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We present the Census of the Local Universe (CLU) narrow-band survey to search for emission-line (ha) galaxies. CLU-ha~has imaged $approx$3$pi$ of the sky (26,470~deg$^2$) with 4 narrow-band filters that probe a distance out to 200~Mpc. We have obtained spectroscopic follow-up for galaxy candidates in 14 preliminary fields (101.6~deg$^2$) to characterize the limits and completeness of the survey. In these preliminary fields, CLU can identify emission lines down to an ha~flux limit of $10^{-14}$~$rm{erg~s^{-1}~cm^{-2}}$ at 90% completeness, and recovers 83% (67%) of the ha~flux from catalogued galaxies in our search volume at the $Sigma$=2.5 ($Sigma$=5) color excess levels. The contamination from galaxies with no emission lines is 61% (12%) for $Sigma$=2.5 ($Sigma$=5). Also, in the regions of overlap between our preliminary fields and previous emission-line surveys, we recover the majority of the galaxies found in previous surveys and identify an additional $approx$300 galaxies. In total, we find 90 galaxies with no previous distance information, several of which are interesting objects: 7 blue compact dwarfs, 1 green pea, and a Seyfert galaxy; we also identified a known planetary nebula. These objects show that the CLU-ha~survey can be a discovery machine for objects in our own Galaxy and extreme galaxies out to intermediate redshifts. However, the majority of the CLU-ha~galaxies identified in this work show properties consistent with normal star-forming galaxies. CLU-ha~galaxies with new redshifts will be added to existing galaxy catalogs to focus the search for the electromagnetic counterpart to gravitational wave events.
Using the Chandra Source Catalog 2.0 and a newly compiled catalogue of galaxies in the local Universe, we deliver a census of ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) populations in nearby galaxies. We find 629 ULX candidates in 309 galaxies with distance smaller than 40,Mpc. The foreground/background contamination is ${sim}20%$. The ULX populations in bona-fide star-forming galaxies scale on average with star-formation rate (SFR) and stellar mass ($M_star$) such that the number of ULXs per galaxy is $0.45^{+0.06}_{-0.09}timesfrac{rm SFR}{rm M_odot,yr^{-1}}{+}3.3^{+3.8}_{-3.2}timesfrac{M_star}{rm M_odot}$. The scaling depends strongly on the morphological type. This analysis shows that early spiral galaxies contain an additional population of ULXs that scales with $M_star$. We also confirm the strong anti-correlation of the ULX rate with the host galaxys metallicity. In the case of early-type galaxies we find that there is a non-linear dependence of the number of ULXs with $M_star$, which is interpreted as the result of star-formation history differences. Taking into account age and metallicity effects, we find that the predictions from X-ray binary population synthesis models are consistent with the observed ULX rates in early-type galaxies, as well as, spiral/irregular galaxies.
We present a new suite of mock galaxy catalogs mimicking the low-redshift Universe, based on an updated halo occupation distribution (HOD) model and a scaling relation between optical properties and the neutral hydrogen (HI) content of galaxies. Our algorithm is constrained by observations of the luminosity function and luminosity- and colour-dependent clustering of SDSS galaxies, as well as the HI mass function and HI-dependent clustering of massive HI-selected galaxies in the ALFALFA survey. Mock central and satellite galaxies with realistic values of $r$-band luminosity, $g-r$ and $u-r$ colour, stellar mass and HI mass are populated in an $N$-body simulation, inheriting a number of properties of the density and tidal environment of their host halos. The host halo of each central galaxy is also `baryonified with realistic spatial distributions of stars as well as hot and cold gas, along with the corresponding rotation curve. Our default HOD assumes that galaxy properties are a function of group halo mass alone, and can optionally include effects such as galactic conformity and colour-dependent galaxy assembly bias. The mocks predict the relation between the stellar mass and HI mass of massive HI galaxies, as well as the 2-point cross-correlation function of spatially co-located optical and HI-selected samples. They enable novel null tests for galaxy assembly bias, provide predictions for the HI velocity width function, and clarify the origin and universality of the radial acceleration relation in the $Lambda$CDM framework.
The Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS) is observing the entire sky north of $-40^{circ}$ in the S-band ($2< u<4,$GHz), with the highest angular resolution ($2.5$) of any all-sky radio continuum survey to date. VLASS will cover its entire footprint over three distinct epochs, the first of which has now been observed in full. Based on Quick Look images from this first epoch, we have created a catalog of $1.9times10^{6}$ reliably detected radio components. Due to the limitations of the Quick Look images, component flux densities are underestimated by $sim 15,%$ at $S_{text{peak}}>3,$mJy/beam and are often unreliable for fainter components. We use this catalog to perform statistical analyses of the $ u sim 3,$GHz radio sky. Comparisons with the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty cm survey (FIRST) show the typical $1.4-3,$GHz spectral index, $alpha$, to be $sim-0.71$. The radio color-color distribution of point and extended components is explored by matching with FIRST and the LOFAR Two Meter Sky Survey. We present the VLASS source counts, $dN/dS$, which are found to be consistent with previous observations at $1.4$ and $3,$GHz. Resolution improvements over FIRST result in excess power in the VLASS two-point correlation function at angular scales $lesssim 7$, and in $18,%$ of active galactic nuclei associated with a single FIRST component being split into multi-component sources by VLASS.
Long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are powerful tracers of star-forming galaxies. We have defined a homogeneous subsample of 69 Swift GRB-selected galaxies spanning a very wide redshift range. Special attention has been devoted to making the sample optically unbiased through simple and well-defined selection criteria based on the high-energy properties of the bursts and their positions on the sky. Thanks to our extensive follow-up observations, this sample has now achieved a comparatively high degree of redshift completeness, and thus provides a legacy sample, useful for statistical studies of GRBs and their host galaxies. In this paper we present the survey design and summarize the results of our observing program conducted at the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) aimed at obtaining the most basic properties of galaxies in this sample, including a catalog of R and Ks magnitudes and redshifts. We detect the host galaxies for 80 % of the GRBs in the sample, although only 42 % have Ks-band detections, which confirms that GRB-selected host galaxies are generally blue. The sample is not uniformly blue, however, with two extremely red objects detected. Moreover, galaxies hosting GRBs with no optical/NIR afterglows, whose identification therefore relies on X-ray localizations, are significantly brighter and redder than those with an optical/NIR afterglow. Our spectroscopic campaign has resulted in 77 % now having redshift measurements, with a median redshift of 2.14 +- 0.18. TOUGH alone includes 17 detected z > 2 Swift GRB host galaxies suitable for individual and statistical studies. Seven hosts have detections of the Ly-alpha emission line and we can exclude an early indication that Ly-alpha emission is ubiquitous among GRB hosts, but confirm that Ly-alpha is stronger in GRB-selected galaxies than in flux-limited samples of Lyman break galaxies.
We report the discovery of eight new ultra-faint dwarf galaxy candidates in the second year of optical imaging data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). Six of these candidates are detected at high confidence, while two lower-confidence candidates are identified in regions of non-uniform survey coverage. The new stellar systems are found by three independent automated search techniques and are identified as overdensities of stars, consistent with the isochrone and luminosity function of an old and metal-poor simple stellar population. The new systems are faint (Mv > -4.7 mag) and span a range of physical sizes (17 pc < $r_{1/2}$ < 181 pc) and heliocentric distances (25 kpc < D < 214 kpc). All of the new systems have central surface brightnesses consistent with known ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (mu < 27.5 mag arcsec$^{-2}$). Roughly half of the DES candidates are more distant, less luminous, and/or have lower surface brightnesses than previously known Milky Way satellite galaxies. Most of the candidates are found in the southern part of the DES footprint close to the Magellanic Clouds. We find that the DES data alone exclude (p < 0.001) a spatially isotropic distribution of Milky Way satellites and that the observed distribution can be well, though not uniquely, described by an association between several of the DES satellites and the Magellanic system. Our model predicts that the full sky may hold ~100 ultra-faint galaxies with physical properties comparable to the DES satellites and that 20-30% of these would be spatially associated with the Magellanic Clouds.