40 research outputs found
The GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey. VIII. Final Data Release -- The Effect of Group Environment on the Gas Content of Massive Galaxies
We present the final data release from the GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey (GASS),
a large Arecibo program that measured the HI properties for an unbiased sample
of ~800 galaxies with stellar masses greater than 10^10 Msun and redshifts
0.025<z<0.05. This release includes new Arecibo observations for 250 galaxies.
We use the full GASS sample to investigate environmental effects on the cold
gas content of massive galaxies at fixed stellar mass. The environment is
characterized in terms of dark matter halo mass, obtained by cross-matching our
sample with the SDSS group catalog of Yang et al. Our analysis provides, for
the first time, clear statistical evidence that massive galaxies located in
halos with masses of 10^13-10^14 Msun have at least 0.4 dex less HI than
objects in lower density environments. The process responsible for the
suppression of gas in group galaxies most likely drives the observed quenching
of the star formation in these systems. Our findings strongly support the
importance of the group environment for galaxy evolution, and have profound
implications for semi-analytic models of galaxy formation, which currently do
not allow for stripping of the cold interstellar medium in galaxy groups.Comment: 36 pages, 16 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Version with
supplementary material available at
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/GASS/pubs.php . GASS released data can be
found at http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/GASS/data.ph
The GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey. VI. Second Data Release and Updated Gas Fraction Scaling Relations
We present the second data release from the GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey (GASS),
an ongoing large Arecibo program to measure the HI properties for an unbiased
sample of ~1000 galaxies with stellar masses greater than 10^10 Msun and
redshifts 0.025<z<0.05. GASS targets are selected from the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey (SDSS) spectroscopic and Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) imaging
surveys, and are observed until detected or until a gas mass fraction limit of
a few per cent is reached. This second data installment includes new Arecibo
observations of 240 galaxies, and marks the 50% of the complete survey. We
present catalogs of the HI, optical and ultraviolet parameters for these
galaxies, and their HI-line profiles. Having more than doubled the size of the
sample since the first data release, we also revisit the main scaling relations
of the HI mass fraction with galaxy stellar mass, stellar mass surface density,
concentration index, and NUV-r color, as well as the gas fraction plane
introduced in our earlier work.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A. Version with
complete Appendix A available at http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/GASS/pubs.php
. GASS released data can be found at
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/GASS/data.ph
The GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey. IV. Baryonic Mass-Velocity-Size Relations of Massive Galaxies
We present dynamical scaling relations for a homogeneous and representative
sample of ~500 massive galaxies, selected only by stellar mass (>10^10 Msun)
and redshift (0.025<z<0.05) as part of the ongoing GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey.
We compare baryonic Tully-Fisher (BTF) and Faber-Jackson (BFJ) relations for
this sample, and investigate how galaxies scatter around the best fits obtained
for pruned subsets of disk-dominated and bulge-dominated systems. The BFJ
relation is significantly less scattered than the BTF when the relations are
applied to their maximum samples, and is not affected by the inclination
problems that plague the BTF. Disk-dominated, gas-rich galaxies systematically
deviate from the BFJ relation defined by the spheroids. We demonstrate that by
applying a simple correction to the stellar velocity dispersions that depends
only on the concentration index of the galaxy, we are able to bring disks and
spheroids onto the same dynamical relation -- in other words, we obtain a
generalized BFJ relation that holds for all the galaxies in our sample,
regardless of morphology, inclination or gas content, and has a scatter smaller
than 0.1 dex. We find that disks and spheroids are offset in the stellar
dispersion-size relation, and that the offset is removed when corrected
dispersions are used instead. The generalized BFJ relation represents a
fundamental correlation between the global dark matter and baryonic content of
galaxies, which is obeyed by all (massive) systems regardless of morphology.
