arXiv subjects

B. Santiago

Publications and source records attributed to B. Santiago.

81 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Eight New Milky Way Companions Discovered in First-Year Dark Energy Survey Data

We report the discovery of eight new Milky Way companions in ~1,800 deg^2 of optical imaging data collected during the first year of the Dark Energy Survey (DES). Each system is identified as a statistically significant over-density of individual stars consistent with the expected isochrone and luminosity function of an old and metal-poor stellar population. The objects span a wide range of absolute magnitudes (M_V from -2.2 mag to -7.4 mag), physical sizes (10 pc to 170 pc), and heliocentric distances (30 kpc to 330 kpc). Based on the low surface brightnesses, large physical sizes, and/or large Galactocentric distances of these objects, several are likely to be new ultra-faint satellite galaxies of the Milky Way and/or Magellanic Clouds. We introduce a likelihood-based algorithm to search for and characterize stellar over-densities, as well as identify stars with high satellite membership probabilities. We also present completeness estimates for detecting ultra-faint galaxies of varying luminosities, sizes, and heliocentric distances in the first-year DES data.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

Modelling the Transfer Function for the Dark Energy Survey

We present a forward-modelling simulation framework designed to model the data products from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). This forward-model process can be thought of as a transfer function -- a mapping from cosmological and astronomical signals to the final data products used by the scientists. Using output from the cosmological simulations (the Blind Cosmology Challenge), we generate simulated images (the Ultra Fast Image Simulator, Berge et al. 2013) and catalogs representative of the DES data. In this work we simulate the 244 sq. deg coadd images and catalogs in 5 bands for the DES Science Verification (SV) data. The simulation output is compared with the corresponding data to show that major characteristics of the images and catalogs can be captured. We also point out several directions of future improvements. Two practical examples, star/galaxy classification and proximity effects on object detection, are then used to demonstrate how one can use the simulations to address systematics issues in data analysis. With clear understanding of the simplifications in our model, we show that one can use the simulations side-by-side with data products to interpret the measurements. This forward modelling approach is generally applicable for other upcoming and future surveys. It provides a powerful tool for systematics studies which is sufficiently realistic and highly controllable.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2013

Existence of attractors, homoclinic tangencies and singular hyperbolicity for flows

We prove that every $C^1$ generic three-dimensional flow has either infinitely many sinks, or, infinitely many hyperbolic or singular-hyperbolic attractors whose basins form a full Lebesgue measure set. We also prove in the orientable case that the set of accumulation points of the sinks of a $C^1$ generic three-dimensional flow has no dominated splitting with respect to the linear Poincaré flow. As a corollary we obtain that every three-dimensional flow can be $C^1$ approximated by flows with homoclinic tangencies or by singular-Axiom A flows.

math.DS↗

arXiv2012

PreCam, a Precursor Observational Campaign for Calibration of the Dark Energy Survey

PreCam, a precursor observational campaign supporting the Dark Energy Survey (DES), is designed to produce a photometric and astrometric catalog of nearly a hundred thousand standard stars within the DES footprint, while the PreCam instrument also serves as a prototype testbed for the Dark Energy Camera (DECam)'s hardware and software. This catalog represents a potential 100-fold increase in Southern Hemisphere photometric standard stars, and therefore will be an important component in the calibration of the Dark Energy Survey. We provide details on the PreCam instrument's design, construction and testing, as well as results from a subset of the 51 nights of PreCam survey observations on the University of Michigan Department of Astronomy's Curtis-Schmidt telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. We briefly describe the preliminary data processing pipeline that has been developed for PreCam data and the preliminary results of the instrument performance, as well as astrometry and photometry of a sample of stars previously included in other southern sky surveys.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2012

Lyapunov stability and sectional-hyperbolicity for higher-dimensional flows

We study $C^1$-generic vector fields on closed manifolds without points accumulated by periodic orbits of different indices and prove that they exhibit finitely many sinks and sectional-hyperbolic transitive Lyapunov stable sets with residual basin of attraction. This represents a partial positive answer to conjectures in \cite{am}, the Palis conjecture \cite{pa} and extend the Araujo's thesis to higher dimensions \cite{a}.

math.DS↗

arXiv2002

On the nature of a secondary main sequence turn-off in the rich LMC cluster NGC 1868

Evidence for a second main-sequence turn-off in a deep colour-magnitude diagram of NGC 1868 is presented. The data were obtained with HST/WFPC2 and reach down to m_{555} ~ 25. Besides the usual t ~ 0.8 Gyr turn-off found in previous analyses, another possible turn-off is seen at m_{555} ~ 21 (M_V ~ 2.5), which is consistent with an age of t ~ 3 Gyrs. This CMD feature stands out clearly especially when contaminating field LMC stars are statistically removed. The background subtracted CMD also visibly displays a red subgiant branch extending about 1.5 mag below the younger turn-off and the clump of red giants. The significance of the secondary turn-off in NGC 1868 was confirmed with Monte-Carlo simulations and bootstrapping techniques. Star-counts in selected regions in the cluster CMD indicate a mass ratio of old population/young population in the range 5% <= M_{old} / M_{young} <= 12%, depending on the mass function slope. The existence of such a subpopulation in NGC 1868 is significant even in the presence of uncertainties in background subtraction. The possibility that the secondary turn-off is associated with the field star population was examined by searching for similar features in CMDs of field stars. Statistically significant excesses of stars redwards of the main-sequence were found in all such fields in the range 20 <= m_{555} <= 22. These however are much broader features that do not resemble the main-sequence termination of a single population. We also discuss other alternative explanations for the feature at m_{555} ~ 21, such as unresolved binarism, peculiar stars or CMD discontinuities associated with the Bohm-Vitense gap.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2001

Stellar luminosity functions of rich star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud

We show the results of deep V and I HST photometry of 6 rich star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud with different ages and metallicities. The number of stars with measured magnitudes in each cluster varies from about 3000 to 10000. We build stellar density and surface brightness profiles for the clusters and extract half-light radii and other structural parameters for each. We also obtain luminosity functions, Phi (Mv), down to Mv ~ 6 (m/msun > 0.6), and investigate their dependence with distance from the cluster centre well beyond their half-light radius. In all clusters we find a systematic increase in the luminosity function slope with radial distance from the centre. Among the clusters displaying significant mass segregation are the two youngest in the sample: NGC 1805 and NGC 1818. For these two clusters we obtain present-day mass functions. The NGC 1818 mass function is in excellent agreement with that derived by other authors, also using HST data. They young cluster mass function slopes differ, that of NCG 1805 being systematically steeper than NGC 1818. Since these are very young stellar systems (age < 40 Myrs), these variations may reflect the initial conditions rather than evolution due to internal dynamics.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1999

Investigating the process of star formation in young LMC star clusters

The rich star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) are ideal for studying the process of star formation. Here we focus on the determination of age spreads amongst the massive stars in two young clusters, NGC1818 and NGC1805. We present colour magnitude diagrams (derived from HST data) for these clusters, and discuss the difficulties in age spread determination.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1998

The Formation and Evolution of LMC Globular Clusters: the database

We present details of the database from a large Cycle 7 HST project to study the formation and evolution of rich star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (see Elson et al., this volume). Our data set, which includes NICMOS, WFPC2 and STIS images of the cores and outer regions of 8 clusters, will enable us to derive deep luminosity functions for the clusters and to investigate the universality of the stellar initial mass function. We will look for age spreads in the youngest clusters, quantify the population of binary stars in the cores of the clusters and at the half-mass radii, and follow the development of mass segregation.

astro-ph↗