Publications

2023
Hadzhiyska B, Eisenstein D, Hernquist L, Pakmor R, Bose S, Delgado AM, Contreras S, Kannan R, White SDM, Springel V, et al. The MillenniumTNG Project: an improved two-halo model for the galaxy-halo connection of red and blue galaxies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 2023;524 :2507-2523. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Approximate methods to populate dark-matter haloes with galaxies are of great utility to galaxy surveys. However, the limitations of simple halo occupation models (HODs) preclude a full use of small-scale galaxy clustering data and call for more sophisticated models. We study two galaxy populations, luminous red galaxies (LRGs) and star-forming emission-line galaxies (ELGs), at two epochs, z = 1 and z = 0, in the large-volume, high-resolution hydrodynamical simulation of the MillenniumTNG project. In a partner study we concentrated on the small-scale, one-halo regime down to r ~ 0.1 h-1 Mpc, while here we focus on modelling galaxy assembly bias in the two-halo regime, r ≳ 1 h-1 Mpc. Interestingly, the ELG signal exhibits scale dependence out to relatively large scales (r ~ 20 h-1 Mpc), implying that the linear bias approximation for this tracer is invalid on these scales, contrary to common assumptions. The 10-15 per cent discrepancy is only reconciled when we augment our halo occupation model with a dependence on extrinsic halo properties ('shear' being the best-performing one) rather than intrinsic ones (e.g. concentration, peak mass). We argue that this fact constitutes evidence for two-halo galaxy conformity. Including tertiary assembly bias (i.e. a property beyond mass and 'shear') is not an essential requirement for reconciling the galaxy assembly bias signal of LRGs, but the combination of external and internal properties is beneficial for recovering ELG the clustering. We find that centrals in low-mass haloes dominate the assembly bias signal of both populations. Finally, we explore the predictions of our model for higher order statistics such as nearest neighbour counts. The latter supplies additional information about galaxy assembly bias and can be used to break degeneracies between halo model parameters.
Hadzhiyska B, Hernquist L, Eisenstein D, Delgado AM, Bose S, Kannan R, Pakmor R, Springel V, Contreras S, Barrera M, et al. The MillenniumTNG Project: refining the one-halo model of red and blue galaxies at different redshifts. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 2023;524 :2524-2538. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Luminous red galaxies (LRGs) and blue star-forming emission-line galaxies (ELGs) are key tracers of large-scale structure used by cosmological surveys. Theoretical predictions for such data are often done via simplistic models for the galaxy-halo connection. In this work, we use the large, high-fidelity hydrodynamical simulation of the MillenniumTNG project (MTNG) to inform a new phenomenological approach for obtaining an accurate and flexible galaxy-halo model on small scales. Our aim is to study LRGs and ELGs at two distinct epochs, z = 1 and z = 0, and recover their clustering down to very small scales, $r \sim 0.1 \ h^{-1}\, {\rm Mpc}$, i.e. the one-halo regime, while a companion paper extends this to a two-halo model for larger distances. The occupation statistics of ELGs in MTNG inform us that (1) the satellite occupations exhibit a slightly super-Poisson distribution, contrary to commonly made assumptions, and (2) that haloes containing at least one ELG satellite are twice as likely to host a central ELG. We propose simple recipes for modelling these effects, each of which calls for the addition of a single free parameter to simpler halo occupation models. To construct a reliable satellite population model, we explore the LRG and ELG satellite radial and velocity distributions and compare them with those of subhaloes and particles in the simulation. We find that ELGs are anisotropically distributed within haloes, which together with our occupation results provides strong evidence for cooperative galaxy formation (manifesting itself as one-halo galaxy conformity); i.e. galaxies with similar properties form in close proximity to each other. Our refined galaxy-halo model represents a useful improvement of commonly used analysis tools and thus can be of help to increase the constraining power of large-scale structure surveys.
