Suchergebnisse

Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo `a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico and the Minist´erio da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the collaborating institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. The Collaborating Institutions are Argonne National Laboratory, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Cambridge, Centro de Investigaciones Energ´eticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas-Madrid, the University of Chicago, University College London, the DES-Brazil Consortium, the University of Edinburgh, the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Institut de Ci`encies de l'Espai, the Institut de Física d'Altes Energies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, the University of Michigan, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the University of Nottingham, the Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, the University of Sussex, Texas A&M University, and the OzDES Membership Consortium. The DES data management system is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. AST-1138766 and No. AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MINECO under Grants No. AYA2015-71825, No. ESP2015-88861, No. FPA2015-68048, No. SEV-2012-0234, No. SEV2016-0597, and No. MDM-2015-0509, some of which include European Research Development Fund (ERDF) funds from the European Union. I. F. A. E. is partially funded by the Centres de Recerce de Catalunya (CERCA) program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) including European Research Council Grants No. 240672, No. 291329, and No. 306478. We acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics, through Project No. CE110001020.

Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MICINN) ; Ramon y Cajal MICINN programme ; US Department of Energy ; US National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Funding Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; Argonne National Laboratory ; University of California at Santa Cruz ; University of Cambridge ; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas ; Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid ; University of Chicago ; University College London ; DES-Brazil Consortium ; University of Edinburgh ; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich ; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC) ; Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies ; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ; Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen ; associated Excellence Cluster Universe ; University of Michigan ; National Optical Astronomy Observatory ; University of Nottingham ; Ohio State University ; University of Pennsylvania ; University of Portsmouth ; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory ; Stanford University ; University of Sussex ; Texas AM University ; OzDES Membership Consortium ; National Science Foundation ; MINECO ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa ; European Research Council under the European Union ; Perren Fund ; European Research Council Advanced Grant ; ICREA ; Science and Technology Facilities Council ; Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MICINN): 200850I176 ; Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MICINN): AYA2009-13936 ; Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MICINN): AYA2012-39620 ; Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MICINN): AYA2013-44327 ; Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MICINN): ESP2013-48274 ; Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MICINN): ESP2014-58384 ; Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MICINN): CSD2007-00060 ; Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MICINN): 2009-SGR-1398 ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; MINECO: ESP2013-48274 ; MINECO: AYA2012-39559 ; MINECO: FPA2013-47986 ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa: SEV-2012-0234 ; European Research Council under the European Union: 240672 ; European Research Council under the European Union: 291329 ; European Research Council under the European Union: 306478 ; European Research Council Advanced Grant: FP7/291329 ; : AECT-2006-2-0011 ; : AECT-2015-1-0013 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/M001334/1 ; It is well known that the probability distribution function (PDF) of galaxy density contrast is approximately lognormal; whether the PDF of mass fluctuations derived from weak lensing convergence (kappa(WL)) is lognormal is less well established. We derive PDFs of the galaxy and projected matter density distributions via the counts-in-cells (CiC) method. We use maps of galaxies and weak lensing convergence produced from the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data over 139 deg(2). We test whether the underlying density contrast is well described by a lognormal distribution for the galaxies, the convergence and their joint PDF. We confirm that the galaxy density contrast distribution is well modelled by a lognormal PDF convolved with Poisson noise at angular scales from 10 to 40 arcmin (corresponding to physical scales of 3-10 Mpc). We note that as kappa(WL) is a weighted sum of the mass fluctuations along the line of sight, its PDF is expected to be only approximately lognormal. We find that the kappa(WL) distribution is well modelled by a lognormal PDF convolved with Gaussian shape noise at scales between 10 and 20 arcmin, with a best-fitting chi(2)/dof of 1.11 compared to 1.84 for a Gaussian model, corresponding to p-values 0.35 and 0.07, respectively, at a scale of 10 arcmin. Above 20 arcmin a simple Gaussian model is sufficient. The joint PDF is also reasonably fitted by a bivariate lognormal. As a consistency check, we compare the variances derived from the lognormal modelling with those directly measured via CiC. Our methods are validated against maps from the MICE Grand Challenge N-body simulation.