Table of contents

With the advent of more sensitive all-sky instruments, the transient universe is being probed in greater depth than ever before. Taking advantage of available resources, we have established a comprehensive database of black hole (and black hole candidate) X-ray binary (BHXB) activity between 1996 and 2015 as revealed by all-sky instruments, scanning surveys, and select narrow-field X-ray instruments on board the INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory, Monitor of All-Sky X-ray Image, Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, and Swift telescopes; the Whole-sky Alberta Time-resolved Comprehensive black-Hole Database Of the Galaxy or WATCHDOG. Over the past two decades, we have detected 132 transient outbursts, tracked and classified behavior occurring in 47 transient and 10 persistently accreting BHs, and performed a statistical study on a number of outburst properties across the Galactic population. We find that outbursts undergone by BHXBs that do not reach the thermally dominant accretion state make up a substantial fraction (∼40%) of the Galactic transient BHXB outburst sample over the past ∼20 years. Our findings suggest that this "hard-only" behavior, observed in transient and persistently accreting BHXBs, is neither a rare nor recent phenomenon and may be indicative of an underlying physical process, relatively common among binary BHs, involving the mass-transfer rate onto the BH remaining at a low level rather than increasing as the outburst evolves. We discuss how the larger number of these "hard-only" outbursts and detected outbursts in general have significant implications for both the luminosity function and mass-transfer history of the Galactic BHXB population.

We present Herschel PACS and SPIRE far-infrared (FIR) and submillimeter imaging observations for a large K-band selected sample of 88 close major-merger pairs of galaxies (H-KPAIRs) in 6 photometric bands (70, 100, 160, 250, 350, and 500 μm). Among 132 spiral galaxies in the 44 spiral–spiral (S+S) pairs and 44 spiral–elliptical (S+E) pairs, 113 are detected in at least 1 Herschel band. The star formation rate (SFR) and dust mass (M_dust) are derived from the IR SED fitting. The mass of total gas (M_gas) is estimated by assuming a constant dust-to-gas mass ratio of 0.01. Star-forming spiral galaxies (SFGs) in S+S pairs show significant enhancements in both specific star formation rate (sSFR) and star formation efficiency (SFE), while having nearly the same gas mass compared to control galaxies. On the other hand, for SFGs in S+E pairs, there is no significant sSFR enhancement and the mean SFE enhancement is significantly lower than that of SFGs in S+S pairs. This suggests an important role for the disk–disk collision in the interaction-induced star formation. The M_gas of SFGs in S+E pairs is marginally lower than that of their counterparts in both S+S pairs and the control sample. Paired galaxies with and without interaction signs do not differ significantly in their mean sSFR and SFE. As found in previous works, this much larger sample confirms that the primary and secondary spirals in S+S pairs follow a Holmberg effect correlation on sSFR.

We present SymPix, a special-purpose spherical grid optimized for efficiently sampling rotationally invariant linear operators. This grid is conceptually similar to the Gauss–Legendre (GL) grid, aligning sample points with iso-latitude rings located on Legendre polynomial zeros. Unlike the GL grid, however, the number of grid points per ring varies as a function of latitude, avoiding expensive oversampling near the poles and ensuring nearly equal sky area per grid point. The ratio between the number of grid points in two neighboring rings is required to be a low-order rational number (3, 2, 1, 4/3, 5/4, or 6/5) to maintain a high degree of symmetries. Our main motivation for this grid is to solve linear systems using multi-grid methods, and to construct efficient preconditioners through pixel-space sampling of the linear operator in question. As a benchmark and representative example, we compute a preconditioner for a linear system that involves the operator $\widehat{{\boldsymbol{D}}}+{\widehat{{\boldsymbol{B}}}}^{T}{{\boldsymbol{N}}}^{-1}\widehat{{\boldsymbol{B}}}$, where $\widehat{{\boldsymbol{B}}}$ and $\widehat{{\boldsymbol{D}}}$ may be described as both local and rotationally invariant operators, and ${\boldsymbol{N}}$ is diagonal in the pixel domain. For a bandwidth limit of ${{\ell }}_{\mathrm{max}}$ = 3000, we find that our new SymPix implementation yields average speed-ups of 360 and 23 for ${\widehat{{\boldsymbol{B}}}}^{T}{{\boldsymbol{N}}}^{-1}\widehat{{\boldsymbol{B}}}$ and $\widehat{{\boldsymbol{D}}}$, respectively, compared with the previous state-of-the-art implementation.

