2,410 research outputs found
Redshifts in the Southern Abell Redshift Survey Clusters. I. The Data
The Southern Abell Redshift Survey contains 39 clusters of galaxies with
redshifts in the range 0.0 < z < 0.31 and a median redshift depth of z =
0.0845. SARS covers the region 0 21h (while
avoiding the LMC and SMC) with b > 40. Cluster locations were chosen from the
Abell and Abell-Corwin-Olowin catalogs while galaxy positions were selected
from the Automatic Plate Measuring Facility galaxy catalog with
extinction-corrected magnitudes in the range 15 <= b_j < 19. SARS utilized the
Las Campanas 2.5 m duPont telescope, observing either 65 or 128 objects
concurrently over a 1.5 sq deg field. New redshifts for 3440 galaxies are
reported in the fields of these 39 clusters of galaxies.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in the Astronomical
Journal, Table 2 can be downloaded in its entirety from
http://trotsky.arc.nasa.gov/~mway/SARS1/sars1-table2.cs
Star Formation, Metallicity and Dust Properties Derived from the SAPM Galaxy Survey Spectra
We have derived star formation rates (SFRs), gas-phase oxygen abundances and
effective dust absorption optical depths for a sample of galaxies drawn from
the Stromlo-APM redshift survey using the new Charlot and Longhetti (2001;
CL01) models, which provide a physically consistent description of the effects
of stars, gas and dust on the integrated spectra of galaxies. Our sample
consists of 705 galaxies with measurements of the fluxes and equivalent widths
of Halpha, [OII], and one or both of [NII] and [SII]. For a subset of the
galaxies, 60 and 100 micron IRAS fluxes are available. We compare the star
formation rates derived using the models with those derived using standard
estimators based on the Halpha, the [OII] and the far-infrared luminosities of
the galaxies. The CL01 SFR estimates agree well with those derived from the
IRAS fluxes, but are typically a factor of ~3 higher than those derived from
the Halpha or the [OII] fluxes, even after the usual mean attenuation
correction of A_Halpha=1 mag is applied to the data. We show that the reason
for this discrepancy is that the standard Halpha estimator neglects the
absorption of ionizing photons by dust in HII regions and the contamination of
Halpha emission by stellar absorption. We also use our sample to study
variations in star formation and metallicity as a function of galaxy absolute
bJ magnitude. For this sample, the star formation rate per unit bJ luminosity
is independent of magnitude. The gas-phase oxygen abundance does increase with
bJ luminosity, although the scatter in metallicity at fixed magnitude is large.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
The Ha Luminosity Function and Star Formation Rate at z\sim 0.2
We have measured the Ha+[N II] fluxes of the I-selected Canada-France
Redshift Survey (CFRS) galaxies lying at a redshift z below 0.3, and hence
derived the Ha luminosity function. The magnitude limits of the CFRS mean that
only the galaxies with M(B) > -21 mag were observed at these redshifts. We
obtained a total Ha luminosity density of at least 10^{39.44\pm 0.04}
erg/s/Mpc^{3} at a mean z=0.2 for galaxies with rest-fame EW(Ha+[N II]) > 10
Angs. This is twice the value found in the local universe by Gallego et al.
1995. Our Ha star formation rate, derived from Madau (1997) is higher than the
UV observations at same z, implying a UV dust extinction of about 1 mag. We
found a strong correlation between the Ha luminosity and the absolute magnitude
in the B-band: M(B(AB)) = 46.7 - 1.6 log L(Ha). This work will serve as a basis
of future studies of Ha luminosity distributions measured from
optically-selected spectroscopic surveys of the distant universe, and it will
provide a better understanding of the physical processes responsible for the
observed galaxy evolution.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 14 pages, LaTeX (macro aas2pp4.sty),
6 figure
Cassiopeia A: dust factory revealed via submillimetre polarimetry
If Type-II supernovae - the evolutionary end points of short-lived, massive
stars - produce a significant quantity of dust (>0.1 M_sun) then they can
explain the rest-frame far-infrared emission seen in galaxies and quasars in
the first Gyr of the Universe. Submillimetre observations of the Galactic
supernova remnant, Cas A, provided the first observational evidence for the
formation of significant quantities of dust in Type-II supernovae. In this
paper we present new data which show that the submm emission from Cas A is
polarised at a level significantly higher than that of its synchrotron
emission. The orientation is consistent with that of the magnetic field in Cas
A, implying that the polarised submm emission is associated with the remnant.
