Professor Richard Massey's Outputs (12)

Scanning for dark matter subhaloes in Hubble Space Telescope imaging of 54 strong lenses (2023)
Journal Article
Nightingale, J. W., He, Q., Cao, X., Amvrosiadis, A., Etherington, A., Frenk, C. S., Hayes, R. G., Robertson, A., Cole, S., Lange, S., Li, R., & Massey, R. (2024). Scanning for dark matter subhaloes in Hubble Space Telescope imaging of 54 strong lenses. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 527(4), 10480-10506. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad3694

The cold dark matter (DM) model predicts that every galaxy contains thousands of DM subhaloes; almost all other DM models include a physical process that smooths away the subhaloes. The subhaloes are invisible, but could be detected via strong gravit... Read More about Scanning for dark matter subhaloes in Hubble Space Telescope imaging of 54 strong lenses.

Data Downloaded via Parachute from a NASA Super-Pressure Balloon (2023)
Journal Article
Sirks, E. L., Massey, R., Gill, A. S., Anderson, J., Benton, S. J., Brown, A. M., Clark, P., English, J., Everett, S. W., Fraisse, A. A., Franco, H., Hartley, J. W., Harvey, D., Holder, B., Hunter, A., Huff, E. M., Hynous, A., Jauzac, M., Jones, W. C., Joyce, N., …Vassilakis, G. N. (2023). Data Downloaded via Parachute from a NASA Super-Pressure Balloon. Aerospace, 10(11), Article 960. https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace10110960

In April 2023, the superBIT telescope was lifted to the Earth’s stratosphere by a helium-filled super-pressure balloon to acquire astronomical imaging from above (99.5% of) the Earth’s atmosphere. It was launched from New Zealand and then, for 40 day... Read More about Data Downloaded via Parachute from a NASA Super-Pressure Balloon.

A Recent Impact Origin of Saturn’s Rings and Mid-sized Moons (2023)
Journal Article
Teodoro, L. F. A., Kegerreis, J. A., Estrada, P. R., Ćuk, M., Eke, V. R., Cuzzi, J. N., Massey, R. J., & Sandnes, T. D. (2023). A Recent Impact Origin of Saturn’s Rings and Mid-sized Moons. Astrophysical Journal, 955(2), Article 137. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/acf4ed

We simulate the collision of precursor icy moons analogous to Dione and Rhea as a possible origin for Saturn's remarkably young rings. Such an event could have been triggered a few hundred million years ago by resonant instabilities in a previous sat... Read More about A Recent Impact Origin of Saturn’s Rings and Mid-sized Moons.

Lensing in the Blue. II. Estimating the Sensitivity of Stratospheric Balloons to Weak Gravitational Lensing (2023)
Journal Article
McCleary, J. E., Everett, S. W., Shaaban, M. M., Gill, A. S., Vassilakis, G. N., Huff, E. M., Massey, R. J., Benton, S. J., Brown, A. M., Clark, P., Holder, B., Fraisse, A. A., Jauzac, M., Jones, W. C., Lagattuta, D., Leung, J. S.-Y., Li, L., T. Luu, T. V., Nagy, J. M., Netterfield, C. B., …Tam, S. I. (2023). Lensing in the Blue. II. Estimating the Sensitivity of Stratospheric Balloons to Weak Gravitational Lensing. Astronomical Journal, 166(3), https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ace7ca

The Superpressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) is a diffraction-limited, wide-field, 0.5 m, near-infrared to near-ultraviolet observatory designed to exploit the stratosphere's space-like conditions. SuperBIT's 2023 science flight will... Read More about Lensing in the Blue. II. Estimating the Sensitivity of Stratospheric Balloons to Weak Gravitational Lensing.

RXJ0437+00: constraining dark matter with exotic gravitational lenses (2023)
Journal Article
Lagattuta, D. J., Richard, J., Ebeling, H., Basto, Q., Cerny, C., Edge, A., …Massey, R. (2023). RXJ0437+00: constraining dark matter with exotic gravitational lenses. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 522(1), 1091-1107. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad803

We present the first strong-gravitational-lensing analysis of the galaxy cluster RX J0437.1+0043 (RXJ0437; z = 0.285). Newly obtained, deep MUSE observations, Keck/MOSFIRE near-infrared spectroscopy, and Hubble Space Telescope SNAPshot imaging reveal... Read More about RXJ0437+00: constraining dark matter with exotic gravitational lenses.

Abell 1201: detection of an ultramassive black hole in a strong gravitational lens (2023)
Journal Article
Nightingale, J., Smith, R. J., He, Q., O’Riordan, C. M., Kegerreis, J. A., Amvrosiadis, A., …Massey, R. J. (2023). Abell 1201: detection of an ultramassive black hole in a strong gravitational lens. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 521(3), 3298-3322. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad587

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are a key catalyst of galaxy formation and evolution, leading to an observed correlation between SMBH mass MBH and host galaxy velocity dispersion σe. Outside the local Universe, measurements of MBH are usually only p... Read More about Abell 1201: detection of an ultramassive black hole in a strong gravitational lens.

