arXiv subjects

Douglas Scott

Publications and source records attributed to Douglas Scott.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

CCAT: The Prime-Cam Instrument for the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope -- Overview and Status

Prime-Cam is a first-generation science instrument for the CCAT Observatory's six-meter aperture Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST), under construction at an elevation of 5600 m on Cerro Chajnantor in Chile's Atacama Desert. Prime-Cam will deliver over ten times greater mapping speed at submillimeter wavelengths than current facilities for unprecedented broadband and spectroscopic measurements in windows between 1.4 -- 0.3 mm (220 -- 850 GHz). When fully populated, Prime-Cam will field over 100,000 kinetic inductance detectors across seven independently optimized instrument modules. With Prime-Cam, the CCAT Collaboration will address a suite of science goals, from Big Bang cosmology, to galaxy evolution and star formation over cosmic time. Prime-Cam is scheduled for integration in FYST in late 2026, followed by a year of early science observations with the 280 and 350 GHz instrument modules. We discuss the design and in-lab testing of the 1.8-m diameter Prime-Cam receiver and 280 GHz instrument module, and give an update on deployment status and early science plans.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2026

CCAT: The 410 GHz camera module for FYST - design and testing of the MKID focal plane

Prime-Cam, the primary first-light instrument for the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) developed by the Cerro Chajnantor Atacama Telescope (CCAT) Collaboration, will accommodate seven modules. Here we describe the off-central 410 GHz imager/polarimeter. The 410 GHz instrument is a camera module for CCAT funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, being developed as a collaboration between Dalhousie University, University of British Columbia (UBC), National Research Council (NRC) - Herzberg, and Duke University. With atmospheric loading in the 410 GHz window being significantly higher than at 350 GHz (but substantially lower than 850 GHz), we assess four MKID test devices with varying inductor volume for performance at 410 GHz. We propose a design for an array of ~6,700 horn-coupled TiN MKIDs optimized for use at 410 GHz, with a planned ~20,000 MKIDs over three arrays, exploring mapping speed versus detector number. We test the four MKID devices optically and assess optimal Qi/Qc and responsivity for the 410 GHz atmospheric window atop Cerro Chajnantor. The detectors will be designed in frequency to be efficiently readout with a second generation, two octave readout (based on the Xilinx RFSoC board), with over 4000 detectors per board.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2026

How to count clustered galaxies

Obtaining robust galaxy number counts is crucial for understanding galaxy evolution, and submillimetre counts in particular have proven valuable for revising subgrid physics models in cosmological simulations. In confusion-limited surveys, which are common at these wavelengths, statistical methods such as $P(D)$ fluctuation analysis are required to recover counts of faint, unresolved galaxies. However, the standard $P(D)$ framework assumes that galaxies are Poisson-distributed, whereas in reality galaxies are clustered. Using simulations, we demonstrate that this clustering systematically biases $P(D)$-derived number counts, and present an empirical method that simultaneously measures and corrects for this bias by combining the 1- and 2-point statistics in the map, thereby maximising the information extracted from the data. Applying this method to deep Herschel-SPIRE observations of the GOODS-N field, we provide revised galaxy number counts at 250, 350 and 500 $\mu$m. Our results indicate that at 500 $\mu$m clustering inflates the apparent counts by a factor of 1.6 around 10 mJy and slightly suppresses the faintest sub-mJy counts, with milder effects at 350 $\mu$m and 250 $\mu$m owing to the smaller beam sizes. This methodology is broadly applicable to other confusion-limited data sets with well-characterised beam and noise properties, including Spitzer, SCUBA-2, and the upcoming CCAT, enabling unbiased exploitation of the full statistical information in many surveys in the mid-IR to radio wavebands.