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; European Research Council ; US Department of Energy ; US National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Funding Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey ; National Science Foundation ; MINECO ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa ; European Research Council under the European Union ; ICREA ; Science and Technology Facilities Council ; European Research Council: ERC-StG-335936 ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; MINECO: AYA2012-39559 ; MINECO: ESP2013-48274 ; MINECO: FPA2013-47986 ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa: SEV-2012-0234 ; European Research Council under the European Union: 240672 ; European Research Council under the European Union: 291329 ; European Research Council under the European Union: 306478 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/N000668/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K00090X/1 ; The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) harbours a rich and diverse system of star clusters, whose ages, chemical abundances and positions provide information about the LMC history of star formation. We use Science Verification imaging data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) to increase the census of known star clusters in the outer LMC and to derive physical parameters for a large sample of such objects using a spatially and photometrically homogeneous data set. Our sample contains 255 visually identified cluster candidates, of which 109 were not listed in any previous catalogue. We quantify the crowding effect for the stellar sample produced by the DES Data Management pipeline and conclude that the stellar completeness is < 10 per cent inside typical LMC cluster cores. We therefore reanalysed the DES co-add images around each candidate cluster and remeasured positions and magnitudes for their stars. We also implement a maximum-likelihood method to fit individual density profiles and colour-magnitude diagrams. For 117 (from a total of 255) of the cluster candidates (28 uncatalogued clusters), we obtain reliable ages, metallicities, distance moduli and structural parameters, confirming their nature as physical systems. The distribution of cluster metallicities shows a radial dependence, with no clusters more metal rich than [Fe/H] similar or equal to -0.7 beyond 8 kpc from the LMC centre. The age distribution has two peaks at similar or equal to 1.2 and similar or equal to 2.7 Gyr.

U.S. Department of Energy ; U.S. National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Funding Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey ; National Science Foundation ; MINECO ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa ; European Research Council under the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) ERC ; Science and Technology Facilities Council ; ICREA ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; MINECO: AYA2012-39559 ; MINECO: ESP201348274 ; MINECO: FPA2013-47986 ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa: SEV-2012-0234 ; European Research Council under the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) ERC: 240672 ; European Research Council under the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) ERC: 291329 ; European Research Council under the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) ERC: 306478 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/M001334/1 ; Measurements of the galaxy stellar mass function are crucial to understand the formation of galaxies in the Universe. In a hierarchical clustering paradigm, it is plausible that there is a connection between the properties of galaxies and their environments. Evidence for environmental trends has been established in the local Universe. The Dark Energy Survey (DES) provides large photometric data sets that enable further investigation of the assembly of mass. In this study, we use similar to 3.2 million galaxies from the (South Pole Telescope) SPTEast field in the DES science verification (SV) data set. From grizY photometry, we derive galaxy stellar masses and absolute magnitudes, and determine the errors on these properties using Monte Carlo simulations using the full photometric redshift probability distributions. We compute galaxy environments using a fixed conical aperture for a range of scales. We construct galaxy environment probability distribution functions and investigate the dependence of the environment errors on the aperture parameters. We compute the environment components of the galaxy stellar mass function for the redshift range 0.15 < z < 1.05. For z < 0.75, we find that the fraction of massive galaxies is larger in high-density environment than in lowdensity environments. We show that the low-density and high-density components converge with increasing redshift up to z similar to 1.0 where the shapes of the mass function components are indistinguishable. Our study shows how high-density structures build up around massive galaxies through cosmic time.

