The connection between the fastest astrophysical jets and the spin axis of their black hole

Nature Astronomy Nature Research (2025)

Authors:

RP Fender, SE Motta

Abstract:

Abstract Astrophysical jets signpost the most extreme phenomena in the Universe. Despite a century of study, connections between the physics of black holes and the processes underpinning the formation and launch of these jets remain elusive. Here we present a statistically significant sample of transient jet speeds from stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars. The fastest jets are exclusively from black holes and propagate along a fixed axis across several ejection phases. This provides strong evidence that the most relativistic jets propagate along the spin axis of the black hole that launches them. However, we find no correlation between reported spin estimates and the jet speeds, indicating that some issues remain in connecting the theories of jet formation with spin measurements. By contrast, slower jets can be launched by both black holes and neutron stars and can change in direction or precess, indicating that they are launched from the accretion flow.

Measurement of Reactor Antineutrino Oscillation at SNO+

Physical Review Letters American Physical Society (APS) 135:12 (2025) 121801

Authors:

M Abreu, V Albanese, A Allega, R Alves, MR Anderson, S Andringa, L Anselmo, J Antunes, E Arushanova, S Asahi, M Askins, DM Asner, DJ Auty, AR Back, S Back, A Bacon, T Baltazar, F Barão, Z Barnard, A Barr, N Barros, D Bartlett, R Bayes, C Beaudoin, EW Beier, G Berardi, TS Bezerra, A Bialek, SD Biller, E Blucher, A Boeltzig, R Bonventre, M Boulay, D Braid, E Caden, EJ Callaghan, J Caravaca, J Carvalho, L Cavalli, D Chauhan, M Chen, S Cheng, O Chkvorets, KJ Clark, B Cleveland, C Connors, D Cookman, J Corning, IT Coulter, MA Cox, D Cressy, X Dai, C Darrach, S DeGraw, R Dehghani, J Deloye, MM Depatie, F Descamps, C Dima, J Dittmer, KH Dixon, F Di Lodovico, A Doxtator, N Duhaime, F Duncan, J Dunger, AD Earle, MS Esmaeilian, D Fabris, E Falk, A Farrugia, N Fatemighomi, C Felber, V Fischer, E Fletcher, R Ford, K Frankiewicz, N Gagnon, A Gaur, J Gauthier, A Gibson-Foster, K Gilje, OI González-Reina, D Gooding, P Gorel, K Graham, C Grant, J Grove, S Grullon, E Guillian, RL Hahn, S Hall, AL Hallin, D Hallman, S Hans, J Hartnell, P Harvey, C Hearns, MR Hebert, M Hedayatipour, WJ Heintzelman, J Heise, RL Helmer, C Hewitt, B Hodak, M Hodak, M Hood, D Horne, M Howe, B Hreljac, J Hu, P Huang, R Hunt-Stokes, T Iida, AS Inácio, CM Jackson, NA Jelley, CJ Jillings, C Jones, PG Jones, S Kaluzienski, K Kamdin, T Kaptanoglu, J Kaspar, K Keeter, C Kefelian, P Khaghani, L Kippenbrock, J Kladnik, JR Klein, R Knapik, J Kofron, LL Kormos, S Korte, B Krar, C Kraus, CB Krauss, T Kroupová, K Labe, F Lafleur, C Lake, I Lam, C Lan, BJ Land, R Lane, S Langrock, P Larochelle, S Larose, A LaTorre, I Lawson, L Lebanowski, J Lee, C Lefebvre, GM Lefeuvre, EJ Leming, A Li, O Li, J Lidgard, B Liggins, P Liimatainen, YH Lin, X Liu, Y Liu, V Lozza, M Luo, S Maguire, A Maio, K Majumdar, S Manecki, J Maneira, RD Martin, E Marzec, A Mastbaum, A Mathewson, N McCauley, AB McDonald, K McFarlane, P Mekarski, M Meyer, C Miller, C Mills, G Milton, M Mlejnek, E Mony, B Morissette, D Morris, I Morton-Blake, MJ Mottram, M Mubasher, S Nae, S Naugle, M Newcomer, M Nirkko, LJ Nolan, VM Novikov, HM O’Keeffe, E O’Sullivan, GD Orebi Gann, S Ouyang, J Page, S Pal, K Paleshi, W Parker, MJ Parnell, J Paton, SJM Peeters, T Pershing, Z Petriw, J Petzoldt, LJ Pickard, D Pracsovics, G Prior, JC Prouty, B Quenallata, S Quirk, P Ravi, S Read, A Reichold, M Reinhard, S Riccetto, M Rigan, I Ritchie, A Robertson, BC Robertson, J Rose, R Rosero, PM Rost, J Rumleskie, A Sörensen, P Schrock, MA Schumaker, MH Schwendener, D Scislowski, J Secrest, M Seddighin, L Segui, S Seibert, I Semenec, F Shaker, T Shantz, MK Sharma, J Shen, TM Shokair, L Sibley, J Simms, JR Sinclair, K Singh, P Skensved, M Smiley, T Sonley, M St-Amant, R Stainforth, S Stankiewicz, M Strait, MI Stringer, A Stripay, R Svoboda, S Tacchino, R Tafirout, B Tam, C Tanguay, J Tatar, L Tian, N Tolich, J Tseng, HWC Tseung, E Turner, E Vázquez-Jáuregui, S Valder, R Van Berg, JGC Veinot, CJ Virtue, B von Krosigk, JMG Walker, M Walker, J Wallig, SC Walton, F Wang, J Wang, M Ward, J Waterfield, JJ Weigand, RF White, JF Wilkerson, JR Wilson, JD Wilson, TJ Winchester, P Woosaree, A Wright, S Yang, K Yazigi, Z Ye, M Yeh, S Yu, T Zhang, Y Zhang, T Zhao, K Zuber, A Zummo

