The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA consortium has sporadically detected purely inspiral gravitational-wave events like GW170817 and GW190425. These events offer an opportunity to constrain the presence of possible initial (residual) orbital eccentricities while using purely inspiral template families. We detail the implementation of a LSC Algorithm Library Suite approximant, TaylorF2Ecck, which models analytically inspiral gravitational waves from non-spinning compact binaries in Post-Newtonian accurate eccentric orbits while restricting the initial-eccentricity contributions to its leading order. Specifically, our frequency domain approximant consistently incorporates the orbital, advance of periastron, and gravitational-wave emission effects fully up to the 3PN order. We pursue detailed parameter estimation studies of GW170817 and GW190425 using TaylorF2Ecck, after performing comprehensive sanity checks to validate the model's performance and investigate the influence of periastron advance in the relevant parameter space. The results indicate that initial-eccentricity at 20 Hz is essentially zero (less than 0.011 for GW170817 and less than 0.028 for GW190425) at a 90 percent confidence level. We compare posteriors for these two events that arise from a few purely inspiral eccentric approximants and point out certain subtle effects arising due to the inclusion of periastron advance. Additionally, these detailed studies reveal the importance of incorporating initial eccentricity contributions at least up to 3.5PN-order and discuss its implications. We substantiate this inference by employing versions of quasi-circular TaylorF2 approximant that incorporate Fourier phase contributions beyond the conventional 3.5PN order.

We present cosmology results from a blinded joint analysis of cosmic shear, $\xi_{\pm}(\vartheta)$, galaxy-galaxy weak lensing, $\Delta\!\Sigma(R)$, and projected galaxy clustering, $w_{\rm p}(R)$, measured from the Hyper Suprime-Cam three-year (HSC-Y3) shape catalog and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR11 spectroscopic galaxy catalog - a 3$\times$2pt cosmology analysis. We define luminosity-cut samples of SDSS galaxies to serve as the tracers of $w_{\rm p}$ and as the lens samples for $\Delta\!\Sigma$ in three spectroscopic redshift bins spanning the range $0.15

We present high-fidelity cosmology results from a blinded joint analysis of galaxy-galaxy weak lensing ($\Delta\!\Sigma$) and projected galaxy clustering ($w_{\rm p}$) measured from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Year-1 (HSC-Y1) data and spectroscopic Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) galaxy catalogs in the redshift range $0.15

We present a detailed exposition of a statistical method for estimating cosmological parameters from the observation of a large number of strongly lensed binary-black-hole (BBH) mergers observable by next (third) generation (XG) gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. This method, first presented in Jana (2023 Phys. Rev. Lett. 130 261401), compares the observed number of strongly lensed GW events and their time delay distribution (between lensed images) with observed events to infer cosmological parameters. We show that the precision of the estimation of the cosmological parameters does not have a strong dependance on the assumed BBH redshift distribution model. Using the large number of unlensed mergers, XG detectors are expected to measure the BBH redshift distribution with sufficient precision for the cosmological inference. However, a biased inference of the BBH redshift distribution will bias the estimation of cosmological parameters. An incorrect model for the distribution of lens properties can also lead to a biased cosmological inference. However, Bayesian model selection can assist in selecting the right model from a set of available parametric models for the lens distribution. We also present a way to incorporate the effect of contamination in the data due to the limited efficiency of lensing identification methods, so that it will not bias the cosmological inference.

We present the pulse arrival times and high-precision dispersion measure estimates for 14 millisecond pulsars observed simultaneously in the 300-500 MHz and 1260-1460 MHz frequency bands using the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT). The data spans over a baseline of 3.5 years (2018-2021), and is the first official data release made available by the Indian Pulsar Timing Array collaboration. This data release presents a unique opportunity for investigating the interstellar medium effects at low radio frequencies and their impact on the timing precision of pulsar timing array experiments. In addition to the dispersion measure time series and pulse arrival times obtained using both narrowband and wideband timing techniques, we also present the dispersion measure structure function analysis for selected pulsars. Our ongoing investigations regarding the frequency dependence of dispersion measures have been discussed. Based on the preliminary analysis for five millisecond pulsars, we do not find any conclusive evidence of chromaticity in dispersion measures. Data from regular simultaneous two-frequency observations are presented for the first time in this work. This distinctive feature leads us to the highest precision dispersion measure estimates obtained so far for a subset of our sample. Simultaneous multi-band uGMRT observations in Band 3 and Band 5 are crucial for high-precision dispersion measure estimation and for the prospect of expanding the overall frequency coverage upon the combination of data from the various Pulsar Timing Array consortia in the near future. Parts of the data presented in this work are expected to be incorporated into the upcoming third data release of the International Pulsar Timing Array.

The upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) is expected to discover nearly a million Type Ia supernovae (SNeIa), offering an unprecedented opportunity to constrain dark energy. The vast majority of these events will lack spectroscopic classification and redshifts, necessitating a fully photometric approach to maximize cosmology constraining power. We present detailed simulations based on the Extended LSST Astronomical Time Series Classification Challenge (ELAsTiCC), and a cosmological analysis using photometrically classified SNeIa with host galaxy photometric redshifts. This dataset features realistic multi-band light curves, non-SNIa contamination, host mis-associations, and transient-host correlations across the high-redshift Deep Drilling Fields (DDF) (~ 50 deg^2). We also include a spectroscopically confirmed low-redshift sample based on the Wide Fast Deep (WFD) fields. We employ a joint SN+host photometric redshift fit, a neural network based photometric classifier (SCONE), and BEAMS with Bias Corrections (BBC) methodology to construct a bias-corrected Hubble diagram. We produce statistical + systematic covariance matrices, and perform cosmology fitting with a prior using Cosmic Microwave Background constraints. We fit and present results for the wCDM dark energy model, and the more general Chevallier-Polarski-Linder (CPL) w0wa model. With a simulated sample of ~6000 events, we achieve a Figure of Merit (FoM) value of about 150, which is significantly larger than the DESVYR FoM of 54. Averaging analysis results over 25 independent samples, we find small but significant biases indicating a need for further analysis testing and development.

Galaxy clusters, being the most massive objects in the Universe, exhibit the strongest alignment with the large-scale structure. However, mis-identification of members due to projection effects from the large scale structure can occur. We studied the impact of projection effects on the measurement of the intrinsic alignment of galaxy clusters, using galaxy cluster mock catalogs. Our findings showed that projection effects result in a decrease of the large scale intrinsic alignment signal of the cluster and produce a bump at $r_p\sim 1h^{-1}/Mpc$, most likely due to interlopers and missed member galaxies. This decrease in signal explains the observed similar alignment strength between bright central galaxies and clusters in the SDSS redMaPPer cluster catalog. The projection effect and cluster intrinsic alignment signal are coupled, with clusters having lower fractions of missing members or having higher fraction of interlopers exhibiting higher alignment signals in their projected shapes. We aim to use these findings to determine the impact of projection effects on galaxy cluster cosmology in future studies.

By the end of the next decade, we hope to have detected strongly lensed gravitational waves by galaxies or clusters. Although there exist optimal methods for identifying lensed signal, it is shown that machine learning (ML) algorithms can give comparable performance but are orders of magnitude faster than non-ML methods. We present the SLICK pipeline which comprises a parallel network based on deep learning. We analyse the Q-transform maps (QT maps) and the Sine-Gaussian maps (SGP-maps) generated for the binary black hole signals injected in Gaussian as well as real noise. We compare our network performance with the previous work and find that the efficiency of our model is higher by a factor of 5 at a false positive rate of 0.001. Further, we show that including SGP maps with QT maps data results in a better performance than analysing QT maps alone. When combined with sky localisation constraints, we hope to get unprecedented accuracy in the predictions than previously possible. We also evaluate our model on the real events detected by the LIGO--Virgo collaboration and find that our network correctly classifies all of them, consistent with non-detection of lensing.

