15 research outputs found
Cold Dust but Warm Gas in the Unusual Elliptical Galaxy NGC 4125
Data from the Herschel Space Observatory have revealed an unusual elliptical galaxy, NGC 4125, which has strong and extended submillimeter emission from cold dust but only very strict upper limits to its CO and Hi emission. Depending on the dust emissivity, the total dust mass is 2-5 x 10(6) M-circle dot. While the neutral gas-to-dust mass ratio is extremely low (= 10(4) K faster than the dust is evaporated. If galaxies like NGC 4125, where the far-infrared emission does not trace neutral gas in the usual manner, are common at higher redshift, this could have significant implications for our understanding of high redshift galaxies and galaxy evolution.Canadian Space AgencyNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of CanadaAgenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) I/005/11/0BMVIT (Austria)ESA-PRODEX (Belgium)CEA/CNES (France)DLR (Germany)ASI/INAF (Italy)CICYT/MCYT (Spain)CSA (Canada)NAOC (China)CEA, (France)CNES (France)CNRS (France)ASI (Italy)MCINN (Spain)SNSB (Sweden)STFC (UK)NASA (USA)National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationAstronom
A resolved analysis of cold dust and gas in the nearby edge-on spiral NGC 891
We investigate the connection between dust and gas in the nearby edge-on
spiral galaxy NGC 891. High resolution Herschel PACS and SPIRE 70, 100, 160,
250, 350, and 500 m images are combined with JCMT SCUBA 850 m
observations to trace the far-infrared/submillimetre spectral energy
distribution (SED). Maps of the HI 21 cm line and CO(J=3-2) emission trace the
atomic and molecular hydrogen gas, respectively. We fit one-component modified
blackbody models to the integrated SED, finding a global dust mass of
8.510 M and an average temperature of 232 K. We
also fit the pixel-by-pixel SEDs to produce maps of the dust mass and
temperature. The dust mass distribution correlates with the total stellar
population as traced by the 3.6 m emission. The derived dust temperature,
which ranges from approximately 17 to 24 K, is found to correlate with the 24
m emission. Allowing the dust emissivity index to vary, we find an average
value of = 1.90.3. We confirm an inverse relation between the dust
emissivity spectral index and dust temperature, but do not observe any
variation of this relationship with vertical height from the mid-plane of the
disk. A comparison of the dust properties with the gaseous components of the
ISM reveals strong spatial correlations between the surface mass densities of
dust and the molecular hydrogen and total gas surface densities. Observed
asymmetries in the dust temperature, and the H-to-dust and total
gas-to-dust ratios hint that an enhancement in the star formation rate may be
the result of larger quantities of molecular gas available to fuel star
formation in the NE compared to the SW. Whilst the asymmetry likely arises from
dust obscuration due to the geometry of the line-of-sight projection of the
spiral arms, we cannot exclude an enhancement in the star formation rate in the
NE side of the disk.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 21 pages, including 13 figures and 4
table
The relationship between polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon emission and far-infrared dust emission from NGC 2403 and M83
We examine the relation between polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)
emission at 8 microns and far-infrared emission from hot dust grains at 24
microns and from large dust grains at 160 and 250 microns in the nearby spiral
galaxies NGC 2403 and M83 using data from the Spitzer Space Telescope and
Herschel Space Observatory. We find that the PAH emission in NGC 2403 is better
correlated with emission at 250 microns from dust heated by the diffuse
interstellar radiation field (ISRF) and that the 8/250 micron surface
brightness ratio is well-correlated with the stellar surface brightness as
measured at 3.6 microns. This implies that the PAHs in NGC 2403 are intermixed
with cold large dust grains in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) and that
the PAHs are excited by the diffuse ISRF. In M83, the PAH emission appears more
strongly correlated with 160 micron emission originating from large dust grains
heated by star forming regions. However, the PAH emission in M83 is low where
the 24 micron emission peaks within star forming regions, and enhancements in
