We report upon the follow-up of 34 candidate lensed quasars found in the Dark Energy Survey using NTTEFOSC, Magellan-IMACS, KECK-ESI, and SOAR-SAMI. These candidates were selected by a combination of double component fitting, morphological assessment, and colour analysis. Most systems followed up are indeed composed of at least one quasar image and 13 with two or more quasar images: two lenses, four projected binaries, and seven nearly identical quasar pairs (NIQs). The two systems confirmed as genuine gravitationally lensed quasars are one quadruple at z(s) = 1.713 and one double at z(s) = 1.515. Lens modelling of these two systems reveals that both systems require very little contribution from the environment to reproduce the image configuration. Nevertheless, small flux anomalies can be observed in one of the images of the quad. Further observations of nine inconclusive systems (including seven NIQs) will allow to confirm (or not) their gravitational lens nature.

Luminous tracers of large-scale structure are not entirely representative of the distribution of mass in our Universe. As they arise from the highest peaks in the matter density field, the spatial distribution of luminous objects is biased towards those peaks. On large scales, where density fluctuations are mild, this bias simply amounts to a constant offset in the clustering amplitude of the tracer, known as linear bias. In this work we focus on the relative bias between galaxies and galaxy clusters that are located inside and in the vicinity of cosmic voids, extended regions of relatively low density in the large-scale structure of the Universe. With the help of mock data we verify that the relation between galaxy and cluster overdensity around voids remains linear. Hence, the void-centric density profiles of different tracers can be linked by a single multiplicative constant. This amounts to the same value as the relative linear bias between tracers for the largest voids in the sample. For voids of small sizes, which typically arise in higher density regions, this constant has a higher value, possibly showing an environmental dependence similar to that observed for the linear bias itself. We confirm our findings by analysing data obtained during the first year of observations by the Dark Energy Survey. As a side product, we present the first catalogue of three-dimensional voids extracted from a photometric survey with a controlled photo-z uncertainty. Our results will be relevant in forthcoming analyses that attempt to use voids as cosmological probes.

We use data from the first-year observations of the DES collaboration to measure the galaxy angular power spectrum (APS), and search for its BAO feature. We test our methodology in a sample of 1800 DES Y1-like mock catalogues. We use the pseudo-C-l, method to estimate the APS and the mock catalogues to estimate its covariance matrix. We use templates to model the measured spectra and estimate template parameters firstly from the G's of the mocks using two different methods, a maximum likelihood estimator and a Markov Chain Monte Carlo, finding consistent results with a good reduced chi(2). Robustness tests are performed to estimate the impact of different choices of settings used in our analysis. Finally, we apply our method to a galaxy sample constructed from DES Y1 data specifically for LSS studies. This catalogue comprises galaxies within an effective area of 1318 deg(2) and 0.6 < z < 1.0. We find that the DES Y1 data favour a model with BAO at the 2.6 sigma C.L. However, the goodness of fit is somewhat poor, with chi(2)/(d.o.f.) = 1.49. We identify a possible cause showing that using a theoretical covariance matrix obtained from C-l's that are better adjusted to data results in an improved value of chi(2)/(dof) = 1.36 which is similar to the value obtained with the real-space analysis. Our results correspond to a distance measurement of D-A (Z(eff) = 0.81)/r(d) = 10.65 +/- 0.49, consistent with the main DES BAO findings. This is a companion paper to the main DES BAO article showing the details of the harmonic space analysis.

We define and characterize a sample of 1.3million galaxies extracted from the first year of Dark Energy Survey data, optimized to measure baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the presence of significant redshift uncertainties. The sample is dominated by luminous red galaxies located at redshifts z greater than or similar to 0.6. We define the exact selection using colour and magnitude cuts that balance the need of high number densities and small photometric redshift uncertainties, using the corresponding forecasted BAO distance error as a figure-of-merit in the process. The typical photo z uncertainty varies from 2.3 per cent to 3.6 per cent (in units of 1+z) from z = 0.6 to 1, with number densities from 200 to 130 galaxies per deg(2) in tomographic bins of width Delta z = 0.1. Next, we summarize the validation of the photometric redshift estimation. We characterize and mitigate observational systematics including stellar contamination and show that the clustering on large scales is robust in front of those contaminants. We show that the clustering signal in the autocorrelations and cross-correlations is generally consistent with theoretical models, which serve as an additional test of the redshift distributions.

We present a chemical abundance analysis of four additional confirmed member stars of Tucana III, a Milky Way satellite galaxy candidate in the process of being tidally disrupted as it is accreted by the Galaxy. Two of these stars are centrally located in the core of the galaxy while the other two stars are located in the eastern and western tidal tails. The four stars have chemical abundance patterns consistent with the one previously studied star in Tucana III: they are moderately enhanced in r-process elements, i.e., they have <[Eu/Fe]> approximate to +0.4 dex. The non-neutron-capture elements generally follow trends seen in other dwarf galaxies, including a metallicity range of 0.44 dex and the expected trend in alpha-elements, i.e., the lower metallicity stars have higher Ca and Ti abundances. Overall, the chemical abundance patterns of these stars suggest that Tucana III was an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy, and not a globular cluster, before being tidally disturbed. As is the case for the one other galaxy dominated by r-process enhanced stars, Reticulum II, Tucana III's stellar chemical abundances are consistent with pollution from ejecta produced by a binary neutron star merger, although a different r-process element or dilution gas mass is required to explain the abundances in these two galaxies if a neutron star merger is the sole source of r-process enhancement.

