Integral Field Spectroscopy based H\alpha\ sizes of local Luminous and Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies. A Direct Comparison with high-z Massive Star Forming Galaxies

Aims. We study the analogy between local U/LIRGs and high-z massive SFGs by comparing basic H{\alpha} structural characteristics, such as size, and luminosity (and SFR) surface density, in an homogeneous way (i.e. same tracer and size definition, similar physical scales). Methods. We use Integral Field Spectroscopy based H{\alpha} emission maps for a representative sample of 54 local U/LIRGs (66 galaxies). From this initial sample we select 26 objects with H{\alpha} luminosities (L(H{\alpha})) similar to those of massive (i.e. M\ast \sim 10^10 M\odot or larger) SFGs at z \sim 2, and observed on similar physical scales. Results. The sizes of the H{\alpha} emitting region in the sample of local U/LIRGs span a large range, with r1/2(H{\alpha}) from 0.2 to 7 kpc. However, about 2/3 of local U/LIRGs with Lir > 10^11.4 L\odot have compact H{\alpha} emission (i.e. r1/2 < 2 kpc). The comparison sample of local U/LIRGs also shows a higher fraction (59%) of objects with compact H{\alpha} emission than the high-z sample (25%). This gives further support to the idea that for this luminosity range the size of the star forming region is a distinctive factor between local and distant galaxies of similar SF rates. However, when using H{\alpha} as a tracer for both local and high-z samples, the differences are smaller than the ones recently reported using a variety of other tracers. Despite of the higher fraction of galaxies with compact H{\alpha} emission, a sizable group (\sim 1/3) of local U/LIRGs are large (i.e. r1/2 > 2 kpc). These are systems showing pre-coalescence merger activity and they are indistinguishable from the massive high-z SFGs galaxies in terms of their H{\alpha} sizes, and luminosity and SFR surface densities.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. (!5 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables

Integral field spectroscopy based Hα sizes of local luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies. A direct comparison with high-z massive star-forming galaxies

[Aims]: We study the analogy between local luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies (U/LIRGs) and high-z massive star forming galaxies (SFGs) by comparing their basic Hα structural characteristics, such as size and luminosity surface density, in an homogeneous way (i.e. same tracer, size definition, and similar physical scales). [Methods]: We use integral field spectroscopy (IFS) based Hα emission maps for a representative sample of 54 local U/LIRGs (66 galaxies) observed with INTEGRAL/WHT and VIMOS/VLT. From this initial sample, we select 26 objects with similar Hα luminosities (L(Hα)) to those of massive (i.e. M * ∼ 10 10 M ⊙ or larger) SFGs at z ∼ 2, and observed on similar physical scales. We then directly compare the sizes, and luminosity (and SFR) surface densities of these local and high-z samples. [Results]: The size of the Hα emitting region in the local U/LIRGs that we study has a wide range of values, with r 1/2(Hα) from 0.2 kpc to 7 kpc. However, about two-thirds of local U/LIRGs with L ir > 10 11.4 L ⊙ have compact Hα emission (i.e. r 1/2 2 kpc). These are systems that show evidence of pre-coalescence merger activity and are indistinguishable from the massive high-z SFGs galaxies in terms of their Hα sizes, and luminosity and SFR surface densities. © 2012 ESO.MGM is supported by the German federal department for education and research (BMBF) under the project number 50OS1101. This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) under grants ESP2007-65475- C02-01 and AYA2010-21161-C02-01.Peer Reviewe

VLT-SINFONI integral field spectroscopy of low-z luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies

