arXiv subjects

Ryan Keeley

Publications and source records attributed to Ryan Keeley.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Constraining the Physical Properties of Quadruply Lensed Quasars using Optical-to-X-Ray Data

Gravitational lensing of luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN; or quasars) can be used as a natural telescope to zoom in on their inner structures. With more and more lensed AGN being discovered, it is extremely important to have a homogeneous study focused on constraining their key physical properties, especially the bolometric luminosity. The primary limitation for such a study is the availability of observations for a representative sample of lensed AGN in at least the optical, ultraviolet (UV), and X-ray bands, where most of the AGN emission is concentrated. In this paper, we present one of the largest multiwavelength studies of lensed AGN with the aim of accurately measuring some of the fundamental quantities, such as their bolometric luminosities, black hole masses, and Eddington ratios. We compiled photometric and spectroscopic data in optical/UV and X-rays, for 27 quadruply lensed AGN ($0.6 < z < 3.1$) and calculated their bolometric luminosities by fitting their broadband spectral energy distributions (SEDs) with phenomenological models. We also performed spectral emission line fitting to estimate their black hole masses using the virial method. Additionally, we compared different prescriptions to calculate the bolometric luminosities of AGN from limited data, and our results show that the luminosity-dependent 2-10 keV X-ray bolometric corrections provide unbiased and reliable predictions of the bolometric luminosity, with a maximum scatter of $\sim 0.5$ dex. The predictions from optical bolometric corrections are generally overestimated but show a lower scatter once microlensing effects are taken into account. Thanks to the compiled optical/UV and X-ray data for our lensed AGN sample, we also present the well-known UV-X-ray luminosity relation for AGN as a novel way to determine uncertainty in the magnifications of lensed AGN induced by micro- and/or millilensing.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2025

Dark Matter Substructure: A Lensing Perspective

The study of dark matter substructure through strong gravitational lensing has shown enormous promise in probing the properties of dark matter on sub-galactic scales. This approach has already been used to place strong constraints on a wide range of dark matter models including self-interacting dark matter, fuzzy dark matter and warm dark matter. A major source of degeneracy exists between suppression of low mass halos due to novel dark matter physics and the strength of tidal stripping experienced by subhalos. We study theoretical predictions for the statistical properties of subhalos in strong gravitational lenses using the semi-analytic galaxy formation toolkit: galacticus. We present a large suite of dark matter only galacticus models, spanning nearly two orders of magnitude in host halo mass (from Milky Way to group mass halos between redshifts from $0.2$ to $0.8$). Additionally, we include a smaller set of galacticus runs with the potential of a central massive elliptical to complement our dark matter only suite of models. We place particular focus on quantities relevant to strong gravitational lensing; namely the projected number density of substructure near the Einstein radius as function of host stellar mass and redshift. In the innermost region in projection, we find that our galacticus models agrees with N-body simulations within a factor of $\sim 2$ within the Einstein radius. We find that the addition of a central galaxy suppresses the projected number density of subhalos within in the Einstein radius by around $15\%$ relative to dark matter only simulations.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

NANCY: Next-generation All-sky Near-infrared Community surveY

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is capable of delivering an unprecedented all-sky, high-spatial resolution, multi-epoch infrared map to the astronomical community. This opportunity arises in the midst of numerous ground- and space-based surveys that will provide extensive spectroscopy and imaging together covering the entire sky (such as Rubin/LSST, Euclid, UNIONS, SPHEREx, DESI, SDSS-V, GALAH, 4MOST, WEAVE, MOONS, PFS, UVEX, NEO Surveyor, etc.). Roman can uniquely provide uniform high-spatial-resolution (~0.1 arcsec) imaging over the entire sky, vastly expanding the science reach and precision of all of these near-term and future surveys. This imaging will not only enhance other surveys, but also facilitate completely new science. By imaging the full sky over two epochs, Roman can measure the proper motions for stars across the entire Milky Way, probing 100 times fainter than Gaia out to the very edge of the Galaxy. Here, we propose NANCY: a completely public, all-sky survey that will create a high-value legacy dataset benefiting innumerable ongoing and forthcoming studies of the universe. NANCY is a pure expression of Roman's potential: it images the entire sky, at high spatial resolution, in a broad infrared bandpass that collects as many photons as possible. The majority of all ongoing astronomical surveys would benefit from incorporating observations of NANCY into their analyses, whether these surveys focus on nearby stars, the Milky Way, near-field cosmology, or the broader universe.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2022

An Analysis of Variance of the Pantheon+ Dataset: Systematics in the Covariance Matrix?

