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Purpose– Virtual environments (VEs) that represent real spaces (RSs) give people who are blind the opportunity to build a cognitive map in advance that they will be able to use when arriving at the RS. The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approach– In this research study Nintendo Wii-based technology was used for exploring VEs via the Wiici application. The Wiimote allows the user to interact with VEs by simulating walking and scanning the space.Findings– By getting haptic and auditory feedback the user learned to explore new spaces. The authors examined the participants' abilities to explore new simple and complex places, construct a cognitive map, and perform orientation tasks in the RS.Originality/value– To the authors' knowledge, this finding presents the first VE for people who are blind that allow the participants to scan the environment and by this to construct map model spatial representations.

The Astrophysical Journal 806.1 (2015): 4 reproduced by permission of the AAS ; We present a new determination of the concentration-mass (c-M) relation for galaxy clusters based on our comprehensive lensing analysis of 19 X-ray selected galaxy clusters from the Cluster Lensing and Supernova Survey with Hubble (CLASH). Our sample spans a redshift range between 0.19 and 0.89. We combine weak-lensing constraints from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and from ground-based wide-field data with strong lensing constraints from HST. The results are reconstructions of the surface-mass density for all CLASH clusters on multi-scale grids. Our derivation of Navarro-Frenk-White parameters yields virial masses between 0.53 x 10 15 M⊙/ h and 1.76 x 10 15 M⊙/ h and the halo concentrations are distributed around c200c∼3.7 with a 1σ significant negative slope with cluster mass. We find an excellent 4% agreement in the median ratio of our measured concentrations for each cluster and the respective expectation from numerical simulations after accounting for the CLASH selection function based on X-ray morphology. The simulations are analyzed in two dimensions to account for possible biases in the lensing reconstructions due to projection effects. The theoretical c-M relation from our X-ray selected set of simulated clusters and the c-M relation derived directly from the CLASH data agree at the 90% confidence level ; The research was in part carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. J. M. has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under REA grant agreement number 627288. M. M. thanks ORAU and NASA for supporting his research at JPL and acknowledges support from the contract ASI/INAF I/023/12/0, INFN/PD51, and the PRIN MIUR 20102011 "The dark universe and the cosmic evolution of baryons: from current surveys to Euclid." K. U. acknowledges support from the National Science Council of Taiwan (grant NSC100-2112-M-001-008-MY3) and from the Academia Sinica Career Development Award. Support for A. Z. is provided by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant #HST-HF-51334.01 A awarded by STScI. D. G., S. S. and P. R. were supported by SFB Transregio 33 "The Dark universe" by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the DFG cluster of excellence "Origin and Structure of the universe." This work was supported in part by contract research "Internationale Spitzenforschung II/2-6" of the Baden Württemberg Stiftung. The Dark Cosmology Centre is funded by the DNRF. J. S. was supported by NSF/AST1313447, NASA/NNX11AB07G, and the Norris Foundation CCAT Postdoctoral Fellowship. E.R. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation AST-1210973, SAO TM3-14008X (issued under NASA Contract No. NAS8-03060)

