7,145 research outputs found
Inclination-Independent Galaxy Classification
We present a new method to classify galaxies from large surveys like the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey using inclination-corrected concentration,
inclination-corrected location on the color-magnitude diagram, and apparent
axis ratio. Explicitly accounting for inclination tightens the distribution of
each of these parameters and enables simple boundaries to be drawn that
delineate three different galaxy populations: Early-type galaxies, which are
red, highly concentrated, and round; Late-type galaxies, which are blue, have
low concentrations, and are disk dominated; and Intermediate-type galaxies,
which are red, have intermediate concentrations, and have disks. We have
validated our method by comparing to visual classifications of high-quality
imaging data from the Millennium Galaxy Catalogue. The inclination correction
is crucial to unveiling the previously unrecognized Intermediate class.
Intermediate-type galaxies, roughly corresponding to lenticulars and early
spirals, lie on the red sequence. The red sequence is therefore composed of two
distinct morphological types, suggesting that there are two distinct mechanisms
for transiting to the red sequence. We propose that Intermediate-type galaxies
are those that have lost their cold gas via strangulation, while Early-type
galaxies are those that have experienced a major merger that either consumed
their cold gas, or whose merger progenitors were already devoid of cold gas
(the ``dry merger'' scenario).Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 7 pages in emulateap
Extremely metal-poor stars from the SDSS
We give a progress report about the activities within the CIFIST Team related
to the search for extremely metal-poor stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's
spectroscopic catalog. So far the search has provided 25 candidates with
metallicities around or smaller -3. For 15 candidates high resolution
spectroscopy with UVES at the VLT has confirmed their extremely metal-poor
status. Work is under way to extend the search to the SDSS's photometric
catalog by augmenting the SDSS photometry, and by gauging the capabilities of
X-shooter when going to significantly fainter targets.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings paper of the conference "A stellar
journey: A symposium in celebration of Bengt Gustafsson's 65th birthday
Cool White Dwarfs Identified in the Second Data Release of the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey
We have paired the Second Data Release of the Large Area Survey of the UKIRT
Infrared Deep Sky Survey with the Fifth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey to identify ten cool white dwarf candidates, from their photometry and
astrometry. Of these ten, one was previously known to be a very cool white
dwarf. We have obtained optical spectroscopy for seven of the candidates using
the GMOS-N spectrograph on Gemini North, and have confirmed all seven as white
dwarfs. Our photometry and astrometry indicates that the remaining two objects
are also white dwarfs. Model analysis of the photometry and available
spectroscopy shows that the seven confirmed new white dwarfs, and the two new
likely white dwarfs, have effective temperatures in the range Teff = 5400-6600
K. Our analysis of the previously known white dwarf confirms that it is cool,
with Teff = 3800 K. The cooling age for this dwarf is 8.7 Gyr, while that of
the nine ~6000 K white dwarfs is 1.8-3.6 Gyr. We are unable to determine the
masses of the white dwarfs from the existing data, and therefore we cannot
constrain the total ages of the white dwarfs. The large cooling age for the
coolest white dwarf in the sample, combined with its low estimated tangential
velocity, suggests that it is an old member of the thin disk, or a member of
the thick disk of the Galaxy, with an age 10-11 Gyr. The warmer white dwarfs
appear to have velocities typical of the thick disk or even halo; these may be
very old remnants of low-mass stars, or they may be relatively young thin disk
objects with unusually high space motion.Comment: 37 pages (referee format), 4 tables, 7 figures, accepted to Ap
Theoretical determination of lifetimes of metastable states in Sc III and Y III
Lifetimes of the first two metastable states in Sc^{2+} and Y^{2+} are
determined using the relativistic coupled-cluster theory. There is a
considerable interest in studying the electron correlation effects in these
ions as though their electronic configurations are similar to the neutral
alkali atoms, their structures are very different from the latter. We have made
a comparative study of the correlation trends between the above doubly ionized
systems with their corresponding neutral and singly ionized iso-electronic
systems. The lifetimes of the excited states of these ions are very important
in the field of astrophysics, especially for the study of post-main sequence
evolution of the cool giant stars.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure and 5 table
Induced measures in the space of mixed quantum states
We analyze several product measures in the space of mixed quantum states. In
particular we study measures induced by the operation of partial tracing. The
natural, rotationally invariant measure on the set of all pure states of a N x
K composite system, induces a unique measure in the space of N x N mixed states
(or in the space of K x K mixed states, if the reduction takes place with
respect to the first subsystem). For K=N the induced measure is equal to the
Hilbert-Schmidt measure, which is shown to coincide with the measure induced by
singular values of non-Hermitian random Gaussian matrices pertaining to the
Ginibre ensemble. We compute several averages with respect to this measure and
show that the mean entanglement of pure states behaves as lnN-1/2.Comment: 12 latex pages, 2 figures in epsf, submited to J. Phys. A. ver.3,
some improvements and a few references adde
UGC 7388: a galaxy with two tidal loops
We present the results of spectroscopic and morphological studies of the
galaxy UGC7388 with the 8.1-m Gemini North telescope. Judging by its observed
characteristics, UGC7388 is a giant late-type spiral galaxy seen almost
