Flow probe of symmetry energy in relativistic heavy-ion reactions

Flow observables in heavy-ion reactions at incident energies up to about 1 GeV per nucleon have been shown to be very useful for investigating the reaction dynamics and for determining the parameters of reaction models based on transport theory. In particular, the elliptic flow in collisions of neutron-rich heavy-ion systems emerges as an observable sensitive to the strength of the symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities. The comparison of ratios or differences of neutron and proton flows or neutron and hydrogen flows with predictions of transport models favors an approximately linear density dependence, consistent with ab-initio nuclear-matter theories. Extensive parameter searches have shown that the model dependence is comparable to the uncertainties of existing experimental data. Comprehensive new flow data of high accuracy, partly also through providing stronger constraints on model parameters, can thus be expected to improve our knowledge of the equation of state of asymmetric nuclear matter.Comment: 20 pages, 24 figures, review to appear in EPJA special volume on nuclear symmetry energ

Coherent and incoherent bands in La and Rh doped Sr3Ir2O7

In Sr2IrO4 and Sr3Ir2O7, correlations, magnetism and spin-orbit coupling compete on similar energy scales, creating a new context to study metal-insulator transitions (MIT). We use here Angle-Resolved photoemission to investigate the MIT as a function of hole and electron doping in Sr3Ir2O7, obtained respectively by Ir/Rh and Sr/La substitutions. We show that there is a clear reduction as a function of doping of the gap between a lower and upper band on both sides of the Fermi level, from 0.2eV to 0.05eV. Although these two bands have a counterpart in band structure calculations, they are characterized by a very different degree of coherence. The upper band exhibits clear quasiparticle peaks, while the lower band is very broad and loses weight as a function of doping. Moreover, their ARPES spectral weights obey different periodicities, reinforcing the idea of their different nature. We argue that a very similar situation occurs in Sr2IrO4 and conclude that the physics of the two families is essentially the same

The Canada-UK Deep Sub-Millimeter Survey II: First identifications, redshifts and implications for galaxy evolution

Identifications are sought for 12 sub-mm sources detected by Eales et al (1998). Six are securely identified, two have probable identifications and four remain unidentified with I_AB > 25. Spectroscopic and estimated photometric redshifts indicate that four of the sources have z < 1, and four have 1 < z < 3, with the remaining four empty field sources probably lying at z > 3. The spectral energy distributions of the identifications are consistent with those of high extinction starbursts such as Arp 220. The far-IR luminosities of the sources at z > 0.5 are of order 3 x 10^12 h_50^-2 L_sun, i.e. slightly larger than that of Arp 220. Based on this small sample, the cumulative bolometric luminosity function shows strong evolution to z ~ 1, but weaker or possibly even negative evolution beyond. The redshift dependence of the far-IR luminosity density does not appear, at this early stage, to be inconsistent with that seen in the ultraviolet luminosity density. Assuming that the energy source in the far-IR is massive stars, the total luminous output from star-formation in the Universe is probably dominated by the far-IR emission. The detected systems have individual star-formation rates (exceeding 300 h_50^-2 M_O yr^-1) that are much higher than seen in the ultraviolet selected samples, and which are sufficient to form substantial stellar populations on dynamical timescales of 10^8 yr. The association with merger-like morphologies and the obvious presence of dust makes it attractive to identify these systems as forming the metal-rich spheroid population, in which case we would infer that much of this activity has occurred relatively recently, at z ~ 2.Comment: 17 pages text + 14 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. Gzipped tar file contains one text.ps file for text and tables, one Fig2.jpg file for Fig 2, and 13 Fig*.ps files for the remaining figure

Spitzer bright, UltraVISTA faint sources in COSMOS: the contribution to the overall population of massive galaxies at z=3-7