The PAU Survey and Euclid: Improving broadband photometric redshifts with multi-task learning (2023)
Journal Article
Cabayol, L., Eriksen, M., Carretero, J., Casas, R., Castander, F., Fernández, E., …Tramacere, A. (2023). The PAU Survey and Euclid: Improving broadband photometric redshifts with multi-task learning. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 671, Article A153. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202245027

Current and future imaging surveys require photometric redshifts (photo-zs) to be estimated for millions of galaxies. Improving the photo-z quality is a major challenge but is needed to advance our understanding of cosmology. In this paper we explore... Read More about The PAU Survey and Euclid: Improving broadband photometric redshifts with multi-task learning.

Beyond the bulge–halo conspiracy? Density profiles of early-type galaxies from extended-source strong lensing (2023)
Journal Article
Etherington, A., Nightingale, J. W., Massey, R., Robertson, A., Cao, X., Amvrosiadis, A., Cole, S., Frenk, C. S., He, Q., Lagattuta, D. J., Lange, S., & Li, R. (2023). Beyond the bulge–halo conspiracy? Density profiles of early-type galaxies from extended-source strong lensing. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 521(4), 6005-6018. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad582

Observations suggest that the dark matter and stars in early-type galaxies ‘conspire’ to produce a surprisingly simple distribution of total mass, ρ(r) ∝ ρ−γ, with γ ≈ 2. We measure the distribution of mass in 48 early-type galaxies that gravitationa... Read More about Beyond the bulge–halo conspiracy? Density profiles of early-type galaxies from extended-source strong lensing.

On the gravitational lensing interpretation of three gravitational wave detections in the mass gap by LIGO and Virgo (2023)
Journal Article
Bianconi, M., Smith, G. P., Nicholl, M., Ryczanowski, D., Richard, J., Jauzac, M., …Ridley, E. (2023). On the gravitational lensing interpretation of three gravitational wave detections in the mass gap by LIGO and Virgo. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 521(3), 3421-3430. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad673

We search for gravitational wave (GW) events from LIGO-Virgo’s third run that may have been affected by gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing delays the arrival of GWs, and alters their amplitude – thus biasing the inferred progenitor masses.... Read More about On the gravitational lensing interpretation of three gravitational wave detections in the mass gap by LIGO and Virgo.

PyAutoGalaxy: Open-Source Multiwavelength Galaxy Structure & Morphology (2023)
Journal Article
Nightingale, J. W., Amvrosiadis, A., Hayes, R. G., He, Q., Etherington, A., Cao, X., …Robertson, A. (2023). PyAutoGalaxy: Open-Source Multiwavelength Galaxy Structure & Morphology. The Journal of Open Source Software, 8(81), Article 4475. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.04475

Nearly a century ago, Edwin Hubble famously classified galaxies into three distinct groups: ellipticals, spirals and irregulars (Hubble, 1926). Today, by analysing millions of galaxies with advanced image processing techniques Astronomers have expand... Read More about PyAutoGalaxy: Open-Source Multiwavelength Galaxy Structure & Morphology.

Enabling discovery of gravitationally lensed explosive transients: a new method to build an all-sky watch list of groups and clusters of galaxies (2023)
Journal Article
Ryczanowski, D., Smith, G. P., Bianconi, M., McGee, S., Robertson, A., Massey, R., & Jauzac, M. (2023). Enabling discovery of gravitationally lensed explosive transients: a new method to build an all-sky watch list of groups and clusters of galaxies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 520(2), 2547-2557. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad231

Cross-referencing a watch list of galaxy groups and clusters with transient detections from real-time streams of wide-field survey data is a promising method for discovering gravitationally lensed explosive transients, including supernovae, kilonovae... Read More about Enabling discovery of gravitationally lensed explosive transients: a new method to build an all-sky watch list of groups and clusters of galaxies.

Discovering gravitationally lensed gravitational waves: predicted rates, candidate selection, and localization with the Vera Rubin Observatory (2023)
Journal Article
Smith, G. P., Robertson, A., Mahler, G., Nicholl, M., Ryczanowski, D., Bianconi, M., …Jauzac, M. (2023). Discovering gravitationally lensed gravitational waves: predicted rates, candidate selection, and localization with the Vera Rubin Observatory. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 520(1), 702-721. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad140

Secure confirmation that a gravitational wave (GW) has been gravitationally lensed would bring together these two pillars of General Relativity for the first time. This breakthrough is challenging for many reasons, including: GW sky localization unce... Read More about Discovering gravitationally lensed gravitational waves: predicted rates, candidate selection, and localization with the Vera Rubin Observatory.