Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 23/05/2026

It’s Saturday once again, so time for another update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further six papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 110 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 558.

I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week, published on Monday 18th May in the folder Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics is “Edges In Coadded Images” by Erin Sheldon (Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA). This paper describes a study exploring how image discontinuities and noise impact weak gravitational lensing measurements, finding no significant biases under typical conditions. Biases occur only in extreme cases, but can be mitigated.

The overlay for this paper is here

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116594222032390191

The second paper for this week, also published on Monday 18th May but in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, is “Joint cosmological fits to DESI-DR1 full-shape clustering and weak gravitational lensing in configuration space” by A. Semenaite (Swinburne Institute of Technology, Australia) and 72 other authors from all round the world. This paper presents a cosmological analysis of correlations between the DESI-DR1 Bright Galaxy Survey and Luminous Red Galaxy samples and overlapping shear measurements from various weak lensing surveys.

The overlay for this one is here:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116594256215421009

Next one up, the third paper of the week, and the third published on Monday 18th May, also published on Tuesday 12th May, and in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is “Probing Dark Energy Microphysics with kSZ Tomography” by Julius Adolff, Selim Hotinli and Neal Dalal (all of the Perimeter Institute, Canada). This paper explores how kinetic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich tomography and galaxy clustering can enhance our understanding of dark energy and its effects, potentially revealing its microphysical properties in future surveys.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116594304124291605

The fourth paper this week, published on Wednesday May 20th “A Census of Variable Radio Sources at 3 GHz” by Yjan A. Gordon, Peter S. Ferguson, Michael N. Martinez and Eric J. Hooper (all of the University of Wisconsin, USA). This article, published in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies, uses data from the Very Large Array Sky Survey to analyze variability in the radio sky, finding most changes consistent with blazars and quasars.

The overlay is here:

The officially accepted version can be found on arXiv here and here is the Mastodon announcement:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116607468481260244

The fifth article of this week was published on Friday 22nd May in the folder Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics. The title is “Uncovering the Next Galactic Supernova with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory” by John Banovetz (Lawrence Berkeley Lab., USA), Claire-Alice Hebert & Peter B. Denton (Brookhaven National Lab., USA), Dan Scolnic (Duke University, USA), Anze Slosar (Brookhaven) and Chris Walter (Duke). The paper presents a study simulating how effectively the Vera C. Rubin Observatory can localize supernovae using neutrino triggers, finding a 57-97% success rate based on stellar mass density predictions.

The overlay is here:

You can find the authorized version of this paper on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116617293753093751

Last, but by no means least, this week we have “Pulsar timing solutions for 17 pulsars at 150 MHz from the Irish LOFAR station” by David J. McKenna (ASTRON, The Netherlands), Evan F. Keane (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland), Peter T. Gallagher (DIAS, Ireland) and Joe McCauley (Trinity). This was published on Friday 22nd May in the folder High-Energy Astrophysical Phenomena. It presents a demonstration of the use of international Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) stations in tracking and characterizing pulsars, providing new insights into these neutron stars’ emission properties.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can find the authorized version of this paper on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116617404344791486

And that concludes this week’s update. I’ll do another one next Saturday.

#arXiv250800976v2 #arXiv250906929v3 #arXiv251105653v2 #arXiv251215961v2 #arXiv260112094v2 #arXiv260522516v1 #AstrophysicsOfGalaxies #blazars #cosmicShear #cosmologicalSimulations #CosmologyAndNonGalacticAstrophysics #DarkEnergy #DarkEnergySpectroscopicInstrument #DarkEnergySurvey #DiamondOpenAccess #DiamondOpenAccessPublishing #galaxyClustering #HighEnergyAstrophysicalPhenomena #InstrumentationAndMethodsForAstrophysics #kineticSunyaevZeDovichEffect #LOFAR #OpenAccess #OpenAccessPublishing #PointSpreadFunction #pulsars #quasars #radioAstronomy #stackedImages #SunyaevZeDovichEffect #supernova #supernovae #Tomography #VeraCRubinObservatory #VeryLargeArray #weakGravitationalLensing

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 13/12/2025

It’s time once again for the usual Saturday morning update of the week’s new papers at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further five papers, which brings the number in Volume 8 (2025) up to 195, and the total so far published by OJAp up to 430.

