423 research outputs found
Integral Field Spectroscopy of 23 Spiral Bulges
We have obtained Integral Field Spectroscopy for 23 spiral bulges using
INTEGRAL on the William Herschel Telescope and SPIRAL on the Anglo-Australian
Telescope. This is the first 2D survey directed solely at the bulges of spiral
galaxies. Eleven galaxies of the sample do not have previous measurements of
the stellar velocity dispersion (sigma*). These data are designed to complement
our Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph program for estimating black hole
masses in the range 10^6-10^8M_sun using gas kinematics from nucleated disks.
These observations will serve to derive the stellar dynamical bulge properties
using the traditional Mgb and CaII triplets. We use both Cross Correlation and
Maximum Penalized Likelihood to determine projected sigma* in these systems and
present radial velocity fields, major axis rotation curves, curves of growth
and sigma* fields. Using the Cross Correlation to extract the low order 2D
stellar dynamics we generally see coherent radial rotation and irregular
velocity dispersion fields suggesting that sigma* is a non-trivial parameter to
estimate.Comment: 11 pages, 30 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
The Evolution of the Number Density of Large Disk Galaxies in COSMOS
We study a sample of approximately 16,500 galaxies with I_(ACS,AB) †22.5 in the central 38% of the COSMOS field, which are extracted from a catalog constructed from the Cycle 12 ACS F814W COSMOS data set. Structural information on the galaxies is derived by fitting single SĂ©rsic models to their two-dimensional surface brightness distributions. In this paper we focus on the disk galaxy population (as classified by the Zurich Estimator of Structural Types), and investigate the evolution of the number density of disk galaxies larger than approximately 5 kpc between redshift z ~ 1 and the present epoch. Specifically, we use the measurements of the half-light radii derived from the SĂ©rsic fits to construct, as a function of redshift, the size function Ί(r_(1/2), z) of both the total disk galaxy population and of disk galaxies split in four bins of bulge-to-disk ratio. In each redshift bin, the size function specifies the number of galaxies per unit comoving volume and per unit half-light radius r_(1/2). Furthermore, we use a selected sample of roughly 1800 SDSS galaxies to calibrate our results with respect to the local universe. We find the following: (1) The number density of disk galaxies with intermediate sizes (r_(1/2) ~ 5-7 kpc) remains nearly constant from z ~ 1 to today. Unless the growth and destruction of such systems exactly balanced in the last eight billion years, they must have neither grown nor been destroyed over this period. (2) The number density of the largest disks (r_(1/2) > 7 kpc) decreases by a factor of about 2 out to z ~ 1. (3) There is a constancyâor even slight increaseâin the number density of large bulgeless disks out to z ~ 1; the deficit of large disks at early epochs seems to arise from a smaller number of bulged disks. Our results indicate that the bulk of the large disk galaxy population has completed its growth by z ~ 1 and support the theory that secular evolution processes produceâor at least add stellar mass toâthe bulge components of disk galaxies
The role of quenching time in the evolution of the mass-size relation of passive galaxies from the WISP survey
We analyze how passive galaxies at z 1.5 populate the mass-size plane
as a function of their stellar age, to understand if the observed size growth
with time can be explained with the appearance of larger quenched galaxies at
lower redshift. We use a sample of 32 passive galaxies extracted from the Wide
Field Camera 3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallel (WISP) survey with spectroscopic
redshift 1.3 z 2.05, specific star-formation rates lower
than 0.01 Gyr, and stellar masses above 4.5 10
M. All galaxies have spectrally determined stellar ages from fitting of
their rest-frame optical spectra and photometry with stellar population models.
