We present optical light curves, redshifts, and classifications for 365 spectroscopically confirmed Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) discovered by the Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) Medium Deep Survey. We detail improvements to the PS1 SN photometry, astrometry, and calibration that reduce the systematic uncertainties in the PS1 SN Ia distances. We combine the subset of 279 PS1 SNe Ia (0.03<z<0.68) with useful distance estimates of SNe Ia from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), SNLS, and various low-z and Hubble Space Telescope samples to form the largest combined sample of SNe Ia, consisting of a total of 1048 SNe Ia in the range of 0.01<z<2.3, which we call the "Pantheon Sample". When combining Planck 2015 cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements with the Pantheon SN sample, we find {Omega}_m_=0.307+/-0.012 and w=-1.026+/-0.041 for the wCDM model. When the SN and CMB constraints are combined with constraints from BAO and local H_0_ measurements, the analysis yields the most precise measurement of dark energy to date: w_0_=-1.007+/-0.089 and w_a_=-0.222+/-0.407 for the w_0_w_a_CDM model. Tension with a cosmological constant previously seen in an analysis of PS1 and low-z SNe has diminished after an increase of 2x in the statistics of the PS1 sample, improved calibration and photometry, and stricter light-curve quality cuts. We find that the systematic uncertainties in our measurements of dark energy are almost as large as the statistical uncertainties, primarily due to limitations of modeling the low-redshift sample. This must be addressed for future progress in using SNe Ia to measure dark energy.
The Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy, the closest satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, has survived for many orbits about the Galaxy. Extent numerical calculations modeled this galaxy as a system with a centrally-concentrated mass profile, following the light, and found that it should lose more than one-half of its mass every 2-4 orbits and be completely disrupted long before now. Apparently the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal, and by implication other dSph galaxies, do not have a centrally-concentrated profile for their dark matter. We develop a model in which the stars of the Sgr dwarf are embedded in a constant-density dark matter halo, representing the core of a tidally-limited system, and show that this is consistent with its survival. We present new photometric and kinematic observations of the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal and show these data are consistent with this explanation for the continued existence of this galaxy. The Sagittarius dwarf is being tidally distorted and is tidally limited, but is not disrupted as yet. The corresponding minimum total mass is 10^9^M_{sun}_, while the central mass to visual light ratio is ~50 in Solar units. Our new photographic photometry allows the detection of main-sequence stars of the Sagittarius dwarf over an area of 22x8{deg}. The Sagittarius dwarf is prolate, with axis ratios ~3:1:1. For an adopted distance of 16+/-2kpc from the Galactic center on the opposite side of the Galaxy to the Sun, the major axis is >~9kpc long and is aligned approximately normal to the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy, roughly following the coordinate line l=5{deg}. The central velocity dispersion of giant stars which are members of the Sagittarius dwarf is 11.4+/-0.7km/s and is consistent with being constant over the face of the galaxy. The gradient in mean line-of-sight velocity with position along the major axis, dv/db, is ~0km/s/degree in the central regions and increases in amplitude to dv/db=-3km/s/degree over the outermost three degrees for which we have data. A first measurement of the proper motion of the Sagittarius dwarf determines the component of its space velocity parallel to its major axis to be 250+/-90km/s, directed towards the Galactic Plane. We model these kinematic data to determine the orbit of the Sagittarius dwarf. Our best fit model has an orbital period of <~1Gyr and has the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal close to perigalacticon. This period is shorter, by about a factor of >~10, than the age of the bulk of its stellar population. (Copyright) 1997 American Astronomical Society.
This data server provides access to the SVO late-type subdwarf catalogue compiled by Lodieu et al. (2016, submitted). It contains 171 late-type subdwarf candidates obtained after a literature search.
Stellar light curves are well known to encode physical stellar properties. Precise, automated, and computationally inexpensive methods to derive physical parameters from light curves are needed to cope with the large influx of these data from space-based missions such as Kepler and TESS. Here we present a new methodology that we call "The Swan", a fast, generalizable, and effective approach for deriving stellar surface gravity (logg) for main-sequence, subgiant, and red giant stars from Kepler light curves using local linear regression on the full frequency content of Kepler long-cadence power spectra. With this inexpensive data-driven approach, we recover logg to a precision of ~0.02dex for 13822 stars with seismic logg values between 0.2 and 4.4dex and ~0.11dex for 4646 stars with Gaia-derived logg values between 2.3 and 4.6dex. We further develop a signal-to-noise metric and find that granulation is difficult to detect in many cool main-sequence stars (Teff<~5500K), in particular K dwarfs. By combining our logg measurements with Gaia radii, we derive empirical masses for 4646 subgiant and main-sequence stars with a median precision of ~7%. Finally, we demonstrate that our method can be used to recover logg to a similar mean absolute deviation precision for a TESS baseline of 27days. Our methodology can be readily applied to photometric time series observations to infer stellar surface gravities to high precision across evolutionary states.