The VIRUS-P Exploration of Nearby Galaxies (VENGA): Survey Design, Data Processing, and Spectral Analysis Methods

We present the survey design, data reduction, and spectral fitting pipeline for the VIRUS-P Exploration of Nearby Galaxies (VENGA). VENGA is an integral field spectroscopic survey, which maps the disks of 30 nearby spiral galaxies. Targets span a wide range in Hubble type, star formation activity, morphology, and inclination. The VENGA data-cubes have 5.6'' FWHM spatial resolution, ~5A FWHM spectral resolution, sample the 3600A-6800A range, and cover large areas typically sampling galaxies out to ~0.7 R_25. These data-cubes can be used to produce 2D maps of the star formation rate, dust extinction, electron density, stellar population parameters, the kinematics and chemical abundances of both stars and ionized gas, and other physical quantities derived from the fitting of the stellar spectrum and the measurement of nebular emission lines. To exemplify our methods and the quality of the data, we present the VENGA data-cube on the face-on Sc galaxy NGC 628 (a.k.a. M 74). The VENGA observations of NGC 628 are described, as well as the construction of the data-cube, our spectral fitting method, and the fitting of the stellar and ionized gas velocity fields. We also propose a new method to measure the inclination of nearly face-on systems based on the matching of the stellar and gas rotation curves using asymmetric drift corrections. VENGA will measure relevant physical parameters across different environments within these galaxies, allowing a series of studies on star formation, structure assembly, stellar populations, chemical evolution, galactic feedback, nuclear activity, and the properties of the interstellar medium in massive disk galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in AJ, 25 pages, 18 figures, 6 table

The VIRUS-P Exploration of Nearby Galaxies (VENGA): Survey Design and First Results

VENGA is a large-scale extragalactic IFU survey, which maps the bulges, bars and large parts of the outer disks of 32 nearby normal spiral galaxies. The targets are chosen to span a wide range in Hubble types, star formation activities, morphologies, and inclinations, at the same time of having vast available multi-wavelength coverage from the far-UV to the mid-IR, and available CO and 21cm mapping. The VENGA dataset will provide 2D maps of the SFR, stellar and gas kinematics, chemical abundances, ISM density and ionization states, dust extinction and stellar populations for these 32 galaxies. The uniqueness of the VIRUS-P large field of view permits these large-scale mappings to be performed. VENGA will allow us to correlate all these important quantities throughout the different environments present in galactic disks, allowing the conduction of a large number of studies in star formation, structure assembly, galactic feedback and ISM in galaxies.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, proceedings of the "Third Biennial Frank N. Bash Symposium, New Horizons in Astronomy" held in Austin, TX, Oct. 2009. To be published in the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series, eds. L. Stanford, L. Hao, Y. Mao, J. Gree

The VIRUS-P Exploration of Nearby Galaxies (VENGA): Spatially resolved gas-phase metallicity distributions in barred and unbarred spirals

We present a study of the excitation conditions and metallicity of ionized gas (Zgas) in eight nearby barred and unbarred spiral galaxies from the VIRUS-P Exploration of Nearby Galaxies (VENGA) survey, which provides high spatial sampling and resolution (median ∼387 pc), large coverage from the bulge to outer disc, broad wavelength range (3600–6800 Å), and medium spectral resolution (∼120 km s−1 at 5000 Å). Our results are: (1) We present high resolution gas excitation maps to differentiate between regions with excitation typical of Seyfert, LINER, or recent star formation. We find LINER-type excitation at large distances (3–10 kpc) from the centre, and associate this excitation with diffuse ionized gas (DIG). (2) After excluding spaxels dominated by Seyfert, LINER, or DIG, we produce maps with the best spatial resolution and sampling to date of the ionization parameter q, star formation rate, and Zgas using common strong line diagnostics. We find that isolated barred and unbarred spirals exhibit similarly shallow Zgas profiles from the inner kpc out to large radii (7–10 kpc or 0.5–1.0 R25). This implies that if profiles had steeper gradients at earlier epochs, then the present-day bar is not the primary driver flattening gradients over time. This result contradicts earlier claims, but agrees with recent IFU studies. (3) The Zgas gradients in our z ∼ 0 massive spirals are markedly shallower, by ∼0.2 dex kpc−1, than published gradients for lensed lower mass galaxies at z ∼ 1.5–2.0. Cosmologically motivated hydrodynamical simulations best match this inferred evolution, but the match is sensitive to adopted stellar feedback prescriptions

OMEGA - OSIRIS mapping of emission-line galaxies in A901/2: III. - Galaxy properties across projected phase space in A901/2

