2,373 research outputs found
New Image Statistics for Detecting Disturbed Galaxy Morphologies at High Redshift
Testing theories of hierarchical structure formation requires estimating the
distribution of galaxy morphologies and its change with redshift. One aspect of
this investigation involves identifying galaxies with disturbed morphologies
(e.g., merging galaxies). This is often done by summarizing galaxy images
using, e.g., the CAS and Gini-M20 statistics of Conselice (2003) and Lotz et
al. (2004), respectively, and associating particular statistic values with
disturbance. We introduce three statistics that enhance detection of disturbed
morphologies at high-redshift (z ~ 2): the multi-mode (M), intensity (I), and
deviation (D) statistics. We show their effectiveness by training a
machine-learning classifier, random forest, using 1,639 galaxies observed in
the H band by the Hubble Space Telescope WFC3, galaxies that had been
previously classified by eye by the CANDELS collaboration (Grogin et al. 2011,
Koekemoer et al. 2011). We find that the MID statistics (and the A statistic of
Conselice 2003) are the most useful for identifying disturbed morphologies.
We also explore whether human annotators are useful for identifying disturbed
morphologies. We demonstrate that they show limited ability to detect
disturbance at high redshift, and that increasing their number beyond
approximately 10 does not provably yield better classification performance. We
propose a simulation-based model-fitting algorithm that mitigates these issues
by bypassing annotation.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Subchondral bone of the human knee joint in aging and osteoarthritis
AbstractObjective Although most research investigating the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis (OA) has focused on cartilage, it has been suggested that the subchondral bone (SCB) plays an important role in the development of OA. The relationships between aging, severity of OA change and the SCB thickness and density in the human knee joint specimens from a wide range of ages were examined.Methods One hundred forty knee joints from 72 individuals (25 females, 45 males and 2 unknowns; average age 54.8 years, range 17 to 91 years) were obtained. The surface of the articular cartilage of both the femur and tibia was evaluated for gross morphological changes with a 4-point grading scale. The lateral and medial femoral condyles were cut along a sagittal plane and the tibia along a coronal plane to make bone and cartilage strip specimens. The strips were X-rayed onto mammography film and then scanned into a computer for assessment of SCB thickness and density using image analysis software.Results Medial tibial SCB thickness was significantly lower among the elderly (age>69 years) than among the young (age<40) or the middle-aged (40 to 69) (P< 0.001 via ANOVA). Lateral tibial SCB thickness also showed the same trend of decreasing thickness with increasing age, but differences between age groups were not statistically significant. Tibial SCB thicknesses were significantly lower in arthritic grades compared to normal grades (P=0.008 in lateral and 0.017 in medial via ANOVA); in contrast, no significant differences between normal and arthritic were found in femoral SCB thicknesses. The arthritic group tended to have lower SCB densities than the normal group, but this was statistically significant in only the lateral femoral condyle.Conclusions The results obtained in the present study are not consistent with generally accepted notions of the relationship between subchondral bone thickness or density and OA. Subchondral bone changes are not etiologic for OA but, more likely, are secondary to loss of articular cartilage which precedes the appearance of subchondral sclerosis. Copyright 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd on behalf of OsteoArthritis Research Society International
The Specific Globular Cluster Frequencies of Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies from the Hubble Space Telescope
The specific globular cluster frequencies (S_N) for 24 dwarf elliptical (dE)
galaxies in the Virgo and Fornax Clusters and the Leo Group imaged with the
Hubble Space Telescope are presented. Combining all available data, we find
that for nucleated dEs --- which are spatially distributed like giant
ellipticals in galaxy clusters --- S_N(dE,N)=6.5 +- 1.2 and S_N increases with
M_V, while for non-nucleated dEs --- which are distributed like late-type
galaxies --- S_N(dE,noN)=3.1 +- 0.5 and there is little or no trend with M_V.
