Beecroft Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology

Abstract:

We present data products from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey (CFHTLenS). CFHTLenS is based on the Wide component of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS). It encompasses 154 deg2 of deep, optical, high-quality, sub-arcsecond imaging data in the five optical filters u′g′r′i′z′. The scientific aims of the CFHTLenS team are weak gravitational lensing studies supported by photometric redshift estimates for the galaxies. This paper presents our data processing of the complete CFHTLenS data set. We were able to obtain a data set with very good image quality and high-quality astrometric and photometric calibration. Our external astrometric accuracy is between 60 and 70 mas with respect to Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data, and the internal alignment in all filters is around 30 mas. Our average photometric calibration shows a dispersion of the order of 0.01-0.03 mag for g′r′i′ z′ and about 0.04 mag for u* with respect to SDSS sources down to iSDSS ≤ 21. We demonstrate in accompanying papers that our data meet necessary requirements to fully exploit the survey for weak gravitational lensing analyses in connection with photometric redshift studies. In the spirit of the CFHTLS, all our data products are released to the astronomical community via the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre at http://www.cadc-ccda.hia-iha.nrc-cnrc. gc.ca/community/CFHTLens/query.html. We give a description and how-to manuals of the public products which include image pixel data, source catalogues with photometric redshift estimates and all relevant quantities to perform weak lensing studies.© 2013 The Authors.

Abstract:

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) show excess X-ray emission above 10 keV compared with extrapolation of spectra from lower energies. Risaliti et al. have recently attempted to model the hard X-ray excess in the type 1.8 AGN NGC 1365, concluding that the hard excess most likely arises from Compton-scattered reflection of X-rays from an inner accretion disk close to the black hole. Their analysis disfavored a model in which the hard excess arises from a high column density of circumnuclear gas partially covering a primary X-ray source, despite such components being required in the NGC 1365 data below 10 keV. Using a Monte Carlo radiative transfer approach, we demonstrate that this conclusion is invalidated by (1) use of slab absorption models, which have unrealistic transmission spectra for partial covering gas, (2) neglect of the effect of Compton scattering on transmitted spectra, and (3) inadequate modeling of the spectrum of scattered X-rays. The scattered spectrum is geometry-dependent and, for high global covering factors, may dominate above 10 keV. We further show that, in models of circumnuclear gas, the suppression of the observed hard X-ray flux by reprocessing may be no larger than required by the "light bending" model invoked for inner disk reflection, and the expected emission line strengths lie within the observed range. We conclude that the time-invariant "red wing" in AGN X-ray spectra is probably caused by continuum transmitted through and scattered from circumnuclear gas, not by highly redshifted line emission, and that measurement of black hole spin is not possible. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

Abstract:

We use multi-wavelength (0.12 - 500 micron) photometry from Herschel-ATLAS, WISE, UKIDSS, SDSS and GALEX, to study 23 nearby spheroidal galaxies with prominent dust lanes (DLSGs). DLSGs are considered to be remnants of recent minor mergers, making them ideal laboratories for studying both the interstellar medium (ISM) of spheroids and minor-merger-driven star formation in the nearby Universe. The DLSGs exhibit star formation rates (SFRs) between 0.01 and 10 MSun yr^-1, with a median of 0.26 MSun yr^-1 (a factor of 3.5 greater than the average SG). The median dust mass, dust-to-stellar mass ratio and dust temperature in these galaxies are around 10^7.6 MSun yr^-1, ~0.05% and ~19.5 K respectively. The dust masses are at least a factor of 50 greater than that expected from stellar mass loss and, like the SFRs, show no correlation with galaxy luminosity, suggesting that both the ISM and the star formation have external drivers. Adopting literature gas-to-dust ratios and star formation histories derived from fits to the panchromatic photometry, we estimate that the median current and initial gas-to-stellar mass ratios in these systems are ~4% and ~7% respectively. If, as indicated by recent work, minor mergers that drive star formation in spheroids with (NUV-r)>3.8 (the colour range of our DLSGs) have stellar mass ratios between 1:6 and 1:10, then the satellite gas fractions are likely >50%.

Abstract:

In this paper, we present a new method to extract cosmological parameters using the radial scale of the baryon acoustic oscillations as a standard ruler in deep galaxy surveys. The method consists of an empirical parametrization of the radial two-point correlation function, which provides a robust and precise extraction of the sound horizon scale at the baryon drag epoch. Moreover, it uses data from galaxy surveys in a manner that is fully cosmology independent and therefore unbiased. A study of the main systematic errors and the validation of the method in cosmological simulations are also presented, showing that the measurement is limited only by cosmic variance. We then study the full information contained in the baryon acoustic oscillations, obtaining that the combination of the radial and angular determinations of this scale is a very sensitive probe of cosmological parameters, able to set strong constraints on the dark energy properties, even without combining it with any other probe. We compare the results obtained using this method with those from more traditional approaches, showing that the sensitivity to the cosmological parameters is of the same order, while the measurements use only observable quantities and are fully cosmology independent.