We conduct a comprehensive projected phase-space analysis of the A901/2 multicluster system at z ∼ 0.165. Aggregating redshifts from spectroscopy, tunable-filter imaging and prism techniques, we assemble a sample of 856 cluster galaxies reaching 108.5 M⊙ in stellar mass. We look for variations in cluster galaxy properties between virialized and non-virialized regions of projected phase space (PPS). Our main conclusions point to relatively gentle environmental effects, expressed mainly on galaxy gas reservoirs. (1) Stacking the four subclusters in A901/2, we find galaxies in the virialized region are more massive, redder and have marginally higher Sérsic indices, but their half-light radii and Hubble types are not significantly different. (2) After accounting for trends in stellar mass, there is a remaining change in rest-frame colour across PPS. Primarily, the colour difference is due to the absence in the virialized region of galaxies with rest frame B − V 109.85 M⊙) stellar mass. (3) There is an infalling population of lower mass (M⋆ ≤ 109.85 M⊙), relatively blue (B − V < 0.7) elliptical or spheroidal galaxies that are strikingly absent in the virialized region. (4) The number of bona fide star-forming and active galactic nucleus galaxies in the PPS regions is strongly dictated by stellar mass. However, there remains a reduced fraction of star-forming galaxies in the centres of the clusters at fixed stellar mass, consistent with the star formation–density relation in galaxy clusters. (5) There is no change in specific Hα-derived star formation rates of star-forming galaxies at fixed mass across the cluster environment. This suggests that pre-processing of galaxies during infall plays a prominent role in quenching star formation

OMEGA–OSIRIS mapping of emission-line galaxies in A901/2:IV. Extinction of star formation estimators with inclination

We study the effect of inclination on the apparent brightness of star-forming galaxies in spectral passbands that are commonly used as star formation indicators. As diagnostics we use mass-to-light ratios in three passbands: the UV continuum at 280 nm, the Hα emission line, and the FIR 24μ band. We include a study of inclination trends in the IR/UV ratio (‘IRX’) and the IR/Hα ratio. Our sample comprises a few hundred galaxies from the region around the clusters Abell 901/902 with deep data and inclinations measured from outer discs in Hubble Space Telescope images. As a novelty, the Hα- and separately the N ii emission are measured by tunable-filter imaging and encompass galaxies in their entirety. At galaxy stellar masses above log M*/M⊙ ≳ 10 we find trends in the UV and Hα mass-to-light ratio that suggest an inclination-induced attenuation from face-on to edge-on of ∼1 mag and ∼0.7 mag in UV and Hα, respectively, implying that star formation rates of edge-on galaxies would be underestimated by ∼2.5 × in UV and ∼2 × in Hα. We find the luminosities in UV and Hα to be well correlated, but the optical depth of diffuse dust that causes inclination dependence appears to be lower for stars emitting at 280 nm than for gas clouds emitting Balmer lines. For galaxies with log M*/M⊙ ≲ 9.7, we find no measurable effect at >0.1 mag. The absence of an inclination dependence at 24μ confirms that the average galaxy is optically thin in the FIR

OMEGA – OSIRIS Mapping of Emission-line Galaxies in A901/2: II. Environmental influence on integrated star formation properties and AGN activity

We present a study of the star formation and AGN activity for galaxies in CP 15051 the Abell 901/2 multicluster system at z ∼ 0.167 as part of the OSIRIS Mapping of Emission-line Galaxies in A901/2 (OMEGA) survey. Using Tuneable Filter data obtained with the OSIRIS instrument at the Gran Telescopio Canarias, we produce spectra covering the Hα and [NII] spectral lines for more than 400 galaxies. Using optical emission-line diagnostics, we identify a significant number of galaxies hosting AGN, which tend to have high masses and a broad range of morphologies. Moreover, within the environmental densities probed by our study, we find no environmental dependence on the fraction of galaxies hosting AGN. The analysis of the integrated Hα emission shows that the specific star formation rates of a majority of the cluster galaxies are below the field values for a given stellar mass. We interpret this result as evidence for a slow decrease in the star formation activity of star-forming galaxies as they fall into higher density regions, contrary to some previous studies that suggested a rapid truncation of star formation. We find that most of the intermediate- and high-mass spiral galaxies go through a phase in which their star formation is suppressed but still retain significant star formation activity. During this phase, these galaxies tend to retain their spiral morphology while their colours become redder. The presence of this type of galaxies in high-density regions indicates that the physical mechanism responsible for suppressing star formation affects mainly the gas component of the galaxies, suggesting that ram-pressure stripping or starvation is potentially responsible