Test for Cosmological Parity Violation Using the 3D Distribution of Galaxies.

We show how the galaxy four-point correlation function can test for cosmological parity violation. The detection of cosmological parity violation would reflect previously unknown forces present at the earliest moments of the Universe. Recent developments both in rapidly evaluating galaxy N-point correlation functions and in determining the corresponding covariance matrices make the search for parity violation in the four-point correlation function possible in current and upcoming surveys such as those undertaken by Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, the Euclid satellite, and the Vera C.

The orbital eccentricity distribution of planets orbiting M dwarfs.

We investigate the underlying distribution of orbital eccentricities for planets around early-to-mid M dwarf host stars. We employ a sample of 163 planets around early- to mid-M dwarfs across 101 systems detected by NASA's Mission. We constrain the orbital eccentricity for each planet by leveraging the lightcurve together with a stellar density prior, constructed using metallicity from spectroscopy, magnitude from 2MASS, and stellar parallax from Gaia.

A peculiar low-luminosity short gamma-ray burst from a double neutron star merger progenitor.

Double neutron star (DNS) merger events are promising candidates of short gamma-ray burst (sGRB) progenitors as well as high-frequency gravitational wave (GW) emitters. On August 17, 2017, such a coinciding event was detected by both the LIGO-Virgo gravitational wave detector network as GW170817 and Gamma-Ray Monitor on board NASA's Fermi Space Telescope as GRB 170817A. Here, we show that the fluence and spectral peak energy of this sGRB fall into the lower portion of the distributions of known sGRBs.

A precise measurement of the magnetic field in the corona of the black hole binary V404 Cygni.

Observations of binary stars containing an accreting black hole or neutron star often show x-ray emission extending to high energies (>10 kilo--electron volts), which is ascribed to an accretion disk corona of energetic particles akin to those seen in the solar corona. Despite their ubiquity, the physical conditions in accretion disk coronae remain poorly constrained. Using simultaneous infrared, optical, x-ray, and radio observations of the Galactic black hole system V404 Cygni, showing a rapid synchrotron cooling event in its 2015 outburst, we present a precise 461 ± 12 gauss magnetic field measurement in the corona.

Accurate measurement of interferometer group delay using field-compensated scanning white light interferometer.

Interferometers are key elements in radial velocity (RV) experiments in astronomy observations, and accurate calibration of the group delay of an interferometer is required for high precision measurements. A novel field-compensated white light scanning Michelson interferometer is introduced as an interferometer calibration tool. The optical path difference (OPD) scanning was achieved by translating a compensation prism, such that even if the light source were in low spatial coherence, the interference stays spatially phase coherent over a large interferometer scanning range.