6,248 research outputs found
Diffuse Ionized Gas in the Dwarf Irregular Galaxy DDO 53
The spectral characteristics throughout the dwarf irregular galaxy DDO 53 are
studied. The results are very similar to those for other irregular galaxies:
high excitation and low values of the [SII]/Halpha ratio. The most likely
ionization source is photon leakage from the classical HII regions, without any
other source, although the interstellar medium of the galaxy is quite
perturbed. Moreover, the physical conditions throughout the galaxy do not
change very much because both the photon leakage percentage and the ionization
temperature are very similar. In addition, the determined metal content for two
HII regions indicates that DDO 53 is a low-metallicity galaxy.Comment: 32 pages, 9 figures, 7 tables. AJ, in pres
Spatially resolved LMC star formation history: I. Outside in evolution of the outer LMC disk
We study the evolution of three fields in the outer LMC disk Rgc=3.5-6.2 Kpc.
Their star formation history indicates a stellar populations gradient such that
younger stellar populations are more centrally concentrated. We identify two
main star forming epochs, separated by a period of lower activity between ~7
and ~4 Gyr ago. Their relative importance varies from a similar amount of stars
formed in the two epochs in the innermost field, to only 40% of the stars
formed in the more recent epoch in the outermost field. The young star forming
epoch continues to the present time in the innermost field, but lasted only
till ~0.8 and 1.3 Gyr ago at Rgc=5.5 degrees and 7.1 degrees, respectively.
This gradient is correlated with the measured HI column density and implies an
outside-in quenching of the star formation, possibly related to a variation of
the size of the HI disk. This could either result from gas depletion due to
star formation or ram-pressure stripping, or from to the compression of the gas
disk as ram-pressure from the Milky Way halo acted on the LMC interstellar
medium. The latter two situations may have occurred when the LMC first
approached the Milky Way.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables. MNRAS, in pres
A state-of-the-art analysis of the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 6822
We present a detailed photometric study of the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC
6822 aimed at investigating the properties of its stellar populations and, in
particular, the presence of stellar radial gradients. Our goal is to analyse
the stellar populations in six fields, which cover the whole bar of this dwarf
galaxy. We derived the quantitative star formation history (SFH) of the six
fields using the IAC method, involving IAC-pop/MinnIAC codes. The solutions we
derived show an enhanced star formation rate (SFR) in Fields 1 and 3 during the
past 500 Myr. The SFRs of the other fields are almost extinguished at very
recent epochs and. We study the radial gradients of the SFR and consider the
total mass converted into stars in two time intervals (between 0 and 0.5 Gyr
ago and between 0.5 and 13.5 Gyr ago). We find that the scale lengths of the
young and intermediate-to-old populations are perfectly compatible, with the
exception of the young populations in Fields 1 and 3. The recent SF in these
two fields is greater than in the other ones. This might be an indication that
in these two fields we are sampling incipient spiral arms. Further evidence and
new observations are required to prove this hypothesis. In addition, we derived
the age-metallicity relations. As expected, the metallicity increases with time
for all of the fields. We do not observe any radial gradient in the
metallicity.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, Accepted to A&
The ACS LCID project VII: the blue stragglers population in the isolated dSph galaxies Cetus and Tucana
We present the first investigation of the Blue Straggler star (BSS)
population in two isolated dwarf spheroidal galaxies of the Local Group, Cetus
and Tucana. Deep HST/ACS photometry allowed us to identify samples of 940 and
1214 candidates, respectively. The analysis of the star formation histories of
the two galaxies suggests that both host a population of BSSs. Specifically, if
the BSS candidates are interpreted as young main sequence stars, they do not
conform to their galaxy's age-metallicity relationship. The analysis of the
luminosity function and the radial distributions support this conclusion, and
suggest a non-collisional mechanism for the BSS formation, from the evolution
of primordial binaries. This scenario is also supported by the results of new
dynamical simulations presented here. Both galaxies coincide with the
relationship between the BSS frequency and the absolute visual magnitude Mv
found by Momany et al (2007). If this relationship is confirmed by larger
sample, then it could be a valuable tool to discriminate between the presence
of BSSs and galaxies hosting truly young populations.Comment: Accepted for publication on ApJ. 15 pages, 3 tables, 13 figures. A
version with high resolution figure can be downloaded from
http://rialto.ll.iac.es/proyecto/LCID/?p=publication
Iris recognition using the JAVAVis Library
This project has been created to develop a
biometric identification system through a man’s iris using a
computer to perform the processing of the pictures. To develop
this application, and to differentiate the project from others
who have already implemented, we have used the image
processing library JAVAVis and JAVA as a programming
language
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