We have analysed a sample of 574 Spitzer 4.5 micron-selected galaxies with [4.5]24 (AB) over the UltraVISTA ultra-deep COSMOS field. Our aim is to investigate whether these mid-IR bright, near-IR faint sources contribute significantly to the overall population of massive galaxies at redshifts z>=3. By performing a spectral energy distribution (SED) analysis using up to 30 photometric bands, we have determined that the redshift distribution of our sample peaks at redshifts z~2.5-3.0, and ~32% of the galaxies lie at z>=3. We have studied the contribution of these sources to the galaxy stellar mass function (GSMF) at high redshifts. We found that the [4.5]24 galaxies produce a negligible change to the GSMF previously determined for Ks_auto<24 sources at 3=<z<4, but their contribution is more important at 4=~50% of the galaxies with stellar masses Mst>~6 x 10^10 Msun. We also constrained the GSMF at the highest-mass end (Mst>~2 x 10^11 Msun) at z>=5. From their presence at 5=<z<6, and virtual absence at higher redshifts, we can pinpoint quite precisely the moment of appearance of the first most massive galaxies as taking place in the ~0.2 Gyr of elapsed time between z~6 and z~5. Alternatively, if very massive galaxies existed earlier in cosmic time, they should have been significantly dust-obscured to lie beyond the detection limits of current, large-area, deep near-IR surveys.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures, 4 tables. Updated to match version in press at the Ap

The Dwarf Irregular Galaxy UGC 7636 Exposed: Stripping At Work In The Virgo Cluster

We present the results of optical spectroscopy of a newly discovered H II region residing in the H I gas cloud located between the dwarf irregular galaxy UGC 7636 and the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4472 in the Virgo Cluster. By comparing UGC 7636 with dwarf irregular galaxies in the field, we show that the H I cloud must have originated from UGC 7636 because (1) the oxygen abundance of the cloud agrees with that expected for a galaxy with the blue luminosity of UGC 7636, and (2) M_{H I}/L_B for UGC 7636 becomes consistent with the measured oxygen abundance of the cloud if the H I mass of the cloud is added back into UGC 7636. It is likely that tides from NGC 4472 first loosened the H I gas, after which ram-pressure stripping removed the gas from UGC 7636.Comment: 12 pages, 2 eps figures (AASTeX 5.0); accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Ultrafast filling of an electronic pseudogap in an incommensurate crystal

We investigate the quasiperiodic crystal (LaS)1.196(VS2) by angle and time resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The dispersion of electronic states is in qualitative agreement with band structure calculated for the VS2 slab without the incommensurate distortion. Nonetheless, the spectra display a temperature dependent pseudogap instead of quasiparticles crossing. The sudden photoexcitation at 50 K induces a partial filling of the electronic pseudogap within less than 80 fs. The electronic energy flows into the lattice modes on a comparable timescale. We attribute this surprisingly short timescale to a very strong electron-phonon coupling to the incommensurate distortion. This result sheds light on the electronic localization arising in aperiodic structures and quasicrystals

Integral field spectroscopy with SINFONI of VVDS galaxies. II. The mass-metallicity relation at 1.2 < z < 1.6

This work aims to provide a first insight into the mass-metallicity (MZ) relation of star-forming galaxies at redshift z~1.4. To reach this goal, we present a first set of nine VVDS galaxies observed with the NIR integral-field spectrograph SINFONI on the VLT. Oxygen abundances are derived from empirical indicators based on the ratio between strong nebular emission-lines (Halpha, [NII]6584 and [SII]6717,6731). Stellar masses are deduced from SED fitting with Charlot & Bruzual (2007) population synthesis models, and star formation rates are derived from [OII]3727 and Halpha emission-line luminosities. We find a typical shift of 0.2-0.4 dex towards lower metallicities for the z~1.4 galaxies, compared to the MZ-relation in the local universe as derived from SDSS data. However, this small sample of eight galaxies does not show any clear correlation between stellar mass and metallicity, unlike other larger samples at different redshift (z~0, z~0.7, and z~2). Indeed, our galaxies lie just under the relation at z~2 and show a small trend for more massive galaxies to be more metallic (~0.1 logarithmic slope). There are two possible explanations to account for these observations. First, the most massive galaxies present higher specific star formation rates when compared to the global VVDS sample which could explain the particularly low metallicity of these galaxies as already shown in the SDSS sample. Second, inflow of metal-poor gas due to tidal interactions could also explain the low metallicity of these galaxies as two of these three galaxies show clear signatures of merging in their velocity fields. Finally, we find that the metallicity of 4 galaxies is lower by ~0.2 to 0.4 dex if we take into account the N/O abundance ratio in their metallicity estimate.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, accepted in A&A Comments: Comments: more accurate results with better stellar mass estimate

