Diffuse interstellar bands {\lambda}5780 and {\lambda}5797 in the Antennae Galaxy as seen by MUSE

ABRIDGED: Diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) are faint spectral absorption features of unknown origin. Research on DIBs beyond the Local Group (LG) will surely blossom in the era of the ELTs. A possibility that needs to be explored is the use of integral field spectrographs. We do so by using MUSE data for the Antennae Galaxy, the closest major galaxy merger. High S-to-N spectra were created by co-adding the signal of many spatial elements. The emission of the underlying stellar population was modeled using STARLIGHT. To our knowledge, we have derived the first maps for the DIBs at l5780 and l5797 in galaxies outside the LG. The l5780 DIB was detected in an area of ~0.6 arcmin2, corresponding to a linear scale of ~25 kpc2. This region was sampled using >200 independent lines of sight. The DIB l5797 was detected in >100 independent lines of sight. Both DIBs are associated with a region with high emission in the HI 21 cm line, implying a connection between atomic gas and DIBs, as the correlations for the Milky Way also suggest. Conversely, there is mild spatial association between the two DIBs and the molecular gas, in agreement with results for our Galaxy that indicate a lack of correlation between DIBs and molecular gas. The overall structure for the DIB strength distribution and extinction are comparable. Within the system, the l5780 DIB clearly correlates with the extinction. Both DIBs follow the relationship between equivalent width and reddening when data for several galaxies are considered. Unidentified Infrared emission Bands (UIBs, likely caused by PAHs) and the l5780 and l5797 DIBs show similar but not identical spatial distributions. We attribute the differences to extinction effects without necessarily implying a radically different nature of the respective carriers. The results illustrate the enormous potential of integral field spectrographs for extragalactic DIB research.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics; version corrected by English edito

A catalog of 1.5273 micron diffuse interstellar bands based on APOGEE hot telluric calibrators

High resolution stellar spectroscopic surveys provide massive amounts of diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) measurements. Data can be used to study the distribution of the DIB carriers and those environmental conditions that favor their formation. In parallel, recent studies have also proved that DIBs extracted from stellar spectra constitute new tools for building the 3D structure of the Galactic Interstellar Medium (ISM). The amount of details on the structure depends directly on the quantity of available lines of sight (LOS). Therefore there is a need to construct databases of high-quality DIB measurements as large as possible. We aim at providing the community with a catalog of high-quality measurements of the 1.5273 micron DIB towards a large fraction of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) hot stars observed to correct for the telluric absorption and not used for ISM studies so far. This catalog would complement the extensive database recently extracted from the APOGEE observations and used for 3D ISM mapping. We devised a method to fit the stellar continuum of the hot calibration stars and extracted the DIB from the normalized spectrum. Severe selection criteria based on the absorption characteristics are applied to the results. In particular limiting constraints on the DIB widths and Doppler shifts are deduced from the HI 21 cm measurements, following a new technique of decomposition of the emission spectra. From ~16 000 available hot telluric spectra we have extracted ~ 6700 DIB measurements and their associated uncertainties. The statistical properties of the extracted absorptions are examined and our selection criteria are shown to provide a robust dataset. The resulting catalog contains the DIB total equivalent widths, central wavelengths and widths. We briefly illustrate its potential use for the stellar and interstellar communities.Comment: The Astrophysical Journal Supplement, in press, 35 pages, 14 figure

Estudio cinemático y de fuentes de ionización de galaxias infrarrojas ultraluminosas con espectroscopia bidimensional

En esta tesis se presenta el análisis detallado de tres galaxias ultraluminosas infrarrojas (en ingles ULIRGs) mediante los datos de espectroscopia de campo integral e imagen de alta resolución en varios filtros. Estas galaxias presentan una estructura morfológica, cinemática y de ionización extensa y bastante compleja, por lo que la espectroscopia de campo intengral resulta una herramienta muy adecuada para su estudio. Los resultados científicos más importantes que se han encontrado son los siguientes: * La estructura morfológica del gas ionizado en estos sistemas es similar, aunque con diferencias, a la de la componente estelar. * Estos sistemas presentan una cinemática no regular, que no puede asociarse a rotación simple de un disco y que está dominada por el proceso de fusión. * Las tres galaxias estudiadas presentan indicios de supervientos en las zonas centrales, por lo que podría ser un fenómeno muy habitual en este tipo de galaxias. * La extinción en estas galaxias es claramente no uniforme y mayor hacia las zonas centrales. El no considerar los efectos de la extinción diferencial puede provocar una sobreestimación de la masa no mayor del 15%. * Fuera de las regiones nucleares se ha encontrado una correlación entre el estado de ionización de una determinada zona del sistema y la dispersión de velocidades que resulta compatible con la existencia de espectros de tipo LINER asociados a choques provocados por el proceso de fusión. * Los brotes de formación estelar detectados en el óptico e infrarrojo son capaces de explicar únicamente el 20% de la luminosidad bolométrica de estos sistemas, quedando la fuente responsable del resto oculta a estas longitudes de onda