We present an interferometric survey of the 44 GHz class I methanol maser transition toward a sample of 69 sources consisting of high-mass protostellar object (HMPO) candidates and ultracompact (UC) H ii regions. We found a 38% detection rate (16 of 42) in the HMPO candidates and a 54% detection rate (13 of 24) for the regions with ionized gas. This result indicates that class I methanol maser emission is more common toward the more evolved young stellar objects of our sample. Comparing with similar interferometric data sets, our observations show narrower linewidths, likely due to our higher spatial resolution. Based on a comparison between molecular outflow tracers and the maser positions, we find several cases where the masers appear to be located at the outflow interface with the surrounding core. Unlike previous surveys, we also find several cases where the masers appear to be located close to the base of the molecular outflow, although we cannot discard projection effects. This and other surveys of class I methanol masers not only suggest that these masers may trace shocks at different stages, but also that they may even trace shocks arising from a number of different phenomena occurring in star-forming regions: young/old outflows, cloud–cloud collisions, expanding H ii regions, among others.

The tension between the Hipparcos parallax of the Pleiades and other independent distance estimates continues even after the new reduction of the Hipparcos astrometric data and the development of a new geometric distance measurement for the cluster. A short Pleiades distance from the Hipparcos parallax predicts a number of stars in the solar neighborhood that are sub-luminous at a given photospheric abundance. We test this hypothesis using the spectroscopic abundances for a subset of stars in the Hipparcos catalog, which occupy the same region as the Pleiades in the color–magnitude diagram. We derive stellar parameters for 170 nearby G- and K-type field dwarfs in the Hipparcos catalog based on high-resolution spectra obtained using KPNO 4 m echelle spectrograph. Our analysis shows that, when the Hipparcos parallaxes are adopted, most of our sample stars follow empirical color–magnitude relations. A small fraction of stars are too faint compared to main-sequence fitting relations by ${\rm{\Delta }}{M}_{V}\gtrsim 0.3$ mag, but the differences are marginal at a $2\sigma$ level, partly due to relatively large parallax errors. On the other hand, we find that the photometric distances of stars showing signatures of youth as determined from lithium absorption line strengths and ${R}_{\mathrm{HK}}^{\prime }$ chromospheric activity indices are consistent with the Hipparcos parallaxes. Our result is contradictory to a suggestion that the Pleiades distance from main-sequence fitting is significantly altered by stellar activity and/or the young age of its stars, and provides an additional supporting evidence for the long-distance scale of the Pleiades.

We present a new multi-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamics code for massive stellar core-collapse in full general relativity (GR). Employing an M1 analytical closure scheme, we solve spectral neutrino transport of the radiation energy and momentum based on a truncated moment formalism. Regarding neutrino opacities, we take into account a baseline set in state-of-the-art simulations, in which inelastic neutrino–electron scattering, thermal neutrino production via pair annihilation, and nucleon–nucleon bremsstrahlung are included. While the Einstein field equations and the spatial advection terms in the radiation-hydrodynamics equations are evolved explicitly, the source terms due to neutrino–matter interactions and energy shift in the radiation moment equations are integrated implicitly by an iteration method. To verify our code, we first perform a series of standard radiation tests with analytical solutions that include the check of gravitational redshift and Doppler shift. A good agreement in these tests supports the reliability of the GR multi-energy neutrino transport scheme. We then conduct several test simulations of core-collapse, bounce, and shock stall of a 15${M}_{\odot }$ star in the Cartesian coordinates and make a detailed comparison with published results. Our code performs quite well to reproduce the results of full Boltzmann neutrino transport especially before bounce. In the postbounce phase, our code basically performs well, however, there are several differences that are most likely to come from the insufficient spatial resolution in our current 3D-GR models. For clarifying the resolution dependence and extending the code comparison in the late postbounce phase, we discuss that next-generation Exaflops class supercomputers are needed at least.

A new antenna system with a digital spectro-correlator that provides high temporal, spectral, and amplitude resolutions has been commissioned at the Gauribidanur Observatory near Bangalore in India. Presently, it is used for observations of the solar coronal transients in the scarcely explored frequency range ≈30–15 MHz. The details of the antenna system, the associated receiver setup, and the initial observational results are reported. Some of the observed transients exhibited quasi-periodicity in their time profiles at discrete frequencies. Estimates of the associated magnetic field strength (B) indicate that B ≈ 0.06–1 G at a typical frequency such as 19.5 MHz.