Reproduced with permission of AAS ; We present chemical abundance measurements of three stars in the ultrafaint dwarf galaxy Horologium I, a Milky Way satellite discovered by the Dark Energy Survey. Using high-resolution spectroscopic observations, we measure the metallicity of the three stars, as well as abundance ratios of several α-elements, iron-peak elements, and neutron-capture elements. The abundance pattern is relatively consistent among all three stars, which have a low average metallicity of [Fe/H] ∼ -2.6 and are not α-enhanced ([α/Fe] ∼ 0.0). This result is unexpected when compared to other low-metallicity stars in the Galactic halo and other ultrafaint dwarfs and suggests the possibility of a different mechanism for the enrichment of Hor I compared to other satellites. We discuss possible scenarios that could lead to this observed nucleosynthetic signature, including extended star formation, enrichment by a Population III supernova, and or an association with the Large Magellanic Cloud ; Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico and the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. The DES data management system is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant nos. AST-1138766 and AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MINECO under grants AYA2015-71825, ESP2015-88861, FPA2015-68048, SEV- 2012-0234, SEV-2016-0597, and MDM-2015-0509, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union. IFAE is partially funded by the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007- 2013), including ERC grant agreements 240672, 291329, and 306478. We acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO), through project no. CE110001020

U.S. Department of Energy ; U.S. National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Funding Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology andAstro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Ministerio da Ciencia ; Tecnologia e Inovacao ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey ; National Science Foundation ; MINECO ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)/including ERC grant ; NASA through the Einstein Fellowship Program ; ICREA ; Science and Technology Facilities Council ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; MINECO: AYA2012-39559 ; MINECO: ESP2013-48274 ; MINECO: FPA2013-47986 ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa: SEV-2012-0234 ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)/including ERC grant: 240672 ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)/including ERC grant: 291329 ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)/including ERC grant: 306478 ; NASA through the Einstein Fellowship Program: PF5-160138 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/L000768/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/M001334/1 ; Cosmic voids are usually identified in spectroscopic galaxy surveys, where 3D information about the large-scale structure of the Universe is available. Although an increasing amount of photometric data is being produced, its potential for void studies is limited since photometric redshifts induce line-of-sight position errors of >= 50 Mpc h(-1)which can render many voids undetectable. We present a new void finder designed for photometric surveys, validate it using simulations, and apply it to the high-quality photo-z redMaGiC galaxy sample of the DES Science Verification data. The algorithm works by projecting galaxies into 2D slices and finding voids in the smoothed 2D galaxy density field of the slice. Fixing the line-of-sight size of the slices to be at least twice the photo-z scatter, the number of voids found in simulated spectroscopic and photometric galaxy catalogues is within 20 per cent for all transverse void sizes, and indistinguishable for the largest voids (R-v >= 70 Mpc h(-1)). The positions, radii, and projected galaxy profiles of photometric voids also accurately match the spectroscopic void sample. Applying the algorithm to the DES-SV data in the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.8, we identify 87 voids with comoving radii spanning the range 18-120 Mpc h(-1), and carry out a stacked weak lensing measurement. With a significance of 4.4 sigma, the lensing measurement confirms that the voids are truly underdense in the matter field and hence not a product of Poisson noise, tracer density effects or systematics in the data. It also demonstrates, for the first time in real data, the viability of void lensing studies in photometric surveys.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) ; U.S. Department of Energy ; U.S. National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Fending Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey ; Argonne National Laboratory ; University of California at Santa Cruz ; University of Cambridge ; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid ; University of Chicago ; University College London ; DES-Brazil Consortium ; University of Edinburgh ; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich ; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC) ; Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies ; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ; Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen ; associated Excellence Cluster Universe ; University of Michigan ; National Optical Astronomy Observatory ; University of Nottingham ; Ohio State University ; University of Pennsylvania ; University of Portsmouth ; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University ; University of Sussex ; Texas AM University ; OzDES Membership Consortium ; National Science foundation ; MINECO ; European Union ; CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) ; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO) ; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics ; CNPq: 141935/2014-6 ; CNPq: 465376/2014-2 ; National Science foundation: AST-1138766 ; National Science foundation: AST-1536171 ; MINECO: AYA2015-71825 ; MINECO: ESP2015-66861 ; MINECO: FPA2015-68048 ; MINECO: SEV-2016-0588 ; MINECO: SEV-2016-0597 ; MINECO: MDM-2015-0509 ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013): 240672 ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013): 291329 ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013): 306478 ; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO): CE110001020 ; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics: DE-AC02-07CH11359 ; 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.