Suess KA, Williams CC, Robertson B, Ji Z, Johnson BD, Nelson E, Alberts S, Hainline K, D'Eugenio F, Übler H, et al. Minor Merger Growth in Action: JWST Detects Faint Blue Companions around Massive Quiescent Galaxies at 0.5 ≤ z ≤ 3.0. The Astrophysical Journal. 2023;956 :L42. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Minor mergers are thought to drive the structural evolution of massive quiescent galaxies; however, existing Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging is primarily sensitive to stellar mass ratios ≳1:10. Here, we report the discovery of a large population of low-mass companions within 35 kpc of known $\mathrm{log}{M}_{* }/{M}_{\odot }rsim 10.5$ quiescent galaxies at 0.5 ≤ z ≤ 3. While massive companions like those identified by HST are rare, JWST imaging from the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey reveals that the average massive quiescent galaxy hosts approximately five nearby companions with stellar mass ratios <1:10. Despite a median stellar mass ratio of just 1:900, these tiny companions are so numerous that they represent at least 30% of the total mass being added to quiescent galaxies via minor mergers. While relatively massive companions have colors similar to their hosts, companions with mass ratios <1:10 typically have bluer colors and lower mass-to-light ratios than their host galaxies at similar radii. The accretion of these tiny companions is likely to drive evolution in the color gradients and stellar population properties of the host galaxies. Our results suggest that the well-established "minor merger growth" model for quiescent galaxies extends down to very low mass ratios of ≲1:100, and demonstrates the power of JWST to constrain both the spatially resolved properties of massive galaxies and the properties of low-mass companions beyond the local Universe.
Robertson BE, Tacchella S, Johnson BD, Hausen R, Alabi AB, Boyett K, Bunker AJ, Carniani S, Egami E, Eisenstein DJ, et al. Morpheus Reveals Distant Disk Galaxy Morphologies with JWST: The First AI/ML Analysis of JWST Images. The Astrophysical Journal. 2023;942 :L42. Publisher's VersionAbstract
The dramatic first images with JWST demonstrated its power to provide unprecedented spatial detail for galaxies in the high-redshift universe. Here, we leverage the resolution and depth of the JWST Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey data in the Extended Groth Strip to perform pixel-level morphological classifications of galaxies in JWST F150W imaging using the Morpheus deep-learning framework for astronomical image analysis. By cross-referencing with existing photometric redshift catalogs from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) CANDELS survey, we show that JWST images indicate the emergence of disk morphologies before z ~ 2 and with candidates appearing as early as z ~ 5. By modeling the light profile of each object and accounting for the JWST point-spread function, we find the high-redshift disk candidates have exponential surface brightness profiles with an average Sérsic index = 1.04 and >90% displaying "disky" profiles (n < 2). Comparing with prior Morpheus classifications in CANDELS we find that a plurality of JWST disk galaxy candidates were previously classified as compact based on the shallower HST imagery, indicating that the improved optical quality and depth of the JWST helps to reveal disk morphologies that were hiding in the noise. We discuss the implications of these early disk candidates on theories for cosmological disk galaxy formation.
Wu X, Muñoz JB, Eisenstein DJ. Non-parametric Lagrangian biasing from the insights of neural nets. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2023;2023 :040. Publisher's VersionAbstract
We present a Lagrangian model of galaxy clustering bias in which we train a neural net using the local properties of the smoothed initial density field to predict the late-time mass-weighted halo field. By fitting the mass-weighted halo field in the ABACUSSUMMIT simulations at z = 0.5, we find that including three coarsely spaced smoothing scales gives the best recovery of the halo power spectrum. Adding more smoothing scales may lead to 2-5% underestimation of the large-scale power and can cause the neural net to overfit. We find that the fitted halo-to-mass ratio can be well described by two directions in the original high-dimension feature space. Projecting the original features into these two principal components and re-training the neural net either reproduces the original training result, or outperforms it with a better match of the halo power spectrum. The elements of the principal components are unlikely to be assigned physical meanings, partly owing to the features being highly correlated between different smoothing scales. Our work illustrates a potential need to include multiple smoothing scales when studying galaxy bias, and this can be done easily with machine-learning methods that can take in high dimensional input feature space.
