45 research outputs found
Shell-like structures in our cosmic neighbourhood
Signatures of the processes in the early Universe are imprinted in the cosmic
web. Some of them may define shell-like structures characterised by typical
scales. We search for shell-like structures in the distribution of nearby rich
clusters of galaxies drawn from the SDSS DR8. We calculate the distance
distributions between rich clusters of galaxies, and groups and clusters of
various richness, look for the maxima in the distance distributions, and select
candidates of shell-like structures. We analyse the space distribution of
groups and clusters forming shell walls. We find six possible candidates of
shell-like structures, in which galaxy clusters have maxima in the distance
distribution to other galaxy groups and clusters at the distance of about 120
Mpc/h. The rich galaxy cluster A1795, the central cluster of the Bootes
supercluster, has the highest maximum in the distance distribution of other
groups and clusters around them at the distance of about 120 Mpc/h among our
rich cluster sample, and another maximum at the distance of about 240 Mpc/h.
The structures of galaxy systems causing the maxima at 120 Mpc/h form an almost
complete shell of galaxy groups, clusters and superclusters. The richest
systems in the nearby universe, the Sloan Great Wall, the Corona Borealis
supercluster and the Ursa Major supercluster are among them. The probability
that we obtain maxima like this from random distributions is lower than 0.001.
Our results confirm that shell-like structures can be found in the distribution
of nearby galaxies and their systems. The radii of the possible shells are
larger than expected for a BAO shell (approximately 109 Mpc/h versus
approximately 120 Mpc/h), and they are determined by very rich galaxy clusters
and superclusters with high density contrast while BAO shells are barely seen
in the galaxy distribution. We discuss possible consequences of these
differences.Comment: Comments: 9 pages, 10 figures, Astronomy and Astrophysics, in pres
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 survey: evolution of galaxy spectral segregation
We study the clustering of galaxies as a function of spectral type and
redshift in the range using data from the Advanced Large
Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift Astronomical (ALHAMBRA) survey. The data
cover 2.381 deg in 7 fields, after applying a detailed angular selection
mask, with accurate photometric redshifts [] down to
. From this catalog we draw five fixed number density,
redshift-limited bins. We estimate the clustering evolution for two different
spectral populations selected using the ALHAMBRA-based photometric templates:
quiescent and star-forming galaxies. For each sample, we measure the real-space
clustering using the projected correlation function. Our calculations are
performed over the range Mpc, allowing us to find a
steeper trend for Mpc, which is especially clear for
star-forming galaxies. Our analysis also shows a clear early differentiation in
the clustering properties of both populations: star-forming galaxies show
weaker clustering with evolution in the correlation length over the analysed
redshift range, while quiescent galaxies show stronger clustering already at
high redshifts, and no appreciable evolution. We also perform the bias
calculation where similar segregation is found, but now it is among the
quiescent galaxies where a growing evolution with redshift is clearer. These
findings clearly corroborate the well known colour-density relation, confirming
that quiescent galaxies are mainly located in dark matter halos that are more
massive than those typically populated by star-forming galaxies.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, accepted by Ap
Stellar populations of galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey up to . I. MUFFIT: A Multi-Filter Fitting code for stellar population diagnostics
We present MUFFIT, a new generic code optimized to retrieve the main stellar
population parameters of galaxies in photometric multi-filter surveys, and we
check its reliability and feasibility with real galaxy data from the ALHAMBRA
survey. Making use of an error-weighted -test, we compare the
multi-filter fluxes of galaxies with the synthetic photometry of mixtures of
two single stellar populations at different redshifts and extinctions, to
provide through a Monte Carlo method the most likely range of stellar
population parameters (mainly ages and metallicities), extinctions, redshifts,
and stellar masses. To improve the diagnostic reliability, MUFFIT identifies
and removes from the analysis those bands that are significantly affected by
emission lines. We highlight that the retrieved age-metallicity locus for a
sample of early-type galaxies in ALHAMBRA at different stellar
mass bins are in very good agreement with the ones from SDSS spectroscopic
diagnostics. Moreover, a one-to-one comparison between the redshifts, ages,
metallicities, and stellar masses derived spectroscopically for SDSS and by
MUFFIT for ALHAMBRA reveals good qualitative agreements in all the parameters.