Abstract:

SNO + Collaboration reports its second spectral analysis of reactor antineutrino oscillation using 286 ton-yr of new data. The measured energies of reactor antineutrino candidates were fitted to obtain the second-most precise determination of the neutrino mass-squared difference Δ m 21 2 = ( 7.96 0.42 + 0.48 ) × 10 5 eV 2 . Constraining Δ m 21 2 and sin 2 θ 12 with measurements from long-baseline reactor antineutrino and solar neutrino experiments yields Δ m 21 2 = ( 7.58 0.17 + 0.18 ) × 10 5 eV 2 and sin 2 θ 12 = 0.308 ± 0.013 . This fit also yields a first measurement of the flux of geoneutrinos in the Western Hemisphere, with 73 43 + 47 TNU at SNO + .

The dependence of the Type Ia Supernova colour–luminosity relation on their host galaxy properties

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press 543:3 (2025) 2180-2203

Authors:

S Ramaiya, M Vincenzi, MJ Jarvis, P Wiseman, M Sullivan

Abstract:

Using the Dark Energy Survey 5-yr sample, we determine the properties of type Ia supernova (SN Ia) host galaxies across a wide multiwavelength range – from the optical to far-infrared – including data from the Herschel and Spitzer space telescopes. We categorize the SNe Ia into three distinct groups according to the distribution of their host galaxies on the star formation rate (SFR) – stellar mass () plane. Each region comprises host galaxies at distinct stages in their evolutionary pathways: Region 1 – low-mass hosts; Region 2 – high-mass, star-forming hosts and Region 3 – high-mass, passive hosts. We find SNe Ia in host galaxies located in Region 1 have the steepest slope (quantified by ) between their colours and luminosities, with . This differs at the significance level to SNe Ia in Region 3, which have the shallowest colour–luminosity slope with . After correcting SNe Ia in each subsample by their respective , events in Region 3 (high-mass, passive hosts) are mag () brighter, post-standardization. We conclude that future cosmological analyses should apply standardization relations to SNe Ia based upon the region in which the SN host galaxy lies in the SFR– plane. Alternatively, cosmological analyses should restrict the SN Ia sample to events whose host galaxies occupy a single region of this plane.

Calibrating baryonic effects in cosmic shear with external data in the LSST era

(2025)

Authors:

Amy Wayland, David Alonso, Matteo Zennaro

Calibrating baryonic effects in cosmic shear with external data in the LSST era

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press (OUP) 543:2 (2025) 1518-1534

Authors:

Amy Wayland, David Alonso, Matteo Zennaro

Abstract:

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title> <jats:p>Cosmological constraints derived from weak lensing (WL) surveys are limited by baryonic effects, which suppress the non-linear matter power spectrum on small scales. By combining WL measurements with data from external tracers of the gas around massive structures, it is possible to calibrate baryonic effects and, therefore, obtain more precise cosmological constraints. In this study, we generate mock data for a Stage-IV weak lensing survey such as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), X-ray gas fractions, and stacked kinetic Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (kSZ) measurements, to jointly constrain cosmological and astrophysical parameters describing baryonic effects (using the Baryon Correction Model–BCM). First, using WL data alone, we quantify the level to which the BCM parameters will need to be constrained to recover the cosmological constraints obtained under the assumption of perfect knowledge of baryonic feedback. We identify the most relevant baryonic parameters and determine that they must be calibrated to a precision of $\sim 10$–20 per cent to avoid significant degradation of the fiducial WL constraints. We forecast that long-term X-ray data from $\mathcal {O}(5000)$ clusters should be able to reach this threshold for the parameters that characterize the abundance of hot virialized gas. Constraining the distribution of ejected gas presents a greater challenge, however, but we forecast that long-term kSZ data from a cosmic microwave background-S4-like experiment should achieve the level of precision required for full self-calibration.</jats:p>