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Category: Astrophysics

  • High-mass companions can widen common-envelope outcomes in giant stars

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    What the study found The study found that higher companion mass ratios can produce wider orbits after a common-envelope event, which is an episode where two stars share a single outer envelope. Even so, the widest separation predicted here was still only about 50 solar radii, smaller than the observed range. Why the authors say…

  • Collapsar model can match some kilonova-like bursts

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    What the study found The authors report that recent kilonova-like emission after long-duration gamma-ray bursts, including GRB 211211A and GRB 230307A, can be explained by a collapsar scenario rather than only by a merger of two neutron stars. Why the authors say this matters The study suggests that a red evolution in these transients does…

  • NuSTAR sees a hard X-ray state after MAXI J1752–457 superburst

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    What the study found MAXI J1752–457 was observed with NuSTAR after a superburst, and the source was confirmed to match the previously seen Einstein Probe source EP240809a. The hard X-ray emission was consistent with a spherical blackbody component plus a steep nonthermal power-law component. Why the authors say this matters The authors conclude that the…

  • Nearby black holes fall into three imaging frequency classes

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    What the study found Nearby supermassive black hole accretion flows can be grouped into three classes based on whether they become transparent at traditional imaging frequencies, require higher frequencies, or are unlikely to be transparent down to the black hole shadow in the submillimeter band. Why the authors say this matters The study suggests these…

  • BAGLE adds binary lens and source models for microlensing

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    What the study found The BAGLE Python software package now includes models for binary sources and binary lenses in gravitational microlensing. These models include Keplerian orbits, as well as simpler descriptions of orbital motion such as acceleration, linear, or stationary motion of the secondary companion. Why the authors say this matters The authors say these…

  • LMC corona measurements favor a first-passage orbit

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    What the study found The study found that the Large Magellanic Cloud’s (LMC’s) gaseous halo, or corona, is more consistent with a first-passage orbital model than a second-passage model. In the authors’ simulations, the first-passage case matched the observed present-day velocity and column density profiles more closely. Why the authors say this matters The authors…

  • Higher-order statistics improve constraints on reionization history

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    What the study found Betti numbers, a non-Gaussian statistic that captures topological features, were on average more informative than the power spectra for constraining the average neutral hydrogen fraction. The bispectrum was described as providing limited constraints, but combining higher-order statistics with the cylindrical power spectrum improved the mean figure of merit. Why the authors…

  • Changing-look AGNs appear to be typical host-galaxy systems

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    What the study found The study found that changing-look active galactic nuclei, or CL-AGNs, in this sample generally look like ordinary AGN host systems rather than a separate class. Their black holes roughly follow the same scaling relations seen in inactive galaxies, and their host-galaxy properties do not appear different from those of type 2…

  • AGN jet lobe growth matches self-similar scaling

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    What the study found AGN jet lobe growth followed analytic self-similar scaling relations and converged with resolution. The authors also found that the energy split between thermal and kinetic forms departed from the idealized picture and depended strongly on artificial viscosity. Why the authors say this matters The findings indicate that SPH-based jet modeling can…

  • Poster odds for strong gravitational-wave lensing are insensitive to event count

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    What the study found The study finds that posterior odds for strong gravitational-wave lensing become insensitive to the number of gravitational-wave events in the data once strong-lensing time delays are accounted for. The authors also state that selection effects cancel out in the posterior odds and do not affect frequentist approaches to strong-lensing detection. Why…