the 8/160 micron surface brightness ratios appear offset relative to the dust
and the star forming regions within the spiral arms. This suggests that the
PAHs observed in the 8 micron band are not excited locally within star forming
regions but either by light escaping non-axisymmetrically from star forming
regions or locally by young, non-photoionising stars that have migrated
downstream from the spiral density waves. The results from just these two
galaxies show that PAHs may be excited by different stellar populations in
different spiral galaxies.Comment: 21 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
PACS photometry of the Herschel Reference Survey - Far-infrared/sub-millimeter colours as tracers of dust properties in nearby galaxies
We present Herschel/PACS 100 and 160 micron integrated photometry for the 323
galaxies in the Herschel Reference Survey (HRS), a K-band-, volume-limited
sample of galaxies in the local Universe. Once combined with the Herschel/SPIRE
observations already available, these data make the HRS the largest
representative sample of nearby galaxies with homogeneous coverage across the
100-500 micron wavelength range. In this paper, we take advantage of this
unique dataset to investigate the properties and shape of the
far-infrared/sub-millimeter spectral energy distribution in nearby galaxies. We
show that, in the stellar mass range covered by the HRS (8<log(M*/Msun)<12),
the far-infrared/sub-millimeter colours are inconsistent with a single modified
black-body having the same dust emissivity index beta for all galaxies. In
particular, either beta decreases, or multiple temperature components are
needed, when moving from metal-rich/gas-poor to metal-poor/gas-rich galaxies.
We thus investigate how the dust temperature and mass obtained from a single
modified black-body depend on the assumptions made on beta. We show that, while
the correlations between dust temperature, galaxy structure and star formation
rate are strongly model dependent, the dust mass scaling relations are much
more reliable, and variations of beta only change the strength of the observed
trends.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA
Dust and Gas in the Magellanic Clouds from the HERITAGE Herschel Key Project. II. Gas-to-Dust Ratio Variations across ISM Phases
The spatial variations of the gas-to-dust ratio (GDR) provide constraints on
the chemical evolution and lifecycle of dust in galaxies. We examine the
relation between dust and gas at 10-50 pc resolution in the Large and Small
Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC) based on Herschel far-infrared (FIR), H I 21
cm, CO, and Halpha observations. In the diffuse atomic ISM, we derive the
gas-to-dust ratio as the slope of the dust-gas relation and find gas-to-dust
ratios of 380+250-130 in the LMC, and 1200+1600-420 in the SMC, not including
helium. The atomic-to-molecular transition is located at dust surface densities
of 0.05 Mo pc-2 in the LMC and 0.03 Mo pc-2 in the SMC, corresponding to AV ~
0.4 and 0.2, respectively. We investigate the range of CO-to-H2 conversion
factor to best account for all the molecular gas in the beam of the
observations, and find upper limits on XCO to be 6x1020 cm-2 K-1 km-1 s in the
LMC (Z=0.5Zo) at 15 pc resolution, and 4x 1021 cm-2 K-1 km-1 s in the SMC
(Z=0.2Zo) at 45 pc resolution. In the LMC, the slope of the dust-gas relation
in the dense ISM is lower than in the diffuse ISM by a factor ~2, even after
accounting for the effects of CO-dark H2 in the translucent envelopes of
molecular clouds. Coagulation of dust grains and the subsequent dust emissivity
increase in molecular clouds, and/or accretion of gas-phase metals onto dust
grains, and the subsequent dust abundance (dust-to-gas ratio) increase in
molecular clouds could explain the observations. In the SMC, variations in the
dust-gas slope caused by coagulation or accretion are degenerate with the
effects of CO-dark H2. Within the expected 5--20 times Galactic XCO range, the
dust-gas slope can be either constant or decrease by a factor of several across
ISM phases. Further modeling and observations are required to break the
degeneracy between dust grain coagulation, accretion, and CO-dark H2
A multiwavelength study of the Magellanic-type galaxy NGC 4449 – I. Modelling the spectral energy distribution, the ionization structure and the star formation history
