The 6dF galaxy survey: fundamental plane data

We report the 6dFGS Fundamental Plane (6dFGSv) catalogue that is used to estimate distances and peculiar velocities for nearly 9000 early-type galaxies in the local (z < 0.055) universe. Velocity dispersions are derived by cross-correlation from 6dF V-band spectra with typical S/N of 12.9 Å−1 for a sample of 11 315 galaxies; the median velocity dispersion is 163 km s−1 and the median measurement error is 12.9 per cent. The photometric Fundamental Plane (FP) parameters (effective radii and surface brightnesses) are determined from the JHK 2MASS images for 11 102 galaxies. Comparison of the independent J- and K-band measurements implies that the average uncertainty in XFP, the combined photometric parameter that enters the FP, is 0.013 dex (3 per cent) for each band. Visual classification of morphologies was used to select a sample of nearly 9000 early-type galaxies that form 6dFGSv. This catalogue has been used to study the effects of stellar populations on galaxy scaling relations, to investigate the variation of the FP with environment and galaxy morphology, to explore trends in stellar populations through, along and across the FP, and to map and analyse the local peculiar velocity field

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): testing galaxy formation models through the most massive galaxies in the Universe

We have analysed the growth of Brightest Group Galaxies and Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BGGs/BCGs) over the last 3 billion years using a large sample of 883 galaxies from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey. By comparing the stellar mass of BGGs and BCGs in groups and clusters of similar dynamical masses, we find no significant growth between redshift z = 0.27 and 0.09. We also examine the number of BGGs/BCGs that have line emission, finding that approximately 65 per cent of BGGs/BCGs show Hα in emission. From the galaxies where the necessary spectroscopic lines were accurately recovered (54 per cent of the sample), we find that half of this (i.e. 27 per cent of the sample) harbour ongoing star formation with rates up to 10 M⊙ yr−1, and the other half (i.e. 27 per cent of the sample) have an active nucleus (AGN) at the centre. BGGs are more likely to have ongoing star formation, while BCGs show a higher fraction of AGN activity. By examining the position of the BGGs/BCGs with respect to their host dark matter halo, we find that around 13 per cent of them do not lie at the centre of the dark matter halo. This could be an indicator of recent cluster–cluster mergers. We conclude that BGGs and BCGs acquired their stellar mass rapidly at higher redshifts as predicted by semi-analytic models, mildly slowing down at low redshifts

Track D Social Science, Human Rights and Political Science

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138414/1/jia218442.pd

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): data release 4 and the z < 0.1 total and z < 0.08 morphological galaxy stellar mass functions

Galaxie

Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): fine filaments of galaxies detected within voids

Based on data from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, we report on the discovery of structures that we refer to as ‘tendrils’ of galaxies: coherent, thin chains of galaxies that are rooted in filaments and terminate in neighbouring filaments or voids. On average, tendrils contain six galaxies and span 10 h−1 Mpc. We use the so-called line correlation function to prove that tendrils represent real structures rather than accidental alignments. We show that voids found in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, 7th data release survey that overlap with GAMA regions contain a large number of galaxies, primarily belonging to tendrils. This implies that void sizes are strongly dependent on the number density and sensitivity limits of a survey. We caution that galaxies in low-density regions, which may be defined as ‘void galaxies,’ will have local galaxy number densities that depend on such observational limits and are likely higher than those can be directly measured

Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): Witnessing the Assembly of the Cluster ABELL 1882

We present a combined optical and X-ray analysis of the rich cluster ABELL 1882 (A1882) with the aim of identifying merging substructure and understanding the recent assembly history of this system. Our optical data consist of spectra drawn from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly survey, which lends itself to this kind of detailed study thanks to its depth and high spectroscopic completeness. We use 283 spectroscopically confirmed cluster members to detect and characterize substructure. We complement the optical data with X-ray data taken with both Chandra and XMM. Our analysis reveals that A1882 harbors two main components, A1882A and A1882B, which have a projected separation of ~2 Mpc and a line of sight velocity difference of $v_{{\rm los}} \sim -428^{+187}_{-139}$ km s–1. The primary system, A1882A, has velocity dispersion $\sigma _v=500_{-26}^{+23}$ km s–1 and Chandra (XMM) temperature kT = 3.57 ± 0.17 keV ($3.31^{+0.28}_{-0.27}$ keV) while the secondary, A1882B, has $\sigma _v=457^{+108}_{-101}$ km s–1 and Chandra (XMM) temperature kT = 2.39 ± 0.28 keV (2.12 ± 0.20 keV). The optical and X-ray estimates for the masses of the two systems are consistent within the uncertainties and indicate that there is twice as much mass in A1882A (M 500 = 1.5-1.9 × 1014 M ☉) when compared with A1882B (M 500 = 0.8-1.0 × 1014 M ☉). We interpret the A1882A/A1882B system as being observed prior to a core passage. Supporting this interpretation is the large projected separation of A1882A and A1882B and the dearth of evidence for a recent (<2 Gyr) major interaction in the X-ray data. Two-body analyses indicate that A1882A and A1882B form a bound system with bound incoming solutions strongly favored. We compute blue fractions of fb = 0.28 ± 0.09 and 0.18 ± 0.07 for the spectroscopically confirmed member galaxies within r 500 of the centers of A1882A and A1882B, respectively. These blue fractions do not differ significantly from the blue fraction measured from an ensemble of 20 clusters with similar mass and redshift