No known mechanism would vary the synchrotron polarisation in this way and so
we attribute the excess polarised submm flux to cold dust within the remnant,
providing fresh evidence that cosmic dust can form rapidly. This is supported
by the presence of both polarised and unpolarised dust emission in the north of
the remnant, where there is no contamination from foreground molecular clouds.
The inferred dust polarisation fraction is unprecedented (f_pol ~ 30%) which,
coupled with the brief timescale available for grain alignment (<300 yr),
suggests that supernova dust differs from that seen in other Galactic sources
(where f_pol=2-7%), or that a highly efficient grain alignment process must
operate in the environment of a supernova remnant.Comment: In press at MNRAS, 10 pages, print in colou
Comparison of Hi and optical redshifts of galaxies - The impact of redshift uncertainties on spectral line stacking
Accurate optical redshifts will be critical for spectral co-adding techniques used
to extract detections from below the noise level in ongoing and upcoming surveys for
Hi, which will extend our current understanding of gas reservoirs in galaxies to lower
column densities and higher redshifts. We have used existing, high quality optical and
radio data from the SDSS and ALFALFA surveys to investigate the relationship be-
tween redshifts derived from optical spectroscopy and neutral hydrogen (Hi) spectral
line observations.We find that the two redshift measurements agree well, with a negli-
gible systematic offset and a small distribution width. Employing simple simulations,
we determine how the width of an ideal stacked Hi profile depends on these redshift
offsets, as well as larger redshift errors more appropriate for high redshift galaxy sur-
veys. The width of the stacked profile is dominated by the width distribution of the
input individual profiles when the redshift errors are less than the median width of
the input profiles, and only when the redshift errors become large, 150 kms−1, do
they significantly affect the width of the stacked profile. This redshift accuracy can
be achieved with moderate resolution optical spectra. We provide guidelines for the
number of spectra required for stacking to reach a specified mass sensitivity, given tele-
scope and survey parameters, which will be useful for planning optical spectroscopy
observing campaigns to supplement the radio data.Web of Scienc
The Apparent and Intrinsic Shape of the APM Galaxy Clusters
We estimate the distribution of intrinsic shapes of APM galaxy clusters from
the distribution of their apparent shapes. We measure the projected cluster
ellipticities using two alternative methods. The first method is based on
moments of the discrete galaxy distribution while the second is based on
moments of the smoothed galaxy distribution. We study the performance of both
methods using Monte Carlo cluster simulations covering the range of APM cluster
distances and including a random distribution of background galaxies. We find
that the first method suffers from severe systematic biases, whereas the second
is more reliable. After excluding clusters dominated by substructure and
quantifying the systematic biases in our estimated shape parameters, we recover
a corrected distribution of projected ellipticities. We use the non-parametric
kernel method to estimate the smooth apparent ellipticity distribution, and
numerically invert a set of integral equations to recover the corresponding
distribution of intrinsic ellipticities under the assumption that the clusters
are either oblate or prolate spheroids. The prolate spheroidal model fits the
APM cluster data best.Comment: 8 pages, including 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