We present an integrated photometric spectral energy distribution (SED) of the Magellanic-type galaxy NGC 4449 from the far-ultraviolet (UV) to the submillimetre, including new observations acquired by the Herschel Space Observatory. We include integrated UV photometry from the Swift Ultraviolet and Optical Telescope using a measurement technique which is appropriate for extended sources with coincidence loss. In this paper, we examine the available multiwavelength data to infer a range of ages, metallicities and star formation rates for the underlying stellar populations, as well as the composition and the total mass of dust in NGC 4449. Our analysis of the global optical spectrum of NGC 4449 fitted using the spectral fitting code STARLIGHT suggests that the majority of stellar mass resides in old (≳1 Gyr old) and metal-poor (Z/Z⊙ ∼ 0.2) populations, with the first onset of star formation activity deduced to have taken place at an early epoch, approximately 12 Gyr ago. A simple chemical evolution model, suitable for a galaxy continuously forming stars, suggests a ratio of carbon to silicate dust mass comparable to that of the Large Magellanic Cloud over the inferred time-scales. We present an iterative scheme, which allows us to build an in-depth and multicomponent representation of NGC 4449 ‘bottom-up’, taking advantage of the broad capabilities of the photoionization and radiative transfer code MOCASSIN (MOnte CArlo SimulationS of Ionized Nebulae). We fit the observed SED, the global ionization structure and the emission line intensities, and infer a recent star formation rate of 0.4 M⊙ yr− 1 and a total stellar mass of ≈ 1 × 109 M⊙ emitting with a bolometric luminosity of 5.7 × 109 L⊙. Our fits yield a total dust mass of 2.9 ± 0.5 × 106 M⊙ including 2 per cent attributed to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. We deduce a dust to gas mass ratio of 1/190 within the modelled region. While we do not consider possible additional contributions from even colder dust, we note that including the extended H I envelope and the molecular gas is likely to bring the ratio down to as low as ∼1/800
VizieR Online Data Catalog: Dust properties in galaxies (Remy-Ruyer+, 2015)
International audienceFor this study, we combine two samples of local galaxies observed with Herschel: the Dwarf Galaxy Survey (DGS, Madden et al., 2013PASP..125..600M) and the Key Insights on Nearby Galaxies: a Far-Infrared Survey with Herschel (KINGFISH, Kennicutt et al., 2011PASP..123.1347K). (7 data files)
Far-reaching dust distribution in galaxy discs
In most studies of dust in galaxies, dust is only detected from its emission to approximately the optical radius of the galaxy. By combining the signal of 110 spiral galaxies observed as part of the Herschel Reference Survey, we are able to improve our sensitivity by an order of magnitude over that for a single object. Here we report the direct detection of dust from its emission that extends out to at least twice the optical radius. We find that the distribution of dust is consistent with an exponential at all radii with a gradient of ∼−1.7 dex R−125 . Our dust temperature declines linearly from ∼25 K in the centre to 15 K at R25 from where it remains constant out to ∼2.0 R25. The surface density of dust declines with radius at a similar rate to the surface density of stars but more slowly than the surface density of the star-formation rate. Studies based on dust extinction and reddening of high-redshift quasars have concluded that there are substantial amounts of dust in intergalactic space. By combining our results with the number counts and angular correlation function from the SDSS, we show that with Milky Way-type dust we can explain the reddening of the quasars by the dust within galactic discs alone. Given the uncertainties in the properties of any intergalactic dust, we cannot rule out its existence, but our results show that statistical investigations of the dust in galactic haloes that use the reddening of high-redshift objects must take account of the dust in galactic discs
VizieR Online Data Catalog: HeViCS. XVIII. Star-forming dwarf galaxies (Grossi+, 2015)
Herschel observations were carried out using the SPIRE/PACS parallel scan-map mode with a fast scan speed of 60"/s over two orthogonal crossed-linked scan directions. A total of 8 scans was then obtained for each field, with overlapping regions between the four tiles being covered by 16 scans. (6 data files). <P /