Miller TN, Doel P, Gutierrez G, Besuner R, Brooks D, Gallo G, Heetderks H, Jelinsky P, Kent SM, Lampton M, et al. The Optical Corrector for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. arXiv e-prints. 2023 :arXiv:2306.06310. Publisher's VersionAbstract
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is currently measuring the spectra of 40\,million galaxies and quasars, the largest such survey ever made to probe the nature of cosmological dark energy. The 4-meter Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory has been adapted for DESI, including the construction of a 3.2-degree diameter prime focus corrector that focuses astronomical light onto a 0.8-meter diameter focal surface with excellent image quality over the DESI bandpass of 360-980nm. The wide-field corrector includes six lenses, as large as 1.1-meters in diameter and as heavy as 237\,kilograms, including two counter-rotating wedged lenses that correct for atmospheric dispersion over Zenith angles from 0 to 60 degrees. The lenses, cells, and barrel assembly all meet precise alignment tolerances on the order of tens of microns. The barrel alignment is maintained throughout a range of observing angles and temperature excursions in the Mayall dome by use of a hexapod, which is itself supported by a new cage, ring, and truss structure. In this paper we describe the design, fabrication, and performance of the new corrector and associated structure, focusing on how they meet DESI requirements. In particular we describe the prescription and specifications of the lenses, design choices and error budgeting of the barrel assembly, stray light mitigations, and integration and test at the Mayall telescope. We conclude with some validation highlights that demonstrate the successful corrector on-sky performance, and list some lessons learned during the multi-year fabrication phase.
Cooper AP, Koposov SE, Allende Prieto C, Manser CJ, Kizhuprakkat N, Myers AD, Dey A, Gänsicke BT, Li TS, Rockosi C, et al. Overview of the DESI Milky Way Survey. The Astrophysical Journal. 2023;947 :37. Publisher's VersionAbstract
We describe the Milky Way Survey (MWS) that will be undertaken with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) on the Mayall 4 m telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory. Over the next 5 yr DESI MWS will observe approximately seven million stars at Galactic latitudes |b| > 20°, with an inclusive target selection scheme focused on the thick disk and stellar halo. MWS will also include several high-completeness samples of rare stellar types, including white dwarfs, low-mass stars within 100 pc of the Sun, and horizontal branch stars. We summarize the potential of DESI to advance understanding of the Galactic structure and stellar evolution. We introduce the final definitions of the main MWS target classes and estimate the number of stars in each class that will be observed. We describe our pipelines for deriving radial velocities, atmospheric parameters, and chemical abundances. We use ≃500,000 spectra of unique stellar targets from the DESI Survey Validation program (SV) to demonstrate that our pipelines can measure radial velocities to ≃1 km s-1 and [Fe/H] accurate to ≃0.2 dex for typical stars in our main sample. We find the stellar parameter distributions from ≈100 deg2 of SV observations with ≳90% completeness on our main sample are in good agreement with expectations from mock catalogs and previous surveys.
Eisenstein DJ, Willott C, Alberts S, Arribas S, Bonaventura N, Bunker AJ, Cameron AJ, Carniani S, Charlot S, Curtis-Lake E, et al. Overview of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES). arXiv e-prints. 2023 :arXiv:2306.02465. Publisher's VersionAbstract
We present an overview of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES), an ambitious program of infrared imaging and spectroscopy in the GOODS-S and GOODS-N deep fields, designed to study galaxy evolution from high redshift to cosmic noon. JADES uses about 770 hours of Cycle 1 guaranteed time largely from the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument teams. In GOODS-S, in and around the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and Chandra Deep Field South, JADES produces a deep imaging region of ~45 arcmin$^2$ with an average of 130 hrs of exposure time spread over 9 NIRCam filters. This is extended at medium depth in GOODS-S and GOODS-N with NIRCam imaging of ~175 arcmin$^2$ with an average exposure time of 20 hrs spread over 8-10 filters. In both fields, we conduct extensive NIRSpec multi-object spectroscopy, including 2 deep pointings of 55 hrs exposure time, 14 medium pointings of ~12 hrs, and 15 shallower pointings of ~4 hrs, targeting over 5000 HST and JWST-detected faint sources with 5 low, medium, and high-resolution dispersers covering 0.6-5.3 microns. Finally, JADES extends redward via coordinated parallels with the JWST Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), featuring ~9 arcmin$^2$ with 43 hours of exposure at 7.7 microns and twice that area with 2-6.5 hours of exposure at 12.8 microns For nearly 30 years, the GOODS-S and GOODS-N fields have been developed as the premier deep fields on the sky; JADES is now providing a compelling start on the JWST legacy in these fields.