In order to place constraints on cosmology through optical surveys of galaxy clusters, one must first understand the properties of those clusters. To this end, we introduce the Mass Analysis Tool for Chandra (MATCha), a pipeline that uses a parallellized algorithm to analyze archival Chandra data. MATCha simultaneously calculates X-ray temperatures and luminosities and performs centering measurements for hundreds of potential galaxy clusters using archival X-ray exposures. We run MATCha on the redMaPPer SDSS DR8 cluster catalog and use MATCha's output X-ray temperatures and luminosities to analyze the galaxy cluster temperature-richness, luminosity-richness, luminosity-temperature, and temperature-luminosity scaling relations. We detect 447 clusters and determine 246 r(2500) temperatures across all redshifts. Within 0.1 < z < 0.35, we find that r(2500) T-X scales with optical richness (lambda) as ln (k(B)T(X)/1.0 keV) = (0.52 +/- 0.05) ln (lambda/70) + (1.85 +/- 0.03) with an intrinsic scatter of 70 0.27 +/- 0.02 (1 sigma). We investigate the distribution of offsets between the X-ray center and redMaPPer center within 0.1 < z < 0.35, finding that 68%.3 +/- 6.5% of clusters are well-centered. However, we find a broad tail of large offsets in this distribution, and we explore some of the causes of redMaPPer miscentering.

We present a detailed abundance analysis of the three brightest member stars at the top of the giant branch of the ultrafaint dwarf (UFD) galaxy Grus II. All stars exhibit a higher than expected [Mg/Ca] ratio compared to metal-poor stars in other UFD galaxies and in the Milky Way (MW) halo. Nucleosynthesis in high-mass (M) core-collapse supernovae has been shown to create this signature. The abundances of this small sample (three) stars suggests the chemical enrichment of Grus II could have occurred through substantial high-mass stellar evolution, and is consistent with the framework of a top-heavy initial mass function. However, with only three stars it cannot be ruled out that the abundance pattern is the result of a stochastic chemical enrichment at early times in the galaxy. The most metal-rich of the three stars also possesses a small enhancement in rapid neutron-capture (r-process) elements. The abundance pattern of ther-process elements in this star matches the scaledr-process pattern of the solar system andr-process enhanced stars in other dwarf galaxies and in the MW halo, hinting at a common origin for these elements across a range of environments. All current proposed astrophysical sites ofr-process element production are associated with high-mass stars, thus the possible top-heavy initial mass function of Grus II would increase the likelihood of any of these events occurring. The time delay between the alpha andr-process element enrichment of the galaxy favors a neutron star merger as the origin of ther-process elements in Grus II.

One major function of the hypothalamus is to maintain homeostasis by modulating the secretion of pituitary hormones. The paraventricular (PVN) and supraoptic (SON) nuclei are major integration centers for the output of the hypothalamus to the pituitary. The bHLH-PAS transcription factor SIM1 is crucial for the development of several neuroendocrine lineages within the PVN and SON. bHLH-PAS proteins require heterodimerization for their function. ARNT, ARNT2, and BMAL1 are the three known general heterodimerization partners for bHLH-PAS proteins. Here. we provide evidence that Sim1 and Arnt2 form dimers in vitro, that they are co-expressed in the PVN and SON, and that their loss of function affects the development of the same sets of neuroendocrine cell types within the PVN and SON. Together, these results implicate ARNT2 as the in vivo dimerization partner of SIM1 in controlling the development of these neuroendocrine lineages. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The secreted protein sonic hedgehog (Shh) is required to establish patterns of cellular growth and differentiation within ventral regions of the developing CNS, The expression of Shh in the two tissue sources responsible for this activity, the axial mesoderm and the ventral midline of the neural tube, is regulated along the anteroposterior neuraxis, Separate cis-acting regulatory sequences have been identified which direct Shh expression to distinct regions of the neural tube, supporting the view that multiple genes are involved in activating Shh transcription along the length of the CNS, We show here that the activity of one Shh enhancer, which directs reporter expression to portions of the ventral midbrain and diencephalon, overlaps both temporally and spatially with the expression of Sim2, Sim2 encodes a basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH-PAS) PAS domain containing transcriptional regulator whose Drosophila homolog, single-minded, is a master regulator of ventral midline development. Both vertebrate and invertebrate Sim family members were found sufficient for the activation of the Shh reporter as well as endogenous Shh mRNA, Although Shh expression is maintained in Sim2(-/-) embryos, it was determined to be absent from the rostral midbrain and caudal diencephalon of embryos carrying a dominant-negative transgene that disrupts the function of bNLH-PAS proteins. Together, these results suggest that bHLH-PAS family members are required for the regulation of Shh transcription within aspects of the ventral midbrain and diencephalon.

Control of cell proliferation is essential to generate the defined form of a multi-cellular organism. While much is known about the regulators for cell cycle progression, relatively little is known about the start of growth arrest. Growth arrest (GO) is defined as a cell in a metabolically active but proliferation-quiescent state (reviewed in Baserga (1985) The Biology of Cell Reproduction), typically induced by serum starvation in vitro. Using subtractive hybridization, Schneider et al. (Cell 54 (1988) 787) identified six genes (Gas1 through Gas6) whose expressions are upregulated in serum-deprived NIH3T3 cells. Among the Gas genes. Gas1 is the only one that can cause growth arrest when expressed in cultured cell (Cell 70 (1995) 595: int. J. Cancer 9 (1998, 569). Here, we describe for the first time the expression pattern of Gas1 during mouse embryogenesis. Our data reveal that Gas1 is expressed in many regions that the cells are actively proliferating and suggest that it may have other roles during development than negatively regulating cell proliferation. Furthermore, we have cloned the chick GAS1 gene and documented the similarity and divergence of Gas1 gene expression patterns between the two species. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.