Related papers: Cosmic anisotropies from quasars: from polarizatio…
We present polarization images with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in A and B-array configurations at 6 GHz of 7 radio-loud (RL) quasars and 8 BL Lac objects belonging to the Palomar-Green (PG) `blazar' sample. This completes our…
We propose an observable for ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) physics: the harmonic-space cross-correlation power spectrum between the arrival directions of UHECRs and the large-scale cosmic structure mapped by galaxies. This…
Quasars are objects of high interest in extragalactic astrophysics, cosmology, and astrometry. One of their useful qualities is their potential radio loudness. However, the fraction of radio-loud vs. radio-quiet quasars is subject to…
We review results from our monitoring observations of several lensed quasars performed in the optical, UV, and X-ray bands. Modeling of the multi-wavelength light curves provides constraints on the extent of the optical, UV, and X-ray…
Unification by orientation is a ubiquitous concept in the study of active galactic nuclei. A gold standard of the orientation paradigm is the hypothesis that radio galaxies and radio-loud quasars are intrinsically the same, but are observed…
The angular cross-correlation between two galaxy samples separated in redshift is shown to be a useful measure of weak lensing by large-scale structure. Angular correlations in faint galaxies arise due to spatial clustering of the galaxies…
This study on the Coma cluster suggests that there are deviations from a completely random galaxy orientation on small scales. Since we found a significant coincidence of hot-gas features identified in the latest X-ray observations of Coma…
A minority of the optically selected quasar population are red at optical wavelengths due to the presence of dust along the line-of-sight. A key focus of many red quasar studies is to understand their relationship with the overall quasar…
The asymmetry in the large-scale distribution of the directions towards spiral galaxies rotate has been observed by multiple telescopes, all show a consistent asymmetry in the distribution of galaxy spin directions as observed from Earth.…
Pulsar-timing collaborations have recently reported evidence for the detection of an isotropic stochastic gravitational-wave background consistent with one sourced by a population of inspiralling supermassive black hole binaries. However, a…
We present new measurements of the quasar autocorrelation from a sample of \~80,000 photometrically-classified quasars taken from SDSS DR1. We find a best-fit model of $\omega(\theta) = (0.066\pm^{0.026}_{0.024})\theta^{-(0.98\pm0.15)}$ for…
We examine the clustering of galaxies around a sample of 20 luminous low redshift (z<0.30) quasars observed with the Wide Field Camera-2 on the Hubble Space Telescope. The HST resolution makes possible galaxy identification brighter than…
Obscuration in quasars may arise from steep viewing angles along the dusty torus, or instead may represent a distinct phase of supermassive black hole growth. We test these scenarios by probing the host dark matter halo environments of…
We find that satellites of isolated disk galaxies at projected radii between 300 and 500 kpc are distributed asymmetrically about the parent galaxy and aligned preferentially with the disk minor axis. The dynamical timescale at these radii…
The circular polarization of gravitational waves is a powerful observable to test parity violation in gravity and to distinguish between the primordial or the astrophysical origin of the stochastic background. This property comes from the…
We present a systematic observational study of the spin alignment between galaxy groups and their central galaxies using a large spectroscopic sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Unlike previous studies based on morphology or major…
Even when the direct view toward the active nucleus is obscured, nuclear emission propagating along other directions can scatter off surrounding material, become polarized and reach the observer. Spectropolarimetry can thus be an important…
We study the correlation between the locations of galaxy-galaxy strong lensing candidates and tracers of large-scale structure from both weak lensing or X-ray emission. The COSMOS survey is a unique data set, combining deep, high resolution…
Cluster analysis is the distribution of objects into different groups or more precisely the partitioning of a data set into subsets (clusters) so that the data in subsets share some common trait according to some distance measure. Unlike…
We develop a quantum spin-density-matrix framework for heavy-quark spin dynamics in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Starting from an initial polarization induced along the magnetic-field direction, we derive the evolution equation for…