolens models should be relaxed by a factor of a few to 10 when subhalos are accounted for, therefore allowing the possibility of a compact star cluster. The subhalos could introduce an astrometric perturbation that is ≲0$^{"}_{.}$5, which does not contradict observation. These conclusions are largely robust to changes in the subhalo population. Subhalos therefore should be seriously accounted for when interpreting the astrophysical nature of similar highly magnified sources uncovered in recent high-z observations.

Caustic curve↗

DOE OSTI2026

ELVES-Dwarf. I. Satellite Systems of Eight Isolated Dwarf Galaxies in the Local Volume

The satellite populations of Milky Way (MW)–mass systems have been extensively studied, significantly advancing our understanding of galaxy formation and dark matter physics. In contrast, the satellites of lower-mass dwarf galaxies remain largely unexplored, despite hierarchical structure formation predicting that dwarf galaxies should host their own satellites. We present the first results of the ELVES-Dwarf survey, which aims to statistically characterize the satellite populations of isolated dwarf galaxies in the Local Volume (4 < D < 10 Mpc). We identify satellite candidates in integrated light using Legacy Surveys data and achieve completeness down to M g ≈ −9 mag. We then confirm the association of satellite candidates with host galaxies using surface-brightness fluctuation distances measured from Hyper Suprime-Cam data. We surveyed eight isolated dwarf galaxies with stellar masses ranging from sub-Small Magellanic Cloud to Large Magellanic Cloud scales $(10^{7.8} < M^{\textrm{host}}_{\star} < 10^{9.5} M_⊙)$, and confirmed six satellites with stellar masses between 10 5.6 and 10 8 M ⊙ . Most confirmed satellites are star-forming, in contrast to the primarily quiescent satellites observed around MW-mass hosts. By comparing observed satellite abundances and stellar mass functions with theoretical predictions, we find no evidence of a “missing satellite problem” in the dwarf galaxy regime.

Li, Jiaxuan 嘉轩李 [Princeton University, NJ (United ↗