Related papers: AAO Observer - February 2011 Edition
The Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) feature in the power spectrum of galaxies provides a standard ruler to probe the accelerated expansion of the Universe. The current surveys covering a comoving volume sufficient to unveil the BAO scale…
We present the angular diameter distance measurement obtained with the Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation feature from galaxy clustering in the completed Dark Energy Survey, consisting of six years (Y6) of observations. We use the Y6 BAO galaxy…
The SAMI Galaxy Survey will observe 3400 galaxies with the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral-field spectrograph (SAMI) on the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) in a 3-year survey which began in 2013. We present the throughput of the SAMI…
The current direct observations of brown dwarfs and exoplanets have been obtained using instruments not specifically designed for overcoming the large contrast ratio between the host star and any wide-separation faint companions. However,…
In this note, we consider the observational constraints on some cosmological models by using the 307 Union type Ia supernovae (SNIa), the 32 calibrated Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) at $z>1.4$, the updated shift parameter $R$ from WMAP 5-year…
We report on the 2dF Galaxy and QSO Redshift Surveys now in progress with the Two Degree Field facility at the Anglo-Australian Observatory. We describe the 2dF instrumentation, outline the scientific aims of the surveys and their current…
This white paper gives an overview of the proposed Gemini/Subaru Wide-Field Multi-Object Spectrograph (WFMOS) and the proposed redshift surveys of 2.6 million galaxies with 0.5<z<3.3 over 2000 deg^2 of sky. These surveys will probe the…
This document introduces the exciting and fundamentally new science and astronomy that the European New Gravitational Wave Observatory (NGO) mission (derived from the previous LISA proposal) will deliver. The mission (which we will refer to…
The development of adaptive optics (AO) played a major role in modern astronomy over the last three decades. By compensating for the atmospheric turbulence, these systems enable to reach the diffraction limit on large telescopes. In this…
In this paper we present and validate the galaxy sample used for the analysis of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation signal (BAO) in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Y3 data. The definition is based on a colour and redshift-dependent magnitude cut…
The measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) from a galaxy redshift survey provides one of the most promising methods for probing dark energy. In this paper, we clarify the assumptions that go into the forecasts of dark energy…
Microlensing observations have now become a useful tool in searching for non--luminous astrophysical compact objects (brown dwarfs, faint stars, neutron stars, black holes and even planets). Originally conceived for establishing whether the…
The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey is a large-scale structure survey of intermediate-redshift UV-selected emission-line galaxies scheduled to cover 1000 sq deg, spanning a broad redshift range 0.2 < z < 1.0. The main scientific goal of the…
A new astronomical window into the southern skies has been opened with the high-frequency upgrade to the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), which allows radio-interferometric mapping of sources at wavelengths as short as 3mm. In…
Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) and their effects on the matter power spectrum can be studied by using the Lyman-alpha absorption signature of the matter density field along quasar (QSO) lines of sight. A measurement sufficiently…
After reionization, emission in the 21 cm hyperfine transition provides a direct probe of neutral hydrogen distributed in galaxies. Different from galaxy redshift surveys, observation of baryon acoustic oscillations in the cumulative 21 cm…
Among the tools available for the study of the dark energy driving the expansion of the Universe, Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) and their effects on the matter power spectrum are particularly attractive. It was recently proposed to…
The Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) feature in the power spectrum of galaxies provides a standard ruler to measure the accelerated expansion of the Universe. To extract all available information about dark energy, it is necessary to…
We conducted a survey of nearby binary systems composed of main sequence stars of spectral types F and G in order to improve our understanding of the hierarchical nature of multiple star systems. Using Robo-AO, the first robotic adaptive…
With the development of high contrast imaging techniques and infrared detectors, vast efforts have been devoted during the past decade to detect and characterize lighter, cooler and closer companions to nearby stars, and ultimately image…