1,352 research outputs found
Star Formation at the Twilight of the Dark Ages: Which Stars Reionized the Universe?
We calculate the global star formation rate density (SFRD) from z ~ 30-3
using a semi-analytic model incorporating the hierarchical assembly of dark
matter halos, gas cooling via atomic hydrogen, star formation, supernova
feedback, and suppression of gas collapse in small halos due to the presence of
a photoionizing background. We compare the results with the predictions of
simpler models based on the rate of dark matter halo growth and a fixed ratio
of stellar-to-dark mass, and with observational constraints on the SFRD at 3 <
z < 6. We also estimate the star formation rate due to very massive, metal-free
Pop III stars using a simple model based on the halo formation rate, calibrated
against detailed hydrodynamic simulations of Pop III star formation. We find
that the total production rate of hydrogen-ionizing photons during the probable
epoch of reionization (15 < z < 20) is approximately equally divided between
Pop II and Pop III stars, and that if reionization is late (less than about 15,
close to the lower limit of the range allowed by the WMAP results), then Pop II
stars alone may be able to reionize the Universe.Comment: submitted to ApJ
HI scaling relations of galaxies in the environment of HI-rich and control galaxies observed by the Bluedisk project
Our work is based on the "Bluedisk" project, a program to map the neutral gas
in a sample of 25 HI-rich spirals and a similar number of control galaxies with
the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT). In this paper we focus on the
HI properties of the galaxies in the environment of our targeted galaxies. In
total, we extract 65 galaxies from the WSRT cubes with stellar masses between
and . Most of these galaxies are located on
the same HI mass-size relation and "HI-plane" as normal spiral galaxies. We
find that companions around HI-rich galaxies tend to be HI-rich as well and to
have larger R90,HI/R50,HI. This suggests a scenario of "HI conformity", similar
to the colour conformity found by Weinmann et al. (2006): galaxies tend to
adopt the HI properties of their neighbours. We visually inspect the outliers
from the HI mass-size relation and galaxies which are offset from the HI plane
and find that they show morphological and kinematical signatures of recent
interactions with their environment. We speculate that these outliers have been
disturbed by tidal or ram-pressure stripping processes, or in a few cases, by
accretion events.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures; accepted for publication in MNRA
The Kinematics of the Ultra-Faint Milky Way Satellites: Solving the Missing Satellite Problem
We present Keck/DEIMOS spectroscopy of stars in 8 of the newly discovered
ultra-faint dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way. We measure the velocity
dispersions of Canes Venatici I and II, Ursa Major I and II, Coma Berenices,
Hercules, Leo IV and Leo T from the velocities of 18 - 214 stars in each galaxy
and find dispersions ranging from 3.3 to 7.6 km/s. The 6 galaxies with absolute
magnitudes M_V < -4 are highly dark matter-dominated, with mass-to-light ratios
approaching 1000. The measured velocity dispersions are inversely correlated
with their luminosities, indicating that a minimum mass for luminous galactic
systems may not yet have been reached. We also measure the metallicities of the
observed stars and find that the 6 brightest of the ultra-faint dwarfs extend
the luminosity-metallicity relationship followed by brighter dwarfs by 2 orders
of magnitude in luminosity; several of these objects have mean metallicities as
low as [Fe/H] = -2.3 and therefore represent some of the most metal-poor known
stellar systems. We detect metallicity spreads of up to 0.5 dex in several
objects, suggesting multiple star formation epochs. Having established the
masses of the ultra-faint dwarfs, we re-examine the missing satellite problem.
After correcting for the sky coverage of the SDSS, we find that the ultra-faint
dwarfs substantially alleviate the discrepancy between the predicted and
observed numbers of satellites around the Milky Way, but there are still a
factor of ~4 too few dwarf galaxies over a significant range of masses. We show
that if galaxy formation in low-mass dark matter halos is strongly suppressed
after reionization, the simulated circular velocity function of CDM subhalos
can be brought into approximate agreement with the observed circular velocity
function of Milky Way satellite galaxies. [slightly abridged]Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures (12 in color), 6 tables, minor revisions in
response to referee report. Accepted for publication in Ap
Morphological Evolution and the Ages of Early-Type Galaxies in Clusters
Morphological and spectroscopic studies of high redshift clusters indicate
that a significant fraction of present-day early-type galaxies was transformed
from star forming galaxies at z<1. On the other hand, the slow luminosity
evolution of early-type galaxies and the low scatter in their color-magnitude
relation indicate a high formation redshift of their stars. In this paper we
construct models which reconcile these apparently contradictory lines of
evidence, and we quantify the effects of morphological evolution on the
observed photometric properties of early-type galaxies in distant clusters. We
show that in the case of strong morphological evolution the apparent luminosity
and color evolution of early-type galaxies are similar to that of a single age
stellar population formed at z=infinity, irrespective of the true star
formation history of the galaxies. Furthermore, the scatter in age, and hence
the scatter in color and luminosity, is approximately constant with redshift.