Detection of correlated galaxy ellipticities on CFHT data: first evidence for gravitational lensing by large-scale structures

We report the detection of a significant (5.5 sigma) excess of correlations between galaxy ellipticities at scales ranging from 0.5 to 3.5 arc-minutes. This detection of a gravitational lensing signal by large-scale structure was made using a composite high quality imaging survey of 6300 arcmin^2 obtained at the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) with the UH8K and CFH12K panoramic CCD cameras. The amplitude of the excess correlation is 2.2\pm 0.2 % at 1 arcmin scale, in agreement with theoretical predictions of the lensing effect induced by large-scale structure.We provide a quantitative analysis of systematics which could contribute to the signal and show that the net effect is small and can be corrected for. We show that the measured ellipticity correlations behave as expected for a gravitational shear signal. The relatively small size of our survey precludes tight constraints on cosmological models. However the data are in favor of cluster normalized cosmological models, and marginally reject Cold Dark Matter models with (Omega=0.3, sigma_8<0.6) or (Omega=1, sigma_8=1). The detection of cosmic shear demonstrates the technical feasibility of using weak lensing surveys to measure dark matter clustering and the potential for cosmological parameter measurements, in particular with upcoming wide field CCD cameras.Comment: 19 pages. 19 Figures. Revised version accepted in A&

Star formation in galaxies at z~4-5 from the SMUVS survey: a clear starburst/main-sequence bimodality for Halpha emitters on the SFR-M* plane

We study a large galaxy sample from the Spitzer Matching Survey of the UltraVISTA ultra-deep Stripes (SMUVS) to search for sources with enhanced 3.6 micron fluxes indicative of strong Halpha emission at z=3.9-4.9. We find that the percentage of "Halpha excess" sources reaches 37-40% for galaxies with stellar masses log10(M*/Msun) ~ 9-10, and decreases to <20% at log10(M*/Msun) ~ 10.7. At higher stellar masses, however, the trend reverses, although this is likely due to AGN contamination. We derive star formation rates (SFR) and specific SFR (sSFR) from the inferred Halpha equivalent widths (EW) of our "Halpha excess" galaxies. We show, for the first time, that the "Halpha excess" galaxies clearly have a bimodal distribution on the SFR-M* plane: they lie on the main sequence of star formation (with log10(sSFR/yr^{-1})<-8.05) or in a starburst cloud (with log10(sSFR/yr^{-1}) >-7.60). The latter contains ~15% of all the objects in our sample and accounts for >50% of the cosmic SFR density at z=3.9-4.9, for which we derive a robust lower limit of 0.066 Msun yr^{-1} Mpc^{-3}. Finally, we identify an unusual >50sigma overdensity of z=3.9-4.9 galaxies within a 0.20 x 0.20 sq. arcmin region. We conclude that the SMUVS unique combination of area and depth at mid-IR wavelengths provides an unprecedented level of statistics and dynamic range which are fundamental to reveal new aspects of galaxy evolution in the young Universe.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, 1 table. Re-submitted to the ApJ, after addressing referee report. Main changes with respect to v1: a new section and a new appendix have been added to investigate further the origin and robustness of the sSFR bimodality. No conclusion change