Rieke MJ, Kelly DM, Misselt K, Stansberry J, Boyer M, Beatty T, Egami E, Florian M, Greene TP, Hainline K, et al. Performance of NIRCam on JWST in Flight. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 2023;135 :028001. Publisher's VersionAbstract
The Near Infrared Camera for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is delivering the imagery that astronomers have hoped for ever since JWST was proposed back in the 1990s. In the Commissioning Period that extended from right after launch to early 2022 July, NIRCam has been subjected to a number of performance tests and operational checks. The camera is exceeding prelaunch expectations in virtually all areas, with very few surprises discovered in flight. NIRCam also delivered the imagery needed by the Wavefront Sensing Team for use in aligning the telescope mirror segments.
Hadzhiyska B, Font-Ribera A, Cuceu A, Chabanier S, Aguilar J, Brooks D, de la Macorra A, Doel P, Eisenstein DJ, Forero-Romero JE, et al. Planting a Lyman alpha forest on ABACUSSUMMIT. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 2023;524 :1008-1024. Publisher's VersionAbstract
The full-shape correlations of the Lyman alpha (Ly α) forest contain a wealth of cosmological information through the Alcock-Paczyński effect. However, these measurements are challenging to model without robustly testing and verifying the theoretical framework used for analysing them. Here, we leverage the accuracy and volume of the N-body simulation suite ABACUSSUMMIT to generate high-resolution Ly α skewers and quasi-stellar object (QSO) catalogues. One of the main goals of our mocks is to aid in the full-shape Ly α analysis planned by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) team. We provide optical depth skewers for six of the fiducial cosmology base-resolution simulations ($L_{\rm box} = 2\, h^{-1}\, {\rm Gpc}$, N = 69123) at z = 2.5. We adopt a simple recipe based on the Fluctuating Gunn-Peterson Approximation (FGPA) for constructing these skewers from the matter density in an N-body simulation and calibrate it against the 1D and 3D Ly α power spectra extracted from the hydrodynamical simulation IllustrisTNG (TNG; $L_{\rm box} = 205\, h^{-1}\, {\rm Mpc}$, N = 25003). As an important application, we study the non-linear broadening of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) peak and show the cross-correlation between DESI-like QSOs and our Ly α forest skewers. We find differences on small scales between the Kaiser approximation prediction and our mock measurements of the Ly α × QSO cross-correlation, which would be important to account for in upcoming analyses. The ABACUSSUMMIT Ly α forest mocks open up the possibility for improved modelling of cross-correlations between Ly α and cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing and Ly α and QSOs, and for forecasts of the 3-point Ly α correlation function. Our catalogues and skewers are publicly available on Globus via the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) (full link under the section 'Data Availability').
Shallue CJ, Eisenstein DJ. Reconstructing cosmological initial conditions from late-time structure with convolutional neural networks. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 2023;520 :6256-6267. Publisher's VersionAbstract
We present a method to reconstruct the initial linear-regime matter density field from the late-time non-linearly evolved density field in which we channel the output of standard first-order reconstruction to a convolutional neural network (CNN). Our method shows dramatic improvement over the reconstruction of either component alone. We show why CNNs are not well-suited for reconstructing the initial density directly from the late-time density: CNNs are local models, but the relationship between initial and late-time density is not local. Our method leverages standard reconstruction as a preprocessing step, which inverts bulk gravitational flows sourced over very large scales, transforming the residual reconstruction problem from long-range to local and making it ideally suited for a CNN. We develop additional techniques to account for redshift distortions, which warp the density fields measured by galaxy surveys. Our method improves the range of scales of high-fidelity reconstruction by a factor of 2 in wavenumber above standard reconstruction, corresponding to a factor of 8 increase in the number of well-reconstructed modes. In addition, our method almost completely eliminates the anisotropy caused by redshift distortions. As galaxy surveys continue to map the Universe in increasingly greater detail, our results demonstrate the opportunity offered by CNNs to untangle the non-linear clustering at intermediate scales more accurately than ever before.