We present an atlas of a sample of local (z < 0.1) LIRGs (10) and ULIRGs (7) covering the luminosity range log(LIR/L⊙) = 11.1−12.4. The atlas is based on near-infrared H (1.45−1.85 μm) and K-band (1.95−2.45 μm) VLT-SINFONI integral field spectroscopy (IFS). The atlas presents the ionised, partially ionised, and warm molecular gas two-dimensional flux distributions and kinematics over an FoV of ~3 × 3 kpc (LIRGs) and ~12 × 12 kpc (ULIRGs) and with average linear resolutions of ~0.2 kpc and ~0.9 kpc, respectively. The different phases of the gas show a wide morphological variety with the nucleus as the brightest Brγ source for ~33% of the LIRGs and ~71% of the ULIRGs, whereas all the LIRGs and ULIRGs have their maximum H2 emission in their nuclear regions. In LIRGs, the ionised gas distribution is dominated by the emission from the star-forming rings or giant HII regions in the spiral arms. The Brγ and [FeII] line at 1.644 μm trace the same structures, although the emission peaks at different locations in some of the objects, and the [FeII] seems to be more extended and diffuse. The ULIRG subsample is at larger distances and contains mainly pre-coalescence interacting systems. Although the peaks of the molecular gas emission and the continuum coincide in ~71% of the ULIRGs, regions with intense Paα (Brγ) emission tracing luminous star-forming regions located at distances of 2−4 kpc away from the nucleus are also detected, usually associated with secondary nuclei or tidal tails. LIRGs have mean observed (i.e. uncorrected for internal extinction) SFR surface densities of about 0.4 to 0.9 M⊙ yr-1 kpc-2 over large areas (4−9 kpc2) with peaks of about 2−2.5 M⊙ yr-1 kpc-2 in the smaller regions (0.16 kpc2) associated with the nucleus of the galaxy or the brightest Brγ region. ULIRGs do have similar average SFR surface densities for the integrated emitting regions of ~0.4 M⊙ yr-1 kpc-2 in somewhat larger areas (100−200 kpc2) and for the Paα peak (~2 M⊙ yr-1 kpc-2 in 4 kpc2). The observed gas kinematics in LIRGs is primarily due to rotational motions around the centre of the galaxy, although local deviations associated with radial flows and/or regions of higher velocity dispersions are present. The ionised and molecular gas share the same kinematics (velocity field and velocity dispersion) to first order, showing slight differences in the velocity amplitudes (peak-to-peak) in some cases, whereas the average velocity dispersions are compatible within uncertainties. As expected, the kinematics of the ULIRG subsample is more complex, owing to the interacting nature of the objects of the sample

CALIFA, the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey: I. Survey presentation

We present here the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey, which has been designed to provide a first step in this direction.We summarize the survey goals and design, including sample selection and observational strategy.We also showcase the data taken during the first observing runs (June/July 2010) and outline the reduction pipeline, quality control schemes and general characteristics of the reduced data. This survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopic information of a diameter selected sample of $\sim600$ galaxies in the Local Universe (0.005< z <0.03). CALIFA has been designed to allow the building of two-dimensional maps of the following quantities: (a) stellar populations: ages and metallicities; (b) ionized gas: distribution, excitation mechanism and chemical abundances; and (c) kinematic properties: both from stellar and ionized gas components. CALIFA uses the PPAK Integral Field Unit (IFU), with a hexagonal field-of-view of \sim1.3\sq\arcmin', with a 100% covering factor by adopting a three-pointing dithering scheme. The optical wavelength range is covered from 3700 to 7000 {\AA}, using two overlapping setups (V500 and V1200), with different resolutions: R\sim850 and R\sim1650, respectively. CALIFA is a legacy survey, intended for the community. The reduced data will be released, once the quality has been guaranteed. The analyzed data fulfill the expectations of the original observing proposal, on the basis of a set of quality checks and exploratory analysis. We conclude from this first look at the data that CALIFA will be an important resource for archaeological studies of galaxies in the Local Universe.Comment: 32 pages, 29 figures, Accepted for publishing in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Stellar populations of bulges at low redshift

This chapter summarizes our current understanding of the stellar population properties of bulges and outlines important future research directions.Comment: Review article to appear in "Galactic Bulges", Editors: Laurikainen E., Peletier R., Gadotti D., Springer Publishing. 34 pages, 12 figure

MAGIC Upper Limits for two Milagro-detected, Bright Fermi Sources in the Region of SNR G65.1+0.6

We report on the observation of the region around supernova remnant G65.1+0.6 with the stand-alone MAGIC-I telescope. This region hosts the two bright GeV gamma-ray sources 1FGL J1954.3+2836 and 1FGL J1958.6+2845. They are identified as GeV pulsars and both have a possible counterpart detected at about 35 TeV by the Milagro observatory. MAGIC collected 25.5 hours of good quality data, and found no significant emission in the range around 1 TeV. We therefore report differential flux upper limits, assuming the emission to be point-like (<0.1 deg) or within a radius of 0.3 deg. In the point-like scenario, the flux limits around 1 TeV are at the level of 3 % and 2 % of the Crab Nebula flux, for the two sources respectively. This implies that the Milagro emission is either extended over a much larger area than our point spread function, or it must be peaked at energies beyond 1 TeV, resulting in a photon index harder than 2.2 in the TeV band.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