The first paper this week is “Cosmic Rays Masquerading as Cool Cores: An Inverse-Compton Origin for Cool Core Cluster Emission” by Philip F. Hopkins (Caltech), Eliot Quataert (Princeton), Emily M. Silich, Jack Sayers, Sam B. Ponnada and Isabel S. Sands (Caltech).  This was published on Tuesday 9th December 2025 in the folder marked High-Energy Astrophysical Phenomena. It presents an argument  that cosmic-ray inverse-compton emission could contribute significantly to the X-ray surface brightness (SB) in cool-corre clusters, implying that gas densities may have been overestimated therein.

The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Cosmic Rays Masquerading as Cool Cores: An Inverse-Compton Origin for Cool Core Cluster Emission" by

Philip F. Hopkins (Caltech), Eliot Quataert (Princeton), Emily M. Silich, Jack Sayers, Sam B. Ponnada and Isabel S. Sands (Caltech)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.154053

December 9, 2025, 7:22 am 1 boosts 0 favorites

The second paper of the week is “Detecting False Positives With Derived Planetary Parameters: Experimenting with the KEPLER Dataset” by Ayan Bin Rafaih (Aitchison College, Lahore, Pakistan) and Zachary Murray (Université Côte d’Azur, France). This one was published on 9th December 2025 in the folder Earth and Planetary Astrophysics. It is an investigation into the performance of a range of machine-learning algorithms on the KEPLER dataset, using precision-recall trade-off and accuracy metrics.

The overlay is here:

You can find the official version of this one on arXiv here. The federated announcement on Mastodon is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Detecting False Positives With Derived Planetary Parameters: Experimenting with the KEPLER Dataset" by Ayan Bin Rafaih (Aitchison College, Lahore, Pakistan) and Zachary Murray (Université Côte d’Azur, France)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.154054

December 9, 2025, 7:34 am 1 boosts 0 favorites

Next one up is “The role of peculiar velocity uncertainties in standard siren cosmology” by Chris Blake and Ryan J. Turner (Swinburne, Australia). This paper discusses the impact of peculiar velocities on the error in H0 determinations from local distance indicators with observed redshifts, incorporating the effect of bulk flows. It was published on Tuesday 9th December in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics.

The overlay is here:

You can find the official accepted version on arXiv here. The fediverse announcement is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "The role of peculiar velocity uncertainties in standard siren cosmology" by Chris Blake and Ryan J. Turner (Swinburne, Australia)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.154055

December 9, 2025, 7:47 am 1 boosts 0 favorites

The fourth article of the week is “Transient QPOs of Fermi-LAT blazars with Linearly Multiplicative Oscillations” by P. Penil (Clemson University, USA) and 7 others based in the USA, Italy and Germany. This was published on Thursday 10th December in the folder High-Energy Astrophysical Phenomena. This paper presents an investigation of patterns of quasi-periodic oscillations in observed blazar systems characterized by periodic multiplicative amplitudes including both the periodicities and long-term variations.  The overlay is here:

You can find the official published version on arXiv here. The Fediverse announcement follows:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Transient QPOs of Fermi-LAT blazars with Linearly Multiplicative Oscillations" by P. Penil (Clemson University, USA) and 7 others based in the USA, Italy and Germany

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.154123

December 10, 2025, 12:22 pm 0 boosts 1 favorites

The last paper for this week is “Tidally Delayed Spin-Down of Very Low Mass Stars” by Ketevan Kotorashvili and Eric G. Blackman (U. Rochester, USA). This was published on Friday 12th December (yesterday) in the folder Solar and Stellar Astrophysics. It discusses the effect of tides from sub-stellar companions on rotational evolution of very low-mass stars, suggesting that these may explain the dearth of field, late-type M dwarfs with intermediate rotation periods.

The overlay is here:

 

You can find the officially-accepted version on arXiv here, and the Mastodon announcement is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Tidally Delayed Spin-Down of Very Low Mass Stars" by Ketevan Kotorashvili and Eric G. Blackman (U. Rochester, USA)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.154268

December 12, 2025, 10:31 am 1 boosts 0 favorites

 

And that concludes the update for this week. I will do another of these regular announcements next Saturday, which will be the last such update for 2025. Will we make it past 200 for the year? Tune in next week to find out!

