699 research outputs found
FERENGI: Redshifting galaxies from SDSS to GEMS, STAGES and COSMOS
We describe the creation of a set of artificially "redshifted" galaxies in
the range 0.1<z<1.1 using a set of ~100 SDSS low redshift (v<7000 km/s) images
as input. The intention is to generate a training set of realistic images of
galaxies of diverse morphologies and a large range of redshifts for the GEMS
and COSMOS galaxy evolution projects. This training set allows other studies to
investigate and quantify the effects of cosmological redshift on the
determination of galaxy morphologies, distortions and other galaxy properties
that are potentially sensitive to resolution, surface brightness and bandpass
issues. We use galaxy images from the SDSS in the u, g, r, i, z filter bands as
input, and computed new galaxy images from these data, resembling the same
galaxies as located at redshifts 0.1<z<1.1 and viewed with the Hubble Space
Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys (HST ACS). In this process we take into
account angular size change, cosmological surface brightness dimming, and
spectral change. The latter is achieved by interpolating a spectral energy
distribution that is fit to the input images on a pixel-to-pixel basis. The
output images are created for the specific HST ACS point spread function and
the filters used for GEMS (F606W and F850LP) and COSMOS (F814W). All images are
binned onto the desired pixel grids (0.03" for GEMS and 0.05" for COSMOS) and
corrected to an appropriate point spread function. Noise is added corresponding
to the data quality of the two projects and the images are added onto empty sky
pieces of real data images. We make these datasets available from our website,
as well as the code - FERENGI: "Full and Efficient Redshifting of Ensembles of
Nearby Galaxy Images" - to produce datasets for other redshifts and/or
instruments.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, 3 table
Stellar science from a blue wavelength range - A possible design for the blue arm of 4MOST
From stellar spectra, a variety of physical properties of stars can be
derived. In particular, the chemical composition of stellar atmospheres can be
inferred from absorption line analyses. These provide key information on large
scales, such as the formation of our Galaxy, down to the small-scale
nucleosynthesis processes that take place in stars and supernovae. By extending
the observed wavelength range toward bluer wavelengths, we optimize such
studies to also include critical absorption lines in metal-poor stars, and
allow for studies of heavy elements (Z>38) whose formation processes remain
poorly constrained. In this context, spectrographs optimized for observing blue
wavelength ranges are essential, since many absorption lines at redder
wavelengths are too weak to be detected in metal-poor stars. This means that
some elements cannot be studied in the visual-redder regions, and important
scientific tracers and science cases are lost. The present era of large public
surveys will target millions of stars. Here we describe the requirements
driving the design of the forthcoming survey instrument 4MOST, a multi-object
spectrograph commissioned for the ESO VISTA 4m-telescope. We focus here on
high-density, wide-area survey of stars and the science that can be achieved
with high-resolution stellar spectroscopy. Scientific and technical
requirements that governed the design are described along with a thorough line
blending analysis. For the high-resolution spectrograph, we find that a
sampling of >2.5 (pixels per resolving element), spectral resolution of 18000
or higher, and a wavelength range covering 393-436 nm, is the most
well-balanced solution for the instrument. A spectrograph with these
characteristics will enable accurate abundance analysis (+/-0.1 dex) in the
blue and allow us to confront the outlined scientific questions. (abridged)Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in A
Towards an understanding of the rapid decline of the cosmic star formation rate
We present a first analysis of deep 24 micron observations with the Spitzer
Space Telescope of a sample of nearly 1500 galaxies in a thin redshift slice,
0.65<z<0.75. We combine the infrared data with redshifts, rest-frame
luminosities, and colors from COMBO-17, and with morphologies from Hubble Space
Telescope images collected by the GEMS and GOODS projects. To characterize the
decline in star-formation rate (SFR) since z~0.7, we estimate the total thermal
infrared (IR) luminosities, SFRs, and stellar masses for the galaxies in this
sample. At z~0.7, nearly 40% of intermediate and high-mass galaxies (with
stellar masses >2x10^10 solar masses) are undergoing a period of intense star
formation above their past-averaged SFR. In contrast, less than 1% of
equally-massive galaxies in the local universe have similarly intense star
formation activity. Morphologically-undisturbed galaxies dominate the total
infrared luminosity density and SFR density: at z~0.7, more than half of the
intensely star-forming galaxies have spiral morphologies, whereas less than
\~30% are strongly interacting. Thus, a decline in major-merger rate is not the
underlying cause of the rapid decline in cosmic SFR since z~0.7. Physical
properties that do not strongly affect galaxy morphology - for example, gas
consumption and weak interactions with small satellite galaxies - appear to be
responsible.Comment: To appear in the Astrophysical Journal 1 June 2005. 14 pages with 8
embedded figure
AAOmega spectroscopy of 29 351 stars in fields centered on ten Galactic globular clusters
Galactic globular clusters have been pivotal in our understanding of many
astrophysical phenomena. Here we publish the extracted stellar parameters from
a recent large spectroscopic survey of ten globular clusters. A brief review of
the project is also presented. Stellar parameters have been extracted from
individual stellar spectra using both a modified version of the Radial Velocity
Experiment (RAVE) pipeline and a pipeline based on the parameter estimation
method of RAVE. We publish here all parameters extracted from both pipelines.