Lamman C, Eisenstein D, Aguilar JN, Ahlen S, Brooks D, Claybaugh T, de la Macorra A, Dey A, Dey B, Doel P, et al. Redshift-dependent RSD bias from Intrinsic Alignment with DESI Year 1 Spectra. arXiv e-prints. 2023 :arXiv:2312.04518. Publisher's VersionAbstract
We estimate the redshift-dependent, anisotropic clustering signal in DESI's Year 1 Survey created by tidal alignments of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) and a selection-induced galaxy orientation bias. To this end, we measured the correlation between LRG shapes and the tidal field with DESI's Year 1 redshifts, as traced by LRGs and Emission-Line Galaxies (ELGs). We also estimate the galaxy orientation bias of LRGs caused by DESI's aperture-based selection, and find it to increase by a factor of seven between redshifts 0.4 - 1.1 due to redder, fainter galaxies falling closer to DESI's imaging selection cuts. These effects combine to dampen measurements of the quadrupole of the correlation function caused by structure growth on scales of 10 - 80 Mpc/h by about 0.15% for low redshifts (0.4
Silber JH, Fagrelius P, Fanning K, Schubnell M, Aguilar JN, Ahlen S, Ameel J, Ballester O, Baltay C, Bebek C, et al. The Robotic Multiobject Focal Plane System of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). The Astronomical Journal. 2023;165 :9. Publisher's VersionAbstract
A system of 5020 robotic fiber positioners was installed in 2019 on the Mayall Telescope, at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The robots automatically retarget their optical fibers every 10-20 minutes, each to a precision of several microns, with a reconfiguration time of fewer than 2 minutes. Over the next 5 yr, they will enable the newly constructed Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) to measure the spectra of 35 million galaxies and quasars. DESI will produce the largest 3D map of the universe to date and measure the expansion history of the cosmos. In addition to the 5020 robotic positioners and optical fibers, DESI's Focal Plane System includes six guide cameras, four wave front cameras, 123 fiducial point sources, and a metrology camera mounted at the primary mirror. The system also includes associated structural, thermal, and electrical systems. In all, it contains over 675,000 individual parts. We discuss the design, construction, quality control, and integration of all these components. We include a summary of the key requirements, the review and acceptance process, on-sky validations of requirements, and lessons learned for future multiobject, fiber-fed spectrographs.
Maiolino R, Scholtz J, Witstok J, Carniani S, D'Eugenio F, de Graaff A, Uebler H, Tacchella S, Curtis-Lake E, Arribas S, et al. A small and vigorous black hole in the early Universe. arXiv e-prints. 2023 :arXiv:2305.12492. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Multiple theories have been proposed to describe the formation of black hole seeds in the early Universe and to explain the emergence of very massive black holes observed in the first billion years after Big Bang. Models consider different seeding and accretion scenarios, which require the detection and characterisation of black holes in the first few hundred million years after Big Bang to be validated. Here we present an extensive analysis of the JWST-NIRSpec spectrum of GN-z11, an exceptionally luminous galaxy at z=10.6, revealing the detection of the [NeIV]2423 and CII*1335 transitions (typical of Active Galactic Nuclei, AGN), as well as semi-forbidden nebular lines tracing gas densities higher than 10^9 cm-3, typical of the Broad Line Region of AGN. These spectral features indicate that GN-z11 hosts an accreting black hole. The spectrum also reveals a deep and blueshifted CIV1549 absorption trough, tracing an outflow with velocity 800-1000 km/s, likely driven by the AGN. Assuming local virial relations, we derive a black hole mass of log(M_BH/Msun) = 6.2 +- 0.3, accreting at about 5 times the Eddington rate. These properties are consistent with both heavy seeds scenarios, or scenarios envisaging intermediate/light seeds experiencing episodic super-Eddington phases. Our finding naturally explains the high luminosity of GN-z11 and can also provide an explanation for its exceptionally high nitrogen abundance.
Curtis-Lake E, Carniani S, Cameron A, Charlot S, Jakobsen P, Maiolino R, Bunker A, Witstok J, Smit R, Chevallard J, et al. Spectroscopic confirmation of four metal-poor galaxies at z = 10.3-13.2. Nature Astronomy. 2023;7 :622-632. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Finding and characterizing the first galaxies that illuminated the early universe at cosmic dawn is pivotal to understand the physical conditions and the processes that led to the formation of the first stars. In the first few months of operations, imaging from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been used to identify tens of candidates of galaxies at redshift (z) greater than 10, less than 450 million years after the Big Bang. However, none of such candidates has yet been confirmed spectroscopically, leaving open the possibility that they are actually low-redshift interlopers. Here we present spectroscopic confirmation and analysis of four galaxies unambiguously detected at redshift 10.3 ≤ z ≤ 13.2, previously selected from JWST Near Infrared Camera imaging. The spectra reveal that these primeval galaxies are metal poor, have masses on the order of about 107-108 solar masses and young ages. The damping wings that shape the continuum close to the Lyman edge provide constraints on the neutral hydrogen fraction of the intergalactic medium from normal star-forming galaxies. These findings demonstrate the rapid emergence of the first generations of galaxies at cosmic dawn.
