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1. Chemical Abundances in the Leiptr Stellar Stream: A Disrupted Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxy?

   https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.139013  

   Atzberger, Kaia R; Usman, Sam A; Ji, Alexander P; Cullinane, Lara R; Erkal, Denis; Hansen, Terese T; Lewis, Geraint F; Li, Ting S; Limberg, Guilherme; Luna, Alice; et al (January 2025, The Open Journal of Astrophysics)

   Chemical abundances of stellar streams can be used to determine the nature of a stream’s progenitor. Here we study the progenitor of the recently discovered Leiptr stellar stream, which was previously suggested to be a tidally disrupted halo globular cluster. We obtain high-resolution spectra of five red giant branch stars selected from the Gaia DR2 $\text{𝚂𝚃𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙼𝙵𝙸𝙽𝙳𝙴𝚁}$catalog with Magellan/MIKE. One star is a clear non-member. The remaining four stars display chemical abundances consistent with those of a low-mass dwarf galaxy: they have a low mean metallicity, ; they do not all have identical metallicities; and they display low [ $\alpha$/Fe] $\sim 0$and [Sr/Fe] and [Ba/Fe] $\sim -1$. This pattern of low $\alpha$and neutron-capture element abundances is only found in intact dwarf galaxies with stellar mass $\lesssim {10}^5{M}_{\odot }$. Although more data are needed to be certain, Leiptr’s chemistry is consistent with being the lowest-mass dwarf galaxy stream without a known intact progenitor, possibly in the mass range of ultra-faint dwarf galaxies. Leiptr thus preserves a record of one of the lowest-mass early accretion events into the Milky Way. 

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2. Spectroscopic Confirmation of an Ultra-Massive Galaxy in a Protocluster at $z\sim 4.9$

   https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.120087  

   Urbano_Stawinski, Stephanie M; Cooper, M C; Forrest, Ben; Muzzin, Adam; Marchesini, Danilo; Wilson, Gillian; Gomez, Percy; McConachie, Ian; Marsan, Z Cemile; Annuziatella, Marianna; et al (June 2024, The Open Journal of Astrophysics)

   We present spectroscopic confirmation of an ultra-massive galaxy (UMG) with $log\left(M_{\star }/M_{\odot }\right)=10.98\pm 0.07$at $z_{\mathrm{s}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{c}}=4.8947$in the Extended Groth Strip (EGS), based on deep observations of Ly $\alpha$emission with Keck/DEIMOS. The ultra-massive galaxy (UMG-28740) is the most massive member in one of the most significant overdensities in the EGS, with four additional photometric members with $log\left(M_{\star }/M_{\odot }\right)>10.5$within $R_{\mathrm{p}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{j}}\sim 1$cMpc. Spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting using a large suite of star formation histories and two sets of high-quality photometry from ground- and space-based facilities consistently estimates the mass of this object to be $log\left(M_{\star }/M_{\odot }\right)\sim 11$with a small standard deviation between measurements ( $\sigma =0.07$). While the best-fit SED models agree on stellar mass, we find discrepancies in the estimated star formation rate for UMG-28740, resulting in either a star-forming or quiescent system. $𝐽𝑊𝑆𝑇$/NIRCam photometry of UMG-28740 strongly favors a quiescent scenario, demonstrating the need for high-quality mid-IR observations. Assuming the galaxy to be quiescent, UMG-28740 formed the bulk of its stars at $z>10$and is quenching at $z\sim 8$, resulting in a high star formation efficiency at high redshift ( $ϵ\sim 0.2$at $z\sim 5$and $ϵ\gtrsim 1$at $z\gtrsim 8$). As the most massive galaxy in its protocluster environment, UMG-28740 is a unique example of the impossibly early galaxy problem. 

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3. Measurements of the Branching Fraction, Polarization, and $CP$ Asymmetry for the Decay $B^0\to \omega \omega$

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.081801  

   Guan, Y; Schwartz, A J; Kinoshita, K; Adachi, I; Aihara, H; Al_Said, S; Asner, D M; Atmacan, H; Ayad, R; Bahinipati, S; et al (August 2024, Physical Review Letters)

