On the Cosmic Evolution of Fe/Mg in QSO Absorption Line Systems

We investigate the variation of the ratio of the equivalent widths of the FeII$\lambda$2600 line to the MgII$\lambda\lambda$2796,2803 doublet as a function of redshift in a large sample of absorption lines drawn from the JHU-SDSS Absorption Line Catalog. We find that despite large scatter, the observed ratio shows a trend where the equivalent width ratio $\mathcal{R}\equiv W_{\rm FeII}/W_{\rm MgII}$ decreases monotonically with increasing redshift $z$ over the range $0.55 \le z \le 1.90$. Selecting the subset of absorbers where the signal-to-noise ratio of the MgII equivalent width $W_{\rm MgII}$ is $\ge$3 and modeling the equivalent width ratio distribution as a gaussian, we find that the mean of the gaussian distribution varies as $\mathcal{R}\propto (-0.045\pm0.005)z$. We discuss various possible reasons for the trend. A monotonic trend in the Fe/Mg abundance ratio is predicted by a simple model where the abundances of Mg and Fe in the absorbing clouds are assumed to be the result of supernova ejecta and where the cosmic evolution in the SNIa and core-collapse supernova rates is related to the cosmic star-formation rate. If the trend in $\mathcal{R}$ reflects the evolution in the abundances, then it is consistent with the predictions of the simple model.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, final version published in MNRA

A Local Leaky-Box Model for the Local Stellar Surface Density-Gas Surface Density-Gas Phase Metallicity Relation

We revisit the relation between the stellar surface density, the gas surface density and the gas-phase metallicity of typical disc galaxies in the local Universe with the SDSS-IV/MaNGA survey, using the star formation rate surface density as an indicator for the gas surface density. We show that these three local parameters form a tight relationship, confirming previous works (e.g. by the PINGS and CALIFA surveys), but with a larger sample. We present a new local leaky-box model, assuming star-formation history and chemical evolution is localized except for outflowing materials. We derive closed-form solutions for the evolution of stellar surface density, gas surface density and gas-phase metallicity, and show that these parameters form a tight relation independent of initial gas density and time. We show that, with canonical values of model parameters, this predicted relation match the observed one well. In addition, we briefly describe a pathway to improving the current semi-analytic models of galaxy formation by incorporating the local leaky-box model in the cosmological context, which can potentially explain simultaneously multiple properties of Milky Way-type disc galaxies, such as the size growth and the global stellar mass–gas metallicity relation

A Local Leaky-Box Model for the Local Stellar Surface Density-Gas Surface Density-Gas Phase Metallicity Relation

We revisit the relation between the stellar surface density, the gas surface density and the gas-phase metallicity of typical disc galaxies in the local Universe with the SDSS-IV/MaNGA survey, using the star formation rate surface density as an indicator for the gas surface density. We show that these three local parameters form a tight relationship, confirming previous works (e.g. by the PINGS and CALIFA surveys), but with a larger sample. We present a new local leaky-box model, assuming star-formation history and chemical evolution is localized except for outflowing materials. We derive closed-form solutions for the evolution of stellar surface density, gas surface density and gas-phase metallicity, and show that these parameters form a tight relation independent of initial gas density and time. We show that, with canonical values of model parameters, this predicted relation match the observed one well. In addition, we briefly describe a pathway to improving the current semi-analytic models of galaxy formation by incorporating the local leaky-box model in the cosmological context, which can potentially explain simultaneously multiple properties of Milky Way-type disc galaxies, such as the size growth and the global stellar mass–gas metallicity relation

NEAR-ULTRAVIOLET SPECTROSCOPY of STAR-FORMING GALAXIES from eBOSS: SIGNATURES of UBIQUITOUS GALACTIC-SCALE OUTFLOWS

The Astrophysical Journal 815.1 (2015): 48 reproduced by permission of the AASWe present rest-frame near-ultraviolet (NUV) spectroscopy of star-forming galaxies (SFGs) at 0.6 < z < 1.2 from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) in SDSS-IV. One of the eBOSS programs is to obtain 2″ (about 15 kpc) fiber spectra of about 200,000 emission-line galaxies (ELGs) at redshift z ≥ 0.6. We use the data from the pilot observations of this program, including 8620 spectra of SFGs at 0.6 < z < 1.2. The median composite spectra of these SFGs at 2200 A < λ < 4000 A feature asymmetric, preferentially blueshifted non-resonant emission, Fe ii∗, and blueshifted resonant absorption, e.g., Fe ii and Mg ii, indicating ubiquitous outflows driven by star formation at these redshifts. For the absorption lines, we find a variety of velocity profiles with different degrees of blueshift. Comparing our new observations with the literature, we do not observe the non-resonant emission in the small-aperture (<40 pc) spectra of local star-forming regions with the Hubble Space Telescope, and find the observed line ratios in the SFG spectra to be different from those in the spectra of local star-forming regions, as well as those of quasar absorption-line systems in the same redshift range. We introduce an outflow model that can simultaneously explain the multiple observed properties and suggest that the variety of absorption velocity profiles and the line ratio differences are caused by scattered fluorescent emission filling in on top of the absorption in the large-aperture eBOSS spectra. We develop an observation-driven, model-independent method to correct the emission infill to reveal the true absorption profiles. Finally, we show that the strengths of both the non-resonant emission and the emission-corrected resonant absorption increase with [O ii] λλ3727, 3730 rest equivalent width and luminosity, with a slightly larger dependence on the former. Our results show that the eBOSS and future dark-energy surveys (e.g., Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey and Prime Focus Spectrograph survey) will provide rich data sets of rest-frame NUV spectroscopy for astrophysical applicationsG.B.Z. started this work when he was visiting Princeton University in 2014 December and he would like to thank Michael Strauss and Jim Gunn for their hospitality. He also thanks Bruce Draine, Tim Heckman, Claus Leitherer, Jason X. Prochaska, and Rosie Wise for useful discussions. G.B.Z. acknowledges support provided by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant #HST-HF2-51351 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under contract NAS 5-26555. We thank an anonymous referee for helpful comments that have helped improve the paper. J.C. acknowledges financial support from MINECO (Spain) under project number AYA2012-31101. J.-P.K. and T.D. acknowledge support from the LIDA ERC advanced grant. A.R. acknowledges funding from the P2IO LabEx (ANR-10-LABX-0038) in the framework “Investissements d’Avenir” (ANR-11-IDEX-0003-01) managed by the French National Research Agency (ANR