edge-on. The main body of the galaxy is surrounded by two faint (\mu(B) ~ 24
and \mu(B) ~ 25.5) extended (~20-30 kpc) loop-like structures. A large-scale
rotation of the brighter loop about the main galaxy has been detected. We
discuss the assumption that the tidal disruption of a relatively massive
companion is observed in the case of UGC7388. A detailed study and modeling of
the observed structure of this unique galaxy can give important information
about the influence of the absorption of massive companions on the galactic
disks and about the structure of the dark halo around UGC7388.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
Hilbert--Schmidt volume of the set of mixed quantum states
We compute the volume of the convex N^2-1 dimensional set M_N of density
matrices of size N with respect to the Hilbert-Schmidt measure. The hyper--area
of the boundary of this set is also found and its ratio to the volume provides
an information about the complex structure of M_N. Similar investigations are
also performed for the smaller set of all real density matrices. As an
intermediate step we analyze volumes of the unitary and orthogonal groups and
of the flag manifolds.Comment: 13 revtex pages, ver 3: minor improvement
Three-Point Correlation Functions of SDSS Galaxies: Luminosity and Color Dependence in Redshift and Projected Space
The three-point correlation function (3PCF) provides an important view into
the clustering of galaxies that is not available to its lower order cousin, the
two-point correlation function (2PCF). Higher order statistics, such as the
3PCF, are necessary to probe the non-Gaussian structure and shape information
expected in these distributions. We measure the clustering of spectroscopic
galaxies in the Main Galaxy Sample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS),
focusing on the shape or configuration dependence of the reduced 3PCF in both
redshift and projected space. This work constitutes the largest number of
galaxies ever used to investigate the reduced 3PCF, using over 220,000 galaxies
in three volume-limited samples. We find significant configuration dependence
of the reduced 3PCF at 3-27 Mpc/h, in agreement with LCDM predictions and in
disagreement with the hierarchical ansatz. Below 6 Mpc/h, the redshift space
reduced 3PCF shows a smaller amplitude and weak configuration dependence in
comparison with projected measurements suggesting that redshift distortions,
and not galaxy bias, can make the reduced 3PCF appear consistent with the
hierarchical ansatz. The reduced 3PCF shows a weaker dependence on luminosity
than the 2PCF, with no significant dependence on scales above 9 Mpc/h. On
scales less than 9 Mpc/h, the reduced 3PCF appears more affected by galaxy
color than luminosty. We demonstrate the extreme sensitivity of the 3PCF to
systematic effects such as sky completeness and binning scheme, along with the
difficulty of resolving the errors. Some comparable analyses make assumptions
that do not consistently account for these effects.Comment: 27 pages, 21 figures. Updated to match accepted version. Published in
Ap
RATAN-600 7.6-cm Deep Sky Strip Surveys at the Declination of the SS433 Source During the 1980-1999 Period. Data Reduction and the Catalog of Radio Sources in the Right-Ascension Interval 7h < R.A. < 17h
We use two independent methods to reduce the data of the surveys made with
RATAN-600 radio telescope at 7.6 cm in 1988-1999 at the declination of the
SS433 source. We also reprocess the data of the "Cold" survey (1980-1981). The
resulting RCR (RATAN COLD REFINED) catalog contains the right ascensions and
fluxes of objects identified with those of the NVSS catalog in the
right-ascension interval 7h < R.A. < 17h. We obtain the spectra of the radio
sources and determine their spectral indices at 3.94 and 0.5 GHz. The spectra
are based on the data from all known catalogs available from the CATS, Vizier,
and NED databases, and the flux estimates inferred from the maps of the VLSS
and GB6 surveys. For 245 of the 550 objects of the RCR catalog the fluxes are
known at two frequencies only: 3.94 GHz (RCR) and 1.4 GHz (NVSS). These are
mostly sources with fluxes smaller than 30 mJy. About 65% of these sources have
flat or inverse spectra (alpha > -0.5). We analyze the reliability of the
results obtained for the entire list of objects and construct the histograms of
the spectral indices and fluxes of the sources. Our main conclusion is that all
10-15 mJy objects found in the considered right-ascension interval were already
included in the decimeter-wave catalogs.Comment: 26 pages, 18 figure
The stellar population histories of early-type galaxies. III. The Coma Cluster
We present stellar population parameters of twelve early-type galaxies (ETGs)
in the Coma Cluster based on spectra obtained using the Low Resolution Imaging
Spectrograph on the Keck II Telescope. Our data allow us to examine in detail
the zero-point and scatter in their stellar population properties. Our ETGs
have SSP-equivalent ages of on average 5-8 Gyr with the models used here, with
the oldest galaxies having ages of ~10 Gyr old. This average age is identical
to the mean age of field ETGs. Our ETGs span a large range in velocity
dispersion but are consistent with being drawn from a population with a single
age. Specifically, ten of the twelve ETGs are consistent within their formal
errors of having the same age, 5.2+/-0.2 Gyr, over a factor of more than 750 in
mass. We therefore find no evidence for downsizing of the stellar populations
of ETGs in the core of the Coma Cluster. We suggest that Coma Cluster ETGs may
have formed the majority of their mass at high redshifts but suffered small but
detectable star formation events at z~0.1-0.3. Previous detections of
'downsizing' from stellar populations of local ETGs may not reflect the same
downsizing seen in lookback studies of RSGs, as the young ages of the local
ETGs represent only a small fraction of their total masses. (abridged)Comment: 49 pages, 20 figures (19 EPS, 1 JPEG). MNRAS, in press. For version
with full resolution of Fig. 1 see
http://www.astro.rug.nl/~sctrager/coma.pdf; for Table 2, see
http://www.astro.rug.nl/~sctrager/coma_table2.pdf; for Table B3, see
http://www.astro.rug.nl/~sctrager/coma_tableB3.pd
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