A Quantitative Evaluation of the Galaxy Component of COSMOS and APM Catalogs
We have carried out an independent quantitative evaluation of the galaxy
component of the "COSMOS/UKST Southern Sky Object Catalogue" (SSC) and the
"APM/UKST J Catalogue" (APM). Using CCD observations our results corroborate
the accuracy of the photometry of both catalogs, which have an overall
dispersion of about 0.2 mag in the range 17 <= b_J <= 21.5. The SSC presents
externally calibrated galaxy magnitudes that follow a linear relation, while
the APM instrumental magnitudes of galaxies, only internally calibrated by the
use of stellar profiles, require second-order corrections. The completeness of
both catalogs in a general field falls rapidly fainter than b_J = 20.0, being
slightly better for APM. The 90% completeness level of the SSC is reached
between b_J = 19.5 and 20.0, while for APM this happens between b_J = 20.5 and
21.0. Both SSC and APM are found to be less complete in a galaxy cluster field.
Galaxies misclassified as stars in the SSC receive an incorrect magnitude
because the stellar ones take saturation into account besides using a different
calibration curve. In both cases, the misclassified galaxies show a large
diversity of colors that range from typical colors of early-types to those of
blue star-forming galaxies. A possible explanation for this effect is that it
results from the combination of low sampling resolutions with properties of the
image classifier for objects with characteristic sizes close to the
instrumental resolution. We find that the overall contamination by stars
misclassified as galaxies is < 5% to b_J = 20.5, as originally estimated for
both catalogs. Although our results come from small areas of the sky, they are
extracted from two different plates and are based on the comparison with two
independent datasets.Comment: 14 pages of text and tables, 8 figures; to be published in the
Astronomical Journal; for a single postscript version file see
ftp://danw.on.br/outgoing/caretta/caretta.p
Extragalactic Foregrounds of the Cosmic Microwave Background: Prospects for the MAP Mission
(Abridged) While the major contribution to the Cosmic Microwave Background
(CMB) anisotropies are the sought-after primordial fluctuations produced at the
surface of last scattering, other effects produce secondary fluctuations at
lower redshifts. Here, we study the extragalactic foregrounds of the CMB in the
context of the upcoming MAP mission. We first survey the major extragalactic
foregrounds and show that discrete sources, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect,
and gravitational lensing are the most dominant ones for MAP. We then show that
MAP will detect (>5 sigma) about 46 discrete sources and 10 SZ clusters
directly with 94 GHz fluxes above 2 Jy. The mean SZ fluxes of fainter clusters
can be probed by cross-correlating MAP with cluster positions extracted from
existing catalogs. For instance, a MAP-XBACs cross-correlation will be
sensitive to clusters with S(94GHz)>200mJy, and will thus provide a test of
their virialization state and a measurement of their gas fraction. Finally, we
consider probing the hot gas on supercluster scales by cross-correlating the
CMB with galaxy catalogs. Assuming that galaxies trace the gas, we show that a
cross-correlation between MAP and the APM catalog should yield a marginal
detection, or at least a four-fold improvement on the COBE upper limits for the
rms Compton y-parameter.Comment: 27 LaTeX pages, including 5 ps figures and 2 tables. To appear in
ApJ. Minor revisions to match accepted version. Color figures and further
links available at http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~refreg
Variation of galactic cold gas reservoirs with stellar mass
The stellar and neutral hydrogen (HI) mass functions at z~0 are fundamental
benchmarks for current models of galaxy evolution. A natural extension of these
benchmarks is the two-dimensional distribution of galaxies in the plane spanned
by stellar and HI mass, which provides a more stringent test of simulations, as
it requires the HI to be located in galaxies of the correct stellar mass.
Combining HI data from the ALFALFA survey, with optical data from SDSS, we find
a distinct envelope in the HI-to-stellar mass distribution, corresponding to an
upper limit in the HI fraction that varies monotonically over five orders of
magnitude in stellar mass. This upper envelope in HI fraction does not favour
the existence of a significant population of dark galaxies with large amounts
of gas but no corresponding stellar population. The envelope shows a break at a
stellar mass of ~10^9 Msun, which is not reproduced by modern models of galaxy
populations tracing both stellar and gas masses. The discrepancy between
observations and models suggests a mass dependence in gas storage and
consumption missing in current galaxy evolution prescriptions. The break
coincides with the transition from galaxies with predominantly irregular
morphology at low masses to regular disks at high masses, as well as the
transition from cold to hot accretion of gas in simulations.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Space Weather Products at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center
The Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) is a US inter-agency activity aiming at research in support of the generation of advanced space weather models. As one of its main functions, the CCMC provides to researchers the use of space science models, even if they are not model owners themselves. The second CCMC activity is to support Space Weather forecasting at national Space Weather Forecasting Centers. This second activity involves model evaluations, model transitions to operations, and the development of space weather forecasting tools. Owing to the pace of development in the science community, new model capabilities emerge frequently. Consequently, space weather products and tools involve not only increased validity, but often entirely new capabilities. This presentation will review the present state of space weather tools as well as point out emerging future capabilities
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