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Andrea Kueter-Young

Publications and source records attributed to Andrea Kueter-Young.

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Overview of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys

The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys are a combination of three public projects (the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey, the Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey, and the Mayall z-band Legacy Survey) that will jointly image approximately 14,000 deg^2 of the extragalactic sky visible from the northern hemisphere in three optical bands (g, r, and z) using telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The combined survey footprint is split into two contiguous areas by the Galactic plane. The optical imaging is conducted using a unique strategy of dynamically adjusting the exposure times and pointing selection during observing that results in a survey of nearly uniform depth. In addition to calibrated images, the project is delivering a catalog, constructed by using a probabilistic inference-based approach to estimate source shapes and brightnesses. The catalog includes photometry from the grz optical bands and from four mid-infrared bands (at 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 micorons) observed by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite during its full operational lifetime. The project plans two public data releases each year. All the software used to generate the catalogs is also released with the data. This paper provides an overview of the Legacy Surveys project.

astro-ph.IM

Tidal spin down rates of homogeneous triaxial viscoelastic bodies

We use numerical simulations to measure the sensitivity of the tidal spin down rate of a homogeneous triaxial ellipsoid to its axis ratios by comparing the drift rate in orbital semi-major axis to that of a spherical body with the same mass, volume and simulated rheology. We use a mass-spring model approximating a viscoelastic body spinning around its shortest body axis, with spin aligned with orbital spin axis, and in circular orbit about a point mass. The torque or drift rate can be estimated from that predicted for a sphere with equivalent volume if multiplied by $0.5 (1 + b^4/a^4)(b/a)^{-4/3} (c/a)^{-α_c}$ where $b/a$ and $c/a$ are the body axis ratios and index $α_c \approx 1.05$ is consistent with the random lattice mass spring model simulations but $α_c = 4/3$ suggested by scaling estimates. A homogeneous body with axis ratios 0.5 and and 0.8, like Haumea, has orbital semi-major axis drift rate about twice as fast as a spherical body with the same mass, volume and material properties. A simulation approximating a mostly rocky body but with 20\% of its mass as ice concentrated at its ends has a drift rate 10 times faster than the equivalent homogeneous rocky sphere. However, this increase in drift rate is not enough to allow Haumea's satellite, Hi'iaka, to have tidally drifted away from Haumea to its current orbital semi-major axis.

astro-ph.EP