UV-IR luminosity functions and stellar mass functions of galaxies in the Shapley supercluster core

We present a panchromatic study of luminosity functions (LFs) and stellar mass functions (SMFs) of galaxies in the core of the Shapley supercluster at z=0.048, in order to investigate how the dense environment affects the galaxy properties, such as star formation (SF) or stellar masses. We find that while faint-end slopes of optical and NIR LFs steepen with decreasing density, no environment effect is found in the slope of the SMFs. This suggests that mechanisms transforming galaxies in different environments are mainly related to the quench of SF rather than to mass-loss. The Near-UV (NUV) and Far-UV (FUV) LFs obtained have steeper faint-end slopes than the local field population, while the 24$\mu$m and 70$\mu$m galaxy LFs for the Shapley supercluster have shapes fully consistent with those obtained for the local field galaxy population. This apparent lack of environmental dependence for the infrared (IR) LFs suggests that the bulk of the star-forming galaxies that make up the observed cluster IR LF have been recently accreted from the field and have yet to have their SF activity significantly affected by the cluster environment.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, JENAM 2010, Symposium 2. Conference proceeding

On the Origin of S0 Galaxies

I will review the basic properties of S0 galaxies in the local Universe in relation to both elliptical and spiral galaxies, their neighbours on the Hubble sequence, and also in relation to dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies. This will include colours, luminosities, spectral features, information about the age and metallicity composition of their stellar populations and globular clusters, about their ISM content, as well as kinematic signatures and their implications for central black hole masses and past interaction events, and the number ratios of S0s to other galaxy types in relation to environmental galaxy density. I will point out some caveats as to their morphological discrimination against other classes of galaxies, discuss the role of dust and the wavelength dependence of bulge/disk light ratios. These effects are of importance for investigations into the redshift evolution of S0 galaxies -- both as individual objects and as a population. The various formation and transformation scenarios for S0 and dSph galaxies will be presented and confronted with the available observations.Comment: Invited Review, 18 pages, ``BARS 2004'' Conference, South Africa, June 2004, eds.: K. C. Freeman, D. L. Block, I. Puerari, R. Groess, Kluwer, in pres

The stellar content of the halo of NGC 5907 from deep Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS imaging

We present H-band images obtained with the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) of a field 75 " (5 kpc) above the plane of the disk of the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 5907. Ground-based observations have shown that NGC 5907 has a luminous halo with a shallow radial profile between 4 and 8 kpc that roughly traces the dark matter distribution of the galaxy deduced from its rotation curve. Our NICMOS observations were designed to resolve bright giants in the halo of NGC 5907 to constrain its stellar composition with the goal of understanding its nature and origin. More than 100 stars are expected in the NICMOS images if the dwarf-to-giant ratio in the halo of NGC 5907 is consistent with that expected from standard stellar initial mass functions and if ground-based estimates of the distance to NGC 5907 and the integrated colors of its halo are correct. Instead we observe only one candidate giant star.-This apparent discrepancy can be resolved by assuming either a significantly larger distance than that suggested by several studies or a halo metallicity much lower than that suggested by ground-based colors and as low as that in metal-poor Galactic globular clusters. If previous distance and halo color estimates for NGC 5907 are correct, our NICMOS results suggest that its extended light is composed of stars that formed with an initial mass function different than that observed locally, leading to a much higher ratio of dwarfs to giants. We describe how these three possible explanations for the absence of bright giants in our NICMOS images of the halo of NGC 5907 might be constrained by future observations

SCUBA-2 follow-up of Herschel-SPIRE observed Planck overdensities

We present SCUBA-2 follow-up of 61 candidate high-redshift Planck sources. Of these, 10 are confirmed strong gravitational lenses and comprise some of the brightest such submm sources on the observed sky, while 51 are candidate proto-cluster fields undergoing massive starburst events. With the accompanying Herschel-Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver observations and assuming an empirical dust temperature prior of 34+13−9 34−9+13 K, we provide photometric redshift and far-IR luminosity estimates for 172 SCUBA-2-selected sources within these Planck overdensity fields. The redshift distribution of the sources peak between a redshift of 2 and 4, with one-third of the sources having S500/S350 > 1. For the majority of the sources, we find far-IR luminosities of approximately 1013 L⊙, corresponding to star formation rates of around 1000 M⊙ yr−1. For S850 > 8 mJy sources, we show that there is up to an order of magnitude increase in star formation rate density and an increase in uncorrected number counts of 6 for S850 > 8 mJy when compared to typical cosmological survey fields. The sources detected with SCUBA-2 account for only approximately 5 per cent of the Planck flux at 353 GHz, and thus many more fainter sources are expected in these fields