933 research outputs found
OTELO survey: optimal emission-line flux determination with OSIRIS/GTC
Emission-line galaxies are important targets for understanding the chemical
evolution of galaxies in the universe. Deep, narrow-band imaging surveys allow
to detect and study the flux and the equivalent widths (EW) of the emission
line studied. The present work has been developed within the context of the
OTELO project, an emission line survey using the Tunable Filters (TF) of
OSIRIS, the first generation instrument on the GTC 10.4m telescope located in
La Palma, Spain, that will observe through selected atmospheric windows
relatively free of sky emission lines. With a total survey area of 0.1 square
degrees distributed in different fields, reaching a 5 \sigma depth of 10^-18
erg/cm^2/s and detecting objects of EW < 0.3 A, OTELO will be the deepest
emission line survey to date. As part of the OTELO preparatory activities, the
objective of this study is to determine the best combination of sampling and
full width at half maximum (FWHM) for the OSIRIS tunable filters for deblending
H\alpha from [NII] lines by analyzing the flux errors obtained. We simulated
the OTELO data by convolving a complete set of synthetic HII galaxies in EW
with different widths of the OSIRIS TFs. We estimated relative flux errors of
the recovered H\alpha and [NII]6583 lines. We found that, for the red TF, a
FWHM of 12 A and a sampling of 5 A is an optimal combination that allow
deblending H\alpha from the [NII]6583 line with a flux error lower than 20%.
This combination will allow estimating SFRs and metallicities using the H\alpha
flux and the N2 method, respectively.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures. Some authors added. Accepted for publication in
PAS
The evolution of Balmer jump selected galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey
We present a new color-selection technique, based on the Bruzual & Charlot
models convolved with the bands of the ALHAMBRA survey, and the redshifted
position of the Balmer jump to select star-forming galaxies in the redshift
range 0.5 < z < 1.5. These galaxies are dubbed Balmer jump Galaxies BJGs. We
apply the iSEDfit Bayesian approach to fit each detailed SED and determine
star-formation rate (SFR), stellar mass, age and absolute magnitudes. The mass
of the haloes where these samples reside are found via a clustering analysis.
Five volume-limited BJG sub-samples with different mean redshifts are found to
reside in haloes of median masses slightly
increasing toward z=0.5. This increment is similar to numerical simulations
results which suggests that we are tracing the evolution of an evolving
population of haloes as they grow to reach a mass of at z=0.5. The likely progenitors of our samples at z3 are Lyman
Break Galaxies, which at z2 would evolve into star-forming BzK galaxies,
and their descendants in the local Universe are elliptical galaxies.Hence, this
allows us to follow the putative evolution of the SFR, stellar mass and age of
these galaxies. From z1.0 to z0.5, the stellar mass of the volume
limited BJG samples nearly does not change with redshift, suggesting that major
mergers play a minor role on the evolution of these galaxies. The SFR evolution
accounts for the small variations of stellar mass, suggesting that star
formation and possible minor mergers are the main channels of mass assembly.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures. Submitted to A&A. It includes first referee's
comments. Abstract abridged due to arXiv requirement
The ALHAMBRA Project: A large area multi medium-band optical and NIR photometric survey
(ABRIDGED) We describe the first results of the ALHAMBRA survey which
provides cosmic tomography of the evolution of the contents of the Universe
over most of Cosmic history. Our approach employs 20 contiguous, equal-width,
medium-band filters covering from 3500 to 9700 A, plus the JHKs bands, to
observe an area of 4 sqdeg on the sky. The optical photometric system has been
designed to maximize the number of objects with accurate classification by SED
and redshift, and to be sensitive to relatively faint emission lines. The
observations are being carried out with the Calar Alto 3.5m telescope using the
cameras LAICA and O-2000. The first data confirm that we are reaching the
expected magnitude limits of AB<~25 mag in the optical filters from the blue to
8300 A, and from AB=24.7 to 23.4 for the redder ones. The limit in the NIR is
(Vega) K_s~20, H~21, J~22. We expect to obtain accurate redshift values, Delta
z/(1+z) <~ 0.03 for about 5x10^5 galaxies with I<~25 (60% complete), and
z_med=0.74. This accuracy, together with the homogeneity of the selection
function, will allow for the study of the redshift evolution of the large scale
structure, the galaxy population and its evolution with redshift, the
identification of clusters of galaxies, and many other studies, without the
need for any further follow-up. It will also provide targets for detailed
studies with 10m-class telescopes. Given its area, spectral coverage and its
depth, apart from those main goals, the ALHAMBRA-Survey will also produce
valuable data for galactic studies.Comment: Accepted to the Astronomical Journal. 43 pages, 18 figures. The
images have been reduced in resolution to adapt to standard file sizes.
