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Register a new userUsing Virtual Observatory techniques to search for Adaptive Optics suitable AGN
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Authors
J. Zuther
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Until recently, it has been possible only for nearby galaxies to study the scaling relations between central black hole and host galaxy in detail. Because of the small number densities at low redshift, (luminous) AGN are underrepresented in such detailed studies. The advent of adaptive optics (AO) at large telescopes helps overcoming this hurdle, allowing to reach small linear scales over a wide range in redshift. Finding AO-suitable targets, i.e., AGN having a nearby reference star, and carrying out an initial multiwavelength classification is an excellent use case for the Virtual Observatory. We present our Virtual-Observatory approach to select an AO-suitable catalog of X-ray-emitting AGN at redshifts 0.1<z<1.
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The Virtual Observatory is a new technology of the astronomical research allowing the seamless processing and analysis of a heterogeneous data obtained from a number of distributed data archives. It may also provide astronomical community with powerful computational and data processing on-line services replacing the custom scientific code run on users computers. Despite its benefits the VO technology has been still little exploited in stellar spectroscopy. As an example of possible evolution in this field we present an experimental web-based service for disentangling of spectra based on code KOREL. This code developed by P. Hadrava enables Fourier disentangling and line-strength photometry, i.e. simultaneous decomposition of spectra of multiple stars and solving for orbital parameters, line-profile variability or other physical parameters of observed objects. We discuss the benefits of the service-oriented approach from the point of view of both developers and users and give examples of possible user-friendly implementation of spectra disentangling methods as a standard tools of Virtual Observatory.
A new high-order adaptive optics system is now being commissioned at the Lick Observatory Shane 3-meter telescope in California. This system uses a high return efficiency sodium beacon and a combination of low and high-order deformable mirrors to achieve diffraction-limited imaging over a wide spectrum of infrared science wavelengths covering 0.8 to 2.2 microns. We present the design performance goals and the first on-sky test results. We discuss several innovations that make this system a pathfinder for next generation AO systems. These include a unique woofer-tweeter control that provides full dynamic range correction from tip/tilt to 16 cycles, variable pupil sampling wavefront sensor, new enhanced silver coatings developed at UC Observatories that improve science and LGS throughput, and tight mechanical rigidity that enables a multi-hour diffraction- limited exposure in LGS mode for faint object spectroscopy science.
We present the first attempts to build a user-friendly interface for the Virtual Observatory of the University of Guanajuato. The data tables will be accessible to the public through PHP scripts and SQL database managers, such as MySQL and PostgreSQL, all administrated through phpMyAdmin and pgMyAdmin. Although it is not made public yet, this interface will be the basis upon which the final front end for our VO will be built. Furthermore, we present a preliminary version of a web front end to the publicly available stellar population synthesis code STARLIGHT (starlight.ufsc.br) which will be made available with our VO. This front end aims to provide an easy and flexible access to the code itself, letting users fit their own observed spectra with their preferred combination of physical and technical parameters, rather than making available only the results of fitting a specific sample of spectra with predefined parameters.
Ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO) systems offer the possibility of improving the seeing of large ground-based telescopes and increasing the efficiency and sensitivity of observations over a wide field-of-view. We explore the utility and feasibility of deploying a GLAO system at the W. M. Keck Observatory in order to feed existing and future multi-object spectrographs and wide-field imagers. We also briefly summarize science cases spanning exoplanets to high-redshift galaxy evolution that would benefit from a Keck GLAO system. Initial simulations indicate that a Keck GLAO system would deliver a 1.5x and 2x improvement in FWHM at optical (500 nm) and infrared (1.5 micron), respectively. The infrared instrument, MOSFIRE, is ideally suited for a Keck GLAO feed in that it has excellent image quality and is on the telescopes optical axis. However, it lacks an atmospheric dispersion compensator, which would limit the minimum usable slit size for long-exposure science cases. Similarly, while LRIS and DEIMOS may be able to accept a GLAO feed based on their internal image quality, they lack either an atmospheric dispersion compensator (DEIMOS) or flexure compensation (LRIS) to utilize narrower slits matched to the GLAO image quality. However, some science cases needing shorter exposures may still benefit from Keck GLAO and we will investigate the possibility of installing an ADC.
Using the ligthcone from the cosmological hydrodynamical simulation Horizon-AGN, we produced a photometric catalogue over $0<z<4$ with apparent magnitudes in COSMOS, DES, LSST-like, and Euclid-like filters at depths comparable to these surveys. The virtual photometry accounts for the complex star formation history and metal enrichment of Horizon-AGN galaxies, and consistently includes magnitude errors, dust attenuation and absorption by inter-galactic medium. The COSMOS-like photometry is fitted in the same configuration as the COSMOS2015 catalogue. We then quantify random and systematic errors of photometric redshifts, stellar masses, and star-formation rates (SFR). Photometric redshifts and redshift errors capture the same dependencies on magnitude and redshift as found in COSMOS2015, excluding the impact of source extraction. COSMOS-like stellar masses are well recovered with a dispersion typically lower than 0.1 dex. The simple star formation histories and metallicities of the templates induce a systematic underestimation of stellar masses at $z<1.5$ by at most 0.12 dex. SFR estimates exhibit a dust-induced bimodality combined with a larger scatter (typically between 0.2 and 0.6 dex). We also use our mock catalogue to predict photometric redshifts and stellar masses in future imaging surveys. We stress that adding Euclid near-infrared photometry to the LSST-like baseline improves redshift accuracy especially at the faint end and decreases the outlier fraction by a factor $sim$2. It also considerably improves stellar masses, reducing the scatter up to a factor 3. It would therefore be mutually beneficial for LSST and Euclid to work in synergy.
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