Redshift measurement and spectral classification for eBOSS galaxies with the redmonster software

We describe the redmonster automated redshift measurement and spectral classification software designed for the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV). We describe the algorithms, the template standard and requirements, and the newly developed galaxy templates to be used on eBOSS spectra. We present results from testing on early data from eBOSS, where we have found a 90.5% automated redshift and spectral classification success rate for the luminous red galaxy sample (redshifts 0.6 ≲ z ≲ 1.0). The redmonster performance meets the eBOSS cosmology requirements for redshift classification and catastrophic failures and represents a significant improvement over the previous pipeline. We describe the empirical processes used to determine the optimum number of additive polynomial terms in our models and an acceptable ΔXr2 threshold for declaring statistical confidence. Statistical errors on redshift measurement due to photon shot noise are assessed, and we find typical values of a few tens of km s-1. An investigation of redshift differences in repeat observations scaled by error estimates yields a distribution with a Gaussian mean and standard deviation of μ ∼ 0.01 and σ ∼ 0.65, respectively, suggesting the reported statistical redshift uncertainties are over-estimated by ∼54%. We assess the effects of object magnitude, signal-to-noise ratio, fiber number, and fiber head location on the pipeline's redshift success rate. Finally, we describe directions of ongoing development.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey : Luminous Red Galaxy Target Selection

We describe the algorithm used to select the Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) sample for the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) using photometric data from both the SDSS and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). LRG targets are required to meet a set of color selection criteria and have z-band and i-band MODEL magnitudes z <19.95 and 19.9 <i < 21.8, respectively. Our algorithm selects roughly 50 LRG targets per square degree, the great majority of which lie in the redshift range 0.6 <z <1.0 (median redshift 0.71). We demonstrate that our methods are highly effective at eliminating stellar contamination and lower-redshift galaxies. We perform a number of tests using spectroscopic data from SDSS-III/BOSS to determine the redshift reliability of our target selection and its ability to meet the science requirements of eBOSS. The SDSS spectra are of high enough signal-to-noise ratio that at least 89% of the target sample yields secure redshift measurements. We also present tests of the uniformity and homogeneity of the sample, demonstrating that it should be clean enough for studies of the large-scale structure of the universe at higher redshifts than SDSS-III/BOSS LRGs reached.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The Astropy Problem

The Astropy Project (http://astropy.org) is, in its own words, "a community effort to develop a single core package for Astronomy in Python and foster interoperability between Python astronomy packages." For five years this project has been managed, written, and operated as a grassroots, self-organized, almost entirely volunteer effort while the software is used by the majority of the astronomical community. Despite this, the project has always been and remains to this day effectively unfunded. Further, contributors receive little or no formal recognition for creating and supporting what is now critical software. This paper explores the problem in detail, outlines possible solutions to correct this, and presents a few suggestions on how to address the sustainability of general purpose astronomical software

Non-negative Matrix Factorization: Robust Extraction of Extended Structures

International audienceWe apply the vectorized non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) method to the post-processing of the direct imaging data of exoplanetary systems such as circumstellar disks. NMF is an iterative approach, which first creates a nonorthogonal and non-negative basis of components using the given reference images and then models a target with the components. The constructed model is then rescaled with a factor to compensate for the contribution from the disks. We compare NMF with existing methods (classical reference differential imaging method, and the Karhunen-Loève image projection algorithm) using synthetic circumstellar disks and demonstrate the superiority of NMF: with no need of prior selection of references, NMF not only can detect fainter circumstellar disks but also better preserves their morphology and does not require forward modeling. As an application to a well-known disk example, we process the archival Hubble Space Telescope STIS coronagraphic observations of HD 181327 with different methods and compare them, and NMF is able to extract some circumstellar materials inside the primary ring for the first time. In an appendix, we mathematically investigate the stability of NMF components during the iteration and the linearity of NMF modeling