Despite vast improvements in the measurement of the cosmological parameters, the nature of dark energy and an accurate value of the Hubble constant (H-0) in the Hubble-Lemaitre law remain unknown. To break the current impasse, it is necessary to develop as many independent techniques as possible, such as the use of Type II supernovae (SNe II). The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the utility of SNe II for deriving accurate extragalactic distances, which will be an asset for the next generation of telescopes where more-distant SNe II will be discovered. More specifically, we present a sample from the Dark Energy Survey Supernova Program (DES-SN) consisting of 15 SNe II with photometric and spectroscopic information spanning a redshift range up to 0.35. Combining our DES SNe with publicly available samples, and using the standard candle method (SCM), we construct the largest available Hubble diagram with SNe II in the Hubble flow (70 SNe II) and find an observed dispersion of 0.27 mag. We demonstrate that adding a colour term to the SN II standardization does not reduce the scatter in the Hubble diagram. Although SNe II are viable as distance indicators, this work points out important issues for improving their utility as independent extragalactic beacons: find new correlations, define a more standard subclass of SNe II, construct new SN II templates, and dedicate more observing time to high-redshift SNe II. Finally, for the first time, we perform simulations to estimate the redshift-dependent distance-modulus bias due to selection effects. ; National Science Foundation (NSF) AST-1211916 TABASGO Foundation, Gary and Cynthia Bengier Christopher R. Redlich Fund Sylvia and Jim Katzman Foundation Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science (UC Berkeley) - European Union 839090 Spanish grant PGC2018-095317-B-C21 European Union (EU) EU/FP7-ERC grant 615929 National Science Foundation (NSF) Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) collaboration includes the astronomical communities of Japan Princeton University Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) University of Tokyo High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) FIRST programme from the Japanese Cabinet Office Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT) Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT) Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Japan Science & Technology Agency (JST) Toray Industries, Inc. Institute for Astronomy (the University of Hawaii) Max Planck Society Foundation CELLEX National Central University of Taiwan Space Telescope Science Institute National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) NNX08AR22G National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) National Science Foundation (NSF) AST-1238877 University of Maryland Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE) National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) W.M. Keck Foundation National Research Council of Canada Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) National Research Council Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) Australian Research Council National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas (CONICET) GN-2005A-Q11 GN-2005B-Q-7 GN-2006A-Q-7 GS-2005A-Q-11 GS-2005BQ-6 GS-2008B-Q-56 United States Department of Energy (DOE) Spanish Government Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Higher Education Funding Council for England National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Ohio State University Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University Ciencia Tecnologia e Inovacao (FINEP) Fundacao Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient'tronomy at Texas AM University German Research Foundation (DFG) University of Portsmouth OzDES Membership Consortium National Science Foundation (NSF) AST-1138766 AST-1536171 AYA2015-71825 ESP2015-66861 FPA2015-68048 SEV2016-0588 SEV-2016-0597 European Union (EU) European Union - CERCA programme of the Generalitat de Catalunya European Research Council (ERC) European Research Council (ERC) 240672 291329 306478 National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) 465376/2014-2 United States Department of Energy (DOE) United States Department of Energy (DOE) DE-AC02-05CH11231 United States Department of Energy (DOE) DE-AC02-05CH11231

US Department of Energy ; US National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Funding Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Center for Particle Cosmology at the University of Pennsylvania ; Warren Center at the University of Pennsylvania ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Ministerio da Ciencia e Tecnologia ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; National Science Foundation ; MINECO ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa ; European Union ; Argonne National Laboratory ; University of California at Santa Cruz ; University of Cambridge ; University of Chicago ; University College London ; DES-Brazil Consortium ; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich ; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ; University of Edinburgh ; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC) ; Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies ; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ; Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat ; associated Excellence Cluster Universe ; University of Michigan ; National Optical Astronomy Observatory ; University of Nottingham ; Ohio State University ; University of Pennsylvania ; University of Portsmouth ; University of Sussex ; Texas AM University ; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory ; Stanford University ; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid ; Science and Technology Facilities Council ; ICREA ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; MINECO: AYA2012-39559 ; MINECO: ESP2013-48274 ; MINECO: FPA2013-47986 ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa: SEV-2012-0234 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/M001334/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/L000768/1 ; We present cosmological constraints from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) using a combined analysis of angular clustering of red galaxies and their cross-correlation with weak gravitational lensing of background galaxies. We use a 139 deg(2) contiguous patch of DES data from the Science Verification (SV) period of observations. Using large-scale measurements, we constrain the matter density of the Universe as Omega(m) = 0.31 +/- 0.09 and the clustering amplitude of the matter power spectrum as sigma(8) = 0.74 +/- 0.13 after marginalizing over seven nuisance parameters and three additional cosmological parameters. This translates into S-8 = sigma(8)(Omega(m)/0.3)(0.16) = 0.74 +/- 0.12 for our fiducial lens redshift bin at 0.35 < z < 0.5, while S-8 = 0.78 +/- 0.09 using two bins over the range 0.2 < z < 0.5. We study the robustness of the results under changes in the data vectors, modelling and systematics treatment, including photometric redshift and shear calibration uncertainties, and find consistency in the derived cosmological parameters. We show that our results are consistent with previous cosmological analyses from DES and other data sets and conclude with a joint analysis of DES angular clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing with Planck Cosmic Microwave Background data, baryon accoustic oscillations and Supernova Type Ia measurements.