Readers can find the full-resolution version of the paper at the ALHAMBRA web
site (http://www.iaa.es/alhambra) under the "Publications" lin
On the Anticorrelation Between Galaxy Light Concentration and X-ray-to-Optical Flux Ratio
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) play an important role in many aspects of the
modern cosmology, and of particular interest is the issue of the interplay
between AGN and their host galaxy. Using X-ray and optical data sets, we have
explored the properties of a large sample of AGNs in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep
Survey (SXDS) field, and studied their evolution in relation with the evolution
of their host galaxy. We present here an anticorrelation between
X-ray-to-optical flux ratio (X/O) and galaxy light concentration (C), which has
been found for the first time and might suggest that early type galaxies,
having poor matter supply to feed the AGN activity, have lower Eddington rates
than those of late type galaxies.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
The alhambra photometric system
This paper presents the characterization of the optical range of the ALHAMBRA photometric system, a 20 contiguous, equal-width, medium-band CCD system with wavelength coverage from 3500 Å to 9700 Å. The photometric description of the system is done by presenting the full response curve as a product of the filters, CCD, and atmospheric transmission curves, and using some first- and second-order moments of this response function. We also introduce the set of standard stars that defines the system, formed by 31 classic spectrophotometric standard stars which have been used in the calibration of other known photometric systems, and 288 stars, flux calibrated homogeneously, from the Next Generation Spectral Library (NGSL). Based on the NGSL, we determine the transformation equations between Sloan Digital Sky Survey ugriz hotometry and the ALHAMBRA photometric system, in order to establish some relations between both systems. Finally, we develop and discuss a strategy to calculate the photometric zero points of the different pointings in the ALHAMBRA project.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia AYA2006-14056 BES-2007-1476
Stellar populations of galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey up to . II. Stellar content of quiescent galaxies within the dust-corrected stellar masscolour and the colourcolour diagrams
Our aim is to determine the distribution of stellar population parameters
(extinction, age, metallicity, and star formation rate) of quiescent galaxies
within the rest-frame stellar masscolour and colourcolour diagrams
corrected for extinction up to . These novel diagrams reduce the
contamination in samples of quiescent galaxies owing to dust-reddened galaxies,
and they provide useful constraints on stellar population parameters. We set
constraints on the stellar population parameters of quiescent galaxies
combining the ALHAMBRA multi-filter photo-spectra with our SED-fitting code
MUFFIT, making use of composite stellar population models. The extinction
obtained by MUFFIT allowed us to remove dusty star-forming (DSF) galaxies from
the sample of red galaxies. The distributions of stellar population
parameters across these rest-frame diagrams are revealed after the dust
correction and are fitted by the LOESS method to reduce uncertainty effects.