[abridged]Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. GASS
publications and released data can be found at
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/GASS/index.ph
COLD GASS, an IRAM legacy survey of molecular gas in massive galaxies: I. Relations between H2, HI, stellar content and structural properties
We are conducting COLD GASS, a legacy survey for molecular gas in nearby
galaxies. Using the IRAM 30m telescope, we measure the CO(1-0) line in a sample
of ~350 nearby (D=100-200 Mpc), massive galaxies (log(M*/Msun)>10.0). The
sample is selected purely according to stellar mass, and therefore provides an
unbiased view of molecular gas in these systems. By combining the IRAM data
with SDSS photometry and spectroscopy, GALEX imaging and high-quality Arecibo
HI data, we investigate the partition of condensed baryons between stars,
atomic gas and molecular gas in 0.1-10L* galaxies. In this paper, we present CO
luminosities and molecular hydrogen masses for the first 222 galaxies. The
overall CO detection rate is 54%, but our survey also uncovers the existence of
sharp thresholds in galaxy structural parameters such as stellar mass surface
density and concentration index, below which all galaxies have a measurable
cold gas component but above which the detection rate of the CO line drops
suddenly. The mean molecular gas fraction MH2/M* of the CO detections is
0.066+/-0.039, and this fraction does not depend on stellar mass, but is a
strong function of NUV-r colour. Through stacking, we set a firm upper limit of
MH2/M*=0.0016+/-0.0005 for red galaxies with NUV-r>5.0. The average
molecular-to-atomic hydrogen ratio in present-day galaxies is 0.3, with
significant scatter from one galaxy to the next. The existence of strong
detection thresholds in both the HI and CO lines suggests that "quenching"
processes have occurred in these systems. Intriguingly, atomic gas strongly
dominates in the minority of galaxies with significant cold gas that lie above
these thresholds. This suggests that some re-accretion of gas may still be
possible following the quenching event.Comment: Accepted for publications in MNRAS. 32 pages, 25 figure
ALFALFA HI Data Stacking I. Does the Bulge Quench Ongoing Star Formation in Early-Type Galaxies?
We have carried out an HI stacking analysis of a volume-limited sample of
~5000 galaxies with imaging and spectroscopic data from GALEX and the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey, which lie within the current footprint of the Arecibo
Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) Survey. Our galaxies are selected to have stellar
masses greater than 10^10 Msun and redshifts in the range 0.025<z<0.05. We
extract a sub-sample of 1833 "early-type" galaxies with inclinations less than
70deg, with concentration indices C>2.6 and with light profiles that are well
fit by a De Vaucouleurs model. We then stack HI line spectra extracted from the
ALFALFA data cubes at the 3-D positions of the galaxies from these two samples
in bins of stellar mass, stellar mass surface density, central velocity
dispersion, and NUV-r colour. We use the stacked spectra to estimate the
average HI gas fractions M_HI/M_* of the galaxies in each bin.
Our main result is that the HI content of a galaxy is not influenced by its
bulge. The average HI gas fractions of galaxies in both our samples correlate
most strongly with NUV-r colour and with stellar surface density. The relation
between average HI fraction and these two parameters is independent of
concentration index C. We have tested whether the average HI gas content of
bulge-dominated galaxies on the red sequence, differs from that of late-type
galaxies on the red sequence. We find no evidence that galaxies with a
significant bulge component are less efficient at turning their available gas
reservoirs into stars. This result is in contradiction with the "morphological
quenching" scenario proposed by Martig et al. (2009).Comment: 21 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Version with
high resolution figures available at
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/GASS/pubs.ph
The GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey. I. Gas Fraction Scaling Relations of Massive Galaxies and First Data Release
We introduce the GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey (GASS), an on-going large program
that is gathering high quality HI-line spectra using the Arecibo radio
telescope for an unbiased sample of ~1000 galaxies with stellar masses greater
than 10^10 Msun and redshifts 0.025<z<0.05, selected from the SDSS
spectroscopic and GALEX imaging surveys. The galaxies are observed until
detected or until a low gas mass fraction limit (1.5-5%) is reached. This paper
presents the first Data Release, consisting of ~20% of the final GASS sample.
We use this data set to explore the main scaling relations of HI gas fraction
with galaxy structure and NUV-r colour. A large fraction (~60%) of the galaxies
in our sample are detected in HI. We find that the atomic gas fraction
decreases strongly with stellar mass, stellar surface mass density and NUV-r
colour, but is only weakly correlated with galaxy bulge-to-disk ratio (as
measured by the concentration index of the r-band light). We also find that the
fraction of galaxies with significant (more than a few percent) HI decreases
sharply above a characteristic stellar surface mass density of 10^8.5 Msun
kpc^-2. The fraction of gas-rich galaxies decreases much more smoothly with
stellar mass. One of the key goals of GASS is to identify and quantify the
incidence of galaxies that are transitioning between the blue, star-forming
cloud and the red sequence of passively-evolving galaxies. Likely transition
candidates can be identified as outliers from the mean scaling relations
between gas fraction and other galaxy properties. [abridged]Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Version with
high resolution figures available at
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/GASS/pubs.ph
The GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey II: The Star Formation Efficiency of Massive Galaxies
We use measurements of the HI content, stellar mass and star formation rates
in ~190 massive galaxies with stellar masses greater than 10^10 Msun, obtained
from the Galex Arecibo SDSS Survey (GASS) described in Paper I (Catinella et
al. 2010) to explore the global scaling relations associated with the
bin-averaged ratio of the star formation rate over the HI mass, which we call
the HI-based star formation efficiency (SFE). Unlike the mean specific star
formation rate, which decreases with stellar mass and stellar mass surface
density, the star formation efficiency remains relatively constant across the
sample with a value close to SFE = 10^-9.5 yr^-1 (or an equivalent gas
consumption timescale of ~3 Gyr). Specifically, we find little variation in SFE
with stellar mass, stellar mass surface density, NUV-r color and concentration.