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arXiv2026

Consistency of standard cosmologies using Bayesian model comparison and tension quantification

We present a unified Bayesian assessment of model comparison and data-set consistency for LCDM (cold dark matter plus a cosmological constant) and minimal extensions (neutrino mass, spatial curvature, constant or evolving dark energy) using cosmic microwave background (CMB), baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO), and type Ia supernova (SN) data. The major results are summarized in the first three figures. We quantify model preference with Bayesian evidence and assess consistency with complementary evidence- and likelihood-based diagnostics applied uniformly across data-set combinations. For the models considered, updated Planck processing systematically improves internal CMB consistency (low-$\ell$ versus high-$\ell$, and primary CMB versus CMB lensing). The preference for a closed geometry and an associated ``curvature tension'' with BAO and/or CMB lensing are largely confined to earlier Planck likelihood implementations and weaken substantially when using updated CMB processing and more recent BAO measurements. Apparent evidence for evolving dark energy in CMB+BAO+SN combinations depends sensitively on the specific pairing of CMB and SN likelihoods: plausible alternatives shift inferred tensions by more than $1\,\sigma$ and can completely reverse the preferred model. Allowing a free neutrino mass tends to absorb residual shifts without introducing new inconsistencies, and we do not find robust evidence for a standalone $\tau$-driven discrepancy once the full likelihood context is accounted for. We conclude that claims of a required update of our standard cosmological model from LCDM to $w_0w_a$CDM are premature.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2025

Gravitational Lenses in UNIONS and Euclid (GLUE) I: A Search for Strong Gravitational Lenses in UNIONS with Subaru, CFHT, and Pan-STARRS Data

We present the results of our pipeline for discovering strong gravitational lenses in the ongoing Ultraviolet Near-Infrared Optical Northern Survey (UNIONS). We successfully train the deep residual neural network (ResNet) based on CMU-Deeplens architecture, which is designed to detect strong lenses in ground-based imaging surveys. We train on images of real strong lenses and deploy on a sample of 8 million galaxies in areas with full coverage in the g, r, and i filters, the first multi-band search for strong gravitational lenses in UNIONS. Following human inspection and grading, we report the discovery of a total of 1346 new strong lens candidates of which 146 are grade A, 199 grade B, and 1001 grade C. Of these candidates, 283 have lens-galaxy spectroscopic redshifts from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and an additional 297 from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Data Release 1 (DR1). We find 15 of these systems display evidence of both lens and source galaxy redshifts in spectral superposition. We additionally report the spectroscopic confirmation of seven lensed sources in highquality systems, all with z > 2.1, using the Keck Near-Infrared Echelle Spectrograph (NIRES) and Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS).

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2025

Planck PR4 (NPIPE) map-space cosmic birefringence

Cosmic birefringence is an effect where the plane of polarisation of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is rotated by an angle $\beta$ through coupling to a hypothetical parity-violating field. We analyse the Planck Public Release 4 (PR4 or NPIPE) data using a map-space analysis method and find $\beta=0.46^\circ\pm 0.04^\circ(\mathrm{stat.})\pm0.28^\circ(\mathrm{syst.})$ for SEVEM CMB maps and $\beta=0.48^\circ\pm 0.04^\circ(\mathrm{stat.})\pm 0.28^\circ(\mathrm{syst.})$ for Commander CMB maps. These values are slightly higher than previously published results, which may be explained by the fact that we have not attempted to remove any potential bias from miscalibration of the Planck polarimeters. The uncertainty in this miscalibration dominates the systematic uncertainty, which also means that our results are consistent with no parity violation. An advantage of the map-space analysis is that it is easy to investigate any variations on the sky, for example caused by foreground contamination. Our results for isotropic birefringence are fairly robust against different spatial data cuts, but there may be hints of a foreground systematic (north versus south hemispheres) or uncontrolled miscalibration effect (T peaks versus E peaks) that should be followed up in future studies. We additionally find no evidence of a cosmic birefringence dipole (anisotropic birefringence).

