59,076 research outputs found
K+a galaxies in the zCOSMOS Survey: Physical properties of systems in their post-starburst phase
The identities of the main processes triggering and quenching star-formation
in galaxies remain unclear. A key stage in evolution, however, appears to be
represented by post-starburst galaxies. To investigate their impact on galaxy
evolution, we initiated a multiwavelength study of galaxies with k+a spectral
features in the COSMOS field. We examine a mass-selected sample of k+a galaxies
at z=0.48-1.2 using the spectroscopic zCOSMOS sample. K+a galaxies occupy the
brightest tail of the luminosity distribution. They are as massive as quiescent
galaxies and populate the green valley in the colour versus luminosity (or
stellar mass) distribution. A small percentage (<8%) of these galaxies have
radio and/or X-ray counterparts (implying an upper limit to the SFR of
~8Msun/yr). Over the entire redshift range explored, the class of k+a galaxies
is morphologically a heterogeneous population with a similar incidence of
bulge-dominated and disky galaxies. This distribution does not vary with the
strength of the Hdelta absorption line but instead with stellar mass in a way
reminiscent of the well-known mass-morphology relation. Although k+a galaxies
are also found in underdense regions, they appear to reside typically in a
similarly rich environment as quiescent galaxies on a physical scale of
~2-8Mpc, and in groups they show a morphological early-to-late type ratio
similar to the quiescent galaxy class. With the current data set, we do not
find evidence of statistical significant evolution in either the number/mass
density of k+a galaxies at intermediate redshift with respect to the local
values, or the spectral properties. Those galaxies, which are affected by a
sudden quenching of their star-formation activity, may increase the stellar
mass of the red-sequence by up to a non-negligible level of ~10%.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysics on 09/09/2009 (no changes wrt v1
A realistic assessment of the CTA sensitivity to dark matter annihilation
We estimate the sensitivity of the upcoming CTA gamma-ray telescope to DM
annihilation at the Galactic centre, improving on previous analyses in a number
of significant ways. First, we perform a detailed analyses of all backgrounds,
including diffuse astrophysical emission for the first time in a study of this
type. Second, we present a statistical framework for including systematic
errors and estimate the consequent degradation in sensitivity. These errors may
come from e.g. event reconstruction, Monte Carlo determination of the effective
area or uncertainty in atmospheric conditions. Third, we show that performing
the analysis on a set of suitably optimised regions of interest makes it
possible to partially compensate for the degradation in sensitivity caused by
systematics and diffuse emission. To probe dark matter with the canonical
thermal annihilation cross-section, CTA systematics like non-uniform variations
in acceptance over a single field of view must be kept below the 0.3% level,
unless the dark matter density rises more steeply in the centre of the Galaxy
than predicted by a typical Navarro-Frenk-White or Einasto profile. For a
contracted profile, and systematics at the 1% level, CTA can probe
annihilation to at the canonical thermal level for dark matter
masses between 100 GeV and 10 TeV.Comment: V2: 25 pages, 7 figures, numerical bug fixed, exclusion limits
weakened by approximately 30%, main conclusions unchange
Detection of curved lines with B-COSFIRE filters: A case study on crack delineation
The detection of curvilinear structures is an important step for various
computer vision applications, ranging from medical image analysis for
segmentation of blood vessels, to remote sensing for the identification of
roads and rivers, and to biometrics and robotics, among others. %The visual
system of the brain has remarkable abilities to detect curvilinear structures
in noisy images. This is a nontrivial task especially for the detection of thin
or incomplete curvilinear structures surrounded with noise. We propose a
general purpose curvilinear structure detector that uses the brain-inspired
trainable B-COSFIRE filters. It consists of four main steps, namely nonlinear
filtering with B-COSFIRE, thinning with non-maximum suppression, hysteresis
thresholding and morphological closing. We demonstrate its effectiveness on a
data set of noisy images with cracked pavements, where we achieve
state-of-the-art results (F-measure=0.865). The proposed method can be employed
in any computer vision methodology that requires the delineation of curvilinear
and elongated structures.Comment: Accepted at Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns (CAIP) 201
ALFALFA HI Data Stacking I. Does the Bulge Quench Ongoing Star Formation in Early-Type Galaxies?
We have carried out an HI stacking analysis of a volume-limited sample of
~5000 galaxies with imaging and spectroscopic data from GALEX and the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey, which lie within the current footprint of the Arecibo
Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) Survey. Our galaxies are selected to have stellar
masses greater than 10^10 Msun and redshifts in the range 0.025<z<0.05. We
extract a sub-sample of 1833 "early-type" galaxies with inclinations less than
70deg, with concentration indices C>2.6 and with light profiles that are well
fit by a De Vaucouleurs model. We then stack HI line spectra extracted from the
ALFALFA data cubes at the 3-D positions of the galaxies from these two samples
in bins of stellar mass, stellar mass surface density, central velocity
dispersion, and NUV-r colour. We use the stacked spectra to estimate the
average HI gas fractions M_HI/M_* of the galaxies in each bin.