When dividing our sample into young (age 2.1 Gyr) and old (age 2.1
Gyr) galaxies we do not find a significant trend in the distributions of the
difference between the observed radius and the one predicted by the mass-size
relation. This result indicates that the relation between the galaxy age and
its distance from the mass-size relation, if it exists, is rather shallow, with
a slope alpha -0.6. At face value, this finding suggests that
multiple dry and/or wet minor mergers, rather than the appearance of newly
quenched galaxies, are mainly responsible for the observed time evolution of
the mass-size relation in passive galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters; 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
Modeling gas and stellar kinematics in disc galaxies
We present V-band surface photometry and major-axis kinematics of stars and
ionized gas of three early-type spiral galaxies, namely NGC 772, NGC 3898 and
NGC 7782. For each galaxy we built a self-consistent Jeans model for the
stellar kinematics, adopting the light distribution of bulge and disc derived
by means of a two-dimensional parametric photometric decomposition. This
allowed us to investigate the presence of non-circular gas motions, and derive
the mass distribution of luminous and dark matter in these objects. We found
that the observed gas rotation corresponds to the circular velocity except for
the innermost region (|r|<8") of NGC 3898. This behaviour is quite common,
although not ubiquitous, in the few bulge-dominated galaxies, for which
dynamical modeling allows the comparison between the gas velocity and the
circular speed.Comment: 1 single page, 1 encapsulated figure. Poster contribution at the
Euroconference "The Evolution of Galaxies. I- Observational clues.", held in
Granada (Spain), May 23-27 2000. To be published as a special issue of
Astrophysics and Space Scienc
COSMOS morphological classification with ZEST (the Zurich Estimator of Structural Types) and the evolution since z=1 of the Luminosity Function of early-, disk-, and irregular galaxies
(ABRIDGED) Motivated by the desire to reliably and automatically classify
structure of thousands of COSMOS galaxies, we present ZEST, the Zurich
Estimator of Structural Types. To classify galaxy structure, ZEST uses: (i)
Five non-parametric diagnostics: asymmetry, concentration, Gini coefficient,
2nd-order moment of the brightest 20% of galaxy pixels, and ellipticity; and
(ii) The exponent n of single--Sersic fits to the 2D surface brightness
distributions. To fully exploit the wealth of information while reducing the
redundancy present in these diagnostics, ZEST performs a principal component
(PC) Analysis. We use a sample of ~56,000 I<24 COSMOS galaxies to show that the
first three PCs fully describe the key aspects of the galaxy structure, i.e.,
to calibrate a three-dimensional classification grid of axis PC_1, PC_2, and
PC_3. We demonstrate the robustness of the ZEST grid on the z=0 sample of Frei
et al. (1996). The ZEST classification breaks most of the degeneracy between
different galaxy populations that affects morphological classifications based
on only some of the diagnostics included in ZEST. As a first application, we
present the evolution since z~1 of the Luminosity Functions of COSMOS galaxies
of early, disk and irregular galaxies and, for disk galaxies, of different
bulge-to-disk ratios. Overall, we find that the LF up to a redshift z=1 is
consistent with a pure-luminosity evolution (of about 0.95 magnitudes at z
\~0.7). We highlight however two trends, that are in general agreement with a
down-sizing scenario for galaxy formation: (1.) A deficit of a factor of about
two at z~0.7 of MB>-20.5 structurally--classified early--type galaxies; and
(2.) An excess of a factor of about three, at a similar redshift, of irregular
galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in the ApJ COSMOS special issue. A version
with high resolution figures is available at
http://www.exp-astro.phys.ethz.ch/scarlata/papers/ApJS_ZEST.pd
The Build-Up of the Hubble Sequence in the COSMOS Field
We use ~8,600 >5e10 Msol COSMOS galaxies to study how the morphological mix
of massive ellipticals, bulge-dominated disks, intermediate-bulge disks,
bulge-less disks and irregular galaxies evolves from z=0.2 to z=1. The
morphological evolution depends strongly on mass. At M>3e11 Msol, no evolution
is detected in the morphological mix: ellipticals dominate since z=1, and the
Hubble sequence has quantitatively settled down by this epoch. At the 1e11 Msol
mass scale, little evolution is detected, which can be entirely explained with
major mergers. Most of the morphological evolution from z=1 to z=0.2 takes
place at masses 5e10 - 1e11 Msol, where: (i) The fraction of spirals
substantially drops and the contribution of early-types increases. This
increase is mostly produced by the growth of bulge-dominated disks, which vary
their contribution from ~10% at z=1 to >30% at z=0.2 (cf. the elliptical
fraction grows from ~15% to ~20%). Thus, at these masses, transformations from
late- to early-types result in disk-less elliptical morphologies with a
statistical frequency of only 30% - 40%. Otherwise, the processes which are
responsible for the transformations either retain or produce a non-negligible
disk component. (ii) The bulge-less disk galaxies, which contribute ~15% to the
intermediate-mass galaxy population at z=1, virtually disappear by z=0.2. The
merger rate since z=1 is too low to account for the disappearance of these
massive bulge-less disks, which most likely grow a bulge via secular evolution.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to ApJ