Guy J, Bailey S, Kremin A, Alam S, Alexander DM, Allende Prieto C, BenZvi S, Bolton AS, Brooks D, Chaussidon E, et al. The Spectroscopic Data Processing Pipeline for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. The Astronomical Journal. 2023;165 :144. Publisher's VersionAbstract
We describe the spectroscopic data processing pipeline of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which is conducting a redshift survey of about 40 million galaxies and quasars using a purpose-built instrument on the 4 m Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The main goal of DESI is to measure with unprecedented precision the expansion history of the universe with the baryon acoustic oscillation technique and the growth rate of structure with redshift space distortions. Ten spectrographs with three cameras each disperse the light from 5000 fibers onto 30 CCDs, covering the near-UV to near-infrared (3600-9800 Å) with a spectral resolution ranging from 2000 to 5000. The DESI data pipeline generates wavelength- and flux-calibrated spectra of all the targets, along with spectroscopic classifications and redshift measurements. Fully processed data from each night are typically available to the DESI collaboration the following morning. We give details about the pipeline's algorithms, and provide performance results on the stability of the optics, the quality of the sky background subtraction, and the precision and accuracy of the instrumental calibration. This pipeline has been used to process the DESI Survey Validation data set, and has exceeded the project's requirements for redshift performance, with high efficiency and a purity greater than 99% for all target classes.
Wang H, Eisenstein DJ, Aguilar JN, Ahlen S, Bailey S, Brooks D, Claybaugh T, de la Macorra A, Doel P, Forero-Romero JE, et al. A Spectroscopic Search for Optical Emission Lines from Dark Matter Decay. arXiv e-prints. 2023 :arXiv:2311.05476. Publisher's VersionAbstract
We search for narrow-line optical emission from dark matter decay by stacking dark-sky spectra from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) at the redshift of nearby galaxies from DESI's Bright Galaxy and Luminous Red Galaxy samples. Our search uses regions separated by 5 to 20 arcsecond from the centers of the galaxies, corresponding to an impact parameter of approximately $50\,\rm kpc$. No unidentified spectral line shows up in the search, and we place a line flux limit of $10^{-19}\,\rm{ergs}/\rm{s}/\rm{cm}^{2}/\rm{arcsec}^{2}$ on emissions in the optical band ($3000\lesssim\lambda\lesssim9000 \,\mathring{\rm A}$), which corresponds to $34$ in AB magnitude in a normal broadband detection. This detection limit suggests that the line surface brightness contributed from all dark matter along the line of sight is two orders of magnitude lower than the measured extragalactic background light (EBL), which rules out the possibility that narrow optical-line emission from dark matter decay is a major source of the EBL.
Endsley R, Stark DP, Whitler L, Topping MW, Johnson BD, Robertson B, Tacchella S, Alberts S, Baker WM, Bhatawdekar R, et al. The Star-forming and Ionizing Properties of Dwarf z~6-9 Galaxies in JADES: Insights on Bursty Star Formation and Ionized Bubble Growth. arXiv e-prints. 2023 :arXiv:2306.05295. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Reionization is thought to be driven by faint star-forming galaxies, but characterizing this population in detail has long remained very challenging. Here we utilize deep nine-band NIRCam imaging from JADES to study the star-forming and ionizing properties of 756 $z\sim6-9$ galaxies, including hundreds of very UV-faint objects ($M_\mathrm{UV}>-18$). The faintest ($m\sim30$) galaxies in our sample typically have stellar masses of $M_\ast\sim(1-3)\times10^7$ $M_\odot$ and young light-weighted ages ($\sim$50 Myr), though some show strong Balmer breaks implying much older ages ($\sim$500 Myr). We find no evidence for extremely massive galaxies ($>3\times10^{10}$ $M_\odot$) in our sample. We infer a strong (factor $>$2) decline in the typical [OIII]$+$H$\beta$ EWs towards very faint $z\sim6-9$ galaxies, yet a weak UV luminosity dependence on the H$\alpha$ EWs at $z\sim6$. We demonstrate that these EW trends can be explained if fainter galaxies have systematically lower metallicities as well as more recently-declining star formation histories relative to the most UV-luminous galaxies in our sample. Our data provide evidence that the brightest galaxies are frequently experiencing a recent strong upturn in SFR. We also discuss how the EW trends may be influenced by a strong correlation between $M_\mathrm{UV}$ and Lyman continuum escape fraction. This alternative explanation has dramatically different implications for the contribution of galaxies along the luminosity function to cosmic reionization, highlighting the need for deep spectroscopic follow-up. Finally, we quantify the photometric overdensities around two $z>7$ strong Ly$\alpha$ emitters in the JADES footprint. One Ly$\alpha$ emitter lies close to a strong photometric overdensity while the other shows no significant nearby overdensity, perhaps implying that not all strong $z>7$ Ly$\alpha$ emitters reside in large ionized bubbles.