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): bivariate functions of Hα star-forming galaxies

We present bivariate luminosity and stellar mass functions of Hα star-forming galaxies drawn from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. While optically deep spectroscopic observations of GAMA over a wide sky area enable the detection of a large number of 0.001 < SFRHα (M⊙ yr−1) < 100 galaxies, the requirement for an Hα detection in targets selected from an r-band magnitude-limited survey leads to an incompleteness due to missing optically faint star-forming galaxies. Using z < 0.1 bivariate distributions as a reference we model the higher-z distributions, thereby approximating a correction for the missing optically faint star-forming galaxies to the local star formation rate (SFR) and M M densities. Furthermore, we obtain the r-band luminosity functions (LFs) and stellar mass functions of Hα star-forming galaxies from the bivariate LFs. As our sample is selected on the basis of detected Hα emission, a direct tracer of ongoing star formation, this sample represents a true star-forming galaxy sample, and is drawn from both photometrically classified blue and red subpopulations, though mostly from the blue population. On average 20–30 per cent of red galaxies at all stellar masses are star forming, implying that these galaxies may be dusty star-forming systems

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the bright void galaxy population in the optical and mid-IR

We examine the properties of galaxies in the Galaxies and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey located in voids with radii >10 h−1 Mpc. Utilizing the GAMA equatorial survey, 592 void galaxies are identified out to z ≈ 0.1 brighter than Mr = −18.4, our magnitude completeness limit. Using the WHα versus [N ii]/Hα (WHAN) line strength diagnostic diagram, we classify their spectra as star forming, AGN, or dominated by old stellar populations. For objects more massive than 5 × 109 M⊙, we identify a sample of 26 void galaxies with old stellar populations classed as passive and retired galaxies in the WHAN diagnostic diagram, else they lack any emission lines in their spectra. When matched to Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mid-IR photometry, these passive and retired galaxies exhibit a range of mid-IR colour, with a number of void galaxies exhibiting [4.6] − [12] colours inconsistent with completely quenched stellar populations, with a similar spread in colour seen for a randomly drawn non-void comparison sample. We hypothesize that a number of these galaxies host obscured star formation, else they are star forming outside of their central regions targeted for single-fibre spectroscopy. When matched to a randomly drawn sample of non-void galaxies, the void and non-void galaxies exhibit similar properties in terms of optical and mid-IR colour, morphology, and star formation activity, suggesting comparable mass assembly and quenching histories. A trend in mid-IR [4.6] − [12] colour is seen, such that both void and non-void galaxies with quenched/passive colours <1.5 typically have masses higher than 1010 M⊙, where internally driven processes play an increasingly important role in galaxy evolution

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): linking star formation histories and stellar mass growth

We present evidence for stochastic star formation histories in low-mass (M* < 1010 M⊙) galaxies from observations within the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. For ∼73 000 galaxies between 0.05 < z < 0.32, we calculate star formation rates (SFR) and specific star formation rates (SSFR = SFR/M*) from spectroscopic Hα measurements and apply dust corrections derived from Balmer decrements. We find a dependence of SSFR on stellar mass, such that SSFRs decrease with increasing stellar mass for star-forming galaxies, and for the full sample, SSFRs decrease as a stronger function of stellar mass. We use simple parametrizations of exponentially declining star formation histories to investigate the dependence on stellar mass of the star formation time-scale and the formation redshift. We find that parametrizations previously fit to samples of z ∼ 1 galaxies cannot recover the distributions of SSFRs and stellar masses observed in the GAMA sample between 0.05 < z < 0.32. In particular, a large number of low-mass (M* < 1010 M⊙) galaxies are observed to have much higher SSFRs than can be explained by these simple models over the redshift range of 0.05 < z < 0.32, even when invoking mass-dependent staged evolution. For such a large number of galaxies to maintain low stellar masses, yet harbour such high SSFRs, requires the late onset of a weak underlying exponentially declining star formation history with stochastic bursts of star formation superimposed

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the effect of close interactions on star formation in galaxies

The modification of star formation (SF) in galaxy interactions is a complex process, with SF observed to be both enhanced in major mergers and suppressed in minor pair interactions. Such changes likely to arise on short time-scales and be directly related to the galaxy–galaxy interaction time. Here we investigate the link between dynamical phase and direct measures of SF on different time-scales for pair galaxies, targeting numerous star- formation rate (SFR) indicators and comparing to pair separation, individual galaxy mass and pair mass ratio. We split our sample into the higher (primary) and lower (secondary) mass galaxies in each pair and find that SF is indeed enhanced in all primary galaxies but suppressed in secondaries of minor mergers. We find that changes in SF of primaries are consistent in both major and minor mergers, suggesting that SF in the more massive galaxy is agnostic to pair mass ratio. We also find that SF is enhanced/suppressed more strongly for short-duration SFR indicators (e.g. Hα), highlighting recent changes to SF in these galaxies, which are likely to be induced by the interaction. We propose a scenario where the lower mass galaxy has its SF suppressed by gas heating or stripping, while the higher mass galaxy has its SF enhanced, potentially by tidal gas turbulence and shocks. This is consistent with the seemingly contradictory observations for both SF suppression and enhancement in close pairs