#arxiv241117916v3 #arxiv250713906v3 #arxiv250718712v2 #arxiv250813801v2 #arxiv250903101v2 #blazars #coolCoreClusters #cosmicRays #cosmologyAndNongalacticAstrophysics #diamondOpenAccess #diamondOpenAccessPublishing #earthAndPlanetaryAstrophysics #fermiLat #highEnergyAstrophysicalPhenomena #kepler #machineLearning #openAccess #openAccessPublishing #openJournalOfAstrophysics #peculiarMotions #quasiPeriodicOscillations #solarAndStellarAstrophysics #standardSirens #theOpenJournalOfAstrophysics #tidalSpinDown #transientAstronomy #veryLowMassStars

So I discovered TODAY, courtesy of my then advisor, that I had "my" first paper published on the ONLY day I did not pay attention to the arXiv bot on Mastodon. Summary of my life

https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_astrophHE_bot/114737895202010038

#astrophysics #GammaRays #blazars #MachineLearning #arxiv #proceedings

arXiv astro-ph.HE bot (@[email protected])

Towards a TeV blazar sequence and its physical interpretation I. Viale, E. Prandini, C. Righi, F. Bovolon, N. Sahakyan https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.18500 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.18500 https://arxiv.org/html/2506.18500 arXiv:2506.18500v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Blazars, a highly energetic subclass of jetted active galactic nuclei, show a broad band spectral energy distribution (SED) with two bumps, resulting from non-thermal jet emission. In 1998, an anticorrelation between the SED luminosity and the peaks frequency was found, later confirmed in 2017, called the blazar sequence. Its origin is still unclear. This work is part of a broader effort aiming at giving a physical interpretation to the blazar sequence, by modeling the sources emission in a Synchrotron Self Compton framework, concentrating only on TeV-detected blazars of BL Lac type. Unlike the original sequence, sources were binned by synchrotron peak frequency. The SED of one representative source is modeled for each bin, using data from average activity state to ensure consistency. Here, we focus on the study of one of the selected representative sources, PKS 2155-304, a high-energy-peaked BL Lac, showing the performed data selection and preliminary modeling results. toXiv_bot_toot

mastoxiv

First:
#blazars are galaxies in which the activity of the central supermassive black hole (BH) produces plasma jets moving at the speed of light, randomly pointing towards the observer (us, in this case).

So if we detect a blazar in the sky, we have a privileged view in which we can see nearly within the innermost accretion regions of the BH, without being obscured by its surrounding torus.

Testing a theory of supermassive black holes with 100 newly described 'blazars'

More than a hundred blazars—distant and active galaxies with a central supermassive black hole that drives powerful jets—have been newly characterized by Penn State researchers from a catalog of previously unclassified high-energy cosmic emissions. The new blazars, which are dim relative to more typical blazars, have allowed the researchers to test a controversial theory of blazar emissions, informing our understanding of black hole growth and even theories of general relativity and high-energy particle physics.

Phys.org
Testing a theory of supermassive black holes with 100 newly described 'blazars'

More than a hundred blazars—distant and active galaxies with a central supermassive black hole that drives powerful jets—have been newly characterized by Penn State researchers from a catalog of previously unclassified high-energy cosmic emissions. The new blazars, which are dim relative to more typical blazars, have allowed the researchers to test a controversial theory of blazar emissions, informing our understanding of black hole growth and even theories of general relativity and high-energy particle physics.

Phys.org
More than a hundred #blazars — distant and active #galaxies with a central #supermassive black hole that drives powerful jets — have been newly characterized by Penn State researchers from a catalog of previously unclassified high-energy #cosmic emissions.
#Astronomy #BlackHoles #SpaceScience #sflorg
https://www.sflorg.com/2023/05/astr05112302.html
Testing a theory of supermassive black holes with 100 newly described 'blazars'

More than a hundred blazars — distant and active galaxies with a central supermassive black hole

The Black Hole Light Mystery: Solving the Secret of the Universe's Most Brilliant Glow

YouTube

« It’s time for a new episode of #meettheMAGICians! Do you know which are the most extreme galaxies of our Universe? Discover everything about them in our #live event! 👇https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpid-FRYv8Q #streamyard #blazars #extreme #astrophysics #astronomy #physics #sciencetwitter https://t.co/NKoiGVjlnx »

— Retweet https://twitter.com/MAGICtelescopes/status/1369245806683906049

Meet the MAGICians: Extreme blazars. Hard Rock galaxies!

YouTube
After decades of effort, #astronomers have discovered the secret mechanism that powers the brightest light shows in the universe, which are emitted by absurdly energetic beams that shoot out of explosive galaxies, known as #blazars, reports a new study. https://bit.ly/3EpWkko
Scientists Solve Major Mystery of Powerful Energy Beams Pointed at Earth

A new study sheds light on blazars, bright galaxies with black holes emitting beams of highly energetic particles that are oriented towards Earth.