A Flux-Limited Sample of z~1 Ly-alpha Emitting Galaxies in the CDFS
We describe a method for obtaining a flux-limited sample of Ly-alpha emitters
from GALEX grism data. We show that the multiple GALEX grism images can be
converted into a three-dimensional (two spatial axes and one wavelength axis)
data cube. The wavelength slices may then be treated as narrowband images and
searched for emission-line galaxies. For the GALEX NUV grism data, the method
provides a Ly-alpha flux-limited sample over the redshift range z=0.67-1.16. We
test the method on the Chandra Deep Field South field, where we find 28
Ly-alpha emitters with faint continuum magnitudes (NUV>22) that are not present
in the GALEX pipeline sample. We measure the completeness by adding artificial
emitters and measuring the fraction recovered. We find that we have an 80%
completeness above a Ly-alpha flux of 10^-15 erg/cm^2/s. We use the UV spectra
and the available X-ray data and optical spectra to estimate the fraction of
active galactic nuclei in the selection. We report the first detection of a
giant Ly-alpha blob at z<1, though we find that these objects are much less
common at z=1 than at z=3. Finally, we compute limits on the z~1 Ly-alpha
luminosity function and confirm that there is a dramatic evolution in the
luminosity function over the redshift range z=0-1.Comment: 18 pages, in press at The Astrophysical Journa
On the evolution of environmental and mass properties of strong lens galaxies in COSMOS
Among the 100 strong lens candidates found in the COSMOS field, 20 with
redshifts in the range [0.34,1.13], feature multiple images of background
sources. Using the multi-wavelength coverage of the field and its spectroscopic
follow-up, we characterize the evolution with redshift of the environment and
of the dark-matter (DM) fraction of the lens galaxies. We present new redshift
of the strong lens candidates. The lens environment is characterized by the
projected 10 closest galaxies around each lens and by the number of galaxies
with a projected distance less than 1Mpc at the lens galaxy redshift. In both
cases, we perform similar measurements on a control sample of twin non-lens
early type galaxies (ETGs). In addition, we identify group members and field
galaxies in the X-ray and optical catalogs of galaxy groups. From those
catalogs, we measure the external shear contribution at the lens galaxy
positions. The systems are then modeled using a SIE plus the external shear due
to the groups. We observe that the average stellar mass of lens galaxies
increases with z and that the environment of lens galaxies is compatible with
that of the twins. During the lens modeling, we notice that, when let free, the
external shear points in a direction which is the mean direction of the
external shear due to groups and of the closest galaxy to the lens. We notice
that the DM fraction of the lens galaxies within the Einstein radius decreases
as the redshift increases. Given these, we conclude that, while the environment
of lens galaxies is compatible with that of non-lens ETGS, their mass
properties evolves significantly with redshift: it is still not clear whether
this advocates in favor of a stronger lensing bias toward massive objects at
high redshift or is simply representative of the high proportion of massive and
high stellar density galaxies at high redshift.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. Significant modifications in the
paper but similar conclusion
The Spitzer Archival Far-InfraRed Extragalactic Survey
We present the Spitzer Archival Far-InfraRed Extragalactic Survey (SAFIRES).
This program produces refined mosaics and source lists for all far-infrared
extragalactic data taken during the more than six years of the cryogenic
operation of the Spitzer Space Telescope. The SAFIRES products consist of
far-infrared data in two wavelength bands (70 um and 160 um) across
approximately 180 square degrees of sky, with source lists containing
far-infrared fluxes for almost 40,000 extragalactic point sources. Thus,
SAFIRES provides a large, robust archival far-infrared data set suitable for
many scientific goals.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, published in ApJ
Extreme Emission Line Galaxies in CANDELS: Broad-Band Selected, Star-Bursting Dwarf Galaxies at z>1
We identify an abundant population of extreme emission line galaxies (EELGs)
at redshift z~1.7 in the Cosmic Assembly Near-IR Deep Extragalactic Legacy
Survey (CANDELS) imaging from Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Camera 3
(HST/WFC3). 69 EELG candidates are selected by the large contribution of
exceptionally bright emission lines to their near-infrared broad-band
magnitudes. Supported by spectroscopic confirmation of strong [OIII] emission
lines -- with rest-frame equivalent widths ~1000\AA -- in the four candidates
that have HST/WFC3 grism observations, we conclude that these objects are
galaxies with 10^8 Msol in stellar mass, undergoing an enormous starburst phase
with M_*/(dM_*/dt) of only ~15 Myr. These bursts may cause outflows that are
strong enough to produce cored dark matter profiles in low-mass galaxies. The
individual star formation rates and the co-moving number density (3.7x10^-4
Mpc^-3) can produce in ~4 Gyr much of the stellar mass density that is
presently contained in 10^8-10^9 Msol dwarf galaxies. Therefore, our
observations provide a strong indication that many or even most of the stars in
present-day dwarf galaxies formed in strong, short-lived bursts, mostly at z>1.Comment: accepted for publication in ApJ; 10 pages; 6 figures; 1 tabl
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