Searching for Stars in Compact High-Velocity Clouds. II

We address the hypothesis that High Velocity Clouds correspond to the "missing" dwarf galaxies of the Local Group predicted by cosmological simulations. To this end, we present optical and near-infrared photometry of five additional High Velocity Clouds, one of which produces Lyman series absorption on the sight line towards the Quasar Ton S210, with sufficient resolution and sensitivity to enable the detection of an associated stellar content. We do not detect significant stellar populations intrinsic to any of the five clouds. In combination with the results from our paper I, which had yielded non detections of stellar content in another five cases, we find that there is a 50% chance of getting a null result in ten trials if fewer than 7% of all High Velocity Clouds contain stars. We conclude that the population of High Velocity Clouds is an unlikely repository for the "missing" dwarfs of the Local Group.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. submitted to MNRA

Searching for Stars in Compact High-Velocity Clouds. I First Results from VLT and 2MASS

We investigate the hypothesis that compact high-velocity clouds (CHVC) are the "missing" dwarf galaxies of the Local Group, by searching them for populations of resolved stars. To this end we conducted two distinct tests based on optical and near-infrared single-star photometry. The optical and the near-infrared experiments complement one another; the optical data help us to rule out distant populations but they are restricted to the central regions of the gas distributions, whereas the near-infrared photometry allows us to set limits on nearby populations spread over the typical cloud size. First, we discuss deep optical single-star photometry of five CHVCs in the V and I filters, obtained with the FORS instrument at the Very Large Telecope (VLT). We find that their optical colour-magnitude diagrams are indistinguishable from that of a population of Galactic stars, and attribute all of the resolved stars to Galactic foreground. We present simulations which address the question of how much of a "normal" dwarf-galaxy type population we might hide in the data. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test allows us to set very stringent limits on the absence of a resolved stellar population in CHVCs. Second, we also culled near infrared single-star photometry in the J, H, and K_S bands for four of the CHVCs from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). The infrared data do not reveal any stellar contents in the CHVCs which resembles that of nearby dwarf galaxies either, and are explained with Galactic foreground as well. We interpret our null detections to indicate that the five CHVCs investigated by us do not host an associated stellar content which is similar to that of the known dwarf galaxies of the Local Group. These CHVCs are very likely pure hydrogen clouds in which no star formation has taken place over cosmic time.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication by MNRA

Ca II and Na I Quasar Absorption-Line Systems in an Emission-Selected Sample of SDSS DR7 Galaxy/Quasar Projections: I. Sample Selection

The aim of this project is to identify low-redshift host galaxies of quasar absorption-line systems by selecting galaxies which are seen in projection onto quasar sightlines. To this end, we use the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-DR7) to construct a parent sample of 97489 galaxy/quasar projections at impact parameters of up to 100 kpc to the foreground galaxy. We then search the quasar spectra for absorption line systems of Ca II and Na I within +- 500 km/s of the galaxy's velocity. This yields 92 Ca II and 16 Na I absorption systems. We find that most of the Ca II and Na I systems are sightlines through the Galactic disk, through High Velocity Cloud complexes in our halo, or Virgo cluster sightlines. Placing constraints on the absorption line rest equivalent width significance (>=3.0 sigma), the Local Standard of Rest velocity along the sightline (>= 345 km/s), and the ratio of the impact parameter to the galaxy optical radius (<=5.0), we identify 4 absorption line systems that are associated with low-redshift galaxies at high confidence, consisting of two Ca II systems (one of which also shows Na I), and two Na I systems. These 4 systems arise in blue, L_r^* galaxies. Tables of the 108 absorption systems are provided to facilitate future follow up.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, 6 tables; online data included in electronic version as 1 FITS table and 2 machine readable tables; to be published in The Astronomical Journa

Polarimetric Evidence of Non-Spherical Winds

Polarization observations yield otherwise unobtainable information about the geometrical structure of unresolved objects. In this talk we review the evidences for non-spherically symmetric structures around Luminous Hot Stars from polarimetry and what we can learn with this technique. Polarimetry has added a new dimension to the study of the envelopes of Luminous Blue Variables, Wolf-Rayet stars and B[e] stars, all of which are discussed in some detail.Comment: 8 pages, 2 encapsulated Postscript figures, uses lamuphys.sty. Invited review to appear in IAU Coll. 169, Variable and Non-Spherical Stellar Winds in Luminous Hot Stars, eds. B. Wolf, A.Fullerton and O. Stahl (Springer