Spanish Ramon y Cajal MICINN program ; Ohio State University Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics ; Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad ; Juan de la Cierva fellowship ; 'Plan Estatal de Investigacion Cientfica y Tecnica y de Innovacion' program of the Spanish government ; U.S. Department of Energy ; U.S. National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Funding Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; Argonne National Laboratory ; University of California at Santa Cruz ; University of Cambridge ; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid ; University of Chicago ; University College London ; DES-Brazil Consortium ; University of Edinburgh ; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich ; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC) ; Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies ; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ; Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen ; University of Michigan ; National Optical Astronomy Observatory ; University of Nottingham ; Ohio State University ; University of Pennsylvania ; University of Portsmouth ; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory ; Stanford University ; University of Sussex ; Texas AM University ; OzDES Membership Consortium ; National Science Foundation ; MINECO ; ERDF funds from the European Union ; CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) ; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO) ; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, and Office of High Energy Physics ; Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad: ESP2013-48274-C3-1-P ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; National Science Foundation: AST-1536171 ; MINECO: AYA2015-71825 ; MINECO: ESP2015-66861 ; MINECO: FPA2015-68048 ; MINECO: SEV-2016-0588 ; MINECO: SEV-2016-0597 ; MINECO: MDM-2015-0509 ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013): 240672 ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013): 291329 ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013): 306478 ; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO): CE110001020 ; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, and Office of High Energy Physics: DE-AC02-07CH11359 ; 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.

U.S. Department of Energy ; U.S. National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Funding Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; Argonne National Laboratory ; University of California at Santa Cruz ; University of Cambridge ; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid ; University of Chicago ; University College London ; DES-Brazil Consortium ; University of Edinburgh ; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich ; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC) ; Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ; Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen ; associated Excellence Cluster Universe ; University of Michigan ; National Optical Astronomy Observatory ; University of Nottingham ; Ohio State University ; University of Pennsylvania ; University of Portsmouth ; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University ; University of Sussex ; Texas AM University ; National Science Foundation ; MINECO ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa ; European Research Council under the European Union ; ERC ; NSF Physics Frontier Center ; Kavli Foundation ; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation ; European Research Council ; CNES ; Royal Society of New Zealand Rutherford Foundation Trust ; Cambridge Commonwealth Trust ; University of Melbourne ; DOE ; ICREA ; Science and Technology Facilities Council ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; National Science Foundation: PLR-1248097 ; MINECO: AYA2012-39559 ; MINECO: ESP2013-48274 ; MINECO: FPA2013-47986 ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa: SEV-2012-0234 ; ERC: 240672 ; ERC: 291329 ; ERC: 306478 ; NSF Physics Frontier Center: PHY-0114422 ; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation: 947 ; European Research Council: FP7/291329 ; DOE: DE-AC02-98CH10886 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K00090X/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/N000668/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/L000768/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/M001334/1 ; We measure the cross-correlation between weak lensing of galaxy images and of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The effects of gravitational lensing on different sources will be correlated if the lensing is caused by the same mass fluctuations. We use galaxy shape measurements from 139 deg(2) of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Science Verification data and overlapping CMB lensing from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and Planck. The DES source galaxies have a median redshift of z(med) similar to 0.7, while the CMB lensing kernel is broad and peaks at z similar to 2. The resulting cross-correlation is maximally sensitive to mass fluctuations at z similar to 0.44. Assuming the Planck 2015 best-fitting cosmology, the amplitude of the DESxSPT cross-power is found to be A(SPT) = 0.88 +/- 0.30 and that from DESxPlanck to be A(Planck) = 0.86 +/- 0.39, where A = 1 corresponds to the theoretical prediction. These are consistent with the expected signal and correspond to significances of 2.9 sigma and 2.2 sigma, respectively. We demonstrate that our results are robust to a number of important systematic effects including the shear measurement method, estimator choice, photo-z uncertainty and CMB lensing systematics. We calculate a value of A = 1.08 +/- 0.36 for DESxSPT when we correct the observations with a simple intrinsic alignment model. With three measurements of this cross-correlation now existing in the literature, there is not yet reliable evidence for any deviation from the expected LCDM level of cross-correlation. We provide forecasts for the expected signal-to-noise ratio of the combination of the five-year DES survey and SPT-3G.