We calibrate the metallicity and convert this to [Fe/H] for each star and,
furthermore, we compare the velocities and velocity dispersions of the Galactic
stars in each field to the Besan\c{c}on Galaxy model. We find that the model
does not correspond well with the data, indicating that the model is probably
of little use for comparisons with pencil beam survey data such as this.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A. Data
described in tables will be available on CDS (at
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/530/A31) once publishe
GEMS: Galaxy Evolution from Morphologies and SEDs
GEMS, Galaxy Evolution from Morphologies and SEDs, is a large-area (800
arcmin2) two-color (F606W and F850LP) imaging survey with the Advanced Camera
for Surveys on HST. Centered on the Chandra Deep Field South, it covers an area
of ~28'x28', or about 120 Hubble Deep Field areas, to a depth of
m_AB(F606W)=28.3 (5sigma and m_AB(F850LP)=27.1 (5sigma) for compact sources. In
its central ~1/4, GEMS incorporates ACS imaging from the GOODS project.
Focusing on the redshift range 0.2<=z<=1.1, GEMS provides morphologies and
structural parameters for nearly 10,000 galaxies where redshift estimates,
luminosities and SEDs exist from COMBO-17. At the same time, GEMS contains
detectable host galaxy images for several hundred faint AGN. This paper
provides an overview of the science goals, the experiment design, the data
reduction and the science analysis plan for GEMS.Comment: 24 pages, TeX with 6 eps Figures; to appear in ApJ Supplement. Low
resolution figures only. Full resolution at
http://zwicky.as.arizona.edu/~rix/Misc/GEMS.ps.g
GEMS: Galaxy fitting catalogues and testing parametric galaxy fitting codes
In the context of measuring structure and morphology of intermediate redshift
galaxies with recent HST/ACS surveys, we tune, test, and compare two widely
used fitting codes (GALFIT and GIM2D) for fitting single-component Sersic
models to the light profiles of both simulated and real galaxy data. We find
that fitting accuracy depends sensitively on galaxy profile shape. Exponential
disks are well fit with Sersic models and have small measurement errors,
whereas fits to de Vaucouleurs profiles show larger uncertainties owing to the
large amount of light at large radii. We find that both codes provide reliable
fits and little systematic error, when the effective surface brightness is
above that of the sky. Moreover, both codes return errors that significantly
underestimate the true fitting uncertainties, which are best estimated with
simulations. We find that GIM2D suffers significant systematic errors for
spheroids with close companions owing to the difficulty of effectively masking
out neighboring galaxy light; there appears to be no work around to this
important systematic in GIM2D's current implementation. While this crowding
error affects only a small fraction of galaxies in GEMS, it must be accounted
for in the analysis of deeper cosmological images or of more crowded fields
with GIM2D. In contrast, GALFIT results are robust to the presence of neighbors
because it can simultaneously fit the profiles of multiple companions thereby
deblending their effect on the fit to the galaxy of interest. We find GALFIT's
robustness to nearby companions and factor of >~20 faster runtime speed are
important advantages over GIM2D for analyzing large HST/ACS datasets. Finally
we include our final catalog of fit results for all 41,495 objects detected in
GEMS.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJS October 2007, v172n2; 25 pages, 16
Figures, 9 Tables; for hi-resolution version, see
http://www.mpia.de/homes/bhaeussl/galaxy_fitting.pdf. For results, catalogues
and files for code-testing, see http://www.mpia.de/GEMS/fitting_paper.htm
Black plane solutions in four dimensional spacetimes
The static, plane symmetric solutions and cylindrically symmetric solutions
of Einstein-Maxwell equations with a negative cosmological constant are
investigated. These black configurations are asymptotically anti-de Sitter not
only in the transverse directions, but also in the membrane or string
directions. Their causal structure is similar to that of Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m
black holes, but their Hawking temperature goes with , where is
the ADM mass density. We also discuss the static plane solutions in
Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton gravity with a Liouville-type dilaton potential. The
presence of the dilaton field changes drastically the structure of solutions.
