We use spatially extended measurements of Lyα as well as less optically thick emission lines from an 80 kpc Lyα nebula at z 1.67 to assess the role of resonant scattering and to disentangle kinematic signatures from Lyα radiative transfer effects. We find that the Lyα, C IV, He II, and C III] emission lines all tell a similar story in this system, and that the kinematics are broadly consistent with large-scale rotation. First, the observed surface brightness profiles are similar in extent in all four lines, strongly favoring a picture in which the Lyα photons are produced in situ instead of being resonantly scattered from a central source. Second, we see low kinematic offsets between Lyα and the less optically thick He II line (100-200 km s-1), providing further support for the argument that the Lyα and other emission lines are all being produced within the spatially extended gas. Finally, the full velocity field of the system shows coherent velocity shear in all emission lines: 500 km s-1 over the central 50 kpc of the nebula. The kinematic profiles are broadly consistent with large-scale rotation in a gas disk that is at least partially stable against collapse. These observations suggest that the Lyα nebula represents accreting material that is illuminated by an offset, hidden active galactic nucleus or distributed star formation, and that is undergoing rotation in a clumpy and turbulent gas disk. With an implied mass of M(

The time delay between multiple images of strongly lensed quasars is a powerful tool for measuring the Hubble constant (H 0). To achieve H 0 measurements with higher precision and accuracy using the time delay, it is crucial to expand the sample of lensed quasars. We conduct a search for strongly lensed quasars in the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Imaging Surveys. The DESI Legacy Surveys comprise 19,000 deg2 of the extragalactic sky observed in three optical bands (g, r, and z), making it well suited for the discovery of new strongly lensed quasars. We apply an autocorrelation algorithm to ∼5 million objects classified as quasars in the DESI Quasar Sample. These systems are visually inspected and ranked. Here, we present 436 new multiply lensed and binary quasar candidates, 65 of which have redshifts from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16. We provide redshifts for an additional 18 candidates from the SuperNova Integral Field Spectrograph.

We present new observations of the field containing the z = 3.786 protocluster PC 217.96+32.3. We confirm that it is one of the largest known and most overdense high-redshift structures. Such structures are rare even in the largest cosmological simulations. We used the Mayall/MOSAIC1.1 imaging camera to image a 1.°2 0.°6 area (≈150 75 comoving Mpc) surrounding the protocluster's core and discovered 165 candidate Lyα emitting galaxies (LAEs) and 788 candidate Lyman Break galaxies (LBGs). There are at least two overdense regions traced by the LAEs, the largest of which shows an areal overdensity in its core (i.e., within a radius of 2.5 comoving Mpc) of 14 ± 7 relative to the average LAE spatial density () in the imaged field. Further, is twice that derived by other field LAE surveys. Spectroscopy with Keck/DEIMOS yielded redshifts for 164 galaxies (79 LAEs and 85 LBGs); 65 lie at a redshift of 3.785 ± 0.010. The velocity dispersion of galaxies near the core is σ = 350 ± 40 km s-1, a value robust to selection effects. The overdensities are likely to collapse into systems with present-day masses of >1015 M o and >6 1014 M o. The low velocity dispersion may suggest a dynamically young protocluster. We find a weak trend between narrow-band (Lyα) luminosity and environmental density: the Lyα luminosity is enhanced on average by 1.35 within the protocluster core. There is no evidence that the Lyα equivalent width depends on environment. These suggest that star formation and/or active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity is enhanced in the higher-density regions of the structure. PC 217.96+32.3 is a Coma cluster analog, witnessed in the process of formation.

We evaluate the impact of imaging systematics on the clustering of luminous red galaxies (LRG), emission-line galaxies (ELG), and quasars (QSO) targeted for the upcoming Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey. Using Data Release 7 of the DECam Legacy Survey, we study the effects of astrophysical foregrounds, stellar contamination, differences between north galactic cap and south galactic cap measurements, and variations in imaging depth, stellar density, galactic extinction, seeing, airmass, sky brightness, and exposure time before presenting survey masks and weights to mitigate these effects. With our sanitized samples in hand, we conduct a preliminary analysis of the clustering amplitude and evolution of the DESI main targets. From measurements of the angular correlation functions, we determine power law fits r0 = 7.78 ± 0.26 h−1Mpc, γ = 1.98 ± 0.02 for LRGs and r0 = 5.45 ± 0.1 h−1Mpc, γ = 1.54 ± 0.01 for ELGs. Additionally, from the angular power spectra, we measure the linear biases and model the scale-dependent biases in the weakly non-linear regime. Both sets of clustering measurements show good agreement with survey requirements for LRGs and ELGs, attesting that these samples will enable DESI to achieve precise cosmological constraints. We also present clustering as a function of magnitude, use cross-correlations with external spectroscopy to infer dN/dz and measure clustering as a function of luminosity, and probe higher order clustering statistics through counts-in-cells moments.

Stars that escape globular clusters form tidal tails that are predominantly shaped by the global distribution of mass in the Galaxy, but also preserve a historical record of small-scale perturbations. Using deep grz photometry from DECaLS, we present highly probable members of the tidal tails associated with the evaporating globular cluster Palomar 5. These data yield the cleanest view of a stellar stream beyond ≈20 kpc and reveal: (1) a wide, low surface-brightness extension of the leading tail; (2) significant density variations along the stream; and (3) sharp changes in the direction of both the leading and the trailing tail. In the fiducial Milky Way model, a rotating bar perturbs the Palomar 5 tails and can produce streams with similar width and density profiles to those observed. However, the deviations of the stream track in this simple model do not match those observed in the Palomar 5 trailing tail, indicating the need for an additional source of perturbation. These discoveries open up the possibility of measuring the population of perturbers in the Milky Way, including dark-matter subhalos, with an ensemble of stellar streams and deep photometry alone.