Cuesta-Lazaro C, Paillas E, Yuan S, Cai Y-C, Nadathur S, Percival WJ, Beutler F, de Mattia A, Eisenstein D, Forero-Sanchez D, et al. SUNBIRD: A simulation-based model for full-shape density-split clustering. arXiv e-prints. 2023 :arXiv:2309.16539. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Combining galaxy clustering information from regions of different environmental densities can help break cosmological parameter degeneracies and access non-Gaussian information from the density field that is not readily captured by the standard two-point correlation function (2PCF) analyses. However, modelling these density-dependent statistics down to the non-linear regime has so far remained challenging. We present a simulation-based model that is able to capture the cosmological dependence of the full shape of the density-split clustering (DSC) statistics down to intra-halo scales. Our models are based on neural-network emulators that are trained on high-fidelity mock galaxy catalogues within an extended-$\Lambda$CDM framework, incorporating the effects of redshift-space, Alcock-Paczynski distortions and models of the halo-galaxy connection. Our models reach sub-percent level accuracy down to $1\,h^{-1}{\rm Mpc}$ and are robust against different choices of galaxy-halo connection modelling. When combined with the galaxy 2PCF, DSC can tighten the constraints on $\omega_{\rm cdm}$, $\sigma_8$, and $n_s$ by factors of 2.9, 1.9, and 2.1, respectively, compared to a 2PCF-only analysis. DSC additionally puts strong constraints on environment-based assembly bias parameters. Our code is made publicly available on Github.
Hadzhiyska B, Yuan S, Blake C, Eisenstein DJ, Aguilar J, Ahlen S, Brooks D, Claybaugh T, de la Macorra A, Doel P, et al. Synthetic light-cone catalogues of modern redshift and weak lensing surveys waith ABACUSSUMMIT. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 2023;525 :4367-4387. Publisher's VersionAbstract
The joint analysis of different cosmological probes, such as galaxy clustering and weak lensing, can potentially yield invaluable insights into the nature of the primordial Universe, dark energy, and dark matter. However, the development of high-fidelity theoretical models is a necessary stepping stone. Here, we present public high-resolution weak lensing maps on the light-cone, generated using the N-body simulation suite ABACUSSUMMIT, and accompanying weak lensing mock catalogues, tuned to the Early Data Release small-scale clustering measurements of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. Available in this release are maps of the cosmic shear, deflection angle, and convergence fields at source redshifts ranging from z = 0.15 to 2.45 as well as cosmic microwave background convergence maps for each of the 25 base-resolution simulations ($L_{\rm box} = 2000\, h^{-1}\, {\rm Mpc}$ and Npart = 69123) as well as for the two huge simulations ($L_{\rm box} = 7500\, h^{-1}\, {\rm Mpc}$ and Npart = 86403) at the fiducial ABACUSSUMMIT cosmology. The pixel resolution of each map is 0.21 arcmin, corresponding to a HEALPIX Nside of 16 384. The sky coverage of the base simulations is an octant until z ≈ 0.8 (decreasing to about 1800 deg2 at z ≈ 2.4), whereas the huge simulations offer full-sky coverage until z ≈ 2.2. Mock lensing source catalogues are sampled matching the ensemble properties of the Kilo-Degree Survey, Dark Energy Survey, and Hyper Suprime-Cam data sets. The mock catalogues are validated against theoretical predictions for various clustering and lensing statistics, such as correlation multipoles, galaxy-shear, and shear-shear, showing excellent agreement. All products can be downloaded via a Globus endpoint (see Data Availability section).

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