We interpret these results as an indication that external processes or feedback
mechanisms that control the gas supply are important for regulating star
formation in massive galaxies. An investigation into the detailed distribution
of SFEs reveals that approximately 5% of the sample shows high efficiencies
with SFE > 10^-9 yr^-1, and we suggest that this is very likely due to a
deficiency of cold gas rather than an excess star formation rate. Conversely,
we also find a similar fraction of galaxies that appear to be gas-rich for
their given specific star-formation rate, although these galaxies show both a
higher than average gas fraction and lower than average specific star formation
rate. Both of these populations are plausible candidates for "transition"
galaxies, showing potential for a change (either decrease or increase) in their
specific star formation rate in the near future. We also find that 36+/-5% of
the total HI mass density and 47+/-5% of the total SFR density is found in
galaxies with stellar mass greater than 10^10 Msun. [abridged]Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. GASS
publications and released data can be found at
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/GASS/index.ph
The impact of interactions, bars, bulges, and AGN on star formation efficiency in local massive galaxies
Using observations from the GASS and COLD GASS surveys and complementary data
from SDSS and GALEX, we investigate the nature of variations in gas depletion
time observed across the local massive galaxy population. The large and
unbiased COLD GASS sample allows us to assess the relative importance of galaxy
interactions, bar instabilities, morphologies and the presence of AGN in
regulating star formation efficiency. Both the H2 mass fraction and depletion
time vary as a function of the distance of a galaxy from the main sequence in
the SFR-M* plane. The longest gas depletion times are found in below-main
sequence bulge-dominated galaxies that are either gas-poor, or else on average
less efficient than disk-dominated galaxy at converting into stars any cold gas
they may have. We find no link between AGN and these long depletion times. The
galaxies undergoing mergers or showing signs of morphological disruptions have
the shortest molecular gas depletion times, while those hosting strong stellar
bars have only marginally higher global star formation efficiencies as compared
to matched control samples. Our interpretation is that depletion time
variations are caused by changes in the ratio between the gas mass traced by
the CO(1-0) observations, and the gas mass in high density star-forming cores,
with interactions, mergers and bar instabilities able to locally increase
pressure and raise the ratio of efficiently star-forming gas to CO-detected
gas. Building a sample representative of the local massive galaxy population,
we derive a global Kennicutt-Schmidt relation of slope 1.18+/-0.24, and observe
structure within the scatter around this relation, with galaxies having low
(high) stellar mass surface densities lying systematically above (below) the
mean relation, suggesting that gas surface density is not the only parameter
driving the global star formation ability of a galaxy.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
COLD GASS, an IRAM Legacy Survey of Molecular Gas in Massive Galaxies: II. The non-universality of the Molecular Gas Depletion Timescale
We study the relation between molecular gas and star formation in a
volume-limited sample of 222 galaxies from the COLD GASS survey, with
measurements of the CO(1-0) line from the IRAM 30m telescope. The galaxies are
at redshifts 0.025<z<0.05 and have stellar masses in the range
10.0<log(M*/Msun)<11.5. The IRAM measurements are complemented by deep Arecibo
HI observations and homogeneous SDSS and GALEX photometry. A reference sample
that includes both UV and far-IR data is used to calibrate our estimates of
star formation rates from the seven optical/UV bands. The mean molecular gas
depletion timescale, tdep(H2), for all the galaxies in our sample is 1 Gyr,
however tdep(H2) increases by a factor of 6 from a value of ~0.5 Gyr for
galaxies with stellar masses of 10^10 Msun to ~3 Gyr for galaxies with masses
of a few times 10^11 Msun. In contrast, the atomic gas depletion timescale
remains contant at a value of around 3 Gyr. This implies that in high mass
galaxies, molecular and atomic gas depletion timescales are comparable, but in
low mass galaxies, molecular gas is being consumed much more quickly than
atomic gas. The strongest dependences of tdep(H2) are on the stellar mass of
the galaxy (parameterized as log tdep(H2)= (0.36+/-0.07)(log M* -
10.70)+(9.03+/-0.99)), and on the specific star formation rate. A single
tdep(H2) versus sSFR relation is able to fit both "normal" star-forming
galaxies in our COLD GASS sample, as well as more extreme starburst galaxies
(LIRGs and ULIRGs), which have tdep(H2) < 10^8 yr. Normal galaxies at z=1-2 are
displaced with respect to the local galaxy population in the tdep(H2) versus
sSFR plane and have molecular gas depletion times that are a factor of 3-5
times longer at a given value of sSFR due to their significantly larger gas
fractions.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 19 pages, 11 figure