These results are consequences of the ``progenitor bias'': the progenitors of
the youngest low redshift early-type galaxies drop out of the sample at high
redshift. We construct models which reproduce the observed evolution of the
number fraction of early-type galaxies in rich clusters and their color and
luminosity evolution simultaneously. Our modelling indicates that approx. 50%
of early-type galaxies were transformed from other galaxy types at z<1, and
their progenitor galaxies may have had roughly constant star formation rates
prior to morphological transformation. After correcting the observed evolution
of the mean M/L_B ratio for the maximum progenitor bias we find that the mean
luminosity weighted formation redshift of stars in early-type galaxies
z_*=2.0^{+0.3}_{-0.2} for Omega_m=0.3 and Omega_Lambda=0.7. [ABRIDGED]Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. 13 pages, 6
figure
Expected Number and Flux Distribution of Gamma-Ray-Burst Afterglows with High Redshifts
If Gamma-Ray-Bursts (GRBs) occur at high redshifts, then their bright
afterglow emission can be used to probe the ionization and metal enrichment
histories of the intervening intergalactic medium during the epoch of
reionization. In contrast to other sources, such as galaxies or quasars, which
fade rapidly with increasing redshift, the observed infrared flux from a GRB
afterglow at a fixed observed age is only a weak function of its redshift. This
results from a combination of the spectral slope of GRB afterglows and the
time-stretching of their evolution in the observer's frame. Assuming that the
GRB rate is proportional to the star formation rate and that the characteristic
energy output of GRBs is ~10^{52} ergs, we predict that there are always ~15
GRBs from redshifts z>5 across the sky which are brighter than ~100 nJy at an
observed wavelength of ~2 \mu m. The infrared spectrum of these sources could
be taken with the future Next Generation Space Telescope, as a follow-up on
their early X-ray localization with the Swift satellite.Comment: 29 pages, 14 figures; submitted to Ap
The Evolution of Early-Type Galaxies in Distant Clusters III.: M/L_V Ratios in the z=0.33 Cluster CL1358+62
Keck spectroscopy and Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 imaging over a 1.5x1.5 Mpc
field of CL1358+62 at z=0.33 are used to study the Fundamental Plane of
galaxies based on a new, large sample of 53 galaxies. First, we have
constructed the Fundamental Plane for the 30 E and S0 galaxies and find that it
has the following shape: r_e = sigma**(1.31+-0.13) * _e**(-0.86+-0.10),
similar to that found locally. The 1-sigma intrinsic scatter about this plane
is 14% in M/L(V), comparable to that observed in Coma. We conclude that these E
and S0 galaxies are structurally mature and homogeneous, like those observed in
nearby clusters. The M/L(V) ratios of these early-type galaxies are offset from
the Coma Fundamental Plane by delta log M/L(V) = -0.13+- 0.03 (q0=0.1),
indicative of mild luminosity evolution. This evolution suggests a formation
epoch for the stars of z > 1. We have also analyzed the M/L(V) ratios of
galaxies of type S0/a and later. These early-type spirals follow a different
plane from the E and S0 galaxies, with a scatter that is twice as large as the
scatter for the E/S0s. The difference in the tilt between the plane of the
spirals and the plane of the E/S0s is shown to be due to a systematic
correlation of velocity dispersion with residual from the plane of the
early-type galaxies. These residuals also correlate with the residuals from the
Color-Magnitude relation. Thus for spirals in clusters, we see a systematic
variation in the luminosity-weighted mean properties of the stellar populations
with central velocity dispersion. If this is a relative age trend, then
luminosity-weighted age is positively correlated with dispersion. [abridged
version]Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures; revised version, accepted by ApJ on 13 August
199
On the Formation of Galaxy Halos: Comparing NGC 5128 and the Local Group Members
The metallicity distribution function (MDF) for the old red-giant stars in
the halo of NGC 5128, the nearest giant elliptical galaxy, is virtually
identical with the MDF for the old-disk stars in the LMC and also strongly
resembles the halo MDF in M31. These galaxies all have high mean halo
metallicities ( ~ -0.4$) with very small proportions of low-metallicity
stars. These observations reinforce the view that metal-rich halos are quite
normal for large galaxies of all types. Such systems are unlikely to have built
up by accretion of pre-existing, gas-free small satellite galaxies, unless
these satellites had an extremely shallow mass distribution (d log N / d log M
> -1). We suggest that the halo of NGC 5128 is more likely to have assembled
from hierarchical merging of gas-rich lumps in which the bulk of star formation
took place during or after the merger stage.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, plus 3 figures in separate postscript files;
Astronomical Journal, in press for December 200
The Fundamental Plane of Gravitational Lens Galaxies and The Evolution of Early-Type Galaxies in Low Density Environments
Most gravitational lenses are early-type galaxies in relatively low density
environments -- a ``field'' rather than a ``cluster'' population. We show that
field early-type galaxies with 0 < z < 1, as represented by the lens galaxies,
lie on the same fundamental plane as those in rich clusters at similar
redshifts. We then use the fundamental plane to measure the combined
evolutionary and K-corrections for early-type galaxies in the V, I and H bands.