U.S. Department of Energy ; U.S. National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Funding Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; Argonne National Laboratory ; University of California at Santa Cruz ; University of Cambridge ; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid ; University of Chicago ; University College London ; DES-Brazil Consortium ; University of Edinburgh ; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich ; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC) ; Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies ; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ; Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen ; associated Excellence Cluster Universe ; University of Michigan ; National Optical Astronomy Observatory ; University of Nottingham ; Ohio State University ; University of Pennsylvania ; University of Portsmouth ; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory ; Stanford University ; University of Sussex ; Texas AM University ; National Science Foundation ; MINECO ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa ; European Research Council under the European Union, ERC ; NSF ; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) ; ICREA ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; MINECO: AYA2012-39559 ; MINECO: ESP2013-48274 ; MINECO: FPA2013-47986 ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa: SEV-2012-0234 ; European Research Council under the European Union, ERC: 240672 ; European Research Council under the European Union, ERC: 291329 ; European Research Council under the European Union, ERC: 306478 ; NSF: AST-1518052 ; Processo FAPESP: 2015/12338-1 ; The collapse of a stellar core is expected to produce gravitational waves (GWs), neutrinos, and in most cases a luminous supernova. Sometimes, however, the optical event could be significantly less luminous than a supernova and a direct collapse to a black hole, where the star just disappears, is possible. The GW event GW150914 was detected by the LIGO Virgo Collaboration via a burst analysis that gave localization contours enclosing the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Shortly thereafter, we used DECam to observe 102 deg(2) of the localization area, including 38 deg(2) on the LMC for a missing supergiant search. We construct a complete catalog of LMC luminous red supergiants, the best candidates to undergo invisible core collapse, and collected catalogs of other candidates: less luminous red supergiants, yellow supergiants, blue supergiants, luminous blue variable stars, and Wolf-Rayet stars. Of the objects in the imaging region, all are recovered in the images. The timescale for stellar disappearance is set by the free-fall time, which is a function of the stellar radius. Our observations at 4 and 13 days after the event result in a search sensitive to objects of up to about 200 solar radii. We conclude that it is unlikely that GW150914 was caused by the core collapse of a relatively compact supergiant in the LMC, consistent with the LIGO Collaboration analyses of the gravitational waveform as best interpreted as a high mass binary black hole merger. We discuss how to generalize this search for future very nearby core-collapse candidates.

U.S. Department of Energy ; U.S. National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Funding Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; Argonne National Laboratory ; University of California at Santa Cruz ; University of Cambridge ; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid ; University of Chicago ; University College London ; DES-Brazil Consortium ; University of Edinburgh ; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich ; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC) ; Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies ; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ; Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen ; University of Michigan ; National Optical Astronomy Observatory ; University of Nottingham ; Ohio State University ; University of Pennsylvania ; University of Portsmouth ; SLACNational Accelerator Laboratory ; Stanford University ; University of Sussex ; Texas AM University ; OzDES Membership Consortium ; National Science Foundation ; MINECO ; ERDF funds from the European Union ; CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) ; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO) ; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics ; Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy ; NSF ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; National Science Foundation: AST-1536171 ; MINECO: AYA2015-71825 ; MINECO: ESP2015-88861 ; MINECO: FPA2015-68048 ; MINECO: SEV-2012-0234 ; MINECO: SEV-2016-0597 ; MINECO: MDM-2015-0509 ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013): 240672 ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013): 291329 ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013): 306478 ; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO): CE110001020 ; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics: DE-AC02-07CH11359 ; Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy: DE-AC02-05CH11231 ; NSF: ACI-1445606 ; We present constraints on extensions of the minimal cosmological models dominated by dark matter and dark energy, Lambda CDM and wCDM, by using a combined analysis of galaxy clustering and weak gravitational lensing from the first-year