SPIDER X - Environmental effects in central and satellite early-type galaxies through the stellar fossil record

A detailed analysis of how environment affects the star formation history of early-type galaxies (ETGs) is undertaken via high signal to noise ratio stacked spectra obtained from a sample of 20,977 ETGs (morphologically selected) from the SDSS-based SPIDER survey. Two major parameters are considered for the study: the central velocity dispersion (sigma), which relates to local drivers of star formation, and the mass of the host halo, which relates to environment-related effects. In addition, we separate the sample between centrals (the most massive galaxy in a halo) and satellites. We derive trends of age, metallicity, and [alpha/Fe] enhancement, with sigma. We confirm that the major driver of stellar population properties in ETGs is velocity dispersion, with a second-order effect associated to the central/satellite nature of the galaxy. No environmental dependence is detected for satellite ETGs, except at low sigma - where satellites in groups or in the outskirts of clusters tend to be younger than those in the central regions of clusters. In contrast, the trends for centrals show a significant dependence on halo mass. Central ETGs in groups (i.e. with a halo mass >10^12.5 M_Sun) have younger ages, lower [alpha/Fe], and higher internal reddening, than "isolated" systems (i.e. centrals residing in low-mass, <10^12.5 M_Sun, halos). Our findings imply that central ETGs in groups formed their stellar component over longer time scales than "isolated" centrals, mainly because of gas-rich interactions with their companion galaxies.Comment: 22 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

A Comparative Study of Some Markov Random Fields and Different Criteria Optimization in Image Restoration

The present chapter illustrates the use of some recent alternative methods to deal with digital image filtering and restoration. This collection of methods is inspired on the use of Markov Random Fields (MRF), which introduces prior knowledge of information that will allow, more efficiently, modeling the image acquisition process. The methods based on the MRF are analyzed and proposed into a Bayesian framework and their principal objective is to eliminate noise and some effects caused by excessive smoothness on the reconstruction process of images which are rich in contours or edges. In order to preserve object edges into the image, the use of certain convexity criteria into the MRF is proposed obtaining adequate weighting of cost functions in cases where discontinuities are remarked and, even better, for cases where such discontinuities are very smooth

Spatial interpolation techniques for near real-time mapping of Pressure and Temperature data

Among the different techniques for atmosphere monitoring, the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) can provide an innovative contribution (Bevis et al., 1992; Crespi et al., 2004; Sguerso et al., 2013, 2015). The Laboratory of Geomatics, Geodesy and GIS of the University of Genoa has identified a GIS procedure and a simplified physical model to monitor the Precipitable Water Vapour (PWV) content, using data measured by existing infrastructures. The starting points are local estimations of Zenith Total Delay (ZTD) from a GNSS Permanent Stations (PSs) network, a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and local Pressure (P) and Temperature (T) measurements (Sguerso et al., 2014; Ferrando et al., 2016). The present paper shows the study of the most appropriate interpolation technique for P and T data to create PWV maps in a quick, stable and automatic way, to support the monitoring of intense meteorological events for both a posteriori and near real-time applications. The resulting P and T maps were compared to meteorological re-analysis, to check the reliability of the simplified physical model. Additionally, the Regression Kriging (RK) was employed to evaluate the data correlation with elevation and to study the applicability of the technique

A Principal Component Analysis approach to the Star Formation History of elliptical galaxies in Compact Groups

(Abridged) Environmental differences in the stellar populations of early-type galaxies are explored using principal component analysis (PCA), focusing on differences between elliptical galaxies in Hickson Compact Groups (HCGs) and in the field. The method is model-independent and relies on variations between the observed spectra. The projections (PC1,PC2) reveal a difference with respect to environment, with a wider range in PC1 and PC2 in the group sample. We define a spectral parameter (zeta=0.36PC1-PC2) which simplifies this result to a single number: field galaxies have a very similar value of zeta, whereas HCG galaxies span a wide range in this parameter. We obtain a strong correlation between the values of zeta and the mass fraction in younger stars, so that some group galaxies present a higher fraction of them. PCA is more sensitive than other methods based on a direct analysis of observables such as the structure of the surface brightness profile or the equivalent width of absorption lines. The latter do not reveal any significant variation between field and compact group galaxies. Our results imply that the presence of young stars only amounts to a fraction of a percent in its contribution to the total variance.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA