282 research outputs found
Strategies for Imaging Faint Extended Sources in the Near-Infrared
Quantitative information about variations in the background at J and K' are
presented and used to develop guidelines for the acquisition and reduction of
ground-based images of faint extended sources in the near-infrared, especially
those which occupy a significant fraction of the field of view of a detector or
which are located in areas crowded with foreground or background sources.
Findings are based primarily upon data acquired over three photometric nights
with the 3.6x3.6 arcmin CFHT-IR array on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope
atop Mauna Kea. Although some results are specific to CFHT, overall conclusions
should be useful in guiding observing and reduction strategies of extended
objects elsewhere.Comment: Accepted for publication in PASP July 2004. 29 pages, including 2
tables and 9 figure
On the Determination of Star Formation Rates in Evolving Galaxy Populations
The redshift dependence of the luminosity density in certain wavebands (e.g.
UV and H-alpha) can be used to infer the history of star formation in the
populations of galaxies producing this luminosity. This history is a useful
datum in studies of galaxy evolution. It is therefore important to understand
the errors that attend the inference of star formation rate densities from
luminosity densities. This paper explores the self-consistency of star
formation rate diagnostics by reproducing commonly used observational
procedures in a model with known galaxy populations, evolutionary histories and
spectral emission properties. The study reveals a number of potential sources
of error in the diagnostic processes arising from the differential evolution of
different galaxy types. We argue that multi-wavelength observations can help to
reduce these errors.Comment: 13 pages (including 5 encapsulated postscript figures), aastex,
accepted for publication in Ap
A Statistical Treatment of the Gamma-Ray Burst "No Host Galaxy" Problem: II. Energies of Standard Candle Bursts
With the discovery that the afterglows after some bursts are coincident with
faint galaxies, the search for host galaxies is no longer a test of whether
bursts are cosmological, but rather a test of particular cosmological models.
The methodology we developed to investigate the original "no host galaxy"
problem is equally valid for testing different cosmological models, and is
applicable to the galaxies coincident with optical transients. We apply this
methodology to a family of models where we vary the total energy of standard
candle bursts. We find that total isotropic energies of E<2e52~erg are ruled
out while log(E)~53 erg is favored.Comment: To appear in Ap.J., 514, 15 pages + 7 figures, AASTeX 4.0. Revisions
are: additional author, updated data, and minor textual change
Young Red Spheroidal Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Fields: Evidence for a Truncated IMF at ~2M_solar and a Constant Space Density to z~2
The optical-IR images of the Northern and Southern Hubble Deep Fields are
used to measure the spectral and density evolution of early-type galaxies. The
mean optical SED is found to evolve passively towards a mid F-star dominated
spectrum by z ~ 2. We demonstrate with realistic simulations that hotter
ellipticals would be readily visible if evolution progressed blueward and
brightward at z > 2, following a standard IMF. The colour distributions are
best fitted by a `red' IMF, deficient above ~2 M_solar and with a spread of
formation in the range 1.5 < z_f < 2.5. Traditional age dating is spurious in
this context, a distant elliptical can be young but appear red, with an
apparent age >3 Gyrs independent of its formation redshift. Regarding density
evolution, we demonstrate that the sharp decline in numbers claimed at z > 1
results from a selection bias against distant red galaxies in the optical,
where the flux is too weak for morphological classification, but is remedied
with relatively modest IR exposures revealing a roughly constant space density
to z ~ 2. We point out that the lack of high mass star-formation inferred here
and the requirement of metals implicates cooling-flows of pre-enriched gas in
the creation of the stellar content of spheroidal galaxies. Deep-field X-ray
images will be very helpful to examine this possibility.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letters,
typographical errors corrected, simulated images with different IMFs
illustrated at http://astro.berkeley.edu/~bouwens/ellip.htm
Imaging and spectroscopy of galaxies associated with two z~0.7 damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems
We have identified galaxies near two quasars which are at the redshift of
damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) systems in the UV spectra of the quasars. Both
galaxies are actively forming stars. One galaxy has a luminosity close to the
break in the local galaxy luminosity function, L*, the other is significantly
fainter than L* and appears to be interacting with a nearby companion. Despite
the strong selection effects favoring spectroscopic identification of the most
luminous DLA galaxies, many of the spectroscopically-identified DLA galaxies in
the literature are sub-L*, suggesting that the majority of the DLA population
is probably sub-L*, in contrast to MgII absorbers at similar redshifts whose
mean luminosity is close to L*.Comment: 9 pages, to appear in AJ, November 2003 issu
A Photometrically Detected Forming Cluster of Galaxies at Redshift 1.6 in the GOODS Field
We report the discovery of a localized overdensity at z~1.6 in the
GOODS-South Field, presumably a poor cluster in the process of formation. The
three-dimensional galaxy density has been estimated on the basis of well
calibrated photometric redshifts from the multiband photometric GOODS-MUSIC
catalog using the (2+1)D technique. The density peak is embedded in the larger
scale overdensity of galaxies known to exist at z=1.61 in the area. The
properties of the member galaxies are compared to those of the surrounding
field and we found that the two populations are significantly different
supporting the reality of the structure. The reddest galaxies, once evolved
according to their best fit models, have colors consistent with the red
sequence of lower redshift clusters. The estimated M_200 total mass of the
cluster is in the range 1.3 x 10^14 - 5.7x 10^14 Msun, depending on the assumed
bias factor b. An upper limit for the 2-10 keV X-ray luminosity, based on the
1Ms Chandra observations, is L_X=0.5 x 10^43 erg s^-1, suggesting that the
cluster has not yet reached the virial equilibrium.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures (1 in color), uses emulateapj.cls Latex class
file, accepted for publication in Ap
ISO investigates the nature of extremely-red hard X-ray sources responsible for the X-ray background
We analyse very deep X-ray and mid-IR surveys in common areas of the Lockman
Hole and the HDF North to study the sources of the X-ray background (XRB) and
to test the standard obscured accretion paradigm. We detect with ISO a rich
population of X-ray luminous sources with red optical colours, including a
fraction identified with Extremely Red Objects (R-K > 5) and galaxies with SEDs
typical of normal massive ellipticals or spirals at z ~ 1. The high 0.5-10 keV
X-ray luminosities of these objects (1E43-1E45 erg/s) indicate that the
ultimate energy source is gravitational accretion, while the X-ray to IR flux
ratios and the X-ray spectral hardness show evidence of photoelectric
absorption at low X-ray energies. An important hint on the physics comes from
the mid-IR data at 6.7 and 15 um, well reproduced by model spectra of
completely obscured quasars under standard assumptions and l.o.s. optical
depths tau ~ 30-40. Other predictions of the standard XRB picture, like the
distributions of intrinsic bolometric luminosities and the relative fractions
of type-I and -II objects (1:3), are also consistent with our results. Obscured
gravitational accretion is then confirmed as being responsible for the bulk of
the X-ray background, since we detect in the IR the down-graded energy
photoelectrically absorbed in X-rays: 63% of the faint 5-10 keV XMM sources are
detected in the mid-IR by Fadda et al. (2001). However, although as much as 90%
of the X-ray energy production could be converted to IR photons, no more than
20% of the Cosmic IR Background can be attributed to X-ray loud AGNs.Comment: 7 pages, 5 postscript figures, ApJ submitte
Hubble Residuals of Nearby Type Ia Supernovae Are Correlated with Host Galaxy Masses
From Sloan Digital Sky Survey u'g'r'i'z' imaging, we estimate the stellar
masses of the host galaxies of 70 low redshift SN Ia (0.015 < z < 0.08) from
the hosts' absolute luminosities and mass-to-light ratios. These nearby SN were
discovered largely by searches targeting luminous galaxies, and we find that
their host galaxies are substantially more massive than the hosts of SN
discovered by the flux-limited Supernova Legacy Survey. Testing four separate
light curve fitters, we detect ~2.5{\sigma} correlations of Hubble residuals
with both host galaxy size and stellar mass, such that SN Ia occurring in
physically larger, more massive hosts are ~10% brighter after light curve
correction. The Hubble residual is the deviation of the inferred distance
modulus to the SN, calculated from its apparent luminosity and light curve
properties, away from the expected value at the SN redshift. Marginalizing over
linear trends in Hubble residuals with light curve parameters shows that the
correlations cannot be attributed to a light curve-dependent calibration error.
Combining 180 higher-redshift ESSENCE, SNLS, and HigherZ SN with 30 nearby SN
whose host masses are less than 10^10.8 solar masses in a cosmology fit yields
1+w=0.22 +0.152/-0.143, while a combination where the 30 nearby SN instead have
host masses greater than 10^10.8 solar masses yields 1+w=-0.03 +0.217/-0.108.
Progenitor metallicity, stellar population age, and dust extinction correlate
with galaxy mass and may be responsible for these systematic effects. Host
galaxy measurements will yield improved distances to SN Ia.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, published in ApJ, minor change
The Tilt of the Fundamental Plane: Three-quarters Structural Nonhomology, One-quarter Stellar Population
The variation of the mass-to-light ratios M/L of early type galaxies as
function of their luminosities L is investigated. It is shown that the tilt
beta=0.27 (in the B--band) of the fundamental plane relation M/L ~ L^{beta} can
be understood as a combination of two effects: about one-quarter (i.e. dbeta
=0.07) is a result of systematic variations of the stellar population
properties with increasing luminosity. The remaining three-quarters (i.e. dbeta
=0.2) can be completely attributed to nonhomology effects that lead to a
systematic change of the surface brightness profiles with increasing
luminosity. Consequently, the observed tilt in the K-band (beta=0.17) where
stellar population effects are negligible, is explained by nonhomology effects
alone. After correcting for nonhomology, the mean value of the mass-to-light
ratio of elliptical galaxies (M/L_B) is 7.1+-2.8 (1 sigma scatter).Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, ApJL, 600, 39, minor changes made to match the
published versio
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