The Economic Crisis and Residential Electricity Consumption in Spanish Provinces: A Spatial Econometric Analysis

This paper presents an empirical analysis of residential electricity demand considering the existence of spatial effects. This analysis has been performed using aggregate panel data at the province level for 46 Spanish provinces for the period from 2001 to 2009. For this purpose, we estimated a log-log demand equation using a spatial autoregressive model with autoregressive disturbances (SARAR). The purpose of this empirical analysis is to determine the influence of price, income, and spatial spillovers on residential electricity demand in Spain. We are particularly interested in analyzing the impact of household disposable income variation across provinces observed during the economic crisis period from 2008-2009. The estimation results show relatively high income elasticity and relatively low price elasticity. Furthermore, the results show the presence of spatial effects in Spanish residential electricity consumption

Opposite cannabis-cognition associations in psychotic patients depending on family history

The objective of this study is to investigate cognitive performance in a first-episode psychosis sample, when stratifying the interaction by cannabis use and familial or non-familial psychosis. Hierarchical-regression models were used to analyse this association in a sample of 268 first-episode psychosis patients and 237 controls. We found that cannabis use was associated with worse working memory, regardless of family history. However, cannabis use was clearly associated with worse cognitive performance in patients with no family history of psychosis, in cognitive domains including verbal memory, executive function and global cognitive index, whereas cannabis users with a family history of psychosis performed better in these domains. The main finding of the study is that there is an interaction between cannabis use and a family history of psychosis in the areas of verbal memory, executive function and global cognition: that is, cannabis use is associated with a better performance in patients with a family history of psychosis and a worse performance in those with no family history of psychosis. In order to confirm this hypothesis, future research should explore the actual expression of the endocannabinoid system in patients with and without a family history of psychosis

CALIFA, the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey III. Second public data release

