51 research outputs found
SINFONI's take on Star Formation, Molecular Gas, and Black Hole Masses in AGN
We present some preliminary (half-way) results on our adaptive optics
spectroscopic survey of AGN at spatial scales down to 0.085arcsec. Most of the
data were obtained with SINFONI which provides integral field capability at a
spectral resolution of R~4000. The themes on which we focus in this
contribution are: star formation around the AGN, the properties of the
molecular gas and its relation to the torus, and the mass of the black hole.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Science Perspectives for 3D
Spectroscopy. ESO Astrophysics Symposia. Ed by M. Kissler-Patig, M. Roth and
J. Wals
The QUEST large area CCD camera
We have designed, constructed, and put into operation a very large area CCD camera that covers the field of view of the 1.2 m Samuel Oschin Schmidt Telescope at the Palomar Observatory. The camera consists of 112 CCDs arranged in a mosaic of four rows with 28 CCDs each. The CCDs are 600 x 2400 pixel Sarnoff thinned, back-illuminated devices with 13 µm x 13 µm pixels. The camera covers an area of 4.6° x 3.6° on the sky with an active area of 9.6 deg_2. This camera has been installed at the prime focus of the telescope and commissioned, and scientific-quality observations on the Palomar-QUEST Variability Sky Survey were started in 2003 September. The design considerations, construction features, and performance parameters of this camera are described in this paper
Spectroastrometry of rotating gas disks for the detection of supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei. II. Application to the galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128)
We measure the black hole mass in the nearby active galaxy Centaurus A (NGC
5128) using a new method based on spectroastrometry of a rotating gas disk. The
spectroastrometric approach consists in measuring the photocenter position of
emission lines for different velocity channels. In a previous paper we focused
on the basic methodology and the advantages of the spectroastrometric approach
with a detailed set of simulations demonstrating the possibilities for black
hole mass measurements going below the conventional spatial resolution. In this
paper we apply the spectroastrometric method to multiple longslit and integral
field near infrared spectroscopic observations of Centaurus A. We find that the
application of the spectroastrometric method provides results perfectly
consistent with the more complex classical method based on rotation curves: the
measured BH mass is nearly independent of the observational setup and spatial
resolution and the spectroastrometric method allows the gas dynamics to be
probed down to spatial scales of ~0.02", i.e. 1/10 of the spatial resolution
and ~1/50 of BH sphere of influence radius. The best estimate for the BH mass
based on kinematics of the ionized gas is then log(MBH (sin i)^2/M\odot)=7.5
\pm 0.1 which corresponds to MBH = 9.6(+2.5-1.8) \times 10^7 M\odot for an
assumed disk inclination of i = 35deg. The complementarity of this method with
the classic rotation curve method will allow us to put constraints on the disk
inclination which cannot be otherwise derived from spectroastrometry. With the
application to Centaurus A, we have shown that spectroastrometry opens up the
possibility of probing spatial scales smaller than the spatial resolution,
extending the measured MBH range to new domains which are currently not
accessible: smaller BHs in the local universe and similar BHs in more distant
galaxies
Dynamic Modulation of Thymic MicroRNAs in Response to Stress
thymocyte subsets. Several of the differentially regulated murine thymic miRs are also stress responsive in the heart, kidney, liver, brain, and/or spleen. The most dramatic thymic microRNA down modulated is miR-181d, exhibiting a 15-fold reduction following stress. This miR has both similar and distinct gene targets as miR-181a, another member of miR-181 family. Many of the differentially regulated microRNAs have known functions in thymopoiesis, indicating that their dysregulation will alter T cell repertoire selection and the formation of naïve T cells. This data has implications for clinical treatments involving anti-inflammatory steroids, ablation therapies, and provides mechanistic insights into the consequences of infections
The statistical analysis of acoustic phonetic data: exploring differences between spoken Romance languages