Towards DIB mapping in galaxies beyond 100 Mpc. A radial profile of the λ\lambda5780.5 diffuse interstellar band in AM 1353-272 B

Diffuse Interstellar Bands (DIBs) are non-stellar weak absorption features of unknown origin found in the spectra of stars viewed through one or several clouds of Interstellar Medium (ISM). Research of DIBs outside the Milky Way is currently very limited. Specifically spatially resolved investigations of DIBs outside of the Local Group is, to our knowledge, inexistent. Here, we explore the capability of the high sensitivity Integral Field Spectrograph, MUSE, as a tool to map diffuse interstellar bands at distances larger than 100 Mpc. We use MUSE commissioning data for AM 1353-272 B, the member with highest extinction of the "The Dentist's Chair", an interacting system of two spiral galaxies. High signal-to-noise spectra were created by co-adding the signal of many spatial elements distributed in a geometry of concentric elliptical half-rings. We derived decreasing radial profiles for the equivalent width of the $\lambda$5780.5 DIB both in the receding and approaching side of the companion galaxy up to distances of $\sim$4.6 kpc from the center of the galaxy. Likewise, interstellar extinction, as derived from the Halpha/Hbeta line ratio displays a similar trend, with decreasing values towards the external parts. This translates into an intrinsic correlation between the strength of the DIB and the extinction within AM 1353-272 B consistent with the current existing global trend between these quantities when using measurements for both Galactic and extragalactic sight lines. Mapping of DIB strength in the Local Universe as up to now only done for the Milky Way seems feasible. This offers a new approach to study the relationship between DIBs and other characteristics and species of the ISM in different conditions as those found in our Galaxy to the use of galaxies in the Local Group and/or single sightlines towards supernovae, quasars and galaxies outside the Local Group.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication as a Letter in Astronomy and Astrophysics; Received 10 February 2015 / Accepted 20 February 2015 ; English corrections include

Detection and Mapping of Decoupled Stellar and Ionized Gas Structures in the Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy IRAS 12112+0305

Integral field optical spectroscopy with the INTEGRAL fiber-fed system and HST optical imaging are used to map the complex stellar and warm ionized gas structure in the ultraluminous infrared galaxy IRAS 12112+0305. Images reconstructed from wavelength-delimited extractions of the integral field spectra reveal that the observed ionized gas distribution is decoupled from the stellar main body of the galaxy, with the dominant continuum and emission-line regions separated by projected distances of up to 7.5 kpc. The two optical nuclei are detected as apparently faint emission-line regions, and their optical properties are consistent with being dust-enshrouded weak-[OI] LINERs. The brightest emission-line region is associated with a faint (m_{I}= 20.4), giant HII region of 600 pc diameter, where a young (about 5 Myr) massive cluster of about 2 $\times$ 10$^7$ $M_{\odot}$ dominates the ionization. Internal reddening towards the line-emitting regions and the optical nuclei ranges from 1 to 8 magnitudes, in the visual. Taken the reddening into aacount, the overall star formation in IRAS 12112+0305 is dominated by starbursts associated with the two nuclei and corresponding to a star formation rate of 80 $M_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$.Comment: 2 figures, accepted to Ap.J. Letter

UM 462, a local Green Pea galaxy analog under the MUSE magnifying glass

[ABRIGED] Stellar feedback in high-redshift galaxies plays an important role in the re-ionization epoch of the Universe. Green Pea galaxies (GPs) postulate as favorite local laboratories. However, at their typical redshift of $z\sim0.2$, the most intimate interaction between stars and surrounding ISM cannot be disentangled. Detailed studies of Blue Compact Dwarf galaxies (BCDs) are necessary to anchor our investigations on them. We present here a study in detail UM 462, a BCD with similar properties to GPs uisng high quality optical IFS data with MUSE. Total oxygen abundance by means of the direct method is 12+$\log$(O/H)$\sim$8.02 and homogenous all over the galaxy, in stark contrast with the metallicities derived from several strong line methods. The velocity field for the ionised gas presents a velocity stratification in the area towards the north with redder velocities in the high ionisation lines and bluer velocities in the low ionisation lines. This is the only area with velocity dispersions clearly above the MUSE instrumental width, and it is surrounded by two $\sim$1 kpc-long structures nicknamed \emph{the horns}. We interpret the observational evidence in that area as a fragmented super-bubble fruit of the stellar feedback and it may constitute a preferred channel for LyC photons from the youngest generation of stars to escape. The most recent SF seems to propagate from the outer to the inner parts of the galaxy, and then from east to west. We identified a supernova remnant and Wolf-Rayet stars - as traced by the red bump - that support this picture. The direction of the propagation implies the presence of younger Wolf-Rayet stars at the maximum in H$\alpha$. The ensemble of results exemplifies the potential of 2D detailed spectroscopic studies of dwarf star-forming galaxies at high spatial resolution as key reference for similar studies on primeval galaxies.Comment: 29 pages, 25 figures; resubmitted to A&A after taking the referee's comments and suggestions into accoun