The S_N values for dE galaxies are thus on average significantly higher than
those for late-type galaxies, which have S_N < 1. This suggests that dE
galaxies are more akin to giant Es than to late-type galaxies. If there are
dormant or stripped irregulars hiding among the dE population, they are likely
to be among the non-nucleated dEs. Furthermore, the similarities in the
properties of the globular clusters and in the spatial distributions of dE,Ns
and giant Es suggest that neither galaxy mass or galaxy metallicity is
responsible for high values of S_N. Instead, most metal-poor GCs may have
formed in dwarf-sized fragments that merged into larger galaxies.Comment: 12 pages (uses aaspp4.sty), 2 figures, 1 table, to appear in the
Astrophysical Journa
The Effects of an AGN on Host Galaxy Colour and Morphology Measurements
We assess the effects of simulated active galactic nuclei (AGNs) on the
colour and morphology measurements of their host galaxies. To test the
morphology measurements, we select a sample of galaxies not known to host AGNs
and add a series of point sources scaled to represent specified fractions of
the observed V band light detected from the resulting systems; we then compare
morphology measurements of the simulated systems to measurements of the
original galaxies. AGN contributions >20 per cent bias most of the morphology
measurements tested, though the extent of the apparent bias depends on the
morphological characteristics of the original galaxies. We test colour
measurements by adding to non-AGN galaxy spectra a quasar spectrum scaled to
contribute specified fractions of the rest-frame B band light detected from the
resulting systems. A quasar fraction of 5 per cent can move the NUV-r colour of
an elliptical galaxy from the UV-optical red sequence to the green valley, and
20 per cent can move it into the blue cloud. Combining the colour and
morphology results, we find that a galaxy/AGN system with an AGN contribution
>20 per cent may appear bluer and more bulge-dominated than the underlying
galaxy. We conclude that (1) bulge-dominated, E/S0/Sa, and early-type
morphology classifications are accurate for red AGN host galaxies and may be
accurate for blue host galaxies, unless the AGN manifests itself as a
well-defined point source; and (2) although highly unobscured AGNs, such as the
quasar used for our experiments, can significantly bias the measured colours of
AGN host galaxies, it is possible to identify such systems by examining optical
images of the hosts for the presence of a point source and/or measuring the
level of nuclear obscuration.Comment: 18 pages, 19 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRA
The Effect of Mass Ratio on the Morphology and Time-scales of Disc Galaxy Mergers
The majority of galaxy mergers are expected to be minor mergers. The
observational signatures of minor mergers are not well understood, thus there
exist few constraints on the minor merger rate. This paper seeks to address
this gap in our understanding by determining if and when minor mergers exhibit
disturbed morphologies and how they differ from the morphology of major
mergers. We simulate a series of unequal-mass moderate gas-fraction disc galaxy
mergers. With the resulting g-band images, we determine how the time-scale for
identifying galaxy mergers via projected separation and quantitative morphology
(the Gini coefficient G, asymmetry A, and the second-order moment of the
brightest 20% of the light M20) depends on the merger mass ratio, relative
orientations and orbital parameters. We find that G-M20 is as sensitive to 9:1
baryonic mass ratio mergers as 1:1 mergers, with observability time-scales ~
0.2-0.4 Gyr. In contrast, asymmetry finds mergers with baryonic mass ratios
between 4:1 and 1:1 (assuming local disc galaxy gas-fractions). Asymmetry
time-scales for moderate gas-fraction major disc mergers are ~ 0.2-0.4 Gyr, and
less than 0.06 Gyr for moderate gas-fraction minor mergers. The relative
orientations and orbits have little effect on the time-scales for morphological
disturbances. Observational studies of close pairs often select major mergers
by choosing paired galaxies with similar luminosities and/or stellar masses.
