Dust in dwarf galaxies: The case of NGC 4214

We have carried out a detailed modelling of the dust heating and emission in the nearby, starbursting dwarf galaxy NGC 4214. Due to its proximity and the great wealth of data from the UV to the millimeter range (from GALEX, HST, {\it Spitzer}, Herschel, Planck and IRAM) it is possible to separately model the emission from HII regions and their associated photodissociation regions (PDRs) and the emission from diffuse dust. Furthermore, most model parameters can be directly determined from the data leaving very few free parameters. We can fit both the emission from HII+PDR regions and the diffuse emission in NGC 4214 with these models with "normal" dust properties and realistic parameters.Comment: 4pages, 3 figures. To appear in 'The Spectral Energy Distribution of Galaxies' Proceedings IAU Symposium No 284, 201

Spectroscopic confirmation of a galaxy cluster associated with 7C1756+6520 at z=1.416

We present spectroscopic follow-up of an overdensity of galaxies photometrically selected to be at 1.4<z<2.5 found in the vicinity of the radio galaxy 7C1756+6520 at z=1.4156. Using the DEIMOS optical multi-object spectrograph on the Keck 2 telescope, we observed a total of 129 BzK-selected sources, comprising 82 blue, star-forming galaxy candidates (sBzK) and 47 red, passively-evolving galaxy candidates (pBzK*), as well as 11 mid-infrared selected AGN candidates. We obtain robust spectroscopic redshifts for 36 blue galaxies, 7 red galaxies and 9 AGN candidates. Assuming all foreground interlopers were identified, we find that only 16% (9%) of the sBzK (pBzK*) galaxies are at z<1.4. Therefore, the BzK criteria are shown to be relatively robust at identifying galaxies at moderate redshifts. Twenty-one galaxies, including the radio galaxy, four additional AGN candidates and three red galaxy candidates are found with 1.4156 +/- 0.025, forming a large scale structure at the redshift of the radio galaxy. Of these, eight have projected offsets <2Mpc relative to the radio galaxy position and have velocity offsets <1000km/s relative to the radio galaxy redshift. This confirms that 7C1756+6520 is associated with a high-redshift galaxy cluster. A second compact group of four galaxies is found at z~1.437, forming a sub-group offset by Dv~3000km/s and approximately 1.5' east of the radio galaxy.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in A&A

Detection of 183 GHz water megamaser emission towards NGC 4945

Aim: The aim of this work is to search Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 4945, a well-known 22 GHz water megamaser galaxy, for water (mega)maser emission at 183 GHz. Method: We used APEX SEPIA Band 5 to perform the observations. Results: We detected 183 GHz water maser emission towards NGC 4945 with a peak flux density of ~3 Jy near the galactic systemic velocity. The emission spans a velocity range of several hundred km/s. We estimate an isotropic luminosity of > 1000 Lsun, classifying the emission as a megamaser. A comparison of the 183 GHz spectrum with that observed at 22 GHz suggests that 183 GHz emission also arises from the active galactic nucleus (AGN) central engine. If the 183 GHz emission originates from the circumnuclear disk, then we estimate that a redshifted feature at 1084 km/s in the spectrum should arise from a distance of 0.022 pc from the supermassive black hole (1.6 x 10(5) Schwarzschild radii), i.e. closer than the water maser emission previously detected at 22 GHz. This is only the second time 183 GHz maser emission has been detected towards an AGN central engine (the other galaxy being NGC 3079). It is also the strongest extragalactic millimetre/submillimetre water maser detected to date. Conclusions: Strong millimetre 183 GHz water maser emission has now been shown to occur in an external galaxy. For NGC 4945, we believe that the maser emission arises, or is dominated by, emission from the AGN central engine. Emission at higher velocity, i.e. for a Keplerian disk closer to the black hole, has been detected at 183 GHz compared with that for the 22 GHz megamaser. This indicates that millimetre/submillimetre water masers can indeed be useful probes for tracing out more of AGN central engine structures and dynamics than previously probed. Future observations using ALMA Band 5 should unequivocally determine the origin of the emission in this and other galaxies.Comment: 4 pages, accepted by A&A Letter

The evolution of the AGN content in groups up to z~1

Determining the AGN content in structures of different mass/velocity dispersion and comparing them to higher mass/lower redshift analogs is important to understand how the AGN formation process is related to environmental properties. We use our well-tested cluster finding algorithm to identify structures in the GOODS North and South fields, exploiting the available spectroscopic redshifts and accurate photometric redshifts. We identify 9 structures in GOODS-south (presented in a previous paper) and 8 new structures in GOODS-north. We only consider structures where at least 2/3 of the members brighter than M_R=-20 have a spectroscopic redshift. For those group members that coincide with X-ray sources in the 4 and 2 Msec Chandra source catalogs respectively, we determine if the X-ray emission originates from AGN activity or it is related to the galaxies' star-formation activity. We find that the fraction of AGN with Log L_H > 42 erg/s in galaxies with M_R < -20 is on average 6.3+-1.3%, much higher than in lower redshift groups of similar mass and more than double the fraction found in massive clusters at a similarly high redshift. We then explore the spatial distribution of AGN in the structures and find that they preferentially populate the outer regions. The colors of AGN host galaxies in structures tend to be confined to the green valley, thus avoiding the blue cloud and, partially, also the red-sequence, contrary to what happens in the field. We finally compare our results to the predictions of two sets of semi analytic models to investigate the evolution of AGN and evaluate potential triggering and fueling mechanisms. The outcome of this comparison attests the importance of galaxy encounters, not necessarily leading to mergers, as an efficient AGN triggering mechanism. (abridged)Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, Accepted accepted for publication in A&

