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1. A Mock Catalog of Gravitationally-lensed Quasars for the LSST Survey

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ac4cb0  

   Yue, Minghao ; Fan, Xiaohui ; Yang, Jinyi ; Wang, Feige ( February 2022 , The Astronomical Journal)

   We present a mock catalog of gravitationally-lensed quasars atz_qso< 7.5 with simulated images for the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). We adopt recent measurements of quasar-luminosity functions to model the quasar population, and use the CosmoDC2 mock galaxy catalog to model the deflector galaxies, which successfully reproduces the observed galaxy-velocity dispersion functions up toz_d∼ 1.5. The mock catalog is highly complete for lensed quasars with Einstein radiusθ_E> 0.″07 and quasar absolute magnitudeM_i< − 20. We estimate that there are ∼10³lensed quasars discoverable in current imaging surveys, and LSST will increase this number to ∼ 2.4 × 10³. Most of the lensed quasars have image separation Δθ> 0.″5, which will at least be marginally resolved in LSST images with seeing of ∼0.″7. There will be ∼200 quadruply-lensed quasars discoverable in the LSST. The fraction of quad lenses among all discoverable lensed quasars is about ∼10%–15%, and this fraction decreases with survey depth. This mock catalog shows a large diversity in the observational features of lensed quasars, in terms of lensing separation and quasar-to-deflector flux ratio. We discuss possible strategies for a complete search of lensed quasars in the LSST era.
2. From Images to Dark Matter: End-to-end Inference of Substructure from Hundreds of Strong Gravitational Lenses

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aca525  

   Wagner-Carena, Sebastian ; Aalbers, Jelle ; Birrer, Simon ; Nadler, Ethan O. ; Darragh-Ford, Elise ; Marshall, Philip J. ; Wechsler, Risa H. ( January 2023 , The Astrophysical Journal)

   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 (<10¹⁰M_⊙) 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.
3. Investigating the Nature of the Luminous Ambiguous Nuclear Transient ASASSN-17jz

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac74b9  

   Holoien, Thomas W. -S. ; Neustadt, Jack M. M. ; Vallely, Patrick J. ; Auchettl, Katie ; Hinkle, Jason T. ; Romero-Cañizales, Cristina ; Shappee, Benjamin. J. ; Kochanek, Christopher S. ; Stanek, K. Z. ; Chen, Ping ; et al ( July 2022 , The Astrophysical Journal)

   We present observations of the extremely luminous but ambiguous nuclear transient (ANT) ASASSN-17jz, spanning roughly 1200 days of the object’s evolution. ASASSN-17jz was discovered by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) in the galaxy SDSS J171955.84+414049.4 on UT 2017 July 27 at a redshift ofz= 0.1641. The transient peaked at an absoluteB-band magnitude ofM_B,peak= −22.81, corresponding to a bolometric luminosity ofL_bol,peak= 8.3 × 10⁴⁴erg s⁻¹, and exhibited late-time ultraviolet emission that was still ongoing in our latest observations. Integrating the full light curve gives a total emitted energy ofE_tot= (1.36 ±0.08) × 10⁵²erg, with (0.80 ± 0.02) × 10⁵²erg of this emitted within 200 days of peak light. This late-time ultraviolet emission is accompanied by increasing X-ray emission that becomes softer as it brightens. ASASSN-17jz exhibited a large number of spectral emission lines most commonly seen in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with little evidence of evolution. It also showed transient Balmer features, which became fainter and broader over time, and are still being detected >1000 days after peak brightness. We consider various physical scenarios for the origin of the transient, including supernovae (SNe), tidal disruption events, AGN outbursts, and ANTs. We find that the most likely explanation ismore »that ASASSN-17jz was a SN IIn occurring in or near the disk of an existing AGN, and that the late-time emission is caused by the AGN transitioning to a more active state.