   We present a comprehensive study of $B^0\to \omega \omega$decays using $772\times {10}^{6}B\overline{B}$pairs collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB $e^{+}{e}^{-}$collider. This process is a suppressed charmless decay into two vector mesons and can exhibit interesting polarization and $CP$violation. The decay is observed for the first time with a significance of 7.9 standard deviations. We measure a branching fraction $\mathcal{B}=(1.53\pm 0.29\pm 0.17)\times {10}^{-6}$, a fraction of longitudinal polarization $f_L=0.87\pm 0.13\pm 0.13$, and a time-integrated $CP$asymmetry $A_{CP}=-0.44\pm 0.43\pm 0.11$, where the first uncertainties listed are statistical and the second are systematic. This is the first observation of $B^0\to \omega \omega$and the first measurements of $f_L$and $A_{CP}$for this decay. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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4. Spectrally simplified approach for leveraging legacy geostationary oceanic observations

   https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.465491  

   Houskeeper, Henry_F; Hooker, Stanford_B; Cavanaugh, Kyle_C (September 2022, Applied Optics)

   The use of multispectral geostationary satellites to study aquatic ecosystems improves the temporal frequency of observations and mitigates cloud obstruction, but no operational capability presently exists for the coastal and inland waters of the United States. The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on the current iteration of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, termed the $R$Series (GOES-R), however, provides sub-hourly imagery and the opportunity to overcome this deficit and to leverage a large repository of existing GOES-R aquatic observations. The fulfillment of this opportunity is assessed herein using a spectrally simplified, two-channel aquatic algorithm consistent with ABI wave bands to estimate the diffuse attenuation coefficient for photosynthetically available radiation, $K_d\left(\mathrm{P}\mathrm{A}\mathrm{R}\right)$. First, anin situABI dataset was synthesized using a globally representative dataset of above- and in-water radiometric data products. Values of $K_d\left(\mathrm{P}\mathrm{A}\mathrm{R}\right)$were estimated by fitting the ratio of the shortest and longest visible wave bands from thein situABI dataset to coincident,in situ $K_d\left(\mathrm{P}\mathrm{A}\mathrm{R}\right)$data products. The algorithm was evaluated based on an iterative cross-validation analysis in which 80% of the dataset was randomly partitioned for fitting and the remaining 20% was used for validation. The iteration producing the median coefficient of determination ( $R^2$) value (0.88) resulted in a root mean square difference of $0.319{\mathrm{m}}^{-<\#comment/>1}$, or 8.5% of the range in the validation dataset. Second, coincident mid-day images of central and southern California from ABI and from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) were compared using Google Earth Engine (GEE). GEE default ABI reflectance values were adjusted based on a near infrared signal. Matchups between the ABI and MODIS imagery indicated similar spatial variability ( $R^2=0.60$) between ABI adjusted blue-to-red reflectance ratio values and MODIS default diffuse attenuation coefficient for spectral downward irradiance at 490 nm, $K_d\left(490\right)$, values. This work demonstrates that if an operational capability to provide ABI aquatic data products was realized, the spectral configuration of ABI would potentially support a sub-hourly, visible aquatic data product that is applicable to water-mass tracing and physical oceanography research. 

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5. Constraints on $f\left(R\right)$ gravity from thermal-Sunyaev-Zel’dovich-effect-selected SPT galaxy clusters and weak lensing mass calibration from DES and HST

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.111.043519  

   Vogt, S_M L; Bocquet, S; Davies, C T; Mohr, J J; Schmidt, F; Ruan, C-Z; Li, B; Hernández-Aguayo, C; Grandis, S; Bleem, L E; et al (February 2025, Physical Review D)

   We present constraints on the $f\left(R\right)$gravity model using a sample of 1005 galaxy clusters in the redshift range 0.25–1.78 that have been selected through the thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect from South Pole Telescope data and subjected to optical and near-infrared confirmation with the multicomponent matched filter algorithm. We employ weak gravitational lensing mass calibration from the Dark Energy Survey Year 3 data for 688 clusters at $z<0.95$and from the Hubble Space Telescope for 39 clusters with $0.6<z<1.7$. Our cluster sample is a powerful probe of $f\left(R\right)$gravity, because this model predicts a scale-dependent enhancement in the growth of structure, which impacts the halo mass function (HMF) at cluster mass scales. To account for these modified gravity effects on the HMF, our analysis employs a semianalytical approach calibrated with numerical simulations. Combining calibrated cluster counts with primary cosmic microwave background temperature and polarization anisotropy measurements from the Planck 2018 release, we derive robust constraints on the $f\left(R\right)$parameter $f_{R0}$. Our results, ${\log }_{10}\left|f_{R0}\right|<-5.32$at the 95% credible level, are the tightest current constraints on $f\left(R\right)$gravity from cosmological scales. This upper limit rules out $f\left(R\right)$-like deviations from general relativity that result in more than a $\sim 20\%$enhancement of the cluster population on mass scales $M_{200\mathrm{c}}>3\times {10}^{14}{M}_{\odot }$. Published by the American Physical Society2025 

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