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Interstellar dust present in the interstellar medium creates a challenge when investigating galactic properties due to the reddening and scattering - i.e., attenuation - of light. Attenuation laws have been found to be a critical uncertainty in all astronomy, as it has been shown to vary across different sightlines, leading to different attenuation curves throughout the literature. This is especially true for low mass disk galaxies, where dust attenuation and its role in constraining galaxy spectral energy distributions (SEDs) remain poorly understood. Spatially resolved dust attenuation in these dwarf galaxies will be investigated using the technique of overlapping - occulting - galaxy pairs: the practice of calculating dust using the light lost in the galaxy pair overlap when a foreground galaxy overlaps a more distant background galaxy. In an occulting galaxy pair, the latter backlights the dusty structures in the nearer foreground galaxy. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) broadband imaging from the optical to infrared of multiple nearby dwarf (z < 0.09; M* < 1010 M⊙) occulters. With the high resolution of HST, highly accurate dust extinction maps will be constructed pixel-by-pixel among the scale of molecular clouds in the overlap region of the foreground galaxy with hundreds of independent lines-of-sight. Mapped dust attenuation in dwarf galaxies will provide vital information that is needed to investigate their properties such as SEDs, star formation, and their dust physics of the ISM. 

Control noise is a limiting factor in the low-frequency performance of the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). In this paper, we model the effects of using new sensors called Homodyne Quadrature Interferometers (HoQIs) to control the suspension resonances. We show that if we were to use HoQIs, instead of the standard shadow sensors, we could suppress resonance peaks up to tenfold more while simultaneously reducing the noise injected by the damping system. Through a cascade of effects, this will reduce the resonant cross-coupling of the suspensions, allow for improved stability for feed-forward control, and result in improved sensitivity of the detectors in the 10–20 Hz band. This analysis shows that improved local sensors, such as HoQIs, should be used in current and future detectors to improve low-frequency performance. 

Abstract The Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC) is a collection of short-duration (transient) gravitational-wave signals identified by the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA Collaboration in gravitational-wave data produced by the eponymous detectors. The catalog provides information about the identified candidates, such as the arrival time and amplitude of the signal and properties of the signal’s source as inferred from the observational data. GWTC is the data release of this dataset, and version 4.0 extends the catalog to include observations made during the first part of the fourth LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA observing run up until 2024 January 31. This Letter marks an introduction to a collection of articles related to this version of the catalog, GWTC-4.0. The collection of articles accompanying the catalog provides documentation of the methods used to analyze the data, summaries of the catalog of events, observational measurements drawn from the population, and detailed discussions of selected candidates. 

Abstract We report the observation of gravitational waves from two binary black hole coalescences during the fourth observing run of the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA detector network, GW241011 and GW241110. The sources of these two signals are characterized by rapid and precisely measured primary spins, nonnegligible spin–orbit misalignment, and unequal mass ratios between their constituent black holes. These properties are characteristic of binaries in which the more massive object was itself formed from a previous binary black hole merger and suggest that the sources of GW241011 and GW241110 may have formed in dense stellar environments in which repeated mergers can take place. As the third-loudest gravitational-wave event published to date, with a median network signal-to-noise ratio of 36.0, GW241011 furthermore yields stringent constraints on the Kerr nature of black holes, the multipolar structure of gravitational-wave generation, and the existence of ultralight bosons within the mass range 10⁻¹³–10⁻¹²eV. 

Abstract On 2023 November 23, the two LIGO observatories both detected GW231123, a gravitational-wave signal consistent with the merger of two black holes with masses $137_{-18}^{+23}{M}_{\odot }$and $101_{-50}^{+22}{M}_{\odot }$(90% credible intervals), at a luminosity distance of 0.7–4.1 Gpc, a redshift of $0.40_{-0.25}^{+0.27}$, and with a network signal-to-noise ratio of ∼20.7. Both black holes exhibit high spins— $0.90_{-0.19}^{+0.10}$and $0.80_{-0.52}^{+0.20}$, respectively. A massive black hole remnant is supported by an independent ringdown analysis. Some properties of GW231123 are subject to large systematic uncertainties, as indicated by differences in the inferred parameters between signal models. The primary black hole lies within or above the theorized mass gap where black holes between 60–130M_⊙should be rare, due to pair-instability mechanisms, while the secondary spans the gap. The observation of GW231123 therefore suggests the formation of black holes from channels beyond standard stellar collapse and that intermediate-mass black holes of mass ∼200M_⊙form through gravitational-wave-driven mergers. 

The gravitational-wave signal GW250114 was observed by the two LIGO detectors with a network matched-filter signal-to-noise ratio of 80. The signal was emitted by the coalescence of two black holes with near-equal masses $m_1={33.6}_{-0.8}^{+1.2}{M}_{\odot }$and $m_2={32.2}_{-1.3}^{+0.8}{M}_{\odot }$, and small spins ${\chi }_{1,2}\le 0.26$(90% credibility) and negligible eccentricity $e\le 0.03$. Postmerger data excluding the peak region are consistent with the dominant quadrupolar $(\ell =|m|=2)$mode of a Kerr black hole and its first overtone. We constrain the modes’ frequencies to $\pm 30\%$of the Kerr spectrum, providing a test of the remnant’s Kerr nature. We also examine Hawking’s area law, also known as the second law of black hole mechanics, which states that the total area of the black hole event horizons cannot decrease with time. A range of analyses that exclude up to five of the strongest merger cycles confirm that the remnant area is larger than the sum of the initial areas to high credibility. 

Abstract Atomic nuclei are self-organized, many-body quantum systems bound by strong nuclear forces within femtometre-scale space. These complex systems manifest a variety of shapes^1–3, traditionally explored using non-invasive spectroscopic techniques at low energies^4,5. However, at these energies, their instantaneous shapes are obscured by long-timescale quantum fluctuations, making direct observation challenging. Here we introduce the collective-flow-assisted nuclear shape-imaging method, which images the nuclear global shape by colliding them at ultrarelativistic speeds and analysing the collective response of outgoing debris. This technique captures a collision-specific snapshot of the spatial matter distribution within the nuclei, which, through the hydrodynamic expansion, imprints patterns on the particle momentum distribution observed in detectors^6,7. We benchmark this method in collisions of ground-state uranium-238 nuclei, known for their elongated, axial-symmetric shape. Our findings show a large deformation with a slight deviation from axial symmetry in the nuclear ground state, aligning broadly with previous low-energy experiments. This approach offers a new method for imaging nuclear shapes, enhances our understanding of the initial conditions in high-energy collisions and addresses the important issue of nuclear structure evolution across energy scales.