We present accurate photometric redshifts for galaxies observed by the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH). CLASH observed 25 massive galaxy cluster cores with the Hubble Space Telescope in 16 filters spanning 0.2-1.7 μm. Photometry in such crowded fields is challenging. Compared to our previously released catalogues, we make several improvements to the photometry, including smaller apertures, intracluster light subtraction, point spread function matching and empirically measured uncertainties. We further improve the Bayesian photometric redshift estimates by adding a redder elliptical template and by inflating the photometric uncertainties of the brightest galaxies. The resulting photometric redshift accuracies are dz/(1+z) ~ 0.8, 1.0 and 2.0 per cent for galaxies with I-band F814W AB magnitudes < 18, 20 and 23, respectively. These results are consistent with our expectations. They improve on our previously reported accuracies by a factor of 4 at the bright end and a factor of 2 at the faint end. Our new catalogue includes 1257 spectroscopic redshifts, including 382 confirmed cluster members. We also provide stellar mass estimates. Finally, we include lensing magnification estimates of background galaxies based on our public lens models. Our new catalogue of all 25 CLASH clusters is available via Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes. The analysis techniques developed here will be useful in other surveys of crowded fields, including the Frontier Fields and surveys carried out with Javalambre-Physics of the Accelerated Universe Astrophysical Survey and James Webb Space Telescope.© 2017 The Authors. ; We acknowledge the financial support of the Brazilian funding agency FAPESP (Post-doc fellowship - process number 2014/11806-9). Likewise, we also acknowledge the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia through grant AYA2006-14056 BES-2007-16280. We acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish MICINN under the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Program grant CSD2006-00070: First Science with the GTC. AM acknowledges the CEFCA (Centro de Estudios de Fisica del Cosmos de Aragon) and the IAA-CSIC (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia) institutes for hosting him during the period 2015/2016. PR, MM, AMe and MN acknowledge the financial support from PRIN-INAF 2014 1.05.01.94.02. Likewise, AMacknowledges the STScI (Space Telescope Science Institute) for hosting him during 2010 AugustSeptember, 2011 June-August and 2016 July. We acknowledge the financial support of ESO since most of the spectroscopic redshifts used in the work were based on ESO VLT programme ID 186.A-0798. BA has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 656354. ; Peer Reviewed

Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO) ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa ; 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 Universitar Munchen ; 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 Research Council under the European Union ; NASA ; Science and Technology Facilities Council ; ICREA ; Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO): FPA2012-39684 ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa: SEV-2012-0234 ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa: SEV-2012-0249 ; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas: SEV-2012-0234 ; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas: SEV-2012-0249 ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; MINECO: AYA2012-39559 ; MINECO: ESP2013-48274 ; MINECO: FPA2013-47986 ; European Research Council under the European Union: 240672 ; European Research Council under the European Union: 291329 ; European Research Council under the European Union: 306478 ; NASA: PF5-160138 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/M001334/1 ; Small temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) can be sourced by density perturbations via the late-time integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect. Large voids and superclusters are excellent environments to make a localized measurement of this tiny imprint. In some cases excess signals have been reported. We probed these claims with an independent data set, using the first year data of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) in a different footprint, and using a different superstructure finding strategy. We identified 52 large voids and 102 superclusters at redshifts 0.2 < z < 0.65. We used the Jubilee simulation to a priori evaluate the optimal ISW measurement configuration for our compensated top-hat filtering technique, and then performed a stacking measurement of the CMB temperature field based on the DES data. For optimal configurations, we detected a cumulative cold imprint of voids with Delta T-f approximate to -5.0 +/- 3.7 mu K and a hot imprint of superclusters Delta T-f approximate to 5.1 +/- 3.2 mu K; this is similar to 1.2 sigma higher than the expected vertical bar Delta T-f vertical bar approximate to 0.6 mu K imprint of such superstructures in Lambda cold dark matter (Lambda CDM). If we instead use an a posteriori selected filter size (R/R-v = 0.6), we can find a temperature decrement as large as Delta T-f approximate to -9.8 +/- 4.7 mu K for voids, which is similar to 2 sigma above Lambda CDM expectations and is comparable to previous measurements made using Sloan Digital Sky Survey superstructure data.

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.

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.

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.

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 ; 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 ; We report the results of a deep search for an optical counterpart to the gravitational wave (GW) event GW150914, the first trigger from the Advanced LIGO GW detectors. We used the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) to image a 102 deg(2) area, corresponding to 38% of the initial trigger high-probability sky region and to 11% of the revised high-probability region. We observed in the i and z bands at 4-5, 7, and 24 days after the trigger. The median 5 sigma point-source limiting magnitudes of our search images are i = 22.5 and z = 21.8 mag. We processed the images through a difference-imaging pipeline using templates from pre-existing Dark Energy Survey data and publicly available DECam data. Due to missing template observations and other losses, our effective search area subtends 40 deg(2), corresponding to a 12% total probability in the initial map and 3% in the final map. In this area, we search for objects that decline significantly between days 4-5 and day 7, and are undetectable by day 24, finding none to typical magnitude limits of i = 21.5, 21.1, 20.1 for object colors (i - z) = 1, 0, - 1, respectively. Our search demonstrates the feasibility of a dedicated search program with DECam and bodes well for future research in this emerging field.