The historical and geographical spread from older to more modern languages has long been studied by examining textual changes and in terms of changes in phonetic transcriptions. However, it is more difficult to analyze language change from an acoustic point of view, although this is usually the dominant mode of transmission. We propose a novel analysis approach for acoustic phonetic data, where the aim will be to statistically model the acoustic properties of spoken words. We explore phonetic variation and change using a time-frequency representation, namely the log-spectrograms of speech recordings. We identify time and frequency covariance functions as a feature of the language; in contrast, mean spectrograms depend mostly on the particular word that has been uttered. We build models for the mean and covariances (taking into account the restrictions placed on the statistical analysis of such objects) and use these to define a phonetic transformation that models how an individual speaker would sound in a different language, allowing the exploration of phonetic differences between languages. Finally, we map back these transformations to the domain of sound recordings, allowing us to listen to the output of the statistical analysis. The proposed approach is demonstrated using recordings of the words corresponding to the numbers from ``one'' to ``ten'' as pronounced by speakers from five different Romance languages.John Coleman appreciates the support of UK Arts and Humanities Research Council grant AH/M002993/1, “Ancient Sounds: mixing acoustic phonetics, statistics and comparative philology to bring speech back from the past”. John Aston appreciates the support of UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant EP/K021672/2, “Functional Object Data Analysis and its Applications”
The central black hole mass of the high-sigma but low-bulge-luminosity lenticular galaxy NGC 1332
The masses of the most massive supermassive black holes (SMBHs) predicted by
the M_BH-sigma and M_BH-luminosity relations appear to be in conflict. Which of
the two relations is the more fundamental one remains an open question. NGC
1332 is an excellent example that represents the regime of conflict. It is a
massive lenticular galaxy which has a bulge with a high velocity dispersion
sigma of ~320 km/s; bulge--disc decomposition suggests that only 44% of the
total light comes from the bulge. The M_BH-sigma and the M_BH-luminosity
predictions for the central black hole mass of NGC 1332 differ by almost an
order of magnitude. We present a stellar dynamical measurement of the SMBH mass
using an axisymmetric orbit superposition method. Our SINFONI integral-field
unit (IFU) observations of NGC 1332 resolve the SMBH's sphere of influence
which has a diameter of ~0.76 arcsec. The sigma inside 0.2 arcsec reaches ~400
km/s. The IFU data allow us to increase the statistical significance of our
results by modelling each of the four quadrants separately. We measure a SMBH
mass of (1.45 \pm 0.20) x 10^9 M_sun with a bulge mass-to-light ratio of 7.08
\pm 0.39 in the R-band. With this mass, the SMBH of NGC 1332 is offset from the
M_BH-luminosity relation by a full order of magnitude but is consistent with
the M_BH-sigma relation.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
NGC6240: Merger-Induced Star Formation & Gas Dynamics
We present spatially resolved integral field spectroscopic K-band data at a
resolution of 0.13" (60pc) and interferometric CO(2-1) line observations of the
prototypical merging system NGC6240. Despite the clear rotational signature,
the stellar kinematics in the two nuclei are dominated by dispersion. We use
Jeans modelling to derive the masses and the mass-to-light ratios of the
nuclei. Combining the luminosities with the spatially resolved Br-gamma
equivalent width shows that only 1/3 of the K-band continuum from the nuclei is
associated with the most recent star forming episode; and that less than 30% of
the system's bolometric luminosity and only 9% of its stellar mass is due to
this starburst. The star formation properties, calculated from typical merger
star formation histories, demonstrate the impact of different assumptions about
the star formation history. The properties of the nuclei, and the existence of
a prominent old stellar population, indicate that the nuclei are remnants of
the progenitor galaxies' bulges.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in A&
A Deep HST H-Band Imaging Survey of Massive Gas-Rich Mergers. II. The QUEST PG QSOs
We report the results from a deep HST NICMOS H-band imaging survey of 28 z <
0.3 QSOs from the Palomar-Green (PG) sample. This program is part of QUEST
(Quasar / ULIRG Evolution STudy) and complements a similar set of data on 26
highly-nucleated ULIRGs presented in Paper I. Our analysis indicates that the
fraction of QSOs with elliptical hosts is higher among QSOs with undetected
far-infrared (FIR) emission, small infrared excess, and luminous hosts. The
hosts of FIR-faint QSOs show a tendency to have less pronounced merger-induced
morphological anomalies and larger QSO-to-host luminosity ratios on average
than the hosts of FIR-bright QSOs, consistent with late-merger evolution from
FIR-bright to FIR-faint QSOs. The spheroid sizes and total host luminosities of
the radio-quiet PG QSOs in our sample are statistically indistinguishable from
the ULIRG hosts presented in Paper I, while those of radio-loud PG QSOs are
systematically larger and more luminous. ULIRGs and PG QSOs with elliptical
hosts fall near, but not exactly on, the fundamental plane of inactive
spheroids. We confirm the systematic trend noted in Paper I for objects with
small (< 2 kpc) spheroids to be up to ~1 mag. brighter than inactive spheroids.