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

A glitch in gravity: cosmic Lorentz-violation from fiery Big Bang to glacial heat death

One regime where we might see departures from general relativity is at the largest accessible scales, with a natural choice in cosmology being the cosmological horizon (or Hubble) scale. We investigate a single-parameter extension to the standard cosmological model with a different strength of gravity above and below this scale -- a "cosmic glitch" in gravity. Cosmic microwave background observations, and Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations (including the recent DESI Y1) favour weaker superhorizon gravity, at nearly a percent (or 2$\sigma$ level), easing both the Hubble and clustering tensions with other cosmological data. This compounds evidence for an even stronger glitch during Big Bang nucleosynthesis (from helium abundance observations), suggesting that symmetries of general relativity are maximally violated at the Big Bang, but gradually recovered as we approach the present-day cosmological de Sitter scale, associated with the observed dark energy.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Improving Optical Photo-z Constraints for Dusty Star-forming Galaxies Using Submillimeter-based Priors

Photometric redshifts (photo-z's) provide an efficient alternative to spectroscopic redshifts, enabling redshift estimation for large galaxy samples. However, traditional photo-z methods primarily rely on optical and near-infrared (OIR) photometry, which can struggle with dusty star-forming galaxies that are often faint in the OIR but bright at far-infrared (FIR) and millimeter wavelengths. We present a method for incorporating FIR-to-millimeter photometry as a prior within standard OIR-based photo-z frameworks, explicitly folding in the observed empirical relationship between total infrared luminosity and dust temperature. This approach is particularly suitable for wide-area surveys, such as those anticipated with the Euclid satellite or Rubin Observatory, where OIR photo-z's can be complemented with longer-wavelength data to help with the dustiest and highest star-forming galaxies. Applying this method to the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (or H-ATLAS) catalog, which combines FIR photometry from Herschel-SPIRE with OIR observations, we achieve a threefold reduction in catastrophic outliers compared to traditional OIR-based photo-z techniques, demonstrating its utility for improving redshift estimates in FIR-bright galaxies.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

An ALMA spectroscopic survey of the Planck high-redshift object PLCK G073.4-57.5 confirms two protoclusters

Planck's High-Frequency Instrument observed the whole sky between 350um and 3mm, discovering thousands of unresolved peaks in the cosmic infrared background. The nature of these peaks is still poorly understood - while some are strong gravitational lenses, the majority are overdensities of star-forming galaxies but with almost no redshift constraints. PLCK G073.4-57.5 (G073) is one of these Planck-selected peaks. ALMA observations of G073 suggest the presence of two structures between z=1.5 and 2 aligned along the line of sight, but without spectroscopic confirmation. Characterizing the full redshift distribution of the galaxies within G073 is needed in order to better understand this representative example of Planck-selected objects, and connect them to the emergence of galaxy clusters. We used ALMA Band 4 spectral scans to search for CO(3-2), CO(4-3), and CI(1-0) line emission, targeting eight red Herschel-SPIRE sources in the field, as well as four bright SCUBA-2 sources. We find 15 emission lines in 13 galaxies, and using existing photometry, we determined the spectroscopic redshift of all 13 galaxies. Eleven of these galaxies are SPIRE-selected and lie in two structures at =1.53 and =2.31, while the two SCUBA-2-selected galaxies are at z=2.61. Using multi-wavelength photometry we constrained stellar masses and star formation rates, and using the CO and CI emission lines we constrained gas masses. Our protocluster galaxies exhibit typical gas depletion timescales for field galaxies at the same redshifts but higher gas-to-stellar mass ratios, potentially driven by emission line selection effects. The two structures are reproduced in cosmological simulations of star-forming halos at high redshifts; the simulated halos have a 60-70% probability of collapsing into galaxy clusters, implying that the two structures in G073 are genuinely protoclusters.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Some Times in Standard Cosmology

The standard cosmological model is sufficiently well constrained that precise estimates can be provided for the redshift of various physically defined times in the chronology of the Universe. For example, it is well known that matter-radiation equality, recombination and reionisation happen at redshifts of around 3000, 1000 and 10, respectively, and these can be specified more precisely by fitting to data. What is less well known are the times in years (and their uncertainties) for these and other epochs in the history of the Universe. Here we provide precise time determinations for six epochs in cosmological history within the standard model, using data from the Planck satellite. Our main results are illustrated in a figure.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Methods for CMB map analysis

This introductory guide aims to provide insight to new researchers in the field of cosmic microwave background (CMB) map analysis on best practices for several common procedures. We will discuss common map-modifying procedures such as masking, downgrading resolution, the effect of the beam and the pixel window function, and adding white noise. We will explore how these modifications affect the final power spectrum measured from a map. This guide aims to describe the best way to perform each of these procedures, when the different steps and measures should be carried out, and the effects of incorrectly performing or applying any of them.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

A 100 Mpc$^2$ structure traced by hyperluminous galaxies around a massive $z$ = 2.85 protocluster

We present wide-field mapping at 850 $\mu$m and 450 $\mu$m of the $z$ = 2.85 protocluster in the HS1549$+$19 field using the Submillimetre Common User Bolometer Array 2 (SCUBA-2). Spectroscopic follow-up of 18 bright sources selected at 850 $\mu$m, using the Nothern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) and Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), confirms the majority lies near $z$ $\sim$ 2.85 and are likely members of the structure. Interpreting the spectroscopic redshifts as distance measurements, we find that the SMGs span 90 Mpc$^2$ in the plane of the sky and demarcate a 4100 Mpc$^3$ "pancake"-shaped structure in three dimensions. We find that the high star-formation rates (SFRs) of these SMGs result in a total SFR of 20,000 M$_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$ only from the brightest galaxies in the protocluster. These rapidly star-forming SMGs can be interpreted as massive galaxies growing rapidly at large cluster-centric distances before collapsing into a virialized structure. We find that the SMGs trace the Lyman-$\alpha$ surface density profile. Comparison with simulations suggests that HS1549$+$19 could be building a structure comparable to the most massive clusters in the present-day Universe.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

CCAT: FYST Prime-Cam Readout Software: A framework for massively scalable KID arrays

We outline the development of the readout software for the Prime-Cam and Mod-Cam instruments on the CCAT Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST), primecam_readout. The instruments feature lumped-element kinetic inductance detector (LEKID) arrays driven by Xilinx ZCU111 RFSoC boards. In the current configuration, each board can drive up to 4000 KIDs, and Prime-Cam is implementing approximately 25 boards. The software runs on a centralized control computer connected to the boards via dedicated ethernet, and facilitates such tasks as frequency-multiplexed tone comb driving, comb calibration and optimization, and detector timestream establishment. The control computer utilizes dynamically generated control channels for each board, allowing for simultaneous parallel control over all, while uniquely tracking diagnostics for each. This work demonstrates a scalable RFSoC readout architecture where computational demands increase linearly with the number of detectors, enabling control of tens-of-thousands of KIDs with modest hardware, and opening the door to the next generation of KID arrays housing millions of detectors.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2024

SCUBA-2 Ultra Deep Imaging EAO Survey (STUDIES). V. Confusion-limited Submillimeter Galaxy Number Counts at 450 $\mu$m and Data Release for the COSMOS Field

