New Metrics for Identifying Variables and Transients in Large Astronomical Surveys

(2025)

Authors:

Shih Ching Fu, Arash Bahramian, Aloke Phatak, James CA Miller-Jones, Suman Rakshit, Alexander Andersson, Robert Fender, Patrick A Woudt

The Simons Observatory: science goals and forecasts for the enhanced Large Aperture Telescope

Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics IOP Publishing 2025:08 (2025) 034

Authors:

M Abitbol, I Abril-Cabezas, S Adachi, P Ade, AE Adler, P Agrawal, J Aguirre, Z Ahmed, S Aiola, T Alford, A Ali, David Alonso, MA Alvarez, R An, K Arnold, P Ashton, Z Atkins, J Austermann, Susanna Azzoni, C Baccigalupi, A Baleato Lizancos, D Barron, P Barry, J Bartlett, Michael Jones, Adrien La Posta, Jamie Leech, Angela C Taylor

Abstract:

We describe updated scientific goals for the wide-field, millimeter-wave survey that will be produced by the Simons Observatory (SO). Significant upgrades to the 6-meter SO Large Aperture Telescope (LAT) are expected to be complete by 2028, and will include a doubled mapping speed with 30,000 new detectors and an automated data reduction pipeline. In addition, a new photovoltaic array will supply most of the observatory's power. The LAT survey will cover about 60% of the sky at a regular observing cadence, with five times the angular resolution and ten times the map depth of the Planck satellite. The science goals are to: (1) determine the physical conditions in the early universe and constrain the existence of new light particles; (2) measure the integrated distribution of mass, electron pressure, and electron momentum in the late-time universe, and, in combination with optical surveys, determine the neutrino mass and the effects of dark energy via tomographic measurements of the growth of structure at redshifts z โ‰ฒ 3; (3) measure the distribution of electron density and pressure around galaxy groups and clusters, and calibrate the effects of energy input from galaxy formation on the surrounding environment; (4) produce a sample of more than 30,000 galaxy clusters, and more than 100,000 extragalactic millimeter sources, including regularly sampled AGN light-curves, to study these sources and their emission physics; (5) measure the polarized emission from magnetically aligned dust grains in our Galaxy, to study the properties of dust and the role of magnetic fields in star formation; (6) constrain asteroid regoliths, search for Trans-Neptunian Objects, and either detect or eliminate large portions of the phase space in the search for Planet 9; and (7) provide a powerful new window into the transient universe on time scales of minutes to years, concurrent with observations from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory of overlapping sky.

A Luminous Red Optical Flare and Hard X-Ray Emission in the Tidal Disruption Event AT 2024kmq

The Astrophysical Journal American Astronomical Society 989:1 (2025) 54

Authors:

Anna YQ Ho, Yuhan Yao, Tatsuya Matsumoto, Genevieve Schroeder, Eric R Coughlin, Daniel A Perley, Igor Andreoni, Eric C Bellm, Tracy X Chen, Ryan Chornock, Sofia Covarrubias, Kaustav Das, Christoffer Fremling, Marat Gilfanov, KR Hinds, Dan Jarvis, Mansi M Kasliwal, Chang Liu, Joseph D Lyman, Frank J Masci, Thomas A Prince, Vikram Ravi, R Michael Rich, Reed Riddle, Cassie Sevilla, Roger Smith, Jesper Sollerman, Jean J Somalwar, Gokul P Srinivasaragavan, Rashid Sunyaev, Jada L Vail, Jacob L Wise, Sol Bin Yun

Abstract:

We present the optical discovery and multiwavelength follow-up observations of AT 2024kmq, a likely tidal disruption event (TDE) associated with a supermassive (MBH โˆผ 108 MโŠ™) black hole in a massive galaxy at z = 0.192. The optical light curve of AT 2024kmq exhibits two distinct peaks: an early fast (timescale 1 day) and luminous (M โ‰ˆ โˆ’20 mag) red peak, then a slower (timescale 1 month) blue peak with a higher optical luminosity (M โ‰ˆ โˆ’22 mag) and featureless optical spectra. The second component is similar to the spectroscopic class of โ€œfeatureless TDEsโ€ in the literature, and during this second component we detect highly variable, luminous (LX โ‰ˆ 1044 erg sโˆ’1), and hard (fฮฝ โˆ ฮฝโˆ’1.5) X-ray emission. Luminous (1029 erg sโˆ’1 Hzโˆ’1 at 10 GHz) but unchanging radio emission likely arises from an underlying active galactic nucleus. The luminosity, timescale, and color of the early red optical peak can be explained by synchrotron emission, or alternatively by thermal emission from material at a large radius (R โ‰ˆ a few ร— 1015 cm). Possible physical origins for this early red component include an off-axis relativistic jet, and shocks from self-intersecting debris leading to the formation of the accretion disk. Late-time radio observations will help distinguish between the two possibilities.

Searches for direct slepton production in the compressed-mass corridor in sqrt(๐’”) = 13 TeV ๐’‘ ๐’‘ collisions with the ATLAS detector

Journal of High Energy Physics Springer 2025:8 (2025) 53

Abstract:

This paper presents searches for the direct pair production of charged light-flavour sleptons, each decaying into a stable neutralino and an associated Standard Model lepton. The analyses focus on the challenging โ€œcorridorโ€ region, where the mass difference, ฮ”๐‘š, between the slepton (๐‘’หœ or ๐œ‡หœ) and the lightest neutralino (๐œ’หœ 0 1 ) is less or similar to the mass of the ๐‘Š boson, ๐‘š(๐‘Š), with the aim to close a persistent gap in sensitivity to models with ฮ”๐‘š โ‰ฒ ๐‘š(๐‘Š). Events are required to contain a high-energy jet, significant missing transverse momentum, and two same-flavour opposite-sign leptons (๐‘’ or ๐œ‡). The analysis uses ๐‘ ๐‘ collision data at โˆš ๐‘  = 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 140 fbโˆ’1 . Several kinematic selections are applied, including a set of boosted decision trees. These are each optimised for different ฮ”๐‘š to provide expected sensitivity for the first time across the full ฮ”๐‘š corridor. The results are generally consistent with the Standard Model, with the most significant deviations observed with a local significance of 2.0 ๐œŽ in the selectron search, and 2.4 ๐œŽ in the smuon search. While these deviations weaken the observed exclusion reach in some parts of the signal parameter space, the previously present sensitivity gap to this corridor is largely reduced. Constraints at the 95% confidence level are set on simplified models of selectron and smuon pair production, where selectrons (smuons) with masses up to 300 (350) GeV can be excluded for ฮ”๐‘š between 2 GeV and 100 GeV.

Measurements of the production cross-sections of a Higgs boson in association with a vector boson and decaying into WW * with the ATLAS detector at s = 13 TeV

Journal of High Energy Physics Springer 2025:8 (2025) 34

Authors:

G Aad, E Aakvaag, B Abbott, S Abdelhameed, K Abeling, NJ Abicht, SH Abidi, M Aboelela, A Aboulhorma, H Abramowicz, H Abreu, Y Abulaiti, BS Acharya, A Ackermann, C Adam Bourdarios, L Adamczyk, SV Addepalli, MJ Addison, J Adelman, A Adiguzel, T Adye, AA Affolder, Y Afik, MN Agaras

Abstract:

Measurements of the total and differential Higgs boson production cross-sections, via WH and ZH associated production using H โ†’ WW* โ†’ โ„“ฮฝโ„“ฮฝ and H โ†’ WW* โ†’ โ„“ฮฝjj decays, are presented. The analysis uses proton-proton events delivered by the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector between 2015 and 2018. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 140 fbโˆ’1. The sum of the WH and ZH cross-sections times the H โ†’ WW* branching fraction is measured to be 0.44โˆ’0.09+0.10stat.โˆ’0.05+0.06syst. pb, in agreement with the Standard Model prediction. Higgs boson production is further characterised through measurements of the differential cross-section as a function of the transverse momentum of the vector boson and in the framework of Simplified Template Cross-Sections.