CALIFA is the first legacy survey being performed at Calar Alto. The CALIFA collaboration would like to thank the IAA-CSIC and MPIA-MPG as major partners of the observatory, and CAHA itself, for the unique access to telescope time and support in manpower and infrastructures. The CALIFA collaboration thanks also the CAHA staff for the dedication to this project. R.G.B., R.G.D., and E.P. are supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion under grant AYA2010-15081. S.Z. is supported by the EU Marie Curie Integration Grant "SteMaGE" Nr. PCIG12-GA-2012-326466 (Call Identifier: FP7-PEOPLE-2012 CIG). J.F.B. acknowledges support from grants AYA2010-21322-C03-02 and AIB-2010-DE-00227 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), as well as from the FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission, via the Initial Training Network DAGAL under REA grant agreement number 289313. Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC12009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, M.A.S.L.G. also acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. A.G. acknowledges support from the FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement n. 267251 (AstroFIt). J.M.G. acknowledges support from the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) through the Fellowship SFRH/BPD/66958/2009 from FCT (Portugal) and research grant PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012. RAM was funded by the Spanish programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). J.M.A. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild). I.M., J.M. and A.d.O. acknowledge the support by the projects AYA2010-15196 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion and TIC 114 and PO08-TIC-3531 from Junta de Andalucia. AMI acknowledges support from Agence Nationale de la Recherche through the STILISM project (ANR-12-BS05-0016-02). M.M. acknowledges financial support from AYA2010-21887-C04-02 from the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad. P.P. is supported by an FCT Investigador 2013 Contract, funded by FCT/MCTES (Portugal) and POPH/FSE (EC). P.P. acknowledges support by FCT under project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-029170 (Reference FCT PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012), funded by FCT-MEC (PIDDAC) and FEDER (COMPETE). T.R.L. thanks the support of the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte by means of the FPU fellowship. PSB acknowledges support from the Ramon y Cajal program, grant ATA2010-21322-C03-02 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). C.J.W. acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. V.W. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDMorph P.I. V. Wild) and European Career Re-integration Grant (Phiz-Ev P.I.V. Wild). Y.A. acknowledges financial support from the Ramon y Cajal programme (RyC-2011-09461) and project AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P, both managed by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, as well as the "Study of Emission-Line Galaxies with Integral-Field Spectroscopy" (SELGIFS) programme, funded by the EU (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701) within the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions scheme. We thank the referee David Wilman for very useful comments that improved the presentation of the paper.This paper describes the Second Public Data Release (DR2) of the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey. The data for 200 objects are made public, including the 100 galaxies of the First Public Data Release (DR1). Data were obtained with the integral-field spectrograph PMAS/PPak mounted on the 3.5 m telescope at the Calar Alto observatory. Two different spectral setups are available for each galaxy, (i) a lowresolution V500 setup covering the wavelength range 3745–7500 Å with a spectral resolution of 6.0 Å (FWHM); and (ii) a medium-resolution V1200 setup covering the wavelength range 3650–4840 Å with a spectral resolution of 2.3 Å (FWHM). The sample covers a redshift range between 0.005 and 0.03, with a wide range of properties in the color–magnitude diagram, stellar mass, ionization conditions, and morphological types. All the cubes in the data release were reduced with the latest pipeline, which includes improved spectrophotometric calibration, spatial registration, and spatial resolution. The spectrophotometric calibration is better than 6% and the median spatial resolution is 200 : 4. In total, the second data release contains over 1.5 million spectra.Instituto de Salud Carlos III Spanish Government AYA2010-15081 AYA2010-15196European Union (EU) PCIG12-GA-2012-326466Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) AYA2010-21322-C03-02 AIB-2010-DE-00227FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission, via the Initial Training Network DAGAL under REA 289313Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative IC12009Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) CONICYT FONDECYT 3140566Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) from FCT (Portugal) SFRH/BPD/66958/2009Spanish programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI)European Research Council (ERC)Junta de Andalucia TIC 114 PO08-TIC-3531French National Research Agency (ANR) ANR-12-BS05-0016-02Spanish Government AYA2010-21887-C04-02FCT Investigador Contract - FCT/MCTES (Portugal)European Commission Joint Research Centre European Social Fund (ESF)FCT - FCT-MEC (PIDDAC) FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-029170 FCT PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012European Union (EU)Spanish Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte by FPURamon y Cajal program from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) ATA2010-21322-C03-02European Union (EU) 303912European Career Re-integration GrantSpanish Government RyC-2011-09461 AYA2013-47742-C4-3-PEuropean Union (EU) FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) ST/K000985/

The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs

Context. The CARMENES instrument, installed at the 3.5 m telescope of the Calar Alto Observatory in Almería, Spain, was conceived to deliver high-accuracy radial velocity (RV) measurements with long-term stability to search for temperate rocky planets around a sample of nearby cool stars. Moreover, the broad wavelength coverage was designed to provide a range of stellar activity indicators to assess the nature of potential RV signals and to provide valuable spectral information to help characterise the stellar targets. Aims: We describe the CARMENES guaranteed time observations (GTO), spanning from 2016 to 2020, during which 19 633 spectra for a sample of 362 targets were collected. We present the CARMENES Data Release 1 (DR1), which makes public all observations obtained during the GTO of the CARMENES survey. Methods: The CARMENES survey target selection was aimed at minimising biases, and about 70% of all known M dwarfs within 10 pc and accessible from Calar Alto were included. The data were pipeline-processed, and high-level data products, including 18 642 precise RVs for 345 targets, were derived. Time series data of spectroscopic activity indicators were also obtained. Results: We discuss the characteristics of the CARMENES data, the statistical properties of the stellar sample, and the spectroscopic measurements. We show examples of the use of CARMENES data and provide a contextual view of the exoplanet population revealed by the survey, including 33 new planets, 17 re-analysed planets, and 26 confirmed planets from transiting candidate follow-up. A subsample of 238 targets was used to derive updated planet occurrence rates, yielding an overall average of 1.44 ± 0.20 planets with 1 M⊕ &lt; Mpl sin i &lt; 1000 M⊕ and 1 day &lt; Porb &lt; 1000 days per star, and indicating that nearly every M dwarf hosts at least one planet. All the DR1 raw data, pipeline-processed data, and high-level data products are publicly available online. Conclusions: CARMENES data have proven very useful for identifying and measuring planetary companions. They are also suitable for a variety of additional applications, such as the determination of stellar fundamental and atmospheric properties, the characterisation of stellar activity, and the study of exoplanet atmospheres