We present the first step toward deriving cosmological constraints through the abundances of galaxy clusters selected in a $510\,\mathrm{deg}^2$ weak-lensing aperture mass map, constructed with the Year-Three shear catalog from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program. We adopt a conservative source galaxy selection to construct a sample of $129$ weak-lensing peaks with a signal-to-noise ratio above $4.7$. We use semi-analytical injection simulations to derive the selection function and the mass--observable relation of our sample. These results take into account complicated uncertainties associated with weak-lensing measurements, such as the non-uniform survey depth and the complex survey geometry, projection effects from uncorrelated large-scale structures, and the intrinsic alignment of source galaxies. We also propose a novel modeling framework to make parts of the mass--observable relation insensitive to assumed cosmological parameters. Such a framework not only offers a great computational advantage to cosmological studies, but can also benefit future astrophysical studies using shear-selected clusters. Our results are an important step toward utilizing these cluster samples that are constructed nearly independent of any baryonic assumptions in upcoming deep-and-wide lensing surveys from the Vera Rubin Observatory, Euclid, and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

We present cosmological constraints using the abundance of weak-lensing shear-selected galaxy clusters in the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru Strategic Program. The clusters are selected on the mass maps constructed using the three-year (Y3) weak-lensing data with an area of $\approx500~$deg$^2$, resulting in a sample size of $129$ clusters with high signal-to-noise ratios $\nu$ of $\nu\geq4.7$. Owing to the deep, wide-field, and uniform imaging of the HSC survey, this is by far the largest sample of shear-selected clusters, in which the selection solely depends on gravity and is free from any assumptions about the dynamical state. Informed by the optical counterparts, the shear-selected clusters span a redshift range of $z\lesssim0.7$ with a median of $z\approx0.3$. The lensing sources are securely selected at $z\gtrsim0.7$ with a median of $z\approx1.3$, leading to nearly zero cluster member contamination. We carefully account for (1) the bias in the photometric redshift of sources, (2) the bias and scatter in the weak-lensing mass using a simulation-based calibration, and (3) the measurement uncertainty that is directly estimated on the mass maps using an injection-based method developed in a companion paper (Chen et al. submitted). In a blind analysis, the fully marginalized posteriors of the cosmological parameters are obtained as $\Omega_{\mathrm{m}} = 0.50^{+0.28}_{-0.24}$, $\sigma_8 = 0.685^{+0.161}_{-0.088}$, $\hat{S}_{8}\equiv\sigma_8\left(\Omega_{\mathrm{m}}/0.3\right)^{0.25} = 0.835^{+0.041}_{-0.044}$, and $\sigma_8\left(\Omega_{\mathrm{m}}/0.3\right)^{0.5} = 0.993^{+0.084}_{-0.126}$ in a flat $\Lambda$CDM model. We compare our cosmological constraints with other studies, including those based on cluster abundances, galaxy-galaxy lensing and clustering, and Cosmic Microwave Background observed by $Planck$, and find good agreement at levels of $\lesssim2\sigma$. [abridged]

The Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) on board the Aditya-L1 mission is designed to observe the Sun across 200-400 nm wavelength. The telescope used 16 dichroic filters tuned at specific wavelengths in various combinations to achieve its science goals. For accurate measurements and interpretation, it is important to characterize these filters for spectral variations as a function of spatial location and tilt angle. Moreover, we also measured out-of-band and in-band transmission characteristics with respect to the inband transmissions. In this paper, we present the experimental setup, test methodology, and the analyzed results. Our findings reveal that the transmission properties of all filters meet the expected performance for spatial variation of transmission and the transmission band at a specific tilt angle. The out-of-band transmission for all filters is below 1% with respect to in-band, except for filters BB01 and NB01. These results confirm the capabilities of SUIT to effectively capture critical solar features in the anticipated layer of the solar atmosphere.

We present light curves and spectra of the tidal disruption event (TDE) ASASSN-18pg / AT 2018dyb spanning a period of one year. The event shows a plethora of strong emission lines, including the Balmer series, He II, He I and metal lines of O III $\lambda$3760 and N III $\lambda\lambda$ 4100, 4640 (blended with He II). The latter lines are consistent with originating from the Bowen fluorescence mechanism. By analyzing literature spectra of past events, we conclude that these lines are common in TDEs. The spectral diversity of optical TDEs is thus larger than previously thought and includes N-rich events besides H- and He-rich events. We study how the spectral lines evolve with time, by means of their width, relative strength, and velocity offsets. The velocity width of the lines starts at $\sim$ 13000 km s$^{-1}$ and decreases with time. The ratio of He II to N III increases with time. The same is true for ASASSN-14li, which has a very similar spectrum to AT 2018dyb but its lines are narrower by a factor of $>$2. We estimate a black hole mass of $M_{\rm BH}$ = $3.3^{+5.0}_{-2.0}\times 10^6$ $M_{\odot}$ by using the $M$-$\sigma$ relation. This is consistent with the black hole mass derived using the MOSFiT transient fitting code. The detection of strong Bowen lines in the optical spectrum is an indirect proof for extreme ultraviolet and (reprocessed) X-ray radiation and favors an accretion origin for the TDE optical luminosity. A model where photons escape after multiple scatterings through a super-Eddington thick disk and its optically thick wind, viewed at an angle close to the disk plane, is consistent with the observations.