Multipoint, high time resolution galactic cosmic ray observations associated with two interplanetary coronal mass ejections

[1] Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) play an important role in our understanding of the interplanetary medium (IPM). The causes of their short timescale variations, however, remain largely unexplored. In this paper, we compare high time resolution, multipoint space-based GCR data to explore structures in the IPM that cause these variations. To ensure that features we see in these data actually relate to conditions in the IPM, we look for correlations between the GCR time series from two instruments onboard the Polar and INTEGRAL (International Gamma Ray Astrophysical Laboratory) satellites, respectively inside and outside Earth\u27s magnetosphere. We analyze the period of 18–24 August 2006 during which two interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) passed Earth and produced a Forbush decrease (Fd) in the GCR flux. We find two periods, for a total of 10 h, of clear correlation between small-scale variations in the two GCR time series during these 7 days, thus demonstrating that such variations are observable using space-based instruments. The first period of correlation lasted 6 h and began 2 h before the shock of the first ICME passed the two spacecraft. The second period occurred during the initial decrease of the Fd, an event that did not conform to the typical one- or two-step classification of Fds. We propose that two planar magnetic structures preceding the first ICME played a role in both periods: one structure in driving the first correlation and the other in initiating the Fd

LUCIFER@LBT view of star-forming galaxies in the cluster 7C 1756+6520 at z~1.4

Galaxy clusters are key places to study the contribution of {\it nature} (i.e. mass, morphology) and {\it nurture} (i.e.environment) in the formation and evolution of galaxies. Recently, a number of clusters at z$>$1, i.e. corresponding to the first epochs of the cluster formation, has been discovered and confirmed spectroscopically. We present new observations obtained with the {\sc LUCIFER} spectrograph at Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) of a sample of star-forming galaxies associated with a large scale structure around the radio galaxy 7C1756+6520 at z=1.42. Combining our spectroscopic data and the literature photometric data, we derived some of the properties of these galaxies: star formation rate, metallicity and stellar mass. With the aim of analyzing the effect of the cluster environment on galaxy evolution, we have located the galaxies in the plane of the so-called Fundamental Metallically Relation (FMR), which is known not to evolve with redshift up to z$=2.5$ for field galaxies, but it is still unexplored in rich environments at low and high redshift. We found that the properties of the galaxies in the cluster 7C 1756+6520 are compatible with the FMR which suggests that the effect of the environment on galaxy metallicity at this early epoch of cluster formation is marginal. As a side study, we also report the spectroscopic analysis of a bright AGN, belonging to the cluster, which shows a significant outflow of gas.Comment: Accepted for publication by MNRAS, 10 pages, 6 figures, 3 table

Probing the Dust Properties of Galaxies up to Submillimetre Wavelengths I. The Spectral Energy Distribution of dwarf galaxies using LABOCA

We present 870 micron images of four low metallicity galaxies (NGC1705, Haro11, Mrk1089 and UM311) observed with the Large APEX BOlometer CAmera (LABOCA). We model their spectral energy distributions combining the submm observations of LABOCA, 2MASS, IRAS, Spitzer photometric data and the IRS data for Haro11. We find that a significant mass of dust is revealed when using submm constraints compared to that measured with only mid-IR to far-IR observations extending only to 160 microns. For NGC1705 and Haro11, an excess in submillimeter wavelengths is detected and we rerun our SED procedure adding a cold dust component (10K) to better describe the high 870 micron flux derived from LABOCA observations, which significantly improves the fit. We find that at least 70% of the dust mass of these two galaxies can reside in a cold dust component. We also show that the subsequent dust-to-gas mass ratios, considering HI and CO observations, can be strikingly high for Haro11 in comparison with what is usually expected for these low-metallicity environments. Furthermore, we derive the SFR of our galaxies and compare them to the Schmidt law. Haro11 falls anomalously far from the Schmidt relation. These results may suggest that a reservoir of hidden gas could be present in molecular form not traced by the current CO observations. We also derive the total IR luminosities derived from our models and compare them with relations that derive this luminosity from Spitzer bands. We find that the Draine & Li (2007) formula compares well to our direct IR determinations.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, 10 tables, accepted for publication in A&

A large-scale galaxy structure at z = 2.02 associated with the radio galaxy MRC 0156-252

We present the spectroscopic confirmation of a structure of galaxies surrounding the radio galaxy MRC 0156-252 at z = 2.02. The structure was initially discovered as an overdensity of both near-infrared selected z > 1.6 and mid-infrared selected z > 1.2 galaxy candidates. We used the VLT/FORS2 multi-object spectrograph to target ~80 high-redshift galaxy candidates, and obtain robust spectroscopic redshifts for more than half the targets. The majority of the confirmed sources are star-forming galaxies at z > 1.5. In addition to the radio galaxy, two of its close-by companions (<6″) also show AGN signatures. Ten sources, including the radio galaxy, lie within | z − 2.020 | <0.015 (i.e., velocity offsets <1500 km s^-1) and within projected 2 Mpc comoving of the radio galaxy. Additional evidence suggests not only that the galaxy structure associated with MRC 0156-252 is a forming galaxy cluster but also that this structure is most probably embedded in a larger-scale structure