585 research outputs found
Redshift-Distance Survey of Early-Type Galaxies. IV. Dipoles of the Velocity Field
We use the recently completed redshift-distance survey of nearby early-type
galaxies (ENEAR) to measure the dipole component of the peculiar velocity field
to a depth of cz ~ 6000 km/s. The sample consists of 1145 galaxies brighter
than m_B=14.5 and cz < 7000 km/s, uniformly distributed over the whole sky, and
129 fainter cluster galaxies within the same volume. Most of the Dn-sigma
distances were obtained from new spectroscopic and photometric observations
conducted by this project, ensuring the homogeneity of the data over the whole
sky. These 1274 galaxies are objectively assigned to 696 objects -- 282
groups/clusters and 414 isolated galaxies. We find that within a volume of
radius ~ 6000 km/s, the best-fitting bulk flow has an amplitude of |vbulk| =220
+/- 42 km/s in the CMB restframe, pointing towards l=304 +/- 16 degrees, b=25
+/- 11 degrees. The error in the amplitude includes statistical, sampling and
possible systematic errors. This solution is in excellent agreement with that
obtained by the SFI Tully-Fisher survey. Our results suggest that most of the
motion of the Local Group is due to fluctuations within 6000 km/s, in contrast
to recent claims of large amplitude bulk motions on larger scales.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, ApJL, accepted (updated results; matches
accepted version
A Strong-Lens Survey in AEGIS: the influence of large scale structure
We report on the results of a visual search for galaxy-scale strong
gravitational lenses over 650 arcmin^2 of HST/ACS imaging in the DEEP2-EGS
field. In addition to a previously-known Einstein Cross (the "Cross," HST
J141735+52264, with z_lens=0.8106 and a published z_source=3.40), we identify
two new strong galaxy-galaxy lenses with multiple extended arcs. The first, HST
J141820+52361 (the ``Dewdrop''; z_lens=0.5798, lenses two distinct extended
sources into two pairs of arcs z_source=0.while), 9818 the second, HST
J141833+52435 (the ``Anchor''; z_lens=0.4625), produces a single pair of arcs
(source redshift not yet known). All three definite lenses are fit well by
simple singular isothermal ellipsoid models including external shear. Using the
three-dimensional line-of-sight (LOS) information on galaxies from the DEEP2
data, we calculate the convergence and shear contributions, assuming singular
isothermal sphere halos truncated at 200 h^-1 kpc. These are also compared
against three-dimensional local-density estimates. We find that even strong
lenses in demonstrably underdense local environments may be considerably
affected by LOS contributions, which in turn, may be underestimates of the
effect of large scale structure.Comment: ApJ Letters, submitted. Part of the AEGIS ApJL Special Issue. 4
Figures, 1 Table. For a version with full-resolution figures, please see
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~pjm/HAGGLeS/astroph/legs.pd
Redshift-Distance Survey of Early-Type Galaxies: Circular Aperture Photometry
We present R-band CCD photometry for 1332 early-type galaxies, observed as part of the ENEAR survey of peculiar motions using early-type galaxies in the nearby Universe. Circular apertures are used to trace the surface brightness profiles, which are then fit by a two-component bulge-disk model. From the fits we obtain the structural parameters required to estimate galaxy distances using the D_n-sigma and Fundamental Plane relations. We find that about 12% of the galaxies are well represented by a pure r^{1/4} law while 87% are best fit by a two component model. There are 356 repeated observations of 257 galaxies obtained during different runs that are used to derive statistical corrections and bring the data to a common system. We also use these repeated observations to estimate our internal errors. The accuracy of our measurements are tested by the comparison of 354 galaxies in common with other authors. Typical errors in our measurements are 0.011 dex for log{D_n}, 0.064 dex for log{r_e}, 0.086 mag arcsec^{-2} for and 0.09 for m_{R_C}, comparable to those estimated by other authors. The photometric data reported here represent one of the largest high-quality and uniform all-sky samples currently available for early-type galaxies in the nearby universe, especially suitable for peculiar motion studies
Science Objectives and Early Results of the DEEP2 Redshift Survey
The DEIMOS spectrograph has now been installed on the Keck-II telescope and
commissioning is nearly complete. The DEEP2 Redshift Survey, which will take
approximately 120 nights at the Keck Observatory over a three year period and
has been designed to utilize the power of DEIMOS, began in the summer of 2002.
The multiplexing power and high efficiency of DEIMOS enables us to target 1000
faint galaxies per clear night. Our goal is to gather high-quality spectra of
\~60,000 galaxies with z>0.75 in order to study the properties and large scale
clustering of galaxies at z ~ 1. The survey will be executed at high spectral
resolution, , allowing us to work
between the bright OH sky emission lines and to infer linewidths for many of
the target galaxies (for several thousand objects, we will obtain rotation
curves as well). The linewidth data will facilitate the execution of the
classical redshift-volume cosmological test, which can provide a precision
measurement of the equation of state of the Universe. This talk reviews the
project, summarizes our science goals and presents some early DEIMOS data.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, talk presented at SPIE conference, Aug. 200
Redshift-Distance Survey of Early-type Galaxies. I. Sample Selection, Properties and Completeness
This is the first in a series of papers describing the recently completed
all-sky redshift-distance survey of nearby early-type galaxies (ENEAR) carried
out for peculiar velocity analysis. The sample is divided into two parts and
consists of 1607 elliptical and lenticular galaxies with cz < 7000 km/s and
with blue magnitudes brighter than m_B=14.5 (ENEARm), and of galaxies in
clusters (ENEARc). Galaxy distances based on the Dn-sigma and Fundamental Plane
(FP) relations are now available for 1359 and 1107 ENEARm galaxies,
respectively, with roughly 80% based on new data gathered by our group. The
Dn-sigma and FP template distance relations are derived by combining 569 and
431 galaxies in 28 clusters, respectively, of which about 60% are based on our
new measurements. The ENEARm redshift-distance survey extends the earlier work
of the 7S and the recent Tully-Fisher surveys sampling a comparable volume. In
subsequent papers of this series we intend to use the ENEAR sample by itself or
in combination with the SFI Tully-Fisher survey to analyze the properties of
the local peculiar velocity field and to test how sensitive the results are to
different sampling and to the distance indicators. We also anticipate that the
homogeneous database assembled will be used for a variety of other applications
and serve as a benchmark for similar studies at high-redshift.Comment: 43 pages, 15 figures, submitted to the Astronomical Journa
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
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