Our main result is that the HI content of a galaxy is not influenced by its
bulge. The average HI gas fractions of galaxies in both our samples correlate
most strongly with NUV-r colour and with stellar surface density. The relation
between average HI fraction and these two parameters is independent of
concentration index C. We have tested whether the average HI gas content of
bulge-dominated galaxies on the red sequence, differs from that of late-type
galaxies on the red sequence. We find no evidence that galaxies with a
significant bulge component are less efficient at turning their available gas
reservoirs into stars. This result is in contradiction with the "morphological
quenching" scenario proposed by Martig et al. (2009).Comment: 21 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Version with
high resolution figures available at
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/GASS/pubs.ph
Morphological studies of the Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic survey galaxy population in the UGC 10214 Hubble space telescope/advanced camera for surveys field
We present the results of a morphological analysis of a small subset of the Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic survey (SWIRE) galaxy population. The analysis is based on public Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) data taken inside the SWIRE N1 field, which are the deepest optical high-resolution imaging available within the SWIRE fields as of today. Our reference sample includes 156 galaxies detected by both ACS and SWIRE. Among the various galaxy morphologies, we disentangle two main classes, spheroids (or bulge-dominated galaxies) and disc-dominated ones, for which we compute the number counts as a function of flux. We then limit our sample to objects with Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) fluxes brighter than 10 μJy, estimated ~90 per cent completeness limit of the SWIRE catalogues, and compare the observed counts to model predictions. We find that the observed counts of the spheroidal population agree with the expectations of a hierarchical model while a monolithic scenario predicts steeper counts. Both scenarios, however, underpredict the number of late-type galaxies. These observations show that the large majority (close to 80 per cent) of the 3.6- and 4.5-μm galaxy population, even at these moderately faint fluxes, is dominated by spiral and irregular galaxies or mergers
Deep GALEX Imaging of the HST/COSMOS Field: A First Look at the Morphology of z~0.7 Star-forming Galaxies
We present a study of the morphological nature of redshift z~0.7 star-forming
galaxies using a combination of HST/ACS, GALEX and ground-based images of the
COSMOS field. Our sample consists of 8,146 galaxies, 5,777 of which are
detected in the GALEX near-ultraviolet band down to a limiting magnitude of
25.5 (AB). We make use of the UV to estimate star formation rates, correcting
for the effect of dust using the UV-slope, and compute, from the ACS F814W
images, the C,A,S,G,M20 morphological parameters for all objects in our sample.
We observe a morphological bimodality in the galaxy population and show that it
has a strong correspondence with the FUV - g color bimodality. We conclude that
UV-optical color predominantly evolves concurrently with morphology. We observe
many of the most star-forming galaxies to have morphologies approaching that of
early-type galaxies, and interpret this as evidence that strong starburst
events are linked to bulge growth and constitute a process through which
galaxies can be brought from the blue to the red sequence while simultaneously
modifying their morphology accordingly. We conclude that the red sequence has
continued growing at z~<0.7. We also observe z~0.7 galaxies to have physical
properties similar to that of local galaxies, except for higher star formation
rates. Whence we infer that the dimming of star-forming galaxies is responsible
for most of the evolution in the star formation rate density of the Universe
since that redshift, although our data are also consistent with a mild number
evolution. [abridged]Comment: 29 pages including 22 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJS
COSMOS Special Issue. A copy of the paper with high resolution figures is
available at http://www.astro.columbia.edu/~michel/galex_cosmos_paper.pd
Low mass X-ray binaries as a stellar mass indicator for the host galaxy
Using results of Chandra observations of old stellar systems in eleven nearby
galaxies of various morphological types and the census of LMXBs in the Milky
Way, we study the population of low mass X-ray binaries and their relation to
the mass of the host galaxy. We show that the azimuthally averaged spatial
distribution of the number of LMXBs and, in the majority of cases, of their
collective luminosity closely follows that of the near-infrared light.
Considering galaxies as a whole, we find that in a broad mass range,
log(M)~9-11.5, the total number of LMXBs and their combined luminosity are
proportional to the stellar mass of the host galaxy. Within the accuracy of the
light-to-mass conversion, we cannot rule out the possibility of a weak
dependence of the X/M ratio on morphological type. However, the effect of such
a dependence, if any, does not exceed a factor of ~1.5-2.
The luminosity distributions of LMXBs observed in different galaxies are
similar to each other and, with the possible exception of NGC1553, are
consistent with the average luminosity function derived from all data. The
average XLF of LMXBs in nearby galaxies has a complex shape and is
significantly different from that of HMXBs. It follows a power law with a
differential slope of ~1 at low luminosities, gradually steepens at
log(Lx)>37.0-37.5 and has a rather abrupt cut-off at log(Lx)~39.0-39.5. This
value of the cut-off luminosity is significantly, by an order of magnitude,
lower than found for high mass X-ray binaries.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
A Successful Broad-band Survey for Giant Lya Nebulae I: Survey Design and Candidate Selection
Giant Lya nebulae (or Lya "blobs") are likely sites of ongoing massive galaxy
formation, but the rarity of these powerful sources has made it difficult to
form a coherent picture of their properties, ionization mechanisms, and space
density. Systematic narrow-band Lya nebula surveys are ongoing, but the small
redshift range covered and the observational expense limit the comoving volume
that can be probed by even the largest of these surveys and pose a significant
problem when searching for such rare sources. We have developed a systematic
search technique designed to find large Lya nebulae at 2<z<3 within deep
broad-band imaging and have carried out a survey of the 9.4 square degree NOAO
Deep Wide-Field Survey (NDWFS) Bootes field. With a total survey comoving
volume of ~10^8 h^-3_70 Mpc^3, this is the largest volume survey for Lya
nebulae ever undertaken. In this first paper in the series, we present the
details of the survey design and a systematically-selected sample of 79
candidates, which includes one previously discovered Lya nebula.Comment: Accepted to ApJ after minor revision; 25 pages in emulateapj format;
18 figures, 3 table
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