We investigate the statistics of the available Pantheon+ dataset. Noticing that the $\chi^2$ value for the best-fit $\Lambda$CDM model to the real data is small, we quantify how significant its smallness is by calculating the distribution of $\chi^2$ values for the best-fit $\Lambda$CDM model fit to mock Pantheon+-like datasets, using the provided covariance matrix. We further investigate the distribution of the residuals of the Pantheon+ dataset with respect to the best-fit $\Lambda$CDM model, and notice that they scatter less than would be expected from the covariance matrix but find no significant kurtosis. These results point to the conclusion that the Pantheon+ covariance matrix is over-estimated. One simple interpretation of these results is a $\sim$7\% overestimation of errors on SN distance moduli in Pantheon+ data. When the covariance matrix is reduced by subtracting an intrinsic scatter term from the diagonal terms of the covariance matrix, the best-fit $\chi^2$ for the $\Lambda$CDM model achieves a normal value of 1580 and no deviation from $\Lambda$CDM is detected. We further quantify how consistent the $\Lambda$CDM model is with respect to the modified data with the subtracted covariance matrix using model-independent reconstruction techniques such as the iterative smoothing method. We find that the standard model is consistent with the data. There are a number of potential explanations for this smallness of the $\chi^2$, such as a Malmquist bias at high redshift, or accounting for systematic uncertainties by adding them to the covariance matrix, thus approximating systematic uncertainties as statistical ones.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Report of the Topical Group on Cosmic Probes of Fundamental Physics for for Snowmass 2021

Cosmic Probes of Fundamental Physics take two primary forms: Very high energy particles (cosmic rays, neutrinos, and gamma rays) and gravitational waves. Already today, these probes give access to fundamental physics not available by any other means, helping elucidate the underlying theory that completes the Standard Model. The last decade has witnessed a revolution of exciting discoveries such as the detection of high-energy neutrinos and gravitational waves. The scope for major developments in the next decades is dramatic, as we detail in this report.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Gravitational wave cosmology and astrophysics with large spectroscopic galaxy surveys

During the next decade, gravitational waves will be observed from hundreds of binary inspiral events. When the redshifts of the host galaxies are known, these events can be used as `standard sirens', sensitive to the expansion rate of the Universe. Measurements of the Hubble constant $H_0$ from standard sirens can be done independently of other cosmological probes, and events occurring at $z<0.1$ will allow us to infer $H_0$ independently of cosmological models. The next generation of spectroscopic galaxy surveys will play a crucial role in reducing systematic uncertainties in $H_0$ from standard sirens, particularly for the numerous `dark sirens' which do not have an electromagnetic counterpart. In combination with large spectroscopic data sets, standard sirens with an EM counterpart are expected to constrain $H_0$ to $\sim 1-2\%$ precision within the next decade. This is competitive with the best estimates of $H_0$ obtained to date and will help illuminate the current tension between existing measurements. Information on the galaxies that host the gravitational wave events will also shed light on the origin and evolution of compact object binaries.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Model independent inference of the expansion history and implications for the growth of structure

We model the expansion history of the Universe as a Gaussian Process and find constraints on the dark energy density and its low-redshift evolution using distances inferred from the Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) and Lyman-alpha (Ly$α$) datasets of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, supernova data from the Joint Light-curve Analysis (JLA) sample, Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data from the Planck satellite, and local measurement of the Hubble parameter from the Hubble Space Telescope ($\mathsf H0$). Our analysis shows that the CMB, LRG, Ly$α$, and JLA data are consistent with each other and with a $Λ$CDM cosmology, but the ${\mathsf H0}$ data is inconsistent at moderate significance. Including the presence of dark radiation does not alleviate the ${\mathsf H0}$ tension in our analysis. While some of these results have been noted previously, the strength here lies in that we do not assume a particular cosmological model. We calculate the growth of the gravitational potential in General Relativity corresponding to these general expansion histories and show that they are well-approximated by $Ω_{\rm m}^{0.55}$ given the current precision. We assess the prospects for upcoming surveys to measure deviations from $Λ$CDM using this model-independent approach.

astro-ph.CO↗