They are asymptotically ``anti-de Sitter'' or ``de Sitter'' depending on the
parameters in the theory.Comment: 8 pages, RevTex, to appear in Phys. Rev.
An Explanation for the Observed Weak Size Evolution of Disk Galaxies
Surveys of distant galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope and from the
ground have shown that there is only mild evolution in the relationship between
radial size and stellar mass for galactic disks from z~1 to the present day.
Using a sample of nearby disk-dominated galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey (SDSS), and high redshift data from the GEMS (Galaxy Evolution from
Morphology and SEDs) survey, we investigate whether this result is consistent
with theoretical expectations within the hierarchical paradigm of structure
formation. The relationship between virial radius and mass for dark matter
halos in the LCDM model evolves by about a factor of two over this interval.
However, N-body simulations have shown that halos of a given mass have less
centrally concentrated mass profiles at high redshift. When we compute the
expected disk size-stellar mass distribution, accounting for this evolution in
the internal structure of dark matter halos and the adiabatic contraction of
the dark matter by the self-gravity of the collapsing baryons, we find that the
predicted evolution in the mean size at fixed stellar mass since z~1 is about
15-20 percent, in good agreement with the observational constraints from GEMS.
At redshift z~2, the model predicts that disks at fixed stellar mass were on
average only 60% as large as they are today. Similarly, we predict that the
rotation velocity at a given stellar mass (essentially the zero-point of the
Tully-Fisher relation) is only about 10 percent larger at z~1 (20 percent at
z~2) than at the present day.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ. Revised in
response to referee's comments to improve clariry. Results are unchange
The generalized 3-edge-connectivity of lexicographic product graphs
The generalized -edge-connectivity of a graph is a
generalization of the concept of edge-connectivity. The lexicographic product
of two graphs and , denoted by , is an important graph
product. In this paper, we mainly study the generalized 3-edge-connectivity of
, and get upper and lower bounds of .
Moreover, all bounds are sharp.Comment: 14 page
Evolution and Impact of Bars over the Last Eight Billion Years: Early Results from GEMS
Bars drive the dynamical evolution of disk galaxies by redistributing mass
and angular momentum, and they are ubiquitous in present-day spirals. Early
studies of the Hubble Deep Field reported a dramatic decline in the rest-frame
optical bar fraction f_opt to below 5% at redshifts z>0.7, implying that disks
at these epochs are fundamentally different from present-day spirals. The GEMS
bar project, based on ~8300 galaxies with HST-based morphologies and accurate
redshifts over the range 0.2-1.1, aims at constraining the evolution and impact
of bars over the last 8 Gyr. We present early results indicating that f_opt
remains nearly constant at ~30% over the range z=0.2-1.1,corresponding to
lookback times of ~2.5-8 Gyr. The bars detected at z>0.6 are primarily strong
with ellipticities of 0.4-0.8. Remarkably, the bar fraction and range of bar
sizes observed at z>0.6 appear to be comparable to the values measured in the
local Universe for bars of corresponding strengths. Implications for bar
evolution models are discussed.Comment: Submitted June 25, 2004. 10 pages 5 figures. To appear in Penetrating
Bars through Masks of Cosmic Dust: The Hubble Tuning Fork Strikes a New Note,
eds. D. Block, K. Freeman, R. Groess, I. Puerari, & E.K. Block (Dordrecht:
Kluwer), in pres
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