Quiescent galaxy samples defined via classical diagrams are typically
contaminated by a % fraction of DSF galaxies. A significant part of the
galaxies in the green valley are actually obscured star-forming galaxies
(%). Consequently, the transition of galaxies from the blue cloud to
the red sequence, and hence the related mechanisms for quenching, seems to be
much more efficient and faster than previously reported. The rest-frame stellar
masscolour and colourcolour diagrams are useful for constraining
the age, metallicity, extinction, and star formation rate of quiescent galaxies
by only their redshift, rest-frame colours, and/or stellar mass. Dust
correction plays an important role in understanding how quiescent galaxies are
distributed in these diagrams and is key to performing a pure selection of
quiescent galaxies via intrinsic colours.Comment: (37 pages, 29 figures, accepted for publication in A&A
Stellar physics with the ALHAMBRA photometric system
The ALHAMBRA photometric system was specifically designed to perform a tomography of the Universe in some selected areas. Although mainly designed for extragalactic purposes, its 20 contiguous, equal-width, medium-band photometric system in the optical wavelength range, shows a great capacity for stellar classification. In this contribution we propose a methodology for stellar classification and physical parameter estimation (Teff, log g, [Fe/H], and color excess E(B - V)) based on 18 independent reddening-free Q-values from the ALHAMBRA photometry. Based on the theoretical Spectral library BaSeL 2.2, and applied to 288 stars from the Next Generation spectral Library (NGSL), we discuss the reliability of the method and its dependence on the extinction law used
High redshift galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey: I. selection method and number counts based on redshift PDFs
Context. Most observational results on the high redshift restframe UV-bright
galaxies are based on samples pinpointed using the so called dropout technique
or Ly-alpha selection. However, the availability of multifilter data allows now
replacing the dropout selections by direct methods based on photometric
redshifts. In this paper we present the methodology to select and study the
population of high redshift galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey data. Aims. Our aim
is to develop a less biased methodology than the traditional dropout technique
to study the high redshift galaxies in ALHAMBRA and other multifilter data.
Thanks to the wide area ALHAMBRA covers, we especially aim at contributing in
the study of the brightest, less frequent, high redshift galaxies. Methods. The
methodology is based on redshift probability distribution functions (zPDFs). It
is shown how a clean galaxy sample can be obtained by selecting the galaxies
with high integrated probability of being within a given redshift interval.
However, reaching both a complete and clean sample with this method is
challenging. Hence, a method to derive statistical properties by summing the
zPDFs of all the galaxies in the redshift bin of interest is introduced.
Results. Using this methodology we derive the galaxy rest frame UV number
counts in five redshift bins centred at z=2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, and 4.5, being
complete up to the limiting magnitude at m_UV(AB)=24. With the wide field
ALHAMBRA data we especially contribute in the study of the brightest ends of
these counts, sampling well the surface densities down to m_UV(AB)=21-22.
Conclusions. We show that using the zPDFs it is easy to select a clean sample
of high redshift galaxies. We also show that statistical analysis of the
properties of galaxies is better done using a probabilistic approach, which
takes into account both the incompleteness and contamination in a natural way.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures; Accepted for A&A; language correcte
The ALHAMBRA survey: Accurate merger fractions by PDF analysis of photometric close pairs
Our goal is to develop and test a novel methodology to compute accurate close
pair fractions with photometric redshifts. We improve the current methodologies
to estimate the merger fraction f_m from photometric redshifts by (i) using the
full probability distribution functions (PDFs) of the sources in redshift
space, (ii) including the variation in the luminosity of the sources with z in
both the selection of the samples and in the luminosity ratio constrain, and
(iii) splitting individual PDFs into red and blue spectral templates to deal
robustly with colour selections. We test the performance of our new methodology
with the PDFs provided by the ALHAMBRA photometric survey. The merger fractions
and rates from the ALHAMBRA survey are in excellent agreement with those from
spectroscopic work, both for the general population and for red and blue
galaxies. With the merger rate of bright (M_B <= -20 - 1.1z) galaxies evolving
as (1+z)^n, the power-law index n is larger for blue galaxies (n = 2.7 +- 0.5)
than for red galaxies (n = 1.3 +- 0.4), confirming previous results.
Integrating the merger rate over cosmic time, we find that the average number
of mergers per galaxy since z = 1 is N_m = 0.57 +- 0.05 for red galaxies and
N_m = 0.26 +- 0.02 for blue galaxies. Our new methodology exploits
statistically all the available information provided by photometric redshift
codes and provides accurate measurements of the merger fraction by close pairs
only using photometric redshifts. Current and future photometric surveys will
benefit of this new methodology.Comment: Submitted to A&A, 15 pages, 15 figures, 6 tables. Comments are
welcome. Close pair systems available at
https://cloud.iaa.csic.es/alhambra/catalogues/ClosePairs
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