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4. Evidence for AGN-regulated Cooling in Clusters at z ∼ 1.4: A Multiwavelength View of SPT-CL J0607-4448

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/acae9e  

   Masterson, Megan ; McDonald, Michael ; Ansarinejad, Behzad ; Bayliss, Matthew ; Benson, Bradford A. ; Bleem, Lindsey E. ; Calzadilla, Michael S. ; Edge, Alastair C. ; Floyd, Benjamin ; Kim, Keunho J. ; et al ( February 2023 , The Astrophysical Journal)

   We present a multiwavelength analysis of the galaxy cluster SPT-CL J0607-4448 (SPT0607), which is one of the most distant clusters discovered by the South Pole Telescope atz= 1.4010 ± 0.0028. The high-redshift cluster shows clear signs of being relaxed with well-regulated feedback from the active galactic nucleus (AGN) in the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG). Using Chandra X-ray data, we construct thermodynamic profiles and determine the properties of the intracluster medium. The cool-core nature of the cluster is supported by a centrally peaked density profile and low central entropy ($K_0={18}_{-9}^{+11}$keV cm²), which we estimate assuming an isothermal temperature profile due to the limited spectral information given the distance to the cluster. Using the density profile and gas cooling time inferred from the X-ray data, we find a mass-cooling rate${\dot{M}}_{\mathrm{cool}}={100}_{-60}^{+90}{M}_{\odot }$yr⁻¹. From optical spectroscopy and photometry around the [Oii] emission line, we estimate that the BCG star formation rate is${\mathrm{SFR}}_{[\mathrm{O}\mathrm{II}]}={1.7}_{-0.6}^{+1.0}{M}_{\odot }$yr⁻¹, roughly two orders of magnitude lower than the predicted mass-cooling rate. In addition, using ATCA radio data at 2.1 GHz, we measure a radio jet power$P_{\mathrm{cav}}={3.2}_{-1.3}^{+2.1}\times {10}^{44}$erg s⁻¹, which is consistent withmore »the X-ray cooling luminosity ($L_{\mathrm{cool}}={1.9}_{-0.5}^{+0.2}\times {10}^{44}$erg s⁻¹withinr_cool= 43 kpc). These findings suggest that SPT0607 is a relaxed, cool-core cluster with AGN-regulated cooling at an epoch shortly after cluster formation, implying that the balance between cooling and feedback can be reached quickly. We discuss the implications for these findings on the evolution of AGN feedback in galaxy clusters.

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5. The DESI Survey Validation: Results from Visual Inspection of the Quasar Survey Spectra

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/acacfc  

   Alexander, David M. ; Davis, Tamara M. ; Chaussidon, E. ; Fawcett, V. A. ; X. Gonzalez-Morales, Alma ; Lan, Ting-Wen ; Yèche, Christophe ; Ahlen, S. ; Aguilar, J. N. ; Armengaud, E. ; et al ( February 2023 , The Astronomical Journal)

   A key component of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey validation (SV) is a detailed visual inspection (VI) of the optical spectroscopic data to quantify key survey metrics. In this paper we present results from VI of the quasar survey using deep coadded SV spectra. We show that the majority (≈70%) of the main-survey targets are spectroscopically confirmed as quasars, with ≈16% galaxies, ≈6% stars, and ≈8% low-quality spectra lacking reliable features. A nonnegligible fraction of the quasars are misidentified by the standard spectroscopic pipeline, but we show that the majority can be recovered using post-pipeline “afterburner” quasar-identification approaches. We combine these “afterburners” with our standard pipeline to create a modified pipeline to increase the overall quasar yield. At the depth of the main DESI survey, both pipelines achieve a good-redshift purity (reliable redshifts measured within 3000 km s⁻¹) of ≈99%; however, the modified pipeline recovers ≈94% of the visually inspected quasars, as compared to ≈86% from the standard pipeline. We demonstrate that both pipelines achieve a median redshift precision and accuracy of ≈100 km s⁻¹and ≈70 km s⁻¹, respectively. We constructed composite spectra to investigate why some quasars are missed by the standard pipeline and find thatmore »they are more host-galaxy dominated (i.e., distant analogs of “Seyfert galaxies”) and/or more dust reddened than the standard-pipeline quasars. We also show example spectra to demonstrate the overall diversity of the DESI quasar sample and provide strong-lensing candidates where two targets contribute to a single spectrum.

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