The host colors and wavelength dependence of their sizes support the idea that
these deviations are due at least in part to non-nuclear star formation.
However, the amplitudes of these deviations does not depend on host R-H colors.
Taken at face value (i.e., no correction for extinction or the presence of a
young stellar population), the H-band spheroid-host luminosities imply BH
masses ~5 -- 200 x 10^7 M_sun and sub-Eddington mass accretion rates for both
QSOs and ULIRGs. These results are compared with published BH mass estimates
derived from other methods. (abridged)Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 701,
August 20 issue. Paper with high-resolution figures can be downloaded at
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~veilleux/pubs/nicmos2.pd
Angular momentum and galaxy formation revisited
Motivated by new kinematic data in the outer parts of early-type galaxies
(ETGs), we re-examine angular momentum (AM) in all galaxy types. We present
methods for estimating the specific AM j, focusing on ETGs, to derive relations
between stellar j_* and mass M_* (after Fall 1983). We perform analyses of 8
galaxies out to ~10 R_e, finding that data at 2 R_e are sufficient to estimate
total j_*. Our results contravene suggestions that ellipticals (Es) harbor
large reservoirs of hidden j_* from AM transport in major mergers. We carry out
a j_*-M_* analysis of literature data for ~100 nearby bright galaxies of all
types. The Es and spirals form parallel j_*-M_* tracks, which for spirals is
like the Tully-Fisher relation, but for Es derives from a mass-size-rotation
conspiracy. The Es contain ~3-4 times less AM than equal-mass spirals. We
decompose the spirals into disks+bulges and find similar j_*-M_* trends to
spirals and Es overall. The S0s are intermediate, and we propose that
morphological types reflect disk/bulge subcomponents following separate j_*-M_*
scaling relations -- providing a physical motivation for characterizing
galaxies by mass and bulge/disk ratio. Next, we construct idealized
cosmological models of AM content, using a priori estimates of dark matter halo
spin and mass. We find that the scatter in halo spin cannot explain the
spiral/E j_* differences, but the data are matched if the galaxies retained
different fractions of initial j (~60% and ~10%). We consider physical
mechanisms for j_* and M_* evolution (outflows, stripping, collapse bias,
merging), emphasizing that the vector sum of such processes must produce the
observed j_*-M_* relations. A combination of early collapse and multiple
mergers (major/minor) may account for the trend for Es. More generally, the
observed AM variations represent fundamental constraints for any galaxy
formation model.Comment: ApJS, in press, 61 pages, 34 figures, abstract abridge
First Stellar Velocity Dispersion Measurement of a Luminous Quasar Host with Gemini North Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics
We present the first use of the Gemini North laser guide star adaptive optics
(LGS AO) system and an integral field unit (IFU) to measure the stellar
velocity dispersion of the host of a luminous quasar. The quasar PG1426+015
(z=0.086) was observed with the Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer
(NIFS) on the 8m Gemini North telescope in the H-band as part of the Science
Verification phase of the new ALTAIR LGS AO system. The NIFS IFU and LGS AO are
well suited for host studies of luminous quasars because one can achieve a
large ratio of host to quasar light. We have measured the stellar velocity
dispersion of PG1426+015 from 0.1'' to 1'' (0.16 kpc to 1.6 kpc) to be 217+/-15
km/s based on high signal-to-noise ratio measurements of Si I, Mg I, and
several CO bandheads. This new measurement is a factor of four more precise
than a previous measurement obtained with long-slit spectroscopy and good,
natural seeing, yet was obtained with a shorter net integration time. We find
that PG1426+015 has a velocity dispersion that places it significantly above
the M-sigma relation of quiescent galaxies and lower-luminosity active galactic
nuclei with black hole masses estimated from reverberation mapping. We discuss
several possible explanations for this discrepancy that could be addressed with
similar observations of a larger sample of luminous quasars.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; accepted by ApJ Letter
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