In an earlier paper, we determined the morphological types of galaxies in the Coma Cluster using data from the HST/ACS Coma Cluster treasury survey. We found that of the 132 members, 51 are non dwarfs and 81 are dwarfs. We define dwarfs to have a absolute luminosity $M_{F814W}\geq -18.5$ as in \cite{2012ApJ...746..136M}. In this paper, we determine the morphological types of these dwarf galaxies and make a detailed study of their properties. Using GALFIT, we determine the structural properties of our sample and with spectroscopic redshifts, we determined memberships and distances to identify dwarfs. A visual examination of the residual images reveals that our sample of 78 dwarf galaxies comprises of: dwarf lenticular (\textit{dS0}) 22\%, dwarf Elliptical ($dE$) 69\%, dwarf spirals (\textit{dSp}) 4\%, dwarf ring (\textit{dring}) 1\%, dwarf barred spirals (\textit{dSBp}) 3\% and dwarf irregular (\textit{dIrr}) 1\% galaxies. We find that the bulge-disk decomposition (Sérsic + exponential) fits are good only for the \textit{dS0} galaxies. The remainder of the sample gives good fits only for single Sérsic fits. The Colour Magnitude Relation (CMR) shows that the $dEs$ are redder and fainter than the rest of the sample (except one $dIrr$ galaxy). The Kormendy relation reveals that $dE$ galaxies have lower surface brightness than the rest of the sample. Our research leads us to the conclusion that dwarf galaxies appear to have a different formation and evolution process than non-dwarf galaxies.

Which galaxies in the general population turn into active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is a keystone of galaxy formation and evolution. Thanks to SRG/eROSITA's contiguous 140 square degree pilot survey field, we constructed a large, complete, and unbiased soft X-ray flux-limited (F_X>6.5\times 10^{-15} erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$) AGN sample at low redshift, $0.05

The memory effect, in the context of gravitational-waves (GWs), manifests itself in the permanent relative displacement of test masses when they encounter the GWs. A number of works have explored the possibility of detecting the memory when the source and detector are separated by large distances. A special type of memory, arising from BMS symmetries, called ``black-hole memory'', has been recently proposed. The black hole memory only manifests itself in the vicinity of its event horizon. Therefore, formally observing it requires placing a GW detector at the horizon of the BH, which prima-facie seems unfeasible. In this work, we describe a toy model that suggests a possible way the black hole memory may be observed, without requiring a human-made detector near the event horizon. The model considers a binary black hole (BBH), emanating GWs observable at cosmological distances, as a proxy for an idealized detector in the vicinity of a supermassive Schwarzschild black hole that is endowed with a supertranslation hair by sending a shock-wave to it. This sudden change affects the geometry near the horizon of the supertranslated black hole and it induces a change in the inspiraling orbital separation (and hence, orbital frequency) of the binary, which in turn imprints itself on the GWs. Using basic GW data analysis tools, we demonstrate that the black hole memory should be observable by a LISA-like space-based detector.

The observation of gravitational waves from multiple compact binary coalescences by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detector networks has enabled us to infer the underlying distribution of compact binaries across a wide range of masses, spins, and redshifts. In light of the new features found in the mass spectrum of binary black holes and the uncertainty regarding binary formation models, non-parametric population inference has become increasingly popular. In this work, we develop a data-driven clustering framework that can identify features in the component mass distribution of compact binaries simultaneously with those in the corresponding redshift distribution, from gravitational wave data in the presence of significant measurement uncertainties, while making very few assumptions on the functional form of these distributions. Our generalized model is capable of inferring correlations among various population properties such as the redshift evolution of the shape of the mass distribution itself, in contrast to most existing non-parametric inference schemes. We test our model on simulated data and demonstrate the accuracy with which it can re-construct the underlying distributions of component masses and redshifts. We also re-analyze public LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA data from events in GWTC-3 using our model and compare our results with those from some alternative parametric and non-parametric population inference approaches. Finally, we investigate the potential presence of correlations between mass and redshift in the population of binary black holes in GWTC-3 (those observed by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detector network in their first 3 observing runs), without making any assumptions about the specific nature of these correlations.

Line-of-sight acceleration of a compact binary coalescence (CBC) event would modulate the shape of the gravitational waves (GWs) it produces with respect to the corresponding non-accelerated CBC. Such modulations could be indicative of its astrophysical environment. We investigate the prospects of detecting this acceleration in future observing runs of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network, as well as in next-generation (XG) detectors and the proposed DECIGO. We place the first observational constraints on this acceleration, for putative binary neutron star mergers GW170817 and GW190425. We find no evidence of line-of-sight acceleration in these events at $90\%$ confidence. Prospective constraints for the fifth observing run of the LIGO at A+ sensitivity suggest that accelerations for typical BNSs could be constrained with a precision of $a/c \sim 10^{-7}~[\mathrm{s}^{-1}]$, assuming a signal-to-noise ratio of $10$. These improve to $a/c \sim 10^{-9}~[\mathrm{s}^{-1}]$ in XG detectors, and $a/c \sim 10^{-16}~[\mathrm{s}^{-1}]$ in DECIGO. We also interpret these constraints in the context of mergers around supermassive black holes.

Time delays in both galaxy- and cluster-scale strong gravitational lenses have recently attracted a lot of attention in the context of the Hubble tension. Future wide-field cadenced surveys, such as the LSST, are anticipated to discover strong lenses across various scales. We generate mock catalogs of strongly lensed QSOs and SNe on galaxy-, group-, and cluster-scales based on a halo model that incorporates dark matter halos, galaxies, and subhalos. For the upcoming LSST survey, we predict that approximately 3500 lensed QSOs and 200 lensed SNe with resolved multiple images will be discovered. Among these, about 80 lensed QSOs and 10 lensed SNe will have maximum image separations larger than 10 arcsec, which roughly correspond to cluster-scale strong lensing. We find that adopting the Chabrier stellar IMF instead of the fiducial Salpeter IMF reduces the predicted number of strong lenses approximately by half, while the distributions of lens and source redshifts and image separations are not significantly changed. In addition to mock catalogs of multiple-image lens systems, we create mock catalogs of highly magnified systems, including both multiple-image and single-image systems. We find that such highly magnified systems are typically produced by massive galaxies, but non-negligible fraction of them are located in the outskirt of galaxy groups and clusters. Furthermore, we compare subsamples of our mock catalogs with lensed QSO samples constructed from the SDSS and Gaia to find that our mock catalogs with the fiducial Salpeter IMF reproduce the observation quite well. In contrast, our mock catalogs with the Chabrier IMF predict a significantly smaller number of lensed QSOs compared with observations, which adds evidence that the stellar IMF of massive galaxies is Salpeter-like. Our python code SL-Hammocks as well as the mock catalogs are made available online. (abridged)

Strongly lensed type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) provide a unique cosmological probe to address the Hubble tension problem in cosmology. In addition to the sensitivity of the time delays to the value of the Hubble constant, the transient and standard candle nature of SNe Ia also enable valuable joint constraints on the model of the lens and the cosmological parameters. The upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is expected to increase the number of observed SNe Ia by an order of magnitude in ten years of its lifetime. However, finding such systems in the LSST data is a challenge. In this work, we revisit the color-magnitude (CM) diagram used previously as a means to identify lensed SNe Ia and extend the work further as follows. We simulate LSST-like photometric data ($rizy$~bands) of lensed SNe Ia and analyze it in the CM parameter space. We find that a subset of lensed SNe Ia are redder compared to unlensed SNe Ia at a given magnitude, both in the rising and falling phases of their light curves and for SNe up to $z=3$. We propose a modified selection criterion based on these new results. We show that the contamination coming from the unlensed core-collapse (CC) SNe is negligible, whereas a small fraction of lensed CC SNe types Ib and Ic may get selected by this criterion as potential lensed SNe. Finally, we demonstrate that our criterion works well on a wide sample of observed unlensed SNe Ia, a handful of known multiply-imaged lensed SNe systems, and a representative sample of observed super-luminous supernovae.