This paper describes a new publicly available codebase for modeling galaxy formation in a cosmological context, the "Semi-Analytic Galaxy Evolution" model, or sage for short.⁵sage is a significant update to the 2006 model of Croton et al. and has been rebuilt to be modular and customizable. The model will run on any N-body simulation whose trees are organized in a supported format and contain a minimum set of basic halo properties. In this work, we present the baryonic prescriptions implemented in sage to describe the formation and evolution of galaxies, and their calibration for three N-body simulations: Millennium, Bolshoi, and GiggleZ. Updated physics include the following: gas accretion, ejection due to feedback, and reincorporation via the galactic fountain; a new gas cooling–radio mode active galactic nucleus (AGN) heating cycle; AGN feedback in the quasar mode; a new treatment of gas in satellite galaxies; and galaxy mergers, disruption, and the build-up of intra-cluster stars. Throughout, we show the results of a common default parameterization on each simulation, with a focus on the local galaxy population.

As a follow-up study on Sun-to-Earth propagation of fast coronal mass ejections (CMEs), we examine the Sun-to-Earth characteristics of slow CMEs combining heliospheric imaging and in situ observations. Three events of particular interest, the 2010 June 16, 2011 March 25, and 2012 September 25 CMEs, are selected for this study. We compare slow CMEs with fast and intermediate-speed events, and obtain key results complementing the attempt of Liu et al. to create a general picture of CME Sun-to-Earth propagation: (1) the Sun-to-Earth propagation of a typical slow CME can be approximately described by two phases, a gradual acceleration out to about 20–30 solar radii, followed by a nearly invariant speed around the average solar wind level; (2) comparison between different types of CMEs indicates that faster CMEs tend to accelerate and decelerate more rapidly and have shorter cessation distances for the acceleration and deceleration; (3) both intermediate-speed and slow CMEs would have speeds comparable to the average solar wind level before reaching 1 au; (4) slow CMEs have a high potential to interact with other solar wind structures in the Sun–Earth space due to their slow motion, providing critical ingredients to enhance space weather; and (5) the slow CMEs studied here lack strong magnetic fields at the Earth but tend to preserve a flux-rope structure with an axis generally perpendicular to the radial direction from the Sun. We also suggest a "best" strategy for the application of a triangulation concept in determining CME Sun-to-Earth kinematics, which helps to clarify confusions about CME geometry assumptions in the triangulation and to improve CME analysis and observations.

We have monitored the BL Lac object Mrk 501 in the optical V, R, and I bands from 2010 to 2015. For Mrk 501, the presence of a strong host galaxy component can affect the results of photometry. After subtracting the host galaxy contributions, the source shows intraday and long-term variabilities for optical flux and color indices. The average variability amplitudes of the V, R, and I bands are $22.05\%,22.25\%,\mathrm{and}\quad 23.82\%$, respectively, and the value of the duty cycle is 14.87%. A minimal variability timescale of 106 minutes is detected. No significant time lag between the V and I bands is found on one night. The bluer-when-brighter (BWB) trend is dominant for Mrk 501 on intermediate, short, and intraday timescales, which supports the shock-in-jet model. For the long timescale, Mrk 501, in different states, can have different BWB trends. The corresponding results for non-correcting host galaxy contributions are also presented.

We report the results of the first long-term (1990–2014) optical spectrophotometric monitoring of a binary black hole candidate QSO E1821+643, a low-redshift, high-luminosity, radio-quiet quasar. In the monitored period, the continua and Hγ fluxes changed about two times, while the Hβ flux changed about 1.4 times. We found periodical variations in the photometric flux with periods of 1200, 1850, and 4000 days, and 4500-day periodicity in the spectroscopic variations. However, the periodicity of 4000–4500 days covers only one cycle of variation and should be confirmed with a longer monitoring campaign. There is an indication of the period around 1300 days in the spectroscopic light curves, buts with small significance level, while the 1850-day period could not be clearly identified in the spectroscopic light curves. The line profiles have not significantly changed, showing an important red asymmetry and broad line peak redshifted around +1000 km s⁻¹. However, Hβ shows a broader mean profile and has a larger time lag (τ ∼ 120 days) than Hγ (τ ∼ 60 days). We estimate that the mass of the black hole is ∼2.6 × 10⁹M_⊙. The obtained results are discussed in the frame of the binary black hole hypothesis. To explain the periodicity in the flux variability and high redshift of the broad lines, we discuss a scenario where dense, gas-rich, cloudy-like structures are orbiting around a recoiling black hole.