In addition, and using as input the results from photometric-redshift codes,
MUFFIT improves the photometric-redshift accuracy by -, and it
also detects nebular emissions in galaxies, providing physical information
about their strengths. Our results show the potential of multi-filter galaxy
data to conduct reliable stellar population studies with the appropiate
analysis techniques, as MUFFIT.Comment: 31 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Shell-like structures in our cosmic neighbourhood
Context. Signatures of the processes in the early Universe are imprinted in the cosmic web. Some of them may define shell-like structures characterised by typical scales. Examples of such structures are shell-like systems of galaxies, which are interpreted as a signatures of the baryon acoustic oscillations.Aims. We search for shell-like structures in the distribution of nearby rich clusters of galaxies drawn from the SDSS DR8.Methods. We calculated the distance distributions between rich clusters of galaxies and groups and clusters of various richness, searched for the maxima in the distance distributions and selected candidates of shell-like structures. We analysed the space distribution of groups and clusters that form shell walls.Results. We find six possible candidates of shell-like structures, in which galaxy clusters have the maximum in their distance distribution to other galaxy groups and clusters at a distance of about 120-130 h(-1) Mpc. Another, less probable maximum is found at a distance of about 240 h(-1) Mpc. The rich galaxy cluster A1795, which is the central cluster of the Bootes supercluster, has the highest maximum in the distance distribution of all other surrounding groups and clusters in our rich cluster sample. It lies at a distance of about 120 h(-1) Mpc. The structures of galaxy systems that cause this maximum form an almost complete shell of galaxy groups, clusters, and superclusters. The richest systems in the nearby universe, the Sloan Great Wall, the Corona Borealis supercluster, and the UrsaMajor supercluster, are among them. The probability that we obtain maxima like this from random distributions is lower than 0.001.Conclusions. Our results confirm that shell-like structures can be found in the distribution of nearby galaxies and their systems. The radii of the possible shells are larger than expected for a baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO) shell (approximate to 109 h(-1) Mpc versus approximate to 120-130 h(-1) Mpc), and they are determined by very rich galaxy clusters and superclusters. In contrast, BAO shells are barely seen in the galaxy distribution. We discuss possible consequences of these differences
The ALHAMBRA Survey: Bayesian Photometric Redshifts with 23 bands for 3 squared degrees
The ALHAMBRA (Advance Large Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift
Astronomical) survey has observed 8 different regions of the sky, including
sections of the COSMOS, DEEP2, ELAIS, GOODS-N, SDSS and Groth fields using a
new photometric system with 20 contiguous ~ filters covering the
optical range, combining them with deep imaging. The observations,
carried out with the Calar Alto 3.5m telescope using the wide field (0.25 sq.
deg FOV) optical camera LAICA and the NIR instrument Omega-2000, correspond to
~700hrs on-target science images. The photometric system was designed to
maximize the effective depth of the survey in terms of accurate spectral-type
and photo-zs estimation along with the capability of identification of
relatively faint emission lines. Here we present multicolor photometry and
photo-zs for ~438k galaxies, detected in synthetic F814W images, complete down
to I~24.5 AB, taking into account realistic noise estimates, and correcting by
PSF and aperture effects with the ColorPro software. The photometric ZP have
been calibrated using stellar transformation equations and refined internally,
using a new technique based on the highly robust photometric redshifts measured
for emission line galaxies. We calculate photometric redshifts with the BPZ2
code, which includes new empirically calibrated templates and priors. Our
photo-zs have a precision of for I<22.5 and 1.4% for
22.5<I<24.5. Precisions of less than 0.5% are reached for the brighter
spectroscopic sample, showing the potential of medium-band photometric surveys.
The global shows a mean redshift =0.56 for I=0.86 for
I<24.5 AB. The data presented here covers an effective area of 2.79 sq. deg,
split into 14 strips of 58.5'x15.5' and represents ~32 hrs of on-target.Comment: The catalog data and a full resolution version of this paper is
available at https://cloud.iaa.csic.es/alhambra
The ALHAMBRA survey : Estimation of the clustering signal encoded in the cosmic variance
The relative cosmic variance () is a fundamental source of
uncertainty in pencil-beam surveys and, as a particular case of count-in-cell
statistics, can be used to estimate the bias between galaxies and their
underlying dark-matter distribution. Our goal is to test the significance of
the clustering information encoded in the measured in the ALHAMBRA
survey. We measure the cosmic variance of several galaxy populations selected
with band luminosity at as the intrinsic dispersion in
the number density distribution derived from the 48 ALHAMBRA subfields. We
compare the observational with the cosmic variance of the dark
matter expected from the theory, . This provides an
estimation of the galaxy bias . The galaxy bias from the cosmic variance is
in excellent agreement with the bias estimated by two-point correlation
function analysis in ALHAMBRA. This holds for different redshift bins, for red
and blue subsamples, and for several band luminosity selections. We find
that increases with the band luminosity and the redshift, as expected
from previous work. Moreover, red galaxies have a larger bias than blue
galaxies, with a relative bias of . Our results
demonstrate that the cosmic variance measured in ALHAMBRA is due to the
clustering of galaxies and can be used to characterise the affecting
pencil-beam surveys. In addition, it can also be used to estimate the galaxy
bias from a method independent of correlation functions.Comment: Astronomy and Astrophysics, in press. 9 pages, 4 figures, 3 table
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
The ALHAMBRA survey : band luminosity function of quiescent and star-forming galaxies at by PDF analysis
Our goal is to study the evolution of the band luminosity function (LF)
since using ALHAMBRA data. We used the photometric redshift and the
band selection magnitude probability distribution functions (PDFs) of those
ALHAMBRA galaxies with mag to compute the posterior LF. We
statistically studied quiescent and star-forming galaxies using the template
information encoded in the PDFs. The LF covariance matrix in
redshift-magnitude-galaxy type space was computed, including the cosmic
variance. That was estimated from the intrinsic dispersion of the LF
measurements in the 48 ALHAMBRA sub-fields. The uncertainty due to the
photometric redshift prior is also included in our analysis. We modelled the LF
with a redshift-dependent Schechter function affected by the same selection
effects than the data. The measured ALHAMBRA LF at and the
evolving Schechter parameters both for quiescent and star-forming galaxies
agree with previous results in the literature. The estimated redshift evolution
of is and , and of is
and . The measured faint-end slopes are and . We find a significant
population of faint quiescent galaxies, modelled by a second Schechter function
with slope . We find a factor decrease in the
luminosity density of star-forming galaxies, and a factor
increase in the of quiescent ones since , confirming the continuous
build-up of the quiescent population with cosmic time. The contribution of the
faint quiescent population to increases from 3% at to 6% at .
The developed methodology will be applied to future multi-filter surveys such
as J-PAS.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. 25 pages, 20
figures, 7 table