data of the Dark Energy Survey (DES Y1) in combination with external data. We consider four extensions of the minimal dark energy-dominated scenarios: (1) nonzero curvature Omega(k), (2) number of relativistic species N-eff different from the standard value of 3.046, (3) time-varying equation-of-state of dark energy described by the parameters w(0) and w(a) (alternatively quoted by the values at the pivot redshift, w(p), and w(a)), and (4) modified gravity described by the parameters is mu(0) and Sigma(0) that modify the metric potentials. We also consider external information from Planck cosmic microwave background measurements; baryon acoustic oscillation measurements from SDSS, 6dF, and BOSS; redshift-space distortion measurements from BOSS; and type Ia supernova information from the Pantheon compilation of datasets. Constraints on curvature and the number of relativistic species are dominated by the external data; when these are combined with DES Y1, we find Omega(k) = 0.0020(-0.0032)(+0.0037) at the 68% confidence level, and the upper limit N-eff 3.0. For the time-varying equation-of-state, we find the pivot value (w(p), w(a)) = (-0.91(-0.23)(+0.19), -0.57(-1.11)(+0.93)) at pivot redshift z(p )= 0.27 from DES alone, and (w(p), w(a)) = (-1.01(-0.04)(+0.04), -0.28(-0.48)(+0.37)) at z(p) = 0.20 from DES Y1 combined with external data; in either case we find no evidence for the temporal variation of the equation of state. For modified gravity, we find the present-day value of the relevant parameters to be Sigma(0) = 0.43(-)(0.29)(+0.28) from DES Y1 alone, and (Sigma(0), mu(0)) = (0.06(-0.07)(+0.08), -0.11(-0.46)(+0.42)) from DES Y1 combined with external data. These modified-gravity constraints are consistent with predictions from general relativity.

Ohio State University Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics ; Spanish Ramon y Cajal MICINN program ; Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad ; Juan de la Cierva fellowship ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) ; 'Plan Estatal de Investigacion Cientfica y Tecnica y de Innovacion' program of the Spanish government ; U.S. Department of Energy ; U.S. National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Funding Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; Argonne National Laboratory ; University of California at Santa Cruz ; University of Cambridge ; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas ; Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid ; University of Chicago ; University College London ; DES-Brazil Consortium ; University of Edinburgh ; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich ; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC) ; Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies ; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ; Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen ; associated Excellence Cluster Universe ; University of Michigan ; National Optical Astronomy Observatory ; University of Nottingham ; Ohio State University ; University of Pennsylvania ; University of Portsmouth ; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory ; Stanford University ; University of Sussex ; Texas AM University ; OzDES Membership Consortium ; National Science Foundation ; MINECO ; ERDF funds from the European Union ; CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya ; European Research Council under the European Union ; ERC ; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence ; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics ; Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad: ESP2013-48274-C3-1-P ; CNPq: 465376/2014-2 ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; National Science Foundation: AST-1536171 ; MINECO: AYA2015-71825 ; MINECO: ESP2015-66861 ; MINECO: FPA2015-68048 ; MINECO: SEV-2016-0588 ; MINECO: SEV-2016-0597 ; MINECO: MDM-2015-0509 ; ERC: 240672 ; ERC: 291329 ; ERC: 306478 ; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence: CE110001020 ; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics: DE-AC02-07CH11359 ; We present angular diameter distance measurements obtained by locating the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) scale in the distribution of galaxies selected from the first year of Dark Energy Survey data. We consider a sample of over 1.3 million galaxies distributed over a footprint of 1336 deg(2) with 0.6 < z(photo) < 1 and a typical redshift uncertainty of 0.03(1 + z). This sample was selected, as fully described in a companion paper, using a colour/magnitude selection that optimizes trade-offs between number density and redshift uncertainty. We investigate the BAO signal in the projected clustering using three conventions, the angular separation, the comoving transverse separation, and spherical harmonics. Further, we compare results obtained from template-based and machine-learning photometric redshift determinations. We use 1800 simulations that approximate our sample in order to produce covariance matrices and allow us to validate our distance scale measurement methodology. We measure the angular diameter distance, D-A, at the effective redshift of our sample divided by the true physical scale of the BAO feature, r(d). We obtain close to a 4 per cent distance measurement of D-A (z(eff )= 0.81)/r(d) = 10.75 +/- 0.43. These results are consistent with the flat A cold dark matter concordance cosmological model supported by numerous other recent experimental results.