Only for passively evolving stellar populations formed at z > 2 (H_0=65 km/s
Mpc, Omega_0=0.3, Lambda_0=0.7) can the lens galaxies be matched to the local
fundamental plane. The high formation epoch and the lack of significant
differences between the field and cluster populations contradict many current
models of the formation history of early-type galaxies. Lens galaxy colors and
the fundamental plane provide good photometric redshift estimates with an
empirical accuracy of -0.03 +/- 0.11 for the 17 lenses with known redshifts. A
mass model dominated by dark matter is more consistent with the data than
either an isotropic or radially anisotropic constant M/L mass model, and a
radially anisotropic model is better than an isotropic model.Comment: 36 pages, 9 figures, 6 tables. ApJ in press. Final version contains
more observational dat
Ellipticals at z=0 from Self-Consistent Hydrodynamical Simulations: Clues on Age Effects in their Stellar Populations
We present results of a study of the stellar age distributions in the sample
of elliptical-like objects (ELOs) identified at z=0 in four simulations
operating in the context of a concordance cosmological model. The simulations
show that the formation of most stars in each ELO of the sample is a
consequence of violent dynamical events, either fast multiclump collapse at
high z, or mergers at lower z. This second way can explain the age spread as
well as the dynamical peculiarities observed in some ellipticals, but its
relative weight is never dominant and decreases as the ELO mass at the halo
scale, , increases, to such an extent that some recent mergers
contributing an important fraction to the total ELO mass can possibly
contribute only a small fraction of new born stars. More massive objects have
older means and narrower spreads in their stellar age distributions than less
massive ones. The ELO sample shows also a tight correlation between
and the central stellar l.o.s. velocity dispersion, . This gives
a trend of the means and spreads of ELO stellar populations with
that is consistent, even quantitatively, with the age effects observationally
detected in the stellar populations of elliptical galaxies. Therefore, these
effects can be explained as the observational manifestation of the intrinsic
correlations found in the ELO sample between and the properties of
the stellar age distribution, on the one hand, and and
, on the other hand. These correlations hint, for the first time,
at a possible way to reconcile age effects in ellipticals, and, particularly,
the increase of ratios with , with the
hierarchical clustering paradigm.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophysical
Journal Letter
Improved Cosmological Constraints from Gravitational Lens Statistics
We combine the Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey (CLASS) with new Sloan Digital Sky
Survey (SDSS) data on the local velocity dispersion distribution function of
E/S0 galaxies, , to derive lens statistics constraints on
and . Previous studies of this kind relied on a
combination of the E/S0 galaxy luminosity function and the Faber-Jackson
relation to characterize the lens galaxy population. However, ignoring
dispersion in the Faber-Jackson relation leads to a biased estimate of
and therefore biased and overconfident constraints on the
cosmological parameters. The measured velocity dispersion function from a large
sample of E/S0 galaxies provides a more reliable method for probing cosmology
with strong lens statistics. Our new constraints are in good agreement with
recent results from the redshift-magnitude relation of Type Ia supernovae.
Adopting the traditional assumption that the E/S0 velocity function is constant
in comoving units, we find a maximum likelihood estimate of --0.78 for a spatially flat unvierse (where the range reflects uncertainty
in the number of E/S0 lenses in the CLASS sample), and a 95% confidence upper
bound of . If instead evolves in accord
with extended Press-Schechter theory, then the maximum likelihood estimate for
becomes 0.72--0.78, with the 95% confidence upper bound
. Even without assuming flatness, lensing provides
independent confirmation of the evidence from Type Ia supernovae for a nonzero
dark energy component in the universe.Comment: 35 pages, 15 figures, to be published in Ap
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