We present confusion-limited SCUBA-2 450-$\mu$m observations in the COSMOS-CANDELS region as part of the JCMT Large Program, SCUBA-2 Ultra Deep Imaging EAO Survey (STUDIES). Our maps at 450 and 850 $\mu$m cover an area of 450 arcmin$^2$. We achieved instrumental noise levels of $\sigma_{\mathrm{450}}=$ 0.59 mJy beam$^{-1}$ and $\sigma_{\mathrm{850}}=$ 0.09 mJy beam$^{-1}$ in the deepest area of each map. The corresponding confusion noise levels are estimated to be 0.65 and 0.36 mJy beam$^{-1}$. Above the 4 (3.5) $\sigma$ threshold, we detected 360 (479) sources at 450 $\mu$m and 237 (314) sources at 850 $\mu$m. We derive the deepest blank-field number counts at 450 $\mu$m, covering the flux-density range of 2 to 43 mJy. These are in agreement with other SCUBA-2 blank-field and lensing-cluster observations, but are lower than various model counts. We compare the counts with those in other fields and find that the field-to-field variance observed at 450 $\mu$m at the $R=6^\prime$ scale is consistent with Poisson noise, so there is no evidence of strong 2-D clustering at this scale. Additionally, we derive the integrated surface brightness at 450 $\mu$m down to 2.1 mJy to be $57.3^{+1.0}_{-6.2}$~Jy deg$^{-2}$, contributing to (41$\pm$4)\% of the 450-$\mu$m extragalactic background light (EBL) measured by COBE and Planck. Our results suggest that the 450-$\mu$m EBL may be fully resolved at $0.08^{+0.09}_{-0.08}$~mJy, which extremely deep lensing-cluster observations and next-generation submillimeter instruments with large aperture sizes may be able to achieve.

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arXiv2024

Reassessment of the dipole in the distribution of quasars on the sky

We investigate recent claims by Secrest et al. of an anomalously large amplitude of the dipole in the distribution of CatWISE-selected quasars on the sky. Two main issues indicate that the systematic uncertainties in the derived quasar-density dipole are underestimated. Firstly, the spatial distribution of the quasars is not a pure dipole, possessing low-order multipoles of comparable size to the dipole. These multipoles are unexpected and presumably caused by unknown systematic effects; we cannot be confident that the dipole amplitude is not also affected by the same systematics until the origin of these fluctuations is understood. Secondly, the 50 percent sky cut associated with the quasar catalogue strongly couples the multipoles, meaning that the power estimate at ell=1 contains significant contributions from ell>1. In particular, the dominant quadrupole mode in the Galactic mask strongly couples the dipole with the octupole, leading to a large uncertainty in the dipole amplitude. Together these issues mean that the dipole in the quasar catalogue has an uncertainty large enough that consistency with the cosmic microwave background (CMB) dipole cannot be ruled out. More generally, current data sets are insufficiently clean to robustly measure the quasar dipole and future studies will require samples that are larger (preferably covering more of the sky) and free of systematic effects to make strong claims regarding their consistency with the CMB dipole.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Deeper Learning in Astronomy

It is well known that the best way to understand astronomical data is through machine learning, where a "black box" is set up, inside which a kind of artificial intelligence learns how to interpret the features in the data. We suggest that perhaps there may be some merit to a new approach in which humans are used instead of machines to understand the data. This may even apply to fields other than astronomy.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2024

The Cosmic Neutrino Background

The cosmic neutrino background is like the cosmic microwave background, but less photon-y and more neutrino-ey. The CNB is also less talked about than the CMB, mostly because it's nearly impossible to detect directly. But if it could be detected, it would be interesting in several ways that are discussed.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

A cosmic glitch in gravity

We investigate a model that modifies general relativity on cosmological scales, specifically by having a `glitch' in the gravitational constant between the cosmological (super-horizon) and Newtonian (sub-horizon) regimes, as motivated e.g. in the Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz proposal or in the Einstein-aether framework. This gives a single-parameter extension to the standard $\Lambda$CDM model, which is equivalent to adding a dark energy component, but where the energy density of this component can have either sign. Fitting to data from the Planck satellite, we find that negative contributions are, in fact, preferred. Additionally, we find that roughly one percent weaker superhorizon gravity can somewhat ease the Hubble and clustering tensions in a range of cosmological observations, although at the expense of spoiling fits to the baryonic acoustic oscillation scale in galaxy surveys. Therefore, the extra parametric freedom offered by our model deserves further exploration, and we discuss how future observations may elucidate this potential cosmic glitch in gravity, through a four-fold reduction in statistical uncertainties.

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