Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) is a wide-field imaging camera on the prime focus of the 8.2m Subaru telescope on the summit of Maunakea in Hawaii. A team of scientists from Japan, Taiwan and Princeton University is using HSC to carry out a 300-night multi-band imaging survey of the high-latitude sky. The survey includes three layers: the Wide layer will cover 1400 deg 2 in five broad bands (grizy), with a 5 σ point-source depth of r ≈ 26. The Deep layer covers a total of 26 deg 2 in four fields, going roughly a magnitude fainter, while the UltraDeep layer goes almost a magnitude fainter still in two pointings of HSC (a total of 3.5 deg 2). Here we describe the instrument, the science goals of the survey, and the survey strategy and data processing. This paper serves as an introduction to a special issue of the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, which includes a large number of technical and scientific papers describing results from the early phases of this survey.

DECi-hertz Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (DECIGO) is the future Japanese space gravitational wave antenna. DECIGO is expected to open a new window of observation for gravitational wave astronomy especially between 0.1 Hz and 10 Hz, revealing various mysteries of the universe such as dark energy, formation mechanism of supermassive black holes, and inflation of the universe. The pre-conceptual design of DECIGO consists of three drag-free spacecraft, whose relative displacements are measured by a differential Fabry-Perot Michelson interferometer. We plan to launch two missions, DECIGO pathfinder and pre-DECIGO first and finally DECIGO in 2024.

We present our current best estimate of the plausible observing scenarios for the Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA gravitational-wave detectors over the next several years, with the intention of providing information to facilitate planning for multi-messenger astronomy with gravitational waves. We estimate the sensitivity of the network to transient gravitational-wave signals for the third (O3), fourth (O4) and fifth observing (O5) runs, including the planned upgrades of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. We study the capability of the network to determine the sky location of the source for gravitational-wave signals from the inspiral of binary systems of compact objects, that is binary neutron star, neutron star–black hole, and binary black hole systems. The ability to localize the sources is given as a sky-area probability, luminosity distance, and comoving volume. The median sky localization area (90% credible region) is expected to be a few hundreds of square degrees for all types of binary systems during O3 with the Advanced LIGO and Virgo (HLV) network. The median sky localization area will improve to a few tens of square degrees during O4 with the Advanced LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA (HLVK) network. During O3, the median localization volume (90% credible region) is expected to be on the order of $$10^{5}, 10^{6}, 10^{7}\mathrm {\ Mpc}^3$$ 10 5 , 10 6 , 10 7 Mpc 3 for binary neutron star, neutron star–black hole, and binary black hole systems, respectively. The localization volume in O4 is expected to be about a factor two smaller than in O3. We predict a detection count of $$1^{+12}_{-1}$$ 1 - 1 + 12 ($$10^{+52}_{-10}$$ 10 - 10 + 52 ) for binary neutron star mergers, of $$0^{+19}_{-0}$$ 0 - 0 + 19 ($$1^{+91}_{-1}$$ 1 - 1 + 91 ) for neutron star–black hole mergers, and $$17^{+22}_{-11}$$ 17 - 11 + 22 ($$79^{+89}_{-44}$$ 79 - 44 + 89 ) for binary black hole mergers in a one-calendar-year observing run of the HLV network during O3 (HLVK network during O4). We evaluate sensitivity and localization expectations for unmodeled signal searches, including the search for intermediate mass black hole binary mergers.

We report the observation of gravitational waves from two compact binary coalescences in LIGO's and Virgo's third observing run with properties consistent with neutron star-black hole (NSBH) binaries. The two events are named GW200105_162426 and GW200115_042309, abbreviated as GW200105 and GW200115; the first was observed by LIGO Livingston and Virgo and the second by all three LIGO-Virgo detectors. The source of GW200105 has component masses -+ 8.9 1.5 1.2 and 130 Gpc yr 69 112 3 1 under the assumption of a broader distribution of component masses.

The Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP) is a three-layered imaging survey aimed at addressing some of the most important outstanding questions in astronomy today, including the nature of dark matter and dark energy. The survey has been awarded 300 nights of observing time at the Subaru Telescope, and it started in 2014 March. This paper presents the first public data release of HSC-SSP. This release includes data taken in the first 1.7 yr of observations (61.5 nights), and each of the Wide, Deep, and UltraDeep layers covers about 108, 26, and 4 square degrees down to depths of i ∼ 26.4, ∼26.5, and ∼27.0 mag, respectively (5 σ for point sources). All the layers are observed in five broad bands (grizy), and the Deep and UltraDeep layers are observed in narrow bands as well. We achieve an impressive image quality of 0${^{\prime\prime}_{.}}$6 in the i band in the Wide layer. We show that we achieve 1%–2% point spread function (PSF) photometry (root mean square) both internally and externally (against Pan-STARRS1), and ∼10 mas and 40 mas internal and external astrometric accuracy, respectively. Both the calibrated images and catalogs are made available to the community through dedicated user interfaces and database servers. In addition to the pipeline products, we also provide value-added products such as photometric redshifts and a collection of public spectroscopic redshifts. Detailed descriptions of all the data can be found online. The data release website is https://hsc-release.mtk.nao.ac.jp.

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We report results of a search for an isotropic gravitational-wave background (GWB) using data from Advanced LIGO's and Advanced Virgo's third observing run (O3) combined with upper limits from the earlier O1 and O2 runs. Unlike in previous observing runs in the advanced detector era, we include Virgo in the search for the GWB. The results of the search are consistent with uncorrelated noise, and therefore we place upper limits on the strength of the GWB. We find that the dimensionless energy density ⌦GW  5.8 ⇥ 10 9 at the 95% credible level for a flat (frequencyindependent) GWB, using a prior which is uniform in the log of the strength of the GWB, with 99% of the sensitivity coming from the band 20-76.6 Hz; ⌦GW(f )  3.4 ⇥ 10 9 at 25 Hz for a power-law GWB with a spectral index of 2/3 (consistent with expectations for compact binary coalescences), in the band 20-90.6 Hz; and ⌦GW(f )  3.9 ⇥ 10 10 at 25 Hz for a spectral index of 3, in the band 20-291.6 Hz. These upper limits improve over our previous results by a factor of 6.0 for a flat GWB, 8.8 for a spectral index of 2/3, and 13.1 for a spectral index of 3. We also search for a GWB arising from scalar and vector modes, which are predicted by alternative theories of gravity; we do not find evidence of these, and place upper limits on the strength of GWBs with these polarizations. We demonstrate that there is no evidence of correlated noise of magnetic origin by performing a Bayesian analysis that allows for the presence of both a GWB and an e↵ective magnetic background arising from geophysical Schumann resonances. We compare our upper limits to a fiducial model for the GWB from the merger of compact binaries, updating the model to use the most recent datadriven population inference from the systems detected during O3a. Finally, we combine our results with observations of individual mergers and show that, at design sensitivity, this joint approach may yield stronger constraints on the merger rate of binary black holes at z & 2 than can be achieved with individually resolved mergers alone.

The Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) is an 870 megapixel prime focus optical imaging camera for the 8.2 m Subaru telescope. The wide-field corrector delivers sharp images of 0${^{\prime\prime}_{.}}$2 (FWHM) in the HSC-i band over the entire 1${^{\circ}_{.}}$5 diameter field of view. The collimation of the camera with respect to the optical axis of the primary mirror is done with hexapod actuators, the mechanical accuracy of which is a few microns. Analysis of the remaining wavefront error in off-focus stellar images reveals that the collimation of the optical components meets design specifications. While there is a flexure of mechanical components, it also is within the design specification. As a result, the camera achieves its seeing-limited imaging on Maunakea during most of the time; the median seeing over several years of observing is 0${^{\prime\prime}_{.}}$67 (FWHM) in the i band. The sensors use p-channel, fully depleted CCDs of 200 μm thickness (2048 × 4176 15 μm square pixels) and we employ 116 of them to pave the 50 cm diameter focal plane. The minimum interval between exposures is 34 s, including the time to read out arrays, to transfer data to the control computer, and to save them to the hard drive. HSC on Subaru uniquely features a combination of a large aperture, a wide field of view, sharp images and a high sensitivity especially at longer wavelengths, which makes the HSC one of the most powerful observing facilities in the world.