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Abstract:

The correlation between optical starlight polarization and polarized thermal dust emission can be used to infer intrinsic dust properties. This correlation is quantified by the ratio R P / p , which has been measured by the Planck Collaboration to be 5.42 ± 0.05 MJy sr −1 at 353 GHz when averaged over large areas of the sky. We investigated this correlation using newly published stellar polarimetric data densely sampling a continuous sky region of about four square degrees at intermediate Galactic latitude. We combined RoboPol optical polarization measurements for 1430 stars with submillimeter data from the Planck satellite at 353 GHz. We performed linear fits between the Planck ( Q s , U s ) and optical ( q v , u v ) Stokes parameters, taking into account the differences in resolution between the two datasets as well as the distribution of clouds along the line of sight. We find in this region of the sky that the R P / p value is 3.67 ± 0.05 MJy sr −1 , indicating a significantly shallower slope than that found previously using different stellar samples. We also find significant differences in the fitted slopes when fitting the Q s – q v and U s – u v data separately. We explore two explanations using mock data: the miscalibration of the polarization angle and the variations in R P / p along the line of sight due to multiple clouds. We show that the former can produce differences in the correlations of Q s – q v and U s – u v , but large miscalibration angles would be needed to reproduce the magnitude of the observed differences. Our simulations favor the interpretation that R P / p differs between the two dominant clouds that overlap on the sky in this region. The difference in R P / p suggests that the two clouds may have distinct dust polarimetric properties. With knowledge from the tomographic decomposition of the stellar polarization, we find that one cloud appears to dominate the correlation of U s – u v , while both clouds contribute to the correlation of the Q s – q v data.

Abstract:

Abstract Supermassive black hole (SMBH) masses can be measured using molecular gas kinematics. Here we present high angular resolution (0.12 arcsec or ≈11 pc) Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations of the 12CO(2–1) line emission of the early-type galaxy NGC 1387. The observations reveal a face-on, regularly-rotating central molecular gas disc with a diameter of ≈18 arcsec (≈1.7 kpc) and a central depression slightly larger than the SMBH sphere of influence. We forward model the CO data cube in a Bayesian framework with the Kinematic Molecular Simulation code, and use Hubble Space Telescope data to constrain the stellar gravitational potential contribution to the molecular gas kinematics. We infer a SMBH mass of $1.10^{+1.71}_{-0.95}[\textrm{stat},3\sigma ]^{+2.45}_{-1.09}[\textrm{sys}]\times 10^8$ M⊙ and a F160W-filter stellar mass-to-light ratio of $0.90^{+0.44}_{-0.35}[\textrm{stat}, 3\sigma ]^{+0.46}_{-0.36}[\textrm{sys}]$ M⊙/L⊙, F160W. This SMBH mass is consistent with the SMBH mass – stellar velocity dispersion relation.

Abstract:

Abstract Axisymmetric Jeans modelling is widely used to infer galaxy mass profiles from integral-field kinematics, but existing implementations maintain tractability by adopting highly restricted anisotropy prescriptions. I present a new spectral method that solves the axisymmetric Jeans equations as a two-dimensional boundary-value problem. Remarkably, this breaks the traditional trade-off between model flexibility and computational cost, accommodating completely general anisotropy distributions β(r, θ) while executing significantly faster than standard restrictive techniques. The method relies on three key choices: (i) solving for the intrinsic dispersion $\overline{v_r^2}$ rather than the rapidly varying pressure $\nu \overline{v_r^2}$ to improve numerical conditioning; (ii) working in logarithmic radius to efficiently resolve the large dynamic range of galaxies, uniquely matching scale-free (power-law) regimes; and (iii) imposing a Robin outer boundary condition that enforces the correct asymptotic decay on a finite computational domain. Orbit integrations in realistic galaxy potentials motivate spherical alignment of the velocity ellipsoid as a physically plausible default, though the framework easily adapts to other alignments. Validated against exact analytic benchmarks—including new analytic Jeans solutions derived herein—the solver recovers intrinsic second moments with high accuracy, showing radially uniform residuals for power-law tests. In practice, it delivers orders-of-magnitude speed-ups over high-accuracy quadrature schemes and is naturally suited to massive GPU parallelization. Released in the public JamPy package, this enables the routine application of highly general Jeans models to large surveys and the extensive parameter-space exploration required for rigorous uncertainty quantification.