We present the 2020 version of the Siena Galaxy Atlas (SGA-2020), a multiwavelength optical and infrared imaging atlas of 383,620 nearby galaxies. The SGA-2020 uses optical grz imaging over ≈20,000 deg2 from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Imaging Surveys Data Release 9 and infrared imaging in four bands (spanning 3.4-22 μm) from the 6 year unWISE coadds; it is more than 95% complete for galaxies larger than R(26) ≈ 25″ and r < 18 measured at the 26 mag arcsec−2 isophote in the r band. The atlas delivers precise coordinates, multiwavelength mosaics, azimuthally averaged optical surface-brightness profiles, model images and photometry, and additional ancillary metadata for the full sample. Coupled with existing and forthcoming optical spectroscopy from the DESI, the SGA-2020 will facilitate new detailed studies of the star formation and mass assembly histories of nearby galaxies; enable precise measurements of the local velocity field via the Tully-Fisher and fundamental plane relations; serve as a reference sample of lasting legacy value for time-domain and multimessenger astronomical events; and more.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument Legacy Surveys, a combination of three ground-based imaging surveys, have mapped 16,000 deg2 in three optical bands (g, r, and z) to a depth 1-2 mag deeper than the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Our work addresses one of the major challenges of wide-field imaging surveys conducted at ground-based observatories: the varying depth that results from varying observing conditions at Earth-bound sites. To mitigate these effects, the Legacy Surveys (the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey, or DECaLS; the Mayall z-band Legacy Survey, or MzLS; and the Beiijing-Arizona Sky Survey, or BASS) employed a unique strategy to dynamically adjust the exposure times as rapidly as possible in response to the changing observing conditions. We present the tiling and observing strategies used by the first two of these surveys. We demonstrate that the tiling and dynamic observing strategies jointly result in a more uniform-depth survey that has higher efficiency for a given total observing time compared with the traditional approach of using fixed exposure times.

The Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey (BASS) is a new wide-field legacy imaging survey in the northern Galactic cap using the 2.3 m Bok telescope. The survey will cover about 5400 deg2 in the g and r bands, and the expected 5σ depths (corrected for the Galactic extinction) in these two bands are g = 24.0 and r = 23.4 mag (AB magnitude). BASS started observations in 2015 January and had completed about 41% of the area as of 2016 July. The first data release contains calibrated images obtained in 2015 and 2016 and their corresponding single-epoch and co-added catalogs. The actual depths of the single-epoch images are g ∼ 23.4 and r ∼ 22.9 mag. The full depths of the three epochs are g ∼ 24.1 and r ∼ 23.5 mag.

In preparation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), a new top end was installed on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The refurbished telescope and the DESI instrument were successfully commissioned on sky between 2019 October and 2020 March. Here we describe the pointing, tracking and imaging performance of the Mayall telescope equipped with its new DESI prime focus corrector, as measured by six guider cameras sampling the outer edge of DESI's focal plane. Analyzing ∼500,000 guider images acquired during commissioning, we find a median delivered image FWHM of 1.1 arcseconds (in the r-band at 650 nm), with the distribution extending to a best-case value of ∼0.6 arcseconds. The point spread function is well characterized by a Moffat profile with a power-law index of β ≈ 3.5 and little dependence of β on FWHM. The shape and size of the PSF delivered by the new corrector at a field angle of 1.57 degrees are very similar to those measured with the old Mayall corrector on axis. We also find that the Mayall achieves excellent pointing accuracy (several arcseconds RMS) and minimal open-loop tracking drift (< 1 milliarcsecond per second), improvements on the telecope's pre-DESI performance. In the future, employing DESI's active focus adjustment capabilities will likely further improve the Mayall/DESI delivered image quality.

We present the first result in exploring the gaseous halo and galaxy correlation using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey validation data in the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) and Hyper Suprime-Cam field. We obtain multiphase gaseous halo properties in the circumgalactic medium by using 115 quasar spectra (signal-to-noise ratio > 3). We detect Mg ii absorption at redshift 0.6 < z < 2.5, C iv absorption at 1.6 < z < 3.6, and H i absorption associated with the Mg ii and C iv. By crossmatching the COSMOS2020 catalog, we identify the Mg ii and C iv host galaxies in 10 quasar fields at 0.9< z < 3.1. We find that within the impact parameter of 250 kpc, a tight correlation is seen between the strong Mg ii equivalent width and the host galaxy star formation rate. The covering fraction f c of the strong Mg ii selected galaxies, which is the ratio of the absorbing galaxy in a certain galaxy population, shows significant evolution in the main-sequence galaxies and marginal evolution in all the galaxy populations within 250 kpc at 0.9 < z < 2.2. The f c increase in the main-sequence galaxies likely suggests the coevolution of strong Mg ii absorbing gas and the main-sequence galaxies at the cosmic noon. Furthermore, Mg ii and C iv absorbing gas is detected out of the galaxy virial radius, tentatively indicating the feedback produced by the star formation and/or the environmental effects.