Therefore, the various ways of finding galaxy mergers (G-M20, A, close pairs)
are sensitive to galaxy mergers of different mass ratios. By comparing the
frequency of mergers selected by different techniques, one may place empirical
constraints on the major and minor galaxy merger rates.Comment: 16 pages; resubmitted to MNRA
The Efficacy of Galaxy Shape Parameters in Photometric Redshift Estimation: A Neural Network Approach
We present a determination of the effects of including galaxy morphological parameters in photometric redshift estimation with an artificial neural network method. Neural networks, which recognize patterns in the information content of data in an unbiased way, can be a useful estimator of the additional information contained in extra parameters, such as those describing morphology, if the input data are treated on an equal footing. We use imaging and five band photometric magnitudes from the All-wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey. It is shown that certain principal components of the morphology information are correlated with galaxy type. However, we find that for the data used the inclusion of morphological information does not have a statistically significant benefit for photometric redshift estimation with the techniques employed here. The inclusion of these parameters may result in a trade-off between extra information and additional noise, with the additional noise becoming more dominant as more parameters are added
The Effect of Gas Fraction on the Morphology and Time-scales of Disc Galaxy Mergers
Gas-rich galaxy mergers are more easily identified by their disturbed
morphologies than mergers with less gas. Because the typical gas fraction of
galaxy mergers is expected to increase with redshift, the under-counting of low
gas-fraction mergers may bias morphological estimates of the evolution of
galaxy merger rate. To understand the magnitude of this bias, we explore the
effect of gas fraction on the morphologies of a series of simulated disc galaxy
mergers. With the resulting g-band images, we determine how the time-scale for
identifying major and minor galaxy mergers via close projected pairs and
quantitative morphology (the Gini coefficient G, the second-order moment of the
brightest 20% of the light M20, and asymmetry A) depends on baryonic gas
fraction f(gas). Strong asymmetries last significantly longer in high
gas-fraction mergers of all mass ratios, with time-scales ranging from >= 300
Myr for f(gas) ~ 20% to >= 1 Gyr for f(gas) ~ 50%. Therefore the strong
evolution with redshift observed in the fraction of asymmetric galaxies may
reflect evolution in the gas properties of galaxies rather than the global
galaxy merger rate. On the other hand, the time-scale for identifying a galaxy
merger via G-M20 is weakly dependent on gas-fraction (~ 200-400 Myr),
consistent with the weak evolution observed for G-M20 mergers.Comment: 15 pages; resubmitted to MNRA
Evolution of dopant-induced helium nanoplasmas
Two-component nanoplasmas generated by strong-field ionization of doped
helium nanodroplets are studied in a pump-probe experiment using few-cycle
laser pulses in combination with molecular dynamics simulations. High yields of
helium ions and a pronounced, droplet size-dependent resonance structure in the
pump-probe transients reveal the evolution of the dopant-induced helium
nanoplasma. The pump-probe dynamics is interpreted in terms of strong inner
ionization by the pump pulse and resonant heating by the probe pulse which
controls the final charge states detected via the frustration of electron-ion
recombination
The Structures of Distant Galaxies V: The Evolution of Galaxy Structure in Stellar Mass at z < 1
Galaxy structure and morphology is nearly always studied using the light
originating from stars, however ideally one is interested in measuring
structure using the stellar mass distribution. Not only does stellar mass trace
out the underlying distribution of matter, it also minimises the effects of
star formation and dust on the appearance and structure of a galaxy. We present
in this paper a study of the stellar mass distributions and structures of
galaxies at z<1 as found within the GOODS fields. We use pixel by pixel
K-corrections to construct stellar mass and mass-to-light ratio maps of 560
galaxies of known morphology at magnitudes z_{850}<24. We measure structural
and size parameters using these stellar mass maps, as well as on ACS BViz band
imaging. This includes investigating the structural CAS-Gini-M_{20} parameters
and half-light radius for each galaxy. We compare structural parameters and
half-light radii in the ACS z_{850}-band and stellar mass maps, finding no
systematic bias introduced by measuring galaxy sizes in z_{850}. We furthermore
investigate relations between structural parameters in the ACS BViz bands and
stellar mass maps, and compare our result to previous morphological studies.
Combinations of various parameters in stellar mass generally reveal clear
separations between early and late type morphologies, but cannot easily
distinguish between star formation and dynamically disturbed systems. We also
show that while ellipticals and early-type spirals have fairly constant CAS
values at z<1 we find a tendency for late-type spiral and peculiar
morphological types to have a higher A(M_{*}) at higher redshift. We argue that
this, and the large fraction of peculiars that appear spiral-like in stellar
mass maps, are possible evidence for either an active bulge formation in some
late-type disks at z<1 or the presence of minor merger events.Comment: 27 pages, MNRAS in pres
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